I introduce myself, and lower myself slowly onto a stool. When I'm finally down there, my legs stick out the other side of the table. Butterbean is beside me. His whiskers are covered in cocoa.
“You have an exceedingly droll aspect, boy from Earth!” he exclaims. “Your outer integument appears to have been burnt.”
I frown. “Are you talking about my red hair?” I've had it since I was born. I'm used to it. “It's that color naturally,” I say.
Mad Guy is sitting up at the table himself now. He pushes the big mug towards me, and gestures to the plate of fruit. “Have some cocoa. And something to eat. You have a long journey ahead of you, and a difficult task when you get there.”
He's talking about finding the castle and beating the Dey. “How long?” I say. “And how difficult?”
“Ah,” he says. “Those are good questions.”
I take a bite of fruit. It's flaky, like pie, and sweet. Weird, but tasty. I ask Norbert what it is, and he tells me it's pace, which means nothing to me, and then I remember him making a joke in school about the pace-trees of Jupiter.
“Hey!” I say. “This does taste like pastry!”
–That's what I said. There's a huge pace-tree in Nerissa's garden in Sheldonburg. I remember we used to … He stops, and his view screens go blank.
You've probably worked it out already, but I now realize that they're not view screens. They may look like they're part of a space helmet, but the two tear-shaped screens are his eyes. He brushes his arm across them.
–Sorry, he says.
Poor guy. Is this what love does to you? I wonder. Would I feel like that if the Black Dey took Miranda away? (She's a girl I kind of like, back home in Cobourg. Brown hair falling soft as summer rain, bright eyes, a strong right foot from all the soccer she plays.) I'd like to see him try to take Miranda. She'd kick a goal with him.
While I eat, Mad Guy asks me about the despacer Norbert used to get me here. Did it hurt? Could I feel it working? I tell him about being in the minivan and watching myself shrink lower and lower in the seat, until I woke up in Norbert's spaceship. He shakes his head.
“The scale is so confusing,” he says. “The idea that one of our spaceships could fit inside your nose is amazing to me, but not as amazing as the idea that you could then be shrunk so small that you could fit into that spaceship. And all because of the space between atomic particles.”
I'd ask more about the despacer, but I'm sure I wouldn't understand. I mean, I couldn't even understand Mr. Buchal's explanation of the carbon cycle. I raise my cup, and nearly choke because the stuff inside is so good! It's sweet and thick and strong, like drinking a chocolate bar. I feel warmth and energy and sweetness flooding into me, like sunlight through a newly-opened window.
“This is wonderful cocoa,” I say.
Mad Guy nods solemnly. “Yes, it is.”
The overhead lights are out. An image flickers on the lab TV screen. Not a photograph – more like one of those artist's representations of the accused during a trial.
“Behold,” says Mad Guy again, in his preacher voice.
It's hard to work out what I'm seeing. A vaguely human shape, billowy dark garments and a black helmet. One muscular arm clutches an enormous double-bladed sword. The image moves jerkily across the screen, like a cheap cartoon.
“This is the Black Dey, Dingwall: the enemy whose doom you are supposed to bring about. I'm sorry I can't give you a better sense of what he looks like,” says Mad Guy.
“We interviewed hundreds of eyewitnesses in order to attempt a consensus,” says Butterbean. “The discrepancies in their testimonies made this impossible. All they had were impressions: enormous size, a swirling cloak, a helmet, a long sword.”
“The problem,” says Mad Guy, “is that we got these witnesses after the Dey had finished with them.”
“Oh. And I guess they weren't feeling well,” I say.
“They weren't making sense. They'd been beaten by the Scourge.”
I make a face. None of us says anything. None of us wants to think about what will happen to Nerissa if I don't save her.
“The Scourge?” I ask. “What's that?”
I hear a delicate slurping sound: Butterbean finishing his cocoa. The picture on the TV screen spreads a cold gray light around the room, like twilight in December.
“We don't know much about the Scourge,” says Mad Guy. “We don't even know if it exists for sure. The witnesses are confused. One of them called the Scourge a spider; another said it was a crowd of people. The stories don't make any sense.”
I lean towards Norbert. “Did you know about the Scourge?”
