The Whisper

by Aaron Starmer

  Then he was in a pool.

  Not a pond, not a lake, an actual pool. A big one at that, Olympic-size, with lanes sectioned off by buoyed ropes. Banners hung overhead. DISTRICT CHUMPS. STATE CHUMPS. NATIONAL CHUMPS. WORLD CHUMPS. UNIVERSE CHUMPS.

  “Kill … me … now,” came a voice, goofy and tuneless. Two dark lines, like lampposts, sprouted from the deck of the pool. “Gawd. A kid who can swim. Like a stinkin’ guppy,” came the voice again, a boy’s voice, but all Alistair could see were those dark lines.

  So he swam toward the edge, guiding himself with one arm while holding the atlas with the other. When he had a grip on the concrete, he got a better view. More dark lines, but together they formed a stick figure, a crudely drawn boy in a bathing suit with inflatable swimmies on his flimsy arms.

  “Man oh man. Now look what you’ve done,” the stick boy said. “Coach M is gonna see this and he’ll be all like, ‘Well this kid can swim, so why can’t any of you chumps?’ And then we’re all gonna have to go in there.” The boy skittered back and forth like he was excessively caffeinated, until a notion stopped him in his tracks. “Unlesssss … you’re one of those. Tell me you’re one of those?”

  Chlorine fumes tickled at his nostrils, and Alistair sneezed and said, “One of what?”

  “One of those aliens, one of those dudes or dudettes from another world who pops in and tries to impress us with your skills. Not drowning, for instance. You’re all amazing at that. Just so you know, we appreciate that one alien dealing with that bully Tyler, we really, truly do. But usually you make us feel lousy. You are one of those, aren’t you?”

  “I … guess so.”

  “Knew it,” the stick boy said. “Well, silver lining is I can tell Coach M that aliens don’t count as kids, because I am so not getting into that pool. And after that’s straightened out, I’d be happy to lead you to one of your wormholes or whatever.”

  The kid reached down his hand, a scribble of five lines. It didn’t seem like something to grab—it seemed like a drawing—and yet Alistair grabbed it, and the stick boy had a firm grip and enough strength to pull him out of the water.

  “Is this a school?” Alistair asked.

  “Unfortunately,” the stick boy said. “I’m Kenny, by the way.”

  There were bleachers, a scoreboard, and doors marked EXIT and LOCKERS. It was very similar to the pool back home at Thessaly High School, where Alistair and Charlie took swimming lessons for a few months when they were eight. Only there weren’t walking, talking stick boys back home.

  “Why are you…?”

  “My looks weirding you out, huh?” Kenny said with a nod. “I get it. You aliens aren’t used to seeing natural human forms.” He spread his stick arms, twirled around. He was three-dimensional, but only barely. What was most disconcerting was the contrast with his surroundings, which appeared entirely real. The boy was a sketch come to life, a kid made of black pipe cleaners who lived in a world of depth, color, and texture.

  “Do you mind if I have a moment to myself?” Alistair asked, shaking water off the atlas.

  “Actually, I should be going,” Kenny said. “We have an assembly in a few. Super secret special guest. Coach M thought he could get me to swim a few laps before it started, but now I’ll go tell him, No can do, Coach, we’ve got an alien infestation in the pool.”

  With that, Kenny spun around and jogged through a door to one of the locker rooms. Alistair hustled to the bleachers, sat down, and opened the atlas. Along with its other magical qualities, the thing must have been waterproof, because it wasn’t soaked. A shake was all that was needed to get it dry.

  Alistair wished he could say the same about himself. Water dripped from his soaked clothes as he flipped through the pages, stopping on the one for Quadrant 43. In a dark corner of the paper, he spotted an asteroid tagged with a golden ring and the label SCHOOL FOR INSUFFERABLE LOSERS.

  He pressed the golden ring and the pages flipped until he was looking at a map of a school. There was a pool in the center and a maze of hallways and classrooms. There was a red ring in the center of the gym, but it had an X over it. Alistair pressed the ring and a tab shot up.

