by Ned Rust
“The resident of what? No, I do not mean—”
Kempton turned to Patrick and hissed. “Are you making a joke? The Hearer—your world’s representative to the Minder!”
“I have no idea what you guys are talking about.”
Dorkenlaffer made a frantic beckoning gesture at a security camera in the ceiling and the children began to chatter among themselves. Patrick overheard somebody speculating that this must be some sort of drill.
“Ah, never mind,” said the teacher, seeing something on his binky. “Eyes forward. Quiet now!”
Patrick looked down at his binky, which, at the moment, was showing a title menu for “A fōkusd revü uv Ðe pErEodic eLƏmƏnts.”
“What does this say?” asked Patrick.
“What?” asked Kempton.
“Let’s see, ‘A focused, rev-uh—’”
“‘A Focused Review of the Periodic Elements,’ you mean?”
“Oh,” said Patrick.
“Yeah,” replied Kempton.
“So this is a chemistry class?” asked Patrick.
“Look around,” replied Kempton, gesturing behind them.
Patrick turned around. Maybe he hadn’t noticed before because the back of the room was so poorly lit, but he could now discern it contained lab benches, faucets, equipment clamps, sinks, Bunsen burners, insulated dry ice buckets, and fume hoods.
“We’re on chapter eighty-six,” said Kempton. “Optical properties of the noble gases. So just skip to that section and process along with the rest of us, okay?”
Patrick rubbed his eyes and looked back to the front of the room, also now noticing a periodic table of the elements on the wall and a ball-and-stick model of glucose on the teacher’s desk.
“And stop touching your face,” whispered Kempton. “You’re smearing your mascara.”
Patrick studied his new binky. He hadn’t spent much time on it yet, but it seemed fairly intuitive. The screen resolved, swiped side to side, magnified, brought images and text forward and backward in three dimensions with amazing ease, and—before he figured out it was controlled by the natural movements of his eyes—he had the eerie sensation it was reading his mind.
He played a holographic video showing how a stream of electrons could cause neon atoms to give off light. It was very cool, but the captions were pretty confusing. With a little concentration he was able to figure out at least most of the words (like atomik he assumed meant atomic) but quite a few were harder than that.
“Is there some way to have it show regular words? A settings menu? What’s this big red eye symbol in the corner?”
“That’s the Inform icon! Only select that in case of suspected malefaction!!!”
“Oh,” said Patrick.
Kempton leaned over and studied Patrick’s binky. “And what do you mean, ‘regular words’? They look fine to me.”
“Well, I mean, the writing’s just not, well, English.”
“English?”
“Well, this word right here is supposed to be light, right?” he said, pointing his finger at a word that read LIt.
“Uh, yeah?”
“Well, on Earth, that spells lit. The way you guys write I think is kind of how they show pronunciations in dictionaries.”
Kempton regarded him as if he’d just spoken a foreign language.
“It’s not how we write on Earth is all I’m trying to say.”
Kempton turned and yelled, “Magister Dorkenlaffer! Patrick can’t read!”
“Great,” muttered Patrick as, once again, the entire class was staring.
“Oh, dear,” said Magister Dorkenlaffer. “Well, Mr. Griffin, why don’t you come up here”—he gestured for Patrick to come up to his desk—“and we’ll see what accommodations can be made?”
“It’s not that I can’t read,” he said as he took the chair next to the teacher. “It’s just that your writing’s different and we read in lines, not like with the words coming one by one like that.”
“Fascinating. Do you not have screens on Earth?” Magister Dorkenlaffer said, gesturing at the binky.
“Yeah, I mean, sure we do. But we also read from books a lot.”
“I have seen books,” said the man in a hushed voice. “They are so beautiful.”
Patrick couldn’t figure out why the man was whispering and thought that beautiful was taking things a little far.
“Anyhow,” continued the teacher more loudly as he looked at, or read, something on his own binky, “it sounds like we’ve un-ithed another fascinating difference between your world and ours. Not to worry—I believe your binky can easily translate to your written language. Let’s try this—‘Binky, default settings: please translate to Pre-Pandemic Written English,’” he said to the device. Instantly, all the words became readable.
