by Andrea White
“Oh, my Rosies,” Dr. Rosario said, “it seems that I arrived in time to stop another betrayal of our principles. Was that you, Don Gibson, who was proposing to reject all minimized kids?”
“We have to protect the mission, Dr. Rosario,” Don G. said.
“But our mission is to help others, Don G.,” Dr. Rosario said as the Rosies all gathered around.
Don G. frowned. “Easy for you to say, Doctor. To help others, our community has to stay together to survive.”
Dr. Rosario took a deep breath and seemed about to speak when his knees buckled. Artica stepped up and took his arm, or else the old man would have fallen.
“What happened? Who’s that man?” Dawn Nelson raised her head from underneath a pile of fur blankets where she had fallen asleep.
“Here,” Artica said. He led Dr. Rosario over to a place in front of the fire. “You must be cold and tired.”
Mary Kay Casey handed him a cup of hot root tea.
Harriet Chang settled a fur blanket over his lap.
“What happened, Doctor?” Artica asked as Dr. Rosario bent his knees slowly to lower himself onto the ground.
Bear Nelson propped up the doctor’s back with a dandelion pillow.
“It all started”—smoke from the campfire enveloped him, and the doctor coughed—“when I was sick with a bad flu that turned into pneumonia. I was on the verge of death. While I was in bed, my son Benre took charge.”
Zert settled in the circle around the fire, put his arm around his father, and snuggled close. Their cloaks weren’t warm enough for this weather, but at least, even if they were kicked out tonight, he and his father had each other.
“I saved this for you.” His father pulled a snail sandwich on acorn bread out of a pocket and handed it to him.
Zert took a bite of the sandwich and caught the powerful smell of fresh garlic. He finished it in three gulps. He looked at his father hopefully, but Jack shook his head. “That’s all,” his father said softly. “But I’ve got some wormdogs at the house.”
Mary Kay Casey, who was sitting on the other side of Zert’s father, passed him a parsley marshmallow.
“Thanks,” he whispered to her as he popped the delicious morsel into his mouth.
“When my health improved, I found Benre rifling through my desk. I asked what he was looking for, but he was vague and evasive that afternoon. Later, a man with a foreboard that said ‘World’s Greatest Adventurer’ visited our house.”
Zert mouthed to his father, “Uncle Marin.” Frowning, his father nodded.
“One afternoon, I came upon the man with the foreboard conferring with Benre in the secret map room. When I demanded to know what they were up to, Benre said, ‘Dad, I have plans for your Rosies. Big plans. We’re going to start with the settlement of Paradise. I’ve hooked up with the adventure show New Worlds. Marin Bluegar and I are going to make you all famous. And rich. We’ll be moving to an Up City before you know it.’”
“I bet Uncle Marin thinks we’ll help him,” Zert said into his father’s ear.
“He’s wrong,” his father hissed back.
“I knew then that my son had been totally corrupted. Although I acted as though I were playing along, Benre knows me too well. I found that the door to my room was locked that night and that my I-ring was disconnected. He kept me trapped in my house for several days before I decided that I had no choice but to escape.”
Zert swatted away the smoke. When it refused to leave him alone, he hid his head in his knees and breathed in cedar and pine.
“I overheard him tell a supposed housekeeper he had hired that he was going to be out of town for a week and to keep me locked up. He didn’t know that I kept an early prototype of the minimizer in my room. I could shrink. But I’d need help to reach you. Thinking of my Rosies in danger, I had no choice but to take a chance.
“I won’t go into how disoriented I felt when I woke up on the floor of my bedroom, naked and a third the length of my pipe stem. Many of you here have experienced what I’m talking about. Suffice it to say that I was glad that, years before, I’d had a suit of Rosie clothes made on a whim. Once I’d dressed, I began to carry out the next part of my plan. I crawled onto my surprised cat’s back and held onto her collar. I hated doing this, but I stuck her with a pin until she meowed so loudly that the woman whom Benre had hired to hold me prisoner opened the door to my room. The cat bolted with me hanging onto her back for dear life. When the woman saw that I was missing, she called Benre, but what could he do?”
