by E. G. Foley
He’d had quite enough of all this Nature for the moment. He could hardly wait to get back to civilization.
“Ugh,” Snorri rumbled after a long moment.
He had finally finished falling, and the great BANG that had echoed across the forest had been him, of course, hitting the ground at last in a giant belly-flop.
The fall had knocked the wind out of him as he finally landed facedown in a high mountain meadow.
He rolled onto his back, stunned and blinking.
Fortunately, giants have very strong bones. He was bruised and a bit dazed from his long plunge out of Jugenheim, but as he lay on his back staring at the blue sky, he gingerly wiggled his toes, then moved his arms around and was relieved to find he had nothing broken.
At last, he sat up and shook his head to clear it. Where am I?
Glancing around, he saw Yggdrasil in the misty distance of another mountaintop. He memorized where it was just before the magical mists closed and hid the vast, legendary Tree from view again.
He did not know if he would ever be able to get back up to Giant Land—or if he’d even want to. Maybe he could make a new life for himself here, wherever here was.
Good question. Lumbering to his feet, Snorri noticed that the treetops were only as tall as he was. That’s odd, he thought with a frown. Then he saw some sheep grazing in one corner of the meadow.
They had stopped chewing to stare at him, but as he stared back, Snorri was even more amazed than they were.
Why, they looked just like his dear little sheepies back home, only they were miniscule—as small as kittens.
I’m in Tinyville! he thought. But then it dawned on him he must have landed in Midgarth, the world of men. Well! This isn’t so bad, then. He’d miss Princess Kaia terribly, but at least he wouldn’t have to listen to Gorm mocking him anymore. He was free!
He decided to have a look around and try to get his bearings. Who could say? Maybe he could start a new life for himself in this quaint little place. But when his stomach rumbled, loud and long, he clapped his hands to his round belly.
First things first. A hungry giant had to eat.
He’d have to catch something for dinner—or a lot of little somethings—and build a cooking fire. “Hmmm,” he rumbled, musing to himself.
Glancing around at the woods, he saw all he’d need for building traps. He snapped a few branches off some spruce trees and got to work building cages in which to catch his supper.
With any luck, he might soon get the chance to find out if humans were as tasty as he’d heard.
CHAPTER TWO
A Gathering of Geniuses
Twenty minutes later, Jake burst out of the woods at the bottom of the trail, sweaty and breathing hard after his vertical sprint down the mountain. He felt a bit silly for letting himself get rattled over nothing—nevertheless, it was good to be back in civilization again.
People were in sight, thankfully, strolling along the waterside Promenade. Nearby was the University of Oslo, which was hosting the Invention Convention. Beyond the campus lay the quaint Norwegian capital city—which wasn’t a city at all, by London’s sprawling standards, but a nice large town, tidy and green.
He propped his hands on his waist, pulling for air as he walked on legs that still felt rubbery toward the genteel graveled path that edged the fjord. From there, he saw that Archie had landed the Pigeon safely in the water.
The young aviator’s feat had attracted the attention of an audience. The people strolling along the Promenade were staring toward the waves; ladies with parasols and gentlemen in bowler hats were pointing at Archie’s strange invention with their walking sticks.
Some of the other scientists who had come from all around the world for the conference had also gathered at the water’s edge to cheer for Archie’s successful demonstration.
“Bravo, Archimedes!”
“Good show, lad!” they cried.
But not everyone was impressed. Henry must have glimpsed the Pigeon in the sky while taking a stroll across the campus with his lady-archeologist friend. He came running, but stopped at the shore and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Archimedes James Bradford!” he bellowed across the water. “Bring that thing to land at once! I did not give you permission to take it out!”
Uh-oh.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, Mr. Henry DuVal, the boys’ tutor, was an easygoing scholar in a bowtie with a book tucked under his arm. It was the other one percent of the time that made Jake think twice about angering this particular teacher.
