“Gus! Bonnie! Where are you? It’s not safe up here! Come here this instant!” Angus heard a female voice calling from outside the cave.
The animal gasped, covering its mouth with a paw. It looked at him with horror-stricken eyes. “Oh no! It’s Granny!”
“GU-US! BON-NIE! GU-US! BON-NIE!”
“Maybe we can sneak past her. Get back before she does. Pretend we were never here!” whispered the frantic animal.
Angus had no idea who Granny was, why Ivy was so scared of her, or where they were supposed to get back to. But it occurred to him now that the moss was not insulating his clothing as well as he would have hoped, and wherever Ivy proposed they should go would probably be warmer than this cave. And if not, he could always refer back to survival option number four and wear her like a coat.
“Okay,” he agreed simply.
The furry, two-legged creature scrambled out of the cave opening. Angus crawled out behind her and climbed over the boulder. The wind whipped hard pellets of snow at his face and body. He had half a mind to climb back into the cave and hunker down until the blizzard ended but now he couldn’t see Ivy.
“Ivy!” he yelled. “Where did you go?” He stumbled away from the rocks and launched his body into the blowing snow. He was going to die from exposure. This was a stupid plan. Rethinking his strategy, he turned back toward the cave, but he couldn’t see two inches in front of his face. He was thoroughly disoriented in the whiteout.
Angus realized his situation was disastrous and growing worse. He needed to figure a way out of this mess. Of course! The World Jumper! He didn’t have to freeze here in this strange world. He could pull the trigger on his rewired scanner and jump to a warmer world. Ivy would find him again. He reached into the waistband of his jeans and pulled out …
… a handful of moss.
Where was the World Jumper?
A hairy paw gripped his arm. “There you are, Gus! What were you thinking? You could have been killed!”
Angus spun around and looked directly into brown eyes framed by wrinkles and frowning gray eyebrows. Pursed pink lips chastised him.
“And where is your skin?” The voice was familiar.
Angus gazed at the fur-covered animal, which bore an uncanny resemblance to the new Ivy. He thought it was probably the same species. He noticed a bow across the animal’s back and a quarrel of arrows tethered around the animal’s waist. Except that animals don’t carry weapons. And then Angus realized this was no animal.
“Granny?” he asked incredulously. What was his grandmother doing here in the snow?
“What is wrong with you, boy? The cold must have affected your brain!” Granny considered him for a moment. She unwrapped a fur from her body and wound it around his shoulders. “Now quickly, I’ve left Bonnie in the trees. We need to get out of here before the monster returns.”
Monster? What monster? What kind of world had he jumped into?
Angus grabbed the back of Granny’s fur so he didn’t lose her in the blizzard. He stumbled along behind her.
“What’s gotten into your head!” she continued scolding as she trudged through the snow. “How many times have we told you to avoid this area? Don’t hunt on the plateau. Every morning we tell you the same thing. One of these days the monster will be here waiting for you!”
His grandmother plodded onward undeterred by the buffeting wind. Angus could see nothing except for the back of the fur garment to which he was clinging. If he lost his grip, he would lose her. How did she know where she was going? It was like she had an internal global positioning system. Snippets of her tirade gusted past his frozen ears.
“… follows you everywhere! … endanger both your fool lives! … your sister! … be responsible! … copies everything you do! … her safety … .”
Sister? Whose sister? What was his grandmother talking about?
Angus focused on his grandmother’s back and kept walking. He bumped into her when she stopped suddenly. He looked past her and realized they were standing in the grove of trees he had encountered earlier.
“Gus! Gussy!” he heard and then grunted when a small furry body flung itself at him. An adoring face gazed up at him.
“Ivy?” asked Angus. He gently touched the face of the small human and pushed back the fur that rimmed her head. Loose light waves of fine brown hair clung to the small skull. The little girl’s blue-green eyes sparkled and Angus realized with a shock that they looked just like his.
“You’re not Ivy,” he whispered under his breath.
