Giant took a moment to listen, then grimaced. He shook his head.
“Pah!” said Malcolm. “He’s holding out for more, the bloodthirsty brute! Right, we’ll go up to five thousand—but that’s our final offer.”
Luke sighed. “Giant, what do you want?”
Giant held out his empty hands.
“Nothing?” said Luke. “Then…why are you helping us?”
Giant looked confused, like he didn’t know how to explain himself. Then his eyes lit up. He pointed to himself, and then at Luke. He held up his index fingers and crossed them over each other.
Luke frowned. “It looks like…an X.”
“That’s ten in Roman numerals,” said Malcolm. “Good grief—he wants ten thousand sacrifices! Right, offer him seven and a half, but tell him we’ll have to do it in installments.”
Luke looked at Giant, who still had his fingers crossed. It was like a hug or a handshake.
“I don’t think that’s what he means. I think…I think that sign means he wants to be friends. Is that right, Giant?”
Giant nodded, and Luke laughed. The two of them…well, it was like they just understood each other. Luke couldn’t believe it—a whole lifetime with no one to talk to except for his pet flea, and here he was making friends with someone a hundred times bigger than him.
“Tell him we’ll sacrifice two and a half thousand up front, then two and a half more on delivery of the Bin King, and then—”
“Malcolm?”
“Yes?”
“Shut up.”
* * *
“Hey, that’s the sign language I showed you!” said Sasha. “Friends, right?”
Max nodded, holding out his crossed fingers. He had never imagined that the first time he used sign language would be to talk to a boy who was smaller than his pinkie fingernail.
“I’m telling Luke we want to help him, that we’re on his side! Maybe then he’ll stop offering us sacrifices.”
“Sacrifices?” said Sasha. “Wow, these guys are monsters.”
Max looked down at the tiny boy. It was strange—he’d always found it hard to make friends, but in less than an hour, he’d made two. It was amazing what happened when you talked to people.
Sasha waved a hand in front of Max’s face.
“Max, I don’t mean to be difficult, but how are we going to help him? We’re supposed to be getting everyone out of the room before Pitt comes back!”
Max looked around the room. Once again, Sasha was right. There were millions of people to save, and he and Sasha still didn’t have anywhere to put them. Not only that—now the tiny people were at war. Even if Max and Sasha found a way to get everyone downstairs, the little people could end up slaughtering each other the moment they did.
“We have to stop them fighting first,” said Max. “We need someone to take charge. Someone to talk to everyone and bring them together.”
Max looked down at Luke and smiled.
“We need a king.”
* * *
“Malcolm, look! Giant’s trying to tell us something!”
Giant was pointing to himself, then across the desert, at the Bin Kingdom.
“You’re going to destroy the Bin Kingdom?” said Luke. “Is that right?”
Giant scrunched up his face and shook his head. He pointed across the desert again, harder. He wasn’t pointing at the Bin—he was pointing at the crowd of Blues outside it.
“You’re going to get the Blues back for us?”
Giant nodded with relief.
“Well, I guess that’s better than nothing.” Luke smiled. “Thank you, Giant! We’ll take it from there—we’ll reorganize the army, attack the Greens ourselves and…”
He trailed off. Giant was shaking his head again. Luke thought he detected a look of disapproval in his eyes.
“You don’t want us to attack the Greens?” said Luke.
Giant nodded. He pointed at Luke, then at the Bin, and locked his fingers together—X. Luke gawped.
“You want us to be friends with them?”
“What?!” said Malcolm. “Make an alliance with the tribe that just attacked us?”
Giant nodded. He pointed to Luke again, then pointed behind him. In the distance stretched a flat-topped mountain with thousands of red-roofed huts sprawled beneath it. It was the Bed—the Red Kingdom. Giant locked his fingers together into another X.
“You want us to be friends with the Reds, too?” said Luke.
“Those bloodthirsty savages?!” cried Malcolm.
Giant nodded. He waved his hands across the entire Floor and then drew them back to himself, like he was sweeping everything together, Reds and Greens and Blues. Then he locked his fingers together again. Luke was amazed.
“He…he wants us to stop fighting. He wants us to come together as one tribe!” Luke looked up at Giant. “But how? Who’s going to make an alliance with the Red Queen? Who’s going to persuade the Bin King to stop fighting us? Who’s going to—”
Luke stopped. Giant was pointing at him.
“Me?!”
Giant gave him a thumbs-up that was bigger than the tower Luke stood on.
* * *
“You really think that’ll work?” said Sasha.
Max nodded, still giving Luke a thumbs-up.
“We’ll take the Blues downstairs like we planned. By the time we come back up here, Luke will have talked to the Reds and Greens and explained what we’re doing. That means we can carry them down one tribe at a time, and they won’t try to kill each other when we reunite them!”
Sasha looked unconvinced. “Are you sure he’ll be able to do all that?”
“Of course!” said Max. “He’s a king, isn’t he?”
He turned toward the boy on the tower. The whole fate of the floor rested on his tiny shoulders.
