Part 1: Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

PART 4: DINKY ISLAND

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Hours later...

There was a slow rushing sound in his ears. This was all Guybrush knew. There was a slow rushing sound in his ears, and he was lying face down in some coarse material, perhaps it was sand. This was all Guybrush knew of his surroundings. A slow rushing sound, coarse material, and the midday sun was hot on his back.
Oh yes, one other thing: his head felt like an anvil had been dropped on it.
Guybrush lay there for a while. He was starting to realise that he hurt all over. He tried searching his memory for consolation, but the only memory that came was that of a fiery red explosion, being shoved firmly in the back, and flying at suicidal speeds with the wind in his ears.
Now he was here. Lying face down on a beach on some unknown island, with natives that were probably going to kill him. Life could be really unpleasant sometimes.
He could have stayed there a lot longer, but suddenly urgent pins-and-needles pains came from his right leg, and Guybrush was forced to get up.
Instantly every muscle in his body. Guybrush froze where he was, but the unnatural position just made the pain worse, so Guybrush turned his body so that he was in a sitting position. There was a large rock nearby (he seemed to have hit his head on it when he landed; there was a small dent in it), and he rested his back against it.
The pain faded - slowly, but it went, and soon Guybrush came to feel rather comfortable.
He couldn't have been in more perfect surroundings. The sky above was pure, unblemished blue. He had landed on the beach in a secluded bay, and the green tropical skyline extended either side of him, seeming to rise slightly into a small range of hills behind him. The sand was yellow/white, fine, and unmarked by human feet. Into it rolled the sea, an inviting turquoise shade and completely transparent.
This was obviously a sparsely inhabited island, Guybrush could see that, but he was still astounded when he turned around and looked at sign nailed to a bent palm tree (most of the other palm trees were shaped like pencils. It read: 'Welcome to Dinky Island. Home of the treasure of Big Whoop.'
You could have blown Guybrush over with a gale force wind.
Dinky Island - he could have spent a lot of time just standing there, staring at the sign, and pondering the strange vagaries of chance that should send him crashlanding into the very island he was trying to find. But at that moment he heard a voice.
It was faint, and off to his right. Its owner sounded like they'd been chewing tobacco their whole life, and had just had a healthy dose of helium.
"Let's make a map and tear it into four pieces," the voice said.
Guybrush suddenly realised he had gone mad. It was oddly liberating knowledge. But then he remembered the massive explosion, and amended his realisation to the extent that he was dead, and also mad.
There were many possibilities in this crazy world, one of them, admittedly minute, was that he could be blown across the sea to Dinky Island by the explosion in LeChuck's Fortress. But absolutely nothing on earth could have sent him back in time to the original Big Whoop expedition, as seemed to have happened.
Guybrush had never held very firm views on what happened after you died. He'd never really thought about it much. But most of the major intellects in the field agreed that, whatever it was that happened, you knew what was going on. Not discussed was the possibility that dying might cause you to lose your mind. It was a pretty large oversight, when you thought about it - after all, dying was merely an intense psychological trauma that you didn't live through.
So, now that Guybrush was dead, he no longer felt the sense of urgency he'd had about finding Big Whoop. Indeed, he could just sit back and listen to the phantom voice all day. Which he proceeded to do.
"Gee, Captain Marley, where should we bury the treasure?" the voice said. It was the same voice. Whoever it was conversing with, Guybrush couldn't hear them - maybe the voice had gone mad too. "I want my granddaughter to marry a real man, a captain," continued the voice, and Guybrush noticed that it used a slightly different timbre, as if imitating someone else. "Not a washout like you." This was spoken in a slightly louder tone, and Guybrush started a little - it almost seemed to have been directed at him.
"OK, let's go over it again so no one forgets where we buried the treasure," said the voice, imitating a third speaker. Then the voice said something which caused Guybrush to think a little. "Squawk," it said. Then it said, "Braaaaak!", sounding oddly avian. Lastly, it said, "Polly wants a cracker."
It took Guybrush a while, but eventually he came to the realisation that maybe he'd been a little premature in his pronouncement of mortality. He stood up and looked to his right.
Whatever civilisation was on Dinky Island, he'd found it.
The beach here had footprints. That was because, draped from two conveniently angled palm trees at the edge of the beach, was a tentlike canopy made from a large Jolly Roger. Under the tent were several large crates, a crowbar, shovel, and an old man sitting crosslegged and staring into the sea with an expression of inner peace.
He wasn't the owner of the voice. The owner of the voice sat on one of the tent ropes, and was in fact a parrot, large and violently colourful.
By one of the palm trees was a large, complicated looking device that would turn out to be a moonshine still, but Guybrush wasn't interested in either it or the parrot. He'd recognised the old man sitting crosslegged, and now he walked over to the tent eagerly.
The concentration of the old man was intense - he didn't twitch a muscle as Guybrush ducked under the folds of the canvas flag and into the relative cool of the shadows. Guybrush had to clear his throat.
"Herman Toothrot!" he said. "What are you doing here?"
Herman Toothrot blinked out of his trance and stood up, brushing sand off his clothes. Guybrush saw with disappointment that Herman was wearing exactly the same clothes he'd been wearing on Monkey Island - dirty white shirt, leather brown vest, and no pants.
There was just enough length in the shirt and vest so that this last omission was forgiveable. As to the question of whether Herman wore any underpants, Guybrush still didn't have an answer to this. He wasn't sure he wanted to know anyway.
Herman Toothrot looked utterly unsurprised to see Guybrush here. "Oh, hi," he said. "I've been waiting for you."
Guybrush was immediately confused; but then, there'd always been something slightly wiggy about Herman. "What do you mean you've been waiting for me?" he asked.
Herman explained. "Our meeting comes at this, the final moment of my existence so far. All else has been in anticipation of this event."
"Do you always say things like that?" asked Guybrush. It was somewhat of an unnecessary question. People who didn't know Herman asked questions like that - Guybrush, having seen him on Monkey Island, knew the answer was yes.
That wasn't the answer they would get from Herman, however. "Nothing I say is ever the same," said Herman, a Zen look crossing his face, "yet it is all said the same way."
"Do you mean to tell me," said Guybrush sceptically, "that your whole life has been merely a prelude to meeting me here today?"
"Yours too," said Herman.
"What happens now I'm here?"
Herman sighed, and sniffed the air. "See, already the moment passes. Now our meeting is nothing more than another note in the grand overture to the next passage."
Guybrush knew enough of Herman to know he wasn't likely to be much help, but he had to try. The knowledge that he was still alive had reawakened in him the desire to find Big Whoop, and with that desire had come knowledge again, in full circle, that he no longer had the map. Wally had a map in his head, but God only knew where he was now. In short, he needed hard information.
Herman looked pleased by the question. "There are many treasures here, found and unfound," he began. "The beauty of the ocean, for example. Or the treasure of the past, seen in the rings of trees and the half-remembered cacklings of a parrot. The treasure of the future, waiting in the seeds of mangoes and the eggs of the platypus-
Guybrush interrupted the barmy flow. "Actually, I'm looking for the treasure of Big Whoop."
Herman looked bewildered. "Big Whoop? Can't say I've heard of that one." He cleared his throat and carried on from where he'd been interrupted. "Dreams that bring us messages from afar which we are too simple to understand, and stars that do the same - and may not riches be found in the words of one who has explored the veiled inner worlds of the self?"
Here Herman stopped and actually looked at Guybrush. Most of the time, a conversation with Herman was a conversation with a pair of poorly focused eyes that seemed to be focused on another dimension, as, perhaps, was his brain. This sudden attention was a little unnerving.
"Speaking of which," Herman was saying, "I am taking on students for a limited time."
Students? Guybrush wasn't sure he could cope with any more perplexity. "What are you doing here?" he asked. He felt like he was going mad all over again, talking to Herman.
"I'm teaching philosophy here," said Herman.
Guybrush took a quick look around, to make sure his surroundings hadn't suddenly changed to a drab city somewhere in southern America. No, they were still standing alone under a drab black canvas sheet on a deserted tropical island, with not a single student in sight. Guybrush hadn't yet explored the interior of the island, but already he could tell, looking at the thick green canopy, that it was uninhabited.
"Right here, on the beach?" he managed.
"Sure beats a Tibetan mountaintop," said Herman with a grin. "I can go surfing when things are slow."
"How many students have you got?" asked Guybrush. He wanted to be sure on this point. Competition for the treasure of Big Whoop would make his job a lot harder.
"Welllll..." said Herman reluctantly, "none, at the moment. But as soon as word gets out that a guru such as myself is teaching in a beautiful, exotic locale like this, I'll have to beat them off with a stick." He sounded confident, and Guybrush didn't have the heart to point out that since this was a deserted island, with no traffic to or from, nobody would ever hear about his fabulous educational facility.
"What sort of philosophy are you teaching?" he asked politely.
"Neo-existentialist Cartesian Zen Taoism," said Herman. "It's all the rage at cocktail parties this year."
Guybrush had never been taught philosophy - had never even read about it. If you got to lead a life as madcap as Herman's, maybe it was worth a shot. "Could you teach me some philosophy?" he asked Herman.
"OK," said Herman, oddly unexcited for someone who'd just gotten their first student. "Here's a Zen koan for you."
"A what?"
"A philosophical puzzle," explained Herman. "If a tree falls in the forest, and no-one is around to hear it-"
Even Guybrush had heard of this one. The old sound paradox.
"-what colour is the tree?" finished Herman.
It caught Guybrush a little off guard. "Brown?" he guessed.
"Nope," said Herman.
"Forest Green?"
"Not even close."
"Blue?"
"Nah."
Guybrush kept trying. He tried orange, red, purple, yellow and all the other common colours. None of these worked. So he moved on to more exotic shades, like beige, turquoise, ochre, and lilac. Soon he was trying those colours you only ever see as descriptions in paint catalogs - burnt sienna, raw umber, sepia, weathered pewter, and teal.
Nothing worked. Still Guybrush threw colours at Herman, and each one was knocked down. Peach, teal, cabernet, slate and even smoke all failed.
Days passed. The vernal equinox came and went. Volcanoes rose, erupted and fell. Three ice ages passed.
