“Good idea. And tomorrow you really need to eat something besides microwaved cheeseburgers and peanut butter crackers.”
Billy shot her a double thumbs-up.
His mother shook her head and went back to her books.
Billy waited until she was gone. Then he bolted for the back door.
Because that was where the voices seemed to be coming from.
He noticed that the porch had the same kind of stamped-tin ceiling as Dr. Libris’s study. The moon was shining bright, streaking the lake with ripples of silver.
Billy stared at the island in the distance.
All he heard were crickets. Or cicadas. Some kind of bug rubbing its legs together. Billy was a city kid and he really didn’t—
“Cursed Antaeus!”
Okay. Hercules was still alive. Now he was shouting, too.
“You grow bigger and uglier every time I hurl you to the ground!”
This isn’t really happening, Billy told himself.
But then he saw something that changed his mind.
He was still staring at the spiky silhouette of Dr. Libris’s island when, all of a sudden, one of the craggy rocks lining the shore started to move.
Started to walk.
Actually, it wasn’t a rock.
When it crossed a moonlit path, Billy could clearly see the shadowy shape of a humongous man with a lumpy head and shoulders.
Antaeus.
Billy raced back to Dr. Libris’s study, picked up the open Hercules book off the floor, and read what was written on the next page.
“You call that a kick?” cried Antaeus. “Try again, you puny little runt!”
The cabin floor shook.
Apparently, out on the island, Hercules had kicked Antaeus and knocked him to the ground.
Billy closed the book.
The floor stopped quaking.
No one was shouting.
All Billy heard was his own rapid breathing.
He put the book back on its little easel in the bookcase.
He shut the double glass doors.
Gave the key a quick twist.
He tugged on the handles to make sure the bookcase was locked up tight.
The room remained silent.
Walking on tiptoe, Billy made his way back to the reading chair, stepped up on the cushion, and carefully re-hid the bookcase key inside the cuckoo clock.
And then he waited.
For five minutes.
Ten.
No more taunts from Antaeus or brave replies from Hercules.
No more earth-jolting body slams.
Billy ventured out to the back porch. The island was still there, of course, but no hulking wrestlers were slinking along its shoreline.
Billy couldn’t figure out what the heck was going on.
It was one more riddle for him to unravel.
THE THETA PROJECT
LAB NOTE #319
Prepared by
Dr. Xiang Libris, PsyD, DLit
As predicted, our subject, Billy G., has already started interacting with the Hercules text. Instruments monitoring his brain functions show theta wave numbers that are off the charts. His mind is unlike any I have ever recorded.
Let us wish the boy continued good fortune on his journey. May his flights of fancy lead us all to the financial rewards we so richly deserve.
After a night of tossing and turning, fighting a lumpy pillow, and dreaming about a giant iPhone doing battle with a tub of Greek yogurt, Billy was up with the sun.
He was eager to see if he could “call up” anybody else on the island.
Making himself a bowl of cereal with a sliced banana, Billy listened for strange sounds or voices.
There weren’t any.
No grunts or groans. No Hercules or Antaeus.
Because their book isn’t open.
“You’re up early,” his mother said, coming down the stairs in her flannel bathrobe.
“Yeah,” said Billy. “Wanted to get a jump on the day.”
“Great. Are you running next door to talk to that boy you met yesterday?”
“No, I thought I’d do some more reading.”
“You liked those books in Dr. Libris’s study?”
Billy nodded. “Last night, I looked at one about Hercules. This morning, I thought I’d try something else.”
“Great,” said his mom. “See if he has Robin Hood. When I was your age, Robin Hood was my absolute favorite. I always imagined I was Maid Marian.”
“A cleaning lady?”
His mom laughed. “No, Billy. Maid Marian is Robin Hood’s girlfriend. And she was just as tough as he was.”
“Cool.”
“Have fun. While you’re off with Robin and Marian, I’ll be exploring the theoretical foundation for the existence of alternate realities—like in that M. C. Escher print with the sideways staircases.”
It sounded like his mother would be lost in her own world all day, doing her math homework.
That was good. It meant Billy would be free to continue his research project.
Robin Hood was on the top shelf of Dr. Libris’s bookcase.
Billy went to the cuckoo clock, took out the key, and slipped it back into the Cowardly Lion keyhole.
“This one’s for you, Mom.” He slid the emerald-green Robin Hood off the shelf.
He sat down in the reading chair and flipped through the pages. He stopped at an illustration of Robin Hood and Maid Marian dueling with an evil bounty hunter who’d been hired by the even more evil Sheriff of Nottingham.
The bounty hunter glared savagely upon Robin and Maid Marian, both of whom were disguised as wayfaring monks. “Thou do wag thy tongues most merrily, holy friars,” said the bounty hunter. “But take care, or I may cut those tongues from thy throats for thee.”
Ouch, thought Billy. That’ll hurt.
Robin Hood and Maid Marian whipped off their monk costumes. Robin was wearing a green tunic and tights. Marian was dressed in the same thing, only her costume was brown.
“Thou bloody villain!” cried Robin. “Thou dare speak thusly to my fair lady?”