Henry and his twin sister, Miss Helena, the girls’ governess, had talents that—well, suffice to say, made the DuVal twins a suitable choice as chaperones for children from an aristocratic family with magical powers.
“Jacob!” Henry turned to him just then, his wolfish, gray eyes narrowing in displeasure. “What were you thinking, letting him take the Pigeon out without asking permission first?”
“What, me?” Jake paused, startled and offended that he should have to take Archie’s wigging simply because his cousin was out of range.
In truth, he was still not used to having adults tell him what to do after all his years of fending for himself. He still didn’t like it, but what could you do. “Do you think I could’ve stopped ’im?” he mumbled.
“Don’t give me your cheek!” Henry barked. “He could’ve been killed! Don’t you understand that? When people don’t follow the rules, it’s only a matter of time before someone gets hurt!”
“And do you always follow the rules, Monsieur DuVal?” a teasing voice asked from behind them.
Henry looked over his shoulder at the tall, blond lady striding toward them. “Always,” he retorted.
She laughed. “What a pity!”
Jake surmised this was Henry’s Norwegian archeologist friend and penpal, Miss Astrid Langesund.
Archie had told him Henry spent time with her at every annual science conference, and the two exchanged letters now and then throughout the year.
Miss Langesund assisted her father, the famous archeologist, Professor Langesund, who also taught here at the University. The Langesunds were natives of Norway, and were particularly excited that the conference was taking place in their home city this year.
“That was quite a sprint, sir,” Miss Langesund teased as she caught up to Henry. “Have you been training for a marathon?”
Jake liked her accent.
“Sorry, Astrid. I hate to cut our stroll short, but these boys do the dashedest things! That one may be a genius—” he nodded at Archie out on the water, “but sometimes I’d swear he’s got no common sense.”
“Ah, my father’s the same way,” she said with a chuckle. “Geniuses usually are.”
“Now, now, you’re just as much of a genius as anyone else here, and you know how to keep your head on straight!” he protested. “Then there’s this one,” he added, nodding at Jake. “The rebel.”
“Who, me?” Jake asked innocently.
“Yes, you! There’s a right way and a wrong way to do things, Jake. If people don’t behave in an orderly fashion, everything turns to chaos. Is that what you want?”
“Oh, don’t be so strict, Henry. They’re just boys.” Miss Langesund sent Jake a sympathetic smile, but Henry scowled.
With a huff, he turned back toward the water and folded his arms across his chest, waiting for Archie to bring the Pigeon in to shore.
Miss Langesund turned to Jake. “Since Mr. DuVal has sadly forgotten his manners, I’ll introduce myself. I’m Miss Astrid Langesund, and you must be Archie’s long-lost cousin, the young Lord Griffon, yes?”
“Just Jake, ma’am,” he answered with a slight, respectful bow, just like Henry had taught him. Though the title of Lord Griffon was, indeed, rightfully his, hearing it still made him think of his wicked Uncle Waldrick, who had stolen the title for a number of years, and had nearly succeeded in cheating Jake out of his entire inheritance. Not to mention his life.
“Well, it’s ni
ce to meet you, Just Jake.” She acknowledged him with a nod. “And welcome to Norway.”
“Thank you, Miss Langesund. Nice to meet you, too.”
When she turned back to Henry, the two adults resumed their own conversation; Jake studied her surreptitiously.
Being all of twelve, he was no expert on ladies, but he suspected that with her true Viking blood, the lady scientist could have been a stunner if she weren’t such a quiz.
She had the tall, athletic figure, golden hair, and rosy-cheeked beauty of so many Scandinavian girls—Jake had definitely noticed them everywhere since he’d stepped off the ship.
Unfortunately, Miss Langesund had no more fashion sense than the rest of the rumpled geniuses at the convention. Her hairdo was a disaster, two braids wrapped like Danish pastries stuck on each side of her head. Black-rimmed spectacles nearly as thick as Archie’s goggles perched on the bridge of her pretty nose.
