Jack & Tollers: Episode 7 (THe Mongoose and Medusa)

This week, I'm doing something fun. When you get to the end of this episode... YOU get to suggest options for Jack to choose from, and I'll pick the one that I like the best. I know you're creative--so go ahead. Wow me!

Episode 7
​The Mongoose and Medusa

​The glasses, Jack decided. Maybe they were magical glasses that would enable him to look at Medusa without turning to stone. Not much help to Romeo, but if Romeo just shut his eyes…

“Definitely not the glasses,” said Romeo. “They would look hideous on me. I went to a sight-skiller to correct my vision so that I would never, ever have to wear those clunky things.”

Jack didn’t give a fig for Romeo’s looks, but he suddenly realized that a mirror would be the better choice. Freeze Medusa with her own look. It would serve her right.

“As for a mirror,” said Romeo. “I’m fairly certain I don’t need one. My intuition is impeccable. We’ll take the mongoose.”

ZAP! A mongoose suddenly appeared at their feet, its round nose twitching, its squirrel-like tail quirking into a question mark. Jack stared at it in horror.

Barely restraining his temper, he turned to Romeo, “And just why did you choose a mongoose?”

“Oh,” said Romeo, combing back his long blond hair with his fingers and flashing Jack a toothpaste-commercial smile. “They’re cute.”

“What the *bleep* do you think we can do with a mongoose?” Jack paused, astonished. Did he just get bleeped? In real time?

CRACK! The Editor appeared, looking more disheveled than ever. This time he wore cowboy boots with a Middle Eastern turban and a sequined jacket. He cast a withering glare at Jack through his mismatched glasses.

“You bleeped me,” Jack said.

“Yes, I did. This,” the Editor unrolled a long scroll and stabbing emphatically at it with a bony finger, “is a PG story. All obscenities, blasphemies, profanities, swear words, curses, oaths, expletives, and inappropriate comments will be promptly bleeped.”

“This is my story,” sulked Jack. “I can say whatever the *bleep* I want.”

“Apparently,” said Romeo suavely. “You can’t.”

“What am I supposed to say when I’m mad?”

“Oh, there are plenty of potential alternatives,” said the Editor. “Some suggestions: dagnabbit, holy moly, turd, fiddlesticks, criminey, cripes, good gravy, son of a biscuit, for the love of pete, for crying out loud, crud, mother of pearl, jeepers, what in the haystacks, sheesh, kiss my foot, and my personal favorite H-E-double-hockey-sticks.”

The Editor rolled up the scroll briskly. “Did you get any ideas?”

Jack stared at him.

“Personally,” said Romeo helpfully. “I use ‘halitosis’ as my expression, because there is nothing that diminishes a good appearance worse than a foul mouth.”

“Excellent,” said the Editor and pointed meaningfully at Jack. “Remember, Jack: PG!”
With that admonition, the Editor disappeared. Jack stared at the mongoose at his feet and puffed out his cheeks.

“Okay,” he said. “Romeo, I apologize for what I said.”

“I couldn’t hear it, seeing as it was mostly bleeped, but I accept your apology anyway.”

Romeo held out his hand to the mongoose, which leapt onto his outstretched arm and clambered up to his shoulder. “Shall we go?”

Jack sighed. “Lead the way.” Then, thinking better of it, he said, “Actually, I’ll lead the way.”
​
He might dislike Romeo, but it was a coward’s play to let the more brainless of the two of them to walk into danger first.

​“I’m going to call him Percy,” said Romeo. “Short for Perseus.”

“Why?” Jack asked.

“Because Perseus was the hero who vanquished Medusa in the Greek myths. He used his shield as a mirror to see her by, so that he would not be turned to stone by her gaze, and when he cut off her head, it retained its power, so he used it to turn his enemies to stone.”

Jack glanced at Romeo. This dandy was still surprising. “But we don’t have a mirror. You chose the mongoose, remember?”

“Well,” said Romeo. “If you only do what’s been done before, how do you know what is possible?”

Suddenly, as they rounded the corner, both men stopped.

Before them stood two competitors that Jack recognized as Duck-Hero and Chimp-Heroine. They faced Jack and Romeo with blank, wide-open eyes. Every fold of their clothing, every inch of their skin had been turned to stone.

“Poor creatures,” said Romeo sadly. “They look positively petrified. I hope it didn’t hurt.”
​
“Look down at your feet,” said Jack. “Never up.”

