by Bill Myers
With every fall, he’d smash or break something in his own body. In minutes, he looked like some grotesque monster with broken bones sticking out every which way.
But he didn’t seem to care.
And the reason was simple. Like everybody else in the world, he no longer felt pain.
I closed my eyes, afraid I’d seen it all. But, of course, I hadn’t. There was still the soccer match . . .
The good news was, we were no longer playing that all-star team of prisoners.
The bad news was, we were no longer feeling any pain.
Most of all me . . .
I’ll save you the gory details (well, most of them anyway). Let’s just say it was a close game and I was my usual brilliant self. Of course, there were a few ruined body parts here and there, but it didn’t matter. After all, since I felt no pain I just kept playing and playing . . . and playing some more.
It didn’t matter that by the third period both of my ankles were broken (which was okay, except for the part of my feet pointing backward). It didn’t matter that I had to use both of my hands to hold my head onto my shoulders. (Who uses hands in soccer, anyway?) What mattered was the score was 3 to 3, and we were coming down to the last 20 seconds of play.
That’s when I snagged the ball from a corner kick. And, as the sweeper, I started up the field, going coast to coast, outmaneuvering every opponent that came my way.
(The fact that my feet pointed backward seemed to confuse them a bit.)
We were down to 15 seconds by the time I reached midfield.
The crowd was on their feet, shouting:
“Wall-y! Wall-y! Wall-y!”
10 seconds.
There was no doubt about it, I was going all the way.
5 seconds.
It was now or never. I leaned back, preparing to deliver a sensational kick, when I suddenly received a sensational
K-STOMP!
by a 372-pound defender (with some very familiar, sharp steel cleats).
I would have loved to ask him if he had a twin brother serving time in prison, but it’s hard to ask anything when you’ve been stomped flatter than a pancake that’s been smashed by a dump truck that’s been rolled over by a steamroller.
And yet, since I felt no pain, I hadn’t lost consciousness. This meant I could go for the penalty kick and possibly score the winning point.
All right, what luck!
Of course, I would have been more lucky if my paper-thin body wasn’t flapping around like a Fourth of July flag in a Fourth of July hurricane. (You try being smashed by a dump truck that’s been rolled over by a steamroller and tell me what you look like.)
Unfortunately, as soon as the ref blew the whistle . . . I blew over.
Un-unfortunately (which I guess is the same as fortunately), I was immediately hit by a powerful gust of wind.
Suddenly, my paper-thin leg flapped harder than Collision’s back leg when she’s digging for fleas.
Suddenlier, I kicked the ball, sending it flying toward the goal.
Suddenliest, the goalie (who’d been rolling on the ground laughing at my flag-flapping routine) let the ball get by and score the winning point!
The crowd went nuts, chanting their usual:
“Wall-y! Wall-y! Wall-y!”
as my team members scraped me off the grass and carried me on their shoulders.
Yes sir, life could not have been better. Once again, I was a star—though a stupendously stomped one.
But even as they carried me toward the locker room, clinging to my legs so I wouldn’t blow away, I knew things still weren’t right. I knew I still had to make one last change.
One that would prevent 372-pound bruisers from flattening soccer stars.
One that would prevent Opera from splat-ting himself on wrestling fans.
One that would prevent drivers from destroying themselves.
Little did I know it would also prevent the country, in fact, the entire earth, from surviving.
Chapter 9
Up, Up, and, Away
“No gravity!” cried the talking air freshener (who sounded a lot like my overactive imagination). “Are you crazy?!”
“No, listen,” I argued. “Without gravity people will no longer get hurt by falling down.”
“You mean you’ll no longer get stomped by overweight soccer players.”
“And Opera will never get hurt because he’ll just float over those wrestling fans, and cars will never crash because they’ll just float over each other. I mean, think of all the problems it will solve.”
“I’m thinking of all the problems you’ve started. Why don’t you just admit that God’s ways are the best and—”
“No, no, no, this will work. I promise you, this will work.”
“All right, then.” He gave a heavy sigh (which smelled a lot like cinnamon-clove-lilac spray). “Starting at midnight there will be no gravity.”
Yes sir, that was pretty much the way I remembered the conversation that night.
And that was pretty much the reality I woke up to the following morning.
For starters, it was fantastic. I mean, just lifting off the covers and floating out of bed was incredible . . .
No cold floors for your bare feet to walk on.
No hallway toys for you to fall over.
And no good way to spit after brushing your teeth.
(Well, all right, but two out of three’s not so bad. Er, two out of four if you count trying to use the toilet.)
Unfortunately, things got a little worse when I floated downstairs to see . . .
“WALLY, glug, glug, HELP, glug, glug, us!”
It was Burt (or was it Brock—whichever one was on leave from the hospital—or was it prison?). It didn’t matter. Like everyone else in my family, he was busy drowning in a giant blob of water that floated in our mansion’s living room!
“What happened?!” I shouted.
“It’s Brock’s (or is it Burt’s?) swimming pool!” Carrie shouted. “All the water has floated up and out of it!”
