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

Susie’s Shell Searching Adventure /// Chapter 9

The boat was already in the water, and, being slugs, Mel and Susie knew it was going to be difficult to catch it. Thankfully, the ropes that Susie had secured to the back door to open and close it were trailing the vessel, floating in the water just barely away from the land.

‘We’re going to have to jump!’ Mel said. 

‘Together?’ Susie said. 

‘Of course,’ said Mel. 

The two slugs lined themselves up with each of the ropes that were slithering away in the water. Sitting at the edge of the land, Susie closed her eyes and waited for Mel to count down. Mel closed her eyes and waited for Susie to count down. They both opened their eyes and looked at one another. One single nod and together, they said, ‘Three.. Two.. One….’ 

They each gave one massive heave to their sluggy bodies, unstuck themselves from the Earth, and felt the air pass beneath their soles. Slugs, mind you, aren’t the best of jumpers. Their sliminess helps to ensure they stay attached to the ground. Nonetheless, a trusting and determined soul will always manage. Or perhaps it was just naivety nudging them to accomplish what others wouldn’t. In any case, their sliminess helped them with what was to come after the jump. 

Mel crashed first, tail sinking but head securely wrapped around her rope. Susie crashed second, but she missed the rope. She thrashed about, twisting and contorting her body. ‘I’m melting,’ she screamed as the water pulled and tempted her towards the depths. She flopped about and just managed to get her mouth on the rope as the boat caught the current and started to pull them away. 

‘Hold on, Susie,’ Mel said. She had a pretty secure hold on her rope, twisted about it like licorice, her whole body fastened to some bit of it. 

Susie, however, was fighting just to keep her mouth on board. She started to swing her tail back and forth, trying to gain momentum. It was difficult, since the water created so much resistance, but she just kept swinging, using the waves to help propel her a little higher. ‘M.C., I’ma try something crazy,’ she said as best she could, her mouth a bit encumbered.

Mel gave Susie a worried look. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. Susie had seen this look a few times; fear, worry, care, and just a glint of that indescribable Melness.  As the next wave crashed into her, Susie threw her tail as high as she could toss it, at the same time she let go of the rope with her mouth. She tumbled through the air like an acrobat rolling about in a hula hoop. Head over tail she spun until she landed magnificently, back on the rope and snaked her own body around it in the same way Mel had done hers.

‘Oh my gosh, Susie!’ Mel said. 

‘THAT WAS AWESOME!’ Susie said, kicking her tail out in celebration. They were both laughing at their near-death experience. They were alive. It was all good.  

The waves ploughed into the two slugs, springing them into the air but never quite knocking them from the ropes they had fastened themselves to. This is what had become of their journey.. Two slugs wakeboarding down the bayou. 

They decided to make it into a sort of joyride. With each passing bend in the river, the one slug would try to push the other as close to the edge as possible. With every bump in the water they tried to see who could soar the highest, then they’d come crashing back down, laughing at their pain together. Susie told Mel she could do a trick. She lifted her tail-end up and tried to stand on her rope with just her head, but Mel got thrown by the water and knocked into her. She hadn’t quite let go of enough to lose her grip, so she just flopped back down onto rope. She glared at Mel.

‘Excuse me. I’m gliding here,’ Susie said. 

‘It’s not my fault! Sometimes the river’s just too strong,’ Mel said. 

Susie asked for space and Mel tried to float further to the side to give her plenty of room.  Susie started her trick again. She lifted her tail-end and went up until she was practically standing on the rope with only her mouth. Mel started laughing and cheering and Susie tried to make her tail give a sort of curtsy, but this time the water threw her. She lost her grip and fell back into the water, so shocked she didn’t even know what to do.

Mel screamed and started to arc her rope towards Susie. ‘Swim, AS, SWIM!’ she said as she started to churn the water with her tail and propel herself towards Susie’s path. The boat was moving faster than Susie, who seemed to be doing little more than bobbing up and down and trying not to gulp in the water. 

Mel paddled and paddled as hard as she could. She felt so bad. They should have just gotten on the boat like normal slugs and carried on with their journey. They should have known the danger they were putting themselves in by messing around. Their goal was to approach Bel unannounced, they didn’t know how far they had to go before they reached her, but here they were, signalling their presence to everyone around them. 

