Out of This World (7 page)

Zachary whistled. That was quick thinking on Jenna’s part. He had let his temper get the best of him—and not for the first time. But on this journey, unlike back at home, his life could well depend upon his ability to control this temper.

As they started to move again, Zachary took one last look at the animal they had almost hit. “I’ve heard of road hogs before,” he joked, “but I always thought that this was just a figure of speech.” He turned to his sister. “Good job, Jenna. See, I knew you might come in handy. Let this be a valuable lesson for you: never doubt your brother.”

Jenna rolled her eyes, but it did feel great to have actually been a help, especially after Zack had saved her from getting hit by Hirth’s car. Was the Omega-wave generator working? She did feel stronger and her thoughts did seem to be coming faster and more clearly. In fact, she felt terrific. What a discovery her parents had made. If only they could get back home so they could give it to the world.

A few minutes later they came to the branch-point in the road, just as Hirth had said. They were making good time. Zachary estimated that they would get to the portal with five or ten minutes to spare.

They quickly spotted the booth the man had told them about, sitting near an old-fashioned red brick well, complete with a wood bucket and crank, as promised. Protruding from the booth, about three feet off the ground, was a beam of wood with a small indentation at the end. A ping-pong ball was sitting in the indentation. It was on Jenna's side.

Zachary had the car park itself beside the ball so his sister could grab it without getting out. Jenna reached out eagerly for the ball, but before her fingers had closed around it her hand brushed against it and knocked it from its perch.

The ball bounced, almost falling into the well, which would have been disastrous. Jenna bolted from the car after it. It began rolling down a slight incline by the side of the street. She almost had it. Almost. She reached.

The ball disappeared down a hole.

“No!” she shrieked.
It couldn't be
.

She had been so close. She knelt down to examine the hole and Zachary joined her a second later. What kind of hole was this and what could it possibly be doing here? It was concrete, as big around as a soda can, and it went straight down for fifteen or twenty feet. The odds against the ball rolling into this small opening were astronomical.

“How could I be so clumsy?” she groaned.

Zachary frowned deeply. They were in big trouble. How was it possible for their luck to be this bad? They sat by the hole and stared down at the ball resting at the bottom, far below, mocking them. It was the ultimate torture. The ball was right under their noses, but it might as well have been a thousand miles away.

And without the information inside the ball, they were as good as fungus food.

CHAPTER NINE

Blocked

Zachary was furious with the universe for playing such a dirty trick on them. He felt like screaming at the top of his lungs, but instead forced himself to take several deep breaths, determined not to lose his temper again like he had in the car. He looked at the watch Hirth had given him. “We'd better go, Jen. We still might get lucky and guess the right road. We have a one in five chance,” he said with as much hope as he could manage.

Jenna had never felt so bad. Maybe she deserved to be turned into a human fungus. She had helped them avoid the giant hog, but now she had gone and pulled an idiotic move like fumbling the ping-pong ball. They were going to suffer a fate worse than death and it was all her fault. She lowered her head and began to sob. All the fear and emotion she had kept bottled up came out at once. The tears cascaded down her face and onto the pavement.

Zachary felt bad for his sister. Given what had happened they were working together as a team, but even when they were at each other’s throats he hated to see Jenna so upset that she cried. Maybe he could say something to help.

“It's okay, Jen,” he said gently, watching the tears fall from her face.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

“It wasn't your fault. I mean, yeah, you were super clumsy and all, but it was just really bad luck that the ball fell into that tiny opening.”

His attempt to comfort her didn’t help. In fact, if anything her sobbing got stronger. He replayed what he had said in his mind. Maybe he should have left out the “yeah, you were super clumsy,” part. That probably wasn’t helpful. He had finally found something he stunk at: being supportive. Lifting his sister up rather than tearing her down.

Drip-drip. Drip-drip. Drip-drip.

He shook his head helplessly. Jenna’s tears were falling onto the pavement even faster now, forming a tiny stream that inched forward toward the hated hole.

