“Hi, Pye!” they said, startling the large fellow so badly he fell off the couch. “Just wanted to let you know we’re home.”
“Hrmph,” said Pye. “How was your time at Mersey’s?”
Pye did not look like he cared much how their time had been. He also did not react to Pauline’s and Chance’s appearances, covered as they were in scratches and bruises and cuts, five pounds lighter apiece, clothes dirty and torn, with Pauline barefoot and Chance dressed bizarrely and still sporting blue makeup on his ears.
“Pye, when does Mom come home?” said Chance, who had absolutely no idea what day it was or how long they’d been down there.
“Tomorrow, noon,” he said, then climbed back onto the couch and went back to sleep; in minutes, he was snoring like a barge horn.
“I wonder how we’re going to explain to Mom why we look this way,” said Chance, who was scrubbing his ears at the kitchen sink, wishing he could tell his mother everything.
“Long baths,” said Mersey. “And, Chance, I’ll dab your scuffed-up areas with my makeup.”
Chance wondered if he would be able to stand Mersey putting makeup on him. Just the thought made it feel like there were butterflies stage diving in his stomach.
Pauline grabbed her brother and Mersey by the hands and pulled them close to her.
“Our adventure has to be a secret. We can’t risk someone hearing our story and believing it, then drilling a giant hole to the infirmary, or worse. So. Swear on your lives you will never say anything to anyone.”
“Even Jiro?”
“Even Jiro.”
“Even Mom?
“Especially Mom.”
“Swear,” said the three friends.
And with that, Mersey and Pauline went upstairs to her room and Chance to his, where he immediately fell asleep, dreamed of elevators, of fistfuls of shiny clahd, of legions of little round creatures, of the martyrs of lost causes, of the victims of injustice—
Chance bolted upright in bed. He ran to his sister’s room and knocked on the door.
“It’s me—Chance!”
“Better let him in this time,” he heard Mersey say through the door. Pauline did.
“What is it, little brother? Want to kiss Mersey good night?”
Mersey puckered, and Chance turned so red in the face he thought his head must look like a bell pepper with hair.
“I need your computer,” he squeaked.
“I don’t—”
“You said!”
“Yeah, you’re right,” said Pauline, handing Chance the laptop. “Password’s gninthgil.”
And Chance sat right down on the floor while Mersey and Pauline crowded around him. He signed on, jumped on the internet, went to ChessKnight.com, and within a minute was a member.
“Simon and Yryssy used to hack into the Oppabof internet to play chess. Maybe, just maybe…”
Chance searched for yryssy, without luck. He tried ayopy. He tried them both backward; he tried anagrams; he tried donbaloh; he tried everything he and Mersey and Pauline could think of.
“She’s not on here,” said Chance. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
He put his face in his hands. He didn’t care about anything anymore. The Balliopes would catch Braig, and he would go to the basement. Chance considered going back. After a good rest, he could load himself up with supplies, put together an unassailable disguise, and be back there in a couple of days by one of two routes. He could—
“Hey,” said Pauline, “what was the name of Yryssy’s medicine again?”
Chance, who was not optimistic because Yryssy probably knew thousands of medicines, searched for Ypocrasyne.
A hit:
The player is online, rating 2210. Would you like to play?
“Yes,” typed Chance, not allowing himself to hope, for he knew he wouldn’t be able to handle the disappointment if that hope were dashed.
A chessboard came into view. At the bottom of the screen was a dialogue box.
“Hello,” typed Chance.
“Hello yourself,” typed Ypocrasyne. “You can play white.”
“Okay, thanks!”
Chance played 1. e4. Ypocrasyne answered with … c5, which provoked 2. Nf3, which Ypocrasyne countered with … d6.
“I’m Chance.”
“I’m thankful to be alive,” said Ypocrasyne.
3. d4, cxd4.
“Why?”
“Hard to explain.”
4. Nxd4, Nf6.
“I’m lucky to be alive, too.”
“Why?”
“I was on an adventure.”
“Space travel? Skiing? Hot dog–eating? Visit to Hogwarts?”
5. Nc3, a6.
“That last one was pretty warm.”
“Really? Where?”
“If I tell you, promise you won’t end the game?”