Guybrush was still guessing colours. Mustard, coral, chartreuse, wisteria, vanilla, eggshell, driftwood, sumac, alpaca, cherry, turquoise, plum, aubergine, storm grey, tarragon, sachet, venetian, juniper, drizzle, sweet potato, bayou, manilla, macintosh grey, mange, sashima green, ebony, ivory, menthol, sahara, salmon, oxblood, khaki, fuschia, robin's egg, ash, spice, copper, periwinkle, vermillion, metallic burgundy, russet, cadmium white, cerulean, thalocyanide green, deep purple, beryl, hot pink, oatmeal heather...
"Nah," said Herman.
Guybrush was reaching the end of this tether. "All colours?" he ventured.
Herman suddenly beamed. "Exactly!" He looked at Guybrush for a second time. "Now, what has this experience taught you?"
"That philosophy isn't worth my time," said Guybrush instantly.
Herman looked very impressed. "I'm very impressed," he said. "It takes most people years to reach this point. You have learned all that you can from me. Go forth into the world with confidence. I won't even charge you a buck." He sat back on the sand, knees in the lotus position, staring fixedly to sea.
Since Herman had effectively called the conversation off, Guybrush walked back out from under the tent. He had better things to do than talk to him, although any comment to that effect would probably result in Herman coming back with a comment like, "I think you'll find the concept of 'better things' is the frailest of illusions."
Guybrush breathed in the warm sea air. There was a strange atmosphere about this place, an atmosphere which only intensified as Guybrush saw a clear martini glass under the moonshine still. Needless to say, it was dry.
The atmosphere was this - Guybrush felt like he was at a tourist resort, complete with a talking parrot and native madman. A tourist resort, moreover, that was evolving. It was still at the most basic stages, of course. But it did have liquor, in the form of the moonshine still, the glass, and a wine bottle that had been washed in from the sea, and it also had shelter, in the rudimentary form of Herman's canvas. And there was even entertainment, if you could class Herman's ramblings as such. All Dinky Island needed was a beach volleyball net and it would be set for life.
Guybrush stopped his thought mid sentence. Maybe he was turning philosophical after all.
The first thing he did after leaving Herman was pick up the crowbar. It looked extremely useful. So did the shovel, so he picked it up as well. Then he listened to the parrot talk some more.
It wasn't giving him any more important information - just regurgitating the same snippets from Captain Marley, Mister Rogers and the crew, interspersed with various Braaaaaks, Squawks, and Polly Want A Cracker. Under the parrot were a few old barrels and crates, and Guybrush turned his attention to these.
The crates said "Anchovies" on the top. Immediately Guybrush left them alone - he didn't want to smell any ancient, molding anchovies. The barrel, however, was unmarked. Guybrush opened the lid.
Nestled amongst the dust at the bottom of the barrel, looking rather lonely all by itself, was a single cracker. Guybrush picked up the cracker.
Perhaps he could get the parrot to loosen its mouth a little. Guybrush held the cracker up to the parrot. It looked at it quizzically, then seized it in its beak.
After it had finished eating, the parrot spoke. "Head due east from the pond to the dinosaur."
Guybrush perked up his ears - that sounded like a Direction. He listened for more, but the parrot had lapsed into silence. It was a silence with an expectant quality, however, that seemed to suggest there would be more information forthcoming in exchange for crackers.
Since there were no more crackers in the vicinity, Guybrush left it there and started walking along the beach. He was looking for a path into the interior of the island. Finding that pond would be a good start.
Some way along the beach, near a palm tree shaped like a pencil, Guybrush found what he was looking for. A dark, shady opening leading into the jungle. Guybrush took it.
Instantly the ambient light of his surroundings dropped. Here, under the canopy, the light was thin and green.
The path led straight on, and slightly uphill. Both sides of the path, the ground was covered in thick undergrowth, the undergrowth itself shielded from above by thick vines and shrubbery, which was itself protected from the sun by the canopy, stretching high above. The path, however, was completely clear of vegetation. It even had some wooden steps, and Guybrush wondered who had put them there.
Soon, Guybrush came to his first choice. The path led him to a T-intersection. Left, the path wound through even thicker bushes and disappeared from view. Right, the path went on upward, likewise disappearing from view. Guybrush chose right.
Soon, the vegetation on his left cleared a little, and Guybrush saw a flat green bog which came right up to the path. The far side of the bog couldn't be seen through the rushes, overhanging vines and dripping mist, and there was a faint air of danger about the place, of unsounded depths and still-preserved bodies floating in the green miasma. This was the kind of bog you had to travel thousands of miles from civilisation to reach. Here it smelt hot, and decayed. Every now and then, above the background noise of insects which Guybrush had already taken for granted, he heard faint, wet plopping sounds, as large bubbles of methane rose to the surface and popped.
This might well be the pond, even though it did look a bit thick for swimming. Guybrush made a mental note to stay away from the edge, as the soil was soft and damp around here. Guybrush was glad he was heading east from here. The myriad frogs and insects which were chirping and croaking away seemed to like it, however.
As Guybrush drew nearer, further reasons why this bog might well be the pond became clear. For one, at the edge of the pond, the path split into three paths that went north, east and south. And at this junction was a large box bound with a thick rope.
First things first, thought Guybrush, and investigated the box. The rope kept it tightly shut, and even if that went, the lid was nailed in. Obviously the contents were important.
Using his knife, Guybrush cut through the knot on the rope and pulled it off. It exposed writing on the side of the box - DYNAMITE.
All right! thought Guybrush. He wound up the rope and stuffed it in a pocket. Then he took the crowbar and jammed it under the lid. Some of the wood splintered. He kept doing this at certain points around the lid, and soon it swung open.
Inside, the box was stuffed full of red sticks of dynamite. They were bound together with tape as a single unit. Guybrush started to lift them up, but they were heavy and so he let them drop back. He might as well save the dynamite for when he found the dig site.
Having satisfied his curiosity, Guybrush looked at the three paths he could choose from. All were of identical width, and none seemed to be more worn than the others. It didn't matter yet, anyway: Guybrush knew to take the eastern path.
It led him into a dark grove of broad-leaved evergreens, the path winding a little but roughly sticking to the same direction. He was looking for a dinosaur.
It wouldn't look at all out of place here in the jungle. Guybrush was lost in an environment that seemed to have existed here, unchanged, since Jurassic times. All the plants here were bigger, damper, and livelier. Every tree trunk was carpeted with moss and lichen. Vines, creepers and hanging plants were suspended from every branch. The density and variety of the jungle was greater than any Guybrush had ever seen. Everywhere he looked, he saw green. Even the sun felt distant here - despite the great humidity. It was a vague disc of copper somewhere up there above the mist and the towering canopy.
There were plenty of insects (Guybrush could hear them), and plenty of dragonflies, but no large animals. Guybrush wondered what the parrot meant by 'dinosaur'. He began to feel a little nervous.
It turned out he didn't have to worry. After passing a large group of ferns on his right, and crossing a small stream, the undergrowth thinned out a little. There was a small clear spot, just on the right of the path, and here stood the dinosaur.
It wasn't a live dinosaur. Or, rather, it was. In fact the dinosaur (a brachiosaur, it looked like) had been carved from a large hedgelike plant. Someone had obviously spent a lot of time on it.
Here the path forked.
One way led over a short ridge, north. The other led south, and downward.
A wrong turn here could prove fatal, so Guybrush did the only thing he could - he tossed a coin.
It told him to take the south path.
Guybrush walked along the south path for a while, then it branched again. One branch led southwest, another southeast. After a little deliberation, Guybrush headed southeast.
He seemed to be slowly inching his way deeper into the island. To his dismay, however, Guybrush saw that the land all around him was covered with paths, intersecting and criscrossing like a big clump of spaghetti. In a twenty foot length of path, Guybrush was given four separate choices to make.
Soon Guybrush was reduced to taking turns at random. It had gotten quieter now, and even the insects were laying off a little. He couldn't hear the sea anymore. The land around here was less choked with vegetation, and higher above sea level. The trees all had a strange oily blue sheen to their trunks.
He was getting desperate. It had been extremely foolish of him to wander in here without directions. He was hopelessly lost, with no chance of ever emerging from the eternal twilight of-
Guybrush's panicky thought was brought to a complete stop, the mental equivalent of a cold shower and stiff coffee, by a white, rectangular object. It was hanging from the blue trunk of a large evergreen. Guybrush, following the path, wandered over. The white object had a sign above, which read CALL BOX. And the object, Guybrush now saw, was a phone.
It was a godsend. Guybrush needed help, and there was only one person he could call.
Guybrush picked up the receiver, and dialled a number on the pad - 1-900-740-JEDI. The phone rang, twice.
The other end was picked up. "Lucasfilm Games Hint Line," said a voice that wouldn't have sounded out of place in a Monty Python sketch. "Chester speaking." He sounded impatient - possibly a lot of people had been ringing him lately.
"I'm lost in the Dinky Island jungle in Monkey Island II," said Guybrush.
Chester sighed, as if he'd been asked the world's most obvious question. "Look kid, there are only two ways out of the room you're in. Figure it out, knucklehead."
"What?" said Guybrush. What room?
"I told you," said Chester, "just walk off the edge of the screen. How hard could that be?"
Guybrush's instincts, which were usually kept well honed, told him this person wouldn't be of much use. But Chester was beginning to annoy him, and he wasn't going to let him go that easily.
"When is Secret Weapons Of The Luftwaffe going to ship?" he asked first.
"It's been out for some time now," said Chester. "Where have you been, playing some frustrating graphic adventure?"
"Who thought up that dumb stump joke?" Guybrush wanted to know.
"I'm tired of hearing about that damn stump," said Chester impatiently. "Do you have any idea how many calls I get a day about that? Don't ask me about it again."
"Where do babies come from?" asked Guybrush.
He had to be content with imagining Chester's expression, but at this point he would probably be staring at his phone, baffled. "What are you, a pervert? What's wrong with you?"
Last question. Guybrush crossed his fingers. "What is the secret of Monkey Island?"
"I'm fed up with stupid questions like that," said Chester. "It's a surprise, OK?"
Guybrush only liked surprises when he knew about them in advance. "Thank you," he said. "You've been very helpful. Goodbye."
"Yeah, sure," said Chester, and hung up. Guybrush replaced the handset. He was even more annoyed now.
Chester had called him a kid. Everyone called him a kid. Why? He had the beard, he was a fully certified pirate, so why did everyone insist on talking down to him? It was really starting to grate with Guybrush. They all seemed to think he was three feet high.
And he still had to find a way out of the jungle.