  A square-jawed cipher known as Tyler used to terrorize this school of annoying figments, shattering their bodies with Mach 2 dodgeballs and atomic wedgies. A swimmer named Carl tricked Tyler into eating a veggie burger, which stunned him long enough for Carl to tie him up and deliver him to Quadrant 43, where he is currently on display. X-rays reveal he has the bones of a guinea pig.

  Alistair surveyed the rest of the map. There were at least ten golden rings. One was in the pool and labeled QUADRANT 43. Another was in a fountain at the front entrance and labeled SCURVYTOWN. Scurvy equaled pirates, or so one would assume, and that was bound to be dangerous. In a bathroom on the second floor was a more intriguing ring labeled MACROTOPIA. Macrotopia meant nothing to Alistair, but it sounded like a word he should know. Something scientific, something he might have learned about in science class.

  Before he could press that golden ring and give Macrotopia a closer look, a group of kids tumbled into the room. Not stick kids, though. Not like Kenny at all, and not like one another. There was a googly-eyed comic book kid all decked out in primary colors. There was a kid made of dough. A stone kid. A kid that seemed ripped from the canvas of a painting. A kid who looked like a normal kid, like Alistair, but he was much, much larger, three times as big. The only quality these kids shared is that they were all—for lack of a better word—nerdy.

  “Kenny was right,” said a chubby boy covered in fur like a werewolf. “And this one is even uglier than the others.”

  “You think he’s here for the assembly?” said a bespectacled girl made of a mishmash of doll parts.

  A zombified one replied, “Another toilet diver, I bet, probably fishing for floaters.” And the crowd rippled with cackles. With all the decomposition, it was hard to judge if this zombie class clown was a boy or a girl. It hardly mattered. Alistair didn’t plan to stay long.

  Atlas tucked under his arm, he headed for the door marked EXIT. The band of misfits followed, their numbers now in the teens. By the time he was in a locker-lined hallway, the mob had tripled, quadrupled, quintupled, and they were pressing against him as if he were a celebrity on his way to a limo. The fluttering eyes of sighing girls, the respectful nods of rough-and-tumble boys—he craved those things as much as anyone. But he didn’t crave this. As the mob pressed into him—pawing, shouting—it felt like a slow form of murder.

  “Tell us about the other dimensions!”

  “Let us touch your hair!”

  “Are you a cannibal?”

  Soon their requests and questions were unintelligible yelps, and the only thing that could overpower them was an announcement over the loudspeaker.

  “The assembly starts in five minutes. Our special guest today is … the Maestro.”

  Air raid sirens couldn’t have done a better job. The kids shut up, and quick. They traded looks of disbelief, and in a frantic but somewhat orderly fashion, they split off from Alistair and streamed away, now yammering instead of yelping, repeating one word with giddy anticipation.

  “Maestro. Maestro. Maestro!”

  At the tail end of the bunch, a girl shaped like a Weeble—no legs or arms, just a rounded head and torso—rocked back and forth and scooted along as best she could, though her best was painfully slow. Alistair walked alongside and asked, “Who’s the Maestro?”

  “Motivational speaker of the highest quality,” she squeaked. “His stories inspire you to aspire. He’s perhaps the greatest person in the universe.”

  Quite an endorsement, and hard to resist, but once the crowd had filed through a pair of doors marked CAFETORIUM, Alistair was free to do as he pleased. His instinct told him to find another gateway. If he was meant to reach the Ambit of Ciphers, then relying on momentum seemed the logical course of action. It had served him well so far.

  And yet, so had learning. The things that Chip and Do
t had told him, the things Baxter had told him—heck, even the things Polly and Potoweet had told him—had given him a deeper understanding of Aquavania. It was probably worth sticking around for at least a few minutes to get a taste of what this “Maestro” had to say. By a hair, at that moment, the cafetorium won out.

  Alistair was the last one through the doors, and every seat in the place was already filled. The room was a cafeteria and the seats were plastic, utilitarian, the kind you’d find in any school. However, the room was also an auditorium. The lunch tables had been cleared away and there was a small stage on the opposite end from the kitchen.

