The Boy from Earth

by Richard Scrimger

  Rowf! Rowf!

  At first I think it's a dog. Then I realize it's the tree that's making the noise. Of course a tree would bark. There's no wind, but the branches wave back and forth, like a tail.

  Norbert leans over and pats the branch we're sitting on. –Good girl. Good Casey.

  “You're talking to the tree?”

  Rowf, says the tree. I can feel it shiver.

  Norbert uses that talking-to-a-dog voice. –You're a good boy! Aren't you a good boy! Oh, yes, you are! Yes, you are!

  “But how do you know the tree's name?” I ask him.

  –There's a birch tree outside my window. Her name's Casey too. All birch trees are named Casey. Just like Casey here. Isn't that right, girl? Hey?

  Casey shivers a bit at the sound of its name.

  I pat the trunk I'm leaning against, the way you'd pat a dog's head. “Wait a minute,” I say. “Is Casey a boy or a girl?”

  – It's a tree, Dingwall. Didn't you pay attention in science class? It's a boy and a girl. Aren't you, Casey? Aren't you a good boy? Yes, you are! Aren't you a good girl? Yes, you are!

  The tree wags its branches again. Norbert pats it. I do it too, hesitantly, because I'm not used to strange trees.

  We eat a snack sitting in Casey's branches. I worry about bothering the tree, sitting on it, dropping crumbs, but Norbert assures me that there's no problem.

  –Trees like to be useful, he says.

  So we sit on the branch and eat strange sandwiches. They taste like chocolate bars from a delicatessen. Pretty good, but, well, strange.

  “What kind of sandwiches are these?” I ask.

  –Smoked chocolate.

  I take another bite. Okay, I guess. I take out the jar. “Can I drink this?”

  –Of course, you can. It's a liquid. You can't grate it or shred it. You can't read it or drive it. Your options are limited.

  I take off the lid, and pull back my face. “Yuck!” I say. “It smells awful.”

  –But it works. Your feet will feel better immediately.

  “Huh?”

  –If you decide not to drink it, I might recommend rubbing it on your feet. They're working harder than usual today.

  Casey gives a whine. That's the only way to describe it. It's a bit like the creaking noise a tree makes in a windstorm. Norbert sits up straight.

  –What, girl? What is it?

  The tree's long thin light greenish leaves turn over, showing their gray undersides.

  –Is something coming, Casey?

  ROWF!

  –Something bad?

  ROWF! ROWF!

  Norbert closes his knapsack and motions me to do the same.

  “Wow!” I say. “The tree understands.”

  It's like the dogs on TV that can add and answer the phone and spray the house with air freshener when they make a doggie mistake.

  “Thanks, Norbert,” I say. His hand's out to help. I let him take my sandwich container and the jar of brown liquid while I check the ground for intruders. I remember what he said about things being there, whether I saw them or not. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see his little hands fumbling with the top of my knapsack.

  Casey is barking continuously.

  –Come on, Dingwall. Time to go.

  I freeze. The voice comes from behind me. I turn around. Norbert is facing away from me, wearing his knapsack, looking out through the foliage. One of his hands holds a smooth gray branch for support. The other hand is empty.

  Then, what the … I turn back in time to see a pair of hands lift my sandwich container into the air. Not a person with hands – just the hands. Four fingers and a thumb, just like mine, only they're not attached to anything. They flutter around, like giant butterflies, clinging to the sandwich container, lifting it into … thin air. The container, and the hands, fade from my sight, like breath on a mirror. They're gone.

  “Norbert, help!” I cry.

  Meanwhile, another set of hands is finishing with my knapsack. They start to lift it up. I've been frozen all this time, but now I move, grabbing the bottom.

  “Stop!” I cry. The hands do not stop. “Let go!” I cry. The hands do not let go. “Give that back!” I cry. Of course, the hands do nothing of the kind.

  –Get away from me, you minions! cries Norbert.

  The tree barks wildly.

  I pull the knapsack away from the hands. I feel more hands plucking at my bathrobe, pinching, pulling, tugging. I flail around, sweeping them out of the way. There are so many of them. It's nasty, like being inside a swarm of insects. I shoulder the knapsack, batting away the hands as fast as I can, and point my slippers, ready to fly away.