–I'm just a prince, here. No one tells me anything.
I peer closely at the pictures on the screen. I can't see anything to measure the Dey against. “How big is he?” I ask.
“Big!” cries Butterbean. “All the witnesses say that. And with a black helmet.”
“Yes, but what does big mean? Big like a baseball stadium? Big like a telephone pole? Big like an extra helping of mashed potatoes?”
I can sense Mad Guy shrugging in the dark. “Who knows?” he says. “Big enough to be scary. Apparently you never see him and the Scourge together. We wonder if the Scourge might actually be the Dey, in some kind of disguise. Maybe when he takes his helmet off, he becomes the Scourge.”
“One witness described the Scourge as a giant snake,” says Butterbean, with a shiver of his own. Of course, he wouldn't like snakes much.
I tilt my cup all the way and find a trickle of cocoa at the bottom. Cold cocoa, but it's still really good. We watch the cartoon Dey swing his sword over his head, one-handed, and move brokenly across the screen. He looks like a medieval knight.
“Do I get a sword too?” I ask. “If I'm going to fight him, I'll want a weapon.”
“You'll get all you need from the gym,” says Butterbean. “I don't know about a sword, but there'll be something for you there. Slippers, for sure.”
“Slippers?”
“For traveling. You'll have to cross a lot of country.”
Butterbean clitter-clatters away to turn on the lights. I'm thinking about the slippers. How are they going to help my travel?
Mad Guy levers himself down from the table, rolls sideways, and bounces back upright again. This time I don't try to help him.
Norbert gets down too. –Come on, Dingwall. We'd better be on our way. Thanks for the briefing, Mad Guy. The gym, is two claps up, right, Butterbean?
“Correct, my prince.”
Mad Guy bows to Norbert, and shakes my hand. “Good luck, son,” he says.
Butterbean shows us a circle in the floor at the back of the lab. About the size of a manhole cover, and bright bright green.
–Clap twice, Dingwall, says Norbert. Then step inside. Like this. He claps his hands once, twice. Then he steps forward into the green circle, and disappears.
I look a question at Mad Guy. “It's a transporter,” he explains. “Clap once for each stage you wish to bypass. The gym is two claps up from here. When you're finished with the gym, come to the map room. Four more claps.”
There's a faint hissing noise coming from the green circle. “It's really just a vacuum,” says Butterbean.
“You mean it cleans carpets?” I joke.
“No,” says Butterbean seriously.
I clap my hands twice, and step into the circle.
For a couple of heartbeats, nothing happens. Mad Guy frowns. “It must be the effects of the despacer on you,” he says. “Your particles are closer together than normal, and the transporter is having to work harder….”
He disappears. I lose my stomach, lose it again, and walk out into the gym, feeling lousy.
It doesn't look like a gym, though. More like a messy attic or storeroom. My head reaches fairly close to the ceiling (I can hardly wait to get outside. I'm sick of crouching all the time.) so I get a bird's-eye view of it all. Even for a messy attic, this is a lot of mess. Piles of stuff in corners. Mo
unds of stuff on top of other mounds of stuff. Frozen waterfalls of stuff cascading from shelves onto the floor, covering it completely.
By stuff I mean, well, stuff. Different kinds of stuff. I don't know what any of it is, or does. It looks like you could wear some of the stuff, play with some, eat some, take some to school, and send some to your grandma. Some of it is pointy, like cactus needles or dentist drills. Some of it is soft, like bedding or pudding. Some of it appears to be moving. It's all covered in fine bluish dust. The dust hangs in the air, tickling my throat.
“Hello!” I call, and immediately have to cough.
I bet I'm in the wrong place. I don't see a door. The only way out is the transporter I came in by.
“Norbert?” I say quietly.
“Go away!”
Not Norbert, whose voice is shrill and vibrant. This is a dust-dry voice, wheezing, crackling, grumpy. It comes from a pile of stuff that might be a desk.
“Excuse me,” I say.
Looking closer, I can see a pair of feelers poking out of one of the piles of stuff. They twitch, then there's a small explosion, scattering stuff and dust, and a small head pops out, attached to the feelers.
Two eyes climb up their stalks to glare at me.
