The Space Ship Under the Apple Tree

by Slobodkin, Louis

  “I won’t,” shouted Eddie over his shoulder as he ran up the road. He ran hard over the flat stretches and dog-trotted up the hilly sections until he climbed up the orchard to Grandfather’s apple tree.

  He arrived out of breath at the top of the ridge. There was nothing unusual about the big spreading apple tree. Some birds twittered here and there, a chipmunk took off into space, some fruit flies whirled around some invisible something in mid-air. Aside from the buzzing of the flies, the twittering of the birds and the rat-tat-tat of a hidden woodpecker nearby, there was no other sign or sound of life around the big tree.

  Eddie held his breath as he circled the gnarled trunk of the tree. He looked down toward the mysterious gully he had seen, or dreamed about, during the night. There was no sign of the gully; the ground looked solid and was covered with twigs, leaves and moss. The rat-tat-tat sound of the hidden woodpecker grew louder. Just as Eddie was about to say to himself, “Slush, there’s no such gully,” up from what seemed to be solid earth popped a little figure. It was the little man again! In his hand he held a small bright instrument. It was about the shape and size of a dentist’s drill.

  “Come here,” said the little man.

  Eddie approached cautiously. As he came closer, the little man suddenly called out sharply like a train conductor, “Watch step!”

  Eddie stopped short and not a moment too soon, for he saw now that the mysterious gully really did exist. At that moment he stood at the edge of it. The seemingly solid ground was just a mass of great branches, twigs, leaves and moss, so cleverly arranged that from a few feet away the gully was completely disguised.

  The little man stood waist deep in the center of the gully. Suddenly he ducked down into the hole and was up in an instant. Now he held something that looked like a metal pinwheel.

  “One minute,” said the little man.

  He touched a button on the handle of the pinwheel. The wheel began to whir. The little man watched it carefully, and when his pinwheel was whirring so fast the little blades had run together into a transparent, silver disk, he held it at arm’s length above his head.

  In an instant the little man was pulled up into space, then z-i-p — he’d hopped to the rim of the gully and stood alongside Eddie. “Radiomatic Heliocopter Miniature,” he explained, pointing to his little pinwheel.

  “Oh!” said Eddie after he had swallowed the lump of surprise that rose in his throat.

  The little man seemed a lot friendlier than he had been last night, Eddie thought.

  “You inspect Astral Rocket Disk?” he asked.

  Eddie started to nod his head. But before his chin had reached his neck, the little man had a firm grip on Eddie’s arm, and he found himself flying through the air. In a flash they were over the hole at the center of the gully. The little man gently let Eddie down through the hole.

  “Walk down,” said the little man as he hovered over Eddie’s head.

  Eddie carefully stepped down. He found he had climbed down into the hidden Astral Rocket Disk!

  3. The Astral Rocket Disk

  EDDIE climbed down a small ladder and he now stood in a circular room inside the space ship. The room was well lighted, but Eddie could not see the source of the light. There were no bulbs or lamps. The strange, blue-tinged light seemed to come directly from the walls. There were no shadows in the circular room. It was about ten feet in diameter and about six feet high. There was a fat metal column, which extended from the floor to the ceiling in the center of the room. Various gadgets, wheels, levers and gauges covered one-half of the room. The other half was simply furnished with cabinets, and there was a line of small rings and knobs attached to the ceiling over the cabinets.

  The little man, who had followed Eddie down the ladder, proudly pointed out and named the equipment in the Astral Rocket Disk.

  “This Supersonic Denotator, Electronic Amplifier, Hypersensitive Pacifier, Micro-Photometer, Spectro-Meter, Monochrometer, Inter-Angilated Eliminator, Co-Spacial Larinator, Inter-Spacial Communication System, Adrio-Dynamic Desensitizer...”

  When he could not think of the proper English word for the gadget he was pointing to, he would consult his little dictionary box. Sometimes even the box failed him, since some of the names of the instruments could not be translated. Then the little man used his own language. It sounded like Welsh, or what Eddie thought Welsh might sound like if he ever heard it.

