“Arise and Shine, Constance. I’m so glad you are no worse for the wear, sister.” Charleston offered a hand up to his groggy sis as Chance slapped her on the back.
“Hey Con. Just like you to sleep through this whole deal!”
Constance was swarmed by her family pack. “Conthtance!” Chief shouted as he jumped into her arms, gave her a wet smack on the cheek, and mashed her head against his.
Faye and Frank wrapped themselves around her and sighed deeply at the sight of her. How Constance had missed them and their irritating but loveable Faultsom Foolishness!
Mr. Keeze roused himself, awakened by the hubbub.
“Ah, The Amazings — all here together as it should be! My favorite part of the job, this is…seeing things come together! Penstudous! No, no, no…it’s simply stupendous! I trust you enjoyed your journey. Mistress Amazeling and I have had quite the time ourselves.”
With that came all the exclamations and hugs and stories. It was a Faultsom free-for-all as everyone started to talk at once, stumbling over one another’s words and trying to stitch the pieces of their various stories together to make sense of their adventures.
As he watched his family members all fighting to get a word in edgewise, Frank stood back with arms folded, smiling as he shook his head. This was his whacky family, all right. Charleston also withdrew from the fray to analyze the happenings.
“Hmmm, the velocity of the wind gusts must have blown us right back to where Constance and Mr. Keeze disembarked the Llopinator.”
Frank had heard him and picked up his train of thought.
“What are the odds of that?”
Chance piggy-backed on the idea.
“Yeah, and what are the chances of us digging our way into the same room where Constance was sitting there snoring like a cyclone? Snnnnooock, Sunnnnch!” He went on to imitating her snores in the loudest, most annoying way possible just to watch her raise her left eyebrow in perturbed protest.
“Chodds and Ances!” Mr. Keeze exclaimed. “Odds and Chances!? Odds — Chances?? Not in Wonder! That’s nuff and stonsense…no! It’s just plain stuff and nonsense, that! Nothing around here is a matter of odds and chances” He shook his head in disbelief at the thought.
The family’s riotous reunion was in full swing when the already faint light around them in the chamber dimmed even more and the music of Grand Purpose swelled about them. A spotlight descended upon the scene and a hush fell upon the Faultsoms as The Knight and Squire advanced past them and through what seemed to be a silky veil.
They entered the sac in which the lovely blushing Bride and her attendant Maidens-in-Waiting were hovering expectantly. The feeling of anticipation was unmistakable. It hung like a warm, thick mist in the air. The courtly dance music of the Cluine now began to intertwine with the music of the Knight and Squire and their quest.
Faye and Frank, Constance, Charleston, Chance, and Chief watched expectantly as The Knight moved boldly into the presence of The Bride and presented himself before her, bowing low. As he approached, she blushed as ample and deep a crimson as that of a living, beating heart swelling with valor and courage, and then she shyly gave a nod to The Knight.
In a flash of ardor that caused the Faultsoms to turn their heads away in reverent modesty, The Knight advanced passionately toward The Bride and the two were engulfed in one another. It was an instant of unspeakable intimacy and transcendent glory. This was the moment of The Generation, for when Knight and Bride moved into one another, something began. Something new became alive that had not been alive before.
There was an explosion of light and color, and the ringing of a new song inside the inner chamber of Lady Uveol as the Bride and Knight and their attendants were playing out this drama. The entire space was throbbing with energy.
What unfolded had flowered in a moment that forever glim-mered in each Faultsom. Their souls were somehow reshaped by the sight of what was being created inside this secret place of Wonder. As The Generation continued, Knight and Bride were indiscernible from one another. They were fully merged — married together, and a new being resulted.
The Faultsoms turned back to see the little life burst forth, and they looked on in stupefied fascination. Not only was a new being developing but The Lantern, Squire, and Maiden orbs, who had surrounded and supported The Bride and Knight in this great quest had now surrendered themselves to a deeper purpose. They had morphed into what seemed like an embracing circle of sustenance for the little being, which had been generated before their eyes in the inner chamber.
