Part 24 (2/2)
Her breath left her in a rush. Her hand went limp in Roger's. Her eyes closed. She was gone.
”Ssrrffmm.” The Mumbler added his incoherent condolences.
”I suppose,” Edward intoned morosely, ”an event like this means it would be improper to announce our engagement-just yet.”
But Delores was beyond caring about the Slime Monster's intentions. ”Captain Crusader?” she whispered, as if she could barely say the words. ”Gone? What can we do?”
Roger laid the Captain's hand gently upon the sand, then stood and turned to look at all the others.
”Just what she told us to do,” he replied. ”We will carry on, until we defeat Doctor Dread!”
Roger wished he felt as confident as he sounded. He didn't know the first thing about fighting Doctor Dread, unless he could do it by firing off press releases. He didn't even know his way around the Cine verse. How could he possibly hope to defeat the forces of evil of every movie world that ever existed?
The more he thought about it, the more it seemed impossible. He was the new Captain Crusader? The Cineverse was doomed. What could possibly be any worse?
”Look!” Frankie yelled from behind Roger. ”Captain Crusader! She's gone!”
Roger spun around. He looked where Dee Dee's body had been. There was nothing there now but an indentation in the sand.The wind had started up again along the beach. Seagulls called to each other in the sky.
Big Louie shook Roger's elbow.
”Roger! Something's happening! I can feel it!”
There was an explosion, followed by blue smoke.
”Roger!” a woman's voice shouted indignantly. ”What have you done? What is the meaning of this?”
Roger knew that voice. It could get worse, after all.
The blue smoke cleared, revealing a very unhappy and somewhat overdressed woman of middle years.
It was his mother.
”Well?” she said in that you'd-better-have-an-explanation-or-else voice she had honed through years of experience. ”Are you going to answer me?”
”What's the meaning of what, Mother?” Roger replied, automatically adopting his most conciliatory tone.
It was, of course, the absolute wrong tone to use on one's mother.
”Don't act innocent with me, young man!” Surfers scattered as she strode purposefully across the sand toward her son. ”There is something going on here, and I demand to know what it is!”
Roger looked around at Zabana, Doc, and Louie, still in their double-breasted suits, and Delores with her spangled evening gown. Then, of course, there was his own very soggy jogging suit, and almost everybody else wearing surfing duds. And his mother wanted him to explain all this?
”Mother,” Roger replied at last, hoping against hope that she would accept his answer, ”it's better if you don't know.”
”Roger Aloysius Gordon!'' His mother declared in a tone suitable for declaring World War III.
”Aloysius?” Louie asked.
”Family name,” Roger replied. ”Never used.”
Except, he thought rather than said, when his mother was in one of those moods.
And his mother had only begun. ”First, you disappear. Heaven knows, you never call me in the first place, so how would I know when you disappear? But this time you de- cided you were too busy to go to work, too. The office was calling all over the place, looking for you. They even called Susan-she was always such a nice girl-I don't see why the two of you ever split up. She at least took the time to call me. I tell you, we were both worried sick.”
Susan? Roger thought about objecting. After all, he and Susan had gotten divorced years ago. Not that his mother noticed. She was happy as long as Susan called.
”And then I couldn't find Mr. M!” his mother continued melodramatically. ”His house was deserted, his little red sports car gone. I tell you, it felt like people were disap- pearing right and left in my life. You don't know how insecure that can make a person.''
Roger nodded. Susan or no Susan, it was too late to object. He knew his mother's tirades-they grew longer every time you tried to let her know there was more than one side to an issue. The only way anyone could possibly survive was to suffer in silence.
”Well, what could I do?” His mother sighed, a faraway look in her eyes. ”With you gone-it's funny. I started to think how you were as a little boy-I mean, besides being messy and inconsiderate. I started going through my keepsake drawer. You know how sentimental a mother can be. And then I found this cheap plastic ring.”
She looked up wistfully, including everyone on the beach in her conversation. ”You know, when Roger was a boy, he loved the free prizes that came in cereal boxes. It seemed I had saved one, along with those old school reports and handmade valentines.”
Big Louie had sidled up to Roger. He stood on his tiptoes and whispered in Roger's ear. ”She'll go on like this for quite a while, won't she?”
Roger nodded, his eyes still respectfully watching his lecturing parent.
”And then there was all this blue smoke. At first, I thought it was the furnace, backing up again-”
”Did you ever think about the implications of all this,” Louie went on. ”Your mother not only accidentally uses the Captain Crusader Decoder Ring, but she ends up here, in the exact same place as her son? Do you realize how coincidental this all is?”
Roger nodded even more vehemently. Of course, after what he'd been through in the Cineverse, nothing would surprise him.
”No, nothing surprises me, either,” Louie agreed, even though Roger hadn't spoken aloud. ”But this is still too strange to be coincidence. I sense the hand of the Plotmaster in all this.”
”The Plotmaster?” Roger asked, his voice a mixture of astonishment and relief. At last he could tell the others what had happened to him! ”I've met the Plotmaster!”
Everybody-with the exception of Roger's mother, who was too busy complaining- stopped to stare at Roger.”What?” Delores asked gently, a look of concern in her deep blue eyes. ”Are you sure?”
”Plotmaster mythic,” the jungle prince added. ”Even more mythic than Zabana!”
”n.o.body ever actually meets the Plotmaster,” Louie agreed as he shook his head in admiration. ”Maybe you do have methods!”
”Roger?” his mother demanded. ”Are you listening to me?”
”In a minute, Mother.” Roger turned back to the others. ”But a number of us have spoken to the Plotmaster. He saw not only me, but Louie, Doc, and Zabana!”
”He did?” Louie asked incredulously.
”Shure!'' Doc scoffed from his spot on the ground. ”And they call me the town drunk!”
”No, wait!” Roger insisted. He had to get them to believe him. He had the feeling this whole thing with the Plotmaster was somehow tied up with the Change, and the very fate of the Cineverse! But how could he explain it?
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