Out on the hot hillside, with the red-tailed hawks spinning above in tight circles, Edgar tapped furiously into his calculator. One by one, he entered the calculations. Then, suddenly, when all the numbers had been crunched, Edgar hit the equals button. The number “42” stared back at him.
He recalculated everything one more time, very carefully, since his life might depend on it, just to be sure.
“42.”
Edgar walked back into the cabin and sat next to the hole, waiting nervously as he munched on broken pretzel sticks that he’d stowed away in his backpack.
“Where’s your lunchbox?” his mom had asked earlier that day.
“I’ve outgrown lunchboxes, Mom,” he’d told her. “I’m in high school now. I’m making my own lunch from now on, too. No more peanut butter and chocolate chip sandwiches.”
“But you love peanut butter and chocolate chip!” she cried.
“Not anymore I don’t.”
He waited by the hole for what seemed an eternity, but suddenly, exactly eighty-four minutes after he dropped the turtle to its death, it suddenly shot back up, rising high over the hole and then dropping rapidly. Edgar reached out and grabbed the frightened creature just in time.
Holy crap. It actually worked?! He clutched the turtle in his hands, cackling like a mad scientist. “Buddy, you’re alive!” He danced around the dusty room, careful not to get too close to the hole.
“You’ve been to China, haven’t you?” Edgar asked as the turtle peered out through its shell with two shiny, fearful, black eyes.
“And you’re still alive,” Edgar mused. “You’re still alive.” He inspected the turtle’s shell, looking for signs of injury, but found none. The little guy was scared but otherwise unharmed. Edgar took him outside and placed him near the brook once again.
After walking back into the cabin, Edgar stared down the hole, thoughtfully. Well, I’ve got eighty-four minutes to spare. Here goes nothing.
And with that, he jumped.
Seven
For the first several seconds of freefall, Edgar’s body clenched in defense. His stomach rose to his throat, threatening to release everything he’d eaten that day.
He opened his mouth to scream but no sound emerged. He could only grind his molars and slam his eyes shut and pray that he wasn’t about to die.
This is probably not the best idea I ever had, he thought, regretting his impulsive decision. Holy crap, how deep is this thing?
After all the flailing and kicking, his limbs began to tire and he stilled, surrendering to the fall. In the pitch blackness, seconds led to minutes and minutes to dozens of minutes, and somewhere deep in the Earth, Edgar curled up into a ball and, just like a fishing lead, plunged through the depths of the world.
“Please don’t let me die,” he prayed.
The loud rush of air was deafening. It screamed in his ears like blasting radio static. Each second the expectation of hard earth arriving to smash him like a pancake kept all his muscles tight and alert.
But the hard earth never came.
As he fell, he began to reflect on the floor planks—how they’d all popped back up, same as the paint can, same as the turtle. And none of them had come back damaged. Wasn’t that why he’d jumped in the first place? Everything that had gone down had always come back up in the same condition as it dropped!
Dang it, he would too. Right?
A bit more confident now, he opened an eye and peeked around. He saw nothing but abject darkness—darkness so stark and unrelenting that he might as well have kept his eyes shut.
But when he thought to bring his Pathfinder watch to his face and tap the glow function, instantly the walls of the speeding hole were lit with a dull, murky, yellow-green light.
Immediately he discovered that the writings and drawings were down here too, way deep into the Earth. But they were speeding by so fast that they were only a blur.
Fully acclimated to the freefall now, his stomach not revolting so much anymore, Edgar, like a skydiver, began to spread his arms and legs a little and attempted to control his falling. He reached for the nearby walls and held the glowing watch out, shining it against the bricks for bearings. When he neared them, he reached out and lightly touched the wall with his fingertips.
When approximately twenty minutes had passed, the atmosphere of the tunnel seemed to change. The smell of the hole became overwhelming—that salty smell, like fermented dough, the same smell he first detected back in the cabin. That’s when he knew: it was the smell of the deep Earth, the salty, Sulphurous nature of the core.
Also, in conjunction with the smell, the temperature seemed to be rising as well. The exponential rush of freefalling didn’t stop the sweat beads from beginning to form on his brow. His head was suddenly pounding like a bass drum, probably from all the pressure in the world, and he could feel his body decompressing.
He checked his watch again. Certainly. It all made perfect sense.
I’m falling through the center of the Earth.
When his ears finally popped and he was sure he’d fallen past the core, he was halfway through the Earth and suddenly traveling upward at great speed. The sensation was very different, but similarly alarming.
He’d never even traveled outside of United States and now he was shooting hundreds of miles an hour up to God knew where.
When, according to the Pathfinder, he had fallen for forty minutes, he readied himself for the other side of the world. He turned his body in midair and, peering up the tunnel, scanned the darkness ahead for signs of any oncoming light.
Sure enough, at around forty-two minutes, Edgar noticed a faint speck of light coming up the way, maybe five hundred yards or so now, but falling as fast as he was, five hundred yards would surely come fast.
