I stepped in front of one kid who was about to stuff something into a trash can. “No, this guy’s can is full. Go give the newspaper to that guy over there.”
Toshi and Nikki passed out lemonade to everyone while they worked.
Navida barked out orders. “Come on. Keep moving. Midnight’s almost here.”
Parents didn’t know what to think.
“Shouldn’t they be in bed?” said one woman.
“Oh, let them have some fun,” said her husband.
“Since when did our son think cleaning up was fun?”
“What’s come over these kids?” declared another lady.
“They’ve lost their minds.”
“It’s all that Twittering.”
“They’ve gone crazy.”
“I’m telling you. It’s the Twittering.”
Senior citizens set up lawn chairs on the sidewalk as if they were watching a parade.
In Times Square, CNN had a giant monitor, one hundred feet tall. Video streamed across it of kids in Boston and Philadelphia cleaning their streets, kids in Chicago, Dallas and L.A. They must’ve found out through the Internet. Kids were telling kids, not just in America, but all over the world.
“It’s a global phenomenon,” said a CNN reporter.
Gazing in wonder up at the screen, I watched kids cleaning the streets of Rio de’ Janeiro, Buenos Aires, London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Moscow, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Capetown, Cairo, Tel Aviv.
I was tempted to fly to Shanghai to check it out in person and have an eggroll but I had to stay focused on the quest right here in Manhattan. It was all about staying focused.
“Hocus focus,” I repeated to myself. “Hocus focus.”
The time was 11:27.
I met up with Tula in a quiet alleyway, shrank us both down and shot up to Harlem in the flyplane to see how things were going.
One Hundred Twenty-fifth Street was immaculate.
We spotted Jerry on a rooftop, all alone, sobbing like a baby. What depressed him appeared to be a slip of paper floating in front of him. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. Tears gushed down his striped face.
“Why’s Jerry crying, Tula?”
“I filed a complaint with the Universal Real Estate Association, Giles. His license has been suspended.”
That sheet of paper hovering in front of him was his real estate license. On other planets, when your license gets suspended, it literally gets suspended in the air. Boy, did that ever put me in a good mood. Then I made a discovery that put me in an even better one.
“Tula, look!”
A tiny leaf sprouted from a street cleaner’s forehead. He covered it with a New York Yankees baseball cap.
By 11:45, all the androids had reached their quota. One by one, they limped into Central Park, Madison Square Park, East River Park, taking a last sip of lemonade, vines emerging from their fingertips, waving good-bye as they disappeared into the darkness.
They were ready to turn into trees!
Our entire team, except Navida of course, gathered in command and control to witness the transformation on the giant screens. Bobby flicked a switch so we could see through the cloudfish. But this wasn’t some pay-per-view event the rest of the world got to watch. Only those who knew about the test. Tula passed out jars of traffic jam to munch on.
“I can’t wait to see roots shoot out of their feet,” I said.
“Me too,” said Toshi.
“I want to see branches come out of their ears,” said Nikki.
This would be by far the coolest thing we ever witnessed on TV. However, when the clock struck midnight, instead of torsos turning into tree trunks, what flashed before our eyes was the diabolical face of Princess Petulance. She hijacked the video signal, broadcasting her purple sneer on all four screens, the tattoo pirate perched on her shoulder.
“Congratulations, Giles,” she said. “It looks as if you’re about to pass the test. But there’s one thing you need to know about me. I’m a sore loser.” She peered down at her pirate. “Aren’t I?”
The pirate waved his little dagger at us menacingly.
“The tip of the dagger has been dipped in poison, Giles,” said the princess, laughing. “Go check on Grandma.”
I raced down the hallway, burst into her room and threw on the light.
Grandma was lying in bed, eyes closed, a tiny laceration on her left cheek.
I pressed my ear to her chest. “Her heart’s not beating. Why isn’t it beating?”
