Zits from Python Pit #6 Read online

  “We’re going to hit Chris,” said Shane from the mast.

  But it was too late.

  The ship slammed into the boy . . .

  . . . at just the right moment.

  As the ship rocked into the froth at the base of the waterfall and began to travel up—yes, up!—the waterfall, the boy savior and his crocodile splashed onto the ship.

  “Leave me alone,” screamed He Who Would Save Us, shaking with anger, clutching his crocodile tightly.

  The ship tilted ninety degrees and headed right up the side of the waterfall into the blue tropical sky.

  “Hold on!” yelled Director Z.

  “Yeah,” yelled Clive, “this is one killer wave!”

  The crocodile landed on the swamp creature with a growl.

  “No!” Gil screamed. “I’m a bony fish. Bony fish!”

  With a screech of fear, the Bigfoot grabbed the crocodile by its tail and flung it off of the ship. Luckily he flung the poor creature far enough that it wasn’t crushed by the waterfall. It rose to the surface and watched in surprise as the ship slowly made its way up to the top.

  Groans and moans could be heard from the pile of monsters and children as the ship crested the top of the waterfall and splashed horizontal again. They spilled out onto the poop deck.

  “Where’s Chris?!” yelled Shane.

  “Over here!” Twenty-Three yelled.

  The best chance for our people’s survival lay at the back of the ship, his head smashed through a small wooden door into a cabinet that held rope.

  Twenty-Three tried to pry open the door, but couldn’t.

  The boy savior’s arms laid motionless.

  “Chris! CHRIS!!!”

  WHERE. AM. I?!

  It was dark and moldy, and my head hurt terribly.

  “Chris!” someone yelled.

  Who is Chris? I thought.

  There was a great SNAP of wood, and light filled the hole my head was stuck in. I could see perfectly coiled white rope in front of me. A wet smell drifted to my nostrils.

  “His eyes are open,” someone said.

  “He’s stunned but okay!” someone else called out.

  “Chris!” a kid yelled. “Are you okay?”

  Someone grabbed me and pulled me out of the wooden cabinet my head had been smashed into. The light shot through my eyes, and my head exploded in pain.

  “Uuuuugh!” I moaned.

  “Chris, are you okay?” someone asked. I opened my eyes just a little bit and saw a familiar-looking kid. Next to him was a cat-size lizard with fur. I shook my head and it was gone.

  “I don’t know who this Chris person is,” I said. “I haven’t seen him. But I think I’m seeing things. My name is . . .” I clutched my head in pain, trying to remember my name. “My name is . . .”

  “Your name is Chris,” said a pale man. He reached out and clutched my shoulder to hold me steady and calm me.

  “Director Z,” I said. “I have no idea how I know, but your name is Director Z. And my name is Chris.”

  The word Chris still seemed like something a baby might say while spitting up milk, but I knew it was my name.

  My headache went from skull-splitting to merely mind-scrambling, and I took a look around. We were on a pirate ship in the middle of a river. Jungle spilled out into the river on both sides.

  “Do you remember me?” asked a dark, curly-haired boy.

  “You’re a karate master,” I said. “Master Shane.”

  “Yeah!” said Shane, and he clapped my back so hard my head split open again. “He’s back, everybody! Chris is back!”

  I looked around to see other friends cheering along with Shane. My friends—Gordon, Ben, and Nabila. I was trying to remember what exactly Director Z was a director of when a low growl shook me from head to toe.

  GRRRRRRRRRR.

  Mixed in with the cheering, I could hear growls. I looked past my friends, and that’s when I could finally see, in the bright, bright sun, a vampire, a werewolf, a zombie, and more monsters staring back at me.

  Glaring at me.

  “We’re on a ship with monsters,” I said, panicking. “I did see a cat-lizard thingy.” My head spun.

  “Hi,” said the cat-lizard thingy.

  I looked around, but there was nowhere to escape. I was, in fact, stranded on a pirate ship with monsters.

