by Geoff Rodkey
The tethers snapped taut. We all looked up. The balloon was so high in the air that when a head popped over the side of the basket to look down at us, it took me a moment to figure out which family member it belonged to.
It was Venus. She waved at us, excited. Pembroke and Millicent waved back. We watched the balloon hover overhead for a while, then Pembroke nodded to a pair of nearby servants and turned back toward the house.
“They’ll be up there a good while. Now, son—what can we do to give you a happy birthday?”
My cheeks flushed at the question. No one had ever asked me something like that before. But I figured out an answer pretty quickly.
“Wouldn’t mind another game of croquet.”
“All right,” Millicent said brightly. “But I’ll most likely trounce you silly.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Mr. Percy, why don’t you accompany us back to the house?” asked Pembroke. “I’m sure Millicent’s tutor would be delighted to exchange professional wisdom with you.”
“Wonderful,” said Percy, his eyes showing dread. Unless Millicent’s tutor was a complete fraud as well, this probably wasn’t going to go well for him.
As we all started back toward the house, I turned around for one last look at the balloon, swaying on its tethers hundreds of feet in the sky.
Don’t come down, I thought to myself.
MILLICENT AND I went back to the croquet pitch. We began a new game, and she quickly started trouncing me.
Worse, without Adonis and Venus to knock heads against, our conversation turned stiff and awkward. My brain had gone back into a cramp, and I struggled to put together even the stupidest answer to her stream of questions.
“So your father’s got a plantation? Does that make him a farmer? Or a planter? Is there a difference? What do you plant?”
“Don’t… plant… anything.”
“How’s that possible? You must plant something. It’s a plantation! Or perhaps it’s just a ruse. Are you really engaged in something else? Something secret and dastardly? Are you pirates after all?”
“No, no…” I was getting all flustered, not just because of my brain cramp but because I couldn’t figure out how to stand between turns—whether to prop my mallet over my shoulder, or set it down and lean against it, or cross my arms with the head sticking up over the crook of one elbow.
I tried all three. None of them felt right. Trying to find a fourth option, I dropped the mallet on my foot. Millicent watched me with a kind of amused suspicion.
“I think you are. Look at you—you’re hiding something. I’m going to have Daddy take this up with the garrison commander. They’ll get to the bottom of it. Torture you if they have to. We’ll flush you out, you dirty criminals.”
“No, look… it’s already planted. You just pick the fruit.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere! What kind of fruit?”
I sighed. “Ugly fruit.”
“Eeew. What’s that?”
“Just a fruit.”
“Strange name. Who wants to eat something called ugly fruit? What’s it like? Tell me. Is it reeeeeally ugly?”
“I guess so. It’s sort of big and lumpy.”
“How’s it taste?”
“I don’t know. Like a… boring orange.”
“That’s funny. Do you pick it yourselves? You and your brother and sister?”
“No. Well, they don’t. I do, a bit. Mostly we’ve got field hands. Just… well, they don’t all have hands.”
She looked at me curiously, leaning lightly on her mallet. I made a note to stand that way myself the next time.
“The field hands don’t have hands?”
“Some of them. It’s complicated.”
“You’re not like them, are you?”
“The field hands?”
“No. Your brother and sister. You don’t even look like them. Your hair’s lighter. It’s curly, too. And you’re missing that big horse nose they all have. And your name! How did that happen?”
“I don’t know. It’s not my fault.” I suddenly felt like pushing her over.
“Don’t get mad. I didn’t say it was.”
“I don’t like my name.”
“So what do people call you?”
“Egbert.”
“But you don’t like it.”
“So?”
“You should come up with something you like.”
“You can’t change your name.”
“Course you can. Give yourself a nickname. Like Egg. Or Bert. Or Grumpy.”
I passed her as she said this, on my way to my ball, and she gave me a playful shove on the shoulder. Her touch made my stomach flutter—I both liked it and didn’t like it at the same time.
