Missed It By That Much! gs-5 Read online

  Max took another look at the capsule. “I guess it’s not as impractical as I first thought.”

  “Max, hadn’t we better hurry?” 99 said. “We have to get to the airport.”

  “You’re right,” Max said.

  “Here, take these with you,” Dr. Hyde said, handing Max a half-dozen or so additional capsules. “They’re labeled. That means they have little stickers on them so you can tell what they are.”

  “I know what labeled means,” Max said testily.

  “I like to be sure,” Dr. Hyde said. “We scientists are always being blamed for things. And it’s because nobody understands us. At least, that’s what they say-afterwards. But this way, if I make sure you understand me, when something goes wrong, you can’t put the blame on me.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Max said. He motioned to 99 and they headed toward the door.

  “So long,” Dr. Hyde called. “That means good-bye.”

  Max and 99 left the headquarters building, and, standing at the curb, began signalling for a cab. But all of the cabs that appeared were occupied.

  “Max, the Chief will be furious if we miss that plane,” 99 said.

  “I know, 99. But what can we do? All of these- Wait a minute, here comes a cab now.”

  A taxi pulled up at the curb and stopped in front of them. The rear door opened and a befuddled-looking young man got out. Then a middle-aged woman appeared. But she remained in the cab, peering out the rear window.

  “Excuse me,” the woman said to Max, “but could you direct my son to Control Headquarters?”

  Max looked at the young man, who winced and backed off a step. Then he replied to the woman. “I’m not sure I should,” he said. “It’s a secret organization, you know. And if I go around pointing it out to everyone who drives up in a cab, it won’t stay secret very long. Could you tell me why you’re looking for it?”

  “Secret agents never tell,” the woman replied.

  Max beamed. “Oh. . you’re a secret agent. Why didn’t you say so?” He pointed to the headquarters building. “It’s right over there.”

  “I hope I didn’t get that information under false pretenses,” the woman said. “It’s not me who’s a secret agent. It’s my son. Although, to be absolutely truthful, he isn’t exactly a secret agent yet.” She spoke to the young man. “Go on, dear. It’s that building right over there. Just walk right in and ask for the Chief.”

  The young man ambled off toward the building.

  “He still needs looking after,” the woman said to Max. “He’s only thirty-two-just a baby.”

  “You say he intends to be a secret agent?” Max said dubiously, watching the young man approach the entrance to headquarters.

  “It’s his sister-in-law’s idea,” the woman explained. She waved fondly to her son. “Good luck, Arnold!”

  2

  After an all-night flight, the airliner carrying Max and 99 reached Pahzayk, the capital city of New Ghirzy. As the plane circled the field, preparing to land, Max and 99 looked down on the city from a window.

  “Why do you suppose Dr. Livingstrom came here, Max?” 99 said. “Pahzayk doesn’t look very interesting to me.”

  “If you think about it for a second, the answer is pretty obvious,” Max replied. “As you can see, this is a waterfront town. And, we know that Dr. Livingstrom is a fancier of fancy dishes. Putting two and two together, we can deduce that he came here because he had a sudden, hankering for some fancy sea food. African lobster tails would be my guess.”

  “Max, you’re so clever!”

  The plane soon landed. Max and 99 passed through customs, then took a taxi to the center of town. Reaching there, they checked into a hotel. And, after taking their luggage to their rooms, they met again in the lobby.

  “What’s the plan, Max?” 99 said.

  “I think we better start making the rounds of the restaurants that specialize in way-out foods,” Max replied. “Dr. Livingstrom has undoubtedly eaten at one or two of them. And, if we’re lucky, a waiter may remember having seen him.”

  “That’s brilliant, Max!”

  “Let’s just hope that our adversary, Whitestone, didn’t think of it,” Max said. “If he did, we may already be too late.”

  They left the hotel and got into a taxi and asked the driver to take them to a restaurant that served exotic foods. A few minutes later the cab dropped them at a place called the Greasy Ladle. When they entered they were met by a headwaiter who escorted them to a table and gave them a menu.