  The monsters approached me from all sides. Before I knew it, there was a Bigfoot and a banshee in my face.

  “So glad you’re back,” the Bigfoot said.

  He reached out a paw, and I flinched.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Shane.

  “Get these monsters away from me,” I hissed, and rushed under Shane’s sweaty armpit. I was so scared, I didn’t even care how bad Shane’s BO was. And it was pretty bad. Why is it so bad? I thought. How long have we been out here . . . ?

  “These monsters?” said the vampire. “Vhat do you mean, ‘these monsters’?”

  “They’re talking,” I said, huddling deeper into Shane’s armpit. “Why are they talking?”

  “Darned tootin’ we are!” growled a hairy-faced gentleman.

  I looked around desperately for something I could defend myself with. But the monsters kept reaching for me.

  “Why aren’t any of you guys doing anything?!” I yelled.

  My friends looked at me like I had a shrunken head.

  “What do you mean?” asked Ben. “Are you frightened of these guys? Wow, I guess you really did hit your head hard.”

  “Ow, don’t remind me,” I said, and clutched my head.

  The vampire reached out and touched my shoulder. “You’re okay, Chris,” he said.

  The way he smiled made me relax. He looked straight into my eyes, and my headache melted away.

  “Yes,” I said, suddenly filled with love for the monsters. “Yes, I am okay, and I must go—”

  “Don’t even start that again,” said Shane. “Why do you want to go south, anyway?”

  “Did I say I wanted to go south?” I said, forgetting where I was for a second.

  “Someone or something is compelling you to head south,” said Director Z. “We don’t know why. But what we do know is that you had us all very scared as we searched for you along the banks of the Nile. We took a day to gather supplies and have been at it for a few weeks now.”

  “Weeks?!” I said. “I feel like I was just at the pyramid a few hours ago. Back with Murrayhotep.”

  “Murray,” corrected Shane.

  “Right, Murray,” I said. “He’s the last thing I remember before . . .” I stared into the jungle.

  “Before what?” Shane asked.

  “As I was saying,” said Director Z, “we searched for you along the Nile for hundreds of miles. We kept seeing brief glimpses of you ahead, and we’d get close and then lose you again from time to time, but in the end, we caught up to you. And when we finally confronted you, you jumped into the river and fought us with crocodiles. If it weren’t for blah, blah, blah-diddy blah . . .”

  Director Z kept talking, but I couldn’t concentrate. I felt antsy.

  “Sorry, guys!” I yelled. “I gotta go!” I had to get away from all of these people and monsters keeping me from my mission. I just wish I knew what my mission is, I thought. What’s wrong with me?

  I jumped off of the ship and into the cold, churning water.

  “Chris, no!” Director Z yelled. “We can’t keep doing this! You must come to your senses!”

  The swamp creature jumped in after me, hitting the water with a FLLLLLLLLURT to push himself quickly toward me.

  “Stay back, you farting motorboat,” I said. “I’ve got places to go and people to see.”

  FLLLLLLRRRP FLIP FLUP!

  “I’m coming to get you,” the swamp creature said. He disa
ppeared under the water.

  I was momentarily stunned, not sure what to do.

  “Chris, you’re getting drawn back to the waterfall!” yelled Director Z. “Come back to the ship now.”

  The current got stronger. I swam forward as hard as I could, but I was getting dragged back to the very edge of the waterfall. I didn’t care about traveling south anymore. I had only one thought on my mind as I felt my body being carried swiftly toward the edge:

  I am going to die.

  A Terrifying Journey

  I slipped closer to the edge of the waterfall. I turned my head and saw the drop-off only thirty feet away. I could hear the CRASSHHHHHHHHHHH of water spilling over the side. My body shuddered as I thought of what it would feel like to have my bones crushed on the rocks.

  “Some . . . body,” I gasped, “help . . . me!”

  I was fifteen feet away from the edge and moving faster. My arms and legs burned.

  “Can . . . any . . . crocodiles . . . help?” I said, though I doubted any crocs could actually hear me.

