Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky

by Kwame Mbalia

  “Where’s what?”

  “The book! Where are Anansi’s stories? We should get started right away. Preparations need to begin, no time to waste, chop-chop.”

  “Anansi’s stories? No, it was my friend’s journal.” But the words died on my lips. An old African symbol for a spider’s web, Nana had said. Anansi the Spider, whose hunger for storytelling and spinning a thrilling yarn was legendary. Anansi, who bugged the sky god Nyame into giving him the first stories, and whose legend grew as his tales spread.

  I unclenched my fists and rubbed my temples. This was all giving me a headache. Could it be true that the journal was actually a magical collection of the Spider’s stories?

  I squeezed my eyes shut. Fine. Believe it, if only just for a second. Let’s say the greatest storyteller to ever entertain had infused it with magic somehow. I mean, I was talking to a giant rabbit at this moment….

  But why would Anansi give such a powerful item to a nerdy black boy from Chicago?

  I opened my eyes to see everyone waiting.

  “The book is more than you think,” John Henry said gently but insistently. “It is the key to everything. Now hand it over.”

  I OPENED MY MOUTH TO answer, but nothing came out. Gum Baby peered up at me, then cast her eyes down quickly. Brer looked between us, his excitement fading and his suspicion returning.

  “Where is it?”

  I explained, slowly and with great difficulty, about what had happened in the Drowned Forest, nearly losing it when I admitted I hadn’t been able to save Brer Fox, and clenching my fists when I got to the part with the paper giant.

  Brer groaned and collapsed on the ground, his ears flopping over his eyes. “No, no, no, noooo! You lost it? We’re doomed. Doomed!”

  “Enough, Brer,” John Henry said. “That won’t get us anywhere.”

  Miss Rose sighed. “Fighting with Gum Baby, honestly. Damaging a Bottle Tree. Ripping the fabric between worlds…You could’ve destroyed everything we’ve built here. It’s bad enough the other Alkeans won’t talk to—” She broke off, and I wrinkled my forehead.

  “The trouble between us and the rest of Alke only started after that blasted rip appeared,” Brer muttered. “Those arrogant—”

  “Brer!” Miss Sarah folded her wings firmly and narrowed her eyes. “Enough. For now, we have to deal with these two.” She frowned at me, then turned to Gum Baby. “To think we gave you another chance, and this is how you chose to behave.”

  “Shameful,” Miss Rose added.

  “Disrespectful, even.”

  Gum Baby shrank even farther, her head nearly touching her stubby little legs. I actually—and I can’t believe I’m saying this—I actually felt bad for the little villain.

  “Maybe she’s just not ready.”

  “Maybe she never will be.”

  They went on like this for several minutes. Back and forth with their criticism, sometimes of me, sometimes of Gum Baby. Brer would occasionally drop a disappointed sigh or a snide comment here or there, and John Henry lectured everyone. I tried to interject, but I couldn’t get a word in. When grown-ups get on their high horses, those things gallop for days.

  Finally I just threw up my hands. “What exactly is it you want me to say?” I asked loudly. “And if I answer the questions, will y’all tell me how I can get back home?”

  Everyone fell quiet.

  Brer snorted. “Get back home. Right.”

  I glared at him. For an inspirational god, he was becoming super annoying. “Yes, back home. Through that flaming hole.”

  Brer hopped toward me, his long hind paws thumping the ground. He came up to my chest, had muscles that would put a Westlake Academy football player to shame, and now that he was standing up, one of his ears drooped. He stopped just inches from me and folded his paws across his front.

  “Go back. Just like that. Leave the mess you created behind for someone else to clean up.”

  “The mess I created?”

  “Yes, you. You think you can just disappear after all the trouble you’ve caused? Think you can go around disrespecting the hard work of others, upsetting the balance between worlds like a little punk? Just for some fun? I don’t think so. No, you’re down here in the muck and mud with the rest of us, hiding and running for our lives.”