“Can't you hear? I said go away! And don't take anything with you!”
“I'm looking for the gym,” I say. I'm not worried – the creature with the bad temper is the size of my hand. It seems to be some sort of crustacean. A crusty one. I think I ate something like it one night at Red Lobster.
“So?” it says.
“Do you know where the gym is?”
“Yes.”
Silence.
“Will you tell me?”
“No. Now, go away!”
I see something I recognize among all the stuff on the floor. I bend down. “Hey, how'd you get this?” I say, pulling it free with difficulty
“A giant's bathrobe. Came in fourteen months ago. It's on file.”
“It looks like mine.” Made of black terry cloth, with a pair of pilot's wings stitched onto the bulging hip pocket. (My aunt works for an airline.) I wore it when I was the third wise man in our class Christmas play in grade 4. “In fact,” I say, reaching into the pocket and finding a Kleenex package, “this is my old bathrobe.”
I've always kept Kleenex in my pocket. Drives my mom crazy because she washes the robe, and the Kleenex explodes in the dryer. This is a fresh packet of Kleenex, and mine usually isn't, and this pocket isn't ripped down the side, and mine is, but it's my robe.
“Hey, and that's mine too! Wow!” I put down the robe and pick up a slipper. Corduroy, with a red tartan pattern and slippery soles. My favorite slippers ever. From a standing start, I could slide halfway across the living-room carpet in these.
“Yes,” says the creature. “Flying slippers. They've been here for ages. They're on file too. Everything's on file.”
“Flying slippers?” That's what I used to call them. It all comes back with a rush. Once I slid over the edge of the upstairs landing and flew – well, fell – down the steps to the front hall. I never managed the trick again, but I kept trying until I outgrew the slippers. My flying slippers. “I think I'm supposed to take these,” I say.
“Take them? Take them away?”
I hunt for the other one. I wonder if I can wear them. My feet have grown a lot since my sliding carpet days. Mind you, the slipper looks bigger than I remember.
“Put it down,” says the creature sharply. With a speed I would not have suspected, it scrabbles out from beneath its blanket of stuff and scurries over to me, waving its pincer claws menacingly. It's some sort of crab, I guess. It moves sideways.
“Drop the slipper! Drop it now!”
“But Mad Guy said I would need it,” I say. I find another slipper and pull it out. Yes, it matches.
“Drop them! Drop the slippers!”
You'd think I was a puppy.
This crab has two claws. The larger one holds a pencil. I hesitate, and lose. In a flash of silver lightning, the pencil jabs into my hand.
“Hey!” I cry out. “Careful, there.”
“My name is Jim!” he cries. “I am The Jim – the only one. I am in charge here. And no one takes anything from me. They come here all the time, with their order forms and their requisitions, with their dollies and their carts. They try to take things, but I do not let them. ‘This is a storeroom,’ I tell them. ‘If you take things away, it will not be a storeroom any longer. It will be a store.’ They go away with long faces, and I laugh at them. Like this: ha-ha-ha. I control the room. I am the room! I am The Jim! Now,” stabbing me again, “drop the slippers! Drop the robe! Never never never take anything from The Jim!”
I stand up. The Jim grabs onto a slipper with his free claw. I lift him too.
–Oh, there you are, Dingwall.
I turn around. Norbert is stepping out of the transporter circle, dragging two knapsacks behind him. –I see you've met The Jim, he says.
“Yes. I found flying slippers, but he doesn't want me to take them away.” The little fellow is dangling from the slipper in my hand. He twists and contorts his body around, trying to stab me with the pencil in his larger claw.
–Jim, is in charge of the storeroom here.
“He takes his responsibilities very seriously,” I say. “Put them down! Put them down! Put them down!” says Jim. “Put everything down!” “Can you help, Norbert?” I say.
–How? You look like you have everything under control.
“Mad Guy wants to see us in the map room,” I say.
–Yes, he told me too. I'll meet you there, and then we can get going. Clap four times before getting into the transporter.
“Hey, wait!” I say.
–Oh, and bring this knapsack, will you, Dingwall? I'm a prince, not a porter. Yours is the big one. He claps four times, steps backward into the circle on the floor, and vanishes.
