Max and the Millions

by Ross Montgomery

  Standing inside it were hundreds of thousands of tiny people with bright-red hair, staring at them.

  “Max?”

  “Yes?”

  “There are red people too.”

  “Yes.”

  “Loads of them.”

  “Yes.”

  “There could be millions of people in this room.”

  “Probably.”

  Pause.

  “So…how exactly are we going to get them to our dorm?”

  Max looked around the enormous room. He didn’t know the answer to Sasha’s question, but he knew one thing for certain.

  Mr. Darrow hadn’t just given him a kingdom to look after. He’d given him an entire civilization.

  “We’re going to need a bigger spade,” said Max.

  Luke had never seen so many flies before. Sometimes you might see one or two, buzzing at the top of the ceiling, but now the Bin Kingdom was thick with them. There must have been hundreds.

  “War? Malcolm, what do you—”

  “Get down!”

  Luke ducked behind the cage just as a huge fly circled the city walls. He recognized the droning buzz he’d heard filling the desert earlier.

  “Warflies, Your Highness,” Malcolm whispered. “The Bin King has been secretly breeding them for weeks! We knew he’d been using them to spy on us from the ceiling, but we had no idea he had something like this planned….”

  This was no ordinary fly—it was more like a flying fortress. Its sides were wrapped in tinfoil armor, and strapped to its back were catapults and slingshots and trebuchets. Twenty Green soldiers stood behind the weapons, surveying the ground below.

  “They hit us right after Demon left,” Malcolm explained, “when we were at our most frightened and vulnerable. Three dozen warflies attacked the kingdom at once. We didn’t stand a chance! They defeated our army, ransacked the city and sent the Blues marching to the Bin in chains!”

  Sure enough, Luke could see a great crowd of blue on the other side of the desert.

  “But why did they attack?” he whispered. “We’ve never done anything to the Greens!”

  Malcolm’s face darkened.

  “It was all Demon’s doing, Your Highness! When he appeared through the Bedroom Door, the Bin King sent two warflies to get a closer look and report their findings. One of them flew too close to Demon’s accomplice, and the purple monster attacked without warning, crushing the warfly in midair!”

  Luke gasped. “He killed a Green soldier?”

  Malcolm shook his head. “The fly rider made a lucky escape, landing on the second warfly as he plummeted to the ground. He was carried back to the Bin in a terrible state, and was able to tell the Bin King everything he had seen: Demon kneeling down before you in the desert and talking to you; another monster appearing through the Door; you fleeing the city just before the Bin King’s warfly was attacked….”

  Luke’s stomach dropped. “No…you don’t mean—”

  “Yes! The Bin King thought you commanded those monsters to attack!” Malcolm cried. “He thought it was a declaration of war!”

  Luke was aghast. “But that’s insane!”

  Malcolm shook his head. “The Bin King is a paranoid tyrant—it was all the excuse he needed. He’s always wished to rule the entire Floor himself: your father and the Red Queen were able to keep him in line, but once King Adam died, we were certain the Greens would try to attack. That’s why we had to crown you so quickly—we thought that without a king on the Blue throne, the Bin King would finally take his chance!”

  Luke stared at the devastation around them.

  “So…what do we do now?”

  “There’s nothing we can do, Luke!” Malcolm wailed. “The Blues are defeated! The Bin King will surely attack the Reds next—they may be the largest tribe on the Floor, but they’re little more than disorganized savages. They’ll be nothing against the might of the Bin King’s warflies! The Red Queen will fall, and when she does, the Greens will rule from wall to wall! The Bin King won’t rest until he has your head on a spike!”

  Luke wasn’t listening to Malcolm anymore. He was looking at the remains of his kingdom. He had asked the Great One to take it away from him…and gotten exactly what he had wished for. Because of him, thousands of men, women and children had been enslaved.

  “What have I done?” he whispered.

  Luke’s eyes filled with tears. He had failed the very people he was sworn to protect. There was no way he could ever undo what had been done.

  A shadow fell across him.

  The Bedroom Door was opening again. The giants stood in the Doorway.

  “D-Demon has returned!” Malcolm cried. “Run, Your Majesty, before it’s too late!”

  But Luke stayed where he was, staring up at the giants’ faces. They were looking at the Floor, taking in what had happened…and they were horrified.

  They weren’t monsters. They were just like Luke.

  Except I’m a tiny boy, thought Luke, and they’re two giants who can crush whole cities with one hand….

  And all of a sudden, Luke knew exactly what he had to do.

  “Max! Look!”

  Sasha was pointing at the model castle.

  “I can see two blue people—right there, at the top of the big tower!”

  Max squinted. He could just about make them out, too—two blues, standing beside the flagpole and talking to each other at superfast speed.

  “Hey! It’s the king we saw earlier!” said Max. “And that’s the old man! It looks like he’s in a cage.” He paused. “Except…I don’t think he’s wearing any clothes.”

  Sasha made to step forward, but Max stopped him.

  “Don’t! We might frighten them—we can’t let them run off like the others. I’ve got an idea.”

  He grabbed the microscope goggles from the desk.