No doubt the lady scientist was too busy digging up old, dead bones with her famous father to give a fig for female fripperies.
She suddenly turned to Jake. “Has Henry told you about the surprise that my father and I have to show you all?”
“Er, no,” Jake said with a curious glance at Henry.
“Miss Langesund and her father recently made a great discovery from the Viking age,” Henry informed him. “She has kindly offered to give us a private tour of the exhibit. It’s housed right here at the University.”
“Brilliant! What did you find?”
“You’ll see,” she said with a mysterious smile.
“Are you all right, Jake?” Henry asked all of a sudden, giving him a probing glance. “You seem a little… off.”
“I do?” Blimey, did he still look rattled after that unsettling episode in the woods? He did his best to shrug it off. “Just a little jolted, I guess, by that earthquake of a bit ago, that’s all. Never felt one of those before.”
“What earthquake?” Henry asked.
“You didn’t feel it?” Jake answered in surprise, glancing from one to the other.
They just looked at him.
“Maybe it wasn’t very strong down here by the fjord, but you could certainly feel it up in the mountains,” he informed them. “Nearly shook me off m’feet.”
Miss Langesund furrowed her brow. “We didn’t have an earthquake, Jake.”
“Then what was that bang?” he exclaimed, but everyone forgot about him as Archie arrived on the shore.
“Cheerio, everybody!” The beaming boy inventor waved to his audience from the cockpit of his flying machine.
Jake rolled his eyes as the watching scientists gave Archie another round of doting applause. Here we go again.
On the voyage over from England, Jake couldn’t help but notice that Archie was quite the darling of the scientific world.
About a dozen other scientists and scholars from London had traveled over to Norway on the same ship on which they had sailed, and Jake had been surprised to find that they all knew his cousin.
Apparently, Archie had given his first lecture at one of these annual conferences two years ago, when he was only nine.
That explained it, then. But as Jake had watched Archie being greeted by one brilliant egghead after another, he had begun feeling extremely out of place.
He had nothing to add to the conversation, nothing to offer as he sat in the gilded parlor of the luxury steam-liner, waiting in boredom while Archie talked science with the big-brained adults.
The boy genius had chatted like an old clubman with mathematicians and engineers, inventors and astronomers, physicists who could figure out the weight of the earth, but couldn’t seem to manage to brush their hair.
Indeed, crazy hair apparently came with each advanced degree, Jake had irreverently concluded. It seemed a fair gauge: the crazier the hair, the smarter the head beneath it.
In any case, as Archie steered his contraption to shore, Henry went to scold him, and Jake followed to help his cousin pull the Pigeon out of the fjord.
The foreign scientists gathered around, hailing their young mascot on his victory. One gave Archie a hand up from the cockpit.
“You could have killed yourself!” Henry started, but Archie’s fellow scientists pooh-poohed his tutor’s worries.
Miss Langesund kept the peace. “Why don’t you gentlemen come to the Exhibit Hall and get your first look at all the other inventions?” she suggested.
“Good idea. You go on ahead, Arch,” Jake said hastily. “I’ll put the Pigeon away for you.”
“Oh, would you?” Archie exclaimed. “Thanks, coz, if you don’t mind. Take good care of her for me!”
Jake nodded, glad to stay out of all that lofty scientific talk. “I’ll come and find you when I’m done,” he assured him.
“Thanks loads, Jake! See you inside,” Archie said, then he went off with his crowd of adult admirers, quite the man of the hour.
Henry could barely get close enough to scold him, which Miss Langesund seemed to find entirely amusing.
As the group headed for the Exhibit Hall, the heart of the Invention Convention, Jake got to work hauling the glider out of the fjord. Once he had it on solid ground, he dried it off with the towel stowed in the boot, then folded down the wings.
Finally, he started wheeling the Pigeon off to the storage room, but he couldn’t help glancing back over his shoulder at the distant mountain. He scanned the forests warily, more confused than ever.
If that boom was not an earthquake, then what the blazes had he heard?
