Beyond the Knock Knock Door

by Scott Monk

  Luke searched the ocean for ships. ‘There might be houses by the beach,’ he suggested.

  Michael led the way, pushing into the meadow. He halted immediately. Something was wrong. Dreadfully wrong.

  His arms and legs were suddenly heavy. He felt too sluggish to move. Glancing down, his breath hitched with alarm. Wherever the sun struck his costume, the gold plastic was hardening into steel!

  His plates of armour glistened. His gauntlets stiffened. The nicks and scratches sealed together. The fake leather straps mended and tightened. His sword weighed down in its scabbard. His tattered red cloak restitched itself into fine cloth with curling gold embroidery. And his chain mail clinked as each row of rings turned solid. Speechless, he flexed his fingers inside his new gauntlets, only to pause when he discovered each shoulder guard transforming into the enormous head of a roaring bear. The insignia of a third – fighting and clawing on hindlegs – grew large on his chestplate. And finally, the face of a fourth – with snarling teeth and angry eyes – became his helmet.

  The shock overwhelmed him – not to mention the extra kilograms. ‘Whoa!’ He crashed backwards on the grass.

  As his siblings rushed into the sunlight to help him, they too froze.

  Luke’s star ranger uniform aged in reverse. His green and yellow leather jacket and pants turned soft and supple. His utility belt drooped with new pouches. The hi-tech gadgets and computers on his wrists and belt blinked and beeped to life. His crash helmet fit his head. The red plastic visor attached to his earpiece fizzled into an electronic display – diagrams and data scrolled in front of his eyes. Solar panels charged his jetpack. ‘How cool is this!’ he laughed, pressing a button.

  BOOOOOOM!

  ‘WAAAHHHOOOOOOO!’

  The jetpack rocketed him into the clouds.

  At first, Samantha’s changes were cosmetic. Her pirate hat puffed out with real ostrich feathers; a steel cutlass curved from her hip; her white shirt and red sash changed to silk; and the ratty patterns on her purple vest and coat rewove themselves into silver thorns and roses. Even her buttons turned into pieces of eight. She looked quite dashing. But then her chin and lips itched. She scratched them with increasing fury until she felt needles of thick, spiky hair growing where she’d drawn her goatee.

  ‘AAARRRGGGHHH!’

  She ripped the black tuffs from her face and threw them to the ground. But just as she cleared one patch, another sprouted in its place. ‘Get it off me! Get it off!’

  Wondering what was wrong, Michael struggled to sit up. When he saw her face, he baulked. When he saw her neck, he turned white.

  ‘What?’ she demanded tearfully. ‘Tell me!’

  ‘Your tattoo. It’s – It’s hissing!’

  ‘AAARRRGGGHHH!’

  She wrestled out of her coat and found the cobra slithering across the surface of her skin. It writhed round her arms, shoulders, legs and belly, as she hopped on the spot, trying to shake it loose. Screaming, she bolted back into the rainforest, looking for a river to scrub the ink off.

  At the same time, Luke roared past, losing altitude as an alarm squawked: ‘WARNING! WARNING!’ He crashed into the meadow, a cartwheel of arms and legs.

  ‘Cool,’ he repeated, before collapsing.

  They camped under a young tree that evening, still a few hours walk from the ocean. During the afternoon, they’d discovered more signs of civilisation. The ruins of a stone farmhouse sheltered them from the wind and kept their fire bright. A collapsed monastery ghosted the hill opposite them, next to a cemetery, which they’d wait until morning to explore.

  ‘What is that?’ Michael asked, hearing running hooves.

  Luke scanned the darkness with his visor, picking up a pair of heat signatures. ‘Deer,’ he said. ‘There’s a herd on the slopes.’

  ‘Do you see –?’

  ‘No. I’ve zoomed all round us and we’re safe.’

  The triplets peered beyond the ruins. Their instincts told them otherwise.

  Luke keyed his wristpad and the visor fizzled, turning the landscape black again. Two white half-moons and a third purple giant hung in the sky.

  ‘What else does that do?’ Samantha asked, pointing to his earpiece.

  ‘What doesn’t it do might be a better question. It’s got everything – infra-red, night vision, encyclopedias, video playback, telezooms, temperature readings, a compass, microphone – there’s even this light flashing with the word RADAR. Maybe if I press this button –’

  PPPFFFSSSHHH!

