by Kwame Mbalia
“That’s it!” the buzzard shouted. “I played with you for too long and you got a couple more morsels to join you. Between the three of you I might get a decent meal.” With that, the giant monster bird bent over, wings low to the ground, wicked hooked beak aimed directly at my face. But behind him, over his head, I saw that weird silhouette in the sky again, and this time it was closer. It moved in an odd fashion, jerking to the left and right.
It couldn’t be…
“Tristan! What are you doing?” Ayanna shouted.
I rolled my head. “Follow my lead,” I said. “When I give the signal, attack.”
“You have an idea?”
“Something like that.”
“That’s inspiring,” Junior muttered. “Are all your heroic speeches like that?”
I ignored him. At the moment, I needed his aim. Ayanna brandished her staff and Junior hefted his stone. Me? I couldn’t make a proper fist with my right hand to engage the akofena, but that didn’t mean I was helpless. As Kulture raced forward, I leaped into action, sprinting to meet him. Knees high, just like Granddad taught me. The timing had to be perfect. If I arrived too soon, my plan would fall apart. Too late, and I’d be eaten. I guess that counts as my plan falling apart, too.
Luckily, I was right on time.
I skidded to a stop, spread the fingers of my left hand, twisted around, and slapped the giant bird.
Everyone stopped.
“Did you just—” Ayanna began to ask.
“Did you just smack him?” Junior interrupted.
The smaller birds flapped overhead, stunned into silence. Kulture Vulture brought one wing to his head, then looked at me, confused. “You slapped me!” he said in an accusatory tone.
“I did.” I folded my arms across my chest and shook my head in exaggerated disappointment. “You left me no choice.”
“But—”
“Honestly, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Coming out here and terrorizing everyone and you haven’t even brushed your teeth. The nerve.”
Kulture Vulture’s eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head. “I don’t have teeth!”
“That’s what happens when you don’t brush. Just like my grandmother always said.”
One of the bird flunkies snickered, and the giant vulture let out a screech of frustration. “REHK REHK! That’s it! I’ve had it. I’m not playing with my food anymore. First the old woman talked my beak off before the Shamble Man came back for her from that ole shining city over there, and now you. Birds of a feather. Well, now it’s time to get plucked. Get over here!”
I inhaled sharply. So Kulture had seen Nana. And the Shamble Man. “You tried to eat my grandmother?”
The vulture shuddered, his muddy feathers flinging dirt everywhere. “Naw, little worm, not to my taste. Besides, that masked giant said she was off limits. You, on the other hand…” With a huge flap of his massive wings, Kulture lunged for me. But he’d waited too long. Just behind him, swooping down from the clouds, came our savior.
“Now!” I shouted.
Junior tossed a stone in the air and Ayanna batted it like a designated hitter. It smacked Kulture Vulture right in the eye and the bird reared back. Junior’s hands were already pulling more stones from the satchel. He whipped them through the air so fast, they hummed as they passed me. The buzzard stumbled and fell, and I dashed forward, snatched his necklace, and dove away. I stashed the goods in my backpack for safekeeping.
Kulture Vulture squawked in outrage and tried to get up, but he couldn’t while the rocks were still raining down. Finally he staggered to his feet and took to the air, spiraling up to get out of range—
Right into the path of Gum Baby on Ayanna’s flying raft.
“PRECOFFINARY MEASURES!” the tiny doll yelled. The raft was covered, and I mean covered, in sap. Mounds of it. Gooey strands trailed from it like tentacles on a jellyfish. The vessel jerked left and right, snaring Kulture Vulture and his crew in one giant sticky knot. They flapped and struggled in vain. I winced, knowing from firsthand experience just how secure that sap was.
When she got close to us, Gum Baby backflipped off the raft as it shot into the sky. I was so busy waving cheekily at the birdbrains that I failed to notice where she planned on landing until it was too late. Big mistake.
“Oomph!”
Ayanna and Junior snickered as Gum Baby peeled herself off my head—ripping out a patch of hair as she went—and slid down into my hood. She patted my cheek, smearing sap on my face in the process. “Did you miss me?”