“Come on now, you two. We have to get back to the village before dark. Your mother will be worried,” ordered his grandmother. She turned back and looked at the children. “Bonnie! Put your hood on! It’s bad enough that Gus lost his skin. I don’t need both of you catching your death out here!”
The girl grabbed her hood and pulled it back over her head. She tipped her head down as she tucked her hair inside.
“Ooh! Pretty!” she pointed at Angus’s purple rhinestone-encrusted sneakers. Granny looked in the direction Bonnie had pointed and squinted.
“What is it?” she asked. She wandered closer and peered down at Angus’s feet. She shook her head and looked at Angus. “My eyesight’s not what it used to be, but just what are you wearing on your feet?”
Angus looked at Granny’s feet and then at Bonnie’s. Their legs and feet were encased in thick fur skins and wrapped with leather bindings. Angus felt a pang of envy as he took in his own cold, wet, purple canvas feet.
“Sneakers,” he answered.
“Sneakers,” repeated Bonnie dreamily as she reached out to stroke them.
“Sneakers,” snorted Granny. “Well, you’d better thank your lucky stars if you don’t have frostbite by the time we get back to the village. Come on then!”
She set off down the hill with purpose. Bonnie smiled at Angus, grabbed his hand, and they followed their grandmother.
Chapter Three: The Village
Angus dropped Bonnie’s hand to wrap the fur more tightly around his chest. He shivered and walked faster. He wasn’t sure how far the village was but he hoped there would be a roaring fire where he could warm himself.
He remembered the last time he’d felt this cold. He’d been forced to walk the plank off a pirate ship called the Fearsome Flea splat into the middle of the Puget Sound. The water had been icy cold and he might have succumbed to hypothermia if he hadn’t been rescued by Ivy who’d taken on the form of an orca.
He had been marooned on an island with a pirate captain named Hank who had lit a bonfire and baked cookies to warm him up. Together they had built a boat and reclaimed the Fearsome Flea.
That had been his first excursion to a parallel world, a world existing in the same time but another version of reality. For example in the pirate world his respectable math teacher was a nasty, mean-spirited pirate. And his alter ego, the other version of himself who had disappeared when Angus had arrived, stuffed cannons for a living.
It had taken Angus a while to figure out just how his invention, the World Jumper, had sent him to the pirate world. He’d learned that a combination of baking soda and moisture energized the device. And then he accidentally triggered the World Jumper again and sent himself … .
Where was he exactly? This world was covered in snow and ice. In this world his grandmother wore animal furs and carried a bow and arrow. In this world he had a sister.
“Mommy is going to be mad, Gussy,” said Bonnie blinking up at him. She chewed her lip. “You’re going to be in trouble.”
Angus’s teeth chattered. He stomped his feet to get blood moving in them.
“He’s already in trouble,” muttered Granny. “With me.”
“Squirrel!” hissed Bonnie.
“Where?” Granny spun around.
Bonnie silently pointed at the midsection of a large cedar tree. Angus’s mouth gaped open when he saw the animal clinging to the trunk of the tree. In shape and color it did resemble a squirrel. But this arboreal crea
ture was the size of a large tom cat. It was enormous!
Granny unstrapped her bow, strung a bone-tipped arrow, aimed at the squirrel, released the arrow, and missed.
Granny shouted, “Duck!”
The squirrel raced off, the arrow shot straight up in the air, and Bonnie tackled Angus to the ground. The arrow whizzed down to the ground and sliced into the snow mere inches from Angus’s ear.
Bonnie climbed giggling from Angus’s back. Angus spat snow from his mouth. Granny kicked the trunk of the tree with a fur-wrapped foot before yanking the arrow angrily from the snow. She pointed at Bonnie. “Don’t you tell your mother!”
Granny stomped off. Angus sat in the snow staring after her.
“She hasn’t been able to hit anything in a long time,” sighed Bonnie. “She can’t see.” Then a hint of a smile tugged at her lips and she giggled.
“So she can’t see. What’s so funny about that?”
Bonnie shook her head. “Not that. That.” She pointed at the packed snow. A perfect impression of Angus’s face was squished into the white powder.