An hour later, Guybrush was walking along the Dinky Island beach, back toward Herman and his moonshine still.
It had taken a lot of effort to escape the jungle. First, he'd found a reasonably high vantage point, and scanned the horizon until he found the sea. Then he'd set off in a straight line for the beach.
It was a most inconvenient straight line, taking him across streams, through thick patches of undergrowth and up the steepest ridges on the island. But Guybrush was able to keep his direction constant, and eventually he came out on the beach. From here he simply had to follow it in one direction until he came back to his starting point.
Back in the jungle, however, he'd had something of a serendipitous event. Jogging down from one of the many ridges he'd crossed, Guybrush had put his right foot into a thick bog. This in itself wasn't that lucky, but it signalled that he had reached something of a clearing, and gave him time to examine the huge tree more closely.
It was about thirty feet distant, with that strange oily blue sheen on its trunk, and on the other side of the bog. Its branches, however, extended so far that there were leaves directly above him. Hanging from one of these branches, near the trunk, was a small brown bag with something lumpy in it.
Guybrush was always curious about situations like this. So he found a solid looking path on one side of the bog, and walked around to the tree (keeping well clear of the bog - it looked like it was trying to photosynthesize protoplasmic life).
He sized up the bag. It was about the size of a cat, and its lowest point hung about three feet in the air above him. The bag was suspended from its branch by means of a thin rope, which was bound tightly around the neck of the bag. It was higher than he could reach, and also slightly higher than he could jump and reach.
So Guybrush gave the bag a hit with his crowbar. He struck something that felt solid, and then the bag was sailing through the air. It hit the tree trunk and fell to the ground with a thump.
Guybrush opened the bag. Inside was a coloured cardboard box, marked as being an Instant Low Sodium Cracker Mix. Guybrush turned it over and read the directions, which told him all he needed to do was add water.
Guybrush started feeling very fortunate.

Now he was walking along the beach, and Herman's hut was within sight. The rest of his walk to shore had failed to turn up any useful sources of water, and Guybrush was going to try filling it from the sea. But now, as he came to a grateful stop by the still, he remembered the crackers were low-sodium, and putting salt in the mixture would bugger things up no end.
Fortunately, the moonshine still came to the rescue. It could almost have been put there specifically for that purpose.
Guybrush took the martini glass from under the still, and filled it with seawater. Then he poured it into a likely-looking vent at the top. Liquid started pouring through long, winding pipes. Small quantities of steam were generated. There were faint swishing noises. And then fresh water came out the nozzle in the bottom, into the martini glass which Guybrush had had the presence of mind to restore in its original place.
Guybrush opened the cracker mixture, and poured in the water. He shook the box like a juju bag. Speaking of which, he still had the juju bag from the voodoo lady...
The box didn't burst asunder in his hands to reveal a pile of crackers. But after several minutes shaking, the sounds coming from the box sounded like a dry pile of crackers being tumbled around.
Guybrush looked inside the box, and saw a bunch of perfectly formed square crackers. They even had small dimples in them, like real crackers. He picked out the largest one he could see and took it to the parrot.
Like a celebrant at communion, the parrot took the cracker on his tongue and eat it hungrily. Then, as Guybrush had hoped, he chirped up. "Head north from the dinosaur to the pile of rocks."
North! He'd had a feeling he'd been wrong on that first choice. Guybrush gave the parrot another cracker.
"Head due east from the rocks to the X," said the parrot when he'd finished eating. "Braaaak!"
"Good parrot," said Guybrush encouragingly. That X sounded like the final resting point of Big Whoop. He gave the parrot another cracker to be sure, but it just said some nonsense about Where shall we bury the treasure?
Guybrush upended the box, spilling all the crackers on the sand. The parrot could eat those later - right now he had a treasure to find.

Guybrush entered the jungle, walking along the path until it led him to the bog. Here he lugged the dynamite on his back (the writing on it said "Ages 3 and up"), and headed east. Soon he was at the dinosaur, and took a north.
This was new country, but looked exactly the same as the old country. The only distinguishing landmarks around were the distinguishing landmarks. The path north led him past another animal clipped from a hedge plant, this one a dolphin. There were several paths leading both left and right but Guybrush, with the surety of knowledge, ignored them.
Soon he had reached the pile of rocks, and another main junction. Paths led in all directions from here, but there was just one he was interested in.
Guybrush went east. Very soon, he saw a clear patch of land ahead. And unlike the previous boggy patches of treeless land, this one looked to be a dry circle of grass and dirt.
He came out from under the canopy and into the clearing. The sun here was almost blinding, and he nearly missed the huge X painted in black on the ground. Its tips ran from edge to edge of the clearing.
He also nearly missed Herman Toothrot, who was emerging from the other side of the clearing.
Guybrush was flabbergasted. How could Herman have caught up with him?
"Oh, you meant this treasure," said Herman once he'd gotten close enough. "Why didn't you say so? You could have come by the shortcut, like I do."
"Shortcut?" echoed Guybrush. Herman walked back the way he came. Guybrush followed him, walking around a bush, and not five steps later found himself standing at the far end of Herman's Jolly Roger hut.
Herman sat back down in the meditative position. Guybrush resisted a very strong urge to kick him, and walked smartly back to the huge X.
As X's went, it was pretty big. Probably, it was the second biggest X he'd ever seen. It gave Guybrush a little worry - did he have to clear all this soil away?
Only one way to find out. Guybrush took his shovel and started to dig into the middle of the X.

Hours pass...
Guybrush had gotten a good-sized hole dug, about six feet deep at his estimate, when his shovel suddenly clanged against some hard surface. Guybrush instantly started brushing away dirt, and soon saw he'd struck concrete.
Well, now. This is where the dynamite might come in handy. Guybrush had examined it earlier, and saw all the sticks were wired to a single fuse. All he had to do was light the fuse, drop it down the hole and run for cover.
Guybrush flipped open the matchbook. He had only one match left. This he struck, its flame much less impressive in full daylight. Then he touched the flame to the fuse, and instantly it started to run. Very quickly. As Guybrush dropped the dynamite down the hole it had already worked its way onto the individual fuses.
Guybrush turned to run.

It had only been hours since the first explosion, but the Mansion was suddenly shaken by another one.
Being built inland, the Mansion hadn't been troubled by the tidal waves which had just swept the Caribbean, causing widespread destruction. It would take enormous dedication, however, not to notice the thick black plume of smoke which now took up half the sky.
From the position of the plume Elaine Marley had deduced, correctly, that LeChuck's Fortress had been destroyed. This should have made her fairly happy, but she was tense. For some reason, she suspected Guybrush had been involved.
She was just pacing through the sitting room, leaving the minor repair work to Filbert and others, when the second explosion came. The room shook, and Elaine's head jerked up. "Great Scott!" The shock had been less powerful, but it had come from another directly entirely. She strode to the window and threw open the shutters. The resulting view stared directly at Dinky Island.
"That came from the direction of Dinky Island!" she said. "That idiot must be messing with my grandfather's treasure!" For she knew it was Guybrush. Instantly, she known it was Guybrush.
She suddenly walked purposefully to the door. "I'd better get over there," she said grimly.

Guybrush picked himself up.
The explosion had been a little larger than he'd expected. Instead of just blasting away the concrete lid, it seemed to have blasted away all the soil from the clearing, as well as creating a huge hole in the concrete. Guybrush had been a little too close to the explosion, and had fallen through the hole.
Guybrush was having to adjust his original conception of the Big Whoop hiding place. He'd assumed it had been entombed in a fairly small concrete coffin. But the huge chamber he now occupied extended the length and breadth of the clearing. It was almost as if it had been here before the crew even discovered Big Whoop.
That he occupied it at all was a miracle. Looking around, all around him the chamber dropped to unguessable depths. No floor was remotely visible. The only support here were two stone pillars.
On one of them stood a bruised Guybrush. Sitting on the other was a battered looking treasure chest, which shone in the tropical light.
Guybrush drew a sharp breath. Yes...
Big Whoop.
The chest was ordinary looking, slightly small but sturdy. He could only guess at the contents. The reason he could only guess was that the two pillars were separated by about seven feet, which was too far to jump when you were as unsure about the fragility of the pillars as Guybrush was. They certainly looked dangerously thin.
Guybrush looked upwards, with thoughts of escape. If he managed to get the chest, could he get out of here? The concrete roof of the chamber was about eight feet up. Steel rods poked out from the exposed concrete edge - they were twisted and tangled by the force of the explosion, but looked strong enough. And he still had some rope, from the dynamite chest. Yes, he could possibly escape.
The hole was conveniently sized - both pillars were situated almost exactly below the edge. This gave Guybrush an idea.
What he really needed here was a bullwhip, but rope would have to do. And a crowbar would come in handy, also.
Guybrush still had the crowbar. He tied a fast knot onto one end of the crowbar. Then, holding the other end of the rope, he swung the crowbar in a rapid circle.
He released it. The steel crowbar flew toward the twisted ends of the steel rods, directly above the treasure chest. It struck, and would have rebounded with a thick clang except for the fact that another steel rod, twisting upward, held it firmly in place.
Movement ceased. Guybrush tugged the rope, but the crowbar held fast. "There, I think that'll hold," he said at last. He took the rope in both hands, holding it near the end.
Guybrush had not often swung across fathomless chasms. Right now, he felt very heroic as he jumped off the pillar and swung for the chest. The pillar behind him crumbled as he did so, only adding to the drama.
Then things started to go wrong. He was holding the rope too far down, for one, and instead of swinging dramatically above the chest, seizing it with one free hand, his chin struck the lip of the pillar, followed more heavily by the rest of his body. The pillar crumbled.
Guybrush groped forward, eyes shockingly wide, and was just able to snare the treasure of Big Whoop with his arm at full stretch. He listened for the sound of stone striking the bottom, but heard nothing.
He hung there for a while, swinging, alone and embarrassed in free space. He couldn't shake the suspicion someone was laughing at him, somewhere. He considered shouting for Herman, but if the massive explosion hadn't caught his attention then no amount of screaming on Guybrush's behalf would change things.
All he had to do now, all he could do now, was wait...