Benre probably yelled at her, “Look under the bed and in the closet. Look everywhere!”
But BIGS can’t see us, Zert thought proudly.
“The last part of my plan was the most dangerous. I had been unable to call Dr. Brown before I shrank, and now I was too small to use an I-ring. But Dr. Brown lived close by, and I was determined to make my way across town to his home in Foggy Bottom.”
“I waited for my jailer to leave on an errand. When she did, I rushed through the front door as she opened it. It was dusk, and Dr. Brown’s home was blocks and blocks away. It would take weeks for me to walk all that way on my own. Meanwhile, my Rosies were in grave danger. I needed to get to Rocky Mountain National Park to warn you.”
The fire was dying, and cold was winning. But like everyone else, Zert didn’t move. He inched closer to his father.
Dr. Rosario looked around at the smoky faces. At Don G., who sat across from him. At Mary Kay Casey, who sat next to Jack. She was covered in gray fur except for a stripe of green firefly essence on her forehead and glowing green beaded earrings. “There’s not enough time for me to tell you about the next part of the trip. It involves a harrowing stint in a nursery, a ride in a Flayhead’s pocket, my impersonation of a fairy, and a dive into a woman’s purse. When I finally arrived at his home, Dr. Brown booked us for a Mag Lev trip to Colorado, and we landed in the parking lot late yesterday afternoon.”
Dr. Rosario looked up at the sky for a long moment before he began again. “Dr. Brown held me on his palm as we said our good-byes. I felt the same things as all of you. Confusion. Awe. Thankfulness. Loss. Sadness.”
The adults sitting around the campfire nodded.
Dr. Rosario sighed. “On my way to you, I was captured by a Boy Scout. It’s ironic that Marin Bluegar’s nephew, Zert Cage, rescued me. I would not be sitting here except for this brave young Rosie.”
Jack squeezed Zert’s shoulder again before speaking up. “I’m afraid we have some bad news of our own.”
“Yes,” Dr. Rosario said. “Let’s hear it.”
“My son has twice spotted a lifter with a New Worlds logo circling Paradise,” his father said. “The floor is a microscope, so the BIG passengers can detect us. New Worlds has already begun their tours.”
Dr. Rosario answered, “Ah, yes. New Worlds.” He exhaled slowly. “Dr. Brown heard a rumor that this nefarious outfit has planned something even more sinister than we originally thought. Their passengers may not be simple tourists but hunters armed with dart guns.”
Zert felt his father stiffen.
“Dr. Brown didn’t know if Marin Bluegar and Benre were involved in the change of format. I pray not.” Dr. Rosario gave a quick shudder. “But the rumor Dr. Brown heard was that New Worlds revised the show. The new plan calls for hunters to capture us as trophies.”
The Rosies around the campfire exploded in shouts of protest. “What?” Don G. shouted. “Don’t they know we’re human too?”
“What will they do with us after they capture us?” Mary Kay Casey asked.
“I don’t want to dwell on this despicable plan. It’s only more confirmation that we need to camouflage our village and leave as soon as possible. But before we begin preparations, I want to end by saying, Rosies, I’m grateful to be here and to be alive. When I see the grandeur of that purple mountain over yonder, I know that I’m ready to begin my new life.” He paused. “With you, my Rosies.”
The crowd started clapping. Someone
had thrown a log on the fire, and it was now glowing brightly.
Zert’s father no longer had his arm around him, but they were sitting close to each other next to the warm fire.
Mary Kay Casey sat on Jack’s other side with Jack’s hand on hers. She wore a brand-new pair of sturdy, rat-hide boots Jack had made for her by working nonstop over the last week. Zert looked into his father’s eyes, and his father smiled.
Zert nodded. Mary Kay Casey was nice. It was OK with him.
Millicent and Artica sat across from them. They had a fur blanket over their shoulders. Millicent’s blue night-suit looked like it had once been a bedroom slipper. It may have been the smoke that distorted his vision, but it seemed as if his best friend was smiling at him. In a new way. One that made his stomach tingle.