“Robin Hood?” gasped the bounty hunter.
“Ah-ha-ha-ha!” laughed Robin Hood. He flashed his bright sword in the sunlight. Maid Marian hoisted a good and heavy broadsword high above her head.
And Billy jumped out of his seat.
Because off in the distance, he heard the clang of steel on steel.
It was happening again.
Billy glanced back at the book.
And now came the fiercest sword fight that Sherwood Forest had ever seen.
Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and the bounty hunter had launched into a three-way sword fight. And once again, it sounded like it was taking place on the island.
Carrying Robin Hood, Billy hurried to the back porch and read another sentence.
Up and down they fought, till all the sweet green grass was crushed by the trampling of their heels.
Billy could hear the clinking blades. The tromping of booted feet. Lots of grunting and groaning.
Then Billy heard some dialogue that couldn’t be in the Robin Hood book.
“You dare poke at me?” roared a gravelly voice.
Great. Antaeus was back.
Somehow, even though one book was sealed up tight in the bookcase, the two books were mashing together.
Was it because Billy had read them both and now they were all mixed up in his brain?
“Mind thy manners, thou oafish ogre!” somebody with a British accent, maybe Robin Hood, shouted.
“Or we shall mind them for thee!” Another British accent. Female.
What is going on out there? Billy wondered. Then he heard another voice. Much closer.
“Hello, Billy.”
No accent. It was his neighbor Alyssa.
Billy closed the Robin Hood book. The sounds stopped.
“What’re you doing?”
“Reading.”
“Really? Walter was just rea
ding to me and guess what?”
“What?”
“It was a book about you! The Three Billy Goats Gruff! Get it? You’re Billy, right?”
Billy just nodded. He remembered that story.
And if The Three Billy Goats Gruff was inside Dr. Libris’s special bookcase, Billy might be able to hear a troll and a bunch of goats on the island, too.
Billy was convinced that somebody on the island was messing with his head.
He locked Robin Hood inside Dr. Libris’s cabinet and slipped the key into his pocket.
“This has to be a gag,” he said to one of the wooden pirates carved into the bookcase. “Dr. Libris probably punks people like this every summer. He rents them his cabin, then hires actors to do the voices and sound effects out on the island.”
Yeah, he thought, that would make sense.
Except how did they know what book Billy was reading? The TV cameras?
Then there had been that chunky guy stomping along the shore in the dark the night before. The guy had to be at least fifteen feet tall.
How’d they swing that?
Stilts?
World’s biggest marionette?
And how much would you have to pay actors to sit around all day waiting for someone to open a book?
A little after noon, Billy came to a conclusion.
He had to go explore the island.
Well, actually, he could just stay in Dr. Libris’s cabin staring at pictures of impossibly sideways staircases and pretending nothing had ever happened.
But if he kept hearing an action-movie sound track every time he opened one of those bookcase books, he might go nutzoid.
He went into the kitchen to grab a quick lunch.
“Are you eating some fruit?” his mother called from the second floor when she heard the unmistakable crinkle of peanut butter cracker wrappers.
“Yes.” Billy plucked up an apple. “And then I’m going to take the rowboat out to the island.”
“Fantastic! Promise me you’ll wear a life jacket?”
“I will.”
“They’re in the mudroom. Be careful.”
“I will.”
“I’ll be watching out my window.”
“I know.”
“Billy?”
“Yes, Mom?”
“Do you know how to row a boat?”
“Pffft. Are you kidding? We learned it in gym class.”
Okay.
That was a lie.
Billy had absolutely no idea how a rowboat worked.
Good thing there were life jackets. He might really need one.
Billy stood on the dock in the hot sun looking down at the creaky red boat as it rocked back and forth in the water.
A pair of oars was stowed in the bottom.
“What’re you doing, Weedpole?”
Billy spun around.
Nick Farkas and his two evil minions were at the neighboring dock, tying off a three-person Yamaha WaveRunner Jet Ski. They must’ve just taken the floating motorcycle out for a spin to terrorize the trout.
“I asked you what you were doing!” shouted Farkas.
“Nothing. Just, you know. Nothing.”
Farkas laughed. “Well, guess what we’re doing?”
Billy wanted to say, “Learning how to use a spoon without hurting yourself?” but decided just to shrug instead.
Farkas strutted to the edge of his dock. “My mom just bought me the brand-new Space Lizard game for my Xbox.”
“But wait,” said one of his goons. “There’s more.”
“There’s more,” said the other.
“She also got me the cheat guide!” Farkas brandished a magazine-sized book. “So we’re going inside to totally annihilate the Space Lizard. And when we’re done with him, guess what we’re going to do?”
Billy shrugged again. “Make Popsicle-stick pot holders?”
“No, Weedpole. We’re gonna come back out here, hop on my Jet Ski, and annihilate you.”
“We’re gonna sink your dinky little boat,” added his buddy.
“Yeah,” said the other one. “Your boat is dinky.”
Oh-kay, Billy thought. Maybe this isn’t such a good idea.