  They jumped as a small satellite fired from the top of his jetpack. It trailed into the sky before disappearing. Within moments, his visor switched to green. It displayed an aerial layout of the surrounding terrain and their exact location. To their right, twenty small dots ran away – the deer, he realised. To their left –

  That was strange. A warning signal beeped again before the screen faded. Oh, man. Another power failure. The solar cells needed recharging.

  ‘Don’t push any more buttons,’ she said. ‘You could end up on one of those three moons.’

  ‘Three moons, eh? So you finally admit that we’re no longer on Earth?’

  She pulled back her silk sleeve. Frightened by the fire, the cobra slipped up her arm. ‘How many bikers do you see tattooed with one of these?’

  ‘Does it hurt?’ Michael asked.

  ‘No. Just itches – like touching a caterpillar. Scratching only makes it move, see?’

  ‘At least it’s not poisonous.’

  ‘Great.’

  She clawed at her goatee then threw another branch on the fire. Luke reached into the pouches on his utility belt and pulled out the toy robot he’d won at Rajan’s party, followed by a silver survival blanket, first-aid kit, screwdriver, rope, lighter and parcel containing an inflatable six-man raft. As he’d discovered, the pouches were seemingly bottomless. They stored as many items as placed in them and slowly restocked anything he removed.

  ‘Hey, a gold coin,’ he said, thumbing it towards Samantha. One side showed a seahorse, and on the other, the profile of a young queen.

  ‘Any more food in there?’ she asked.

  ‘Just more of those awful lemony rations.’

  They split up the energy bars, silencing their stomachs for a few more hours.

  ‘How about you, Mikey? What special powers does your armour have?’

  He half-smiled. ‘It tires me out.’ Then, pulling off his gold gauntlet, he handed it to his brother. ‘Throw it as far away as you can.’

  Luke stood and tossed it twenty metres. Within seconds, the gauntlet boomeranged back and snapped on Michael’s wrist.

  ‘Now that is weird. Try your hat, Sis.’

  She tossed it away and, it too, returned.

  ‘We can take off the costumes but not be separated from them,’ Michael explained. He removed his gauntlet again and placed it in front of them. He made a fist, which the metal fingers mimicked. ‘I think we’re the only ones allowed to wear them.’

  ‘But that would mean –’

  He nodded. ‘Mr Goode Deed’s behind all this.’

  ‘That nutcase?’ she said.

  ‘Think about it. Back home – his shop in the strange alleyway that suddenly appeared, the Now-Or-Never Wagon, the key to the pumphouse –’

  ‘It was just a key to the pumphouse.’

  ‘No, there’s more – something I haven’t told you. When I caught the train two days ago, I helped a homeless man buy a ticket. When we got off at the station, he dropped his wallet with two hundred bucks inside –’

  ‘Two hundred bucks?’ Luke repeated. ‘A homeless man? Are you kidding?’

  ‘Exactly. And later, I saved him from being hit by a cement mixer.’

  ‘Since when did you join the Scouts?’ she snorted.

  ‘Listen. He also dressed up as a baby chicken and a security guard. I saw the costumes in his shop. He might’ve even been that guy who told us the powerlines were down, steering us towards the park. He’s been beh
ind this from the start.’

  ‘You sure he wasn’t wearing a cereal box?’ Luke asked. ‘He’s definitely the king of fruit loops.’

  ‘Why would anyone want to dress up as a homeless man?’ she said.

  ‘It was a test,’ Michael answered. ‘To see who would help him. To see who was honest enough.’

  ‘And out of the millions of people in our city, he picked you, right?’

  ‘No, the opposite. I picked myself. He was waiting for the right person to come along.’

  ‘It’s bad enough your brother thinks he’s superhuman, Mikey, but coming from you, it’s a little sad.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Luke asked.

  ‘I don’t. I’m guessing. But when we left his shop, he said something weird: “One good deed deserves another”.’

  ‘That’s ludicrous,’ she said.

  ‘So’s you turning into Captain Blackbeard,’ Luke replied.

  Not believing a single word, she drew her cutlass and left for the bushes. ‘If any of this is remotely true, then Mr Goode Deed better know Mrs Ima Lawyer because we’re going to sue for millions.’