“So he’s a jolly good Rosie,” Artica cheered. Zert joined in. So did his father and Mary Kay Casey.
But not Don G. He glowered at the fire.
When the cheering stopped, Dr. Rosario put his hands together as if in prayer, and Mary Kay Casey stood up and marched to the outskirts of the rock. She tugged on the flagpole of the roach flag as if it were a lever.
Kabaam.
A blast of fall leaves shot out of the pipe in Pancake Rock. Then another one.
The leaves rained slowly down on the Rosie houses in the valley below until no hunter could see anything. Not even with a microscope.
39
CAMO ANTS DARTING AWAY
“As your new leader, I say we go along snail trail 7, then follow the trickle to the stream,” Mary Kay Casey said to the group of adults huddled around her. “We’ll each carry a leaf overhead. In case we’re tracked, we’ll look like ants.”
Don G. stood at the outskirts of the camp circle.
With a sock blanket draped over his cloak, Zert swung his feet over the edge of Pancake Rock along with the other kids. He drank hot blueberry tea and ate a mushroom biscuit.
“This is terrible,” Millicent said. Her fur cap with a spiderweb visor didn’t cover her ears, but her fur gloves and muffler and bedroom slipper night-suit looked warm.
“The worst,” Beth said. “We’ve got to leave everything behind.”
He had never seen her wear shoes before. Her feet, covered in fur shoes, were so big they looked like small animals.
“I don’t know what to do,” Ivy Potts sobbed. “This is my home.” Underneath her fur jacket, she had on a knitted sweater. A matching knitted hat topped her head, and fur mufflers covered her ears.
“It feels bad, I know,” Zert said. “But it gets better.”
Beth glared at him and pulled her fur muffler tighter around her neck. “Easy for you to say. You don’t understand.”
If only he could find the words to tell her about his apartment and his purple couch and the photo of his mom. “I do understand,” he said. “I had a pet named Chub. She—”
“You just got here,” Beth interrupted. “This is our home,” she said as she kicked her feet hard against the side of the cliff underlying Pancake Rock.
Millicent put her head in her hands and started crying. Her cap tumbled off and landed by the edge of the cliff.
Zert snatched it before the wind could blow it away. “It’s not easy for me to say. I left one home before.” He set the cap back on Millicent’s head. “But the terrible feeling you have right now will go away.” The leaves had covered Paradise, but he knew where the homes were. He knew where the corral that held his insect herd was. He could still see his favorite rock by the trickle.
He didn’t want to leave either. But he had done it once before. He could make a new home again. Besides, they had no choice but to dart away, camouflaged as ants. They were being hunted.
“Kids,” Casey said, clapping her hands, “head to the fire.”
His father walked up to him. “We’ll have to start our Cage & Father Bug Ranch somewhere else. Are you up for it?”
Zert nodded. “You’ve got a deal.”
As the sun rose, the Rosies gathered in a circle around the fire. Beth stood across from him, her face solemn. Millicent dried her eyes. One Rosie woman began singing, and the others joined in. “O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain …”
The last strains of the song had died away when Casey said, “Kids, put whatever you can in a backpack. We’re leaving at dawn. We’ll be back one day,” she added. “But I’m not sure when.”
“Dad,” Millicent asked, “where are we going?”
“We don’t know. We’re explorers,” Artica said. He straightened the cap on her head and shot her a big grin.
Mary Kay Casey clapped her hands, and her green earrings swayed in the wind. “Kids, return to the rock as soon as you can.”
Dr. Rosario was nodding. He started to stand but fell back. His legs were too tired to hold him.
As Mary Kay Casey helped him get up, he whispered into her ear. She nodded.
“I have an announcement,” Dr. Rosario said. “Don G.?”
Don G. stepped out of the shadows. He hadn’t stopped frowning since the doctor had scolded him. His scowl had grown deeper when he heard the story of the hunters. Then after the villagers had voted to replace him with Mary Kay Casey as president, he’d moved to the edge of the circle and had been glowering at everybody.
“Will you accept the most trusted position that this community has to bestow and stay behind and guard Paradise?” Dr. Rosario said.