“No,” I said, groaning as I scrubbed at my skin. “And what about the raft? How are we supposed to get around?”
“‘How are we supposed to get around?’” Gum Baby mimicked in a whiny voice. “Gum Baby just saved your muddy behind and this is the thanks she gets? Rude.”
Ayanna intervened before the argument could continue. “Thank you, Gum Baby, you were wonderful.”
“Yeah,” Junior said, offering the little loudmouth a short bow. “At least you did something.”
“Hey, all this was my plan!” I said.
Junior whistled. “Some plan. Let everyone else do the work after you make the monster mad. Good job with that.”
“Anyway,” Ayanna said, glaring at us both, “the raft will return in a little bit. Not that it’ll be good for much.”
I hoped Gum Baby looked sheepish, but I couldn’t see her.
“In the meantime, we walk,” Ayanna finished. She set off, skirting the muddy water, and headed to where the emerald city of Nyanza sparkled in the distance. Junior followed, and Gum Baby snuggled down into my hoodie and yawned.
“Be a good Bumbletongue and carry Gum Baby. It ain’t like you’re carrying your own weight around here anyway.” And before I could think up a response, she started snoring, leaving me gritting my teeth as we trekked off to find my grandmother.
“LOOK, GUM BABY SAID SHE WAS SORRY!”
After we’d slogged for nearly an hour through the receding lakes of Nyanza, with the emerald city barely getting any closer, Ayanna’s floating raft finally returned to her. Dingy feathers covered it from front to back, stuck in sap. I didn’t know what had happened to Kulture Vulture and his gang, but they’d sure left a mess. It looked like a turkey had exploded in an oven filled with hamburger grease.
Yep. Think about it.
Ayanna touched her golden staff to the vessel and whispered. Slowly the sap melted and most of it slid off, taking the feathers with it.
“Come on,” she said, and we all climbed aboard. “Gum Baby, you steer while I get the rest of this cleaned up.”
Junior took up a position near the front of the raft, out of the way. I watched him get settled. Something was still bothering me about him, but between Gum Baby’s terrible flying skills and my desperate efforts to avoid sitting in sap, I couldn’t focus on one moody boy at the moment. And, as if those discomforts weren’t enough, a giant thunderstorm lurked low and menacing on the horizon, back to the west. Thick, ugly gray clouds. We cruised (if you could call it that) closer and closer to the domed city. I had time to actually examine it and the surrounding area—you know, without being attacked by flying appropriators.
The dome wasn’t completely sealed like I’d originally thought. I could vaguely make out the shapes of houses inside through seams in the glass, and smoke escaped from cleverly designed chimneys that were invisible from above. Plants grew out of cracks in the giant jade tortoise shell and snaked their way to the lake below, where huge lily pads with flowers the size of canoes awaited. In fact…I narrowed my eyes…they were canoes—giant flower canoes with big leaves that doubled as paddles. It looked like the lily pads were actually docks. Floating driveways for a city built on a lake.
If only the lakes weren’t drying up.
“Who lives there?” I asked Ayanna in a low voice.
She poked at a stubborn clump of stuck feathers with a grimace, then sighed. “This is going to take forever. Maybe I should—W
hat did you say? Who lives where? Oh…Well, rumor has it another goddess is inside. Like Keelboat Annie in a way, she managed to keep her people safe from the iron monsters by drastic means.”
I frowned. “But Annie went on the run—her and Old Man River.”
“Yes, and—you didn’t hear this from me—I heard this goddess shut down the whole City of Lakes.”
I’d just opened my mouth to ask what that meant when the raft shuddered again.
“Can you fly straight?” Junior’s comment grabbed my attention. Gum Baby’s as well.
“Gum Baby is a pilot. Put some respect on her name.”
The exchange brought my attention back to our current sticky situation. I turned to watch Gum Baby struggle with the rudder at the rear of the raft, racing from one side to the other to keep it in line, sometimes going so far as to jump on top of it and wrestle it into position. I didn’t let out a single chortle, though. Not a one.
Gum Baby looked up at me anyway. “You laughing at Gum Baby, Bumbletongue? Better not be. Gum Baby’ll snatch that smile of yours and use it as floss.”