6. Bg5.
“You’re weird,” typed Ypocrasyne. “Okay, promise.”
“Underground.”
Ypocrasyne paused for a full minute, then played … e6.
Chance played 7. f4. Ypocrasyne responded with … Be7.
“Where underground?”
“Donbaloh.”
Again a pause. Chance played 8. Qf3, and Ypocrasyne immediately answered with Qc7.
“Just so you know,” typed Chance, “I am not Dave Green.”
“Who ARE you?” said Ypocrasyne as Chance castled on his queen’s side for his 9th move.
“Chance Jeopard. I’m a human. A Wreau named Braig Toop is who cured you of Iptid’s Misery.”
“How did he cure me?”
“Flerk.”
Ypocrasyne played Nbd7.
“Flerk,” typed Ypocrasyne, “no longer exists.”
10. Bd3, b5.
“It doesn’t matter if you believe it. But Braig is the one who cured you.”
“I must thank him. He is a hero.”
11. Rhe1, Bb7.
Chance explained that Braig had been unjustly incarcerated to be tried for kidnapping, but had escaped and was on the lam.
12. Qg3, b4.
“If you really want to thank him,” said Chance, “have Bittius give him a full pardon.”
Chance played 13. Nd5, losing the knight in a sacrifice to Ypocrasyne’s exd5.
“I don’t know…”
Chance played 14. e5, beginning his attack.
“You and Braig, together, saved approximately 1,800,000 creatures.”
… dxe5.
“Dave Green didn’t really have a virus.”
“But you didn’t know that. Braig doesn’t deserve to be in jail his whole life. He just wants to be an actor.”
15. fxe5, Nh5.
“No offense, but how do I know all this is true?”
“Can you explain how you survived any other way?”
Chance played 16. e6.
“Did you mean to do that? said Ypocrasyne. “I’ll win your queen.”
“I meant to do it. Look, all you have to do is ask Braig for details. He’ll confirm everything.”
Ypocrasyne took Chance’s queen, to which he responded by seizing her pawn at f7 for his seventeenth move, putting her king in check. She took the pawn with her king.
“I don’t know…”
18. Rxe7, Kg8. 19. hxg3, Qxg3.
Chance told her about the transfusion from Mrs. Rurriery.
“All you’d have to do is go back to your hospital room and test the ichor in the tube in the ceiling for flerk. You can probably test for flerk, right?”
20. Ne6, Qe5.
“Yes.”
21. Rf1, Nf8. 22. Bf5.
“Oh dear, that was a good move,” said Ypocrasyne, defending with Bc8.
“Thank you,” said Chance, proud of himself. It had been a good move. He followed up with 23. Re8.
“You’re still going to lose, though,” said Ypocrasyne, playing Bb7.
Chance thought for a long time, then played 24. Bg6, an even better move. Then he said, “Your friend Sim
on Sleight gave his life to save you.”
Ypocrasyne played Qf6, giving up her queen to 25. Bxf6.
“You know him, too?”
“I was in Donbaloh for quite a while. I saw you in the Middlespace storm injecting Ypocrasyne into Dave Green.”
“I want to trust you,” she said, playing gxf6.
“Check out my story. Then get back on ChessKnight and look for me.”
26. Rxf6.
Yryssy said nothing. She took his rook with hers.
“Have Bittius pardon Braig.”
And with 27. Bf7, Chance put Yryssy Ayopy in checkmate.
CHAPTER 34
Chance could not sleep. He checked the computer hourly for a note from Yryssy all through the night, but nothing came. Issuing a pardon probably wasn’t the easiest thing to do in Donbaloh. At eight the next morning, Chance finally fell asleep, not waking until a commotion downstairs woke him at noon.
Chance jumped out of bed and checked the computer.
Yryssy!
“Chance,” wrote Yryssy, forgoing chess altogether, “Bittius pardoned Braig. He even got a medal.”
Chance leaped into the air and cheered, reawakening every injury to his person. “Ow!”
“And Dave Green,” continued Yryssy, “is officially off the premises and safely back in Lubbock.”
Chance thanked Yryssy, then gingerly dressed and went downstairs, where he found his mother, Mersey, and Pauline all sitting at the kitchen table playing hearts with Daisy’s bridge cards and eating peach yogurt.
