Steemjammer: Through the Verltgaat (10 page)

Holding his injured side, Will stared at the pit. “Shadovecht are real,” he thought again. Remembering his sister, he went through the hole and ran to the staircase to the second floor, followed by Gus.

“Angelica?” he called and started to make the secret knock on a wall, letting her know all was safe.

He gaped as a bronze steemcannon on a wheeled wooden carriage slowly rolled into position at the top of the steps. It normally pointed out the gun port, but his sister pushed it over.

“Stop!” he shouted. “It’s trapped now. Why aren’t you in your safe place?”

Angelica looked downstairs and gasped with astonishment. “Gus! You’re real!”

The little gnome froze in place.

“Don’t you dare!” she said, running down the steps. “I saw you move, just like that time before.”

“You realize you’re talking to a garden gnome,” Giselle said, still unsure of what she’d seen.

Angelica shrieked. The heavy cannon now rolled by itself, about come down the steps at her.

Unfreezing, little Gus dashed up the staircase amazingly fast. Grabbing a piece of splintered wood, he wedged it against one of the cannon’s wheels and stopped it. He turned to face Giselle.

“Garden gnome?” Gus huffed indignantly. “Noyn,
Guardian
gnome, I am.”

“I knew it!” Angelica said with delight. “I knew I saw you talking to Dad!”

“Ya, but seen I not should be. Hiding, ya? Hiding until the danger, then hoy! Guardian of the Steemjammers! Ya? Stand under me?”

“You mean do I understand? I think so.”

Seeing something, Gus froze again, becoming still.

“What on earth was that thing?” said a shaky voice behind them. “Or was it something from off this earth?”

The Steemjammer kids slowly turned. Ron Norman stood in the ruined doorway of Beverkenhaas. He wore a baby blue terrycloth robe, and his fuzzy slippers were on the wrong feet. His eyes were wide as saucers, and he wielded a mop like a medieval halberd.

“Uh oh,” thought Will.

Chapter
10

alfonz zeldemthoos

“Oh my,” said the white-haired man from across the street.

He stood there awkwardly, studying the damage. Will’s head filled with worry. Would the man call the police? How could he explain this, and what if someone noticed his parents were missing? Would they take him and his sister away?

“What are you doing?” Giselle asked the neighbor.

“Oh,” Ron said sheepishly, acknowledging the mop in his hands, “I came over to see if you needed help, and this was the only, er, weapon I could find.” He laughed nervously. “I was hoping ….” Embarrassed, he let his words trail off. “I was hoping to scare the robot away. Stupid idea, I guess. You took care of it, right?”

Assuming he meant the Shadovecht, Will nodded. The man relaxed a little but still had trouble making eye contact. His hands shook.

“You must tell me, p-please,” Ron pleaded. “What p-planet are you from?”

They stared at him like he was from Mars.

“What planet?” Giselle asked.

“You can’t hide it anymore,” he blurted. “You’re obviously
aliens
!”

An uncomfortable silence filled the air.

“Do we look like aliens?” Angelica asked.

“You could be in disguise,” Ron argued, “and frankly, they need work, especially yours. No one has hair that sticks up like that!”

She made a face. “I do!”

“Sorry,” Ron said, stepping back. “Nothing personal. Look, that robot shut down all electronics in the house – without touching anything - including battery powered phones. Tell me that isn’t alien technology.”

Ron’s curiosity conquered his fear. Before they could say anything, questions flowed from him like a river. “Are you from Alpha Centauri? Farther? Can you travel faster than light? What’s your power source? Anti-matter?”

“Steam?” Giselle offered hesitantly, not really sure what he was asking.

“What?” Ron said, completely baffled. “Please, don’t toy with me. I saw a UFO when I was a kid, up at the lake. I know there’s other life out there!”

Will had to fight back a grin as he realized what he needed to do. He had to get Ron to tell his wife to leave them alone by saying they were, in fact, dangerous space aliens. However, it wasn’t true, and he found he couldn’t spit out the words. What was wrong with him?

This was for their safety and security, he told himself, but still, he couldn’t speak. Frustration showed on his face. Fearing it was anger, Ron blanched.

“All right,” Will managed to get out. “We’re from another world.”

That was true, so he’d been able to say it. Beverkenverlt clearly wasn’t earth.

“I have no Social Security number,” Giselle added, guessing what he was up to.

“Of course not,” Ron said, struggling to comprehend.