“Cool,” said Patrick.
The teacher smiled. “The Interverse is a multi-splendored thing, is it not?”
Patrick agreed, but before he could appreciate any more of the Interverse’s wonders, the classroom door creaked loudly open and Magister Dorkenlaffer—together with every kid in the room—sprang from his seat and saluted.
“Provost Bostrel!” exclaimed Magister Dorkenlaffer.
Patrick got to his feet but the visitor in the elaborate gray military uniform stopped him before he could salute.
“Emissary Griffin,” said the man. “It’s an honor to meet you.”
“Umm, it’s an honor to meet you, too, sir,” said Patrick as he tried not to stare at the man’s nose. He supposed he’d seen bigger ones, but it was still a whopper.
“I was just going down the hallway and thought I’d check in,” said the man.
Patrick dropped his eyes to the man’s uniform. It had same i.n.r.i. spider logo on the left shoulder as Magister Dorkenlaffer’s, but the rest of it was adorned—if possible—with even more jewels, ribbons, and spangles.
“Patrick’s taking to the syllabus like a duck to water,” said Magister Dorkenlaffer, “but he did give us a little scare—he said he didn’t know who Rex was!”
“Well, that’s not all that surprising. Studies show that memory issues are a fairly common side effect of interworld relocation,” said the provost.
“Ah,” said the magister, sighing like an expiring can of spray paint. “Of course.”
“Patrick Griffin,” continued the big-nosed man, “do please forgive our disorganization. I’m afraid you’ve caught us on one of the busiest days of the yie and, on top of everything else, I’m stuck in meetings for most of the day. But we should have a quick chat. Do you think you can have your escort lead you to the main office at four dunts?”
“Sir, yes, sir!” shouted Kempton from where he was standing by his desk.
“Very good then,” said Provost Bostrel, extending his right elbow at Patrick.
“Umm,” said Patrick, looking at the man’s elbow.
The man nodded encouragingly, then raised a neatly tweezed eyebrow and somehow made clear to Patrick that he was supposed to extend his own elbow, which he did, and the man promptly bumped it with his own. Perhaps, Patrick considered, this was how they shook hands.
Everybody remained quiet as the provost left the room and Patrick and Magister Dorkenlaffer locked eyes a moment.
“Pah!” spluttered the magister, releasing his breath and smiling brightly. “You are such a lucky fellow to have a personal interview with the provost!”
He turned to the other students and waved them to sit down. “Kempton!” he said. “You and Patrick are to leave the field at three-eight. No dillydallying at games. Straight to your lockers. Alpha protocols, boys. You are to be clean and presentable; I do not want any reports of two boys showing up at the main office trailing Lasters mud from their sneakers.”
“Uh, what exactly is Lasters?” asked Patrick.
“It’s today—the best day of the entire school year!” said Kempton.
“It’s the last day of the academic year,” said Magister Dorkenlaffer.
&
nbsp; “And there are oat snacks and smoothies!”
“And mud, did you say?” asked Patrick.
“Yes, from the games,” said Kempton.
“On the playing fields,” explained Magister Dorkenlaffer. “Which is why I asked that you boys make sure you are clean and presentable for the provost.”
“Oh,” said Patrick, guessing that all made sense: Lasters must basically be like Field Day back home. “And so Provost Bostrel, he’s like the school principal?”
Magister Dorkenlaffer raised a shaggy eyebrow.
“I mean, his uniform—” Patrick started to say.
“Bostrel the Nostril!” somebody yelled from the back of the room.
Magister Dorkenlaffer tried to look angry at the remark, but couldn’t. “That’s not—” he said, clutching his belly and dissolving into laughter.
“Who said—” he tried again.
A bell rang and Patrick reflexively put his hands over his ears. It was among the loudest noises he’d heard in his life, and yet he seemed to be the only one in any kind of discomfort; the other kids were jubilant.
Magister Dorkenlaffer collapsed in his chair and, still failing to control himself, covered his brow with one hand as he waved at the door with the other.