  “I’ll see if I can lip-read what they’re saying with these. Maybe we’ll get some clues about what’s going on.”

  Sasha was impressed. “You can lip-read?”

  Max blinked. “Well, yeah, of course. I have to. I’ve been doing it my whole life.”

  “So you can tell what people are saying, even if they’re far away?”

  Max shook his head. “It’s not that easy. You have to be able to see the mouth clearly, and even if you can, it’s still easy to make mistakes.”

  But Sasha was still amazed. “Cool! It’s like you have a superpower!”

  Max flushed with pride.

  “Well, I guess it’s kind of like a superpower.”

  He pulled on the goggles, still blushing, and turned back to the castle. The tiny boy swung into view.

  It was the first time Max had seen the king up close. He could make out every strand of his bright-blue hair, and the exact shade of his bright-blue eyes, and the grains of sand that dusted his robes….

  And that wasn’t all he could see.

  Sasha tapped him on the shoulder. “Can you see him?”

  Max paused.

  “Er…yeah. He’s looking this way.”

  “Oh,” said Sasha. “What’s he doing?”

  Max sought to find the right words.

  “He’s, er…he’s waving at us.”

  * * *

  “Luke! What are you doing?”

  Luke stood at the tower’s edge, waving at the giants.

  “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m getting their attention!”

  It was working. The first giant was staring down at him through his great stalk eyes. Luke could see each blink captured in slow motion through the glass, like the petals of a flower closing.

  “His attention?!” cried Malcolm. “Why do you want his attention? He’s Demon! He’s a monster who wants to destroy the world!”

  Luke shook h
is head. “I don’t think he is Demon. He could have squashed me in a heartbeat earlier if he wanted to—both of them could have. They’re not monsters. I think they’re…something else.”

  “Like what?!”

  Luke shrugged. “I’m going to find out.”

  He stepped back, took a deep breath and spoke as loudly as he could.

  “GREETINGS, GIANT! I AM LUKE, KING OF THE BLUES! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

  Malcolm was horrified. “Luke, stop!”

  “We have to tell them what’s happened, Malcolm—they might be the only ones who can help us. GREETINGS, GIANT! I AM LUKE, KING OF THE BLUES! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?”

  Giant stared at him blankly through the lenses. Luke could see that he was struggling to make sense of what he was saying. Luke gritted his teeth—he had to keep trying. He spoke again, moving his mouth as slowly as possible.

  “GREETINGS, GIANT! I AM LUKE, KING OF THE BLUES—”

  “Technically, Your Highness, you’re not king of the Blues until after the coronation ceremony, so—”

  “Malcolm?”

  “Yes?”

  “Shut up. GREETINGS, GIANT! I AM LUKE, KING OF THE BLUES! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME? GREETINGS, GIANT! I AM…”

  * * *

  Max couldn’t believe it. “Hey—his lips are moving! He’s trying to talk to us!”

  Sasha gasped. “No way! What’s he saying?”

  Max squinted…and then his face fell.

  “I don’t know—he’s talking too fast! It’s like trying to read a river!”

  Sasha groaned. “What about the old man? Is he talking?”

  Max shook his head. “He’s got a beard—that makes it even harder to read his lips.”

  Sasha studied the goggles.

  “What if you zoomed in on their mouths? Would that make it easier?”

  Max was unconvinced. “Mr. Darrow never taught me how to zoom in.”

  “Well, one of those buttons has to do something—there’s loads of them!” said Sasha. “Look, there’s one with an X on it, like the one on your hearing aid! Why don’t we try it?”

  Max shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not sure we should be pressing anything, Sasha; we’re supposed to be looking after Mr. Darrow’s things for him, not—”

  Sasha jabbed the button. Max jumped.

  “What did you do that for?”

  “Well, we’ve got to try something.”

  “So? You could have broken them!” said Max. “And the goggles haven’t zoomed in, they’ve just…”

  Max trailed off. A fly had flown past. It was magnified hugely through the goggles; Max could see every hair on its body, every bump on the surface of its eyes.

  He could also see that it was barely moving.

  The fly hung suspended in the air, each beat of its wings moving with the grace of a ballerina. Standing on its back were twenty green soldiers pointing at Max and screaming in terror. But the tiny soldiers weren’t super fast anymore—they all moved at normal speed.

  Max took off the goggles. The fly buzzed to the other side of the room in a flash.

  “What’s wrong?” said Sasha. “Have I broken them?”

  Max handed the goggles to Sasha, grinning from ear to ear. “See for yourself.”

  Sasha pulled the goggles on…and his mouth fell open.

  “Nooooooo waaaaaay!”

  Max nodded with excitement. “They’re not just microscope goggles—they also slow everything down! Mr. Darrow must have added that button so he could see at the same speed as the tiny people!”

  Sasha handed the goggles back to Max. “How about now? Can you read their lips?”

  Max pulled the goggles back on and focused on the boy’s face. All the boy’s movements were slowed down now. Even better, he was speaking clearly enough for Max to understand what he was saying.

  “Yes, it’s working! He’s calling me Giant—and his name is Luke! He’s the king of the Blues…he’s asking if we understand him!”

  “Tell him our names!” said Sasha excitedly.