"...and then you showed up about three days later," Guybrush said wearily, his tongue on the verge of mutiny. Even he had had no idea how long the story was. Bart and Fink would probably die of boredom listening to it.
Guybrush could, of course, have escaped merely by dropping Big Whoop and climbing the rope. But the idea had never occurred to him. Drop Big Whoop? Drop the most fabulous treasure ever in the history of pirating? If it had occurred to him, Guybrush would have instantly shot the idea down. He was not leaving here without the treasure.
"Will you help me now?" he pleaded to Elaine.
Elaine, hanging from her own rope, nodded. "Anything to shut you up. That has to be the longest story I've ever heard."
At that moment, something happened that made Guybrush wish he'd skipped through the unimportant bits.
Near the crowbar, small threads of the rope were snapping. The stress of the past three days had been too much, and finally the rope simply broke off.
For a moment, in accordance with the laws of Cartoon Physics, Guybrush remained stationary in the air, allowing him to look sideways with alarm as the rope fell beside him. Then he fell with it.
Elaine looked down with alarm. Guybrush was falling fast, and gathering speed, and still he hadn't hit bottom. Soon he was lost from sight altogether.
Half a minute later there was a jarring crash. "Oh, dear," said Elaine.

Very, very dark.
These were Guybrush's first impressions on opening his eyes. Or, rather, on not opening his eyes. He regained consciousness with his eyes shut, but even so was able to tell through his eyelids that the environment outside was perfectly dark. Guybrush had never seen pitch before, but he now knew what to compare it with.
He wondered if he was dead, then told himself not to start that again. He wondered where he was.
Let's see. He was lying face down, covered in bruises, on a hard stony surface. All he could remember about the fall was an eternally long period of wind blowing from below, then a thunderous crash, then another, fainter crash shortly afterward.
It no longer felt like daytime to Guybrush. Of course, there being absolutely no light down here would have something to do with this feeling. But there was more. It was cooler down here. The smell of the jungle, normally all pervasive, was now gone. In its place, the air tasted utterly alien, inhuman.
Recycled. Guybrush didn't know where that word had come from, but it sounded right. The air had been recycled.
Guybrush opened his eyes. It was a wasted movement, serving only to reveal the complete black he'd sensed earlier. He looked upward - surely, at least, he would be able to see the sky. But there was nothing. Not even a single star.
Guybrush began to suspect he might be a lot further removed from Dinky Island than the distance he'd fallen.
He got up, resting on one knee. His muscles, by dint of major injury, were resigned to their fate and didn't complain. He felt a bit dizzy, and the lack of light made things difficult, but eventually Guybrush was on his feet.
Now the dominant feeling was of claustrophobia. He couldn't see a thing, but Guybrush felt that his surroundings were very close. The walls might only be inches distant. Guybrush stretched his arms out in front of his body, in the classic sleepwalking / zombie position, and inched forward.
Shortly his hands touched the smooth surface of a wall. It seemed to be made of stone, but it was very smooth. A lot of effort had gone into this wall.
Guybrush turned around, and walked back the way he came. As he suspected, it wasn't long before he fetched up against another, identical wall.
This meant he was in a tunnel, about eight feet wide. That was to be expected - you got tunnels underground. But tunnels generally led somewhere, and where did this one lead?
Guybrush kept one hand on the wall, and started walking. Now he remembered Big Whoop, but it was too late to do anything about it - there was no way anything could be found without a source of light.
Several feet later, he found one. Spoiling the perfect continuity of the wall, Guybrush's fingers felt a small rectangular protuberance. Set into this was some kind of flick switch.
It was a light switch. Guybrush must have seen hundreds of these in his lifetime. So why did fingering this one cause him to slip into a contemplative trance?
Guybrush felt he was prodding at more than a light switch. He was prodding at his memories. There seemed to be more there than there usually was...
Guybrush made a sudden decision. He flicked the light switch on.
Harsh light, from a beacon set in the ceiling, illuminated the tunnel.
"Boooo!" said a spluttering, horribly familiar voice behind him.
Guybrush jumped six feet and banged his head hard on the ceiling. He fell back to ground and turned, his eyes wide with shock. "Eeek! The Ghost Pirate LeChuck!" he stammered, shaking with fear.
LeChuck, standing at the end of the tunnel by the broken wreck of Big Whoop, grinned. "Hello, Guybrush," he said, his voice dripping with menace.
And saliva. Guybrush wiped his face with a quivering arm. "Would you mind not spitting so much when you talk?" he asked.
LeChuck ignored him. "You won't escape me this time!" he pronounced.
This sentence had a sobering up effect on Guybrush. Who did LeChuck think he was, saying he wouldn't escape him this time? Of course he'd escape him this time. He'd done so before, hadn't he? With these thoughts in mind, Guybrush was able to relax his arching eyebrows and calm his wavering leg muscles.
The pronouncement required a rejoinder. "I escaped from you before, I can easily do it again," said Guybrush.
"Not so fast!" said LeChuck quickly. He sounded earnest about something, which instantly made Guybrush suspicious. ""Even if you were to escape," continued LeChuck, "I would always be able to find you again. We are bound to one another."
It struck a raw nerve with Guybrush. Why did he always seem to be running into this psychopath? Mere earthly grudges couldn't explain the string of coincidences which had strung them together.
LeChuck's appearance in the tunnel was just the latest example of their pairing. Guybrush's first frightened thought, as he saw his archnemesis lurking in the tunnel, was that LeChuck had escaped from the treasure of Big Whoop. It was stupid. Wasn't it? And even if it was partially correct, it still didn't explain why Guybrush no longer felt within two thousand miles of the Caribbean.
Bound to one another, LeChuck had said. "Like dreadlocks?" Guybrush suggested, completely ignorant of where LeChuck was driving at.
The metaphor seemed apt to LeChuck. "Yes, rather like that," he said. "Or like-" He took a step toward Guybrush, and his eyes were bright. "-brothers!"
"Eh?" said Guybrush.
"I," said LeChuck grandly, his voice booming in the small tunnel, "am your brother!"
Guybrush suddenly realised what LeChuck was saying, with sudden, deadly shock. The words struck a chill into his heart.
LeChuck was right.
More and more memories were returning. His childhood, the times he'd spent with his father and mother - and the threatening shadowy figure, always lurking off-camera, the shady presence that was never quite there, and never quite gone.
The images felt like balls of lead inside his skull. They pressed down on him, ever multiplying, and Guybrush felt he would go mad.
"No," he finally managed to say, and his words were breathless, for he was breathing hard and his pulse rate had risen. "No, that's not true! That's impossible!"
"Search your feelings, you know it to be true!" said LeChuck forcefully.
"Noooooooooo!!!!" screamed Guybrush.
"And I've brought a little surprise for you," finished LeChuck.
Guybrush took some really deep breaths. "I think you being my brother is enough of a surprise for one day," he managed.
"Perhaps, but humour me," said LeChuck.
Guybrush had a guess. "Is it a treat?"
"A treat for me, a surprise for you," said LeChuck. Guybrush remembered he hated surprises. He doubly, no triply hated them now.
"Am I going to enjoy this?" asked Guybrush uncertainly. The memories that were surfacing of his brother suggested not.
LeChuck looked happy. "No, but I am." He reached a green, scaly hand into his overcoat pocket, and took out two items. Into the right hand, he cradled a thin, nondescript grey doll. Held in the left hand, at a dramatic height, was a large, conspicuous pin. LeChuck leered at Guybrush. He stood at a tense, ready angle.
"What's with the big, sharp, deadly looking pin?" asked Guybrush.
LeChuck was only too willing to help. "It's an accessory for this voodoo doll," he said, shaking the voodoo doll vigorously, like a major league baseballer shook their bat before taking the mound, "which I'll be using to torture you-" Lightning bolts, small and evanescent, were now coursing around the tip of the pin. "-and then send you screaming into another dimension, one of infinite pain!" LeChuck was shaking with anticipation. "Observe..."
A bright orange aura of light surrounded LeChuck, its intensity rapidly growing. The lightning bolts around the pin suddenly focused, and stabbed into the chest of the voodoo doll.
The pain was immediate. Guybrush felt like he was being hit in the stomach by a diamond drill. He clutched his arms to his belly and writhed, in unspeakable pain.
LeChuck was a picture of concentration as he stared at the doll. He drew the pin back a little then stabbed forward again, bringing it almost to the point of contact. Guybrush's agonies redoubled.
The aura around LeChuck switched off. The lightning bolts vanished. With them went the pain, leaving Guybrush quivering once more, his eyes wide and starey.
LeChuck was watching him closely. He wanted to savour every painful emotion and wrought expression.
"I'll do anything, just please don't do that again!" wailed Guybrush.
"OK, how about this?" suggested LeChuck. He seized the doll strongly in both hands and twisted it hard.
Guybrush's body was literally bent in two. His upper body and neck flipped over, staring upside down at the room beyond. His arms waved about uselessly and he was screaming at the top of his voice. He felt like he was being pulled from all directions.
LeChuck couldn't remember the last time he'd enjoyed himself so much. He let the doll flop back to its normal state. "That was exhilarating!" he cried. "Let's have some more fun, shall we?"
He gave the doll a different twist. Guybrush, who had just regained his normal posture, suddenly found his neck being twisted round and his head pulled upward. Four times it revolved, until his trachea felt like a corkscrew. He couldn't breathe. He tried to yell and nothing came out. He waggled his arms, and looked to LeChuck a lot like a stupid species of bird which had overgrown its ability to fly.
LeChuck let the doll go. Guybrush's head span back to his normal position, and if his eyes could have gotten any wider, they would have. "Please!" he begged. "No more!"
"OK, time to send you screaming into a dimension of infinite pain," said LeChuck in a no-nonsense voice. The pin returned, and suddenly multiple stabs of lightning were concentrated on the doll.
Guybrush writhed once more in agony. Hateful red drops of acid were burning through his belly.
The lightning rose to an intensity greater than any before. It ran into the doll, which glowed orange. Now Guybrush was surrounded by an orange aura, lightning coursing across its shell. He raised his head despairingly, screaming "Aaiiiieeeeee!"
Rapidly he shrank, too fast for the human eye to follow. In a second Guybrush was lost from view underneath the orange aura, which concentrated itself to a point before exploding in a thin shower of sparks.
Guybrush shoved the voodoo doll back in his overcoat. His face bore an expression of intense satisfaction. "At last, I'm free of that pesky little wimp Guybrush," he said.
There was a muffled thump from the room beyond, followed by a surprised cry of, "Hey, I'm alive!"
"Eh?" said LeChuck. He started shuffling for the doorway.
The tunnel which he and Guybrush were currently occupying was a lot similar, indeed in some respects identical, to the tunnel which connected Mister Roger's island to Phatt Island. In both cases it was a reasonably tall and wide tunnel, which was segregated at regular intervals, requiring passage through a smaller doorway. Through one of these doorways LeChuck passed, to find Guybrush standing in the tunnel beyond and looking relieved. "I thought I was a goner!" he was saying. Then, "Whoops!" as he saw LeChuck come in.
"Strange," said LeChuck. "There must be something wrong with my voodoo doll." He pulled both it and the pin out from his overcoat and shook them menacingly. "It was supposed to send you screaming into another dimension, not the next room. Shoddy materials, I'll bet. Well, I'll just have to try it again."
Nascent lightning appeared at the tip of the pin. Guybrush held out his hands, conciliatory. "Uh, no, that's OK, I-"
The pain struck, cutting off all further conversation. Quickly Guybrush was surrounded by an orange aura, was engulfed, and gone.
LeChuck thought he better start searching, just to be sure.