The family stood together, speechless (which was no small thing for the Faultsoms), until Faye broke the silence in typical family fashion.
“Does anyone have a tissue?” she snivelled.
Tears were streaming down her face and goop was dripping from her nose and from the noses of all the sniffling Faultsoms around her. Frank and the boys were not waiting for tissues. They dragged their sleeves across their runny noses until their arms were covered in snot. Constance was weeping as she threw herself on her daddy’s chest, shoulders heaving, and she cried:
“The Bride, Daddy, The Bride! He came to her and they made a new life. It is so…beautiful and it’s…true…it’s so true!”
Faye came from behind them to wrap an arm around her boys, pulling them together in a rowdy jumble as she frantically fished into the pocket of her colorful gypsy-styled pantaloons. Somehow, there inside a floppy pocket she found a balled up wad of tissues, one for each Faultsom to blow in to. This was a little marvel for which she was exceedingly grateful as, only a mother can be.
Drenching their tissues, the family stood together, crying and wiping, and loudly tooting their noses like trumpets until they began to laugh. They laughed and laughed until they couldn’t contain their joy. At the height of their laughter they heard loud sobbing next to them and turned to see Mr. Keeze, whom they had forgotten in all the excitement.
“Oh my…my, my, my my. My favorite part of the job, this is…it’s so yovell!” He was so moved he didn’t even try to correct himself. (Dear reader, perhaps you will find that you can unravel his Wonder word.)
His face was red and tears dripped down his enormous mustache, soaking the stripes on his fancy Gate Keeper’s uniform. Pulling out an oversized ruffled white handkerchief (the size of a table cloth), he blew his nose with a hornlike blast that shook the chamber.
“This just undoes me every time.” He blew again. “What romance! What mystery! What magnificence! A Generation! A beginning!” Mr. Keeze blew another blast.
“The Knight and Brave, Beautiful Bride have married and produced a new life, which will fulfill Lady Uveol! Xartief be extolled!” At this the Faultsoms found themselves cheering out loud:
“Xartief be extolled!”
But they had no more than a few moments to bask in the glory of The Generation, for the new little being and its surrounding nourishment were growing fast and filling up the inner chamber, squeezing the Faultsom family against its walls. They were in the growing belly of Lady Uveol as she was being fulfilled by the new life, and the family needed out!
“Mama, it’s getting squithy in here!” Chief cried.
“I’m hot!” Chance said as he began to drip perspiration.
Faye was alarmed. “I don’t think we will fit in here for very long. In fact, there really isn’t any room left! Frank?!?”
Frank had already assessed the situation and was pushing against the chamber walls, trying to make space for his family, but it was of no use.
“Mr. Keeze! Help!” He shouted in panic. But Mr. Keeze, still preoccupied with what they had all just witnessed, was oblivious to their dire circumstance.
Now, their faces were smashed up again the chamber wall as the sac before them grew to fill up every inch of space. But Mr. Keeze was quite unresponsive. He just stood next to them, transfixed by what he had witnessed as the life continued to grow before him.
“What do we do now, Mr. Keeze?” Charleston choked out his
words.
“Mom, I can’t breathe! I’m suffocating!” Constance wailed. “Dad, do something!”
“Mr. Keeze??” They all screamed.
The Faultsoms were trapped and running out of time.
Just when they thought they were going to suffocate, the Faultsoms heard a compressed voice cry out.
“Amazings, follow me!” Mr. Keeze suddenly took command. “Quickly, there! Get down on your hands and knees! There is still a way out.”
They managed to pull their bodies down to the floor, sliding themselves along the spongy chamber wall against which they were being squished. There they found just enough room to crawl toward the opening which was in the center of the chamber. This was the hole that had been their doorway inside. Headfirst and one by one, they dropped out of Lady Uveol’s belly, tumbling down onto the surface below. And just in time, too, for the Lady’s belly was now completely full and expanding outward and downward above them while the portal they had come through sealed itself up tightly, just as the last Faultsom escaped and hit the floor.
