Talk to Me
At first, Crash didn’t know what was going on. Everything went dark, but he was moving very quickly… and then, without warning, he was flying high in the air in a giant glob of whale goo!
A seagull soared by, saw the slimy floating teddy bear, and got so confused he slammed straight into a sailboat.
Crash got to laugh a tiny bit before he fell back into the water, diving deep and fast until most of the goo had washed away.
He couldn’t see the whale anymore, but he did see lights, so he swam as fast as his little legs would carry him.
“Wezzit,” he blubbled, “where is da fishy?”
“Too far away to catch,” Rezzit replied. “And I don’t have enough energy to protect you and TorrentBoy, so you’re on your own.”
“Fanks a wot,” Crash grumbled.
“I have no idea what you just said.”
Crash saw a dolphin swimming nearby, and he raced towards it at full speed. It was gliding through the water so quickly he had couldn’t catch it, so he stopped, reached into his pocket, and put on the biggest smile he had.
“Oh fishy!” he called. “Wook what I got here!”
The dolphin stopped moving, looked at Crash suspiciously.
“It’s a fishy tweat!” Crash said. “Mmm, fishy tweat.”
The dolphin inched closer, still not sure.
“If onwy I had somebody to share my fishy tweat wif,” Crash sighed. “But dere is nobody awound who would wike it at all…”
The dolphin was so close Crash could kiss it (if he were the kind of bear that kissed dolphins). They looked into each other’s eyes, caught in the moment… and then Crash grabbed the dolphin’s tail!
The dolphin was not amused. It started to thrash and swing around, trying to knock Crash off. But Crash was a very persistent teddy, and he didn’t lose his grip. He rode the dolphin like a wild stallion, diving deeper and deeper into the ocean until they were racing past the Protectorate Guard ship!
“Whoa dere, fishy!” Crash called. “Back up a bit!”
The dolphin was not in the mood to take orders. It started spinning around in circles so fast that Crash felt sick, but he still didn’t let go.
“Fishy!” Crash warned. “Stop pwaying games and chase dat boat!”
The dolphin made a noise that was dolphin for “get off my back you stinky bear!” Luckily, Crash didn’t understand dolphinspeak, or he would have been very offended.
“Fishy!” Crash said. “Chase da boat or will haff to do something vewy mean to you, wike wicking your tail!”
The dolphin thought for a moment about Crash licking its tail, and decided immediately that it did not like the idea. So it started racing towards the ship in the distance, trying to get there quickly so it could get rid of the bear.
When they finally caught up, Crash patted the dolphin on the head and jumped off, grabbing hold of one of the Protectorate Guard ship’s doors. The handle was rusty and barely moved, so Crash had to drag himself along the side of the hull until he found another door.
This one was marked: “torpedoes”, and had a big red “X” over it. Crash wasn’t entirely sure what torpedoes were, but he did know that “X” marks the spot, so he pulled the door open.
Inside, it was dark and cramped. Crash pushed down a long tube until he reached another door. It didn’t have a handle, and he couldn’t find a way to open it, so he did what any polite bear would do, and knocked.
At first, he heard nothing. But then, he heard the sounds of whispers from the other side. There was somebody there for sure. He knocked again.
The whispers stopped. He listened carefully.
Somebody knocked back.
Crash knocked again.
Somebody knocked back again.
Crash knocked more urgently, and the other people knocked urgently too.
Finally, Crash had had enough.
“Hey!” he shouted. “Dis isn’t a knock-knock joke! Open the door before I get cwanky!”
A few seconds later, there was a loud crunching noise, and the door opened up! Crash plopped out of the tube and landed on the floor below, soaking wet but otherwise fine.
“Fank you,” he said, shaking the water off. “Dat was a vewy cwamped pwace for a bear wike me.”
But when he looked up, nobody was there.
He stood up, checked around the corner, and then back the other way. Still, nobody was there. He went on a little walk down the hall, looking at all the buttons and switches and flashing lights as he went. He didn’t know what any of them did, but boy oh boy did he want to push them!
Just then, he heard loud footsteps ahead, and the door in front of him flew open and five very large men came running in, aiming their blasters at him. They did not look very friendly at all.
“Hewwo,” Crash said carefully. “My name is Cwash. I am wooking for a vewy big fishy.”
The large men turned on their blasters. Apparently, they were not tour guides.
“Halt, pirate!” shouted the closest one, who had a big bony chin with a dimple in it. “Don’t move a muscle! It’s off to the brig with you!”
Crash frowned at him.
“Piwate?” he asked. “I’m not a piwate! Are you cwazy?”
He held out his arms to illustrate what crazy looks like, but stopped when he heard the jingle jingle of the costume he’d put earlier.
The pirate costume.
“Dwat,” he sighed, and they jumped on him.