Some distance away, Guybrush was recorporated.
As he was shortly to discover, the structure of the space he was trapped in was fairly simple, and reasonably self-contained. There was a single tunnel, thin, narrow and long, which ran straight as an arrow. It was divided into six partitions. From some of these partitions doors were set into the left wall, giving access to specialised rooms.
Guybrush was standing in the middle of one such room.
He raised his head up from its instinctive curled hedgehog position, and looked around. He was surrounded by crates, stacked in jumbled, untidy piles. A single, naked lightbulb hung from the ceiling, casting noirish shadows on the floor. Rusted, splotched pipes ran around the ceiling, carrying who knew what to who knew where.
Guybrush straightened up. The crates were piled up much higher than his head, and he had to crane his neck to fully assess their scale. The first stack he set his eyes on were labelled as containing DOLLS. There were several of these stacks.
Another, smaller pile of crates were labelled as containing balloons. Then Guybrush looked at the crates stacked near the door. Instantly, his state of anxiety vanished and he started to smile.
Stacks and stacks of crates, containing nothing but ROOT BEER.
Guybrush started to feel confident. What a stroke of luck! The only proven weapon against LeChuck, and here he had gallons of it to chose from. Root beer had worked brilliantly against LeChuck the last time they fought, and now Guybrush couldn't wait to try it again.
Guybrush opened the nearest crate, and sure enough, contained within were dozens of root beer bottles, full of that sticky brown liquid. Guybrush took one, and walked purposefully to the door.
By an immense stroke of luck, LeChuck was just coming through the doorway into this section of tunnel outside. With a serious, studied expression on his face, Guybrush nonchalantly popped the cap on the bottle, ignoring LeChuck's snarls, and tossed root beer on his rotting body. "Take this, brother," he said in a steely voice.
It sank into the flesh, leaving LeChuck standing there. And standing there.
"Hey, nothing's happening," blurted Guybrush, confused.
LeChuck didn't look confused - by the ghoulish smile on his face, he looked vindicated. "Root beer only works on ghosts, Guybrush," he reminded Guybrush. "Having been resurrected, I'm not a ghost anymore. Allow me to demonstrate." Quickly he seized the voodoo doll from his pocket, and the pain struck Guybrush again.
He vanished, mercifully fast.

Guybrush reappeared in the final section of the tunnel. It was a fairly nondescript place. Apart from a block of steel pipes on one wall looking like a radiator, the only colour was provided by three arrows, a fading yellow, which pointed to the door at the far wall. Under the arrows was the text, First Aid This Way.
Guybrush, dismayed by the failure of the root beer, dashed quickly to the doorway. Nowhere was safe, anymore, but the tunnels were particularly threatening. Here, at least, he was out of sight.
There was a little more colour in here, but not much. Again, the only illumination came from low-wattage light bulbs in the ceiling. Even with good lighting, however, you wouldn't have been able to hide the stains, the dirt ingrained in the carpet, rising damp, and all the rigours of time which had been given full rein in here.
It was depressing in here. It stank of poverty, of loneliness, of austerity but functionality. You would be more likely to catch a disease in here than have one cured.
Guybrush walked inside, slowly. This environment was utterly alien to him. He was used to the colour, the excitement, the derring-doery of Caribbean piracy. Out there, even if you vomited, you could be assured of seeing something bright green and interesting. In here, you'd be lucky if it wasn't grey. This was an environment which had never heard of primary colours.
The poor lighting made seeing individual details tricky. But one sign, hanging high on the wall to Guybrush's left, instantly caught his attention.
In black letters on an offwhite background, he read, "LOST PARENTS". Underneath the sign was a red arrow pointing downward.
It pointed to a small, cramped couch, made from green/yellow/beige/bodily fluid coloured cloth. On them sat the objects of attention.
They were his parents. And it had been a long time since they were alive.
These were their skeletal remains.
Guybrush recognised them instantly from his Booty Island dream. He recoiled in horror, but more out of force of habit. There wasn't anything terrifying about these skeletons. If you forgot the fact that they were your parents, they looked rather jolly.
Guybrush moved slowly toward his parents. Now, more than ever, he was wondering - where the hell was he?
As pressing as that question was, it was dwarfed by a far larger one. Who was he?
Guybrush ran a tender hand along Dad's ribcage, and fingered Mom's skull. His emotions were a dark, unfathomable undercurrent. He didn't know what he was thinking. If there was something he should say or do at this point, he didn't know what it was.
Their skeletons were lounging lazily on the couch, as if tossed there by a careless Death. Gingerly Guybrush righted their remains, giving them a respectful formality of appearance.
He stood back, looking at his parents, and now he thoughts surfaced. They weren't about his parents at all. They were about LeChuck.
LeChuck had said they were brothers. If there had been any lingering doubt about this, there was no longer. Guybrush was wondering if LeChuck knew his parents' remains were here.
He had sudden, horrible confirmation of this when he saw his Mom was missing a rib. Guybrush took in a sharp breath - things had suddenly become very clear. Bound to one another, LeChuck had said. Like life and limb.
He had used his Mom's bones to make the voodoo doll.
Guybrush stood there a while, heedless of LeChuck, lost in contemplation. He looked from Mom's skeleton to Dad's skeleton. Dad's looked the looser.
With trembling hands, Guybrush pulled Dad's skull from his skeleton. It came with a pop, like a champagne cork. "Alas, poor Dad," he giggled, feeling sick and morbid, and dumped the slightly shrunken skull into the voodoo lady's juju bag.
He had only one alternative now. He'd never had any else. A voodoo doll to do in LeChuck. Guybrush could remember the voodoo lady's rhyme - something of the thread, something of the head, something of the body, and something of the dead - and this time the ingredients were going to be perfect.
Moving faster now, once more with a purpose, Guybrush quickly explored the rest of the first aid centre. Whoever had built this place had obviously not been able to afford two rooms, so instead a hasty subdivision had been erected to separate the waiting room, with its dreary carpet and couches, from the small and cramped examination area, with cracked and chipped mirror, paucity of instruments, grey and torn sheets on the examination table, and outdated anatomical charts.
An old, creaky study desk was the doctor's workplace. Guybrush quickly opened the drawers, and found a reasonably clean looking syringe. He took it, taking care not to prick himself, because it would make a good stabbing implement for the doll. Underneath the desk was a small metal trash can, lined with plastic. Guybrush opened the lid and saw a pair of green surgical gloves. Curious, Guybrush took them. They might well come in handy in securing some of the ingredients he needed.
The scan of the first aid room was complete. Guybrush crossed the floor and headed for the door.

Outside, he walked back in the direction of Big Whoop. The first door he passed, now on his right, was the one leading to the root beer storage area. Since he couldn't see LeChuck anywhere, Guybrush ducked in.
He wasn't interested in any more root beer. Rather, he was looking for a crate of dolls.
There was one on the floor. Guybrush opened it, and saw it contained small, generic little Kewpie dolls. Guybrush picked up one - it was a cheap little doll with no voodoo powers at all. But, with its brown hat, bushy black beard and piratey outfit, it might well have been a scale model of LeChuck.
Guybrush shut the lid and looked around. The root beer was useless, but these balloons - what were they like? Guybrush opened a box, and found one lying forlornly on the bottom. Like the surgical gloves, it was an attractive green colour. It was also about the same size as the gloves - this would be a large balloon when inflated. Maybe he could use it as a distracting device.
Guybrush shoved the balloon into a pocket and rushed outside, right into the path of a waiting LeChuck. Guybrush pulled up cold.
LeChuck was grinning and holding the doll.
"Can't we talk this over?" pleaded Guybrush. In answer, the levelling pain hit.

