Get caught up on Susie’s Adventure and read the previous chapters.

Susie’s Shell Searching Adventure /// Chapter 8

Mel had been gone for some time now. Susie had only just managed to collect all of her materials for the raft. She had, in separate piles, some sticks, some mud, and some long, stringy sort of plants that she thought would make some decent rope. She was sweating. It had been difficult work dragging things three to four times the size of her own body. It was at this moment that she really wished they had befriended one of those dung beetles back at the circus. 

Her task, now, was an easy one. Slap some sticks on a flat surface, spank some mud on them like glue, then wriggle some plants about a small bundle of sticks. Six sounded like a good number. Nice and even. She’d bundle up every six sticks and then, once she had a good number of bundles, she’d start to gather them up in the shape of a raft. If she hurried, she might even get it finished before Mel came back. 

She got to work, nudging the sticks towards each other with her nose. The mud was the worst part. She’d gobble up a good amount, try not to taste it, and spit it out on top of the nook between sticks. Then she’d slime along the top until she couldn’t feel the nook pass along her underbelly. She’d grip the rope in her mouth and drag it along the top of each bundle, one rope for each end of the bundle, then she’d ram the sides of the sticks until they rolled far enough for the rope to circumnavigate the bundle. She took the ends of the ropes in her mouth, and out came a perfect little knot, neat as a cherry stem. 

The shape of the raft didn’t seem to matter much. The slugs were light enough that Susie wasn’t worried about sinking. She made a simple little half-box, the better to avoid prying eyes with. Except for all the creepy crawlies who sun tanned on the tops of trees or hung from the trees’ limbs… Susie shuddered at the thought. No matter the boat’s shape she was sure that in the bayou, they couldn’t not be watched. At the very least, the sides of the raft would prevent Bel from foreseeing her downfall. 

Just as she was latching up a door, Susie heard her name echoing through the bayou. Mel had returned and was looking for Susie, but she hadn’t seen her because Susie was inside the raft. Camouflage: check.

‘Shhhhhhhh,’ Susie said. 

‘Susie, where are you?’ Mel said. 

‘Stop it! Stop saying my name. What if Bel’s nearby? What if she has servants?’ Susie said. 

Susie had gone mad. That much was clear. The busy solitude of the bayou had gotten to her at last. Mel said, ‘Okay… but where are you?’ 

‘In the raft, of course,’ Susie said. 

Mel looked around until she finally saw the raft. ‘Oh, what the beans!’ she said. ‘You built that?’

‘Well, I didn’t go looking for any snakes to help us out, if that’s what you mean,’ Susie said. 

‘Yeah.. Turns out bayou people really don’t like newcomers. It’s like some sort of old bayou club where they just sit around and drink in the musk all day,’ Mel said. 

Susie showed Mel into the raft. She untied the rope that secured the door. On the front end of the boat, she had assembled the sticks so that there was a small window they could look out of and keep their direction. There was also one bundle of sticks on the back side that was installed vertically, acting like a rudder. One of them would navigate from the front, and the other would shift the rudder as directed. 

‘Susie, this is hot!’ Mel said. 

‘K, but like, seriously, stop saying my name. We need codenames. At least while we’re in the bayou,’ Susie said. The spy life had taken her.

They thought about it. Mel said, ‘I’ll be M.C., since I always lay down the cool beats.’ 

Susie laughed. ‘I’ll be A.S., since I’m dangerous as arsenic.’ 

They were both laughing now. Mel was pretending to move the rudder, humming pirate music as if she were captain of some crew. No crew here, just Susie. Mel slimed her way to the front window and said, ‘So this is great and all but we’ve still got a problem. How are we going to get this thing down there? Into the river?’ The mood quickly died. 

The two exited the boat and stood next to each other, staring at the conundrum before them. Here they’d come up with an excellent plan to take Bel by surprise by skirting her perimeter and entering her territory by water, but they didn’t know how to even embark on that plan. 

‘I suppose we could ask someone,’ Mel said. 

Susie frowned. This was to be the last time. She promises. ‘Okay. Did you even find anyone while you were out looking?’ she said.

‘Nah. They all looked scary.’ Mel said. 

‘So I think we can safely count that one out,’ Susie said. 

Mel grinned. ‘I know,’ she said. She donned a cheeky grin on her face.

Susie returned their attention to the boat. ‘If only it were round,’ Susie said. ‘Then we could just roll it into the water.’

‘But where would we stand?’ Mel said. 

‘If only the base of it were round. Like a semi-circle or something. Then it would be flat on top for us to stand’ Susie said. 

They both continued staring, considering the world wherein they had made the boat as a semi-circle. ‘This is hopeless,’ Susie said. ‘And I’m getting hungry.’ 

‘Imagine how that Toad must’ve felt,’ Mel said. Susie didn’t laugh. Dejection had sat its filthy haunches on their party, deflating all the joy that had been building from the moment they had met. No matter their trials, their tribulations, they had faced them together. And that had been enough: to not be alone with hardship. Yet it seemed to not be enough now. 