“But that will make me look hunchbacked.”

Jack gave up on trying to quantify Romeo’s intelligence. “Just look at your bleeping feet, Romeo!”

“It’s cheating to use ‘bleeping’ as your swear word. And I don’t see what’s so funny about it.”

Romeo obeyed. They shuffled furtively through the hallways, wary of making eye contact with anything other than the mongoose, who leapt off of Romeo’s shoulder and pattered ahead of them, flirting its tail every few seconds and nosing at the strange, swirling water-walls inquisitively, its black eyes glittering, its rounded ears twitching. Percy the mongoose appeared completely unconcerned, even when heavy footsteps approached.

It was just the Viking-muscled Bird-Hero.

“She turned my partner to stone!” he shouted. “Run for your lives!”

When he had passed, Jack murmured, “I’ll bet he runs straight into Medusa.”

Bird-Hero missed his turn and fell straight into the water-wall, disappearing with a gasping cry. Jack turned his attention back to the floor. “Well, I was wrong.”
​
Suddenly, Percy’s tail flickered with alarm and he darted forward, chattering angrily.

​For one half-second, Jack saw a face reflected on the water-walls at his side from one of the intersecting passages. It felt like his eyes froze in their sockets and his stomach curdled. There were no words for a creature so devilishly hideous that her serpentine face turned her viewers into stone.

Romeo and Jack reflexively hid their faces. A new feeling overcame Jack. He was used to meeting danger head-on—isn’t that what he had done the last time he was in the water-maze?—but this was one danger that you couldn’t beat by meeting it face-to-face. You had to look away and wait and wonder how close your enemy was. Instinct warred against sense.

“What happens if we just jump into the walls and swim up?” Jack whispered into his collar.

The water curled into letters at his feet: YOU FAIL.

“How do we win?”

YOU DEFEAT MEDUSA.

“How do you defeat an enemy you can’t face?”

YOU FIGURE IT OUT. Jack could almost hear the smugness in his best friend’s voice.
​
Fine, Tollers. Mr. Shampooed-Hair and a mongoose will help me figure it out. Without you.

The mongoose screamed at the newcomer, who shuffled closer. The weight of the footsteps shuddered the corridor beneath Jack’s feet, and it took all his self-control not to glance up and catch a glimpse of his enemy. The hiss of many serpentine tongues filled the air, as though the sound coiled tendrils around the wrists and ankles of the contestants. Jack gritted his teeth.

Percy the mongoose let out a short, sharp cry and the sound of his little feet accelerated into a flurry of activity. It was as though the creature had gone crazy.
Jack glanced up for half a moment—some reflex that somehow he had no control over—but discovered that Medusa was facing away, shielding her hideous face from the vicious attack of the mongoose. The snakes that crowned her head hissed and struck, lethal fangs snapping.

Jack dropped his gaze to the ground just in time. He sent out feelers to test the skills nearby, but the other contestants were too far away for him to borrow their skills. And Romeo’s skill was worse than useless, which meant that Jack’s skill was useless.
Then, to Jack’s astonishment, Medusa’s heavy footsteps receded rapidly, pursued by the flutter of the mongoose’s steps.

“Phew!” said Romeo, flicking back his hair and wiping a bead of sweat with a fluid wipe of his slender fingers. “We could have been turned to stone. And much as I’ve always wanted a statue of myself, I’ve never wanted to be the statue.”

Jack suddenly struck his thigh. “I’m an idiot! A mongoose! Romeo, you’re smarter than you know.”

“Are you sure?” Romeo said doubtfully. “I know a lot. Are you sure I can be smarter than my own smarts?”

“Why did you pick a mongoose?”

“Well, because it’s cute.”

“How do you even know what a mongoose is?”

“Because I read Rikki Tikki Tavi by Rudyard Kipling, of course.”

“About the mongoose who killed a pair of cobras.”

“Of course. I expect Percy hates Medusa—what with her being snake-haired and all.”

“But will one be enough?” Jack muttered to himself. “We really need a whole army of mongooses.” He paused and reconsidered. “Mongeese?”

“What would we need monkeys for?” Romeo asked.

“No, I was trying to figure out the plural of… Never mind.”

Romeo was already on another train of thought. “Good manicures, did you see that creature’s face?”

“You saw it in the reflection too?”

“Poor Medusa. No wonder she is single. I wish there was something I could do.”

