The Moon Trolley: See No Evil, Hear No Evil

This is the third episode of The Moon Trolley, a sci-fi/fantasy book about a boy who escapes slavery and accidentally discovers an unknown world of magic and aliens. Click here to read Episode One or Episode Two.

“Yaghhhhhhhhh!!!”

Kojo blinked, shocked that he wasn’t dead. It had all happened so quickly. The brown and white blur of fur erupting from the underbrush—its collision with Rufus at the exact moment the sailor pulled the trigger—Rufus windmilling his arms to try and regain his footing—the puff of smoke just as the pistol was pointed at Bart’s foot—and, finally, the blur disappearing back into the jungle as quickly as it had appeared.

“I…but…what…” stammered Rufus, his eyes darting between his weapon and Bart’s blown-apart shoe.

“Whaddiyagoandothatfor?!?” screamed Bart as he hopped up and down on his uninjured foot.

“I—something—something hit me!” Rufus explained. He looked utterly flabbergasted.

“Well it wasn’t me, was it, yeh dingbatted fool of a rat!?”

Rufus tossed the pistol aside and pulled yet another out of his shirt. He pointed it every which way, trying to detect his impalpable attacker. Kojo, realizing now what had transpired, began laughing. He quickly stopped, however, when Rufus turned the gun back on him.

“Yeh think tha’s funny do yeh?” Rufus roared. “I won’ miss this time!”

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Rufus nearly threw out his neck as he swiveled to see an old woman in a patchy gray cloak emerge from the trees. Wrinkled, stooping, and armed with nothing but a cane, she hardly looked like a threat—but Rufus pointed his pistol at her nonetheless.

“And why not?” he growled.

The woman swept a lock of unruly white hair out of her eyes. “Because I’ll knock your lights out,” she replied matter-of-factly.

Rufus sneered and pulled the trigger.

Expecting it this time, Kojo watched as his sheepdog friend exploded out of a bush and pounced on Rufus’s chest. The man toppled over into Bart, landing on his comrade’s injured foot and discharging his gun right next to his ear. The bullet ripped into a nearby tree, but Bart still screamed out in pain, clutching his foot with one hand and his ear with the other.

“Good boy,” winked the old lady as the dog trotted over and accepted a pat on the head.

“I can’t hear!” yelled Bart. “You’ve made me eardrums explode, you ‘ave!”

“I can’t see!” yelped Rufus. “What in the—what’ve you done ter me eyes?!”

“I did warn him, didn’t I?” the woman said to the dog. The dog smiled.

Shouting incoherently, Rufus struggled to get back on his feet. He succeeded only after twice tripping over Bart, who promptly unleashed a torrent of ugly curse words and then became all the more panicked as he realized he couldn’t even hear his own swearing. The old woman took advantage of the chaos to stroll over to Kojo and tap his chains lightly with her cane. They rusted before his eyes, turning so crusty and brown that they disintegrated with the tiniest of leg wiggles. Kojo gaped at her.

“Watch this laddie,” the woman whispered. Then she cupped her hands over her mouth and yelled—not in her own voice but, somehow, inexplicably, with Bart’s—“Oi! I’ve ‘bout had it with yeh attackin’ me all the time! Why dontcha take a swig of yer own medicine!”

Exactly on cue, the dog sprinted at Rufus, leapt, and sank a sharp claw into his back. Rufus yowled and ripped a small hatchet out of his pocket. “I’ll show yeh to stab me in the back!” he yelled.

Bart, who had missed most of this because he was too busy fretting about his lost hearing, looked up in surprise as Rufus started chopping at the air inches from his face. His shock immediately turned into anger. “Droppin’ all pretenses are we?” he said, unsheathing his knife for real.

As the two sailors commenced battle, the old woman extended her hand to Kojo and helped him up. “Are you injured?” she asked. He was just about to reply when she followed up with a far more important question: “Young man, where are your clothes?”

“They took—” Kojo began, but the woman had already spun a shirt and a pair of trousers out of thin air and handed it to him.

“Here, put this on, for everyone’s sake,” she said. Then she motioned for him and the dog to follow her deeper into the jungle. “Come on, we’d better get away from these two knuckleheads in case they decide to make amends. Why haven’t you put those clothes on yet? You waiting for a mailed invitation? Please don’t make me send one; I hate paying for postage.”

Kojo vacillated uncertainly for a moment in the face of all these instructions, eventually settling on trying to dress while he walked. This proved difficult, but soon they had left Rufus and Bart far behind, their war cries and the noise of clashing blades fading into nothingness after just a few feet of thick jungle.

“What’s going to happen to them?” Kojo asked, hopping on one foot in an ineffectual attempt to put on his pants.

“Dunno,” the woman replied. “Probably fight till they’re both dead—humans do the funniest things sometimes.”

“You speak as if you’re not one.”

“Just one who’s got a different perspective.”

“Well then if you’re a human, how’d you do that stuff back there? Are you a witch?”

“The preferred term is ‘wizard,’ if you please.”

Kojo frowned. “But aren’t you a girl?”

“Of course I’m a girl! Well, woman, actually—I know I don’t look it, but I’m actually quite old.”

“But witches—”

“—fell out of favor as a descriptor around the time they started tying witches up to stakes and burning them to death. It’s ‘wizard.’”

Kojo was quiet for a moment as his brain struggled to process everything. Then a glorious thought occurred to him.

“Hey!” he said. “If you’re a witch—”

“Wizard!!”

“Sorry—wizard, then you can help me save my sister!”

The woman stopped as they entered a small clearing. “Nope, I definitely can’t,” she said. “Anyway, this should be a good spot for you to build your house. You got a nice patch of dirt over there…a stream for water over there…and I’ll leave you some supplies to get you started. Alrighty, I think that’s it—have a good life!”

I hope you enjoyed Episode 3! To see other episodes, visit my profile or my website. If you’d like to join my email list, below, I’ll let you know when I post future episodes. You can also sign up to become a “Moon Trolley Test Driver” who gives me feedback and input on episodes before they’re published.