  Her brothers stayed by the fire, pulling apart the theory.

  ‘So why did Deed choose you? Us?’ Luke asked Michael.

  ‘To go through that Knock-Knock Door. To come here.’

  ‘Yeah, but why?’

  He pondered it a while then echoed the last words spoken by the Belgian in the blue suit: ‘A mystery is a dull question if there’s not plenty of confusion first.’

  9

  ‘I can’t walk into a town looking like this! You might think it’s funny that I’m the Incredible Bearded Lady, but I don’t!’

  ‘Lucky you didn’t draw any curls on your chest, eh?’

  Samantha filled Luke’s face with hers. ‘You listen to me, Luke Francis Bowman. I’d keep that wind tunnel you call a mouth closed from now on. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?’ He gulped. ‘Good! Now stay that way and we might actually like each other for the first time in our lives!’

  Her leather boots squeaked across the clean, white sand as she marched from the beach to the shade of a long, rolling cliff face. She passed Michael, who stood dumbstruck, gaping at the impossible. Before him, as if magnetically repelled from the planet itself, hundreds of limestone islands sailed above the ocean and rode through the sky. Some were small and fast; others gigantic and sluggish. Tropical gardens thrived on their topsides and waterfalls sprayed over their edges. Occasionally, an avalanche of boulders tumbled down and pounded the sea like cannonballs. Others crunched into the graveyard of shipwrecks, splintering masts and smashing wooden carcasses, which groaned with each surge of the waves.

  They weren’t the only marvels. Amazingly, there were the fish – great schools flying among the floating isles. They shimmered, twisted and looped in perfect unison, curving dangerously close to the crags before sprinting away across the coral cays. No wonder the triplets hadn’t seen any birds in the rainforest. They didn’t seem to exist. Further along, Luke spotted an enormous, orange and very dead stone crab. It was the size of a double garage. He walked inside and looked at the carapace, which had been crushed open and the flesh eaten.

  Michael’s armour warmed in the mid-morning sun, and the wind tugged his cloak as he sat and watched the islands meander. A sense of peace overcame him as he wriggled his toes under the hot sand. Embarrassingly, this was his first visit to a beach. He’d seen them on television but had never tasted a salt breeze or heard the foamy fizz of real waves. His dad was a life-long farmer and hated leaving the land. He preferred rivers, hills, kingfishers and dust on his dogs to caravans, seagulls, rubbish bins and slowly crackling skin. ‘Too many tourists,’ he’d always say.

  ‘Where is everybody?’ Samantha demanded, scouting for a boat, footprints in the sand or even a washed-up shopping bag. ‘The monster can’t have eaten them all.’

  Then, barely above the wind, they heard music. They stopped and turned towards the furthest cliff top. ‘Is that a flute?’ Luke asked.

  ‘Who’s playing it?’

  ‘Scanning …’

  His visor zeroed in on a thin teenager sitting cross-legged on a high, rocky arch and playing a pipe made of coral. He was fifteen – possibly sixteen – and human. He had loose blue hair, a sharp face, tanned skin, boyish stubble and sky-coloured eyes. Two sapphires were set into each cheekbone, and a set of gold chains looped from his left ear – probably to disguise that nasty burn scar along his neck. His old-fashioned clothes resembled those of a swashbuckler or even a musketeer. A white lace collar flowered over a sleeveless green doublet, which was trimmed and buttoned with gold. Red stripes ran along the arms of his white shirt, and his red puffy pants were tucked into brown boots folded at the top.

  Michael pulled on his own boots and metal leggings, and dragged Luke away, whose visor not only recorded the piper’s song but listed each note as well. The limestone arch was unreachable directly from the shore.

  ‘You go talk to him,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t do it looking like this.’

  ‘Pretend you’re a boy,’ Luke said. ‘No one will know.’

  ‘I’ll know!’

  ‘Then stay here. Mikey and I aren’t afraid, are we?’

  They retreated back up the cliff then approached the piper from behind. Startled by the clink of armour, the teenage boy dropped his coral instrument and stretched out his left palm. A sword hidden in the scrub flew into his hand. In a flash, its tip poked Michael’s throat.

