Downside Up

by Richard Scrimger

  “I—I—that’s good,” she said. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, Fred.”

  We all sat down to dinner.

  —

  Homework done, I carried my dirty clothes down to the basement. That’s when I noticed the dog hairs on my jeans. Short, dark hairs all over the wet denim. Casey’s hairs.

  Breath came out of me in a sudden rush. Whuff. The hairs were more than a reminder. They were proof. I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t making the whole thing up. The upside-down world was real.

  Whuff, indeed.

  —

  Lisa Wu caught up to me on my way to school the next day and walked the last block with me. She asked what I was thinking about. I shook my head.

  “Is it me, Mouse? You think I’m nice-looking?”

  “Uh…”

  “Do you? The boys in Oak Park were always telling me how nice I looked.”

  “Uh…huh.”

  “You could come right up and say it, you know, Mouse. Come right up to me and say, ‘Lisa, you’re nice-looking.’ Don’t worry, I won’t beat you up, even though you’re so quiet and small.”

  —

  In gym that day we had mat work. Log rolls, cartwheels, somersaults. Velma did a bunch of cartwheels in a row and bounced up, hair flying. Would we really be science partners? I went over to tell her how good she was, but she turned away and started talking to Debbie before I got any words out.

  I stood on my head. Took me three tries, but I got up. My legs wobbled.

  I wanted to try looking down at the ceiling. To get used to it so I wouldn’t feel sick when I went to see Casey next time.

  “Way to go, Fred!” said the teacher. When she turned away, Lisa pushed me over. I lay on the mat, feeling the blood in my face.

  —

  I counted seconds all through the last period, staring out the window at the clouds. When the bell rang, I ran to Izzy’s locker to tell her I wouldn’t be walking with her. I thought she’d want to know why, but she just nodded.

  “I’ll be home for dinner,” I said.

  Harry the Horse came up, and she got all blushy. He was in eighth grade, like Izzy. He wasn’t really a horse, but he had a long face and a neighing kind of laugh. Heaw-heaw-heaw-heaw. Her phone always had a picture of him on the screen.

  “Beat it,” she said to me.

  There was no one in sight when I got to the vacant lot. The grate was slightly open, the way I had left it. I slid it out of the way and climbed down. I didn’t fall right away. I jumped up and down, but nothing happened. I didn’t panic. I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t! I was standing at the bottom of a sewer drain trying to fall through the universe—but I wasn’t crazy!

  All right, maybe I was panicking a bit.

  I remembered the dog hairs on my pants last night. They were real. I thought of Casey. Which reminded me of his old tennis ball. Which was how the whole adventure started.

  The tennis ball was in my pocket. Was it—could it be—the key? I pulled out the ball and held it in my open hand.

  Ready…set…

  I took a deep breath and let the ball go.

  —

  It was a cloudy day in my world, but the square of sky I could see from the bottom of the drain when I landed was the color of a new swimming pool. I put the ball back in my pocket and grabbed hold of the ladder.

  For a half-second, as I was climbing, I felt like I was going down instead of up. My stomach did a 180. But I was getting used to being upside down. This time the sick feeling only lasted a few seconds, and by the time I was standing on the grass beside the drinking fountain, I was totally fine.

  Freddie wasn’t there yet. I didn’t want to go home by myself, in case Izzy was there. I mean Freddie’s home—the upside-down home. With upside-down Izzy. Or maybe Mom would be back from work early.

  I heard a helicopter and looked up. Yup, there it was, hanging in the air like an insect or a dragon. That reminded me—what had Freddie meant, asking if there were dragons in my world. A real random comment. I thought he was talking about a sports team. Toronto Dragons—who’d probably finish last, whatever league they played in.

  I was smiling, I realized. Thinking about Casey. I felt better than fine. I had more energy than I knew what to do with. I jumped as high as I could—way higher than normal. Something about being upside down made the gravity different. I felt light, like I could practically fly. I did a handstand and held it for five seconds. I threw myself in the air backward. Seemed like I floated in slow motion, my feet over my head. The world spun around and I landed back on the ground. I’d done a total backflip. I felt featherlight, as if the air itself was helping to hold me up.