  “Here is Willewingulagulin,” said the little man, pointing to a very small crystal-covered gadget. “Not good. Not used on modern Astral Rocket Disks. This old space ship.”

  “How old?” asked Eddie, glad to change the subject because he was getting a little dizzy from the long list of scientific words.

  The little man consulted his luminous box.

  “One-half earth revolution around your sun.”

  Eddie figured fast.

  ‘Why, that’s a half year, six months,” said Eddie. “It sure looks brand-new.”

  “This equipment old now. Modern Martinean Astral Rocket Disks very different,” said the little man with a touch of pride in his voice.

  “Things must get old fast in Martinea,” said Eddie.

  “Time different in Martinea,” said the little man. “We use light years. How old you your time?”

  “I’m eleven going on twelve,” said Eddie, and since the little man looked doubtful he explained, “Guess you’d say eleven complete earth revolutions around our sun, and a half revolution.”

  The little man frowned, then he walked over to the cabinet side of the room; there he reached over his head and pulled a small ring. A blackboard unrolled, like a window shade, from the ceiling and stiffened. The little man snapped out his little box, looked into it and then turned to Eddie.

  “Eleven and one-half revolutions... years?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” said Eddie. “Eleven and a half years. That’s right. Eleven and a half revolutions.”

  The little man turned back to the blackboard; for the next few minutes he scribbled curious little marks on the board with a luminous chalk. He worked furiously for a while. He seemed to be adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing (long division and short), doing fractions and square roots. Soon he had the board covered with thousands of little luminous marks, checks, stars, dots and arrows. Finally, all his arithmetic was reduced at the very bottom of the blackboard to just three little marks.

  He turned to Eddie with a surprised expression on his face. He pointed to the little marks, then to himself and then to Eddie.

  “You — I, same old! I eleven and a half years,” he said. “Eleven and half earth revolutions around your sun.”

  “Say, you’re smart!” exclaimed Eddie in admiration.

  “Smart?” said the little man as he reached for his little box again. But he changed his mind, because even though he did not know what “smart” meant it was obvious Eddie meant something nice.

  “Lookit, since you and I are the same age,” said Eddie enthusiastically, “let’s you and I be friends. What d’you say? Let’s be friends, huh?”

  “Friends?” asked the little man. “Friends?”

  Eddie groaned under his breath as the little man dug into his little box again.

  “F... F... Foals... Fools... Furniture... F... F.... No friends,” said the little man. “No word ‘Friends’ in my language. What is ‘Friends’?”

  “Well, friends is...,“ began Eddie, “when two fellows... Oh, friends is..., you know, like...”

  And Eddie was embarrassed. It was so hard to explain what anyone means by “friends” to someone who had no such word in his language. After a few minutes of stumbling around Eddie gave up.

  “All right,” he said, “let’s not be friends.”

  “Inspect Astral Rocket Disk more?” suggested the little man after a moment of silence.

  “Yes, thanks,” said Eddie. “How does it work?”

  The little man motioned to the cabinet side of the room. He pulled another small ring, which hung
from the ceiling, and unrolled a sheet of what looked like beautifully translucent glass. The sheet of pliable glass, hanging from the ceiling, stiffened and was as rigid as the blackboard.

  “Interior - Exterior - Radar - Inter - Communicator,” said the little man.

  “What’s it for?” asked Eddie.

  “Watch,” said the little man. He twisted the little ring and the sheet of glass began to cloud. Then it cleared again. And Eddie found himself looking into a very sharp reflection of the room where they stood in the space ship. But it was not a mirror reflection. There were two figures in the room. One he recognized as the back view of the little man. The other someone (a little taller someone) was wearing blue jeans... Why, it was a back view of himself, Eddie!... He had never noticed his own ears before, and since he could, he wiggled his right ear. The figure of himself in the glass wiggled his right ear, too. Yes, sir, that was him, Eddie.