“Do you fancy any of those? I mean, not Grumpy. Obviously.”
“Egg’s all right.”
“All right, then. You’re Egg. ‘Hello, Egg!’ How’s that sound?”
My ball was in a tough spot. To reach the next wicket, I’d somehow have to get around hers. Between working out all the angles of the shot and choosing a new name, I was starting to feel overwhelmed.
I shut my eyes for a moment. That made me dizzy, so I opened them again.
“‘Morning, Egg!’ ‘What’s Egg think about that?’ ‘Could you pass the salt please, Egg?’ Well? What do you think?”
“It’s all right.”
“Loads better than Egbert. All right, then! It’s settled. When the others come back, we’ll tell ’em that’s your name from now on.”
“They won’t care.”
She considered this for a moment. “No, I suppose not. You don’t get on much with them, do you?”
“Not much.”
“You know why? Because they’re horrid. And you’re not. Don’t you think?”
“Maybe.” Hearing her say I wasn’t horrid set my stomach fluttering again.
She dropped her voice a notch, taking the sparkle out of it. “That’s completely daft about your mum, you know. They’re absolutely wrong. And anyway, I think you’re lucky you don’t have a mother.”
“What?”
She looked over her shoulder at the big yellow mansion. “I’ve got one. And she’s beastly.”
“She doesn’t look beastly.”
“Of course, she’s quite beautiful. But the worst ones always are.”
I was confused, and I must have looked it, because she made an exaggerated show of disbelief. “Don’t you know? Come now, Egg. All the books you’ve read, and you don’t know beautiful women are evil?”
“They’re not always. You’re beautiful, and you’re not evil.”
I hadn’t meant to say that—it just sort of fell out of my mouth before I could stop it. Millicent blushed, which until then I wouldn’t have thought was possible.
“Are you courting me?”
“No—I—sorry! I didn’t mean… well, I did, just not… I shouldn’t have said it.”
I quickly turned away and gave my ball a whack. It struck hers hard, carrying it a good twenty feet off the wicket.
“And now you’ve knocked me out of position! Of all the nerve!”
“Sorry!”
Panicky that I’d ruined everything, I rushed over and picked up her ball. As I ran back to return it to its original spot, she began to laugh.
“That’s against the rules! You’re making a complete hash of things!”
“I’m sorry! Here—” I handed her the ball. “Put it wherever you like. I don’t mind.”
As she took the ball, she smiled at me.
It wasn’t a big smile—no teeth, just the mouth turned up at the corners, with a little crinkle of warmth around her eyes.
But it conquered me completely. As time went on, that smile became the thing that I lived for—the answer to every question, the solution to every problem, the image that during even the worst moments I could call up in my mind to remind me that this was what was worth the struggle and the pain.
Even now, I can stil
l see it as clearly as if she’s standing in front of me, eyes locked on mine, filling me with bliss.
I stood drowning in that smile, so lost to the world that even after Millicent broke away with a look of alarm, it took a few seconds for me to register the sound of voices shouting on the lower lawn.
I followed her dumbly as she started off toward the voices, then pulled up short, her head tilting upward.
The red balloon was floating through the sky toward us, rising and gathering speed as it went, the four tethers twisting in the breeze beneath it.
Then it was past us, and I saw the dark outlines of heads poking out over the basket. They were calling to us, but I couldn’t hear the words.
Then we were running after it, Millicent yelling as her father and Percy emerged from the veranda and joined the pursuit, running until we ran out of lawn and had to back off to keep it in view over the trees.
I heard Percy curse with astonishment. Then I felt a strong hand on my shoulder. Roger Pembroke’s face was grave.
“I’m sorry, son. There must have been an accident. We’ll fix it.”
He squeezed my shoulder and gave me a confident nod, and whatever fear was rising beneath the fog of confusion in my head instantly melted away—somehow, his look and touch had the magical effect of convincing me that he was in charge, and as long as I trusted him, everything would be okay.
