The Big Day

Chapter 3: Dragon's Lair (Continuation of the short story)

“Hi guys,” Josh said as he sat down with a lunch tray at the table with Greg and Kenny.

“Hey Josh,” Greg said.

“One more class and then we get to go to the arcade. I’m so excited,” Kenny said.

“Yeah, I can’t wait,” Greg said.

“My mom let me raid her coin cup. Look at all the quarters I got,” Josh said as he pulled out a fistful of quarters.

“Wow, that’s a lot of quarters,” Spider said as he walked by the table with a group of eighth graders. “You might have enough to play for more than five minutes.” He laughed at his own joke and then said, “See you losers there.” He and his group of friends walked away laughing at Spider’s casual cruelty.

“I can’t believe he was playing a video game with us just a month ago,” Greg said.

“I’m just glad he doesn’t beat us up for our lunch money. I was watching some rerun, and there was an episode about a kid losing his lunch money to a bully.” Josh said, quickly putting his quarters back in his pocket.

“He’s not normally like that. I think he’s trying to impress some new kids,” Kenny said, sounding ashamed of the way his brother was acting. He packed up the rest of his half-eaten lunch. “I need to finish some homework before the last class.” He said, and then left.

“Eighth graders are the worst,” Greg said.

“Yeah,” Josh said, thinking about what happens over the summer to turn seventh graders into the mean bullies they become and hoping it doesn’t happen to him.

“I’ll see you at the arcade,” Greg said, standing up and picking up his lunch trash.

“Yeah,” Josh said, still distracted by his thoughts on older bullies.

***

“Hey Josh,” Kenny said.

“Hey Kenny,” Josh said. “Has Greg gotten here yet?”

“I don’t think so,” Kenny said, standing near the front door, not making any attempt to go in.

“Excuse me,” an older girl said as she walked up to them. She had been taping a piece of paper to the window of the arcade.

“Hey,” Josh said to her.

“Have you seen these boys?” The girl asked, handing Josh and Kenny copies of the flyer she had been taping to the window. “The shorter one in the picture is my brother, and he’s been missing for a little over a month.”

The boys looked at the picture. It was of three boys about their age standing together on their bikes. “I think I’ve seen them at the arcade before it closed down,” Kenny said.

“Yeah, me too,” Josh said.

“Well, have you seen them recently?” The girl asked.

“No,” both Josh and Kenny said, trying to hand back the flyer.

“Keep it, in case you see them you can call that number and tell my parents where they are,” she said disappointedly.

“I wonder what happened to them,” Kenny said, stuffing the flyer in his pocket.

“Yeah, I think I remember them playing at the arcade when that creepy guy worked here,” Josh said.

“You mean the goblin?” Josh asked.

“Well, I guess you could call him that; he was creepy enough to be a make-believe creature,” Josh said.

“No, he really was a goblin, don’t you remember?” Kenny asked.

“What? there is no such thing as goblins,” Josh said, looking at Kenny. After a moment, he finally asked, “Are you going in?”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Kenny said, looking down at the ground.

“Well then, come on, let’s go,” Josh said, slapping Kenny on the back and reaching for the door.

“Hey guys,” Greg said to the two of them as he rode up.

“Hi Greg,” Josh said, stopping.

“Hey,” Kenny said.

Greg put his bike in the rack and locked it up.

“Yay, It’s finally open again,” Greg yelled in excitement, then grabbed his friends’ arms and dragged them in.

The place had stand-up video game consoles in rows with a big open area that had sit-down console games with all the classic games like Pac-Man and Ms Pac-Man. The new popular games were surrounded by groups of kids.

Kenny was looking everywhere, not with wonder but with concern or even fear.

“Wow, this place is amazing,” Greg said, mesmerized by all the blinking lights and the sounds of electronic battles. “I know what I’m going to play,” He said as he ran off to the combat game that used to be taken up by Spider and his buddies.

“I think I’m going to wander and see all the games here,” Josh said.

“I’ll go with you,” Kenny said, still looking around like he was expecting something bad.

