Jack and Tollers: A Moral Dilemma (Episode 5)

This week, Jack faces the third and final part of the First Trial. Should he attempt to rescue someone from the Sirens' island, or should he sail on by? When things go horribly wrong, will his wit be enough to save not only himself but his teammates?

...the water began to boil around the ship and an eerie, wraith-like song rose, as though the waters sang...

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Episode 5
A Moral Dilemma

'​"Jack, this is your conscience speaking."

Jack snorted behind his hand. His personal Jiminy Cricket was on the loose on the Siren's island? Yeah, right.

"It's not Jiminy Cricket. It's Jumping Jehosaphat. If you don't rescue me from the Sirens, you'll lose your conscience. And then what are you? THE VILLAIN, that's what."

Jack stopped laughing. He glanced at his teammates but it seemed as though they had all heard their own personal version of the same problem and were wondering the same thing as he was: Was this a trap to lure them to the island or a test to see what they were willing to risk for something or someone they valued?

What were the bullfrog’s exact words? “You must take the fleece in a ship past the island of the Sirens.” But it didn’t specify how to do so.

And every moment he spent deciding was a moment that the other teams could take advantage of. But Team Centaur seemed to be divided. Half wanted to go ashore. The other half wanted to get as quickly past the island as possible.

Team Cyclops mostly looked as though they were attempting to pin down the man with the magical eye. Who knew what they were planning. If they even knew themselves.

Around Jack, he noticed the same disintegration occurring—Duck-Hero and Chimp-Heroine were quacking and screeching at the top of their lungs at each other, and everyone else seemed eager to have their say. The whole ship sounded like a zoo.

Maybe it wasn’t about whether they stopped or didn’t stop at the island. Maybe it was about the team. Why else would this particular challenge be part of the team Trial?

“Bark!” Jack held up his hands for order. “Growl, yip, snuffle, bark!”

No one paid attention to him.

“Sherwin,” Jack said. “Would you be so kind as to get their attention? I feel that, with a deportment as impressive as yours, they might listen to you better.”

“It would be my pleasure,” said Sherwin Edward Gladdenbury Kerfluffle the Fourth. He made a beeline for Frog-Hero and promptly bit his bottom.

That got everyone’s attention very quickly and they all lined up against the railing of the ship with their bottoms to the railing, desperate to stay away from the snapping jaws of the pug.

“I thought you were going to ask them politely,” Jack said, his mouth twitching.

“Was that not polite enough?” said Sherwin smugly, adding, “Every situation requires its own actions.”

Jack faced his teammates and pointed to the island, raising his eyebrows. Over half of them looked nervously at one another, then cautiously raised their hands. Jack pointed to the distant horizon and the remaining few raised their hands immediately, including a few who had already raised their hands previously.

Jack held up three fingers and tapped his wrist. The teammates glanced from one to another, and Cat-Heroine pointed worriedly to Team Cyclops, who, of all the teams, was foremost in the competition. Jack glanced casually at the free-for-all occurring on the deck of the Cyclops ship and the drunken trail of the ship, then cast Cat-Heroine a wry grin, as though to say, “Really? You’re worried about those morons?”

A few of the heroes guffawed and Jack tapped his wrist again, emphasizing his three fingers. The heroes of Minotaur Team broke away from the railing and traveled the deck of the ship, deep in thought. Jack had no watch, so he had no idea when the three minutes had expired, but he took a guess and at last clapped his hands to get their attention. This time, when he pointed to the island, the hesitation was gone.
Clearly, whatever each teammate heard from the Siren’s island, they were not willing to sail past without attempting a rescue. The few hold-outs were clearly unhappy, but Jack hushed their protests. The majority had spoken. Now, they would go as a team. Jack tried to convey as much through signs and hoped they wouldn’t forget it when they inevitably ended up fighting for their lives.

The ship seemed to sense their consensus and sailed briskly toward the island. As they approached, the mist around the island swirled, unwrapping layer by layer.
Suddenly, they broke through the clouds into a clear space, where the water was serene as gray glass. The island rose before them, a wandering palace of stone, with several human forms silhouetted against the light of the few lanterns in the windows.

“I have a feeling we’re doing something very stupid,” Jack said.

“I have a feeling,” said Sherwin. “That you like stupid.”

Jack laughed. “Why else would I have taken up Tollers recommendation to be his main character?”