Then he turned and ran toward the lower lawn, where the servants’ shouting was dying down. I turned my attention back to the sky. Within a minute, the balloon had shrunk to a thumbnail over the shoulder of Mount Majestic, blurring into the reddish light of the setting sun.
A minute after that, it was gone for good.
IN THE CLOUDS
Tell me, Egg—what do you know about the Fire King?”
It was ninety minutes after my family had disappeared, and I was sitting with the Pembrokes at a giant slab of a table in the formal dining room of Cloud Manor, which I’d just learned was the name of their mansion.
It was strange—I’d never heard of a house with its own name—but so were a lot of things, all at once: I was wearing a silk shirt, and I’d just had a hot bath, and upstairs was a feather bed in a big room with huge windows that I’d been told was mine to sleep in, and all through dinner the Pembrokes had treated me as an honored guest, offering me first helpings of everything and calling me Egg, which no one had ever called me before.
And of course I’d just watched my family sail away over the horizon in a giant runaway balloon. That was shock enough all on its own, and to suddenly find myself living like a grand duke right on top of it was so disorienting that I’d started to feel like I’d slipped loose from reality and was floating in some kind of dream world, where any second the room might fill up with flying dragons and unicorns.
So I guess it’s understandable that when Roger Pembroke asked me about some king I’d never heard of, I wasn’t levelheaded enough to wonder why he was asking, or to answer with anything smarter than “The what king?”
Millicent piped up. “The Fire King! Hutmatozal. Don’t you know the legend?”
“No. Sorry. Is he Rovian?”
Pembroke chuckled. “Oh, heavens, no. He was a savage. Ruled the Natives in this area about a hundred years ago. Your father and I—”
“You don’t know about the Fire King’s treasure? Or the Fist of Ka? It’s absolutely—”
“Millicent.” Pembroke stopped her with a little wave of his fingers. Then he turned back to me. “Your father and I were speaking. He showed me a parchment he had with him. In Native writing. Do you know where it came from?”
“Not exactly.”
“What do you mean?”
He leaned forward, his ice-blue eyes watching me closely. I thought very hard. If this was some kind of test, I wanted to make him happy by passing it.
“I think he copied it. From something he’d found. There’s a cliff up above our house, called Rotting Bluff. Looks out over the sea. We keep a cannon there, just in case. Every so often, Dad goes up to clean it. He went up yesterday. Came back sort of… distant. Like he was thinking hard about something. Went out again, same direction. Only that time, he took a parchment and pencil. Then this morning, he brought us here. To talk to the lawyer about it, I think.”
“Did he tell anyone else about it?”
“I can’t imagine. He doesn’t talk very much. Not to anybody.”
“Not business associates? Or friends…?”
“Don’t think he has any of those.”
“Which?”
“Either.”
Pembroke was sitting back in his chair now, his eyes still fixed on me. His look made me nervous. I couldn’t tell if I’d said too much, or not enough.
Millicent jumped in again. “Daddy’s an expert on the Fire King. He’s got loads of books about Natives, and he’s searched all over Sunrise for the Fist.” She turned to him. “What was in the parchment, Daddy? Was it a clue to—”
He cut her off. “It was nothing, Millicent. Native gibberish.”
Then he smiled at me, which was a huge relief. “Thank you, Egg. It makes sense now. Millicent’s right—I’m fascinated by Native history. It’s quite a challenge, trying to separate what’s actually true from all the wild legends about magic trinkets that don’t exist.”
“Since when don’t you think it exists?” asked Millicent, scrunching up her nose.
“Since my thinking’s matured, sweetheart. It’s good fun, but it’s nonsense. A tale for schoolchildren.” He smiled at me again, with a kind look. “I had the impression your father was keen on the subject as well. Now I see it was just a coincidence.”
“Why don’t we serve dessert?” suggested Mrs. Pembroke.
“Yes, let’s!” Millicent leaned across the table. “Close your eyes, Egg—you’ll love this.”