  Samantha screamed for Luke to act as she ran along the cliff and drew her cutlass. Both were too slow. The teenager was ready to disarm Michael until he noticed the golden armour and its four bears. Immediately, he stabbed his swashbuckler’s sword into the ground and knelt in submission.

  The triplets blinked in disbelief.

  Head down, the teenager apologised frantically – or that’s what they thought he was saying. He spoke a language none had heard before.

  ‘Do you speak English?’ Michael asked, rubbing his throat. ‘En-glish?’

  The teenager paused, shook his head then continued gibbering. He saw the cobra hissing on Samantha’s neck and averted his gaze.

  ‘He sounds Spanish,’ Luke said.

  ‘I thought it was Italian,’ Michael answered.

  ‘I don’t care if it’s two dogs barking,’ she said. ‘He just tried to kill you!’

  ‘We scared him, that’s all. He was defending himself.’

  ‘Who can blame him?’ Luke said. ‘What with the monster and all. Did you see how that sword flew through the air? It just jumped into his hand!’

  She lowered her own cutlass and walked round the piper, checking if he had any more weapons. The teenager slyly pretended to scratch his shoulder, only to flip over a patch of striped red cloth to hide the emblem of a bounding white rabbit.

  ‘So are they your real clothes? Or did Mr Goode Deed send you to this place too?’

  ‘Sam,’ Michael said.

  ‘Or,’ she raised her sword again, ‘maybe you’re one-and-the-same, wearing another disguise.’

  ‘Sam!’

  The breakthrough in communication came when the piper respectfully offered them each a pendant. It was a simple piece of jewellery – a spotted slipper snail shell dangling from a twisted leather cord. A gentle rattle revealed something small inside. Watching him tie one around his neck, the triplets warily followed his lead then instantly heard his voice translated into English.

  ‘– understand each other. I hope I haven’t offended you or your companions with my sword arm, my liege. My life is yours if I have done so.’

  The piper knelt again but Michael lifted him to his feet. The strange boy kept his eyes lowered with respect, although they repeatedly wandered to the cobra tattoo.

  ‘Er, I’m Michael. This is Luke and Samant –’

  ‘Ahem,’ she coughed.

  ‘Sorry, Sam. She’s –’

  ‘Ahem.’

  ‘He’s also travelling with
us.’

  Luke leant forward and grinned. ‘Don’t worry about him. He’s always moody because’ – an elbow sharply jabbed into his ribs – ‘his voice hasn’t broken yet.’

  ‘No, but I know a few bones that will be,’ she growled.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Michael asked.

  ‘Aurelio, my liege.’

  ‘And you’re a musician, Aurelio?’

  ‘Yes, my liege, but mostly a humble guide for lost travellers.’

  ‘Why do you keep calling him that?’ Luke asked. ‘Y’know, “my liege”.’

  ‘Why, because he is the Gold Knight – the bravest warrior in all the Seven Worlds of Wonder. He single-handedly froze the Giant of the Lost Lake, rescued the children of the Wolflands, caught the Knave of Knaves and ended the Thousand Year War with a poem. No man matches his valour and strength – not even the mighty Red Samurai. He is our most loved champion from the Hall of Heroes.’

  ‘The Hall of what?’

  ‘Hall of Heroes – the home of all the best warriors. That is where you’ve journeyed from today, is it not, my liege?’

  ‘No. We’re –’

  Whiskers scratched his helmet. ‘Play along with it,’ his sister breathed.

  ‘We’re, er – how can I put it –’

  ‘– on our way home,’ she finished for him. ‘But we first need to find the nearest city … to do hero stuff.’

  ‘That would be Pacifico, sir. The great eastern capital of peacemakers.’

  ‘And …’

  Aurelio blinked.

  She sighed. ‘You told us you’re a guide for lost travellers. Go on then. Take us there.’

  ‘Yes, sir. It would be,’ he glanced at the cobra yet again, ‘an honour.’

  He grabbed his coral pipe and scabbard, and walked to the tip of the limestone arch, where he played a low, soft song.

  Samantha rolled her eyes. They needed help, not music. ‘Hey, pied piper –’

  Michael grabbed her arm and pulled her aside. ‘Stop it.’

  ‘Stop what?’

  ‘Bullying him.’

  ‘Am not. I’m just cutting out being polite.’

  ‘You don’t have to scare him, okay?’

  ‘Who are you now? Dad?’