Chapter 2
Captain McJam was making popcorn. He put the kernels into the popper-inator, and hit the big yellow button. First it worked by using popping sounds to convince the kernels to turn white, then made little bursts of hot air to surprise the kernels and make them puff up. He quickly put them into the shoot-inizer but he didn't notice one particular kernel that didn't pop-inate correctly, which then, after 10 seconds of being exposed to air, it stuck out its legs and arms and began walking towards the steering wheel. The kernel had tiny little corn-cob arms and teeny tiny popcorn legs, which made a sound like tip-tap-tip-tap on the wooden floor of the ship. (It was a very polite sound, if sounds could be polite, which Captain McJam believed they absolutely could be.) Captain McJam didn’t hear the tip-tapping because his ears were too busy listening to the satisfying crunch-crunch of quality-testing his popcorn. Quality testing was VERY important. He had to eat at least seventeen pieces to make sure they were all equally delicious. That was just science.
Meanwhile, Joey Joe burst through the cabin door holding what appeared to be a celery stalk tied up with shoelaces.
“CAPTAIN! I caught a spy!” Joey Joe announced proudly holding up the celery stalk like a prize. The celery looked very annoyed with which the manner that Joey Joe held him, which became apparent when the celery bit Joey Joe’s hand, causing it to swell badly with healthy-ness. Captain McJam gasped. “Quick! Eat a candy bar!”
Joey Joe’s mouth filled up with the flavor of every vegetable he’d ever avoided, all mashed together and stuck to the roof of his mouth. His knees wobbled, then buckled. His body toppled sideways before he splatted on the wooden deck with the majestic grace of a dropped ice cream scoop. “Don’t worry Joey! I have just the thing for that heathly bite: a quadruple syrup extra sugar mega Slurpee, now if I can just find it…” Captain McJam rummaged through his pockets. He pulled out a rubber duck, three buttons that were definitely NOT from his coat (he didn’t notice when he picked those up), a tiny anchor that was too small to anchor anything except maybe a very lazy goldfish, and finally: the quadruple syrup extra sugar mega Slurpee! (Staying frozen through sheer force of sugary willpower.)
And he certainly didn’t notice the little kernel stowaway tippy-tapping its way up to the ship’s wheel, its corn-cob arms grabbing the spokes like a tiny little mountain climber with absolutely no business knowing how to steer a ship.
“Here you go, Joey Joe! Drink up!” Captain McJam shoved the straw into Joey Joe’s mouth.
The Slurpee glowed with a shade of blue only possible with whatever they use in factories when nobody’s looking. Joey Joe’s eyes lit up with the same impossible blue as the syrup coated his mouth in a neon glaze of joy. The sugar hit his brain like a superhero landing, instantly transforming his heathly wound into the ghost of vegetables past.
The tiny hands grasped the wheel, then pushed. Slowly at first, but then gained speed, the wheel cranking faster and faster. The ship lurched to the side, throwing Captain McJam and Joey Joe against the railing. Captain McJam scrambled to his feet, looking for the cause, and that’s when he saw it—the tiny popcorn kernel, standing proudly at the wheel, triumphantly saying “Wheee!” as it steered them straight toward a long stretch of sand, just below the waves. “Slicey and dicey!” exclaimed Captain McJam as the hull of their ship crashed into the shallow sand, making a painful scraping noise (which was not polite at all, not even one bit.) The ship groaned like Captain McJam’s stomach after eating something green by accident. (That happened exactly once, and he still had nightmares about it.) He grabbed the railing and pulled himself up, his boots sliding on the titled deck (I’m not kidding, for some reason Captain McJam decided that the deck of this ship shall be called, quote unquote, “Sir Planks-a-lot.”)
“Joey Joe! We’ve been tricked! Get that little kernel!” But just as he said it, the kernel jumped off the boat into the water, and swam towards a rising green log. Which, at Captain McJam’s second look, was actually a cucumber. “CUCUMBER WAR SUB!” Captain McJam shouted , which was both a warning and a description, because sometimes those were the same thing.
The cucumber surfaced fully now, and it was enormous: easily three times the size of their ship, which meant it was either a very large cucumber or their ship was very small. (Captain McJam preferred to believe the cucumber was large. It was better for his ego.) The cucumber had been hollowed out wand fitted with little porthole windows carved into its bumpy green skin, and from each porthole poked the barrel of what Captain McJam recognized immediately as a Brussels Sprout Launcher. He knew this because one fired, and a Brussels sprout the size of his popcorn maker whizzed past his ear, leaving behind the unmistakable smell of steamed disappointment.
“INCOMING HEALTH FOOD!” he screamed, diving behind a barrel of frozen french fries. Captain McJam snapped his head back to avoid another Sprout and saw Joey Joe sneaking across the deck towards the popcorn shoot-inizer. Captain McJam whispered to him politely (everyone knows you stop someone from doing something stupid in the most polite way possible) “Joey?” Then a bit louder (it turned out he might be doing something smart, justifying a stronger nudge) “Joey.” And finally, shouted at him (because he’d just remembered he hadn’t shouted at anything yet today and it was almost snack-time, which meant his shouting quota was dangerously behind schedule) “JOEY JOE!”