Jack rubbed his sandpaper jaw. Suddenly, something flickered in his mind. Or perhaps that was just the sound of Percy’s feet as he returned. But no, it truly was an idea, stirring thoughts in his mind that added up to a crazy plan. If it worked…

“Maybe there is something you can do,” said Jack slowly.

“It would take a lot more than Sultry Cherry Blossom lipstick to improve on that female’s looks, I fear.”

“You don’t need lipstick. You just need… skill.”

Romeo looked at him blankly. Apparently the pregnant pause and significant look from Jack was not enough to cue the appropriate dramatic intake of breath and understanding of Jack’s brilliant plan. Real life in a fantasy adventure was, apparently, not like in the movies.

In the end, Jack had to explain the plan in detail to Romeo.

Six times.

“Ready?” Jack asked.

Romeo smoothed his expression into a benevolent grin. “It will be my finest hour.”
​
“I hope so.” Jack turned to the watching mongoose. “Go find her, Percy! Find the snakes!”

​Percy’s tail bristled with savage glee and he dashed ahead of the two contestants, chirring a war-song to himself. He ran so quickly that Jack and Romeo could barely keep up with him. They ran and the water-maze changed as they passed, closing off passages and opening new ones, glistening with their reflections.

Percy stopped so suddenly that Jack tripped himself to avoid kicking the mongoose. He sprawled headlong and Romeo performed an impromptu pirouette around his fallen teammate. Percy, meanwhile, whirled to face the way from which they had just come, his teeth bared and his back arched with warning.

Jack and Romeo turned their faces away, though both scrambled to their feet, ready for their moment.

The snakes hissed like water on a hot pan. The mongoose chattered back and the dance began just as before, snake against mongoose. Medusa retreated and the fanatical mongoose followed. Jack and Romeo shuffled after the mongoose, their gazes averted.

“At last” said Romeo. “He’s about to back her around the corner.”

Pause.

“She’s out of sight.”

Jack looked up to discover that Romeo was right. Percy darted back and forth in the intersection of their passage with a perpendicular corridor, and Medusa was just beyond the corridor. They could not see her directly, but her face reflected hideously in the water-wall.
​
“I’ve got the nose!” Romeo said.

“I’ll take the teeth.”

Jack duplicated Romeo’s skill and the two flung the power outward like invisible ropes, bouncing it from the reflection to Medusa herself. Her face warped and melted, the teeth straightening, the hissing snake-hair flattening and feathering into flowing tresses, the skeletal nose curving aristocratically, the bulbous eyes shrinking and glimmering with radiant irises.

By degrees, the mongoose ceased his hissing and at last, he crouched on the ground and became still and quiet.

Medusa stepped forward and emerged from beyond the corner.

Jack’s jaw dropped.

The woman before him had skin as dark as warm earth, with hair of white and teal like a paradise beach, and eyes the color of molten gold.

“They say,” said Romeo gently, stepping forward, “that a good appearance-skiller can only bring out the inner appearance that is hidden from the eyes. My dear Medusa, you are radiant.”

Medusa burst into tears and Romeo held her gently, stroking her hair.

“To kill with a look,” she sobbed. “Do you know what that is like? I’ve been so lonely.”

Romeo spoke with dramatic gallantry. “You will never be lonely again.”

Jack turned away, feeling somehow as if he had intruded on something not meant for him.

“Tollers,” he said. “What I said earlier about this not being a kissing book… I retract it.”

And as he walked away from Romeo and Medusa, the walls melted before him and he found himself on the hillside where the audience breathlessly awaited the judgment of the orange bullfrog. But instead of cheering like last time, the spectators were dabbing their eyes with handkerchiefs.

Jack sighed. “Don’t overdo it, Tollers.”

The sky seemed to laugh.

“Jack and Romeo!” The bullfrog bellowed. “Romeo, if you wouldn’t mind paying attention for just a moment. ROMEO! Thank you. Ahem. It appears that you two are the last contestants standing from the second trial. You both get an advantage in the third and final trial. The contestants who were not turned to stone will follow after you. May the best hero or heroine win!”

The audience waved their handkerchiefs in the air in a sudden rousing cheer.

“Jack and Romeo, choose your advantage. You get one skill in addition to your inborn skill.” 

This time, YOU get to suggest the option and I'll pick my favorite and incorporate it into Episode 8. Get creative!