“Goodbye, King Luke,” Max whispered. “And good luck.”
* * *
Luke waved. “Goodbye, Giant!”
Luke watched as Giant slowly turned away. Malcolm looked like he had aged a hundred days in a second.
“Your Majesty, you cannot be serious! Make peace with the Greens after what they’ve done? Form an alliance with the Reds?”
Luke nodded. “This is it, Malcolm, the answer to everything! No more fighting, no more tribes…no more squabbling over food and territory! And Giant and his friend are going to help us achieve it!”
Malcolm was appalled. “The Bin King is looking for you as we speak—he’ll cut your head off the moment he finds you! As for the Red Queen, you won’t get within a foot of the Red Kingdom before those savages tear you limb from limb!”
Luke wasn’t listening. He was already turning away to face the vast, sprawling sands that lay ahead.
“Remember what you told me earlier, Malcolm? Everyone gets one chance: one moment to prove themselves.”
He picked up his crown and sword.
“Well, this is mine. Now I understand why I never wanted to be king. My job isn’t to rule people—it’s to save the Floor. And not just for the Blues, for everyone.”
Malcolm sputtered like a faulty kettle. “Luke, your father would never have—”
“I already told you,” said Luke. “I’m not my father.”
He swung his sword at the cage and split the lock in two. The door fell open. Malcolm was stunned.
“Luke, you’re acting like…”
“I know,” said Luke, smiling. “A king.”
With that, he flew down the stairs and out into the desert. There was nothing Malcolm could do except stand speechless in his underpants and watch as Luke leapt onto Excelsior’s back far below him. She reared up onto her hind legs, and the two of them bounded toward the horizon. Gradually, inch by inch, Luke disappeared—away from his past and his kingdom, and on toward his destiny.
&nb
sp; Max watched the blue dot race across the sand.
“Come on, we don’t have much time!” Sasha clapped him on the back. “Let’s grab the Blues and get them downstairs!”
Max didn’t answer. He was thinking about something Mr. Darrow had said to him once.
The janitor had been fixing his latest model: a scale replica of Buckingham Palace, with 775 rooms and seventy-eight working toilets. It had taken him a whole year to build, but now he was taking it apart again. He’d discovered a mistake in his calculations, and one of the bedroom walls was a millimeter off.
“Why bother?” said Max. “It’s only a millimeter!”
Mr. Darrow looked at him through the microscope goggles. Beneath the glass lenses, his eyes were magnified to fat black beetles.
“Do you like poetry, Max?”
Max thought about it. “Er…I think so.”
“Well, I don’t,” said Mr. Darrow. “It’s just writing with bits missing. Laziness, if you ask me.” He leaned over the palace with a pair of tweezers. “But there’s one poem I do like:
‘To see the world in a grain of sand,
And heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour…’ ”
Max frowned. “What does that mean?”
Mr. Darrow took hold of the faulty wall.
“It means you have to find beauty in the smallest things—because small things are important. If you don’t take care of them, they come back to bite you.”
He pulled out the faulty wall…and the whole palace collapsed. He held up the tiny piece of wood. It was no bigger than a splinter, but it had held everything together.
“Never forget that, Max,” he said. “A millimeter matters.”
Max watched as Luke disappeared across the floor. Just like the single piece of wood in Mr. Darrow’s model, everything relied on him now. If he didn’t succeed in making peace with the Reds and Greens, then there was no way that Max’s plan would work.
Sasha stepped toward the bin, but once again Max stopped him.
“No! Not so fast!”
Sasha blinked. “Why not?”
“Because we have to get this perfect.” He held out his arms to the room. “Look around you—all this started because of one squashed fly!”
Sasha looked guilty. “I told you, that was an accident….”
“Of course it was!” said Max. “But we can’t let anything else go wrong now—we have to make sure we do this without anyone getting hurt.”
Sasha gulped. “How are we going to free the Blues without hurting any Greens?”
They looked at the crowd of Blues outside the Bin. The Greens had already put them to work constructing a giant papier-mâché monument of the Bin King from old newspaper. Green soldiers on warflies were whipping the Blues with strands of dental floss.
“We have to get the Greens to leave,” said Max. “But no scaring them! They all think we’re monsters, so we have to show them we’re not!”
Max picked up the shovel and the two boys carefully crept toward the Bin, checking with every footstep to make sure they didn’t accidentally squash anyone.
“That’s it, nice and slow,” said Max. “Show the Greens that we’re not here to hurt them and—”
Max stopped. The Greens had already panicked and shot inside the Bin, barricading the entrance with two empty crisp packets. The imprisoned Blues were left stranded on the sand, staring up at Max and Sasha in terror.
“Never mind,” said Max. “Let’s just grab them.”
He pulled on the goggles and crouched in front of the Blues, who were cowering and begging for their lives.
“Don’t be afraid!” said Max. “I’m not going to hurt you—just stay still!”