‘You have to be calm,’ Mel said. ‘I’ll help you,’ she said. But Susie was still flailing like an eel. As Mel passed over Susie’s rope, she grabbed it with her mouth and kept paddling with her tail. Susie wasn’t swimming and the boat was starting to pull Mel away from her. ‘AS,’ she said. ‘I’m going to throw the rope. You have to grab it, you understand?’ she said. 

Susie seemed to calm down, recognizing the dire state of her affairs. She was focussed, staring uncomfortably at Mel. Then Mel did a trick much cooler than Susie’s headstand. She passed Susie’s rope down to her tail and used the next bump in the water to spring herself into the air, letting go of her own rope and spinning around in a full circle, releasing Susie’s rope as her tail flew in Susie’s direction. She completed her spin, stuck her landing on her rope, and watched Susie, breath held, and mustering all the hope she knew how to. Susie’s eyes were firmly fixed on the rope as it sailed through the air. She wagged her tail and jumped out of the water like the mermaid she always knew she could be, then snatched the rope in her mouth like a dog catching a frisbee. 

Mel didn’t even cheer. She quit holding her breath and let out a sigh of relief. Susie had to do some strange twisting motions to get herself fully on her rope, albeit backwards, and then the two looked at each other. 

‘I think your trick was better,’ Susie said. 

Mel smiled. ‘To the boat,’ she said. 

‘Thanks for saving me,’ Susie said. ‘Again.’

They both started to scoot their way towards the boat, Mel shimmying frontwards, and Susie shimmying backwards. 

Susie and Mel flopped aboard their vessel like dead fish. They laid like that for a while. Quiet. Motionless. Staring at the canopy of greenery that surrounded and draped itself over the river. Occasionally Susie turned and looked at Mel. The bayou may have been creepy, but it was also sort of beautiful, and as Susie looked at Mel, she couldn’t help but feel lucky. To be here, in this strange and beautiful place with the best friend she could imagine. She’d come across this other slug while trying to eat a mushroom and against all odds, they’d become the best of friends. No one wanted to be friends with a snail turned slug. Moreover, no one had wanted to be friends with a super weird slug. But here they were on some mad journey, in this mad world, acting mad together as they laid on the deck of their boat and baked in the tendrils of sunlight that managed to slither through the cracks of the foliage. Yes, she was lucky. Lucky that of all the slugs in the world, she’d happened to come across this one. Theirs were the memories she’d always hold dear, and theirs were the memories that made her the happiest and vanquished any darkness life would try to strike her with. 

She’d turn back to look at the greenery. The boat was moving slowly again, bobbing rather than sailing. With no one at the helm, it was just kind of floating whichever way it pleased, which Susie got to thinking probably wasn’t the best thing. They didn’t want to be stuck on the bank again. 

‘MC,’ Susie said. ‘We have no direction.’

Mel turned and looked at Susie. She said, ‘What do you mean? We’re going to get your shell back and then we’re going to head back to your little meadow and you can introduce me to Trunky and everything will be golden. That’s plenty of direction.’

‘No,’ Susie said. ‘I mean the boat. We should probably steer the boat.’ 

‘Oh..’ Mel said. ‘Right. D’you wanna go do that?’

Susie gave her a sort of unimpressed look. She said, ‘Sure MC, I’ll steer the boat.’

Susie slimed her way over towards the rudder. She pulled on the ropes to the door they had flopped in through, and then took her place at the helm. ‘Yo MC, you gotta go to the front window, remember?’ 

Mel unstuck herself from the deck and slimed her way to the front window to start relaying directions to Susie. It was a boring job, looking out of windows, but it was the easiest way Susie had known to build the boat. They mozied down the river, slower than snails, until Mel finally asked Susie if she knew how to rap. 

‘No,’ Susie said emphatically. 

‘Do you know how to lay a beat?’ Mel said. 

‘You’re going to ask me to anyway, aren’t you?’ Susie said. 

‘It’s like you know me.’ Mel smiled. 

Susie bent her head around towards her body and made a sort of crease to put her mouth in. She then started puffing air into it to make some sort of drum-like beat and Mel started to wriggle her body about in some sort of dance. 

‘This is perfect!’ Mel said. ‘This can be our sailing song. Just let me think about the lyrics real quick.’

Susie rolled her eyes but kept raspberrying the beat as she gripped tight to the rudder.

 

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