  “Good idea.” Max cleared his throat. “ER…HELLO, LUKE. MY NAME IS MAX, AND THIS IS SASHA. WE’RE ROOMMATES.”

  There was a pause.

  “Did it work?” said Sasha. “What’s he saying?”

  Max watched for a while.

  “ ‘My ears, for Great One’s sake, my ears, Malcolm, calm down, Demon is trying to kill us all with his bellowing voice, I told you he’s not trying to kill us, my ears, my ears, look, Giant, you’re going to have to talk quicker or something, we can’t understand a word you’re saying, I think I’ve gone deaf, oh shut up, Malcolm.’ ”

  Sasha grimaced. “Well, at least now we know the other one’s called Malcolm.”

  Max pulled off the goggles.

  “It’s no use—everything about us must be super slow to them, including our voices!”

  He stared down at the tiny boy on the tower.

  “We have to keep him talking—it’s our only chance of finding out what’s happened. But how can we show him we understand? How can we talk to him without using our voices, or…”

  And then Max realized what to do.

  * * *

  Luke’s head was reeling. It was the second time he had been shouted at by Giant, and he hadn’t enjoyed it the first time. The force of Giant’s voice had blasted his hair into spikes, and Malcolm’s beard was in even worse shape. It looked like he’d gone to a costume party dressed as a hedge and got beaten up on the way.

  “Luke, what’s he doing? I can’t see a thing!”

  Malcolm was trying to make a hole in his beard big enough to see through, without success. Luke gazed up at Giant groggily.

  “He’s…he’s holding one hand to his head,” he said.

  That was it. Giant was sitting there with one hand cupped around his ear, looking at Luke expectantly.

  “Luke, this is ridiculous!” said Malcolm. “He clearly doesn’t understand a word you’re saying. Stop talking to him and get us out of here!”

  Luke kept his eyes fixed on Giant.

  “No. It…it’s like he’s trying to tell us something. It’s like he’s saying…”

  And suddenly Luke understood. His face broke into a smile.

  “He wants me to keep talking. He wants to know what’s going on.”

  Luke laughed in amazement. He never thought it would happen—but there it was, for the first time in his life.

  “He…he’s listening. He’s listening!”

  Max sat with one hand cupped over his ear and his eyes on Luke’s lips.

  “It worked! He’s talking again! He’s explaining what happened!”

  Max watched closely, nodding along as Luke spoke.

  “He says that his people—the Blues—were attacked by…the Greens. Those must be the green-haired people in the bin. Something about…the flies doing it. Warflies, I think he’s calling them. That must be the people I saw riding that fly a moment ago!”

  Sasha frowned. “But why did the Greens attack? Did the Blues do something wrong?”

  Max kept his eyes fixed on Luke.

  “He…he says it’s because of us! Because you attacked one of the warflies!” Max gasped. “That fly you swatted earlier must have had people on it!”

  Sasha looked down at his onesie. There, just beside the zipper, was the squashed fly. He picked something out from the remains.

  It was a tiny ejector seat.

  “Aaaaargh!” cried Sasha.

  Max turned back to the tower. “Wait—Luke says the pilot was fine! But the leader of the Greens—the Bin King—thought Luke told you to destroy the warfly, and that’s why he attacked!”

  Sasha turned pale. “You mean all this is my fault? Oh man…”

  Max kept his eyes on the tower.
<
br />   “And Luke says now it’s just going to get worse! He says the Bin King is going to attack the Reds—those must be the red-haired people under the bed—and he’s going to take over the whole floor! And the only thing that can stop him is…”

  Max stopped. Through the goggles, he could see the desperation in Luke’s eyes, clear as day. He’d never spoken to someone who was so easy to read before.

  “Is what?” said Sasha.

  Max smiled.

  “Is us. He’s asking us to help him.”

  * * *

  “Did you understand me?”

  Luke waited for Giant’s response. Like everything Giant did, it took a while for the answer to come. You just had to wait.

  And then, it came. Luke saw the exact moment that his words sank in. It was like watching a stone being dropped in a lake, and the ripples spreading out across the surface.

  Giant’s eyes flashed with understanding. The muscles of his mouth softened. His head rose…and fell.

  A nod.

  “Is that a yes?” cried Luke. “You understand me? You’ll help us?”

  The head rose and fell once more—another nod. Luke leapt for joy.

  “Malcolm, this is our chance! We can save the Blues—with Giant on our side, we’ll be unstoppable!”

  Malcolm had finally burrowed a hole through his beard big enough for him to see through.

  “Fine!” he grumbled. “We’ll use Demon to defeat the Bin King. Now for heaven’s sake, offer him a blood sacrifice before he kills us.”

  Luke blinked. “A blood sacrifice?”

  “Monsters need blood sacrifices to keep them happy,” Malcolm explained. “Offer him a thousand Greens to start with.”

  Luke was horrified. “We can’t kill a thousand Greens!”

  “Do you want to save the Blues or don’t you?” Malcolm snapped.

  Luke gulped, and turned back to Giant.

  “Er…thanks, Giant. We’re very grateful. Do you want us to sacrifice a thousand Greens in your honor?”