He carefully dug the shovel into the sand beneath the Blues and then lifted it as slowly as he could. It was trickier than Max had expected—he was petrified that at any moment the Blues would panic, charge off the shovel and fall to their deaths—but when he finally stood up, he was relieved to see it had gone perfectly. The Blues stood safe and sound in the middle of the shovel.
“Quick! The tray!”
Sasha held out the seedling tray, and Max deposited the sand inside. Ten thousand Blues tumbled across the plastic and squeaked in panic, but it looked like no one was hurt. Max breathed a sigh of relief and carried the tray to the desk.
“Right, almost done!” he said. “Bring me the castle and I’ll get it fixed.”
Sasha raised an eyebrow. “Fix the castle? Why?”
“The Blues need somewhere to live, remember?” said Max. “It’s not big enough, but it’s better than nothing. I’ve got to make sure the castle is safe—they could trip on the broken staircases, or get skewered on splinters or crushed by falling roof beams, or—”
“All right, all right,” Sasha grumbled. “Just be quick—we’re running out of time!”
Max carried the castle to the desk and pulled off the base with a set of Mr. Darrow’s precision tweezers. Malcom was no longer anywhere to be seen, but Max could see all the damage done in the battle. There were doors broken in, and tiny scuff marks on the walls from miniature sword fights. Sasha tapped him on the shoulder.
“Max, you made that?”
Max nodded.
“I had no idea you were so good!” Sasha shook his head in amazement. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Max tried not to blush, and failed. “I thought you’d think making models was, you know…stupid.”
“Are you kidding? I could never make anything as good as that!”
Max shrugged. “So? You’re good at talking to people—I’d give anything to do that.”
Sasha handed him the glue, and Max started fixing the broken doors.
“You know, Max, you’re too hard on yourself,” said Sasha. “You should try talking to people more.”
Max shook his head. “I’m no good with people.”
“You’re good with me.”
Max snorted. “Yeah, but you’re easy to talk to! Most people aren’t. Can you pass me the tweezers?”
Sasha handed them over. “You can’t be on your own all the time. Why don’t you start a model-making club here? Show people what you can do—I bet loads of kids would want to learn.”
Max shook his head.
“It’s a nice idea, but it’s not for me. Half the time I’ve got no idea what people are saying. That’s why I’ve always loved models, you know? You don’t have to struggle to understand models. They just are.”
He put the base back on the castle and started filling the holes in the walls.
“I guess I’ve never had much control over anything in my life. But when I’m making models, I’m in charge—even if it’s just for a short while. It feels good. In fact, it’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at.”
He fixed the turrets on the towers so each one stood up straight.
“That’s why we have to get this perfect. This is my chance to show Mr. Darrow I’m good enough to look after his work for him. After this, who knows…maybe we can start up a business or something. Me and him, making living models together.”
Max put the castle on the desk and admired it. It was already as good as new.
“There!” He dusted off his hands. “Now let’s get these Blues downstairs, before—”
“Max!”
Sasha was frantically waving at him, pointing at the tray in horror.
“The flies!”
Max gasped. Hundreds of warflies were pouring from the bin behind him and landing on the tray. Green soldiers were grabbing as many Blues as they could, dragging them onto the flies and carrying them away by the dozen.
“They’re taking the Blues!” Max cried. “Stop them!”
Sasha ran
in front of the bin, blocking a swarm of flies as they tried to reenter it—and leapt back.
“Ow! They just stung me!”
“Stung you? How could a fly—”
Max felt a sudden sharp pain on his cheek and yelped. One of the warflies circled his head. With the goggles, Max could see Green soldiers on its back loading up their catapults with tiny staples broken into razor-sharp fragments.
“They’re—ow!—firing at us!” said Max.
“You think?” cried Sasha, swatting flies left and right. “Go away! Shove it, you stupid little—”
“No!” cried Max. “There are—ow!—people riding them, remember? You can’t hurt them! Keep blocking the bin and I’ll—ow!—save the Blues!”
He reached down to scoop the rest of the Blues from the tray, but he was too late. The Blues didn’t want to be saved—they were running from him. Some were even climbing onto the warflies to escape, hugging the Green captors and crying with relief as they were carried away.
“No! What are you doing?” said Max. “Don’t go with the Greens—they’re the enemy! I’m trying to save you!”
It was no good—the Blues didn’t understand. Within seconds they had fled the tray, and a swarm of warflies surrounded Max and Sasha, flinging round after round of catapult fire at their faces.
“Max! What do we do?”
Max gazed around the room in horror. Mr. Darrow’s creation was even less like a model than he’d thought. It couldn’t be controlled at all. It fought back.
There was only one thing to do now.
“RUUUUN!”
Max and Sasha leapt out the door, slamming it behind them. They stood in the corridor, gasping for breath.
“That went well,” said Sasha.
His face was covered with so many swollen marks it looked like he’d nose-dived in a bowl of red jelly beans.
“Right, forget being nice!” he said, rolling up his sleeves. “Let’s go back in there and show those Greens what we’re made of!”
Max held him back. “No! We can’t hurt them!”
Max and the Millions Page 7
