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*Chapter 13: Jumping Ship - lock180 - 05-15-2024 Catch Up on Previous Chapters: Start From the Beginning: Chapter 1 Most Recent Chapter: Chapter 12 Graders Split 60/40 for @lock180/@homercrates The Book of Zen Chapter 13: Jumping Ship ILLUSTRATED BY: Thor Dangerson Rebel stares down at Zenzeroni who is sitting squeezed in between four boxes. Zenzeroni’s eyes turn as big as saucers when he sees Rebel’s face and tries to subtly move the box into place but Rebel puts her foot in front of the box to stop it from being moved in front of Zenzeroni. “When we were first leaving the docks I was inspecting the mast. As I was making my way down from the crow’s nest I heard a splash and watched you swim toward our boat and get on. I must say it was quite the clever ruse back at the tavern from what I’ve heard. One Eyed Larry is right about not allowing you to come on this trip but they don’t call me Rebel for nothing and I LOVE me a good espionage mission.” Zenzeroni’s eyes only get larger the more and more Rebel talks “So I think we should reunite you with your crew. I’ve already radioed over to Smoky informing him you would be joining them shortly.” “I think I want to go back to the island now….” Zenzeroni says realizing this voyage really wasn’t thought it would be.” “Oh honey, it is far too late for that. We are going to have some fun with this too….trust me” Rebel says with a mischievous smile. “Can we just tell One Eyed Larry?” “Where’s the fun in that? So as I was saying, here’s what we are going to do. We are going to sneak you into the crow’s nest with a distraction and then zipline you across via a wire already connected to the crow’s nest of The Spaghetti Monster and reunite you with your crewmates without One Eyed Larry even knowing.” “But what if he does find out?” “Don’t get caught and you won’t have to find out!” Rebel says. “How are we going to distract him?” “WE aren’t going to distract him. I am. We need to go over some of the maps more carefully especially because he isn’t as familiar with the path to the Atlantic as he is with the coasts of the Oceania region. We will be talking through those plans in the Captain’s Quarters which is on the main deck but secluded with a room with only one door and two windows. You should have no trouble making your way up to the crow’s nest from there.” “What about the rest of the crew?” “They won’t bat an eye. As long as One Eyed Larry doesn’t say anything they won’t know that they should say something.” “It will be fun and trust me if you do get caught nothing bad will happen to you. You are practically his son.” “Really?” Zenzeroni’s saucer eyes look hopefully at Rebel. “Really. Now get up and wait for my signal.” “What is your signal going to be?” “You’ll know.” Rebel says giving Zenzeroni a wink. Zenzeroni gets to his feet and walks with Rebel to the stairs and gets into position to watch her make her move. Watching from the edge of the staircase at the top of the main deck, Zenzeroni looks on as Rebel approaches One Eyed Larry at the Captain’s wheel and says something to him. One Eyed Larry whistles and a crewmate takes the wheel as he leads Rebel to the Captain’s Quarters. Unsure of if this is the so called “signal” Zenzeroni cautiously makes his way up the rest of the stairs and out onto the main deck. However, this was NOT the signal, and One Eyed Larry wanders back out of the Captain’s Quarter seemingly having forgotten something. With nowhere to hide and in the middle of the deck Zenzeroni freezes and watches painfully as One Eyed Larry makes his way back to the Captain’s wheel and grabs the tweed hat he had forgotten. From there One Eyed Larry goes on to have a five minute discussion with the crew member at the wheel while Zenzeroni still refuses to move. One Eyed Larry says one last thing to the crew member and looks out at the rest of the boat and directly in the direction of where Zenzeroni is standing. Zenzeroni holds his breath (like that would do anything) and thinks he meets eye to eye with One Eyed Larry but after a painstakingly long time, One Eyed Larry works his way back to the Captain’s Quarter and out of sight once more. After 10 seconds there is a loud bang as the sound of a pistol goes off. “FALSE ALARM,” The annoyed voice of One Eyed Larry says through the closed door of the Captain’s Quarter. Realizing this was the cue Rebel was referring to Zenzeroni rapidly makes his way to the base of the crow’s nest and begins to climb. Getting weird looks from some of the crew Zenzeroni ignores them and continues to climb until he reaches the crow’s nest landing. Zenzeroni quickly takes stock of his surroundings and sees the wire Rebel had told him about in their briefing. Zenzeroni follows the wire across a 50 foot length to The Spaghetti Monster travelling side by side with The Flying Lasagna. Seeing no other option and knowing One Eyed Larry could come out at any moment, Zenzeroni wraps his noodle arms around the wire and pushes off the crow’s nest. It isn’t the most graceful zipline experience but it gets the job done. Whether the crew on The Flying Lasagna or any other ship noticed the floating 12 year old child Zenzeroni would not know his sole focus was on the crow’s nest of The Spaghetti Monster which was slightly lower than that of The Flying Lasagna due to The Spaghetti Monster being a slightly smaller ship. As Zenzeroni gets closer and closer he sees Plankton waiting with a big smile on his face that he is so well known for. At long last Zenzeroni reaches Plank and when he gets close enough Plank grabs him in a giant group hug. “Zenzy friend. Plank happy” The big lovable Plank says refusing to let go of Zenzeroni. “Hey, buddy.” Zenzeroni says unable to stop a smile from creeping onto his face. Zenzeroni looks back at the Flying Lasagna and Plank grabs a pair of scissors and cuts the wire connecting the two ships. “Zenzy meet more friends.” Plank says pointing down to where the rest of the crew is all looking up waving and smiling. “Get down here before One Eyed Larry shoots you off the nest” Smoky shouts from below. Plank puts Zenzeroni on his back and makes his way down the ladder to the applause and excitement of his fellow crewmates and friends. It looked like this trip might not be as bad as Zenzeroni thought. RE: Chapter 13: Jumping Ship - jreed12 - 05-15-2024 Wow! Zenzeroni did something right! This is true character development