  “Just a second there, fella,” Max said, as the headwaiter started to leave. “We don’t know much about fancy foods. Could you recommend something?”

  The headwaiter glanced about, making sure he couldn’t be overheard, then replied in a low voice. “You want some advice? Here it is: go to another restaurant. The food they serve here, you wouldn’t believe it.” He took the menu from Max and pointed to an item. “Look at that! Breast of White Dove stuffed with Chocolate-Covered Cherries! Is that food for a human being? Or, look at this! Baked Tongue!”

  “That’s not so bad,” Max said. “As a matter of fact, I like tongue.”

  “You know where they got this tongue?”

  “Calf?”

  The headwaiter shook his head. “From the left shoe of a pair of old sneakers. Believe me, the only place you could get worse food is at home. Every night, after I have dinner here, I get a bum-bum in my tum-tum.”

  “If it’s so terrible, why do you eat here?” 99 asked.

  “I own the place,” the headwaiter replied. “What should I do, give my business to my competitor?”

  “Well, thanks for the suggestion, anyway,” Max said. “But I think we’ll stay.”

  The headwaiter handed the menu back to him! “If you’ve got any sense, you’ll eat the menu and leave the food alone,” he said, departing.

  Max and 99 scanned the selection of foods and made their choices, then Max signalled to a waiter.

  “I’ll have the Broiled Trout stuffed with Tomato Seeds,” 99 said to the waiter.

  He winced. “Do you want that with or without?” he said.

  “What’s the difference?”

  “With is two dollars extra.”

  “But what is ‘with’?”

  “If you order it with,” he replied, “you get an ambulance ride to the hospital. If you order it without, you have to walk.”

  “With,” 99 decided.

  “Waiter, before I order,” Max said, “I’d like to ask you a question. We’re looking for a fellow who may have eaten here in your restaurant recently. His name is Dr. Livingstrom. Do you remember seeing him?”

  The waiter brightened. “Dr. Livingstrom! Sure!”

  “When was the last time you saw him?” Max asked.

  “When they were putting him in the ambulance.”

  “I see. And have you seen him since?”

  The waiter shook his head. “We never see them again after they put them in the ambulance,” he said.

  “All right. Thank you.” Max picked up the menu. “I’ll have the Breast of White Dove stuffed with Chocolate-Covered Cherries. But hold the chocolate-covered cherries.”

  “I can’t do that,” the waiter said. “The chocolate melts in my hands.”

  “All right then, bring it as it is,” Max said. “I’ll take the chocolate-covered cherries out myself.”

  “You’ll be sorry,” the waiter said. “They’ll melt in your hands. Then, you’ll not only have a bum-bum in your tum-tum, but you’ll have sticky fingers. They won’t let you into the ambulance. They don’t want to get it all smeared up with sticky chocolate.”

  “Just bring the order,” Max said glumly.

  The waiter left, headed for the kitchen.

  “Max, your plan is working,” 99 said. “We’re on Dr. Livingstrom’s trail already.”

  “Well, at least we know that he’s somewhere in the vicinity,” Max said. “After we eat, I think we better check the hospital. He may still b
e there.”

  “That’s a good idea-since we’ll be going to the hospital anyway.”

  Max leaned forward. “99,” he said, lowering his voice, “glance around at the other tables and see if you see that KAOS agent, Whitestone, anywhere. I’m a little surprised that we haven’t made contact with him yet.”

  99 got a mirror from her purse, and, pretending to inspect her appearance, she looked for Whitestone at the other tables.

  “Not one person who’s white-haired and distinguished-looking, Max,” she reported.

  “That worries me,” Max said. “It’s just not normal. That KAOS agent should have tried to stop us by now.”

  The waiter arrived with the food and placed it before them. “I alerted the ambulance,” he said.

  “Waiter, I have another question,” Max said. “We’re also on the lookout for a tall, middle-aged gentleman with white hair. Have you seen him?”

  The waiter frowned thoughtfully. “What does he look like?”

  “Well, he’s tall, and middle-aged, and has white hair.”