  “This interior of Astral Rocket Disk,” announced the little man. “Now here exterior of Astral Rocket Disk,” and he switched the little ring at the bottom of the glass screen again. Instantly the glass clouded and cleared again. Eddie found himself looking at the outside of the Astral Rocket Disk. It did look like two large metal dishes stuck together with a line of small tubes around the rim.

  “Boy, that’s neat,” said Eddie. “How does the disk work? How does it fly, I mean?”

  “Tubes on rim are rockets,” said the little man. “Revolve at great speed. See cross section.” And the little man whirled the ring again.

  Now Eddie saw the picture on the glass as if the Astral Rocket Disk were cut in half. He could see the little man and himself inside. And he could see that the wall of the room they stood in was entirely separated from the outside wall of the Astral Rocket Disk except at the top and bottom, where it was attached to the outer wall with an axle.

  The little man explained that when the rockets started, the outer shell of the disk revolved at a tremendous speed but the inside shell remained still. The Astral Rocket Disk went through the air like a — the little man consulted his luminous box for the right word. Finally he found it.

  “Top!” he said. “No top,” and he touched the top of his head, “no this TOP!”

  The little man whirled himself around at a great speed and stopped suddenly.

  “This top!” he said when he had recovered.

  “But what do you use for power?” asked Eddie. “Where’re your fuel tanks or dynamos or something? What makes the disk run?”

  The little man frowned. “Disks no run... Flies!”

  “All right,” said Eddie. “Flies! But I can’t see how it flies. Where’s the power?”

  “Secret power,” said the little man sternly.

  “What secret power?” asked Eddie, as he looked around. Can’t see any place to store your secret power around here.”

  The little man looked suspiciously at Eddie for a moment. He seemed to be thinking hard.

  “You no dangerous,” said the little man. “Here is secret power.”

  He walked over to the fat metal column in the center of the room and pressed an invisible button in its side. A small door sprang open in the column.

  “Here,... look!” commanded the little man as he pointed to something in the column.

  Eddie bent down and looked into the column. The little man’s finger pointed to a flat spool of shiny metal wire. The spool of wire was about three inches across and one end of the wire was inserted into a small black box about the size of a box camera. The black box was attached to a metal rod that went up through the column.

  “What!” exclaimed Eddie incredulously. “Is that your secret power?”

  “Yes, this Zurianomatichrome Wire. We call this Secret Power Z,” said the little man. “This wire explodes in vacuum. Box is vacuum. Secret Power Z makes powerful explosions. Carry through to rockets.”

  “Gosh! That must be like atomic energy, I betcha,” said Eddie.

  “Atomic energy!” the little man sneered. “Atomic energy very old-fashioned power. We Martineans stop use atomic power long ago. Now use Secret Power Z. Atomic power use only for” — the little man looked into his little box for the word — “yes, atomic power use for only... sewing machine!”

  Eddie gulped and said, “Oh!”

  Suddenly the little man looked at one of the clock-faced gadgets on the wall. Then he switched on the Interior - Exterior - Radar - Inter - Communicator. The glass clouded and cleared, and Eddie found they were looking out at the orchard. The sun was directly overhead. The little man became very active and took out his tiny typewriter and banged away at the keys.

  “Must make observations on your sun,” he said by way of explanation.

  “Say, it must be noon already,” said Eddie. “I promised Grandma I’d tell her what happened up here. Look, I gotta go. I gotta...”

  And as Eddie made for the stairs the little man stopped him.

  “What tell?” he demanded, angrily. “You see secret power. Now tell. You no go. Stop!”

  He stood in front of Eddie menacingly.

  “Lookit here, now,” insisted Eddie. “I gotta go. I told my grandmother I’d be back and tell her about something. I’m not gonna tell her about your old secret power. Anyway, she wouldn’t believe it if I told her.” And Eddie started for the ladder again. But the little man put his hand against Eddie’s chest. Eddie felt as though he were pushed up against a brick wall.

  “I go with,” said the little man. “Must protect secret power.”

  “All right then, c’mon,” said Eddie impatiently. “Hurry up! My grandma’s gonna be mad.”