Bobby pushed me out of the way and pressed his ear to her breast. He looked up, tears streaming down his face. “She’s dead.”
Tula stepped forward and waved her briefcase over Grandma from head to toe.
“Is Grandma dead, Tula?” Nikki cried.
“I’m afraid she is,” Tula said.
At that moment, all the excitement of saving the planet shriveled up and disappeared.
“It’s all my fault as usual,” I said. “I was supposed to take care of her. I promised Grandpa I’d take care of her.”
Tula gently took my hand.
I jerked my hand away. “Why did you give me this quest? I already had a quest. To take care of Grandma. To save her from a broken heart. I gave Grandpa my word I’d look after her.”
I was bawling harder than the Kundabon that made a waterfall over the George Washington Bridge.
“Isn’t there anything you can do, Tula?” Bobby asked.
“There is only one way to counteract this poison,” Tula said.
“Tell us how,” Nikki pleaded.
“Giles must journey to the source of all life in the universe.”
“What place is that?” I asked.
“The Stellar Nursery.”
I remembered that creepy thing Bobby showed me, the baby crib floating in deep space. It was about a million miles long, made out of boiling blood red mist, supported by pillars of black fog crackling with lightning.
“I have to go in that thing?” I said. “And do what?”
“According to my briefcase, the poison used on your grandmother was extracted from the remains of a dead planet. It can only be counteracted by something that helps give birth to planets.”
“And what would that be?” Bobby said.
“Star milk.”
“Star milk?” I said. “Is there such a thing?”
“There most certainly is. You humans are raised on milk, Giles. So are baby stars. They drink star milk. A drop of it will bring your grandmother back from the dead.”
“Then I’m going,” I said.
“I must warn you,” Tula said, “the Stellar Nursery is the most inhospitable place in the entire universe. There is only a one-in-ten chance you’ll survive.”
“One in ten?” Bobby said. “No way. I don’t like those odds. I’m not sending my kid brother to his death.”
“I’m going, Bobby,” I said. “I don’t care what you think.”
“Giles, now that Grandma’s gone I’m the oldest. I’m in charge. I’m the head of this household and I forbid you to go.”
“Don’t you care about Grandma?” I said.
“Of course. But…”
“No buts. I’m going.”
“I’ll go with you,” Big Daddy said, leaning against the wall, knees wobbling, standing for the first time in hours, “I’m feeling much better now.”
Tula smiled. “You’re not ready for the Stellar Nursery, Big Daddy.”
“I am,” Bobby said. “I’m going with him.”
“Bobby,” Tula said, “your brother’s chances of survival are greater if he flies without a copilot.”
Toshi offered to fly alongside me in Superfly but Tula wouldn’t allow it. Saving Grandma was my quest.
Five minutes later, Tula and I were alone in the kitchen while I got ready to take off in the flyplane.
She handed me a green vial. “Put the star milk in here.”
“Sure thing.” I stuffed the vial in my pocket. “Tula, I have a favor to ask.”
“Anything, Giles.”
“Listen, this is really hard to say but … but … I don’t want to die without ever having kissed a girl. So can we kiss?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Then you won’t die,” Tula said. “If you die without ever having kissed a girl, it’ll be extremely embarrassing. When you get to heaven they’ll all laugh at you. Oh, here comes Giles. He never kissed a girl. Ha-ha.”
“Well then, I guess I’d better not die.”
She wrapped her arms around me. “You’d better not.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
I HOPPED IN THE FLYPLANE.
We need fuel, Giles.
Give me a riddle, DubDub.
If you spill milk on a dictionary, how do you clean it up?
You mop up vowels with paper towels.
Correct, Giles.
We zipped out the window into the summer night, soaring straight up until we broke through the stratosphere and glided through outer space.
Giles, what we are about to attempt is extremely dangerous.
It’s a risk I have to take, DubDub.