They sat for a moment gazing upward and noticed that Lady Uveol’s exterior was changing. Her skin, originally of a rather rubbery quality, was now hardening and darkening. Somehow the family knew that it was becoming a protective layer to ensure the safety of the new little one still inside her. And this layer, they knew, was like a dark brown coat she was donning in preparation for a journey.
Just then, Madame Yorav began to vibrate, causing everything to shudder and shake. (Dear Reader, you will remember this: Madame Yorav is the structure around Lady Uveol, who Constance feared she was going to crash into.)
Scccrreeeecchhhh! Zzzcchhhhheeeekkkkksh!!
A rubbery, stretching, ear-piercing sound rent the atmosphere. It was much like the sound the Faultsoms had heard when they were inside Sir Raneth in the midst of the Llopen population explosion, just before the ceiling above them burst open. This time, however, the squeaking was coming from all around them. It was intensifying rapidly and the family tried to bury their heads and cover their ears to shield themselves from its piercing power.
“Madame Yorav is about to blow! Hatten down the Batches!? Batten down the hatches!!” they heard Mr. Keeze shout out.
Clutching desperately to one another, they shut their eyes tightly and braced themselves. They were being shaken to the core and it felt like their brains were turning into mush and their eardrums were about to implode.
At the peak of the awful sounds and shudders, the Faultsom family, along with Mr. Keeze, were tossed upward and violently expelled out of Madame Yorav, who had burst open on all sides! As they flew through the air, they caught sight of Lady Uveol dressed in her dark brown coat, flying through the air along with what seemed to be many other ladies uveol who, as it turned out, had also been inside of Madame Yorav!
In a split second, the family experienced a thousand sensations. Sailing through midair, their minds raced to process what was happening. Mr. Keeze flew past them, giggling wildly and screaming,
“Fa———vo———rite parrrrrtttt of the jo——bbb…thissss isssss!”
Now, for the second time during their adventure in Wonder, the family burst out from an enclosed space that had erupted due to an explosion of expanding energy. For a second time, they were engulfed in an expanse of pure blue, which utterly awed them. This time, however, they were accompanied by scads of ladies, all in their brown coats, who had also been sprayed into the wind.
As Frank and Faye and the kids rocketed through the sky, something very peculiar began to happen. They felt like they were moving through molasses and, in slow motion, there was a bizarre reshaping of their perspectives taking place. Not only was time dilating; their bodies were dilating as well. They were expanding in size, and as they grew, the scope of the landscape below was changing.
For the first time since being in Wonder, they could not only see sky, above them but could also discern a horizon line. The land they were hurtling over had originally looked like an infinite blur of color. Now the various hues were becoming distinct and separate. Next, they could see in greater detail the shapes below them, and noticed that these were configured in groups of colors, each with different attributes. They felt that if they got close enough, they could actually reach out and scoop up the colorful clumps with their hands.
Hands?!! Their hands now revealed the scale of their bodies against the backdrop of the landscape below them. Now, as they stretched out their extremities, they realized their bodies were actually larger than the bunches of color that had once seemed to them to be the size of entire continents! Not only that, but the dark-coated ladies who had loomed large over the Faultsoms when they were all expelled from Madame Yorav had diminished so much they were now teensy little specks that could almost disappear in the palms of their hands. These little flecks flew past them, spreading out and falling upon patches of bare ground that appeared here and there below them.
The ground! Another marvel! They could now see the ground and could tell that the batches of color below them were beds and bushes of flowers.
“Ah, Amazings…here we are!” Mr. Keeze announced as the expansion of their bodies was completed and their motion slowed to a stop.
He hovered briefly and then landed with a merry little bounce upon the ground. Bustling about, he put himself in order, because he had arrived quite rumpled by the ejection and expansion during the flight. With amusingly officious flare, he cinched up his wide shiny black belt with its impressive gold buckle, straightened his epaulets, fluffed the oversized handkerchief he had hastily stuffed back into his pocket, petted his mustache, and tipped his key-covered helmet very precisely, so that it sat at a jaunty angle upon his head.