  The little man eyed Eddie coldly. Then he quickly snapped open the column and tinkered inside it for a moment. He detached the spool of Zurianomatichrome Wire and the little black box. He clipped the black box to his belt and slipped the wire into one of his pockets.

  “This also weapon,” he said as he pointed to the little black box. “Is possible to destroy everything to horizon using Secret Power Z.”

  Eddie shivered. Then he said, nervously, “Well, don’t point that thing at me. Are you ready now? Let’s go.”

  “Ready. Go,” said the little man and he let Eddie climb out of the Astral Rocket Disk. In a few minutes they sped down the hill to Eddie’s grandmother’s house.

  “Eddie boy,” she said as he burst into the kitchen. “Where have you been so long? I was getting worried. Has anything happened?”

  “We-e-ll,” Eddie began, “nothing happened to Grandfather’s tree, if that’s what you mean. But....”

  “And who is this little boy?” asked Eddie’s grandmother as she saw the little man from Martinea standing in the doorway. “Come in, boy. Any friend of Eddie’s is a friend of mine. What’s your name?”

  “He’s a... he’s a Martinean,” said Eddie hesitatingly. “He just came along.”

  “What was that name?” asked his grandmother, as she put on her glasses. She seemed to hear better with her glasses on. “Mar—”

  “Martin... e... an,” repeated Eddie.

  “Oh! Martin E. Ann,” said Eddie’s grandmother. “How nice. That’s an unusual name. What’s the ‘E.’ stand for? We have some people around here who have first names for last names. There’s Matilda T. George... Joshua Elmer Irving.... So you’re Martin E. Ann. H-mm, does the ‘E’ stand for Elmer? I’ll just call you Marty. Come in, boys, come in. I’ve just baked some apple pies, and we’re having corn fritters and apple pie for lunch. Now you show Marty where to wash up, Eddie, and I’ll set another plate on the table.”

  4. Secret Power Z — Lost

  ALTHOUGH corn fritters dripping with maple syrup and apple pie topped with whipped cream was Eddie’s favorite lunch, he did not eat much. He was afraid the little man might say something or do something that would disturb his grandmother. So all through lunch Eddie talked and talked as he tried to keep his grandmother from asking any embarrassing questions, like what town the little man came from or what school he went to. Edd
ie talked about Grandfather’s apple tree, about the Boy Scouts, about anything he could think of. Until his grandmother said, “Eddie, you’ve been chattering so much you haven’t eaten your pie.”

  Eddie breathed a sigh of relief when lunch was over. And as his grandmother’s back was turned when she carried away the lunch dishes, he jerked his head toward the door and whispered to the little man, “Let’s get outside.”

  “Oh, Eddie,” called his grandmother just as Eddie and the little man stepped out onto the porch.

  “Yes, Grandma,” said Eddie, and he whispered to the little man, “Wait here,” and went into the house again.

  “Eddie, be a good boy and run an errand for me, please,” said his grandmother in a voice loud enough to be heard outside. “Eddie, I want you to go down to the general store. I’ll write a note to Captain Jack. I don’t want you to forget anything.”

  In a few minutes Eddie came out again to the little man waiting outside. The little man glowered as Eddie came out the door and put his hand against Eddie’s chest.

  “Stop! No go!” he said sternly.

  “Huh?” said Eddie.

  “No go! You no carry message about Secret Power Z to General Store and Captain Jack, to United States military authority,” said the little man in a tense voice as he pointed to Eddie’s grandmother’s note.

  “Huh?” said Eddie again. His mouth hung open. Then he closed it with a snap as it dawned on him what the little man meant.

  “Aw, cut that out. Nobody’s gonna tell the United States Army or anybody else about your old Secret Power.... General store’s not a general. It’s a store where you buy things, general things — groceries and nails and post cards and things. And Captain Jack ain’t a real captain. He keeps the store. Guess he was a corporal or something once. This is just a note for flour, sugar and raisins, and white thread.”

  The explanation seemed to satisfy the little man.

  “Good!” he said. “I go with. You no tell about Secret Power.”

  They started down the road but they had not gone far before they again heard Eddie’s grandmother’s voice.