“Yeah. Hilarious.” Angus picked snow out of his goggles before climbing to his feet. The two set off after Granny.
The forest floor was steeper now. Granny descended by traversing it side to side. Angus noticed deep notches in the trees around which they walked and turned. The notches must be trail markers. Granny paid the markings no heed and expertly made her way through the forest. For the second time that day he pictured a tiny GPS inside her brain.
The terrain leveled out and low growing shrubs mixed in with the trees. There were gradually more and more bushes and fewer and fewer trees. Bonnie yelled, “Race you!” and ran off past Granny. The small, fur clad girl whished through the deep snow toward what appeared to be civilization.
Angus’s amazement grew as he and Granny approached the village. Large curved white posts surrounded the encampment. Smoke drifted over the barrier, probably from the cluster of small huts at the center. He saw brown furry shapes moving throughout the village. Several clutched what looked like spears and marched the perimeter of the camp. He watched Bonnie run to one of them and throw her arms around it. He figured it must be her mom.
As he and Granny approached the gateway through the barrier, an obnoxious stench assaulted Angus’s nose. He threw his hand over his face and gagged, “Yuck! What is that smell?”
Granny chuckled. “Don’t think you’re going to get out of evening chores that easily. It’s your turn to muck out the corral.”
She nodded her head in the direction of a pen surrounded with the same curved posts as the village’s fence. Angus was amazed, elated, and horrified by what he saw. Amazed, because he’d never seen one alive before. Elated, because he had never in a million years believed he’d ever see one. And horrified, because it had probably been ten thousand years since human eyes had seen a ground sloth, let alone a pen full of them.
So if those were giant sloths, to what kind of world had Angus transported himself?
Angus breathed through his mouth and walked closer to the large corral. The sloths looked like overgrown opossums. Several lowed at him like cows and approached the fence. The animals were massive and Angus backed away immediately. The largest one rivaled the elephants Angus had seen at the zoo.
They had five fingers with claws the length of a school ruler. Their fur was the same light brown color of the skins that Granny and Bonnie wore. And the stench coming off of the beasts was unimaginable. It was a wild, oily smell that made Angus’s eyes water.
Some sloths grazed on drying broadleaves piled around the corral. A few smaller sloths napped in stinky piles like overgrown ferrets at the pet store. They appeared to be docile and made no attempt to escape the barrier, even though such enormous animals could have pushed through it easily.
“Why don’t they break out?” wondered Angus out loud.
“We breed them, of course,” answered Granny. “They’re no more wild than you or me. The only life they know is alongside humans.” She looked askance at him. “Are you feeling alright, Gus? You’d better get home and warmed up.”
Angus looked about, wondering which hut was home. He was embraced by a tall furry woman who kissed the top of his mussed head. Mom?
“What is this?” she asked tugging on his safety goggles. She wondered at his clothing. “What are you wearing and where is your coat?” He blinked at her and began to answer, but she interrupted. “That was a stupid thing you did! You are lucky you weren’t eaten! And Bonnie up there with you! How many times have I told you not to go up there?” She squeezed him tighter. “Let’s hurry home and warm you up.”
She wrapped her arm around his shoulder and herded him to the door of one of the many large wigwam structures that populated the village. The posts that surrounded the village were also the framework of the dwellings. The round, white posts were thick at the bottom, curved like a crescent, and tapered to a point. Large furs were wrapped and tied around the posts.
His mother’s alter ego pushed aside a heavy fur drape and entered the hut. Angus followed and pulled the drape closed behind him.
The inside of the circular hut was deceptively large. Small torches at the entrance to the round room cast a dim yet cozy light on its interior. In the center of the room a peat fire burned, its smoke escaping through a small hole in the ceiling. To the left of the door, long woven sheets hung from the domed ceiling and divided the hut into two small rooms and one large central area. Angus could see bedrolls and blankets piled in the small rooms. Those must be the bedrooms.