  –Hey, Dingwall. Little help?

  It's Norbert's voice. I turn.

  He's well off the tree branch, in midair, surrounded by hands – a whole cloud of them. He's being lifted higher and higher.

  “Coming, Norbert!” I move towards him, batting the clutching hands out of the way. Norbert's covered all over like a cocoon, but his mouth is free. He's still talking.

  –I bet you guys think you're handsome! Really something – sorry, thumbthing! Get it: thumb-thing? Oh, why do I bother? I tell you what. You are the ugliest hands I have ever seen. I'm talking serious moisturizing problems here. Look at that hang nail. Tsk tsk. And those cuticles. Haven't you guys ever heard of pumice or emery boards? Yes, you guys are quite a handful! Hey, Dingwall, I'm dying here!

  The minions work in silence. It's unnerving. I can hear the tree barking and the leaves rustling and Norbert talking and my own breathing. The thousand hands make no sound whatsoever.

  I find a new technique by accident. Instead of grabbing the hands one at a time, I take them in pairs. When I do that, the fingers lock together and they grab on to each other instinctively. I set to work, pairing off as many hands as I can. Soon I'm close enough to get hold of Norbert. I try to pull him down towards where I am standing on the branch. The hands resist, pulling him upwards. I pull as hard as I can, a sharp clean jerk, and the hands give way all at once and Norbert drops into my arms. I lose my balance and fall.

  We were close to the top of the birch tree. I fall halfway to the ground before I remember to clench my toes and stop in midair. The leaves and small branches slap and batter me, brushing off the remaining hands.

  –Good job, Dingwall. You've shaken them, off. Now, go!

  I go. Norbert wriggles out of my arms and takes the lead, flying close to the ground. I follow. Some minions flutter after us, but they stay high in the air.

  I take a deep breath. We're free.

  The sun is setting behind us, but it's still bright out. We stay low, like swallows, skimming over the smelly bog.

  “Can't we go higher?” I ask.

  –Let's see if we can lose the minions first, he says.

  I look up. The evening sky is a wonderful greeny purple color. Behind us I see a small dark cloud. It's going in our direction, following us, even though the wind is in our faces.

  I have a question for Norbert. I wiggle my toes harder, to fly next to him.

  “Back on Earth, you said that you would always be there when I needed help. But when I was being attacked by the minions just now, you couldn't help. In fact, I helped you.”

  –Ah, that was on Earth.

  He says something else, but I miss it. A cool dank breeze hits me from the left side, lifting the back of my robe and making steering difficult. Norbert ends up over my head. I point my toes up to catch him again.

  “What did you say?”

  –My job on Earth was to look after you, and prepare you for this.

  “For what?”

  –For what you're doing now. My mission on Earth was to find a champion. Once I'd found you, I wasn't going to let you get beaten up by bullies in your own school yard. I wasn't going to let you get lost in New York, or in the woods.

  I digest this for a moment. I was the best candidate. Huh? Imagine that. Another gust of wind hits from the side. This time I watch carefu
lly and imitate Norbert, angling my slippers to ride the wind up.

  He notices, and nods his approval. –Well done, Dingwall.

  “Thanks. So let me get this straight. Your job on Earth was to help me?”

  –To help you, and to prepare you to be a champion. If you think back, you'll notice that every time you called for help, I came. And each time I came, you needed me less than the time before.

  I'm flabbergasted. Is that true? Maybe it is. After all, I'm enjoying myself flying around a strange planet. That would not have been true last year.

  –And now you're practically ready to be a champion, and we need your help. And here you are.

  Lightning flashes a little closer than usual. I jump.

  “What do you mean, practically ready?”

  I hear his exhalation like a sigh. –The Dey is a real monster. Those pictures we saw in Mad Guy's lab don't show how evil he is. I wanted to prepare you a bit more. But then Nerissa got captured, and … well, I decided you were ready.

  “Oh.”

  My mind is whirling. What if I'm not ready? What if it's too soon? What if I need help? I don't ask these questions out loud because a champion doesn't whine.