  I shook my head, more to clear the tingling heat creeping down my spine than anything. “I don’t understand what you—”

  “That’s right, you don’t understand. I’ve seen your type before.” Brer hopped around the hilltop, pointing at the Thicket and then at the other gods. “No respect for anything you didn’t make. No respect for others. Wild and uncaring.”

  “I have respect—”

  “Impulsive. Dangerous. No pride in appearance.”

  I straightened my hoodie and clenched a fist. “I am not—”

  “And…” Brer said, as if I’d never spoken. He leaned forward, his paw and left ear both pointing at me accusingly. “This is possibly the worst trait of all—consistently lets others down. He said it himself! He nearly killed everyone chasing after the iron monsters just to look like a hero. What sort of friend—?”

  “YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME!” I shouted.

  Silence settled over the glade like fine ash after a scorching fire.

  “You have no idea who I am,” I said, my anger throttling my words into a hiss.

  Everyone was staring at me, and I bit my lip. Calm, Tristan. Gotta stay calm. Adults don’t like it when they’re not the only ones yelling.

  Miss Sarah looked at Miss Rose and they shook their heads. Brer hopped back a step with a smug expression on his face. John Henry sighed.

  The tingling anger rippled out from my core again. My fists clenched as I tried to suppress the feeling, but those looks they gave each other…

  Adults passed those looks back and forth when they didn’t want you to know what they really thought about you. Those looks could travel around a room as quick as the wind, replacing all conversation as soon as you entered. They were exchanged by adults you knew and by adults who thought they knew you. Mr. How-You-Doing-Sport and Mrs. Are-You-Okay-Sweetie would flash the looks between them before trying to dissect your last twenty-four hours.

  I hated those looks.

  “Tristan.”

  Gum Baby’s voice snapped me out of the fog, and I realized my hands were shaking. The tingling had built to a furious itch that needed to be scratched, and I was too upset to hold back any longer. The drumming that had been lingering in the back of my head all day began to grow louder.

  “You don’t know anything,” I repeated in a low growl. “You only see what you wanna see. You sent somebody to steal from a boy, because you wanted something. But did you see that boy? Did you know he had lost a friend? And not just a friend, but his best friend, his brother, his partner, his road dog, his Say no more, no words necessary homie until the end? Did you know that all this boy had left of his friend was a book, a single book that they had worked on together, collecting the stories they had loved hearing as kids? Their big project, their shared thoughts, right? Did you know that?”

  I was moving around the hilltop now. Everyone stayed silent. All of a sudden, no one had any comments. No looks. No adult-code phrases. I stared at Brer, who was examining his paw with great interest.

  The tingling had moved to my fingertips. It felt as if at any moment all that pent-up energy would burst from within and sweep everyone aside.

  I stopped and clenched my fists, then bent over, knuckling my temples and gritting my teeth.

  “Did you know that? Huh, gods?” I asked again, straightening up. “Can you picture that boy, in a strange place, and that book is the only thing reminding him of home and good times, and someone steals it? That’s right. Somebody breaks in and steals the only good thing this boy has left! Can you believe that?”

  The anger piled behind my eyes in a pounding headache, thumping in a rhythm that felt strangely familiar. I needed to punch something, but
there were no gloves, no punching bags nearby. My skull was going to split open if I didn’t lash out, if I didn’t channel that energy somehow.

  “Tristan.”

  I ignored Gum Baby’s call again. Everything was too much. Sadness. Confusion. Frustration. Emotions on top of emotions, all fighting to be expressed, and all anyone ever saw on the outside was an angry boy.

  Unfair.

  Un. Fair.

  “Bumbletongue!”

  “Can you picture it?” I asked again. The tingling and the throbbing headache raged out of control in one powerful surge, like a giant wave crashing on a beach and wiping out the sand castle you worked on all day. It ripped out of me and I screamed.

  “CAN YOU PICTURE IT?”

  Little hands grabbed me, and I could feel Gum Baby scramble up to sit on my shoulder. She patted my cheek with sticky hands.

  “Tristan…look. Look.”

  “Let go of—”

  I opened my eyes and froze.