Giles, the pressure inside the Stellar Nursery is fifty thousand pounds per square inch. That’s triple the pressure a deep-sea vessel experiences at the bottom of the ocean. Are you sure you can handle it?
No problem.
Giles, we will have no margin for error.
Me, Giles, commit an error? Come on, DubDub. Get serious.
I may have been acting cocky but I sure didn’t feel it. Wiping my forehead with my shirt, I tried to conceal my cold sweat from the flyplane. I didn’t want DubDub to think it brought a coward into outer space.
The Stellar Nursery loomed up ahead, shrouded in bloody mist, veined with lightning. We were being sucked into it slowly and DubDub didn’t fight the gravitational pull. We kept going toward the black pillars that were light years long.
We descended into the monstrous crib. How could we ever find a measly drop of milk in here? Before I could even begin to worry about that my skin started shriveling. I was impersonating a raisin and it wasn’t much fun. How I didn’t have a broken neck I’ll never know. That’s how bad DubDub shook.
I wished I was back in the sewer with the gatorantula. I never thought I’d miss a gatorantula but I sure did miss it now.
We got hammered by stellar winds, thrashed by boiling gases, pummeled by gamma ray bursts. The light was so blinding I could hardly see. It was so bright my vital organs got a suntan. You know it’s bright out when you’ve got to put SPF 45 on your liver and kidneys.
Just in case you didn’t know, stars are formed by gravity caving in, collapsing under unendurable pressure. Imagine if a hurricane hit an island that had a volcano on it, and the volcano erupted while the hurricane was still blowing, so now, not only do you have five-hundred-mile-per-hour winds to deal with, you’ve also got lava coming at you.
That’s kind of what I was dealing with. But much worse.
My head couldn’t possibly survive this pressure. It was about to explode. I apologized to DubDub for the brain gunk that would soon be splattered all over the control panel.
Do you want to turn back, Giles?
No.
If we go any deeper, you might not survive.
Keep going, DubDub.
Down and down we went into the bright, blazing abyss. I caught sight of an embryonic star through a veil of cosmic dust. A drop of moisture glistened on the rim of its circumstellar disk.
Is that star milk, DubDub?
I’m not sure, Giles. I need to take a closer look.
Suddenly I felt a knifing pain in the center of my chest. My left arm went completely numb. I couldn’t breathe.
A kid my age can’t have a heart attack, can he, DubDub?
The flyplane didn’t answer. It didn’t need to. Of course a kid can have a heart attack when he is stupid enough to enter the Stellar Nursery.
We have to turn back, DubDub. I’m having a heart attack.
DubDub kept going.
Didn’t you hear what I just said?
The flyplane ignored me.
Why aren’t you listening to me, you stupid spaceship?
It remained silent.
I thought I could trust you. I thought you were my friend. I was wrong, wasn’t I, DubDub? Wasn’t I? You betrayed me.
The pain in my chest got ten times worse. Cold sweat drenched my entire body. I vomited.
DubDub collected a glistening drop off the tip of the fledgling star and shot out of the Stellar Nursery through seething vapors and a golden whirlpool of cosmic dust.
We had escaped into calm black space but the serenity was shattered by the anarchy of cardiac arrest.
As a kid you never think about dying but I sure was thinking about it now.
Two pincers shot out of DubDub’s console, gently opened my trembling mouth and dabbed some kind of liquid on my foaming tongue. It tasted like every delicious thing I’d ever sipped. Every butterscotch shake, every hot fudge malt, every can of Mountain Dew, every strawberry-banana-acai smoothie.
The pain in my chest subsided as the joy in my taste buds grew. The trembling and the dizziness and the nausea and the cold sweat vanished.
Not only was I back to normal, I felt fantastic, even better than I did after eating traffic jam. Even better than I did when we rescued Bobby from the Kundabon’s cage.
What happened, DubDub?
I gave you some star milk, Giles.
Is there still some left for Grandma?