The games were laid out so that there was an aisle all around the perimeter with games on either side. In the four corners, there was a little grouping of four games making a small circular area where all the games were themed the same. In one of the little circular areas in the second corner was the game Goblins with an out-of-order sign covering the coin slot and another covering part of the screen.

“Hey, there’s the game we liked playing,” Josh said. He stopped and went over to it.

Kenny hesitated and then followed him.

“That’s funny,” Kenny said.

“What’s funny?” Josh said, looking at the game around the out-of-order sign.

“There was a dragon on that pile of gold before,” Kenny pointed to the game’s display. There, on the screen was a pile of gold and jewels.

“I think you’re right, and wasn’t there small people picking up the treasure in the demo screen?” Josh asked.

“Yeah, now there’s nothing, just a screen of twinkling treasure,” Kenny said.

After a moment, the screen changed to show the high scores. At the top of the list was the letters they had put in, ‘JGK’, and right below it was the letters ‘DBSP’.

“I can’t believe we liked to play that game,” Josh said, dismissing it and then turning to continue around the place.

“It’s not going to be working anytime soon, if ever,” a voice from behind them said. Turning around, Josh saw that it was a tall grey-haired man with a long flowing beard. He was wearing a vest with the new arcades legend above a breast pocket. Under the vest, the man was wearing a long flowing coat.

“How are my favorite goblins? Uhm, I mean, how are you two young men whom I don’t know and have never met before?” He asked with a wink.

“Mike?” Kenny asked.

“Mike, who’s Mike? My name’s Bob, yeah Bob that’s a name to be proud of,” Mike said.

“Mike!” Kenny exclaimed and then ran up and hugged him. “I didn’t think I would ever see you again.”

“Shh, I’m incognito,” Mike whispered, looking around theatrically to see if anyone overheard.

“Who is this?” Josh asked.

“It’s Mike!” Kenny almost yelled in excitement. “I thought you couldn’t come here?” The last he said to the man.

“Couldn’t come here? What?!? What are you talking about?” Josh asked.

“I think I’m the only one that remembers you,” Kenny said to Mike.

“Who is this guy and why are you hu…” Josh started to ask when the man breathed in a big breath and then let out a blast of air and steam that was too big to have come from human lungs.

When the steam and smoke and bad fish smell hit Josh, he stopped for a moment and his eyes went unfocussed.

“Ohhh,” he said as he wiped away some drool from his chin that had slipped out while he was under the effect of the spell.

“Uhmm, how did I forget everything?!? It was only a month ago!” Josh complained. “Oh, we need to get Greg over here.”

“And my brother,” Kenny said.

“Have them come see me in my cave, I mean my office,” Mike said and then turned back to whatever he had been doing when he encountered the boys.

“Wow, I can’t believe I couldn’t remember the goblin or the goblins game or the dragon, I mean Mike,” Josh said, still standing there.

“Let’s go get Greg and my brother,” Kenny said, pushing Josh to get him moving.

“Right,” Josh said, following Greg as he started to jog towards the last place they had seen Greg.

They had to go around the perimeter twice before they finally found him. He was in the middle of a group of boys all watching Spider and another boy playing a combat game where they had to battle each other.

“Hey guys,” Greg said when Josh and Kenny stepped up behind him. “Isn’t that a cool game? They have to battle each other, and the one that wins gets to keep playing. Your brothers already played two other guys, and he’s about to win another round.”

“Wow, he’s won three games,” Josh said.

“We found Mike,” Kenny said, not able to keep the news.

“Who’s Mike?” Greg asked.

“You know the dragon,” Kenny said.

“Really, you call a dragon Mike. That’s not a very cool name. You should call him … hmm … I know, ‘Death from Above’ or ‘Furnace of Death’ or anything cool but not Mike,” Greg said.

“But that’s his name; we can’t just call him something that’s not his name,” Kenny protested.

“Ok, ok, you can call him Mike or Steve or whatever you think his name is,” Greg said, turning back to watch Spider destroy another opponent.

“Wow, that was cool. Did you see that final move? That was so cool the way Spider made the guy jump up and then flatten him under his foot,” Greg said.