Joey Joe froze mid-crawl and looked up at Captain McJam with the expression of someone who had just been caught stealing cookies but also saving one for Captain McJam.
“What?” Joey Joe said innocently, which was very hard to do when you were when you were lying on your belly next to a machine that shot stuff at enemies.
“What are you doing?” Captain McJam asked, ducking as another Brussels spourt sailed overhead and into the ocean with the distinct smell of steamed disappointment.
“I’m gonna load the celery spy into the shoot-inizer and fire him back at them!” Joey Joe explained, holding up the still-tied celery stalk. The celery looked even more annoyed now, which Captain McJam didn’t think was possible, but the celery’s little leafy eyebrows (which celery definitely had) were scrunched down in a very grumpy, un-polite V-shape.
Captain McJam’s brain did three somersaults and a cartwheel. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard,” he whispered, a single tear of pride rolling down his cheek. (It was a manly tear, the kind that tested like determination and possibly the salt from his popcorn.)
“Really?” Joey Joe beamed.
“Wait—incoming!”
A huge green mass landed on the ship with a sonic THWUMP that made Sir Planks-a-lot groan and wiggle like jelly during an earthquake. (Captain McJam knew this because he'd once dropped his entire jelly collection during the Great Tremor of Last Tuesday.) Standing before them was a broccoli. But not just any broccoli — this was a gorilla-sized broccoli, with massive floret fists and trunk-like stalks for legs. Captain McJam knew it was gorilla-sized because he'd once arm-wrestled a gorilla and lost spectacularly. It wore a tiny monocle that somehow stayed perfectly balanced on its face despite broccoli not having faces. Pinned to its chest (which was technically more stem, but Captain McJam wasn't about to correct a vegetable that could squish him). Three gold stars cackled. Captain McJam and Joey Joe exchanged a glance. Joey Joe pointed at the stars. Captain McJam nodded grimly. They were just too loud.
"I," the broccoli announced, "am General Brock O'Lee, THREE-STAR GENERAL of the Vegetable Armada!" He pounded his floret fists together. "And you, you are a farmer-level threat. ATTACK!"
Little radishes loaded themselves into the broccoli general's cannons and launched through the air towards Captain McJam and Joey Joe.
Captain McJam dove sideways with a yelp as the first radish whizzed past his nose, close enough that he could smell its earthy, dirt-flavored vengeance. The radish crashed into the ship's mast, leaving behind a small red smear that looked like ketchup's angry cousin.
"JOEY JOE! LOAD THE CELERY! NOW!" Captain McJam shouted. He grabbed the lid of his barrel and held it up as a shield as three more radishes came hurtling through the air. They thunked into the wooden lid with bonk-bonk-bonk sounds. (Those were rude sounds. Very rude indeed. The kind of sounds that would never be invited to Captain McJam's birthday.)
Joey Joe scrambled toward the shoot-inizer on hands and knees, the tied-up celery was tucked under his arm like a very unhappy football, its leafy top drooping in vegetable despair. The celery was making muffled protesting noises through its shoelace gag. Something that sounded suspiciously like "This is undignified!" but Joey Joe was too busy dodging the barrage of radishes to feel bad about it. After all, in the battle between junk food and vegetables, sacrifices had to be made—preferably vegetable ones.
Captain McJam rolled behind a stack of candy crates (emergency supplies, obviously.) His hand brushed against something cold and handle-shaped. He looked down.
Jellie.
His trusty butter knife. Named Jellie because jam and jelly go together, and Captain McJam and Jellie go together, and that was just how it was. He'd lost her during the Great Tremor of Last Tuesday: she must have slid behind the barrel when the jelly collection fell.
Captain McJam's fingers curled around the handle. He looked at the knife. He looked at the broccoli. A grin spread across his face, the kind of grin that made vegetables everywhere suddenly remember they had appointments elsewhere.
Captain McJam got up. He met General Brock O'Lee's eye — monocle and all. Then he raised Jellie slowly.
General Brock O’Lee’s floret fists clenched. "You dare threaten ME with a BUTTER KNIFE?" General Brock O'Lee bellowed, his voice booming. "I am the THREE star general. One. Two. Three! Can’t you count?" Each number came with a floret-fist pound to his chest that made his monocle wobble dangerously. "I can count," Captain McJam said, because he could. He'd learned all the way up to eleven last year. "But can YOU count how many times I'm about to slice you?"
This was, admittedly, not his best comeback. But General Brock O'Lee seemed confused by it, his leafy head tilting to one side like a dog hearing a strange noise. Captain McJam used this moment of vegetable bewilderment to charge.
Captain McJam twirled Jellie between his fingers. "And besides, she isn't a butter knife, she's a jelly one."
He screamed and charged at General Brock O'Lee. General Brock O'Lee did likewise. Behind them Joey Joe finished loading the celery spy with a loud ka-chunk.