“Precious, he doesn’t need to close his eyes—”
“Of course he does, Daddy! It’s a birthday surprise! Don’t be stupid.”
“Millicent,” said her mother, in a tone that gave that one word a whole sentence of meaning: don’t-call-your-father-stupid-or-there’s-going-to-be-trouble.
“Mo-ther,” replied Millicent, meaning I’ll-say-what-I-want-just-try-and-stop-me.
In my house, there would have been a smacking for that. But Mr. Pembroke just smiled at his daughter like he was amused, while Mrs. Pembroke bunched her eyebrows together but said nothing.
“Come on, Egg! Be a sport.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. In a moment, I heard the kitchen door open. Then came footsteps, along with the unmistakable smell of jelly bread. A tray clanked onto the table.
“All right, then—open them!”
A steaming loaf of fresh jelly bread lay before me. The words “Happy Birthday, Egg!” were written in white frosting across the top.
As I stared at it, stunned, the Pembrokes—along with the three servants who were in the room—all cried out, “Happy Birthday!”
I started to cry.
It was horribly embarrassing, and from the looks on the Pembrokes’ faces, it was more than a little awkward for them, but I just couldn’t help it. No one had ever been nice to me like that before. And I’d long since learned never to cry over pain or cruelty, but I didn’t know what to do with kindness. I was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to cry about it, but the tears just started leaking out and I didn’t know how to stop them.
Mrs. Pembroke must have gotten the wrong idea, because she got up and came over to kneel beside my chair, her soft hand on my arm.
“Don’t you worry about a thing,” she said. “Mr. Pembroke is a very resourceful man, and he’s going to do everything in his power to make sure your family comes back safely to you. All right, darling?”
I nodded. Just the mention of my family did a decent job of stopping the tears.
“Thank you,” I said, wiping my eyes. “Can we eat this now?”
I’ll say this for jelly bread: it was worth the thirteen years I’d waited
to taste it. And when she saw how much I liked it, Mrs. Pembroke made sure we ate it every night, for the entire time I stayed at Cloud Manor.
IN THE END, I was there three full weeks—the happiest, most carefree weeks of my life, so different from everything that came before and after that when I look back, they almost seem to have belonged to someone else. I spent the days tagging along after Millicent like a puppy, going from lessons with her tutor to croquet games to horseback rides in the hills below Mount Majestic to long, lazy hours reading in the library.
The library was my favorite—it was enormous, lined with bookshelves so tall you needed a ladder to reach the upper rows. Early on, I found the Native books Millicent had mentioned—there were a dozen of them, up on a high shelf, and although they were written mostly in Cartager, there were a few titles in Rovian, like Savage Tribes and Customs and Across the Maw: Cartager Conquests in the New Lands. I tried to look at them because I thought it might impress Mr. Pembroke if I could discuss one of his interests with him, but the ladder to reach the shelf had gone missing, and no matter how often I asked, the servants never could seem to find it.
I’m not quite sure where Percy went during these weeks. There were loads of servants at Cloud Manor—between the mansion, stables, grounds, and greenhouse, there must have been dozens—but they kept out of sight, scurrying around the edges of wherever we were but otherwise in their own secret world. Once my family disappeared, Pembroke must have shuffled Percy off into this world so deftly that I barely noticed he was gone.
So it came as a shock when he appeared at my elbow one afternoon in the stables. He was in a servant’s uniform, holding a currycomb and wearing a furtive look.
“Master Egbert! You look well. Food’s good, eh?”
I was too stunned to answer—not just by his sudden reappearance but by the fact that he’d called me Master. And rather than sneering, he seemed to want to impress me.
As I stared at him, one of the other servants exited a distant stall and, seeing us talking, began to stride toward us. Percy lowered his voice and quickened his speech.
“Want you to know I’ve always felt you got a bit of a raw deal with the old family, rather too hard on you, never MY idea certainly—”