  “I see.” Then I have to laugh at myself. Some champion.

  –There you go.

  The sun has set, so I guess you could say that night has fallen. But it hasn't fallen very far. The quality of the light has changed, but it's not a whole lot dimmer than it was during the daytime because of all the moons. Four of them follow us, shining as big and bright as streetlights. If Earth were like this, there'd be no need for lightbulbs.

  We lost the minions a while back. Seems our slippers can fly faster than the Dey's hands. I keep checking over my shoulder, but it's just to reassure myself. There's no cloud following us anymore.

  Norbert drifts, almost bumping into me. He's tired. I'm tired, too. And I have to go to the bathroom. I hope we stop soon. I check my wrist. The hands on my watch are gone. The face on the dial opens its mouth wide to laugh at me. I look away.

  –There it is! says Norbert. Do you smell it?

  I smell swamp. Yuck. Then I get something different. “Smoke,” I say.

  –That's Bogway Park Lodge. We'll spend the night here.

  Norbert skims off to the right. A few minutes later we reach a long low wooden building, with a smoking chimney and a porch all down one side. We land on the porch side, in the middle of a large square marked off in white chalk lines.

  I look up. The sky's clear. “No minions,” I say to Norbert.

  –They don't like the mud much. That's why we stayed so low. They like to keep themselves clean. As long as we're down here in Bogway Fen, we should be safe. We can sleep soundly tonight.

  I don't see a soul, though I can hear the whine of insects. “It seems an odd place to put a hotel,” I say.

  –Well, Bogway Park Lodge doesn't do a whole lot of business.

  The building isn't much taller than I am, standing up.

  It's built into the swamp, so that the porch is on ground level, with steps going down from there. Norbert pushes his way in through swinging doors that might have come from a saloon in the Old West.

  I follow, and the first thing I see is a big neon sign, blinking on and off. BATHROOM, it says. I head straight for it. Two minutes later I'm at the front desk, with ringing ears and a fixed determination never to go swimming again.

  “ID required.”

  The desk clerk is a frog in a baseball cap and glasses with sequins, like your great-aunt wears. She stares up at me, goggle-eyed, past the burning end of a cigarette stuck in the corner of her wide lipless mouth.

  “No one comes in without ID,” she says, drawing on her cigarette until the end is bright red.

  “I'm with, uh, Norbert.” I'm still shaken from my experience in the bathroom. “He was just here – a little guy with a white space suit and big eyes. We came in together.”

  “Prince Norbert is known here,” says the frog lady, softening momentarily. I should stop calling her the frog lady. The name plate on the desk says WILMA. “He didn't mention you when he checked in.”

  “Well, I'm with him. And I'm … important. I'm a champion,” I say.

  “You're still a stranger,” says Wilma. “So give me some ID.” She holds out a green long-fingered hand covered in rings.

  On the wall behind the desk are four clocks telling different times, and four calendars with different dates. The months have funny names: Barch, Tamuz, Hekatombion. Somewhere on Jupiter today, it's Barch 15th. The ides of Barch.

  “Well?” she says. “Don't you have a piece of ID? Something with your name on it?”

  She takes a last draw on her cigarette, and then it's gone. Her tongue flashes out like a whip. Next thing I know the cigarette stub is smoking in the ashtray on the desk and her mouth is empty.

  I jump back, startled. My hand goes to the pocket of my bathrobe, and I pull out a memory. A major-league Crime Dog baseball card. Just holding it in my hand brings me back to the summer when they came free inside cereal boxes. I must have had the bathrobe then.

  Wilma stares at the card in my hand as if it were a million dollar bill. “Is that yours?” she asks.

  “This card? Yes, it's mine.”

  Her mouth drops open and her tongue rolls out. “You're Fred McGriff!” she croaks.

  I guess she thinks this card is some kind of ID. A driver's license, or something. “Me?” I look down at it. Fred stares up at me, calm and tough, bat cocked over his left shoulder. Number 27 for the Atlanta Braves.