“Go,” he managed to pant as the bell stopped ringing. “Go out to Lasters! Have a restful and rejuvenative break. And don’t forget to check the assportal!” Then he exclaimed “Nostril!” to himself and began shaking with laughter all over again.
“Did he say assportal?” Patrick asked Kempton.
“Yes, what else would he have said?”
“What is it?”
“An assignment portal? It’s where we get our homework, of course.”
“Oh,” said Patrick, following Kempton toward the door as he considered that this was not something his brother Neil would have accepted nearly as calmly as he just had.
Magister Dorkenlaffer stood and gave Patrick a kindly wink.
“It’s been a pleasure meeting you, young man. And I’m so sorry we didn’t have more time for chemistry.”
“Me, too,” said Patrick.
Most of the class had filed through the door by now and, as Kempton turned to get some more hand sanitizer, the teacher leaned forward, shook Patrick’s hand, and whispered, with a distinct note of secrecy, “Despite how strange this must all seem to you, I hope you find the coming day’s events have a certain commonplace aspect to them.”
Before Patrick could think what to say Kempton was back at his side, ushering him through the door and out into the boisterous throng of students coursing down the hall.
CHAPTER 20
Life & Death in the Bush
Carly’s cat—the one Patrick had let outside earlier that day—had at one point been a formidable hunter. Dozens upon dozens of birds, rodents, and even snakes had met their untimely end in its hook-shaped claws and sharp-toothed jaws.
But since the unfortunate day when it had been captured by a Westchester County Animal Control agent in the lot behind the Hedgerow Heights Library, its natural calling had fallen into terrible disuse. Captivity had transformed it from fearless predator into fearful prey. The only thing it had caught in the past six months had been a single moth that had, like it, had the misfortune to become imprisoned in the Griffin house.
But already it all seemed just a passing nightmare. Here again was the life it had been born to live—the sun glinting through the clouds, the buzz of early-spring insects, the birds chirping so tantalizingly close by—
The cat dropped its chest to within an inch of the ground, raised its ears, and commanded its tail to rigid quietude. Upwind, a sleek gray squirrel was obliviously rooting around the base of a tree.
It was true that squirrels like this one—safe from the wild predators of prehuman North America and largely dependent on free food sources like birdseed—were generally slower, fatter, and duller than their forebears. But stalking even the most suburban of squirrels was still a dangerous undertaking.
Squirrels have massive teeth—teeth that shatter nuts and chew through branches, teeth that can remove a talon from the foot of an uncareful hawk, teeth that can inflict deep and grievous wounds in the flesh of a less-than-expert predator. Squirrels have long, curved, wicked-sharp claws that allow them to cling upside down, even on the stone-smooth bark of beech trees. And squirrels, gray squirrels in particular, are big—easily half the size of an average cat.
But no creature embodies the expression “nothing ventured, nothing gained” like a predator, and especially a predator that has just escaped six months of domestic confinement.
The cat instinctively knew the key would be to grab the soft underside of the rodent’s neck. This was where to find the blood-filled arteries and the breath-carrying windpipe. This was the way to make the kill shorter and safer, rather than longer and more dangerous. It waited through one, two, then three gusts of wind till the squirrel—digging for nuts in the winter-tired leaves—turned and exposed its flank.
Then the cat pounced, but not stealthily enough. The squirrel flinched, and the cat’s teeth, instead of circling up under the chin, closed on the rodent’s shoulder.
Desperately grappling and scratching, the cat pushed the squirrel’s sleekly strong body out and away. Ideally he would have shifted his grip—let go and quickly bitten again closer to the throat—but the risk was too great. The flailing prey might wrench free and find opportunity to use its sharp-toothed mouth to do more than scream.
“Chh-chh-chh-chh-EEEEEEEEEE! CHH-chhh-chhh-chh-EEEEEEEEEEE!” chattered the stricken animal as they rolled, writhed, flipped, and flopped across the forest floor, their furry shapes blurring together.