He came back into existence in a new section of tunnel, somewhere in the middle.
There was a door in the left wall. Next to it were another group of off-yellow arrows, these ones pointing away from the door and toward the "Elevator, this way".
Guybrush walked through the doorway.
This room was even more depressing and decayed than the first aid office. As was the standard design feature around here, a low-wattage bulb in the ceiling cast quivering, thin light over the surroundings below, creating huge black areas. Splotchy steel pipes ran around the ceiling, grouping together and splitting off randomly.
Guybrush had no idea what this room was for. Storage, perhaps, but the main area of floor in the middle of the room was bare.
The left wall held a huge bank of stainless steel drawers and shelves. Guybrush tried a few of the drawers, but none opened - they were gummed shut by rust and the decayed bodies of mosquitos. Next to the drawers was a bare patch of wall, in the far corner - all that nestled there was a tiny section of a railroad track, pushed vertical against the wall. That area of the room was particularly shady, lying under a thick outcrop of pipes, and Guybrush had no particular desire to investigate.
He walked inside some way. The back wall was easier to see. First, on his left, was a tall green helium tank. It looked like it had been here a long time. To the point, everything looked like it had been here a long time. But it had been a long time since anyone had been here.
Next to the helium tank were three stacked crates. Guybrush ignored them - probably more anchovies.
Then things got confusing. Standing on its own, next to these crates, was the battered hulk of a Grog Machine. Its top was particularly deformed - it was bowed, as if having been subjected to an instant of enormous pressure from above. And overlaying the surface was the normal layer of dust and grime.
It brought back painful memories for Guybrush. Could this be the very same Grog Machine, the one he'd once been trapped in? And how had it gotten here?
Guybrush reached for the coin return lever and pulled it. Surprisingly, someone had forgotten their change. A small coin rolled out the slot, fell through space to the ground, bounced, and rolled toward the door. Guybrush ignored it - he had too much to worry about to be chasing after small change.
He looked elsewhere. Hanging some distance above the Grog Machine, indeed suspended from the roof, were two cheap looking costumes. One was a sickly looking bear with a green hat. One was a bear of indeterminate physical state, mainly because he didn't have a head.
Guybrush felt a chill. There were shuffling noises coming from behind him.
He'd spent too long gawking. Guybrush span round, to see LeChuck coming for him, a malevolent snarl on his face.
Just as suddenly, LeChuck stopped, froze, then span around. It started walking off.
Guybrush, had he not been so shocked and fearful, would have scratched his head.
LeChuck slowed and bent over, and now Guybrush could understand what was going on. LeChuck had seen the coin and, for some reason, wanted to pick it up. God only knew why. "It's a buffalo head!" he was enthusing, establishing himself as a coin buff. "What a find!"
It was competing with a lot (ie the front on view), but the view of LeChuck currently being presented to Guybrush was very unflattering. For a start, LeChuck's red coat had ridden up, revealing the green hollow he called the small of his back. That was bad enough, but the top band of a pair of grey y-fronts was, somehow, worse.
Sickening as the sight was, Guybrush knew an opportunity when he saw one, and this one was golden. He dashed across the intervening space, reached roughly into LeChuck's pants, and seized the back of the Y-fronts. He gave an almighty yank.
LeChuck stiffened as the underpants tore and came loose. He jerked his head around, and grey steam was blowing from his nostrils.
Guybrush grinned sheepishly at him, trying desperately to hide the underpants in his coat.
"Aha!" said LeChuck. "Caught you!" He pulled out the voodoo doll, and the needle.
"Hold on," said Guybrush reasonably. He wasn't allowed to say any more, as LeChuck unleashed his fiercest assault on the voodoo doll yet.
Guybrush writhed. He was discovering new dimensions in agony.

As it had before, the pain lasted only a few seconds. Guybrush had always had his eyes firmly shut whilst being transported through space to nearby rooms, and he didn't want to know what he'd see if he opened them.
There was a spangly flash of light, heavy against his eyelids, and Guybrush materialised. He took a look around.
It was one of the end sections of tunnel. In the far corner, under a rough hole in the ceiling, was a broken chest.
Big Whoop. Guybrush walked over to the remains of the treasure and looked up the hole. As before, there was absolutely nothing to see. Guybrush wondered where he'd end up if he climbed up there. Most probably not Dinky Island, he thought.
It was a moot point, in any case, as the ceiling was far higher than he could reach. So Guybrush looked at Big Whoop.
Despite his intense predicament, Guybrush was able to feel a small pang of annoyance. Boy, what a gyp! If he ever got out of this alive, he was going to go back to the pirates and tell them what Big Whoop really was. The voodoo woman had said it contained the secret to another world, where he'd be finally rid of LeChuck. Great prediction, he thought sourly.
There was something amongst the wreckage - it was small and light green. Guybrush picked it up. It was a ticket, with the single letter 'E' printed on it in red. It looked a bit like a raffle ticket, or some kind of admittance ticket.
Guybrush turned it over in his hands. He had a memory about this ticket, but he couldn't remember what it was. But touching the ticket seemed to bring it back further, and it wasn't good. He put the ticket away, mainly because it didn't look like helping him defeat LeChuck.
He started walking tensely along the tunnel, and when he passed through the first doorway his eyes immediately alighted on the grey metal doors on his left, like a drowning man eyes a flotation ring.
An elevator.
Guybrush pushed the call button to the left of the elevator. The dirty, dark metal doors swung open with a fusillade of creaks and cranking noises. Part of him tried to assert that Guybrush had never seen an elevator before, had never used one before, and that this whole business was one incredibly vivid hallucination. But another, deeper part, replied that not only did Guybrush know what an elevator was, he'd used them often.
Guybrush stepped into the elevator cage, worried that LeChuck might have heard him. This was the kind of elevator that had been outlawed since the depression. It also looked like, from the amount of dust coating everything, like the kind of elevator that hadn't been used since the depression. It had a rusty hand-operated lever, the kind that required a bellhop, and the special grilles that allowed people to look at the elevator shaft, should they be particularly curious. They were fairly useless here, as the elevator shaft was solid black.
There was no bellhop. There was, however, a huge crate standing rigid in one corner, making the elevator cage seem even cosier and more cramped than normal. Guybrush ducked in beside the very huge and heavy crate, and noted in passing that a label identified its contents as "900 lb". Where does a 900 pound gorilla sleep? thought Guybrush. In a disused elevator cage.
He'd spent too long dithering. LeChuck was slithering toward the elevator, a huge evil grin on his face. The voodoo doll and pin were thrust forward as Guybrush cowered.
Panicking, Guybrush pulled hard on the elevator lever.
The doors closed halfway, the floor of the cage had just started to rise, when the elevator began to vibrate alarmingly, shuddering from side to side like the elderly piece of machinery it was. The load was just too much for the poor old engines, unused for years, and after a few impotent attempts at shutting, the doors swung open and the lift settled back into place.
LeChuck leered.
Guybrush's eyes darted around, frantically, anything to avoid that hellish face. They alighted on a plaque near the upper corner of the elevator. This was a service elevator, with a one thousand pound limit.
Light was surrounding him. A light painful and intense, so intense it burnt the dust. Guybrush vanished.