Angus saw some interesting tools directly across from the door. One of them was a large wooden wheel resting on a wooden base. A clump of fur rested on a spearhead and yarn dangled from the wheel. He thought it might be a spinning wheel. Alongside it was a medium-sized frame of wooden posts and struts. Yarn stretched across the frame from one end and turned into fabric at the other end. Was that a loom?
To the right of the door, a short table held the makings of a meal. A sharp utensil that resembled a knife rested beside a pile of greens, a chunk of smoked meat, and a clay jug of liquid. Bonnie sat curled on a pile of furs near the fire, sipping something from a cup. No longer wrapped in her coat, she was a thin, small child of maybe five or six. Her wavy light brown hair was mussed, her cheeks were rosy, and from the way she was attacking that cup, she was ravenous.
The woman who looked like Mom pushed a stack of knitted garments at him. “Get out of those wet things.” She crouched at the fire and poked at a large carved bowl resting among a circle of stones. “Soup’s been warming all day. I’ll dish you up a bowl.”
He knew she wasn’t technically his mother. She was his alter ego Gus’s mother, but she looked and sounded just like Mom, she hurried and scurried just like Mom, she fussed and fretted just like Mom. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed his own mother until he saw her alter ego stirring soup.
Angus untied and kicked off his wet sneakers. More cold than shy, Angus turned his back and eagerly stripped off his clothes. Piles of moss cascaded out of his pants and shirt. He brushed a few clinging strands from his legs and chest. He unfolded the garments Mom, no, his mom’s alter, maybe he’d call her Mother, had given him.
First, he put on a light, long-sleeved woven shirt in a light brown color. He pulled it over his head. It was light but amazingly warm. The pants were made from the same material and fitted like the undergarments he wore skiing. Next, he slid on a pair of thick, handknit socks. They itched a little but the warmth was welcome. He slipped a heavy cabled brown sweater over his head. It was a bit large and smelled faintly of wet animal.
Last, he looked at the pants Mother had given him. He brushed them with his hand. They were rough suede and felt like a pair of cowboy chaps he’d worn for Halloween one year. They slid easily over the woven long underwear. Instead of a zipper and button, leather laces were strung through small holes in the front of the pants. Angus shrugged and tied the pants closed. He wrap
ped his toolbelt around his waist, checked to be sure his screwdriver was in its place, and rearranged his safety goggles on the top of his head.
“Hang your wet things on the line and come get a bowl of soup,” said Gus’s mother.
Angus complied, draping his blue jeans and shirt over the braided leather clothes line strung along the wall. He carefully placed the purple sneakers to the side of the clothes. He wasn’t naturally neat: His laboratory at home had its own special organization. But his stint aboard the revolting Fearsome Flea was still fresh in his mind.
He settled down beside Bonnie and eagerly took the reddish-brown cup Gus’s mother offered. Both the cup and the serving bowl Gus’s mother held looked like no kind of porcelain he’d ever seen. They were matte, slightly rough to the touch, and heavy.
“Interesting cup,” he observed.
Gus’s mother paused a moment from ladling out a serving and looked curiously at the goggles on top of his head. “Ye-es,” she said slowly. “The village elders do a good job making them.”
“Do they use some clay indigenous to the area?” asked Angus.
Gus’s mother stared at him. “Gus, you’ve helped Granny dig for it. What’s that on your head?”
“Something I found,” stammered Angus brushing a finger across the goggles.
She shook her head and dipped her ladle into the bowl, pouring the soup into Angus’s cup. The ladle was white and appeared to be made from an organic material.
“Is that made from clay, too?”
“Of course not!” snorted Gus’s mother. “Your father carved it from bone. You know that.”
Angus took it from her hand and examined it carefully. “Cool! Would he teach me how?”
“I suppose you can ask him when he returns from the mammoth hunt.”
Angus gasped. “Mammoth?”
Bonnie giggled. “Gus, you’re funny today.”
“You are acting strangely.” Gus’s mother placed her hand on his forehead in the time honored tradition of mothers everywhere. “You don’t seem to have a fever.”
The Crystal Lair (Inventor-in-Training) Page 2