“We can’t say exactly where we’re from,” Will admitted truthfully, “and you wouldn’t understand our power source. We use elements that you people don’t know about.”

“Like Tracium,” Angelica said.

Getting an idea, Will scowled at the man. “Tell me. Why is the female who lives with you so angry with us? She’s been most annoying.”

Ron blanched. “Sh-she can’t help it. Please, don’t judge our entire race by her.
She’s defective
!”

Will would have burst out laughing except that he was so worried about himself. He’d only needed to tell a little fib, but he couldn’t. Even allowing the man to believe untruths was hard. He’d always had this problem, and he didn’t know why.

“We’re not aliens,” he was compelled to say, but the neighbor, who was convinced otherwise, seemed not to hear.

***

“That went better than I’d expected,” Giselle said.

True, Will thought. By luck, Ron had concluded on his own that he should inform Waverly that highly advanced space aliens lived across the street. He assured them he’d keep her locked in the basement. “For her own good,” he’d added, “and for the sake of Planet Earth.”

But Ron wasn’t finished. He’d begged them for a flying saucer ride – and to supply the earth with an infinite amount of free, totally clean energy – and to take away everyone’s nuclear bombs – and to stop fighting their “robot war” on his planet. Will managed to tell him he’d work on it. Ron had left with a boyish grin plastered across his beaming face, whistling a merry tune.

Angelica, who’d also told him they weren’t aliens but had been ignored, huffed indignantly. “I thought we weren’t supposed to lie.”

“I didn’t,” Will said. “I told him I’d work on it, not do it. Besides, we have to think about survival.”

Even that had greatly bothered him.

“Lying is not right,” Angelica harped. “Mom and Dad say so.”

“Yeah,” Will admitted. “But we told him we weren’t aliens, and he didn’t believe us.”

“Will didn’t cause any real harm,” Giselle said.

Angelica pouted. “That poor man thinks he’s getting a flying saucer ride. He was so happy he whistled!”

“Look, it’s not lying to let someone believe what they want. Didn’t Onkel Henry tell you about ‘deeper truths’?”

“Only every day.”

“If there are different levels of ‘truth,’ then what is lying, anyway? And please, let’s not get bogged down arguing. Your brother’s right: we need to focus on survival. I’m very freaked out! Shadovecht are
real
? And was that little garden gnome actually talking to us?”

“Gus!” Will said. “I didn’t even get to thank him.”

They tried getting information out of Gus, but he remained stiff and unmoving. Briefly he awakened to say he was “zo tired” and needed “shlaapees.”
Sleepies
. He became stiff again. They found he wasn’t truly solid like the other gnomes, which were made of stone or concrete. But he was so rigid it was easy to think he was.

“Oh, not good!” said Giselle, reacting to a sound.

It was the Shadovecht. The creature had been quiet, but now it banged on the brick walls of the pit, trying to bash its way out.

“Let’s go,” Will said wearily. “This isn’t over yet.”

***

“Hulloo?” a male voice called from the street the next morning.

“Verdoor!” Angelica called from upstairs, grabbing her sling and heading up the tower steps. “Marteenus!”

She’d found an old leather coat in a closet and, even though it was several sizes too big, she felt it made good armor. Squishing her hair into a goggled leather cap, she was ready for action.

It’d been a long night. They’d had to deal with the monster, which they crushed with heavy logs until it stopped moving. They’d tried to relax, but every little sound made them jump with fright.

Having fallen asleep on the couch, Will got up, wincing in pain. His wounded side hurt worse than before, and a stinging burn had awakened him several times in the night. At first he thought he’d only received a slight cut and a bruise, but now he feared cracked ribs. Grabbing a dagger, he went to the window where Giselle stood.

“No,” she said with relief, “it’s cousin Alfonz!”

***

A strange truck-sized vehicle with a smokestack had parked in front of Beverkenhaas, and the driver climbed out of the small cab on front - literally, as there was no door. Reddish brown hair sticking out both sides of his head, bald on top, dark brown eyes and a neatly trimmed, coppery beard with a pointy, waxed moustache, and so many big, blotchy dark freckles that his face resembled a speckled egg, Alfonz Zeldemthoos slung a leather pouch over his shoulder and headed for Beverkenhaas.

He stopped as he saw the damaged front door, which the kids had plugged with a pile of furniture and rubble. “Groes Vevardinker!”
Great Maker
. “Hendrelmus?”

“He’s not here,” called a voice from the tower.