He reappeared in the Grog Machine room, and the first thing his eyes alighted on was the helium tank. Immediately Guybrush rushed over.
LeChuck had got him spooked, as would be apparent to anybody who realised what Guybrush was about to do, and he was willing to try anything.
Guybrush fitted the end of the green balloon over the helium nozzle, and opened the valve. With the faintest of high hissing noises, the balloon expanded. Guybrush shut the valve, and then tied the end of the balloon. It bobbed carelessly in his left hand.
He wasn't done yet. Next Guybrush inflated the first surgical glove, tied it, and inflated the second. He supposed he looked a little like a really down-on-his-luck balloon seller, and would stand out from five miles in the dim tunnels, but there was no other choice.
Guybrush walked cautiously out into the tunnels. Immediately, as he had suspected, LeChuck shouted from behind him somewhere. Guybrush started running, trying to not hear the slithering sound from behind, that was somehow catching up.
At full pelt Guybrush ran into the elevator cage, cannoned off the crate, and landed in a corner by the lever. His left hand held onto the balloon and gloves like there was no tomorrow. And there might not be, either.
LeChuck's cankerous, sunken face appeared, his grinning face full of madness. He took a step forward, into the elevator, casting Guybrush into his shadow.
Guybrush yanked down the lever.
LeChuck's smug expression suddenly evaporated, turning shocked and fearful as the twin metal doors rushed directly for him. He lurched backward.
The elevator doors closed on his beard.
A lesser, shaven man would have made it back in time.
Guybrush could hear muffled yells of red-hot pain ("Ow! Hey! Ouch!")from the other side of the elevator door, and then he began to rise. The yells rose in intensity to white-hot screams ("AAAAAAARRGGHHHHH$%#$*@#$!!!!!!"), and there was a distinct tearing sound, as all the while the wriggling black tufts of LeChuck's beard were slowly, inexorably, pulled down to the elevator floor.
They were going up, not without a few bumps and rattles, but definitely up. Guybrush's hunch had been right. He released the balloons, which floated to the ceiling.
Seconds later, with part of LeChuck's beard on the floor, they stopped. The elevator doors opened, revealing a short stretch of passage and another door.
Guybrush picked up the beard. Most of the hairs were singed, and slightly crispy, from the friction of the elevator doors. He hadn't gotten all of it, but this should be more than adequate for his purposes.
Now Guybrush put his hand on the door handle. Did freedom lie outside, or enslavement? Guybrush pushed the door open.
He was outside, in a small paved square hemmed in on all sides by towering houses. It was the middle of the night.
"This is hauntingly familiar," he said slowly. Anything to avoid thinking, because any thought at all he had right now would probably send him mad.
He was back on Melee Island.
This was the very enclosed space where Guybrush had first met Fester Shinetop, alias LeChuck. It had been a long time, but as Guybrush stepped slowly out into the night air, all the details were as he remembered it. Even the poster on the house wall - the house from which he seemed to have emerged - advertised the Fettuccini Brothers circus. The warm yellow light from house windows, the barrels stacked by the walls, all was as he'd remembered it.
His mind rebelled at the implications. Guybrush was perhaps prepared to admit that LeChuck had somehow transported him to a strange place where there were tunnels underground with pipes in the ceiling, although that didn't explain the smashed carcass of Big Whoop. But he was buggered if he was going to accept that LeChuck had also transported him six months into the past.
As he stood there, however, it began to dawn on Guybrush that all was not as it had once been. Noise, for example. The Melee Island township had a lot of pirates, and a natural effect of this is for night-time to be a rowdy and energetic time. But now Guybrush heard nothing. No far-off calls, no clatter of boots on the cobblestones, not even faint noises from the houses around him. Along with that absence, it was also a lot colder than he remembered, or would have expected for a tropical island. It was like a ghost town here.
Guybrush wished he hadn't thought that. Originally, somewhere below the surface layer of surprise and shock, he'd intended to make use of his situation and run to the Melee Island docks. From there he could sail somewhere, anywhere, as long as it was far from LeChuck. But that option was starting to look very unattractive.
Nevertheless Guybrush did walk to the far end of the square, where a long alleyway led to the main street. Here, blocking the mouth of the alley, were the only real additions to the scene that he could see. A long piece of rope was tied from one wall to the other, blocking the alley, and underneath it were three red witches hats. There was tape attached to the rope, which said "Closed for Construction." These objects stood out sharply from the subdued tone of their surroundings - they somehow looked realer.
Without touching the roadblock, Guybrush leaned his head over, looking down the alleyway. The details at the other end were faint, hard to make out, and somehow blurred, as if they were a picture being looked at too closely. There was no sense of depth at all.
This isn't the real Melee, Guybrush suddenly thought. If it ever was, it isn't now. And just what it was, and what it might do to him if he looked harder, Guybrush had a very pressing need not to find out.
He backed away from the alleyway, leaving the barrier well alone. No escape that way. He retreated to the doorway, and sat down on the still.
Guybrush was learning a lot about himself. The old Guybrush, the naive sod who'd wanted to be a pirate, would have fallen into despair at the predicament he was in, and just given up. But Guybrush was not about to give up. Half a year of pirate training hadn't taught him to give up*. Right now, he was getting angry.
He was in a corner. And when you found yourself in a corner, you turned around and fought.
All this metaphysical contemplation about LeChuck being his brother and the true nature of his being could wait. The first priority was to get in there and kick some butt.
Guybrush took out the voodoo lady's juju bag. It already contained the skull of his dad, and now the doll, assorted beard pieces, and underpants were shoved in. Guybrush didn't have any assorted herbs and spices, including monosodium glutamate, but he did have a few crumbs of the cracker mixture. So Guybrush chucked them in. The juju bag was getting healthily weighty.
He opened the door, and entered the elevator cage. He had a plan to get the final voodoo ingredient, a sample of LeChuck's fluid. It was utterly harebrained, of course, but why stop now?

As Guybrush had been expecting, LeChuck was in the tunnel outside, waiting for him as he emerged from the elevator. LeChuck snarled in triumph.
Guybrush kept walking out of the elevator, toward LeChuck. This confused LeChuck a little. He hesitated.
It bought Guybrush enough time to reach LeChuck. He hoped he was right about LeChuck's sinus troubles.
Guybrush was holding a small white square of folded linen in his right hand. It was the handkerchief Stan had given him - "When the tears come, shouldn't you be prepared?" He offered the handkerchief to LeChuck. "Here, try this," he offered. "Brother to brother."
LeChuck looked suspiciously at Guybrush, then took the handkerchief. He covered his nose and blew.
Guybrush felt the wind on his face. His thin white handkerchief was going a very sickly looking green.
The handkerchief LeChuck handed back a few seconds later was dripping. Guybrush smiled uncertainly at LeChuck. He screwed up his eyes, but the slickness of the handkerchief on his fingers told him all he needed to know.
It took him a long time to put it into his pocket, pushing it in with as little of his fingertips as possible. When it was all done, LeChuck was more than ready with the voodoo doll.
Guybrush tried pleading, anyway. "There, isn't that better?" he said, offering proof of his goodwill. In answer, lightning swirled around LeChuck's voodoo pin. "Um... um...."
Pain.

He materialised in the storage room. Quickly Guybrush found a hiding place behind the crates, and took out his equipment. With infinite care he gently removed the handkerchief from his pocket, and dropped it into the juju bag. He supposed he should wring it, but he was buggered if he was touching that thing again.
All was in place. Guybrush moved back out into the open - he'd need some room for this bit.
Holding the bag in both hands, Guybrush shook it vigorously above his head, like an energetic if inexperienced maracas player. He hummed a little tune as he did so. The contents of the bag were shifting around, he could feel them. They seemed to be... congealing.
He felt pressure grow from within the juju bag, then suddenly it exploded in a bright yellow cloud of sparks. They faded, and Guybrush was left holding a small brown doll.
"Ok, 'brother', watch out," he said, his voice returned to its normal confident tenor, "cause I've got my own voodoo doll, now!" The doll that he brought down from above his head and transferred to his left hand was positively pulsing with voodoo energy.
With his right hand Guybrush removed the surgical syringe from his pockets. He examined the pleasingly pointed tip, then strode out into the tunnel.

Almost instantly, LeChuck spotted him. "Hey, Guybrush!" he shouted. "It's voodoo time!"
Guybrush was unconcerned. He nonchalantly brought the voodoo doll into LeChuck's view, and with a calm expression on his face, stabbed it in the heart, as hard as he could.
LeChuck lurched, stricken. His mouth dropped open, but the scream was cut off as he clasped his chest, writhing.
Guybrush pulled out the syringe.
LeChuck recovered - shockingly fast. Instantly he was back to his normal self, glaring at Guybrush. "That's pretty good, Guybrush," he said, "but not good enough to stop me!" He shuffled away from Guybrush, passing through the narrow doorway. Guybrush followed, mildly curious if LeChuck had another scheme up his sleeve.
The next section of passage was the elevator room. LeChuck turned around, surprised he was being followed. "Eh? Oh, it's you."
Guybrush showed LeChuck the doll and syringe again, just in case he hadn't noticed.
"What, that again?" said LeChuck wearily. "Ooh, look at me quakin' in me booties! I laugh at you and your puny voodoo tinkerings. Hah! You don't scare me!"
Guybrush stabbed the doll. "Take this, LeChuck!"
LeChuck staggered, sweating profusely and clasping his chest, as if in the throes of an angina attack. But it was clear, both to Guybrush and LeChuck, that the blow was not mortal.
Even quicker this time, LeChuck recovered. "It doesn't hurt!" he taunted. He stood aggressively, like a fighter who knows he can take whatever the opponent gives out. LeChuck baited him for more. "You think you're so big?"
LeChuck's resistance was not bothering Guybrush. There was a lot of voodoo agony to be reciprocated here, and he was sure LeChuck would change his tune before too long. Speaking of paybacks...
"You know," said Guybrush in a musing voice just laced with menace, "this doll reminds me of the Stretchy Strongman� I had as a kid." He pulled hard on the legs of the doll, then the head.
The reaction in LeChuck was disappointing. Guybrush had been hoping for some body deformation, comic stretching, anything. But LeChuck just reeled and clutched at his chest.
LeChuck's voice was growing more scornful. "Ha! Is that the best you can do?" he challenged. "Stab the doll again! I can take it!"
Guybrush was thinking. If he didn't do some damage to LeChuck soon, this slender advantage of his might turn a bit sour.
LeChuck could see the indecision. "I'm gonna kick your butt, what do you think about that?" he yelled. "I'm not afraid of your doll! What are you going to do now? Come on!"
Guybrush had no idea. He opened his mouth, and some hidden part of his brain spoke up: " I wonder what would happen if I tore the leg off this thing?"
The chilled, conditioned air suddenly got a lot cooler. Somewhere, far off, a stone slab crashed to the ground, with a noise that rumbled like thunder.
Guybrush pulled the leg of the doll, downwards and sideways. It tore, and was ripped off.
LeChuck reeled, and clutched his chest. Then his right leg broke off at the knee, with a sound like a wet, rotten log cracking in two. Green blood gushed from the stump, cascading over his calf and boot.
For a moment LeChuck stood there, staring down in horror at the growing pool of his blood. Then he fell backward, crashing to the ground. His right arm cracked, and was pulled from its socket by the force of the fall. Blood poured out from his shoulder, as well.
Guybrush was a bit taken aback by the success of his idea. His eyes were wide. The LeChuck before him on the floor was surely mortally wounded. No-one could survive with that much blood gone.
LeChuck stared upward, his muddy brown eyes wide open. He blinked, a few times. "Aaarrrghhh..." he exhaled, the effort visible. All the force of his voice had gone.
A dog emerged from a tunnel door, picked up LeChuck's arm, and ran behind Guybrush. Guybrush looked around, but it was gone from sight.
LeChuck was struggling to speak. "Guybrush... -ghack- " he managed at last, and now Guybrush noticed something else about his voice. All the arrogance had gone, too. It might have been that LeChuck no longer had the lung power for arrogance, but it was surprising, all the same.
"What?" said Guybrush cautiously.
"Come over here," croaked LeChuck.
"No way, I'm not that stupid," said Guybrush emphatically.
"But I want you to - ghag - take my mask off." He choked. "See the true face of your brother." He was pleading with Guybrush.
Guybrush maintained his distance. "Forget it, I'm not coming over there."
"But you've got to see - hack - my true face!" begged LeChuck.
"No chance," said Guybrush. "You'll just rip out my lungs when I get close."
LeChuck gurgled, trying to clear the blood from his throat. "No, no, I promise!" he said desperately. "Please, come take off the - argh - the mask!"
"Leg or no leg, I trust you about as far as I can throw Manhattan," said Guybrush.
"I tell you I'm - ack - dying here!" He didn't need to tell Guybrush this - every word he spoke in that wavering, chilled voice of his echoed with the forecoming of death. "Take the mask off!"
Guybrush gave in. After all, LeChuck couldn't do him any more trouble with all those wounds. He couldn't even raise his head, let alone claw his lungs out. Guybrush came over, walking to LeChuck's side. He reached out to touch LeChuck's chin, watched beseechingly by LeChuck, and was intrigued to find that the surface did feel like a mask. Not only was the face a mask, but so was the facial hear - LeChuck's famous beard. And even LeChuck's pirate hat, now he saw it at first quarters, was part of the disguise.
"Gently, now," said LeChuck. "Remove my - hack - mask."
Guybrush took hold of the mask at the place where the forehead met the brim of the hat. He pulled it. LeChuck's face stretched, then the hooks or adhesive or whatever he'd used came free.
Underneath the mask was a small face with wide blue eyes, black hair, and a pink skin complexion that hadn't spent a lot of time outdoors. Combined with the short, pushed-up nose it gave him a passing resemblance to a short pig.
Guybrush cast the mask to one side. "My God," he breathed, "you're my creepy brother Chuckie." Up until an hour ago, he hadn't even known he had a brother. Now his face was instantly recognisable. It was a face he associated with water-torture, indoor games with pokers and small pets, and the bed next to his.
"What, did you think I was kidding before?" said Chuckie. With the mask gone, his voice sounded nothing like LeChuck's - sharp and raucous, but not very weighty. And yet it was a voice Guybrush could instantly put a face to.
Guybrush felt like he was very slowly waking up.
"How come you hate me as much as you obviously do?" asked Guybrush.
Chuckie crossed his eyes. "Well, you remember the time you broke my Junior Ultra Soldier Commando Assault Vehicle�?"
"Do you really think a truck is more important than your own brother?" said Guybrush.
Chuckie looked at him as if he was mad. "It wasn't a truck, it was a Junior Ultra Soldier Commando Assault Vehicle�."
"Why have you been chasing me all over the place?" he asked Chuckie. Revenge no longer seemed a straightforward motive.
"Our mother told me to hunt you down," said Chuckie.
Guybrush thought of his dream at the Big Tree, and how his parents had run away as LeChuck approached. That didn't sound right. "When our mother told you to hunt me down," he said, "did she actually mention killing me, or was that your idea?" Guybrush wasn't feeling well. For so long, he'd thought his parents had abandoned him. Now, did it turn out he'd just been ... lost?
"Look, Guybrush, could you help me out?" asked Chuckie, still lying prone and wounded on the floor of the tunnel. "Stick the leg back on the doll, OK?"
Guybrush would have said no. But Chuckie had, quietly and probably without realising it, raised the prospect of being able to see his parents again, alive and in the flesh. The fact that they seemed to be dead, and no longer possessing their flesh, only a few rooms away, seemed unimportant.
But the voodoo doll wouldn't have worked if they weren't his parents.
He no longer knew what to think. "Will you promise not to hold me down and spit on me anymore?" asked Guybrush, staring at Chuckie.
Chuckie stared back desperately. "All right, all right, I promise! Anything, just put my leg on!"
Guybrush opened his mouth to reply.
Someone was approaching. Footsteps echoed from the doorway on their left, and suddenly a tall maintenance man in brown overalls and a nondescript face appeared. He was holding a spanner, and looked a little annoyed. "Hey, you kids!" he said. "You're not supposed to be in here!"