  I was ten feet away from the edge and moving terrifyingly fast. I turned toward the drop-off and tried to figure out how to position my body for the most comfortable death possible.

  “Chris,” yelled Shane, “don’t stop fighting!”

  I turned back and swam as hard as I could, but it only slowed me down a little.

  “FIIIIIIIIGHT!” my friends yelled.

  “They’re almost there,” said Shane.

  Who’s almost there? I thought.

  I could feel myself slipping over the edge, and just as I began to fall . . .

  BLLLLLLLLLLLUUUUUUURFT!

  A great stinky wind blew me off the edge of the waterfall and up into the air.

  I corkscrewed through the air, and as I turned, I saw the same group of African swamp creatures that had saved me once before. Now they were flying out from the waterfall, farts blowing majestically upward as they tumbled down to the rocks below.

  I landed with a SPLASH and sank deep into the water. I had survived the waterfall thanks to the swamp creatures, but I was too weak to swim. I drifted helplessly, scraping against the muck at the bottom of the river.

  Webbed hands slapped my face, and I opened my eyes to see Gil in front of me in the murky water.

  Bubbles escaped from his scaly backside. “I told you I was coming to get you,” he fartspoke. He grabbed me and used his powerful webbed feet to push us up to the surface of the river.

  “You’ll be okay,” said Gil. “I’ve got you now!”

  He towed me to the riverbank and laid me on the hot sand.

  I lay and breathed in the air. I finally started to feel better. So good, in fact, that . . .

  “I’m ready to go, Gil,” I said. “Thanks for your help!”

  “Oh, no you don’t!” said Gil, and he lifted his scaly arm to reveal a hairy, dirty armpit.

  “That’s disgusting,” I said. “I’m getting out of here.” I stood up, but was immediately dizzy from the stench of the swamp creature’s slimy pit. Gil grabbed me with his other hand and stared into his armpit intently.

  “You were almost just killed for the third time in ten minutes,” said Gil. He steadied me and then dug around in the hair of his armpit, searching for something. “We can help you get to wherever you need to go, but you need to be sane while you do it. AHA!”

  With a slight wince, he pulled out a small brown something. It looked like a raisin.

  “Eat this,” he said.

  “No WAY,” I said. “What is it?”

  “It’s a—”

  But Gil was cut off by Director Z. “Back up!” he yelled from the water.

  We both looked up to see the pirate ship sailing directly toward the beach we were standing on.

  “It’s going to crash,” yelled Director Z. “The African swamp creatures lost control when they focused all their flatulent energies on you!”

  “I don’t think it’s going to stop this time,” said Gil. He grabbed me and jumped up into the jungle above the riverbank.

  The ship hit the sand and kept going.

  SSSCCCCCCRRRRASH.

  Gil and I stuck our heads out of the jungle vegetation and saw the front of the ship twist in the sand and get pulled back out into the current.

  “Everyone out!” yelled Director Z. “The current is going to pull the ship to the waterfall.”

  Roy threw a huge, thick boa-constrictor rope over the side of the ship as it slid away from the shore. The monsters that were able jumped over the edge with a SPLASHSPLAT, and everyone else quickly shinnied down the snake rope.

  “Hurry, hurry!” yelled Gordon, who was practically pushing Ben down the rope. “Just jump, it’s probably deep enough now.”

  “Fine, I’ll jump if you help me swim to shore,” he said.

  SPLASH SPLASH SPLASH.

  Everyone was on the shore or in the water helping one another keep from getting sucked into the current as the ship was swiftly pulled away.

  “Are the swamp creatures okay?” Nabila asked Director Z as he pulled her up onto the shore. “Is there something we can do?”

  “They’re probably just stunned by the current under the waterfall,” said Director Z. “They’ll be fine, but I’m afraid they won’t come around quickly enough to save the ship.”

  “But they did save Chris,” said Shane.

  “Yes, they did, indeed,” said Director Z.

