“What did you say?” replied Gregorex. “What in the world is a brain muscle?”
“Just hold on and let me think! It’s hard to think when it’s light out, let alone when it’s pitch dark!” Andres bellowed. Then, after a few more awkward seconds, he said, “Okay--I almost forgot. When I first got there, Pipes said something like, ‘It’s another nasty laborer,’ which wasn’t a very nice thing to say. But then the girl agreed and said, ‘Another nasty laborer indeed.’ For someone that’s supposed to be all nice and everything, I don’t think she should have just agreed with that! I mean, she doesn’t even know me!” Andres voice kept rising as he talked.
“But she does know you!” Gregorex retorted. “You’re Prince Andres. Everybody knows you! But she’s not saying you’re nasty or anything. And besides, why are we yelling at each other? We’re jailed up in a cell that is smaller than most outhouses! Let’s quiet down!”
Andres nodded in agreement, and then realized that Gregorex couldn’t see him nod, so he said, “All right! I’ll quiet down. But tell me this--if she’s not saying I’m nasty or anything, why did she call me ‘another nasty laborer’?”
“It’s another word game,” Gregorex said. “If you take the first two letters from each of the words ‘another nasty laborer’, you spell ‘Annala’. You see, it’s just another way to let me know that she’s still alive. Wow, is she incredible or what?”
“Yep, she’s incredible,” Andres replied in a relative monotone. He didn’t figure that it would do much good to argue with Gregorex. But to tell the truth, he was getting pretty excited about the prospect of getting out. After only an hour or so of captivity in this dark and smelly dungeon, he was ready to escape.
“Okay, so what else did she say?” pressed Gregorex, his voice rising again. “Remember, we’ve got to figure out where this dumb key goes. And it’s pretty hard to find a little keyhole in the dark. Keep thinking!”
“Now who’s the one yelling?” asked Andres, only slightly irritated. “Look, I can’t remember everything. For goodness’ sake, I’m just a teenager that’s been captured! That is pretty traumatic stuff for someone who hasn’t even started to shave yet!” Andres caught his breath, then piped up again. “Oh yeah, she said something weird about how I’ll try to ‘match them’. She said it three times, I think. ‘Will you be able to match them?’ she asked. What kind of foolish question is that?” Andres was getting kind of irritable at this point. It had been a long time since he’d had a good night’s sleep, and it was catching up to him. And he really did hate the dark.
Gregorex then spoke up. “Oh, Andres, you are so right,” he declared, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Lowering his voice, he continued, “Yes, what a foolish question. She couldn’t possibly be giving a hint like...like that THERE IS A MATCH IN THE CELL!”
“Oh,” replied Andres as he slapped himself on his forehead. It hadn’t occurred to him that ‘match’ could be used as both a verb and a noun. But his frustration with himself didn’t last long. “Well gee whiz, if there is a match in here, let’s find it and get some light in here! I can’t even see myself think!”
“All right, genius, let’s see if she gave us any other clues that might tell us where the match is,” replied Gregorex in a surprisingly calm voice. “Can you think of anything else?”
“No...no, I just can’t,” said Andres. “After she talked about how ‘she is carried on our new eastern road’, she kind of wrapped things up. I think I’ve already told you all the mysterious stuff.”
A few more moments of silence ensued. Andres hated it. “Hey Gregorex, are you there?” he asked, for no other reason than to break the silence.
“Yeah, yeah,” Gregorex replied. Then his voice rose once again. “I’ve got it! It’s hidden in another corner!”
“How did you figure that out?” Andres asked.
“Well, it’s another acronym. The first letters of the words in the phrase ‘carried on our new eastern road’ spell ‘corner’. It’s another clue. Oh, my babes is so doggone smart. Let’s start looking, pal.”
“Hold on,” said Andres. “Don’t get so excited. It spells ‘cooner’, not ‘corner’. Can’t your girlfriend even spell?”
Dead silence ensued. Andres wondered if maybe he’d said the wrong thing. Then he felt two hands grab his shoulders. It wasn’t the friendliest embrace he’d ever felt. Then he heard Gregorex say, in a low but strong voice, ‘Don’t ever insult my Annala again, do you hear? I don’t care if you’re the prince or not. You be careful what you say, okay?”