  Brer and John Henry, Miss Sarah and Miss Rose—they were all staring in amazement, their jaws hanging open.

  The forest glade was filled with soft, pulsing green light, and just down the hill, all the butterflies—millions of them, it seemed—fluttered in tight formation, moving together in shapes and patterns that looked just like—

  “My story?” I whispered.

  And it was.

  The butterflies were reenacting my tale. There was Gum Baby, slipping through my window. Over there, large black-and-yellow butterflies formed the shape of a boy, who chased her. And there was the forest, and the Bottle Tree, and the fight, and the burning rip.

  I looked around. Nobody said a word as they watched, awestruck. Everyone except Gum Baby. She seemed relieved, as if she’d been proven right.

  “See?” she said to the others. “You told me bring you Anansi’s sign, and I did.” She patted my cheek again. “I brought you an Anansesem.”

  “ANANSESEM?” I ASKED, TRIPPING OVER the syllables. “What does that mean?”

  “A storyteller,” John Henry answered. He stroked his chin in thought. “But more than just words, more than just once upon a time and the end. It’s about the entire experience, from the audience to the stage to the spectacle. There’s music, too, I reckon, but—”

  “Enough!” Brer shouted. He leaped high in the air, off the hilltop, and down to the field below, scattering the butterflies. The spell was broken. They fluttered off to the flowers and trees, and Brer turned around with a glare. “Do you want to bring those iron monsters down on our heads? Of all the—”

  “Brer,” John Henry rumbled in warning.

  “—stupid, idiotic, brainless—”

  “That’s quite enough, Brer,” Miss Sarah said.

  “—dumb, selfish—”

  “BRER!” all three gods shouted, and Brer finally ended his rant. He turned and, with three powerful leaps, hopped out of the forest glade and into the network of Thicket tunnels.

  John Henry, Miss Sarah, and Miss Rose huddled together, murmuring under their breath, and I rolled my eyes. More “adult” conversations. But I had to admit I was spooked. The paper giant I maybe could have ignored as a one-off freaky occurrence in a freaky place with freaky creatures. But now the butterflies…All of a sudden, I felt like the freaky one.

  That was not a good feeling.

  “Tristan,” John Henry called, startling me. The giant man motioned for me to join them. Gum Baby broke off from harassing a cluster of butterflies and ran over as well.

  “So?” she said. “Did Gum Baby do good or not?”

  John Henry patted her on the head, nearly smooshing her, then looked confused when he lifted his hand to find Gum Baby stuck to it.

  “Yes, you did fine. But what’s important is what happens next.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Miss Sarah smoothed one of her wings and cleared her throat. “The Thicket is in danger. We were discussing that before you, ah…”

  “Before he hopped in with a thorny bottom?” Gum Baby asked.

  My face grew hot with embarrassment and Miss Rose rolled her eyes.

  “Yes, thank you, Gum Baby,” she said. “The point is—”

  “—in his butt,” Gum Baby whispered and snickered.

  “—we have a dilemma,” Miss Sarah said loudly.

  I looked around at all the grim faces and blew out a puff of air. “The iron monsters you all were talking about. The fetterlings.”

  “And hullbeasts and brand flies,” Miss Rose murmured.

  I didn’t know what those were, but I shuddered at the names. Why did everything around here have to sound so painful? Why couldn’t we be up against creatures called fluffbirds and taffypaws?

  “Yeah, I guess,” I continued. “Brer Fox said the iron monsters are all worked up because”—of me, I wanted to say—“of that giant rip in the sky. And—”

  “And they’re picking us off one by one,” John Henry finished. “They’re hunting us for some reason. Everyone who’s caught gets dragged to…well, to a bad place, never to be seen again.”

  “To the Maa—?” I started to ask, but three voices shushed me, and someone threw sap at my head.

  “We try not to call attention to that thing—” Miss Sarah began.

  “—and you need to be especially careful,” Miss Rose finished.

  “Me? Why?”