Then, on the island, he heard Hercules shout, “By Zeus, I know not how to slay this monster!”
Farkas and his friends were already heading up to the glass house, laughing and slugging each other the whole way. If they heard the yelling, they sure didn’t act like it.
Billy took a deep, steadying breath.
He had to do this thing.
He untied the docking rope from a piling and stepped down. He had one foot up on the pier and one down in the wobbly boat. He pushed his foot off the dock, shot out his arms for balance, and stood frozen like a terrified tightrope walker.
Then he moved half an inch.
And the boat nearly flipped over.
Billy dropped to his hands and knees and scrabbled around on the bottom of the boat until he was finally able to twist himself sideways and slide his butt up onto the slat of wood he was supposed to sit on to row.
Before he could slide the oars into their brackets, the boat started drifting.
Fortunately, the current carried him to the left, away from Nick Farkas’s dock. Billy slapped at the water with one of the paddles. Unfortunately, he was turning in circles.
But then he felt something correct his course.
Something under his hull.
Something big.
Billy looked down at the lake.
Through the glassy surface of the water, he saw a huge face staring up at him.
“Aaaaah!” Billy nearly jumped out of the boat.
The man glaring up at him had long, flowing white hair and a wavy Santa Claus beard. He wore a golden starfish crown on his head and carried a humongous three-pronged spear.
He was also the size of a whale.
Billy gulped.
Because the underwater titan was Poseidon.
And he looked just like he did in the book!
Billy was frantically hanging on as Poseidon used the middle tip of his trident to nudge him toward the island. The Greek god was helping Billy exactly the way he’d helped Hercules in the book!
Awesome, thought Billy.
But how did Dr. Libris get the fake Greek god’s spear to actually push the real rowboat?
Did the professor hire engineers from an amusement park to set this all up?
Why?
Powered by Poseidon propulsion, Billy reached the island’s rocky coast in less than five minutes.
“Thanks for the assist,” he said to the water.
But, of course, nobody was there.
Clenching the nylon docking line in his teeth, Billy crawled out of the rowboat. Luckily, someone had bolted a metal tie-off cleat to one of the boulders dotting the edge of the shallow lagoon.
Very convenient, Billy thought. Probably where the ferryboat docks in the morning when it drops off all the actors and special effects technicians.
Billy stood on the rocky shore and took in the towering row of shaggy evergreen trees ringing the island. Even though it was the middle of a hot summer day, the place seemed dark and mysterious.
He was tempted to row back to the mainland.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he walked up a narrow path into the lush and sort of steamy forest. The fragrant evergreens gave way to leafier trees and thick, tangled underbrush.
Billy had hiked maybe thirty feet when he came to a wall of wire netting. Tugging at it, he realized that a massive mesh dome—like the net over the hawk cages at a zoo—covered the entire island.
That was why the island looked so hazy from a distance. It was under a gigantic screen lid.
Probably so they can rig ropes and pulleys off the dome, Billy thought. To work the Rock Person puppet and stuff.
Billy raised a loose flap cut into the netting—a doorway as wide as the path. He stepped through it and was under the dome. The narrow trai
l continued to wind its way into the shadowy green world. Billy followed it.
“Okay, guys,” he said nervously to the trees and bushes and the actors he figured were hiding behind them. “I know you’re back there. Here I come. It’s showtime.”
Rounding a bend, Billy came to a pair of massive wrought-iron gates set between twin columns of stacked stone.
Each of the pillars anchored a green chain-link fence that ran through the equally green undergrowth in both directions. The security fencing looked like it encircled the entire island.
The gates themselves were decorated with elaborate metal sculptures that were as amazing as the wood carvings on Dr. Libris’s bookcase: a fox staring up at a cluster of grapes, a rabbit chasing a turtle, a lion with a splinter in its paw.
In the center of all the sculpted figures was a boxy black lock.
“You there! Boy!”
Billy nearly leapt out of his skin.
A strong, golden-skinned man stumbled into the clearing on the far side of the locked gates. The guy looked like a star of the WWE or a bodybuilder who worked out sixteen hours a day.
His bulging muscles glistened with sweat. Clumps of green grass stuck out of his curly black hair and beard. His headband was tilted sideways. The lion-head-and-fur cape on his back was missing a few fangs.
Whoa, thought Billy. Hercules.
“Don’t just stand there, boy!” cried the muscleman. “Help me!”
“Um, hi,” said Billy through the bars of the gate. “You’re supposed to be Hercules, right?”
“Yes. I am Hercules.”
“Nice costume.”
“Costume?” Hercules looked confused. “Foolish child. This is the hide of the Nemean lion that I cut off with a blade made of its own claws!”
“Riiiight. Is this a theme park? ‘Fairy Tale Forest,’ maybe? Did Dr. Libris hire you to trick me and my mom?”
“Please, mortal, do not speak in riddles. You are hurting the insides of my head.”
“So,” said Billy, looking around, “where’s the big rocky guy?”
“In the name of Zeus, boy—silence! Who sent you here?”
“Poseidon.”
“Poseidon? I do not understand.”
The Island of Dr. Libris Page 3