There’s more than enough. I’m sorry I disobeyed you, Giles. I had no alternative. If we had turned back without gathering the star milk, you would’ve died.
I sure am glad you disobeyed me, DubDub.
You can trust me, Giles.
I know I can.
A minute later, we were back on Earth, soaring through Grandma’s bedroom window.
Tula tenderly opened Grandma’s mouth. I poured the liquid from the green vial down her throat.
“That’s enough, Giles,” Tula said. “We don’t want to give her too much.”
There was still some star milk left in the vial. I put it in my pocket.
Tula asked everyone but me to go wait out in the living room.
“Giles, you sit here with your grandmother and be patient,” she said. She pressed the button on her briefcase and disappeared.
Big Daddy popped his head into the room and whispered, “You went into the Stellar Nursery and survived. You’re Big Daddy. From now on I’m Almost Big Daddy. My initials are ABD. That stands for Almost Big Daddy.” He quietly shut the door.
I waited all night. At ten in the morning I was still sitting by Grandma’s bed. Finally she opened her eyes. It was the greatest thing that ever happened to me.
“Hi, Grandma,” I said back. “How are you feeling?”
“I feel great.” She sprang out of bed like a ten-year-old.
That star milk is good stuff.
“How long have I been sleeping?” she asked.
“Quite a long time, Grandma.”
“How long would that be?”
“Three days.”
She burst out laughing. “You’re such a kidder.”
I followed her into the living room. They were all gone except for Nikki.
Grandma did a cartwheel across the room and gave my little sister a kiss. She paused, scratched her head. “Am I going senile or did I just do a cartwheel?”
“You just did a cartwheel, Grandma,” I said.
“Well I’ll be…”
“It just goes to show the importance of a good night’s sleep,” Nikki said.
“When I was a child I could cartwheel with the best of ’em,” Grandma said, dumbstruck.
“You haven’t lost your touch, Grandma,” I said.
She grabbed her keys off the kitchen table. “Come on, kids. Let’s get some fresh air. The park is calling.”
Riding down in the elevator, my stomach starte
d churning. I felt jittery, panicky. I felt doomed. What if the androids didn’t turn into trees? Then we would’ve been evicted at midnight, right? Maybe they were waiting, waiting for me to get my hopes up. Then Bang! Off to Desoleen.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
WE STEPPED OUTSIDE into a strangely perfect city. Central Park had been supersized. The trees were taller, thicker, grander. Squirrels in the upper branches were peering down at penthouses. Oaks and maples as tall as redwoods surrounded the Central Park Zoo.
Our building, and all the others that bordered Central Park, now had vertical gardens running from the ground floor up to the roof, lush gardens with sunflowers and roses jutting out over the traffic lights.
People drifted by under a spell of wonder.
“First a cartwheel,” Grandma said. “Now this.”
A canopy of jungle vines hung over Fifth Avenue, tossed by trees inside the park onto street lamps on the other side the street.
“Central Park is part park, part jungle,” Nikki said. “It’s a pungle.”
Bobby came running over. “Isn’t it amazing?”
“Did we do this, Bobby?” I whispered so Grandma wouldn’t hear.
“You’re darn right we did.”
We greedily inhaled an unfamiliar fragrance, a fresh forest scent not of this world.
Over by the boathouse, there grew a sycamore so colossal, no one dared to approach it. A poodle pulled free from its frightened master, pranced forward and peed on it. Everyone cheered. Dogs began to line up to relieve themselves on the towering sycamore. The word must’ve gotten out in the bird community. They were flying in from Connecticut to nest in its lofty branches.
Two dozen reporters stuck microphones in the face of a renowned scientist.
“How do you explain this?” one of them asked.
“I can’t,” said the scientist. “Don’t ask me again.”
He ran away with the reporters in hot pursuit.
The only person happier than us was the mayor.
“I’ll definitely get reelected after this,” he told his bodyguards.
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