“I beg your pardon?”
​
“Never mind.”

​One of the figures waved at Jack from the turret of a stone spire. “Jack, as your conscience, I am most gratified that you elected to make this venture a team effort. It’s very moral of you.”

“Speaking of morals,” Jack called back. “Don’t you think it would be a very bad moral if I ended up shipwrecked here or eaten by cannibalistic Sirens because I attempted to follow the dictates of my conscience? Think of the havoc it would wreak on the readers. ‘Why, look at Jack. He listened to his conscience and do you know what happened to him? He died a horrible death.’ And then you would be responsible for an entire generation gone awry because of a bad example.”

“Here, here!” barked Sherwin.

Crack!

“No, no, no!” groaned the Editor, pushing his mismatched glasses further up his equally awkward nose. “When will people learn to take grammar seriously? Sherwin, when you say ‘here, here,’ to what place are you referring?”

“Place? I was only applauding Jack’s brilliant plea for safe passage.”

“Ah!” The Editor’s eyes—Wait a minute, was one gray and one brown?—lit with a half-crazed attentiveness. “You meant that you wanted others to listen to Jack, yes?”

“Yes.” Sherwin considered. “Oh! I see it now. It should not be ‘here, here’ at all. It should be ‘hear, hear’!”

“What a clever Kerfluffle you are!” said the Editor with a smile that scared Jack more than his frown. “Do carry on, Jumping Jehosaphat. You were in the middle of a discussion on tales of morality, I believe.”

With that, the Editor disappeared with another alarming crack! like a firecracker.

“Well?” yelled Jack. “What do you say? All those readers who will learn not to follow their consciences and you’re not concerned?”

“You’re not supposed to think so logically in a tale of epic heroism,” said Jumping Jehosaphat weakly. “You’re mostly supposed to dash around looking buff and try to rescue people. Like me.”

“If you’re trying to lure me into danger, what kind of conscience are you?” Jack asked. “I’m very disappointed in you, Jehosaphat.”

“Jumping Jehosaphat. And I’m not luring you. I’m… Well, I really am stuck.”

“In what?”

“A Moral Dilemma.”

“Figures.”

“It hurts like anything and it won’t let me go until I make a decision. That’s why you have to help me.”

“How can I help you?”

“You have to help me decide.”

“You’re the conscience. Aren’t you supposed to tell me what to do?”

“Not when both choices are bad.”

“Great. Nothing like moral ambiguity to really mess up a reader’s mindset.”

The sky opened momentarily and the Editor’s face appeared.

“Fictional Realism,” he said smugly before the sky closed over his incongruous features.

“The choices,” said Jumping Jehosaphat. “Are these. Team Centaur has already run aground and its ship is sinking even as we speak. Team Cyclops has determined to continue on and deliver the golden fleece. Do you (A) save Team Centaur and let Team Cyclops win, thus eliminating you from the competition, or (B) let Team Centaur fight for their own survival and beat Team Cyclops?”

“That’s not even a choice,” Jack snorted. “We save Team Centaur, of course.”

“But wait, there’s more!”

“If I act now, I’ll save even more?”

“If you delay your mission in order to save Team Centaur, the ship will be too weighed down and you may be unable to outrun the Sirens.”

“Jack,” whispered Sherwin.

“Until…”

“You see the problem, don’t you?” continued Jumping Jehosaphat. “Save the Centaurs and doom your teammates, or save your teammates and win the competition.”

“Jack,” Sherwin interrupted again.

“What?”

“What’s the point of this Trial?”
​
Jack glanced down at the pug, confused, then a slow smile spread over his face. “You know what? You’re right. I almost forgot.” He faced Jumping Jehosaphat. “It’s not my job to make this decision. It’s ours.”

---

​He turned to the team and barked for their attention. They tore themselves away from the railings, where they had been conversing with their own shadows on the glowing crystal island, and gave him full attention. They respected him. They trusted him. Why?

“Because you respected them,” said Sherwin, “And trusted them when you let them choose whether or not to come to the island.”

“Well, who knew that a little nip in the rear would have such charming results?” Jack quipped. Sobering, he added, “This is a complex decision. My arsenal of ASL is severely limited—and theirs even less so. How can I communicate with them?”

“I think you will find,” said Jumping Jehosaphat. “That between those who respect and trust each other there is a communication that transcends speech.”