  “Hey!” said Lisa Wu. “Hey, Freddie!”

  I stopped what I was doing.

  “How’d you get here?” she asked. She had freckles across the bridge of her nose. Tiny dark dots like pinpricks. I’d never noticed them before. And yet if Freddie and I looked exactly the same, then my Lisa had freckles too. “I saw you in school just now. You were in the hall. How’d you get here so fast?”

  I shrugged.

  “That was cool, the way you did that flip,” she said.

  “Uh, thanks.”

  “Do it again.”

  “Uh.”

  “Do it.”

  I took a step back. “Are you going to beat me up if I don’t?”

  She looked puzzled for a moment. Then she laughed. “Beat you up? Why would I beat you up? You’re such a joker, Freddie.”

  She punched me on the arm. “Such a joker!” she said.

  Her punch hurt. Maybe she wasn’t mean in this world, but she was still strong.

  “So would you do the flip again?” she said. “Please?”

  So strange to hear the word please in her mouth. She looked almost nice, saying it. So I did another flip.

  “Cool,” she said, and walked away.

  —

  A minute later Freddie came running up, calling hey, hey. He was smiling too. He asked me how I was doing and told me he was fine, fine, fine.

  “I saw Lisa talking to you,” he said.

  “She wondered how you got here so fast,” I said.

  “I saw her heading toward you, so I hid behind the fence until she went. I was thinking, what if she saw us both together? Funny, eh! We’ll have to think of a story for if people do catch us. Maybe we could be brothers, huh? Twins! Hey, how did you learn to do that backflip? You are super talented. You looked like someone on TV! Can you show me how to do it? I’d love to learn. Come to think of it, we couldn’t be brothers, because people know I don’t have a brother. How about cousins? We could be identical cousins. Hey, I like that shirt. Where’d you get it? Mom buys most of my stuff. I could tell her to look for something like that.”

  He ran out of breath at last. Freddie talked more than I did and didn’t worry as much. Identical cousins? That story wouldn’t fool his mom or sister. And they were way more likely to be a problem than any stranger.

  “Let’s go see Casey,” I said.

  “Okay then!” So funny to hear him say that.

  I followed him to the house. Casey met us at the back door. My heart got louder the moment I saw him. My knees wobbled with happiness. I leaned over to put my arms around him and let him lick my face.

  —

  Mom was out until dinner. We decided to take Casey for a walk. I gave Freddie my shirt from yesterday—carried it in my knapsack all day.

  “Izzy saw me wearing this,” I said. “You keep it.”

  “You mean my sister Izzy,” he said.

  I nodded.

  “Because you have a sister Izzy too, right? And that’s what you call her? So when you say Izzy saw you, you’re talking about my sister Izzy, not your sister Izzy.”

  My head was starting to hurt.

  “Keep the shirt,” I said.

  —

  High Park is only a few blocks from the house and it’s the biggest park in the city. There are playgrounds and tennis courts, a restau
rant and a farm, hills and rivers, and a huge pond, where you can skate in the winter. There are squirrels, raccoons and joggers. And a million trees and bushes and paths. I used to take Casey there all the time.

  We went up to Dog Heaven, an open grassy place near the top end of the park, where dogs can go off leash. Freddie and I both had tennis balls, and Casey chased after them for a while. Then he started chasing after a beagle named Lady Godiva. Lady Godiva’s owner was an old woman with a handbag. I’d never seen her, but she knew Freddie and came over to say hi. Freddie introduced me as his cousin, and the woman said it was nice to meet me.

  “You two look a lot alike,” she said.

  “Everyone says so,” Freddie agreed. “Maybe he’s a little taller. What do you think? Is he? Is he a little taller?”

  I stood up straight.

  “Maybe,” said the woman.