“There you are,” said Daisy, getting up to give her son a peck on the forehead. “You’re wearing long sleeves, too? It’s such a hot day! You and your sister. Well, get a yogurt and sit down and tell us all about your adventures while I was away.”
Chance, Pauline, and Mersey began to giggle, a bubbly chorus they tried and failed to suppress, and that simply redoubled the power of the original giggles, which soon turned to breathless laughter so infectious that Mrs. Daisy Bopp Jeopard could not help but join in.
After the quartet’s last peal of mirth, the game of hearts resumed, though none of them really had much investment in it; each of them had much on their minds. Daisy was thinking her children had been up to something—something big—while she was gone, but she couldn’t imagine what it was. It was almost as if they’d been abducted by curious aliens who ran them through batteries of tests before returning them to Earth. But something like that was, of course, ridiculous. Still, they seemed more … self-possessed. Mature. Able. More than a mere week could account for.
Mersey Marsh was hoping Arbipift the Harrow-Teaguer hadn’t found the fulgurite fragment in his shirt pocket, because she had been broadcasting a suite of yodels she downloaded from the internet in the hope of driving him bananas. It made Mersey furious to think of Arbipift and his plans to pinch a kidney from the only boy she knew who was genuinely courageous. Certainly more so than the coward Josh Ringle. Yesterday, when he had come knocking after a dramatic breakup with Clarissa Speen, Mersey had slammed the door right in his face. He was cute, but he had no character, and Mersey would no longer deal with characterless beauties.
Pauline Dearie Jeopard was thinking hard about the difference between bravery and courage, finally deciding that bravery was unmindful fearlessness acting for itself, while courage was being in a state of fear but acting in the face of it for the good of many. She was merely brave; her brother was courageous. She loved him for this, more than she ever had before.
When she had first emerged from the waterfall, Pauline vowed to forget all that had happened to them: the risks they’d taken, the nightmarish creatures and scenarios, the constantly hovering scythe of death poised to abbreviate them. But as time went on, Pauline came to tolerate, then like, and then treasure the memories.
Chance Bee Jeopard, instead of paying attention to the game of hearts, was in the process of swearing on his father’s grave that he would never again dig a hole. And he would never access any portal whose terminus was unknown. Though Chance would never be able to shed his persona as a tester of limits, his acuity at gauging whether a limit should be tested at all had sharpened considerably, this process of honing having taken place miles underground in the very recent past.
Chance never told anyone about the infirmary, but he did write and draw an entire graphic novel that told a story not unlike his own. It was in the middle of the present game of hearts that he got the idea.
“Your turn, sibling,” said Pauline.
Before he could play, an unheralded thunderclap and its flashbulb-bright flare of lightning startled them all.
“Just a minute,” said Pauline, who placed her cards on the table and stood up.
“Hey, you’re not going out there,” said all her companions at once.
Pauline didn’t answer. Instead, she went upstairs to her room, opened the drapes that covered the big picture window that looked west over the plains and big sky, and sat on a pillow on the floor to watch the huge thundercloud with its flagrant claws of lightning move quickly toward her. Between the crackles and roars of thunder, Pauline called to everyone downstairs and asked them to come up. She arranged two chairs and another pillow alongside her own. When they arrived, they each took a spot, made themselves comfortable, and put aside their manifold fears, thoughts, and worries to witness the marvelous, potent, incomparable theater of an approaching Texas thunderstorm.
APPENDIX
CREATURES MENTIONED OR REFERRED TO IN THE TEXT
BALLIOPE: Donbalese. Short, spherical beast with long antennae and a taste for law and order. Common. Species forms the infantry of Saint Philomene’s Infirmary for Magical Creature’s security forces. Sleeps a lot.
BARROW-WIGHT: Oppaboffian. Tolkienian Middle-earth creature of great rarity, little seen at Saint Philomene’s.
BLUTCH SPIDER: Donbalese. Endangered ten-legged pseudo-arachnid the size of a van that spins webs in the corners of large spaces, capturing birds and insects and the occasional Flok’emble. Can live for twenty-five years without food.