Andres nodded. Of course, it didn’t matter, because Gregorex couldn’t see a thing. So he added, “Okay, Mr. Gregorex. You’ve got it. No insults.”
Gregorex quickly relented. “Look, Andres, my Annala is one of those free-spirited artistic types. They like to take what’s called ‘artistic license’ sometimes. Well, pretend that the word ‘our’ should really be represented by the letter ‘R’. When you do that, the phrase spells ‘corner’. Does that make sense?”
The next thing Andres noticed was the sound of certain objects striking the wall. “What is that sound?” he asked.
“Oh, that’s just my pillow,” Gregorex responded. “I can’t stand sleeping without a pillow.”
“How many pillows do you have?”
“Oh, just one. But it’s made up of about 80 dead rats that I’ve stomped on and piled into the corner. It’s kind of gross, but you get used to it after awhile. And it beats laying your head on hardened dirt.” Andres cringed at the thought, and he continued to cring as he heard the thud of rats being tossed against the wall. Finally, Gregorex spoke again. “All right, I’ve gotten them out of the corner, but I don’t feel a thing in here. No matches, nothing. Hmmm...maybe the match is in another corner.”
“Wait!” interjected Andres. “Remember, she said ‘match’ three times. Maybe that is another clue--like, maybe the match is not on the ground. Maybe it’s three feet off the ground! I mean, think about it. If she snuck in here when you were sleeping, she couldn’t very well sneak a match in under your...uh...pillow. She’d have to put it somewhere else.”
“It’s about time you started thinking!” bellowed Gregorex. Andres could hear Gregorex pound his hands against the wall. Then he heard him say, “Hey, I found it! There was a loose rock in the wall, and behind it was a match.” Without pausing to think, Gregorex struck the match. Immediately the cell was seemingly flooded with light. In reality, it wasn’t much light at all. But when your eyes have seen nothing but complete darkness, any light at all can seem blinding.
Just then, Andres did something he didn’t think he’d be able to do. He got down on his hands and knees and started gathering the rats together in a pile. “What are you doing?” asked an incredulous Gregorex.
Andres said, “Well, you keep telling me to think, so I am. You see, that little match of yours is going to go out in less than a minute, and then we’ll be plunged in darkness again! So we’ve got to light something. And I’m figuring a pile of dead rats might work as well as anything.”
Gregorex swallowed hard. He hadn’t thought of that. “Uhh...good thinking, Andres,” was all he could muster. He lowered the match into the hastily-gathered pile of rats. A couple of them slowly burst into flame. “I don’t think I’ll grill any deermeat over it,” Gregorex mumbled. “But hopefully it’ll give us enough light to find the dumb keyhole.”
Gregorex and Andres then frantically looked around the cell for the elusive keyhole. Their urgency grew as they realized that dead rats didn’t make much of a fire. Even a pile of 80 rats can be consumed fairly quickly. As the light grew dimmer, the search grew more urgent. Sweat was dripping off Andres’ brow as he felt time running out and darkness descending once again. Finally, Andres yelled out, “I think I found it!”
Gregorex ran over toward Andres, and together they looked at the keyhole. Gregorex inserted the key and turned. A single stone, positioned on the dungeon floor, mysteriously moved outward. It left a hole--large enough for a man to crawl through, but no larger. Then Andres noticed something else. “Hey Gregorex, look at the floor. There’s a piece of paper!”
Gregorex grabbed the paper and brought it closer to the fire. In the fading light, the writing was just barely legible. Andres stared and read it aloud. It said:
Question: Did Judge William punish Ulysses for his insolence?
Answer: Aye, Will fined U.
Gregorex and Andres stared and pondered. As the darkness returned to the cell with the last of the burning rats, both pondered what could be meant by this mysterious message. Andres said, “Man, who says ‘aye’ anymore? Don’t most people just say ‘yes’?”
Gregorex then replied, “It’s one last message for us, Andres. This is Annala’s handwriting. Focus on the last four words. Focus, I said! ‘Aye, Will fined U.’ is another way of saying, ‘I will find you.’ In other words, Andres, she’s saying that when we get out of here, we can’t worry about her. She’ll find us. And I don’t know exactly how she’s going to do that, but we’ve got to trust her.
“All right, Andres. Now let’s get out of here.”
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