CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The Schmoke employees had just passed Uchenna and the professor, on their way back to the street where they’d left their truck.

“Hey,” Uchenna whispered to the professor. “Where’s Elliot?”

Professor Fauna’s eyes widened.

And then, unnaturally loudly, the professor said, “Um, don’t you want your barrel?”

The Schmokers turned and looked over their shoulders. “You keep it,” said the woman.

“Ah,” answered Professor Fauna, “you must not know that littering is illegal in Cuba! I may have to report you to the authorities. The penalties for law-breaking are very harsh.”

The Schmokers turned and stared at Professor Fauna like he had just done something very, very stupid. “Are you threatening us?” the man asked. He cracked his knuckles again, and the woman reached for her crowbar.

“Um, no!” said Professor Fauna. “I would not threaten you! Under the circumstances, that would be, uh . . . unwise!”

“It sounded like you were threatening us,” said the woman.

“It did sound like you were threatening them,” Uchenna agreed.

Professor Fauna looked at Uchenna in disbelief.

The Schmokers advanced on them.

“Why would you throw me under the omnibus like that?” Professor Fauna hissed at Uchenna.

The Schmokers came closer.

“Well, I just think you were being rude to these nice, but very littery, tourists,” Uchenna replied.

The man cracked his knuckles.

“I do not understand what you are trying to do here,” Professor Fauna said, exasperated.

Closer.

“Get me beat up?” he went on.

The woman hit her palm with the crowbar.

“Of course not!” Uchenna replied.

Closer.

“I just—”

RRRRUMBLE!

The Schmokers spun around. “Is that our truck?” the man asked.

Uchenna said, “It sounds like your truck.”

RRRRUMBLE! RRRRUMBLE! RRRRUMBLE! HONNNNNNK!

“Where’s it going?” the man demanded.

“I don’t know!” cried the woman.

Suddenly, the Schmokers were sprinting out of the alley, away from Uchenna and Professor Fauna.

“What on earth were you doing just now?!” Professor Fauna demanded of Uchenna. “You were putting me in very grave danger!”

“I was improvising! And . . . I hadn’t quite figured out how it would end. Sorry. But . . . is Elliot in their truck?”

Professor Fauna wrinkled his forehead. Then his eyebrows shot up. “¡Vaca gigante! I had not thought of that! After them!”

Uchenna and the professor ran to the end of the alley. When they arrived at the corner, they saw the Schmokers chasing their truck down the narrow street.

Uchenna exclaimed, “Did Elliot steal their truck?!?”

“Of course not,” said a voice behind them.

Uchenna and Professor Fauna turned around. Elliot was standing there, a clipboard in his hands.

“I would never steal their truck.” Then he grinned. “I don’t have a driver’s license. But I may have wedged a hard hat between the accelerator and the bottom of the steering column. Also, I swiped these papers.” He waved the clipboard. “Which seem to contain a lot of information.” Elliot beamed.

But Uchenna said, “Are you telling us that no one is driving that truck?”

CRASH!

The truck slammed into the wall of a building.

“Right,” said Elliot. The magnitude of his actions was beginning to dawn on him. Plaster fell from the building’s wall all over the hood of the truck. A half dozen barrels toppled out of the truck and into the street. “We should probably get out of here.”