BRUX: Donbalese. Small creature that resembles a Shop-Vac in a fur coat. Prone to psychiatric illnesses. Archenemy of the Thropinese; special care is taken in Saint Philomene’s to keep them separated.
DEMON: Oppaboffian and Donbalese. There are thousands of variants of this ill-natured pink or reddish humanoid designed to torment other creatures. Banned on certain floors and in Middlespace. Excellent IT skills. Usually admitted to Saint Philomene’s for dermatological disorders.
DEVIKLOPT: Donbalese. Elfin creature notorious for its copious production of bodily oils. Highly intelligent, without street sense, and given to hifalutin babel, but loyal and selfless. Seems to suffer every known ailment.
EUVYD: Oppaboffian and Donbalese. Similar to the human in appearance, but biologically unrelated. Identifiable by bright blue, sticking-out ears, translucent hair, and black spider veins on the forehead. Gregarious and fearless. Commonly found working in libraries and bookstores. Were once the only link to Oppabof, where they labored as customs agents for imports and exports.
FAIRY: Oppaboffian. Diminutive humanoid that occurs in many varieties and forms, depending on its origin. Usually winged. Widely seen in Saint Philomene’s as both patient and resident. Such avid followers of the biannual World Cup that fairy gangs form and brawl, occasionally causing great damage.
FAIRY GODMOTHER: Oppaboffian. Humanoid mentor to humans and supernatural creatures alike. Examples in literature sometimes do not conform to the real McCoy, which is placid, non-confrontational, agoraphobic, and likes to solve sudoku and dispense advice to youths from time to time. Born old; no fairy godmother is known to be less than sixty-four.
FAUXGRE: Donbalese. An intimidating beast and ogre lookalike, the Fauxgre has little in common with the true ogre, save great strength; it is a serene, sleepy being of no minor mental limitation. Usually admitted to Saint Philomene’s for severe hiccups and nosebleeds, though untreatable meteorism is often seen. Most o
f the species work as bookbinders, printers, or standup comedians.
FLOK’EMBLE: Donbalese. Endangered. Graceful, birdlike creature resembling a black hamster crossed with a pterodactyl. Lives alone, mating once in a lifetime. Almost all known examples thrive in Middlespace.
GECKASOFT: Donbalese. An intelligent creature not unlike the Oppaboffian film star E.T. in appearance, but delicate and slender. Known for intelligence, bad breath, and an unfortunate biological magnetism to virtually any disease. Powerfully resourceful, it is sometimes the last resort for doctors confronted with otherwise incurable diseases, yet a Geckasoft cannot treat itself. Fine chess and Go player.
GHOUL: Oppaboffian. Related to the revenant and zombie, this quasi-human is usually found nosing around the morgue. Whitish pallor, shrunken lips, often admitted for gum disease. Antisocial, boring.
GIANT CPULBA: Donbalese. Lovable, roundish furry creature that travels by hopping. Susceptible to tricks and pranks. The teenage Cpulba tends toward shyness and nerdiness, but becomes sociable and cuddly when mature. Generally finds employment as an ocular surgeon.
HARROW-TEAGUER: Donbalese. Twenty-foot colossus covered in black wood-like scales, with arms ending in two powerful phalanges that can pinch a garbage can flat. Tidy dresser, has gambling issues, is superstitious. There are no females; a Harrow-Teaguer reproduces by chopping off the end of its tail and placing it in a dish of ice water.
HUMAN: Oppaboffian. Overprivileged species of shallow import. Carrier of disease. Warmonger. Invented the Reuben.
HURLWORM: Donbalese. Parasitic beast resembling a wedding ring that proliferates in the guts of unlucky Tepesettes, who usually contract it by eating undercooked Brux.
KALLASP: Donbalese. Inextinguishable menace to all beings in Donbaloh. Large spherical insect, half of whose body is a sac filled with a concentrated hemotoxin that it likes to inject into any beast larger than itself. Impervious to poisons, impossible to catch, and without natural enemies.
KELPIE: Oppaboffian. Horse-like marine creature capable of transforming into a humanoid bathing beauty to lure human children into the water so it can eat them. Generally healthy, kelpies seldom need the services of the Infirmary, except when they’ve consumed an indigestible child, in which case an emergency transfer from Oppabof must be actioned.
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