  The great pirate ship, its sails completely slack with a lack of stinky winds, tipped over the waterfall with a great CREEEEEEEEAK.

  There was silence and then . . .

  BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

  “So much for our monster transport,” said Gordon.

  “That’s all right,” I said. “I need to go into the jungle now, anyway, I think. Thanks for all the help, guys.”

  I turned to leave and was immediately grabbed by Roy.

  He flipped me, and Gil once again held up the gross brown armpit raisin that he had tried to feed me before.

  I smacked it out of his hand before he could get it to my mouth. It tumbled into the dirt.

  A small monkey darted out of the jungle and picked up Gil’s sick little treat.

  “Give it back!” yelled Gil.

  But the monkey ran right past him and scurried up my legs.

  “Hey!” I yelled, but Roy held on tightly.

  The monkey shoved its hairy black little hand right into my mouth, depositing the putrid armpit raisin into the back of my throat. I swallowed and gagged almost immediately. My throat tasted like the moldiest mushroom pizza in the world.

  HWARRRRF.

  I dry-heaved so hard that I flung the monkey down onto the sand. It ran back into the forest.

  “For the love of Neptune, keep it down!” yelled Gil. “It took years to make.”

  Tears welled up in my eyes, and my stomach cramped terribly. I squatted on the ground and clutched my knees.

  Shane walked up to me and patted my back. “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “I feel like I want to throw up through my eyeballs,” I said. “And I still feel like I have somewhere to go. But I don’t need to rush there anymore.”

  Shane sat me up on a nearby rock.

  “Welcome back, dude!” yelled Clive, and he slapped my shoulder so hard, I fell off the rock.

  “Sorry, I got a little too stoked,” said Clive.

  I passed out in the sand.

  Jungle Zit

  I woke up in the shade, but I was still sweating through my clothes.

  “It’s so hot,” I moaned. “I feel terrible.”

  Above me, beautiful tall trees rustled with birds and monkeys that jumped from branch to branch.

  Shane walked over and helped me off the ground. Large wet leaves were stuck to my back.
“Yeah, Director Z said that you’d be affected by the heat a lot more now that you’re not as driven to go south. You were running on pure adrenaline!”

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “First of all,” Shane said, “who are we?”

  “You’re Shane,” I said. “I’m Chris.”

  “Awesome!” he said. “I just wanted to make sure we hadn’t lost you again.”

  “So, where are we?” I asked again. I looked around to see I was in a rain forest with massive trees. Huge trunks shot up from the ground into the air and were crisscrossed with vines.

  Nabila, Ben, and Gordon walked over to me. Nabila held Ben’s hand.

  “For the record, these two are still boyfriend and girlfriend,” said Gordon. “BLECH.”

  A few trees over, in front of the biggest tree trunk I had ever seen in my life, the monsters stood in a circle with Director Z, quietly reviewing the supplies from Roy’s massive messenger bag and planning out our next move. Director Z saw that I had stood up, and walked toward me with a smile.

  “We’re not sure where we are,” said Nabila. “Director Z’s not sure. Before you passed out, you told Gil you wanted to go into the jungle. So we headed in.”

  “How long ago was that?” I asked.

  “Two days,” said Gordon.

  “How do you know we’re going in the right direction?” I asked.

  Director Z stepped up to us. “Since then,” he said, “you’ve woken up in a feverish panic a few times and pointed in the same direction. You probably don’t even remember doing it. But we’re assuming that, even with Gil’s possession remedy, you know where we should be headed.”

  “Ugh,” I said. My mouth got dry at the thought of the moldy mushroom taste of Gil’s armpit raisin. “I had almost forgotten that happened. I wonder where that nasty little monkey is.”

  “I think he’s been following us,” said Shane.

  Ben raised his eyebrow at Shane.

  “I’m pretty sure my barfing scared him off,” I said. “That thing tasted so terrible. What was it, anyway?”

  “That was a rare fungus that can only be grown in the darkest reaches of the deepest, dankest, moistest cave,” replied Director Z.