Alfonz saw little Angelica peering down at him through goggles and holding her sling. Will and Giselle, also armed, appeared in a window. Sniffing, he winced at the leftover hint of death in the air.

“Shadovecht!” he exclaimed, switching to heavily accented English, which he used without regard for word order. “What happen? Hendrelmus, all right he is, ya?”

“Come inside,” Will said, indicating he’d need to use the window. “We have fresh bread, cheese, and green tea.”

“And now oolong,” Giselle added. “Home made.”

***

Alfonz Zeldemthoos was the unofficial mailman of the Beverkenverltish refugee community in North America, which he accomplished using his ingenious steam-powered truck. It burned almost anything – wood, garbage, and even dried manure. As long as he had fuel, water for the boiler, and some sort of road, he could keep moving.

The license plates were from Alaska, which had some odd loopholes in its vehicle laws. Normally such a hodgepodge homemade truck would not have been allowed on the roads, but a registration in one state was good in all the others. Alfonz had been pulled over many times, but usually the cop or state trooper was just curious, wanting to know how his bizarre-looking contraption worked.

Out front was the cab, which resembled the cockpit of a World War I fighter plane. The middle section looked like a small steam locomotive, with an obvious boiler and iron smokestack. Hanging precariously off the back was a small, gaily painted wooden shack that suggested a gypsy wagon, where he slept.

The truck had no suspension, and the tires were made of solid rubber (“They never go flat!” he’d told many a curious onlooker). They absorbed the full impact of even tiny bumps, making the ride bone-jarring and traumatic, except for Alfonz, who seemed not to notice.

His job was perfect for him, Will and Angelica had heard their parents say, because Alfonz suffered a mental condition called vaanderloos.
Wanderlust
. This meant that if he stayed more than a day or so in one place, he tended to start climbing the walls. He was only truly happy with the wind in his face, traveling and seeing the sights.

Whenever he dropped off mail, it was the custom to offer him as much food as he could possibly gulp down and send him on his way with baskets of provisions and all the wood he could carry. This is why Will had promptly invited him inside for breakfast.

***

Alfonz sat, as he had many times in the past, at their breakfast table, wolfing down bread and cheese while the Steemjammer kids tried explaining what had happened. Only half listening, he ate pickled green tomatoes and a big plate of scrambled eggs with bacon. Savoring some fresh plums, he washed them down with goat’s milk.

“Ah, zo goot!” he said, sitting back and rubbing his belly.
So good!
“Now, tell me the twice time.”

“We heard a noise,” Will explained, “a ‘thunk, thunk, thunk, snap!’ Dad sent us outside to finish chores, and when we came back, he was gone.”

“When the Shadovecht did come?”

A noisy outburst of WHEEEETS, RINGS and CLANKITY CLANKS filled Beverkenhaas. Since Giselle had messed with the control box to distract the Shadovecht and save Will, the clocks had been running strangely. They went off every 39 minutes and gave hours that didn’t exist.

Alfonz clasped his ears. “Ach, kinter!” Agh, kids! “Too many glokkenspeel you are having!” Toy-clocks.

Giselle laughed.

“I’ve been telling them that for years!” she said.

On the kitchen wall, a small, metal oven clanged open. With a puff of vapor, out popped a little brown gingerbread man. Mouth and eyes wide open with astonishment, he ran along a track on a high shelf. Waving his little hands in the air, steam hissed out tiny vents in his backside to represent how hot he was. Exiting through a hole in the wall, he returned to the oven and popped out again.

In the breakfast nook where they sat, a stone castle made of porcelain rested in the bay window. The drawbridge flapped down to reveal a wee Scottish Highlander in a military kilt, who blew steam-powered notes through his tiny bagpipes. Across the moat, a lass in a pretty dress danced a little jig over a sword on the grass.

“Twenty-seven o’clock?” Alfonz said, counting the gingerbread man’s revolutions on his fingers. “Why not let’s fix?”

He knew how to reset the controls, and in a few minutes the system was back to normal.

“So, a Shadovecht’s your door breaking?” he said.

“It came through a verltgaat,” Will explained.

Alfonz stared with alarm. “Verltgaat! Such things you are knowing?”

He got even more worked up when they spoke of opening them, the places they’d visited, and how Shadovecht had been waiting to come through, adding that the closing world hole had sliced the second one in half.

“Ah,” Alfonz said, trying to get it clear. “Then Hendrelmus, he comes and is Shadovecht killing, neh?”