I raised my hands in the universal gesture of Couldn’t be me and fought to keep a straight face.
Junior looked back and forth between us, his eyebrows raised. “Why did they make you a pilot?” he asked her.
Gum Baby let go of the rudder and stood proudly with her hands on her hips, only to yelp and leap for the raft’s controls when we started to nosedive. “’Cause Gum Baby deserves! Took them long enough. Gum Baby had to do two more missions before they’d give her a chance, and then old Shovel Hands Henry said it was only temporary, that Gum Baby needed to prove herself some more. As if Gum Baby ain’t the best at whatever she chooses to do.” She sniffed, then squinted at the edge of the raft, eyed the rudder, dashed to peek over the side to see where we were headed, then raced back to the rudder before we crashed. “Gum Baby’s a pro.”
I snorted, then went back to scanning the area for signs of the Shamble Man or Nana, or anything that would give me a clue as to what to do next. It pained me to say it, but without Anansi I was lost.
I couldn’t help it. I pulled out the phone one more time, just to check.
Nothing.
“Ooh, Gum Baby’s gonna teeell.” The raft dipped suddenly as the tiny terror abandoned the rudder and scrambled up to my shoulder to examine the broken phone. “You didn’t have a scream protector? Wow, Bumbletongue, you must be rich-rich. Guess you’re just gonna buy another one of those magical phones made from the precious treasure and heirloom of the gods. Oh, wait…”
The glare I bestowed upon the sticky nuisance could’ve curdled milk, even if she was right.
“I have a screen protector,” I said, “but—”
“Whoa, you broke the Story Box?” Ayanna asked, interrupting me. She stepped over to look, and Junior peeked as well. “What is Nyame going to say?”
“Nothing,” I said, “because I’m going to get it fixed before he finds out.”
“Boy, whatever,” Gum Baby said. She hopped down, returned to the rudder, and pointed at a shiny button on the left strap of her overalls. “People can’t trust you with nothing. That’s why you don’t even have a badge! When Gum Baby became a pilot, she got one. You’re looking at Pilot Gum N. B. Baby.”
I frowned. “What does the N. B. stand for?”
“Nunya Business, that’s what. Always nosy. This why people don’t invite you anywhere. Always—”
Thump
The impact threw us to the floor of the raft in a tumbled heap. I groaned, a weight on my head pushing my face into the rough and sticky wooden planks. It took me a second to realize that Gum Baby had landed on me.
“Gerroff!” I said in a muffled shout.
“Hush, boy. Your big ole head is like a couch. Gum Baby could put her feet up and stretch out.” But the tiny terror hopped off with a sticky plop, and I winced. You ever have a bandage yanked off? That’s what it felt like. Pretty sure another patch of hair was missing thanks to her. Gum Baby peered around, then dusted her hands, her coal eyebrows bunching into a frown when they got stuck together. “Perfect landing,” she said. “Ten out of ten.”
We’d crashed into one of the giant lily pads resting on the shallow lake that held the emerald dome. Ayanna and Junior jumped off the raft and I followed. We climbed the bank to find a dry creek bed as wide as a street. It led to the city.
“Why is all the water gone?” I muttered. “And where are the people?”
No one answered. Gum Baby scrambled up to my shoulder, and Ayanna readied her staff, while Junior pulled a stone from his satchel. (How many did he have in there, anyway?) We crept forward. The silence was unnerving. No chatter, no animals, no sound from the city whatsoever.
It was as if Nyanza had been abandoned.
We crested a small hill, still inside the creek bed, to find a solid green metal gate blocking our path. Beyond it, a waterfall splashed down, rainbow-colored and as loud as thunder. It shrouded the area in a fine mist we couldn’t see past.
“A sluice gate,” Ayanna said, her eyes wide. “Keelboat Annie told me about them. They control the flow of water, and not even Old Man River can get through one that’s lowered. Looks like these people really want to keep everyone else out.”
I thought about that as we walked closer to examine the gate. What would make folk want to guard against a magical river? Did this have something to do with all the dried-up lakes and streams in Nyanza? Or with the Shamble Man?