He flailed his arms and clumsily swam through the air, grasping at the walls. In a flash he was there, hovering in midair at the top of a hole, somewhere on the opposite side of the globe.
He reached out and snatched the hole’s edge and, clinging desperately to it, he dangled there for a moment and steadied himself. He looked up from the hole and blinked at the night sky, beholding a perfectly clear, brilliant dome full of stars and satellites and the moon, all large and yellow and craterous.
“Night here?” he whispered.
Oh yes! Of course it was night!
Climbing from the hole, he stood, taking in the full moon just off the horizon. It was the biggest, most breathtaking moon he’d ever seen. He inhaled deeply and exhaled with laughter, shaking off the last of the trembles that remained from the gut-wrenching fall. The air in his lungs was crisp, cool, and, strangely enough, tasted of salt.
Sea salt.
“Where am I?” he said, looking down at the sand beneath his feat.
Sand?
Then he realized: replacing the wild roar of wind in his ears was the unmistakable crash of nearby waves, and the incessant chop of rippling water.
A shore! Once his eyes acclimated to the surroundings, he found he was gazing across an unknown sea, one that seemed to stretch before him to the horizon. The moon’s reflection danced across its waters like a wavering yellow brick road, illuminating the end of the world.
“Awesome!” he said.
Definitely not China. Not unless China was actually the size of a baseball diamond.
It was an island—a deserted one—that was very small and surrounded by water on all sides. There seemed to be no sign of life anywhere—besides one sparse palm tree that could barely be considered a tree, no birds, no lights—nothing.
It was just a tiny plateau in the middle of a watery nowhere, it seemed, and the hole through which he arrived was perfectly placed in the island’s center.
“Unbelievable,” he whispered, grinning, walking down a slight slope to the churning waters. Once there, he took in more of the marvelous ocean air. The way the
sparkly, moonlit waves licked the bubble-laden beach intoxicated him.
God, he had missed the beach.
He ripped off his shoes and rolled up his pants, and then, cautiously, tiptoed out onto the shore, letting his toes touch the incoming water.
“Dang!” he said. “It’s cold!”
Even still, it might be swimmable on a sunny day.
Slowly he waded a bit further, all the while staring at the glorious stars on display above in the marvelous night sky. The celestial theater was utterly gigantic, pitch black, and filled with more stars than he’d ever seen in his whole life.
He took yet another step into the cold, dark water, but this time he could feel the sand drop off quickly beneath his feet. One more step and it might mean waist deep water.
I don’t know these waters, he thought, suddenly aware of whatever strange creatures might be lurking beyond. He turned for shore in retreat.
Back on the beach, as he slapped sand from his feet and pulled on his shoes, he heard a fish splashing loudly in the water. He whipped around and strained to see in the moonlight and there, just a few yards away, was the unmistakable shape of a large tailfin protruding from the sea, its fin about the size of his hand.
“Big one!” he grinned, as bubbles from the animal lingered in the shimmering surf. As quickly as it had surfaced, the fish darted away.
Once the fish was gone and his thoughts turned to home, he glanced at his watch. It was time to get back. Dinner was soon. He couldn’t be late. His parents might start to worry.
He would have to be careful from now on. He stood over the hole and gazed into the blackness, pursing his lips in dreary anticipation. He hated losing his stomach so much, but this was his only way home. Counting to three, he faltered—then counted to three once more and faltered again. It was like trying to psych himself to dive into an icy swimming pool, but worse.
“OK man, this time for real,” he said, poising himself to jump, for real this time.
He really hated the freefall.
Once he leapt clumsily into the darkness, he balled up immediately, and again slammed his eyes shut, trying to endure the unbearable feeling. But slowly, as he could relax his clenched muscles, he got curious. He settled down and began to experiment. He stretched out his body and tilted his hands to the right and left, and it made him spin clockwise and counterclockwise.
This must be what skydivers do to steer, he thought.
He ducked his head and shoulders and leaned backward and tried a clumsy flip. He felt the flip was probably a pretty ugly one, so he tried it again. Because why not? He had thirty-five minutes to kill, after all.
The second time he flipped felt much, much better. Not nearly so wobbly this time.
Yeah, he thought. I could get pretty used to this.
Once he fell to the Earth’s core and felt that unmistakable heat once again, Edgar started to ponder ways that he might sneak out of the house late at night. It would be necessary if he ever wanted to visit the island during the daytime, since the opposite sides of the Earth experienced day and night at opposite times. Considering their new house in Mount Lanier, he had no idea which windows might be the least creaky ones. He’d need to check them out during the daytime when his parents were gone, maybe put some oil on the hinges to quiet them down.
Just thinking about getting busted made him uneasy. He’d never been in trouble before. He’d never really disobeyed before. His relationship with his parents had always been strong. They loved him dearly and trusted him. As much as his friends back home warred with their parents, he never had that problem with his.