Tweet: “Between those who respect and trust each other there is a communication that transcends speech.” #JackAndTollers http://bit.ly/29za2X2

And, when Jack began to speak, he saw that it was true. They were not listening to his words. They were listening to the meaning behind the words. And they understood him.

Jack gave them three minutes, but they did not need it. Duck-Hero stepped forward and puffed out his chest, thumping it as though to say, “We are ready.”

Despite the personal danger, they all chose to save Team Centaur.

“Better to attempt nobility and fail than not to attempt it at all, eh, Sherwin?” Jack asked.

Tweet: "Better to attempt nobility and fail than not to attempt it at all." #JackAndTollers http://bit.ly/29za2X2

They sailed clockwise around the island and discovered Team Centaur’s ship, ghost-like through the mist and listing to the side. They pulled their competitors aboard their own ship, but almost immediately, Jack noticed the decrease in the ship’s maneuverability and speed.

“I’m free!” shouted Jumping Jehosaphat from the crystal wall. And for one moment, the light revealed the face of the conscience Jack had rescued.

He was a mirror image of Jack himself, grinning like a schoolboy.

“I suppose there’s a metaphor in that,” Jack muttered to himself, then shouted, “Want to come aboard?”

He gestured to the already crowded ship.

“No need,” said Jumping Jehosaphat. “I’ll always be there when you need me.”

With that, he vanished like mist.

Almost immediately, the water began to boil around the ship and an eerie, wraith-like song rose, as though the waters sang. A member of Team Centaur appeared from below decks.

“We’re taking water! We’re sinking! Help! Help!”

But, of course, there was no one to help, and the Siren song wrapped the ship in invisible tentacles, tugging it toward a watery grave.

Donkey-Hero stood at the prow and let the wind tangle his long blond hair artistically, his expression defying the Sirens even though their victory seemed assured.

“Oh, come on, Tollers,” Jack groaned. “Let’s not go down with the ship.”

The idiom struck him suddenly. They were still in the waters, weren’t they? And if the waters were the same as the waters earlier…

“I’m sorry, Tollers,” Jack said. “But look at this ship. It doesn’t even have a sail on it and it powers itself. Call this a well-constructed plot device? I’ll tell you what I think. This whole ship doesn’t hold water.”

There was a breathless moment when Jack wondered if it would work. Then, the ship suddenly bobbed up like a buoy.

“That’s more like it,” said Jack. “And, lucky for us, looks like the Sirens are dead in the water.”

The boiling water suddenly smoothed like silk and the ship turned toward the distant shoreline, leaving the Siren’s island to shrink into the distance. Jack saluted the dumbfounded Centaur Team and stood dramatically at the prow of the racing ship—that is, a little behind and to the left of Donkey-Hero, whose Fabio hair kept slapping him across the face.

When they reached the shore, they discovered that Cyclops Team was already in the harbor. The orange bullfrog who sat atop the harbor’s hill magically transported Team Centaur and Minotaur from their ship with a flick of his bulbous fingertips. They found that they stood before a giant crowd of spectators, all cheering madly and many of whom waved pennants of black, the colors of Jack’s team.

The heroes of Team Cyclops glared as the other two teams approached.

“What’s the matter?” asked Jack. “Didn’t you win?”

He realized, with gratitude, that his human speech had been restored.

“They lost,” said the bullfrog. “It seems that their golden fleece is not golden.” He upheld an ordinary white fleece as evidence.

“But it was golden!” hissed the man with the magical eye. “At least, it was until we sailed past Team Centaur.”

“Too bad for you,” said the bullfrog. “Team Centaur, your fleece?”

“We lost it,” said one dejectedly. “When our ship went down.”

“Team Minotaur?”

Jack shrugged the golden fleece from his shoulder and the crowd went wild. The Minotaur dashed among its teammates and sobbed with joy, nearly crushing Jack in an ecstatic hug. Sherwin blinked primly through his monocle, then chewed a claw on one of his back paws meditatively.
​
“Congratulations to Team Minotaur,” said the bullfrog. “Now you can each move on to the Second Trial. In this trial, you’ll need a single teammate. Who will you pick from the available heroes as your partner?”

​Option 1
Duck-Hero
 
Option 2
Donkey-Hero
 
Option 3
Chimp-Heroine