  The waiter nodded. “I think I’ve seen him. A little short guy? Kind of young? Red-headed? He was in here last week. He ordered the same thing you just ordered-the Breast of White Dove. But I don’t know what happened to him. When the ambulance refused to accept him, he just wandered off-leaving a trail of sticky, chocolate fingerprints.”

  “Thanks, anyway,” Max said.

  The waiter departed.

  Max and 99 looked at the food.

  “Max. . I feel a kind of a. . a bum-bum in my tum-tum.”

  “So do I. And if looking at it does that, imagine what eating it will do. 99. . I think we better take something.”

  “An Alka-Seltzer?”

  “No, a powder. Let’s get out of here while we’re still reasonably healthy.”

  Max and 99 slipped out of the restaurant. Reaching the street, they hailed another cab. Max told the driver to take them to the hospital.

  “You should have ordered your dinner with,” the driver said. “You would have got a ride in an ambulance.”

  “That’s not why we’re going to the hospital,” Max replied. “We’re looking for a friend.”

  “Then you want the Y.M.C.A.,” the driver said. “You won’t make any friends at the hospital. Those people are all sick. They’re not in the mood to be friends with anybody.”

  “We’ll take our chances,” Max said. “The hospital, please.”

  It was a short drive to the hospital. The cab dropped them at the entrance. Entering, they approached the reception desk.

  “We just came from the Greasy Ladle Restaurant,” Max said to the nurse. “We were-”

  “The Greasy Ladle?” the nurse interrupted. “Then you want the Emergency Entrance. This entrance is for well people.”

  “No, no, you don’t understand,” Max said. “We’re not sick. We were told that a Dr. Livingstrom was brought here recently from the Greasy Ladle. We’d like to see him if he’s still here.”

  “I’ll check the records,” the nurse said, getting a file box from beneath the counter. After a moment of searching, she pulled a card from the file. “He left here about a week ago,” she informed them. “He didn’t like our food. He said it was too plain.”

  “Did he say where he was going?” Max asked.

  “Yes. Out for a bowl of gnu soup. The gnu is an animal we have here in Africa. To make the soup, you fill a swimming pool with boiling water, add a half ton of carrots, a half ton of onions, a half ton of chestnuts, then toss the gnu into the pool and make him swim to the other end. When he crawls out, you top it off with a dollop of whipped cream.”

  “I see,” Max nodded. “The fact that he mentioned gnu soup, did that tell you where he was going?”

  “Yes. Out of his head,” the nurse replied. “Anybody who can eat gnu soup has a sparkplug missing somewhere.”

  “No, what I mean is, is there, perhaps, a restaurant in town that specializes in gnu soup?”

  “Oh. Yes. The Ye Olde Gnu Soupe Kitchen.”

  “Thank you,” Max said, turning to leave.

  “Just a minute,” the nurse said. “Come to think of it, that’s not exactly right. When we got independence they changed the name of the Ye Olde Gnu Soupe Kitchen. It’s now the Ye New Gnu Soupe Kitchen. But they still serve the same olde swill.”

  Max and 99 left the hospital and took a taxi to the Ye New Gnu Soupe Kitchen. When they were seated at a table, they each ordered a bowl of gnu soup. They then asked the waiter if Dr. Livingstrom had been in lately. He replied that the scientist hadn’t been around in days, and suggested that they ask for him at the Curried Cod Cafe, a restaurant that specialized in corn cobs fried in butter and herbs.

  “Shouldn’t that be the Curried Cob Cafe-not cod?” Max said.

  “They wouldn’t have any customers if they called it that,” the waiter explained. “Who’d eat fried corn cobs?”

  When the gnu soup was placed before them, Max and 99 felt a rambling in their tum-tums. They slipped out without eating and hurried to the Curried Cod Cafe.

  But Dr. Livingstrom had not been there in days, either. The waiter at the Curried Cod suggested that they try at the Chop House, a restaurant near the water front.

  “That sounds more like it,” Max said, brightening. “The Chop House. What kind of chops do they specialize in? Pork Chops?”

  “Nope,” the waiter replied. “That’s rough territory down there by the water front. They specialize in karate chops.”