  To remain inconspicuous, Alistair stepped into the kitchen and hid behind a cadre of aproned lunch ladies who were busy cleaning up the day’s meal. An odd bunch if there ever was one, each appeared to resemble the food she served. One was shaped like a corncob, another like a green bean. That’s to say nothing of the sloppy joe one—too strange to even attempt to describe.

  Out among the chairs, the teachers who patrolled the aisles were like the lunch ladies, taking on shapes that seemed to match the subjects they taught—a beaker-shaped chemistry instructor, a protractor-shaped geometry guru. The kids were seated, but their twitching bodies and manic chatter indicated that the atmosphere was poised for a storm. When the lights lowered, the crowd did hush, but every neck craned to get a better view. A boy stepped out from behind a curtain at the back of the stage, and a spotlight moved clumsily to find him.

  The harsh light made his face look both giant and ghoulish, but it was the same face he had back home in Thessaly. The Maestro was Charlie Dwyer.

  * * *

  The suit that Charlie wore was made of soft fabric, velvet perhaps, and a dark shade of green. A yellow shirt with ruffled sleeves and a large collar peeked out from underneath. No one seemed to find the outfit ridiculous, though it definitely was ridiculous. They all watched with rapt attention as he paced around the tiny stage, his shoes clacking on the linoleum.

  “What a fine afternoon I’m having with a fine crop of young students,” Charlie said, winking and waving at the girls in the crowd, who responded with flushed, downturned faces.

  For Charlie? Alistair thought, clenching on to the edge of a countertop. They’re blushing for Charlie?

  A crew of gym teachers shaped like balls and rackets surrounded the stage, pacing in circles like security guards. The message was clear: Don’t even think about messing with the Maestro.

  Two thumbs, two pinkies, and a ring finger—that was all that was left of Charlie’s hands, but he held them up for all to see their mangled glory. “Last time I was here, I told you about how I lost my fingers when I tried to grab hold of some rockets,” he said, his steps matching his voice—buoyant, confident. “Reach for the stars and sometimes you don’t even make it to the moon. Sometimes you blow your fingers off.”

  Laughs arrived on cue. Charlie smirked and went on. “All kidding aside, I told you that story because I wanted you to realize that sometimes when you take a risk, you fail, but that doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be out there trying crazy and difficult things. I also told you that story so I can tell you this one.”

  Charlie pointed to the person running the electronics in the cafetorium, a patchwork man made of audio-visual equipment, a guy with a spotlight for a chest. The guy nodded and the spotlight shifted to a red.

  His skin cast in crimson, Charlie asked the crowd, “You’ve all heard of the one they call the Whisper?”

  The crowd booed.

  “The Riverman?”

  More boos.

  “Gryla, Jumbi, lots of names we could use. Terrifying, right?”

  Kenny stood from his seat and yelled, “He sent that bully Tyler after us!”

  “That’s true,” Charlie admitted, and he motioned with a pinkie for Kenny to sit, which he did—immediately. “But did you ever ask why he sent that bully Tyler after you?”

  “Because he’s a double turd burger with extra cheese,” yelled the zombified kid.

  Charlie smiled and said, “Fair enough. But I think you’re missing something. The things you do, you do for two reasons. First reason: You were born to do them. Why do you breathe? Why do you eat? Why do you poop?”

  The word poop elicited even more laughter in Aquavania than it did back home in Thessaly. Alistair was noticing that these kids loved their toilet humor.

  “Second reason,” Charlie went on. “You choose to do the things you do. And when you make a choice, you reveal the person you really are. Tell me, by a show of hands, who wants to know who the Whisper really is.”

  Every hand in the place went up—the hands of the kids, of the teachers, of the lunch ladies. Even Alistair’s hand, creeping reluctantly past his head, which he was hiding behind a stack of trays.

  “Good,” Charlie said. “Because I’m going to tell you his story.”

  THE MAESTRO’S STORY

  A ways back there was this boy, a regular old kid, like any kid here. He lived in a small, happy community. He had a family and friends and he had a purpose in life. Some people might call that purpose faith in his creator, but let’s not get too religious. We’ll simply call it devotion.

  One night, this devoted kid was alone, bathing in a pond, when he heard a voice. “I wish I knew the point of this,” the voice said. “I need to know why someone so guilty and sad has been given so much power.”