Guybrush and Chuckie walked outside into the sunshine. Standing here, with exasperated expressions on their faces, were his parents in their pre-skeletal days. "Ah, so there you are!" said Dad.
Guybrush and Chuckie stopped a few feet from their parents. Guybrush felt different all over. His clothes had changed. The sun was hotter, and glared. The landscape around him was different, but somehow the same. This seemed a little like Booty Island. And he had to look up at Dad. Quite a long way.
The slightly taller and broader Chuckie stood behind him, hiding the fact that he was holding one of Guybrush's arms and was ready to twist it if anything untoward happened. He was dressed in brown and black, with a Megadeth logo on his T-shirt.
"What's going on?" said Guybrush, utterly perplexed. "Where is this place?" All around them were gaily decorated huts and tents. Large, garish signs advertised FREAKS and SHOWS. People were screaming with laughter, and a large ferris wheel spun slowly.
"Well, it's not the Screamin Weenie Hut where we told you to meet us," said Dad reasonably. The Screamin Weenie hut was behind them, some way back but instantly visible due to the huge red Weenie statue erected on the roof, complete with gloves and top hat. "Your mother and I were very concerned."
"Thank you for hunting down your brother like we asked, Chuckie dear," said Mom.
"You boys didn't get in any trouble, did you?" asked Dad.
Guybrush opened his mouth to say Chuckie tried to kill me!, or I stole a whole bunch of stuff and caused two huge explosions, but the pressure on his arm suddenly increased.
"No sir," said Guybrush and Chuckie in unison.
"Good," said Dad.
"I wish you wouldn't run off like that, young man," scolded Mom. "We were worried sick. You don't know what kind of murderers and white slavers might be hanging around a place like this."
"I'm Guybrush Threepwood, a mighty pirate," said Guybrush proudly. "I don't have to worry about stuff like that." Now he noticed something else - his voice had gotten a lot higher. But his initial alarming was fading. What had happened back in that service shed increasingly seemed like a very long dream. Something involving pirates, and some place called Inky island.
"Of course, dear," said Mom. She was well used to Guybrush's active imagination. "But please be careful."
"Well, come on then," said Dad, clapping his hands together. "Let's go ride the Madly Rotating Buccaneer."
"Yeah!" said Guybrush enthusiastically. They started walking toward the far side of the carnival, across dirt that was covered in sawdust and tomato sauce, toward the line at the Madly Rotating Buccaneer. Guybrush was rushing ahead (he'd only just passed the height limit a few days ago and this was a new ride), and Chuckie brought up the rear, so nobody saw what happened next.
Chuckie's eyes started to glow. Not green, not orange, but a pure white. His iris and pupil vanished, and suddenly the white glow flashed red. Lightning curled out of his eyeballs, in a semicircle from one to the other. Chuckie grinned, exposing a sharp set of teeth, complete with two prominent fangs.
He was really going to enjoy himself with Guybrush. And no-one would be around to interfere. It was going to be back to the good old times.
The Threepwoods walked on, past the souvenir shop, past the weenie hut, past the Fun house. Guybrush glanced to his left, at the huge sign erected at the entrance, next to the ticket booth. BIG WHOOP AMUSEMENT PARK.
It meant nothing to him.
Chuckie's eyes started glowing again.

THE END

It had been a long time.
The sun was starting to set, and although she wasn't often found in this emotional state, Elaine was starting to worry.
Hours ago, there had been the fall, with Guybrush disappearing from view. She'd never heard a noise from the bottom. The initial rush of air, sure, gradually fading... but no final crash. And now she was worried. Guybrush was immortal, no matter what his other qualities were. It was impossible for him to die - she knew this from experience.
And he really should have been back by now.
"I wonder what's keeping Guybrush," she said. "I hope LeChuck hasn't cast a spell over him or something..."

REALLY THE END

I DON'T LIKE IT EITHER

SO SUE ME

BUGGER OFF

GET SOME FRESH AIR

PLAY SOME RACKETBALL

START A FUNK BAND

WASH YOUR CAR

COOK DINNER

TRAVEL TO A FOREIGN COUNTRY

RUN FOR PRESIDENT

TALK TO A MEMBER OF THE OPPOSITE SEX

LUBE YOUR CAR

HOST A WEENIE ROAST

DIG FOR BURIED TREASURE

MILK A COW

HAVE A YELLING CONTEST WITH YOUR NEIGHBOUR'S DOG

PERFORM BRAIN SURGERY

PAINT A YELLOW LINE IN THE CENTRE OF YOUR DRIVEWAY

WRITE YOUR NAME IN THE SNOW

SKATEBOARD ON WAR MEMORIALS

CHEAT

TEACH BASKET WEAVING TO CLAMS

SING WELSH FOLK SONGS AT THE BANK

PLANT TREES ON PUBLIC PROPERTY

JOIN A CULT

CONFUSE THE PERSON NEXT TO YOU

MAKE A TRIANGULAR TABLE

HOP, SKIP AND JUMP

RIDE A TRAIN

ORGANISE YOUR SOCK DRAWER ALPHABETICALLY

CONGREGATE IN GANGS

GO BOWLING WITH YOUR MOM

TRAIN POTATO BUGS TO DO TRICKS

WEAR SUNSCREEN

MAKE A QUILT

PUBLISH A MAGAZINE ABOUT PENCIL SHAVINGS

EAT LIME JELLO WITH PINEAPPLE IN IT

PAVE A FREEWAY

LEARN TO DRAW

TAKE UP PHOTOGRAPHY

LEARN TO TELL TIME

PHOTOCOPY MONEY

GO OUT FOR PASTA

SEW A DRESS

BATHE YOUR IGUANA

GO FISHING

PAINT A STRANGER'S HOUSE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

TAKE UP WINDSURFING

CHANGE YOUR HAIR STYLE

SHARPEN YOUR WHITEBOARD MARKERS

FEED A TOUCAN

ENJOY THE SUN

DO A CROSSWORD PUZZLE

BUY SOME COOL CLOTHES

VISIT A PUBLIC LIBRARY

GO TO THE BEACH

PLAY CROQUET WITH YOUR DAD

WATER YOUR PLANTS

BUILD A DOLL HOUSE

INVITE SOME FRIENDS OVER FOR SALMON AND WHITE WINE

. . . ANYTHING!

JUST BUGGER OFF