  “Then why would it interest Dr. Livingstrom?” Max said.

  “They also serve a free lunch,” the waiter replied. “All the boiled olives stuffed with robins’ nests you can eat. Although, no one has ever been known to eat more than one of them.”

  Max and 99 left the Curried Cod, hailed a taxi, and told the driver to take them to the water front.

  “Down there? Not me,” the driver replied. “That’s a den of thieves down there. And murderers. You know what kind of people those people are down there? When the Red Cross has a drive on for blood donations, those people down there donate more blood than anybody.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Max said. “That sounds public-spirited to me.”

  “It’s where they get the blood,” the driver said. “They get it from the people on the other side of town.”

  “All right, if you’re afraid, just take us as close as you can,” Max said.

  “That’s where we are right now-as close as I’ll get,” the driver said.

  Max and 99 got out of the cab, asked directions, then started out walking toward the water front. As they neared the area they noticed that all of the street lights had been broken. There were villainous-looking men standing in the darkened doorways, observing them sinisterly as they made their way.

  “Max. .” 99 trembled, “. . I’m frightened. .”

  “I don’t think there’s anything to worry about,” Max replied. “Unless, of course, the Red Cross has a drive on for blood donations. Frankly, what bothers me most is my tum-tum. We’ve been in a dozen restaurants today, but we haven’t had anything to eat yet. I’m getting really hungry.”

  “Me, too,” 99 said. “What I wouldn’t give for a good American meal!”

  They reached the section of piers and docks. Along the street, facing the water, was a long row of low buildings. Most of the buildings were dark. But in the distance they saw a glow of light.

  “According to the directions we got from that taxi driver, this is the street,” Max said. “The Chop House must be down there toward the end of the wharf.”

  “I hope we’re not on a wild goose chase, Max.”

  “As hungry as I am, 99, I sort of hope we are on a wild goose chase. In fact, I’m so hungry that if I had a wild goose, I’d like to have it stuffed with a second wild goose. Or a large chicken, at the very least. I’m so starved that-”

  “Max!” 99 suddenly cried, pointing. “Look! There at the end of the wharf!”

 
; Max peered ahead. He saw a brightly-lighted building. The flashing neon sign above it said:

  JOE’S AMERICAN DINER

  “Saved!” Max shouted happily. “American food!”

  “Hurry, Max!”

  They raced toward the diner.

  “Max, see those signs on the windows!” 99 cried joyously. “See what they serve! After that horrible foreign food, isn’t that a sight for sore eyes! Look! Peanut Butter Burgers! And Rice Krispies Burgers!”

  “And Marshmallow Burgers!”

  “And Home-Baked Mom’s Apple Pie Burgers!”

  They rushed up to the door of the diner. Max whipped the door open and they dashed in-and immediately plummeted downward.

  “99, we’re falling through the air,” Max said. “We’re dropping into the water.”

  “Max! What happened to the diner? It disappeared!”

  “I think I can explain that, 99.”

  “What happened!”

  “Blug-Blug-Blug,” Max replied, hitting the water and sinking beneath the surface.

  A moment later, Max and 99 reappeared, gasping for breath. They began treading water.

  “Max. . what. . what did you say?” 99 gulped.

  “I said. . Blug-Blug-Blug. .”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means, I think we’ve finally made contact with the KAOS agent, Whitestone. Remember? The Chief told us that he’s a master illusionist. That diner we saw didn’t really exist. It was an illusion. Whitestone used it to try to destroy us. He hoped that we’d drown.”

  “Max! That’s terrible!”

  “It certainly is. I had my heart set on a peanut butter burger.”

  “We better get back to the dock, Max.”

  “In our condition, I think you’re right. I think it’s a dry dock.”

  They dogpaddled to the dock, then climbed up out of the water. “Well, at least we got where we were going,” Max said. “There’s the Chop House over there.”

  99 looked. “That taxi driver was right,” she said. “That’s a den of thieves, if I ever saw one. If he’s never been down here, I wonder how he was able to describe it so well.”