Just as we reached the gate and the clumps of wild grass growing on either side of it, a bright blur streaked past my face.
Thunk!
“That’s far enough!”
The shout surprised me, but not as much as the blue-green spear that now quivered in the ground in front of us. A rope attached to the end of the spear’s shaft trailed up the riverbank and disappeared behind the high grass. I looked for the thrower but didn’t see anyone. I’d started to step forward to investigate when another spear whizzed through the air and landed near us. I scuttled backward, and a third thunked into the ground behind me, cutting off my retreat.
We clustered together, staring around. No attackers revealed themselves. Had Kulture Vulture returned with reinforcements?
“Into the canal, all of you,” a second voice said, just as the giant sluice gate groaned open, clear blue water splashing through to fill the creek bed up to our ankles. “Now!”
I gulped, a sinking Here we go again feeling in my stomach, and waded through.
Gorgeous.
Incredible.
Breathtaking.
Those were just a few of the words rattling in my head as we walked into Nyanza. Not right away, mind you. At first, the City of Lakes wasn’t nearly as awe-inspiring as Isihlangu or the Golden Crescent. We sloshed through a dim tunnel until we reached a scuffed gray door without a handle. I eyed it with dread as we approached, hoping it wasn’t an entrance to a prison. It opened automatically when we got near, and we stepped through to enter the world within the dome. My jaw dropped and my breath caught in my throat.
Sunlight drifted down in different shades of green to bathe everything in a soft glow. Small trees grew in a field on my left—an orchard of some sort. I didn’t recognize the fruit, but the fragrance of something light and sweet reminded me that I hadn’t eaten in a while. In front of us, a wide avenue lined with gently bending stalks of giant wildflowers led over a hill and into the middle of town, where structures that were half-building, half-plant grew toward the light. I raised my eyes to the dome high above, inhaling the scents of this incredible oasis.
It was so peaceful.
At least, it would have been if not for the tension lurking just beneath the beauty. We marched with our invisible guards calling out instructions every few steps.
“Take this footbridge.”
“Step lively now.”
But the voices floated to us without a glimpse of their speakers. Every so often I heard a rustling just to the s
ide of the road we walked on, and I thought I caught a glimpse of more of those sharp spears, but every time I squinted into the brush, I couldn’t see anything except waist-high grass waving in the steady warm breeze that carried traces of citrus and honey.
Were we being taken captive? I wondered. I didn’t have time for that—I needed to find Nana.
Just when I thought I couldn’t walk any longer, we reached the top of the hill and my complaints were forgotten. The city sprawled below like one of Nana’s quilts, a sparkling weave of sapphire-blue streams, multilevel rows of plant-houses, and dozens of colorful orchards filled with fruit-laden trees.
And, in the middle of it all, resting on a huge gilded lily pad that floated in the air, defying gravity, was a dazzling palace the same shade of emerald green as the dome high above us. Water that sparkled like diamonds cascaded over the edges of the lily pad and collected in dozens of lakes and ponds at the bottom of the dome. It had to be the source for all the streams in the city.
The City of Lakes indeed.
But with all this water inside, why was the land outside so dry? Was Nyanza hoarding water? As the questions floated around my head, I wanted to stay and drink (ha!) in the sight forever, but I was still wondering about something.
“Hey,” I said. “Where is everyone?”
Our invisible guards didn’t answer me. Not that I was expecting them to. Ayanna looked around at the darkened homes and empty orchards and pursed her lips. Junior’s eyes had a hard edge, and I could see the tension in each careful step he took. He was still clutching a stone.
Gum Baby patted my head and pointed at the palace. “Move it, Bumbly. Stop lollygagging. Straight ahead to the giant floating building.”
I sighed and started walking down the hill. Some things never changed.
“Stop here.”
The voice came from a shadowy hole next to a small pond. A waterfall spilled down from the palace high above, so smooth and uninterrupted it looked like a glass sculpture. A lily pad the size of a twin bed floated nearby, but I didn’t see any flower canoes. We all looked around, awaiting further instructions.