Zachary bolted upright.

Toward the hole.

“That's it!” he shouted. “Jen, you've done it! We still have a chance.” Without waiting for a response he rose and raced over to the well, turning the crank furiously to lower the bucket. He was rewarded seconds later by the sound of the bucket splashing down far below.

“Yessss!” he shouted happily. The well had plenty of water. He waited for the bucket to fill and then hurriedly cranked it back up.

Jenna stopped crying and watched in confusion as her brother raced around like a lunatic. He sprinted back carrying the bucket, ignoring the water splashing him as he ran. He knelt down and gently began pouring the water into the concrete hole.

And then Jenna understood.
Of course.

Just as Zachary had hoped, the ball floated on top of the rising column of water. He continued pouring slowly as the ball rose, closer and closer to the top.

“It’s a good thing you’re so weak and emotional,” he said to his sister. “Because your crying gave me the idea.”

Jenna glared at him and shook her head.

“What?” he said defensively. “I was just telling you that you helped us. You’re not stupid enough to take that the wrong way, are you?”

Right after these words left his mouth, Zachary cursed himself. Wow, beating his sister down had become such a reflex that he could barely control himself. And until their discussion before leaving home, he wouldn’t have even realized he was doing it.

While he had been thinking, he continued to pour water into the hole, and the ball finally floated to the very top, easily accessible to their fingers. Zachary grabbed it and anxiously broke it open. Inside was a small piece of paper with the number three written on it.

They ran to the car and quickly instructed it to take road three at maximum speed. Zachary looked at his watch. “I think we’re still going to make it.”

Jenna couldn’t have been more relieved. By mishandling the ball she had nearly cost them everything. “Any idea of what this is all about?” she asked her brother. If she could help him figure things out, even in a small way, maybe she could redeem herself.

Zachary shook his head.

“How did Hirth and Wyland know we were looking for Mom and Dad?” said Jenna.

“I don’t know,” replied Zachary. “Maybe they saw them come through the portal, too. Maybe when they saw
us
, they just figured the adult humans must have been our parents.”

“Maybe,” said Jenna. “But they were pretty certain. Maybe they know there’s a portal in the kitchen of the Lane family.”

Zachary frowned. Neither explanation was very good. “Maybe we should start at the beginning. What do we know? We know a portal appeared and swallowed Mom and Dad. Since we haven’t exactly heard about portals before, we have to assume this hasn’t ever happened on Earth.”

“Or at least not very often.”

“Right. So the first question is, what caused it to appear? It could just be some weird natural event that we don’t know about that happens when conditions are just right. Like a tornado. Nobody causes it; it just happens.”

“Maybe. But I doubt it. I think this one was created on purpose.”

Zachary frowned. “You’re probably right. I mean, what are the odds that it would appear exactly underneath Mom and Dad? A billion to one?”

“You don’t think Dad had something to do with this, do you?” said Jenna. Their father worked on some far-out stuff like black holes and ten-dimensional space.  

Zachary thought about it for a second. “Nah,” he said. “I asked him once if he thought we’d ever invent a way to travel between worlds without using a spaceship. He said that with or without a spaceship, it would be a very long time before we figured out how to travel such great distances—if ever. And if he
was
responsible, he would have told us—I mean he would have had the Mimic Bird tell us—so we’d know what we were up against.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” She scratched her head. “Besides, this world seems to have had a lot of these portals for a long time, and Dad couldn’t have been responsible for
them
.” Jenna paused. “But if someone did create the portal on purpose, maybe their goal was to get Mom and Dad. Maybe they were kidnapped.”

“I don’t think so,” said Zachary. “They didn’t say they were prisoners.”

“Maybe whoever did this knew Mom and Dad could never get back to Earth. Maybe that was the plan. Maybe it was a jealous physicist who wanted Dad out of the way, or maybe even a chemist who wanted Mom out of the way.” Jenna sighed, realizing how silly she must be sounding and then, grinning broadly, added, “Or maybe it was the intergalactic bad-cooking police finally catching up to Mom.”

