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down fuzzy cheeks. I know you ain t. Once you get back to your own world through that bloody ole in
the ground you ll be back in familiar surroudin s, back among your own kind, an you ll forget all about
us. About poor ol Mudge, an Weegee, and that senile ardshell Clothahump who needs you to look
after im in is old age, and even about Talea. You ll get back to where everythin s comfortable an safe
an relaxin an you won t be comin back ere. He grabbed the vee of Jon-Tom s indigo shirt and
shook him.
Are you listenin to me, you ugly, ignorant, naive bald-faced monkey? Wot am I goin to do if I never
see you again?
Take it easy, Mudge. Feeling a little teary-eyed himself, Jon-Tpm disengaged the otter s fingers from
his shirt. I wouldn t run out permanent on my best friend, even if he is a liar, a cheat, a thief, a drunk and
an incorrigible wencher.
Mudge wiped at his eyes and nose. It does me eart good to ear you talk like that, mate. He stepped
back. Maybe you will come back, but I ain t goin to old me breath. I ve seen wot appens to folks
when they gets back to where they belong. I sure as ell ain t goin to take any bets on you retumin .
If for some reason I don t, I don t want you lying around moping and moaning about it all the time.
Wot, me? The otter forced a cheery smile. Not a bleedin chance!
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Jon-Tom looked at the entrance to the cave. We had ourselves an interesting time, didn t we? Set
some evil back on its heels, met some special folks, spread some goodwill and generally shook up the
status quo. No reason for regrets. He dropped to his knees and lit the first torch, crawled toward the
opening beneath the ledge.
I ll be back, you ll see. Tell Talea not to fret. I ll be coming for her.
Sure you will, mate. Mudge stood next to Weegee. Cautious waved farewell along with the otters
while Teyva pawed the earth. The only thing absent from Mudge s goodbyes was a feeling of conviction.
Jon-Tom stumbled down the familiar tunnel until he could stand. Shouldering his backpack he held the
torch close to the floor, following the damp footprints he and his friends had left on their previous
subterranean excursion as well as those of the pirates who had pursued them. Within an hour he was
following the crumbling wire back to the cleft in the rocks that led to his-own world.
Halfway through the narrow passage he extinguished his torch. Light and voices reached him from the
other side. He was able to use the distant glow to guide him the rest of the way through the defile.
Soon after he emerged, a voice yelled at him.
Hey, you there! He blinked as his eyes received the full force of a multicell flashlight, put up a hand to
shield them as he tried to locate the speaker.
What is it?
The light was lowered along with the voice. Don t lag back there. This cave s full of dangerous dropoffs
and unexplored dead ends. We ain t lost anybody yet and I don t want to start today.
Sorry. As his eyes adjusted he found a dozen people staring at him. A couple of families, some young
couples, one or two younger people traveling on their own. One shouldered a backpack as grungy as his
own.
The guide resumed his well-worn spiel. Now over here, folks, we have a formation called the bashful
elephant.
The faces turned away. Children oohed and aahed. No one questioned Jon-Tom s sudden appearance.
Those in the front of the guided party assumed Jon-Tom had been in the back, and those in the back
assumed he d entered with the guide. He simply fell in step with the tour and followed it back out into the
bright warm sunshine of a Texas afternoon. There was the old building where he and his companions had
battled Kamaulk s pirates and then drug runners, behind him the stone entrance to the cavern below, at
the end of the dirt road the sign identifying this as the location of the Cave-With-No-Name, and off in the
distance the highway where a passing eighteen-wheeler had startled his friends. South of the highway lay
San Antonio. Twelve hundred odd miles to the west was the megalopolis of Los Angeles, his home.
He turned to watch the old guide latch the gates which sealed the cave entry. Not too many yards below
lay a small twist in space-time. Through that inexplicable, tenuous passage could be found a land where
otters talked and a certain turtle practiced at sorcery, where he had battled armies of intelligent insects,
ferocious ferrets and parrot pirates.
As Mudge would say, it was bloody unreal.
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The tourists were filing back into their cars. Jon-Tom made several hopeful inquiries before one of the
young couples agreed to give him a lift into San Antonio. Comfortably ensconced in the back seat of their
Volvo he was removing his backpack when he happened to notice the elaborate digital clock set in the
dash. In addition to the time of day it also provided full date information.
He knew he d been gone more than a year, but it was one thing to view time in the abstract, quite
something else to see it solid and irrefutable in the form of cool blue LED letters and numbers. How
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