‘We’re alright,’ Mel said. ‘And you wanna know why?’ 

Susie started moving around the boat, trying to gain some new perspective with which to spark some genius plan. She didn’t respond. 

‘Because we’ve got each other! And we can do anything we put our minds to. You’ve just got to believe, Suse.. er, A.S.,’ Mel said. 

‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but believing hasn’t exactly been my best quality in life,’ Susie said. She slapped the bottom of her face onto the stern of the boat (her chin, I suppose) and tried to push the boat but it hardly budged.  

‘You’ve believed in me, haven’t you?’ Mel said. ‘You’ve believed that I’m your friend.’ 

Susie turned around and looked at Mel, looked her right in the eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But you’re different. I’ve never had to believe, I’ve just known.’

‘Well it really isn’t so different, you just have to start somewhere. Sometimes it’s at the beginning, sometimes it’s in the middle, and everything seems easy then. We don’t always get to choose what advantages we start with, but the important thing is just to start,’ Mel said. ‘Now that circle idea, what if we could make it work?’

Susie had perked up a little bit, not smiling really, not happy, but present. She couldn’t stay in the doldrums for long. Not here. Not together. ‘It’s too heavy,’ she said. ‘I don’t think we can get anything under it.’

‘Not under it,’ Mel said. She was beaming now. A light bulb. ‘In front of it!’

Susie stared, a kind of nervous grin. Mel said, ‘Yes! Grab a bunch of round sticks, the roundest you can find! We’ll place them in the front, then we’ll dump some rocks around the edges and give it a push. It will roll with the sticks and we can keep replacing the ones in front with the ones that roll out the back.’ 

‘M.C.’ Susie said. ‘That is the greatest plan I’ve ever heard.’ She started towards gathering the sticks but she stopped and turned back to Mel. ‘Hey,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

Mel smiled and nodded, and they both moved about. Together they gathered the roundest sticks two slugs had ever seen.

With the roundest sticks in neck, the slugs slapped the sticks down in front of their raft. They jammed little rocks and pebbles up around the sides of the raft to give a bit more of a surface to roll on. Mud simply wouldn’t do, after all. With the gruelling work complete they slimed to the stern of their vessel. 

‘Is it going to work?’ Susie said. 

‘It’s going to work.’ Mel said. 

‘How do you know?’ Susie said. 

Mel thought for a second. ‘You know that feeling that tells you something is right? That’s how. You just have to trust that feeling,’ she said. 

‘Can I tell you something?’ Susie said. Mel twisted her head to look at Susie. ‘I don’t have that feeling. In fact, I don’t even know if I can tell you what that is.’

Mel laughed. She said, ‘Then trust my feeling for now, and you can keep searching for it in yourself.’

Susie and Mel were motionless. Turns out feelings and actions are two different things. Now they just needed to figure how to turn feeling into action — they needed the courage to act. 

‘Together?’ Mel said. 

‘Together,’ said Susie. 

The two slugs slime-rushed the boat, yanking their heads back as they approached and slapping them forward onto the stern when they reached it. They both heaved. 

‘I’m touching the butt!’ Susie said. 

‘Just! Keep! Pushing!’ Mel said back. 

The two slugs pushed and pushed, putting all of their mantle into it. In their heaving, it seemed as if they were making no progress. It would have been so easy to give up. Concoct a new plan. Approach Bel on land. But they each kept shouting encouragement to each other, drawing the other back to the butt, singularly focussed on the strait and narrow path laid out before them. They were stronger together, stronger than some silly boat of their own creation. With one last slap and one last heave, they felt the boat give way, it began to move. It moved very little, granted, but it moved nonetheless. They pushed again and felt the momentum building, a snowball in a bayou. Impossible, but somehow, someway, they were making it happen. Before they knew it, sticks were starting to roll out from underneath the boat.

‘Just! Keep! Pushing!’ Mel said. She unlatched her face from the boat and rushed to grab the sticks and replenish the front line. 

Susie had an easier time of it now that the boat was already moving. She could handle the pushing alone, although it still required a great deal of effort. Mel rushed back and forth, grabbing sticks in her neck and flinging them down in front of the boat to keep things rolling. On occasion, she’d jump inside the vessel and slime-rush the sides to ensure that the boat stayed straight. On these occasions, Susie had to replenish the round sticks on her own. 

While in the boat, after ramming the sides, Mel called out from the bow, as she lept down to solid ground to give Susie one final helping tentacle, already a natural captain. She said, ‘Just a little further.’ And before Susie could ask how much further, she felt the boat give way once more. The bow tipped and the whole thing began to slide down towards the river. 

‘Climb aboard!’ Susie said, and the two slugs rushed down the slope after the boat as it crashed into the water and sent a mossy spray atop them.

 

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