“And not just the pool!” Dad shouted as he pointed at the news on his eyeglass TV screens, which were busy
K-SNAPPing, K-RACKing, and
K-SHORTing
out from the water. “All of the lakes and even the oceans are floating up and away from their shores!”
Before I could answer, even more water began pouring in. This time from an open door. Apparently a nearby river had also floated out of its banks!
But it wasn’t just water pouring in. There were also:
—people no longer able to walk on the sidewalks,
—cars no longer able to drive on the roads,
—skateboarders no longer able to race illegally through shopping malls.
Everything that had rested on the ground was now floating (including the kitty litter from
cough-cough, gag-gag, spit-spit
“Gross!”
Collision’s cat box!).
Everywhere people were crashing into things . . . and getting crashed into by things. But since there was no pain, it didn’t matter. They just kept crashing and crashing and crashing until they started dying and dying and dying!
Suddenly, what had been a dream had turned into a nightmare!
The phone that drifted by started to ring. I reached up and answered, “Hello!”
“Wally!”
“Wall Street?!” I shouted. “Where are you?”
“I’m on Air Force One, flying into outer space.”
“Outer space?!”
“There’s no gravity to hold my plane down, so we’re flying out-of-control into the cosmos.”
“That’s terrible!”
“No, it’s deadly! I only have a few minutes of oxygen left before I die!”
“Oh, no!” I said.
“Oh, yes!” she said. “And poor Opera, he’s already gone!”
“Gone? ”
“With all that burping, he propelled himself past the moon. And since
he didn’t have any oxygen—”
“You mean . . .” I swallowed. “Opera’s dead?!”
“Hey, he got off lucky. At least he had a great view. But everyone else will be dying from sheer panic and mayhem.”
“This is terrible!” I cried. “What do I do?!”
“You’re the one with the overactive imagination. I thought you’d know.”
Desperately, I looked at the chaos surrounding me—just as a surfer floated out of the kitchen, barely missing my head with his board.
“Listen,” Wall Street continued, “I’d love to chat, but I’ve only got a few more minutes of air. And with all the bad junk I’ve done, I figure I better use the rest of my time praying.”
“But—”
“See ya, Wally. And thanks for everything!” Then, just like that, the phone went dead.
I had to do something! Things were getting worse by the second!
Turning around, I ducked past a rhinoceros floating by (apparently there was no gravity at the zoo, either) and drifted back up the stairs to my room.
Once there, I shut the door and shouted, “Overactive Imagination?!”
There was no answer.
“OVERACTIVE IMAGINATION?!”
Still nothing. Only when the alarm clock floated by, K-thunking me on the head, did I remember why.
It was 8:30 in the morning! I had to wait a whole day until it turned midnight before I could change things!
But that was too long! By then, everyone would be—
Suddenly, the entire house
K-SHUDDERed.
I floated toward the window and looked out to see that a giant iceberg had hit the house.
No, wait a minute. It wasn’t an iceberg. As I peered through the floating snowflakes, I saw that it was just a piece of frozen lake or river or whatever.
But why were there pieces of frozen lakes or rivers or whatever in the middle of May?!
More important, why had it started snowing?!
I threw open the window to see better and was hit by a gust of arctic air. I stuck out my head and looked up and down the street. Everywhere water pipes were bursting and fire hydrants were exploding—the water barely shooting out before it hardened into frozen fountains of ice.
I spotted our mailman floating by trying to catch the letters drifting out of his pouch.
“What’s going on?!” I shouted.
“It’s the s-s-sun!” he said with his teeth chattering. “It’s getting s-s-smaller.”
“That’s impossible!” I cried. But even as I looked up at it, I could see the sun was shrinking. And the more it shrank, the colder it got.
Colder and darker!!
“Wally?” my little sister yelled from the porch below.
I glanced down at her. She was shivering worse than the postman. “I’m s-s-scared. M-m-make it s-s-stop!”
“I don’t know how!” I yelled.
“It’s b-b-because there’s n-n-no gravity!” the mailman chattered.
I looked back at him. His face was turning blue and icicles were growing from his mustache.
He continued. “Without g-g-gravity, the earth c-c-c-an no longer c-c-circle the s-s-sun.”
I turned back to the sun, watching as it continued to shrink. “You mean we’re no longer orbiting the sun?!” I cried. “The whole planet is flying away?!”
“Without gravity, n-n-n-othing is h-h-holding it-t-t i-n-n-n p-p-la . . .” But he never finished the sentence.
I looked back at him and gasped.
The man had completely frozen! His eyes were open in a lifeless stare. His blue face was turning white from the frost and snow collecting on it!
In a panic, I yelled back to my sister. “Carrie, get inside! Get inside and shut the door before you—”
But I was too late.
She was already floating off the porch—her body growing stiff, her face turning blue.
“Carrie, NO!” I screamed. “CARRIE!”
I pushed myself out the window and kicked toward her, shivering so hard I thought my teeth would break. But that was my little sister out there. I had to get to her and help!
Other snow-covered bodies started drifting between us, their expressions also frozen.
All this as the sunlight continued to fade.
“C-C-CARRIE!” I fought my way through the cold, hard bodies. “C-C-C-C-CARRIE . . .”
