"He apologizes," said the frog. "Apparently he ate it."
"He ate the treasure?" Jill exclaimed.
"Oh, boy," said Jack.
The salamander reared back with his huge, pink, fleshy head and roared some more. "He"s very sorry," said the frog. "He didn"t mean to."
"At least he"s polite . . ." Jack marveled.
"He said someone dropped it into his pit a long time ago by accident, and he ate it."
"Can you-" Jill began, but the frog cut her off.
"Sure," he said. "I"ll ask him to explain."
So the frog croaked at the salamander. The salamander wrapped his enormous, fleshy tail around his legs. As he moved it, the cavern shook and shifted, and in the distance hundreds of stone stalact.i.tes fell from the rock ceiling into the lava sea. The salamander roared.
"He says he didn"t used to live so far under the ground," said the frog. "He used to live near the surface."
The salamander roared again. "The goblins used to like him, he says. He sounds kind of sad about it."
The salamander roared yet again. "He powered their forges with his breath." The frog waited for more from the salamander.
When there"d been silence for a moment too long, the frog croaked at him.
Eddie roared in reply.
The frog said to the children, "Right. Sorry. He"s starting the story over again. You"ve got to get used to this with salamanders. It"s very hard for them to remember anything they"ve said more than a few sentences ago."
After a bit of roaring, the frog said, "Okay, he"s back to where we left off. So he lived in a big sinkhole, and would breathe fire to heat the goblins" homes and power their forges. But then, one day, at some ceremony that he tried to explain but I didn"t understand, they dropped the Gla.s.s into his mouth. By accident. And they were very mad." Jack and Jill looked up at the salamander. He was watching them with his tiny black eyes, as if he wished they would understand.
The frog croaked at Eddie, and Eddie roared some more. "He forgot where he was again. Hold on." The frog croaked, the salamander roared, and the frog turned to Jack and Jill. "And we"re back. So once he"d swallowed their treasure, they drove him deep down into the earth by dropping boulders on his head and pouring cold water on him, which he did not like at all. So now he lives down here by himself, and he never gets to ask anyone any questions."
"He never gets to what?" said Jill.
"Ask anyone any questions," replied the frog. "You know. Salamanders love to ask stupid questions."
"Oh," said Jack and Jill at once. "Right."
They stood there in silence, staring up at the ma.s.sive, grotesque head of the beast, who stared back down at them as if he was waiting for something.
The frog said, "Hold on," and he began croaking at the salamander. The salamander nodded his huge head and the whole cavern shook. "It"s still in his stomach!" said the frog. "It"s lodged right next to his intestines. He can feel it!"
Jill thought she was going to be sick. Jack said, "You mean, he could cough it up for us?"
The frog croaked at Eddie. Eddie roared back.
"He"s tried to disgorge it for however many hundreds of years he"s had it in there. He can"t. But he"d be happy to let you go in and get it." Jill turned green and shook her head violently.
Eddie"s tiny eyes narrowed. Jack looked up at him and thought that that was probably what pa.s.sed for a sly look for a salamander. Eddie roared. The frog turned to the children. "But before he lets you crawl down his throat, we have to answer his questions."
"That doesn"t sound so bad," said Jack.
"It"s going to be awful," said the frog.
"Can we go back to the part about "crawling down his throat"?" Jill interjected.
"One trauma at a time, please," said the frog. He croaked at Eddie, and was answered by a roar. The frog smiled. He turned to Jack and Jill. "What"s better, red or blue?" he said.
"What?" said Jack.
"Is that a joke?" said Jill.
The frog smiled smugly at them. "It"s the first question. Welcome to my world."
"I don"t know!" said Jill. "What"s the right answer?"
"No idea," said the frog. "That"s the beauty of it."
"Blue," said Jack.
"Red," said Jill.
Eddie roared loudly. Jack and Jill clamped their hands over their ears. "Don"t confuse him," said the frog. He turned and croaked at Eddie.
"What"d you say?" Jill demanded.
"Purple," replied the frog. "Compromise."
"He accepted that?" asked Jack. But Eddie"s eyes were glazed over and his mouth was drawn back like he was lost in a contemplative smile.
"That"s going to be a lot of information for him to process," said the frog. "Give him a minute now." Sure enough, a few minutes pa.s.sed, and the salamander stopped grinning and roared again. "He wants to know which is bigger, the sky or the earth."
"The sky," said Jill.
"The earth," said Jack.
Eddie roared, and Jack and Jill covered their ears. Their bones shook. "Guys!" the frog hissed.
Jill whispered, "The sky goes all the way around the earth, and it is really, really high! It"s bigger!"
"But the earth is really thick," replied Jack. "It"s like wrapping a ball in a quilt! Which is bigger, the ball or the quilt?"
"Depends on the quilt," said Jill.
The frog turned and croaked.
"What"d you tell him?" Jill wanted to know.
"Yes," said the frog.
"What"s that supposed to mean?"
The frog glanced up at the mountainous salamander. "I"m not sure. But he"s working on it." Eddie"s eyes were rolled back in his head, as if he were trying to remember what question he"d asked, and if yes was an acceptable answer. Eventually he seemed to decide that it was. He roared again.
"He says he"s always wanted to know which was hotter, summer or winter."