“Come on, let’s go see Mike,” Josh said.

“Now you’re calling it that?” Greg asked.

“Just come on,” Josh insisted.

“All right,” Greg relented.

The three walked to the back of the building to the office.

“There aren’t any games back here,” Greg complained.

“Well, there’s another one of your party,” Mike said when they walked through the office door.

“Who are you?” Greg asked. “Did you make them bring me back here. If this is the way you treat customers, I think I’ll find another place to play video games.”

Mike took a deep breath and then let out a breath of steam and smoke.

“Now you’re smoking … oh,” Greg’s complaints were stopped by the smoke, and then he had the same reaction as Josh.

“Thank you, Mike, oops I mean Bob,” Kenny said.

“Wow,” was all Greg could say for a few moments.

“Well, you can thank me by helping him out; I have a business to run,” Mike said.

“Yeah, we’re trying,” Josh said as he tried to get Greg to step out of the office.

“Wow,” Greg said again.

“Come on, we can go sit down at a Mrs. Pac-Man machine,” Josh said, grabbing Greg’s shoulder and helping him out the door.

“Ok,” Greg said, still a little out of it.

Josh and Kenny walked Greg to the center of the place and sat him down at an empty video game.

“Here,” Josh said as he reached into his pocket to pull out a few quarters for the machine. When he pulled out a quarter, the flyer the girl had given him fell out.

“Here, you dropped this,” Mike said, picking up the piece of paper. “I want to keep the place clean.” He put it on top of the game and then looked at it. “Hmm, I remember these boys,” He said after looking at it.

“What do you mean you remember them?” Josh asked.

“Those boys visited me one of the days you guys didn’t. They were there only one time, and then I never saw them again,” Mike said.

“That’s interesting,” Josh said. “Do you think the goblin was trying to steal from multiple games?”

“They are very greedy creatures. When I was moving the games around, I noticed there were a lot of games with gold or jewels or money. If the goblin saw that, he probably tried to get that treasure too,” Mike said.

“When he sent us to you the last time he said we were going for the last time, I wasn’t sure what that meant when he said it I was hoping that he meant we wouldn’t have to go anymore,” Josh said.

“He was going to leave us there,” Kenny said.

“What!” Josh exclaimed.

“I fear that you are correct, young wizard,” Mike said to Kenny.

“Do you think he left those boys in a game somewhere?”Josh asked.

“That would be a very goblin thing to do,” Mike said.

“Can we go get them?” Greg asked, finally piping up.

“Are you doing better now?” Kenny asked.

“Yeah,” Greg said and then hit the one player button on the game he was seated at.

“Mi … I mean, Bob, the jungle adventure game is glitching again,” a man dressed in a vest of the arcade said after walking up to the group. He was under four feet tall with a beard down to his belt.

“Ok Digger, I’ll take a look at it. Put a sign on it,” Mike said to him. Digger looked at the boys and then walked away.

“You boys can go after them, but I cannot,” Mike said, addressing Greg’s question. “First we have to find them.”

“Aren’t they just in your world?” Josh asked.

“No, I sent them back just like I sent you boys back. They will have to be in a game that is a portal and most importantly has to have treasure,” Mike said.

“If we go looking, is there any way we will know if they are in a game?” Kenny asked.

“Good question, let me think about it,” Mike said as he pulled out a lollipop. “Have you guys ever had one of these? They are so good.” He stuck it in his mouth without removing the wrapper.

“Uhmm Mike, you should remove the wrapper first,” Josh said.

“Oh,” Mike said as he pulled the pieces of paper out of his mouth. “Now what would you see? Hmm. Well, you might see nothing.”

“Nothing!?! Then how do we find them?” Kenny asked.

“Well, you might see extra characters or even see characters that don’t belong,” Mike said.

“Then let’s start looking,” Greg said, standing up, followed quickly by the sound of Mrs Pac-Man dying.

Josh and Greg ran to the closest game and started looking.

“What do we do if we find them?” Kenny asked.

“Come find me, and I will help you guys,” Mike said.

“Thank you,” Kenny said and then joined the other boys.