If his mom caught him sneaking out it would definitely break her heart. And he didn’t want to do that. It would be a risk, certainly, but given all the crap he’d endured that week at school—being the new guy, dodging that low-life, Weedy, he deserved a beach day, dang it!
His mom would understand if she only knew what he went through.
Thirty-five minutes later, Edgar shot up from the hole safe and sound, back in Mount Lanier, alive, well, and without a scratch. Once he pulled himself from the hole, he walked to the doorway of the cabin and leaned on the frame, gazing out into the beautiful forest, a huge smile on his face. He closed his eyes and basked triumphantly in the warmth of the evening sun. He savored the fact that he might be the first human on Earth to see the sun and the moon in two different skies and all within one hour’s time.
Astronauts not included, of course.
__________
That night, as Edgar sat at the kitchen table working on “homework,” his mother flitted around the kitchen humming a song. Edgar dismantled his childhood globe, ripping it entirely from its metal base and semi meridian. Now the big green and blue ball wobbled around the kitchen table along its uneven mountain ranges.
It was also severely marked up with a Sharpie and had a big, red X denoting the town of Mount Lanier.
He took a protractor and walked it side-to-side, Frankenstein-like, across the lands and seas of the Earth, along a path he’d mapped out. It finally landed among the oceans of the southern hemisphere.
“School was . . .?” pressed his mom, suddenly not humming anymore. She stirred chili powder into the taco meat and glanced at him from the corner of an eye.
“It was school,” he said flatly, marking a triumphant “X” in a distant watery locale. The X was sandwiched between the Indian and southern oceans and was about fifteen hundred miles southeast of the tip of Africa.
Smack dab in the middle of a vast, dangerous sea, it looked like. This was where he believed his island to be.
“Well, have you made any new friends?” she prodded, but Edgar didn’t answer. Instead, he hammered two nails into the two X’s using the blunt end of a butter knife.
“Edgar, that’s your childhood globe . . .”
“It’s OK, Mom. It’s for the Science Fair. I’m just getting a head start,” he lied.
“Science Fair? This early in the year?”
He traced a finger from the southern hemisphere’s nail to a string of landmasses, due west. These unfriendly islands were called the “French Southern and Antarctic Islands” and as he ran his fingers across them—a bunch of brown, rugged mounds in a wide expanse of blue, their mountainous peaks capped with white—they seemed jagged and ominous.
This was the island’s only nearby landmass, and it was a pretty long way away.
“Any girls yet?” she continued to pry.
“Mom!” said Edgar, dryly. He finally looked up after circling the islands with the Sharpie. “No.”
“‘No ma’am.’ But not one single girl?”
“No ma’am,” he said. “They don’t have any girls in Washington.”
She threw a balled up napkin at him but he batted it away, grinning.
Turning his concentration back to the globe, he tied a string to both nails to ensure it would circumnavigate the ball smoothly. It did, perfectly, which meant that the two points he’d marked with red Xs were indeed opposite each other in the world—that they were indeed antipodes, a term that, like so many others lately, he had learned from Dr. Van Rossum.
The conclusion? Mount Lanier was directly opposite of his newfound island in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
The hole through the Earth led to there.
A weary Mr. Dewitt came wobbling through the door, dangling a hardhat. He looked at his wife with absolute exhaustion, his eyes bloodshot and his body covered head to toe in soot and sweat.
“Dad,” said Edgar.
His father planted a kiss on his wife’s cheek and yanked a Coke from the refrigerator, then came to the table to gaze over Edgar’s shoulder.
“What’cha doing, man?” he asked.
Edgar proudly presented the dismantled globe.
“Remember when you used to say, ‘Dig a hole deep enough and go all the way
to China?’”
“Yeah,” his father nodded, scanning the destruction on the table.
“Well, you don’t go to China,” informed Edgar, “not from Mount Lanier you don’t. You would go here.”
He hovered a finger over the big red X in the Southern Hemisphere, adding, “You go to the Indian Ocean, about two thousand miles west of Australia. Right . . . here.”
“Hmm,” said his father, gulping down another massive gulp of Coke. “I guess you better have a snorkel for that last shovelful, huh?”
Eight
Later that night, Edgar tossed in bed. The hole called to him. The freefall, the wind, the speed. He yearned to feel the sensation of flying once more. It wasn’t so bad after you got over the initial feeling.
For a while he thought about ducking out his bedroom window, sprinting off into the warm night to the cabin that housed the hole, and popping up into the sunshine of the other side of the world. But it was just too much of a risk. Somehow he couldn’t bring himself to sneak out. He was petrified of what his parents might do. He would probably be grounded for years.
__________
On his way to school the next day, Edgar meandered down a deserted mountain road through a chorus of angry insects inhabiting the brown hillsides. Wildflowers here crumpled with dryness, waving as warm gusts fanned them. The whole world was stiff and brown from the lack of rain. Everything crackled. Everything hissed.
The Secret Island of Edgar Dewitt Page 5