Jim succeeds in wriggling himself into the slipper. He's now close enough to stab me with pencil again. “Drop it!” he says. Stab. Stab. Ouch.
This is ridiculous. I'm holding a pair of slippers with a crazy crustacean attached. I can't pull him off the slipper, but I wonder if I can distract him. I look around. I reach down to the floor and pick up the first shiny thing I can find. A silver tube – looks like toothpaste. “Hey, I can use this,” I say loudly. “I think I'll take this … um … thing away with me.”
“No! No!”
“I think I'll carry it away, and never bring it back,” I say. “It's nice and squishy and fits in my hand.” I hold the tube near the slippers and jiggle it, so the metal glints in the light. I feel like I'm fishing.
Jim takes the bait. “No-o-o!” he cries. He leaps from the slipper to the tube, and clamps one of his pincer claws around it.
“Drop it!” he says. “Drop it now.”
The tube breaks, releasing a familiar odor. Not toothpaste.
I don't make model airplanes myself, but I have an acquaintance who does. The fumes from the glue make you giggle and fall down and throw up, he says. I've never even got to the giggling stage, and I don't want to. I throw the tube, and Jim, into the far corner of the storeroom.
“Ha-ha-ha!” he cries in midair.
I move fast now, pulling off my space boots and putting on the red tartan slippers. They fit perfectly, as if they were custom-made Earth-size 9. How strange is that?
I shoulder the knapsack and clap four times. On an impulse, I grab my old bathrobe before stepping into the transport circle. I don't know why. There may be an association between the third wise man and the glue smell. (“Myrrh is mine, the bitter perfume.”)
I hear Jim laughing like a fiend. Then I'm gone.
“So, why do they call it the map room?” I ask.
“Why? Because of the maps!” exclaims Butterbean. “Haven't you noticed? Every wall is covered with them. This topographical map in front of us takes up the whole wall, and shows every feature of this part of the planet in … o
h.” He stops when he notices my smile. “You were making a joke.”
Mad Guy and Norbert are both smiling too.
“Well, maybe a little one,” I say.
It's a good-looking room, long and low, with smooth wood floors and hanging light fixtures that I am in danger of bumping into. The maps on the walls are the old-fashioned kind, with clouds puffing their cheeks in the corners, and dragons curled in the empty spaces.
Mad Guy is using a pointer on the big map marked TOPOGRAPHY OF JUPITER. “We've surveyed the whole hemisphere from Betunkaville to the sea, looking for the Lost Schloss,” he says. “That includes the FRONTAL FOREST, here, the HIPPO CAMPGROUNDS, and this great area drained by the PARIETAL RIVER. We've flown over all the RANDOM LANDS. Nothing.”
“What about the report from that fishing lodge a few years back?” says Butterbean, squinting at the big map through his glasses.
“You mean the guy who fell in the water? He was drunk. You can't trust those Parietal fishers, Butterbean. Not after sunset.”
I'm wearing my slippers and bathrobe and knapsack. I spread my hands. “So where do I look for the Lost Schloss?”
Mad Guy steps away from the map. “When I found out that you were coming to fulfill the great prophecy, I went over the rhyme again. How does it describe the location of the Lost Schloss?”
I can't remember, but the other two can. They say the line together: “In plain sight, and yet none can see.”
“But that could mean anything,” I say.
“What if the words in plain sight were literal, son?” Mad Guy says.
“You mean, it's on some plain?” I say. “Is there a plain on Jupiter?”
Mad Guy whacks the map with his pointer. There, on the upper right corner,* is a great open area called PLAINS OF ICH.
Norbert stares up at me. I shrug.
Mad Guy points to the left-hand edge of the map, about in the middle. “Here's BETUNKAVILLE, where we are now. If you move towards the center of the map, you'll find something called BOGWAY FEN. See the frog on the lily pad? Good. On the other side of the FEN, you can pick up the PARIETAL RIVER as it snakes down through the RANDOM LANDS. Follow that river to the falls by the AMYG DALE here, and turn up. Now, what do you see?” He taps the pointer at a group of peaks that seem to be wreathed in fog. SUDDEN MOUNTAINS says the label. “Does that remind you of anything now?”
The Boy from Earth Page 3