The Faultsoms now hovered in the air for a few moments before landing gracefully in an extraordinary field of flowers which extended beyond the horizon on either side of them: crimsons, purples, yellows, and oranges complimented with dashes of brilliant blues and greens vibrated in the sunlight emitting the same delicious fragrance that had filled their senses just before Mistress Bublem Eeb had landed above them after Sir Raneth’s ceiling had burst open.
“I remember that fragrance…it’s…it’s heavenly!” cried Faye.
The Faultsoms, one and all, breathed in the sumptuous scent and felt their heads spinning even as their spirits rose in waves of joy.
“Everybody, look closely at these flowers around us…I can’t explain it but things are starting to make sense to me…,” said Frank as the family crowded around him, bending over a nearby flower to closely examine it.
Everything they saw in the blossom seemed oddly familiar to them even though from this perspective it didn’t look like anything they remembered knowing much about before. Still, they did know the flower, intimately, from the inside out. The Faultsoms were lost in this thought and enjoying the lovely fragrance, when Chief squealed with delight:
“Hey! Look! I think thith ith Mithtreth Eeb!”
Lo and behold, a tubby-looking bumble bee with a winsome and industrious air landed on Chief ’s nose and seemed to buzz out a greeting to him before loopily flitting off to slurp up more of the honeyed nectar she was imbibing at each stop. Everywhere they looked, they could see birds and butterflies flitting back and forth, each finding their favorite blossoms to rest upon. Attracted by the enchanting candy colors and enticing intoxicants, the pollinators leisurely flew in and out, pleasuring themselves with the luscious floral elixirs.
As the various creatures whizzed by them the Faultsoms thought they could hear wee voices. No, it couldn’t be! But…it was true! The family could just make out the faint but inevitably boisterous chorus of chattering voices.
“Hey Ho, fellows, we are off…!”
“Up and away…awaaaayyy!” They recognized the familiar, friendly fracas.
“Ith the Llopenth!” “Yay! The Llopens!” Chief and Chance each exclaimed. The little wise guys were in their usual frenzy riding along on the Llopinators. As they whizzed pas
t Charleston, he suddenly let loose a violent fit of sneezing.
“AhhhhhChooooo! Oh Doh!” He cried as his sinuses clogged up. “I’m allergic to the Llopens — why, doh!” Charleston’s brilliant brain was at work. “They are dot Llopeds, they are polleds — polled graids,” he cried stuffily. “I am allergic to theb!”
Now, Constance joined into the sneezing fest, her eyes watering and her nose clogging.
“We were tidy and we were stuck on those whacky polled guys. We bust have been bicroscopic! It’s a miracle we did’dit explode from our allergies!” She spoke with a stuffy-headed sound just before her latest sneeze erupted. “Achoooooohhh!”
“Yeah!” interjected Chance. “We were just specks stuck on those pollen grains that were riding on Mistress Bublem Eeb…”
“Why, yes…Mistress Bumble Bee!” Faye cried.
Frank continued:
“And we were there when the Llopens — the pollens — grew out of what Mr. Keeze called the ‘Microspangoria’ inside Sir Raneth! Hmmm…” Frank was starting to decode these weird words, in his head.
“We were thtuck to the pollens’ yellow futh!” shouted Chief.
“Charlie, it is quite astonishing that we didn’t sneeze ourselves id to a coba!” Constance shouted with stuffiness.
“It’s like someone decreased the effects of the allergens so we could survive…remarkable…” Charleston mused as he tried to muffle a building sneeze.
Then, right on cue for a second time, a welcome phenomenon occurred. Amidst the hubbub of their shared revelations, Charleston’s and Constance’s allergic reactions miraculously calmed, as a cleansing breeze drifted by them. A welcome Wonder!
Frank shushed his jabbering family, motioning them to be still and listen. They could hear the yakking fuzzballs as they sailed away.
“Goodbye, Amazings! We are off to Down and Dig! Down and Dig!” cried the hyperactive histamine instigators.
“Goodbye, Llopens! Goodbye!” The Faultsoms shouted back incredulously.
Mrs. Amazing and the Seed Page 9