  “Because you’re an Anansesem,” John Henry said. His voice rumbled and he got down on one giant knee. “When you tell stories, something special happens, like you just saw with the butterflies. That’s why we call them things iron monsters, and I reckon you especially ought to do the same.”

  “You have to be careful,” Miss Rose warned.

  Miss Sarah nodded. “You have to focus. Concentrate on what you’re speaking about, and learn control.”

  I threw up my hands. “I don’t even know what Anna…Anon…what that means!”

  “It means you have Anansi’s gift,” said John Henry. “I’m still not sure how the Weaver created this magic, but what I do know is the world listens to you. And you listen to it.”

  A thought jumped into my mind and I inhaled sharply. “The music…” The others looked confused, and I explained. “I’ve been hearing music ever since I arrived. Drums. Clapping. Even some singing, but it’s real faint and…”

  I paused as a giant yawn escaped my mouth. The events of the past night were catching up to me, and I still didn’t know how I was going to get home, or if I could get home. With the tear in the sky making everyone’s lives down here a living nightmare, I wasn’t even sure I should go home, not without trying to help. But being some kind of magic storyteller wasn’t going to be of much use in an iron-monster attack.

  Tristan Strong the butterfly whisperer. Whoop-de-poop-de-do.

  Another yawn threatened to break out—all this stress was exhausting. If this was how adults felt all the time, you could miss me with that mess.

  John Henry frowned. “All right, that’s enough for now. We need to do some figuring about this. Gum Baby, take Tristan to get some food with the others. And send Ayanna in here if you see her.”

  Gum Baby saluted and started trotting down the grassy hill to the doorway in the thorns. I began to follow, but a deep voice stopped me.

  “Tristan,” John Henry said. He pointed a massive finger at me. “This ain’t over. Somethin’ ain’t adding up completely, but there ain’t no time to toss over it now. We will speak again.”

  I swallowed and nodded, then hurried after Gum Baby.

  What had I gotten myself into?

  GUM BABY LED ME BACK up the winding tunnel. She stopped every so often to examine a branch (“Gum Baby never saw this one before”) or a corner (“This is new!”) or a footprint (“Who’s been walking in Gum Baby’s halls?”).

  I was only half paying attention and almost stepped on her when she stopped and scratched her head. “Gum Baby don’t remember this fork being here,” she said.

  “W
ait, what?” I looked around. We were at an intersection. “Are you lost?”

  “Gum Baby don’t get lost, boy. She just decides to go somewhere different sometimes.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Got it. It’s this way.” Gum Baby started marching off down the leftmost path, and I sighed and followed. We walked in silence for a few seconds before she spoke again. “Everything’s so different.”

  “What?”

  “Everything.” Her voice was softer and less brash. “Everyone. People used to dance and sing and play—now they all quiet. Scared.”

  I pursed my lips. “They said you were gone a year. A lot’s happened in that time.”

  She stopped at another intersection, listened, and looked both ways before moving forward. I could hear faint voices now, and Gum Baby seemed more confident in where she was going. She glanced up at me and shook her head.

  “Gum Baby wasn’t gone no whole year. She left yesterday! It don’t make no sense.”

  Something savory wafted up the hallway and my stomach rumbled. We rounded a curve and entered a large room crowded with Midfolk. Long picnic-style benches stretched in rows from end to end, with a small aisle in the middle so people could walk up to the circular cooking station in the front.

  Gum Baby stopped. “See what I mean? They look so…”

  “Sad,” I finished.

  A line curled around the room, and people and animals shuffled forward. Nobody spoke, and all eyes were fixed squarely on the floor. A baby cried and was quickly shushed. Children sat in groups, some wolfing down their food and others listlessly picking at it. We got in line and Gum Baby scrambled up onto my shoulder.

  “Gum Baby don’t know anybody in here,” she said in frustration. “All these new faces.”

  “Refugees?” I guessed. “From around MidPass.”

  “But those ain’t MidPass clothes.”

  She pointed to a little boy who was draping his beaded cloak around his even littler sister as she clung to his shoulder. The boy offered her a drink of water from a tall jug, but she batted it away and buried her face in his chest.