A smile flashed across Zachary’s face. “One thing’s for sure; we don’t have nearly enough information to answer any of these questions . . . yet. Let’s just hope we can learn more on the next world.”

Jenna nudged her brother who hadn’t been watching the road. “Zack, about getting to the next world—I think we have another problem.”

Zachary looked up and groaned.

What incredibly bad luck. Again.

They were rapidly approaching the lowest concrete overpass he had ever seen. “I can’t believe it. The transparent man warned us about this. The car won’t fit under it. Why would anyone build one so low over the road?” he complained. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

They pulled up until they were just in front of the overpass. Zachary had the car inch forward towards it. Closer. Closer. Maybe the car would be able to squeeze under, after all. They were going to make it.

THUNK. The top of the car connected firmly with the overpass and the car stopped. They couldn’t go under it, and there was no way around it, either.
Just great
.

“Now what?” said Jenna. If they couldn’t get through, they had no chance to make it to the portal in time. And they weren’t about to get help. They hadn’t seen a single car on the road since the hog incident. Maybe the residents of Orum really
didn’t
use cars.

Zachary consulted his pad. “Hirth told us to
lower the vehicle’s airplane
if we came across this overpass. Those were his exact words.”

They searched the car and trunk as thoroughly as possible, but didn’t find anything, let alone an airplane.

“Why would he tell us to lower the car’s airplane, if there is no airplane?” said Jenna.

Her brother shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said. “It looks like we’re on our own. We’d better figure out
something
.”

Zachary jumped out of the car and climbed onto its roof to examine the situation. Jenna joined him. The top of the car was about two inches too high to make it under the insanely low bridge. The car frame was solid steel and the bridge was solid concrete.

“Let’s try jumping up and down,” suggested Jenna. “Maybe we can cave the roof in enough to get through.”

“Okay,” said Zachary, jumping as high as he could and trying to slam his feet into the roof as hard as possible. Jenna joined him. After about a minute of trying, however, the roof wasn't so much as scratched. It was hopeless.

They got back into the car. “We’re going to have to try to
ram
it through,” said Zachary.

“Ram it? It’s far too solid. We’ll never make it—and we’ll probably kill ourselves.”

“What’s our other choice?” said Zachary. “Becoming human fungus?”

Jenna grimaced. “Well, when you put it
that
way . . . ”

They backed the car up about thirty yards, tightened their seatbelts and shoulder harnesses, and ordered the car to drive full speed ahead. As the car accelerated they closed their eyes. In another second it would be over. One way or another.

With a terrible screech the top of the car hit the overpass, slamming its two passengers into their belts with bone-jarring force before coming to a complete stop an instant later. Fortunately for them the seatbelts and the car were well made and they escaped serious injury. The front part of the roof had been caved in by the impact, but not enough. The car had only made it halfway and was now wedged tightly under the bridge.

Their situation had been hopeless before.

Now it was far worse.

CHAPTER TEN

Tendrils

Zachary brought down his fist, hammer-like, on the steering wheel. “That’s it. We’re finished. We’re trapped like a cork. How could our luck be so bad! First the ping-pong ball, and now this. And the only instructions we get from Mr. See-Through involve an imaginary airplane.”

Jenna had an odd feeling there was something she had missed. The Omega waves coming from the generator were working their magic and she was thinking quite clearly. She closed her eyes, deep in concentration. “Wait a minute,” she said. “Would they have called an airplane an airplane?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Would Hirth and Wyland have used the word
airplane
to describe an airplane? Remember they kept calling the car a g
round vehicle
. If they were talking about what we call an airplane they would have called it an
air vehicle
. Hirth must have meant something else.”

“You’re probably right,” agreed Zachary. “But what else could he have meant?”