CHAPTER THREE
The Invention Convention
When he finished locking up the glider, Jake set off for the Exhibit Hall to find Archie and the others. Walking through the green, leafy grounds of the campus, he wondered if he’d ever go to a university like this. He supposed the place was usually much busier than it was now, in June.
All the students had gone home for the summer. The dormitories and large academic buildings were standing empty, which was why the scientists had decided to hold the conference there.
The campus had plenty of lecture halls like the one where Archie was scheduled to give his speech on aerodynamics later in the week. Plenty of space for the scientists to set up their inventions, so they could show their colleagues what they had been working on.
Archie said this casual exchange of information each year always sent him home with tons of new ideas for things to build and new experiments to play with.
When Jake walked in, the huge Exhibit Hall buzzed with conversation and the noise of the countless strange and wonderful inventions on display.
Everywhere, odd machines were chugging, whirring, beeping, hovering, clicking and revolving, burping steam and whooshing out fumes: brass and steel, rivets and engines, pumping pistons, beeps and whistles.
Tables and booths were set up with various displays where the inventors could tell visitors about their gadgets. Jake walked down the aisles between them, gawking at everything that the day’s wizards of science from all around the world had dreamed up or discovered.
A woman riding on a dirigible chair floated past, offering a tray of sweetmeats. Jake accepted one and thanked her, marveling at the miniature blimp that kept her chair suspended several feet off the ground.
He wandered on, approaching a cluster of people who were all speaking different languages and laughing at themselves and each other. He furrowed his brow as he read the placard in front of the table.
Professor Stokes’ Rosetta Stone Babblegum.
“Free samples! You, young man! Would you like to try a slice of Babblegum?” the inventor offered him, gesturing to various colorful flavors. “Just choose your language—and chew!”
“Do you have Norwegian?”
“Sorry, all out. Would you like to try Swahili?”
He shrugged. “Why not. Thanks!” He accepted a slice of the Swahili-language Babblegum, though he didn’t even know where in the world people spoke it.
Moving on, he stepped int
o an aisle marked Medical Advancements, where he saw an enormous, clumsy fellow with a terrible, ash-gray complexion staring dully into space.
A crazy-haired scientist in a white laboratory coat stood beside the large oaf, speaking to those who had gathered around. “Allow me to demonstrate!” he was saying to his awed-looking audience, then he picked up a violin and began playing a mournful tune.
The melody drew the big, dark-clad oaf out of his reverie. He let out a low, animal moan and began swaying back and forth.
The watchers gasped in amazement and backed away a bit, then applauded as the big oaf began stomping back and forth like he was dancing.
“It’s just astonishing, Doctor Frankenstein! What do you call the process?”
“Reanimation!” he replied with a dramatic chord on his violin. “Through the wonders of electricity, we shall unlock the secrets of immortality!”
The people gasped and then applauded, and the scientist put aside his violin to take a modest bow. “I’ll be happy to answer all your questions at my lecture tomorrow afternoon…”
A reanimated corpse! Jake shuddered and moved on.
Turning down the next aisle, he spotted Miss Langesund standing in a booth beside an older gent, who was smoking a pipe as he answered questions from the curious. When Jake saw a sign that said ARCHEOLOGY ROW, he realized that must be her father.
But it was not just the Langesunds’ Viking artifacts on display in this amazing aisle. The top archeologists from all over Europe had brought their latest finds.
There was a terrifying dinosaur skull with huge teeth and a collection of bones; early tools from cavemen; spooky Egyptian mummies in grave wrappings lay in their opened sarcophagi. But the biggest crowd of all flocked around the booth of a German fellow called Professor Schliemann, who—according to the placard—had just discovered the ancient city of Troy. Security guards stood watch over the solid gold “Mask of Agamemnon.”
Whoever that was, Jake thought.
The line to see the ancient Greek mask was too long to bother with for an impatient lad who was more interested in a heaping plate of food at the Welcome Dinner than seeing all this stuff.