  “But I’m more outgoing,” said Freddie. “It comes from living in the city. My cousin here is from a long way away, so far it seems like the other side of the world. He’s shy.”

  The woman smiled and took Lady Godiva home.

  I punched Freddie. He punched me back. Shy? I said. Shy? He started to laugh, and I joined him. Then we noticed Casey a few feet away from us, stretched out so that his back was completely flat. One paw was raised. He was staring fixedly into the middle distance.

  “Look at that!” said Freddie. “It’s like he’s a what-do-you-call-it—a pointer. I didn’t know he could do that. He’s never done it before. Did he do that for you? Did he? And what kind of animal is he pointing at, anyway?”

  A blobby thing, about the size and shape of a soccer ball, mostly white.

  “Too big for a squirrel. And it’s lighter—almost white. Is it—oh, look at the ears! See, Fred?”

  I saw. The animal had put its ears up, and now—even from where we were—it was easy to tell what it was.

  “It’s a rabbit! You don’t see too many of those here. And look at Casey go!”

  We ran after the dog, calling him to come back. The rabbit bolted. Man it moved fast! I saw its puffball tail bouncing up and down, and then it vanished into the underbrush. Casey was right after it, barking wildly.

  I ran as fast as I could, which turned out to be faster than I ever had before. Not running—more like leaping. Every stride was carrying me yards and yards. I felt like I was running on the moon, moving so far with each stride that I had trouble balancing. After an extra-long leap, I fell forward and had to put my arms out to save myself.

  “Hey!” Freddie called from way behind. “How are you doing that?”

  I reached the trees. I could hear the dog ahead of me, crashing through the underbrush. “Casey, stay!” I yelled.

  I had to slow down. I was afraid that if I moved too fast I’d bump into a tree and knock myself out. I followed the sound of Casey’s steady barking.

  I finally caught up to him at the base of a giant oak. It had to be one of the tallest in the whole park. The trunk was wider than my two arms stretched out—if it were hollow you could drive through it. The tree stood in the middle of a clearing, the ribbed bark furry with old moss. The branches, far overhead, stuck out at random right angles. Twisted roots as thick as my waist stuck up from the ground and seethed round the base of the tree, like waves around a rock.

  Casey was barking, barking like crazy. But not at the rabbit.

  The thing knelt by the base of the tree. Long snout and snaky body, clawed feet, leathery wings, greenish silvery scales. It was bigger than a horse. When it breathed, jets of steam came out its snout, covering it from head to foot. The steam blew away, and there it was again.

  A dragon.

  It tried to fly away. Its wings flapped heavily as it heaved its bulk off the ground and then fell back.

  I was so amazed, I couldn’t move or speak. Couldn’t think. It was like meeting the what’s-their-names in the Greek myths, the ones who turn you to stone. You know who I mean. Them.

  Everything was still for a second. It was like we were in a picture—a boy, a dog, a dragon. I trembled. Casey growled. The dragon steamed. The wind came up, rustling grass and leaves the way it did at home on any old September afternoon.

  I heard crashing off to my left. Freddie’s voice (which still didn’t sound like mine) got louder as he came closer. That broke the spell. I grabbed Casey’s collar.

  “Come on!” I said, trying to pull him away from the dragon. That’s when I noticed that one of the dragon’s forefeet—claws, whatever—was caught in the tangle of tree roots. That’s how come it couldn’t fly. Its long skinny snout rippled and ruffled—like its lip was quivering and it was about to cry.

  Did I feel sympathy? Nope. It was a dragon! Did I feel sympathy for a hornet trapped in a storm window?

  I pulled Casey away as Freddie charged into the clearing.

  “Hey, there you are! You are fast, man! Where did you learn to run like—”

  He stopped dead beside me. His chest rose and fell as he panted.

  “Oh,” he said. His face went blank. His shoulders drooped as he let out a long breath.

  “Okay then,” he said.

  He wasn’t amazed at all. I guess he was used to dragons.

  I tried to pull him and Casey back. We had to get out of here before the thing started breathing fire all over us! But Freddie shook off my hand and approached the dragon.

