Chapter 127

Dam

(Boggo)

Raft by raft, and lugger boat by lugger, all of Barnacle-eyes’ goblins were welcomed aboard Float-some barge. Barnacle-eyes wasn’t the only hopping goblin. The goblins erupted with celebrations. Handfuls of them embraced long lost friends.

Thrush had been summoned, which set goblins into a panic until Barnacle-eyes and her crew calmed everyone. The goblins soon crowded the monster, whose pulsing eyes were gray, and long elephant tusks arced out from under his top lip. Thrush dumped chimeric colored barrels from his inventory in what must have been a trade for goblin spit beer. The barrels thunked against the uneven ground of mixed materials. Goblin arms rose over goblin ears in a sea of hues of green. The weird colors of Hawkin’s ethereal barrels commanded attention. Goblins continued amassing around the swelling crowd.

My ears lay flat. “That’s a lot of goblins.” Picturing their feet, stomping from on high, I gulped. “Isn’t it, Ella? …Ella?”

I turned around, but could not find Ella! The only evidence that she had been right beside me was the pile of oyster shells beside me. A seaweed, mud-fish smell speared the air over the oysters. I rushed into the crow’s nest and sniffed for a whiff of my yellow bestie. Like her scent was a hovering, trailing ribbon of yellow, I followed it down the tunnel of the mast, through the cargo hold, and into the forecastle. The room was filled with burlap sacks, loot chests, wood barrels, and ethereal barrels. I clambered up the barrel which held dreambons, peered over the rim, and found Ella inside.

Ella was rummaging. “No… Ew, no…No…No…”

“Whatcha lookin for?”

“The ones that are like honey and pear cider.”

I fell into the barrel and began sniffing the dreambons one by one.

Ella squeezed herself down between dreambons. “I’m starving! You know what I could go for?”

“A really good dreambon that tastes like honey and pears?” I said with a full mouth.

“Rainbow fish roe! Oh, doesn’t that sound amazing!”

A thousand scratches and taps suddenly emanated through the hull. We froze, our pears perked, and our gaze darted around the ceiling. We leapt out of the barrel, scurried to the hull, and put our ears to the wall. The tapping and scratching continued. Ella knocked, and the sounds halted. Not a breath later that sounds returned more fervently!

We galloped across the cargo hold, up through the hatch, and we bolted starboard. Hugging the banisters of the taffrail, we peered over. Forty beavers were pulling wreckage from out of the nets that we towed.

Ella gasped. “They’re not beavers!”

I gasped when I saw it. They were mottled brown besties! Oh, but they were stealing the wreckage!

I curled my toes and tucked in my tail. “Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no! We gotta stop them!”

Mimicking Ella, I waved my arms about.

“Besties!” said Ella. “Besties, stop!”

“Please, stop!” I said. “This is our ship!”

The netting was ripped open. Boards of wood slapped the sea. Besties splashed in the water. Planks grated across planks. Against the hull, beastie claws were prying between boards. The sea slapped the hull. I didn’t think they could hear us!

One of the besties climbed the netting. “Loose stuff first!”

Besties abandoned the hull and pulled material from the netting. Ella descended the netting, and I was only a boot’s length behind.

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Before we could say anything, the bestie upon the netting, pulled out huge shards of wood and handed them to Ella and I without looking up.

“Make yourself useful,” he said. “Hold this. And this.”

It had to go back through the netting, so I wiggled the wood back through as much as I could.

“S-stop,” I said. “Please, stop!”

The bestie was already yanking wet canvas. “We need all paws on this job. Nobody’s taking a break till it’s done.”

“Done?” I said. “W-what do you mean done?”

He seemed to give up on the canvas and instead pulled out intact planks of wood. “Weren't you listening, kid?” He pulled out three more planks and tossed them into the sea. “Like I said back at the base, we’re taking the whole belly.”

“This is our home,” said Ella. “You can’t take our home!”

Ella smacked the back of the bestie’s hands. He finally looked up at us.

“What…is…this? A blue one? A yellow one?”

Ella, tall and big and round and imposing, said, “Put everything back!”

“Not a chance, girlie.”

We argued with the brown bestie, and he argued back. Before I knew it, the three of us were yelling over each other. All the while, brown besties swam off to Float-some barge hauling pieces of wreckage. Other brown besties climbed the netting to support their leader with even more shouting. Their leader, whom the others called Mooloo, rolled his eyes and began yanking more wet canvas from beneath the netting.

“I have an idea!” I said, loud enough to feel my rib. “Listen, I have an idea! Everybody, quiet!”

“We don’t need ideas, kid. We need to get a move on this tear down. After this belly, we’re moving on to the rest of the ships.” With a grunt, he tore a shred of canvas. “Now hold these.”

“Ship-s,” said Ella. “All of them?”

“You betcha. Here you go, girlie. Put these boards in that pile by your buddy over there. He’s looking weak in the knees.”

“Just listen!” I said. “If you leave the ships alone, we’ll give you double the material before we leave!”

Mooloo was in the middle of ripping another length of canvas when he paused. “Double? How?”

“My best friend carries a lot of stuff. Trees, and fort walls, and scraps of metal, and all kinds of stuff! He’s over there right now!”

I pointed at Thrush, who still delivered barrel after barrel. Goblins carted off the barrels in long lines.

“Ever seen goblin ships this big?” said Ella, gesturing up at the galleon.

Mooloo cocked his head. “Matter of fact…”

“These ships basically came out of Thrush’s pockets,” I said.

“Double, you say?”

“Maybe even triple,” said Ella.

“Triple!”

Mooloo conferred with the other brown besties in a huddle. They wrung their hands, and their eyes were wide as they whispered. Every now and then, Ella and I caught them glancing at us. They pointed at the fleet, at the wreckage, at us, at Float-some barge. Every now and then, one of them raised their voice to argue.

“Please,” I said. “Leave our ships alone. I promise you’ll get your material by the time we leave here.”

“When are you leaving?” said Mooloo.

“We usually moor for about two weeks.”

“Tell you what, we’re going to take all the wreckage, but we’ll leave the ships alone for one week. If we don’t get anything from you by then…” Mooloo scrambled up the net and knocked on the hull. “You might be a permanent guest with us.”

“Is there any way you can leave everything alone?”

Mooloo reeled a length of rope from beneath the net. “Those are the terms, kid. Now, give us a paw. You too, girlie.”

A deal was a deal, so for the rest of the day, we helped them transport the wreckage, piece by piece. As it turned out, Float-some barge was built upon a massive dam of sticks. It was only on the surface where the materials were mixed. The tunnels of the dam were always damp, but there was good air flow and almost no echo. At the end of each tunnel that rose above the sea, bestie builders used the wreckage to expand the dam.

They were hard workers, and we admired them. Ella could not tear her eyes from their webbed feet. The color offered a perfect camouflage for Float-some barge. Although we were swept up in their efforts, Ella happily hummed.

“Bailey had these caramel lollipops,” she said. “I could really go for one. Oh, and the gillagrubs in Lavenfauvish! Oh, I miss those!”

Above us, goblin boots softly thudded. Before dusk, all of the wreckage had been claimed. We sat together in a large chamber in the dam to share warm-warm beer. I opened the waterskin and passed it first to Ella. She rubbed her tummy, put her snout to the lip, and took a big whiff. She wrinkled her nose and passed the waterskin back.

“You-you don’t want any?”

“I’m craving something else.”

“I can see if we have some jellyfish left? Would you like some shark? More fish-on-a-stick?”

Ella sighed, lay back, and patted her poofy belly. “I’d love some cactus jerky…”