Till now the cat had kept his ears flattened to his head and his eyes firmly shut. Millions of years of selective pressure had hardwired the habit. When you have a flailing animal in your mouth, an open eye invites poking, an extended ear invites shredding, and both pairs of organs are important, if not vital, to a hunter’s survival in the wild.
But sometimes instinct has to be put in the backseat and, as the two animals rolled again—the squirrel chatter-screaming the whole way—the cat opened an eye and looked around for something to stop their aimless tumbling. It quickly spied an old timber crucifix, erected by Agnes Coffin in the 1970s, the focal point of a long-abandoned woodland shrine.
The cat then began to shift its weight so that each tussle brought them closer to the cross. Soon, they were up against it and, from that moment—gifted with the leverage to exert his superior strength—things became much easier for the cat. The squirrel soon stopped chattering and, a few off-kilter heartbeats later, its body went entirely limp.
Before the victory could be savored, however, there was a terrific thump. Something very heavy had landed on the ground right behind the cat.
It dropped the squirrel and turned to see—standing on its hind legs, tall as a human—an enormous, white-bellied, short-eared rabbit. With antlers on its head.
* * *
BunBun furrowed his woolly brow as the cat streaked off into the woods, then stooped to examine the dead squirrel.
“How barbaric,” he concluded, and clucked his tongue for good measure.
His impulse was to dig a quick grave but just then he spotted an alabaster face through the curtain of vines ahead of him. It was the downward-looking face of Jesus Christ upon an overgrown cross.
“Oh, hello!” he said and—heart in his throat as he regarded one the most famous Commonplace contributors in all the three worlds—bowed low to the ground. “I’ve read so much about you.”
CHAPTER 21
The First of Lasters
It probably would have been nice to be as excited as the rest of the yelling, laughing, squealing, jostling students, but Patrick didn’t envy them. He simply wished he were someplace else, someplace quieter, someplace he could experiment on ways to wake himself up.
So far he’d only figured out that pinching oneself awake was a load of bul
l. He’d pinched every part of his body he politely could and none of it had changed a thing other than causing momentary doses of pain.
It came as no surprise, really. He’d never known anybody to say they had complete control over what happened in their dreams, and pinching oneself must be one of those expressions—like blessing a person who’s sneezed or knocking wood for luck—that were just old pieces of superstition people repeated because they were something to say, and people are always scrambling for easy words, especially at times when they have the least idea what to think.
The entire situation was all starting to make its own sort of sense to Patrick: clearly everybody forgot nearly everything about their dreams. Probably, over the years, he’d dreamed himself in hundreds or thousands of other places just as weird as this and so this strange dream wasn’t very strange at all; it’s just that he tended to forget all of the other freaky things his sleeping brain cooked up. And this was probably good because he had enough trouble concentrating in school as it was.
But the other part of it was that it being a dream really didn’t change anything: What difference was there even realizing it was all in his head? Was he supposed to act like somebody other than himself? Should he throw a fit and sulk in the corner like his sister Eva probably would? Take advantage of there being no adult supervision and do something annoying like Neil? Scream at the top of his lungs like Carly? Lock himself in a room and avoid everybody like Lucie? Sit on the ground and stick things in his mouth that he probably shouldn’t stick in his mouth like the Twins?
Of course he could act any way he wanted; but still, why go to the trouble? Why make things harder when they could be easier?
He considered all this as they were jostled to the end of the hallway, across a playing field, and up into an enormous grandstand.
Kempton took his arm and led him to the very top row.
“This is some stadium,” said Patrick, glancing down through the safety railing at the back side. They had to be seven stories up at least. He suffered a twinge of vertigo and remembered that he’d woken from dreams in which he’d fallen out of buildings and airplanes, or off a cliff or out of a tree. Of course, at least to his memory, those falls had always been by accident. Actually jumping off these bleachers on purpose seemed just as crazy and scary a proposition as it would have in real life. But—if he stood here awhile—maybe something would happen? Perhaps his dream would decide to give him a little accident? He gave a test shove to the safety railing but it seemed pretty solid.