Jill smacked her forehead. "How long is this going to go on?"
"Just answer him," Jack told the frog. So the frog did. The salamander shook the cavern with his appreciative nodding. He roared again.
"He wants to know if smelly is good or smelly is bad."
Jack and Jill laughed out loud at that. The salamander roared fiercely, and a ball of fire exploded from his mouth. They both stopped laughing.
"Bad," said Jill.
"Right," said Jack.
"Wrong," said the frog, and he turned and croaked at Eddie. Eddie seemed very, very happy. He roared another question.
"He says, "Am I smelly? Very smelly? How smelly?""
"Very smelly," both children said at once. Jill added, "Unbelievably smelly."
The frog turned and croaked at Eddie, and Eddie"s head started bobbing up and down, up and down. "He"s very excited," said the frog. Eddie asked another question.
"Does everyone have a birthday?" the frog relayed to the children.
Jill hesitated. But Jack said, "Yes," and the frog told Eddie. Eddie roared.
"He wants to know when his is," said the frog.
The children looked at each other and raised their eyebrows. "What should we say?" Jack asked the frog quietly. The frog shrugged.
"Say yesterday," said Jill. "And tell him we"re sorry we missed it, but congratulations anyway." The frog turned and croaked that to Eddie, who looked a little deflated, but appreciative of their belated good wishes. He roared.
"Are salamanders people, too?" said the frog to Jack and Jill.
Jill looked at Eddie, with his grotesque translucent skin, his hideously wide mouth, his distended belly, and his thick, fleshy tail. But then she looked at his little black eyes, set just where you"d expect his ears to be. They looked at her. "Of course," she said, and she smiled at him. Jack nodded vigorously in agreement. So Eddie started nodding, too. He nodded so hard that the ground shook up and down and knocked Jack and Jill over. Then Eddie lay his head down on the ground and smiled.
All of a sudden, Jill did something that surprised her as much as it surprised everyone else. She got up and walked slowly toward Eddie. When she was just a few feet from his enormous, horrible-smelling head, she reached out and she touched it. It was slimy and fleshy and diaphanous enough to see his skull bones through it. She let her hand come to rest on his nose.
Jack scooped up the frog and followed Jill. He, too, rested his hand on Eddie"s nose. The giant salamander sighed, and Jack and Jill and the frog were enveloped in the foulest stench you can imagine. And they laughed.
The frog said, "Well, shall we get the Gla.s.s?"
Jack and Jill nodded. So the frog croaked at the salamander.
Eddie opened his mouth.
"That," said the frog, "looks like an invitation."
Eddie"s mouth was probably eight feet across and six feet tall when open. Near the front were a row of small teeth-well, small for Eddie. Each was about six inches high and shaped like a little triangle. After the row of teeth there was a patch of pink flesh, and then, about a foot farther back, was another row of slightly larger teeth. Behind the second row of teeth was an enormous mound of a tongue. Farther back was a wide, dark pa.s.sage that led down Eddie"s throat. It all looked pretty gross, of course. But how it looked was nothing compared to how it smelled.
Jill spun away as soon as Eddie opened his mouth. But Jack just clamped his hand over his nose and said to the frog, "Please don"t let him close it while we"re in there."
"What about the fire?" Jill asked, still facing the other direction.
The frog croaked and Eddie closed his mouth and roared. "He won"t burn you," said the frog. "Unless he burps."
"Do salamanders burp often?"
"All the time," replied the frog.
Jill sighed. "Remind him to keep his mouth open." The frog croaked some more. Eddie nodded with his mouth open.
Jill turned back toward Eddie, closed her eyes, did not take a deep breath, and grabbed Jack"s left hand. But Jack said, "Wait." He ran back into the corridor and got his discarded spear. While it was not necessarily hospitable to take a weapon into someone"s gastrointestinal tract, Jack certainly wasn"t going in there without it.
The children stepped over Eddie"s lip and into his mouth. The frog quietly croaked at Eddie, reminding him not to close his mouth and not to breathe any fire and to try, try, try not to burp.
"We could die right now," said Jack.
"I trust Eddie," said Jill.
"Then you"re probably as dumb as he is," Jack replied. But he didn"t mean it. He was just a little tense.
Hand in hand, they stepped over the first row of teeth, and then the second. Jill reached out with her foot and touched Eddie"s tongue. It shivered and then lay still. She looked over her shoulder at the frog. The frog nodded at her and kept up his constant stream of reminders to Eddie. Jill stepped onto Eddie"s tongue. It did not move. Jack followed her. They walked across the tongue. The stench became worse, the air thicker and hotter. Jill gagged.
"Don"t," Jack said severely. Jill swallowed hard.
They approached the dark hole of Eddie"s throat. "Ready?" said Jack.
Together, they ducked through the giant aperture and into the blackness of Eddie"s esophagus.
A rumble came from Eddie"s belly. Jack and Jill froze and gripped each other"s hand more tightly. They could hear the frog croaking.
"Why do we have to do this?" said Jack quietly. "Why are we bothering?"
"Greatest treasure in the history of the world. Very powerful. We don"t get it, we die," Jill answered.
"Right. Just wanted to make sure this wasn"t optional or anything."
"Not optional."