At last I was able to grab her shoulders. When I spun her around I saw her frost-covered face—her mouth was frozen in a scream, and snowflakes were gathering on the lashes of her cold, lifeless eyes. Eyes frozen in terror.
But not only terror . . . accusation.
Accusation of me!
I jerked back and started tumbling away.
“DEAR GOD!” I shouted. I crashed into another frozen body. I turned until I was looking directly into the face of . . .
“DAD!”
But he gave no answer. His snow-covered face had the same lifeless expression as Carrie’s, the same look of horror . . . and accusation!
Behind him floated my brothers.
“NO!” I shouted toward heaven. “YOU WERE RIGHT; I WAS WRONG. I WAS—”
I came to a stop as I saw another body floating toward me. It was hard to tell who, with the thick coating of frost. But the closer it came, the more terror I felt, until I finally recognized the hair. Though it was covered in snow, there was no mistaking it. It was hair that could only belong to:
“MOM!!!”
She’d come back! She’d come home! But she floated toward me with a face just as lifeless as the others. Her eyes frozen in the same terror and fear.
“NO!” I cried. “PLEASE, NOOO!”
I pushed away, tumbling head over heels out of control. “I DIDN’T KNOW! GOD, YOU WERE RIGHT! I DIDN’T KNOW!!”
I bumped into more bodies. All frozen. It was too dark to see who they were. Too dark to see anything now. I felt the tears on my cheeks turning to ice, my own body stiffening, becoming harder and harder to move, tumbling and spinning and screaming:
“PLEASE . . . GOD, PLEASE, TAKE OVER . . . PLEASE . . . PLEASE . . .”
Chapter 10
Wrapping Up
“Wally . . . Wally, wake up . . .”
It almost sounded like Wall Street’s voice, but it was too far away for me to be sure.
Another voice asked, “I hit him pretty hard. Is he going to be all right?”
“Sure.” The first voice started getting louder. “In fact, if you’ve got twenty bucks, I’ll let you hit him again.”
(Yup, that was definitely Wall Street.)
It took all my effort to pry open my eyes (frozen eyelids can be a little hard to open). When I finally succeeded, I saw that the sun had come back!
All right!
In my excitement, I tried sitting up—but the pain shooting through my chest suggested I’d better get a couple of new ribs first.
Wait a minute . . . PAIN? I was feeling pain? How cool was that?!
“Hey, Wally, burp, you going to be okay?”
I turned toward fumes that smelled a lot like Chippy Chipper potato chips and, sure enough, there was Opera staring down at me! And it was the old Opera! Not the three-thousand-pound Opera! Not the mean, bully Opera! Just the good ol’ Vice President of Dorkoids Anonymous
BURP
Opera.
“What happened?” I asked. “Where am I?”
“Soccer tryouts,” Wall Street explained. “You got hit kinda hard by Sophie here.”
I turned to see Sophie Stompuregut staring down at me with a bunch of the other kids from the school team.
“You’re back,” I croaked.
“From where?” she asked.
“From teaching coloring to preschoolers.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t you remember?” I asked. “When I became the world’s greatest soccer player, you quit playing because—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Suddenly, her hands were on her hips wit
h that supercompetitive look in her eyes. “Since when did you become a better soccer player than me?”
“Since my overactive imagination imagined I was.” Then the entire team broke out laughing, including Coach Hurtumuch.
“I gotta tell you, McDoogle,” he said, “only you’d have a big enough imagination to come up with that one.”
“You mean I didn’t become a major soccer pro?” I asked.
Repeat in the laughter department.
“You mean I’m not one of the richest guys in the world?”
“Not yet,” Wall Street said, shrugging, “but if you stick with me, it’s bound to happen . . . at least for one of us.”
I lifted my head and looked around. “So what exactly happened?”
“You just had one of your McDoogle mishaps, that’s all,” Wall Street said. “You’ve been unconscious for the last four or five minutes.”
“You mean nothing’s changed?” I asked.
“Nothing except the time you’ve wasted lying around on my field,” Coach Hurtumuch said.
I closed my eyes. Was it possible? Had it all been a dream? If that was true, then everything was back to normal—me, my family, my friends, the world . . .
“Do you think you can stand?” Wall Street asked.
I nodded as she and Opera helped me to my feet.
I still couldn’t believe it, and I was still a little suspicious. Maybe my overactive imagination was being even more overly imaginative.
“Listen,” Wall Street whispered to me. “Hurry up and get better. I got people willing to pay good money to see you get creamed again.”
No, that was too real to be my imagination. It had to be just normal, everyday Wall Street living in my normal, everyday reality.
And so, as the rest of the soccer team returned to their tryouts, my two best friends carried me off the field and plopped me safely on the end of the players’ bench.
Well, they had planned to plop me safely on the end of the players’ bench. It wasn’t their fault that the opposite end shot up into the air.
And you really couldn’t blame them that the team’s water cooler had been placed on that end.
Yes sir, it was poetry in motion, watching that water cooler sail high into the air, gracefully reaching its height and starting to plummet back down (ah, good ol’ gravity) until it—“Wally, look out!”—