At first, Don G. stood frozen. But slowly his lips parted. His crooked smile gave him a mischievous look, as if he might even be fun to pal around with. “Yes. I will.”
“And?” Dr. Rosario said. He winked at Zert. “Is there something you’d like to show the newest members of our community, the Cages, before we leave?”
The Rosies must have voted while he was talking to Beth and Millicent. He wasn’t Abbot Number Two after all. He and his father had a community now.
Zert smiled up at his father. His father smiled back and whispered, “It was my great boots.”
Don G. took a deep breath and turned to Jack. “Why don’t you come with me?”
“Certainly.”
His father had been wrong about a lot of things, but he was right about the most important thing.
Don’t blow it, Zert lectured himself as he followed his father and Don G. down the side of Pancake Rock.
40
MISSION THUMB–THE SMALLEST FORGE OUR FUTURE
A black shadow swooped across the floor of the community center. Something dark, as large as a small lifter, flew overhead. Although firefly essence shone on the walls, the light didn’t penetrate much of the room; the space was too vast.
“Don’t worry. The fruit bats don’t bother us,” Don G. said, his voice echoing.
Zert shuddered. I’ve never been so happy not to be a banana.
The bat flew between floor-to-ceiling stalactites and stalagmites and disappeared into a crack in the crystal wall.
“No telling how deep that water is,” Don G. was saying about a lake. “Or how many strange creatures live there.”
Zert glanced at his murky reflection in the lake, still, quiet, and blacker than ink. As he followed Don G., he slipped on the bones and shells coated in phosphorescent slime and algae along the shore. A whiff of salt invaded his nose and mouth.
Don G. stopped in front of a slot in the rock that was shaped like a large keyhole. With the coming of morning, he had ditched the rat-skin jacket and was just wearing the Rosie standard-issue pants and shirt. His salt-and-pepper hair flowed down onto his shoulders. “This is what Dr. Rosario wanted you to see before you leave. It’s our pride and joy. Our last resort.”
Zert followed Don through the keyhole and entered a room darker than the previous one. He gagged as the latest smell hit him. It was damp, acidic, and vaguely rusty.
Water splashed nearby. A loud rustling startled him.
A city of bats must have been waking up. But when his eyes adjusted, he found that he was simply staring at
a large brown stain on the wall. “What is that?” Zert asked.
Dark, torn wings were pumping. Antennae were bobbing. Bent legs were kicking. Hundreds—no, thousands—no, millions of insects clung to that wall.
“Roaches!” his father said, taking off his fur cap.
“We call this the Roach Palace,” Don G. said. He stared at the wall as BIGs stared at the newest model of lifter.
“Roach Palace?” Zert marveled.
“The heart of our program is right here. These are the breeders,” Don G. said.
He and his father looked at each other. This was the core of the Rosie mission, something this community didn’t share with just anyone. The two of them had earned this privilege.
“We blind them to make it harder for them to escape,” Don G. said.
“I told you so, Dad,” Zert said. He knew he had seen a B on that blind roach’s chest.
“Sorry for doubting you,” his father said.
“If another Nuclear Mistake were to happen or if there was another world war, insects hold the key. No matter how polluted or troubled, we can always survive on roaches underground in caves,” Don G. said.
Artica’s vision of the huge insect farm, the reverence the Rosies had for Millard R. Dix, and the brown blob of a roach on the Rosie’s flag—everything was starting to add up and make sense.
“But there’s more, isn’t there, Don G.?” Jack asked.
“Yes. In the event that the worst happens—a drought, a famine, a new disease—Dr. Rosario wants us to go public and offer the world a choice. We might rescue a city, a state, or an entire continent. We don’t know yet,” Don G. explained.
Zert’s mind raced to a day in the future when a skinny Rosie kid named Zert Cage would travel to Low City DC and save Snow Blakely and some of his old friends.
On his life page for the sixth form, most kids had written things like, “Good guy. Zoink ball King.” Someone had anonymously written: “Eats Too Many Chips.” Not one of his friends had written, “SuperZert to the rescue.” Will I surprise them!