  The voice came from the pond, so the kid was keen to investigate. He plucked a bamboo reed from the water’s edge and used it as a snorkel. He explored the murky depths. He swam around the edges and dove to the bottom. Nothing to be found, not even a frog, but here’s the thing: he knew the voice. It was the voice of his creator.

  His creator didn’t live in the clouds, or in the underworld, or in the confines of his imagination. She lived in a cave, among the people she had created. In other words, the boy was her neighbor.

  The boy was a good neighbor. The best, in fact. And he knew he had to help his creator, because she was calling out in distress and, to a person of devotion, that type of call is the most awful sound in the world. So through the forest the boy ran, clutching the bamboo reed, and he ran so fast that by the time he reached the cave, water from the pond still clung to his body.

  “Una,” he said, for that was his creator’s name, “are you all right? Can I help you?”

  “You love me, don’t you, Banar?” she replied, for that was the boy’s name.

  “More than anything,” Banar said, and before Una could speak, before she could make the most god-awful request she could possibly make, he knew what he had to do. It wasn’t something he even thought about. It was like breathing, or eating … or pooping. A completely natural reflex.

  What she asked of him was this: Bring about an end. To all of it.

  And that’s exactly what he did.

  Apologizing as he leaned over, he slipped the bamboo reed into her ear. With his mouth on the other end, he sucked. Gross, right? Actually, no. Because he wasn’t sucking out her brains. He was sucking out her soul, and Una’s soul—a dense, sparkly, heavenly cocktail—filled the reed.

  Boo, you say. Boo! Because this sounds horrific. This sounds unjust. I know. But remember, this is exactly what she wanted, exactly what she needed. And as Una’s soul filled that reed, the world in which they lived, the place Una had created, a land called Mahaloo, began to slip away. The color drained out of everything. Out of the plants, the animals, even the people.

  Have you ever seen Popsicles melt? It was like that. But instead of Popsicle sticks remaining, it was piles of ash. And what happened to all those swirly and pretty colors? Well, they pooled together and formed a river.

  Understandably, Banar gasped and crouched over Una’s lifeless body and shook it. “What have I done?” he cried.

  But shaking her body was like shaking a seeding dandelion. Poof! It broke apart into tiny pieces, and the pieces drifted into the sky like they never weighed a thing. Fearing her soul might suffer the same
fate, Banar quickly plugged the ends of the reed with compressed balls of ash and clutched it to his chest.

  Can you imagine what that was like? To have your creator ask such a thing of you? To have to witness all the things you know and love simply disappear or drain away? You’d have trouble believing it, as Banar had trouble believing it.

  “Maybe all is not lost,” he called out. “Maybe I can get it all back.” And he dove into the river with the reed in his mouth, and he swam downstream. It seemed as though his hopes might have been fulfilled, because the river eventually led to … Mahaloo. His home. Una’s creation.

  It wasn’t lost! It had moved!

  Mahaloo was like an unmoored boat washed up on a distant shore. Banar climbed out of the water and into a field, where his friends and family were going about their lives—hunting, gathering, all that stuff people must do to survive. But when they saw Banar coming toward them, they didn’t welcome him. In fact, they cursed at him.

  “You took her from us!” they screamed. “You stole Una!”

  Banar wanted to explain, but how could he? Guilty as charged. So with the reed clamped in his teeth, Banar hauled butt, and they chased after him. As they closed in, he monkeyed his way up a tree. It was a tree so tall that no one could see where it ended. Everyone assumed it reached to the top of Mahaloo, but no one knew for sure because no one had climbed it that high. At least not until our buddy Banar did.

  Rather than play follow the leader, his people set fire to the tree. Flames crept, grew, and ate away at the bark and branches. Banar was fast enough to outclimb the flames, but when he reached the top, he was met by the sky—gorgeous and tinted green, but empty, except for a small, lumpy cloud no bigger than a pumpkin.

  The flames finally caught up, as flames do, and the heat became unbearable. Banar had no choice but to jump. He flexed his legs, clenched his teeth on the reed, and pushed off. His body shot out into the air and collided with the cloud. And you know what?