  “That's amazing. Let's see.” She leans over the counter. “It has your signature and everything. Fred McGriff. You were right: you really are a champion! Imagine – Fred McGriff at my hotel. Wait'll I tell Wes and Steve. I know all about you. They call you Crime Dog, don't they? I remember when the Yankees traded you to Toronto back in the 80s. Then you went to San Diego and Atlanta and Tampa Bay. Why'd you change your mind about Chicago?”

  I tell the truth. “I really have no idea,” I say.

  “What a career! How many years did you hit 30 dingers – seven in a row? And for five different teams! I always liked your OBP stats too.”

  Wilma knows way more about baseball than I do. “Do me a favor,” she says. “Make a face like your picture there. Hold your hands up like you're batting. I want to see.”

  I hesitate.

  “Go on,” she says.

  So I put up my hands, and glare like McGriff the Crime Dog. I'm tingling all over, as if my skin is magnetized. It's a memory flash. You see, I used to pose just like this in the bathroom mirror, with a toothbrush for a bat and a V-necked pajama shirt that looked sort of like a baseball uniform top.

  She stares at the card, and then up at me. “I guess there's a bit of a resemblance,” she says. “No one looks like their ID photos anyway.”

  For the record, I'm a whole lot younger, shorter, paler, and less cool than Fred McGriff. But there it is. I put the card back in my pocket. You know, it is signed. And it's in perfect shape. Looks as if it just got out of the cereal box. Weird.

  Wilma checks me in, hops down from her chair, and shows me to the room. The skin on her back is bright lime green with delicate dark spots. “What are you staring at?” she says, turning suddenly.

  “Sorry.” I blush. “I've never seen a frog as big as you before.” She comes up to my waist. Her legs are probably as long as mine.

  “And you like 'em big, don't you?” She takes off her glasses and smiles at me. “Why, Fred, you devil!”

  Her eyes bulge like grapefruits. Her belly hangs down. She flicks her tongue in my direction. It almost hits me.

  “I better go now,” I say, swallowing rapidly, hand on the door.

  “See you later.” She hops down the hall.

  It's a bedroom the way the bathroom in the lobby is a bathroom. (Let me tell you about that, by the way. Pushing through the door under the sign, I entered a round white porcelain room filled with water. The w
orld's biggest toilet bowl. The door shut and locked automatically behind me, for privacy I guess, but the exit door was on the other side of the room. In order to get out, I had to swing across the bowl on a pull chain suspended from the ceiling. My weight on the chain flushed the room, with a noise like a world championship milkshake-drinking competition. My ears are finally returning to normal now.)

  Anyway, our bedroom is designed by the same person. It's wall-to-wall mattress. And soft! Stepping over the threshold is like stepping into a pudding.

  Norbert hangs up the phone in disgust. –No room service, he says.

  I can understand that. There's nowhere to put a tray of food.

  I walk across the bed to the window, sinking into the mattress with each step. The window is just above ground level. Our room looks out on the chalk-lined square we landed on. Of course I now know it's a diamond, not a square. A baseball diamond. Fred McGriff. I shake my head at that.

  One of the moons – the biggest one, faintly blue-colored – rides low in the sky, shining right at me. “Which moon is that?” I ask.

  He's yawning. –Sid, he says. You can always tell Sid because there's a smile across the bottom half.

  I look. I can't see the smile. I can't see the man in the moon back on Earth either. I shut the curtain, and let myself fall back onto the expanse of mattress. I sink right in, without bouncing at all. The mattress wraps itself around me like a soft and comforting hug. I don't need a blanket or pillow.

  “Is it bedtime?” I ask. “My watch is broken.”

  –Are you tired?

  “Oh, yes.”

  – Then it's bedtime.

  I know I should wash my face and hands and brush my teeth, but I can't summon the energy. I can't even be bothered to take off my backpack.

  “Night, Norbert.”

  –Night. Oh, uh, Dingwall?

  “Mmm?”

  –You did well today. Learning to fly and all. And getting us away from the minions.

  I smile. I can't remember Norbert complimenting me before. “Well, they are my slippers,” I say. I slide my feet out of them now. I don't want to be flying by accident in my sleep. Ahh, that feels nice. It's a relief to wriggle my toes and not have to worry about where I'm heading.