  “Hey there, little girl,” he said. “You look like you’re in trouble. Let’s see if I can help.”

  “Don’t, Freddie!” I shouted.

  “Nothing we can do about it,” he said without looking back. “If it’s my time and she’s come for me, there’s nothing I can do. I’m ready.”

  “What?”

  He bent beside the dragon.

  What now? I wasn’t going to leave Freddie, but if this dragon was the kind in stories or video games, it could start breathing fire at any time.

  I watched closely from behind a tree, ready to grab Freddie if I could help him. Ready to grab Casey and run if I couldn’t.

  Freddie was still talking. “There, there,” I heard him say as he twisted the trapped claw around and pulled it free. It looked smaller than the other claws and sort of curled up. A slight deformity. The dragon would be able to fly okay but would have trouble walking or landing.

  “There you go, girl. I’m going to call you Stumbler.”

  He backed away slowly, making no attempt to run, flexing his right hand open and shut. I watched past his shoulder. Her eyes—I’d never thought of dragons as girls before—were intensely blue. She lifted her freed claw and put it down again, testing it, but the gesture looked like a wave.

  Freddie waved back. And turned away.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “I guess it’s not time.”

  —

  “So there are no dragons in your world? None at all?”

  Freddie slurped his milk shake.

  “In stories,” I said. “And video games. But they’re not real.”

  We were at the restaurant in the middle of High Park, slurping away—me and Freddie on milk shakes, Casey at our feet from a metal water bowl. We had fries too.

  “So how do people know when it’s their time?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “If there are no dragons to carry them off, how do they disappear? How do they get to the mountain?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The mountain—Dragon Mountain. You know, the one way north of the city? How do people get there without dragons to carry them?”

  I shook my head without saying anything. He was using words I knew, but what he was saying didn’t make any sense to me.

  “Or animals—or anything. What about Casey?” he said. “Your Casey, I mean.”

  The dog looked up from his water, and Freddie patted him.

  “You said he was gone. Did you see the dragon carry him off?”

  “No,” I said. “I came downstairs and he was dead.”

  “His body was
there?”

  “Yeah. The body was there, but he was dead. Gone? You know?”

  Now it was Freddie’s turn to look totally blank. Neither of us understood what the other was talking about.

  I held onto Casey’s leash on the way back to Wright Avenue. Remembering his little body lying on the kitchen floor back home made me feel terrible all over again. What an awful morning that had been.

  “I have to go home,” I said. “Or Mom will worry.”

  I stopped.

  “Would she worry if you were late?”

  Freddie laughed at that. “Mom doesn’t worry about much. I mean, she cares. When we’re sick, she takes us to the doctor, makes sure we take our pills. But if I was late, she’d shrug and expect me when I got there. She’s not a worrier, you know?”

  I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I don’t know at all.”

  Freddie smiled.

  “So you coming back tomorrow?”

  —

  That became our routine for the next few days. Freddie would meet me on his walk with Casey and we’d hang out until dinnertime. We went along Queen Street and down Roncesvalles and across the Gardiner Expressway to the lake, and places like that. Upside-down Toronto looked exactly the same as the one I knew. It was fun. Freddie did most of the talking, but I made him laugh a few times. We didn’t talk about dragons again. They were strange, all right—but the whole world was strange. Casey being alive was what mattered to me. I focused on that.

  Freddie always walked me to the drain—the portal, he called it. He stared down into the sewer. His face, and Casey’s, were the last things I saw before I dropped. Once I asked him if he wanted to come back to my world with me.

  “Why?” he said.

  “To see it,” I said. “You’d probably think everything was upside down.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “It sounds weird. It’s different for you, Fred. You come here to see Casey ’cause you miss him. But I don’t miss him.”

  “What do you miss? Anything?”

  It was another bright afternoon. The sun flashed off a car going by on Wabash Avenue.

  He shrugged. “Maybe I miss something but don’t know it.”

  “If you missed it, you’d know.”