The Boy from Earth (5 page)

I look around for Norbert. Can't see him. The sun is directly overhead. Smaller than I'm used to – of course, it's farther away. I look down. I'm above a layer of cloud, so I can't see the jupiter. That sounds weird. The ground, I mean.

Want to know something? Falling is fun. This part is, anyway. I know that landing isn't going to be much fun, but, so far so good. I wonder if I can fly. I pump up and down with my arms. My bathrobe flaps and flutters. I don't slow down.

Still falling. The sheer cliff flashes past. My ears are popping like firecrackers. I twist myself around – harder than you think, with nothing to push off of. Oddly enough, I'm facing more cliff. I keep twisting around, and the cliff stays with me.

Wait a minute. If I'm surrounded by steep walls, I'm not falling off a mountain.

–
Dingwall! Dingwall!

“Norbert!” He's above me. How did that happen, if he fell first?

–
Pull up!
he shouts.
Put on the brakes!

“What do you mean, pull up? What brakes?”

It's darker. The sun has moved. I see a circle of blue sky when I look up. A circle? I begin to understand what has happened. Rock walls flash past all around me. I'm in a deep hole, like a well, and the sun has moved away from the lip. It's getting dark really fast.

–
We're in the Chasm!
Norbert shouts.
The Optic Chasm! We've got to get out. Put on your brakes, Dingwall!

“What brakes?” I shout. “What are you talking about?”

He kicks his feet, and scoots down beside me. –
Your slippers, you idiot!
he shouts in my ear.
Use your slippers!

“You're flying!” I shout back. “That's why I'm falling faster than you.”

I stare down at my plaid-covered feet. I don't see an on-off switch, or a lever. I don't see how I can fly “What do I do?” I shout.

–
Start by clenching your toes
.

“What? How?”

–
What kind of education system do you have on Earth, Dingwall? Don't they teach you anything useful? Imagine someone is tickling the soles of your feet, and –

Ooh. I hate that. My feet curl instinctively, and –

Whoa!

The world stops with a thud. I feel a jolt in the pit of my stomach. Norbert disappears below me, shouting some insult.

I check out the rock wall. It isn't moving. I'm standing still in midair.

Wow!

Norbert flies back up to me, panting a bit. I check out his slippers. I can't see how he's making them work.

–
There you go!
he says.
Now, let's get out of here. We've already wasted enough time.

“Could have been worse,” I say. “We could have crashed.”

–
No, we couldn't. Now, let's get out of here.

He floats up past me, then turns to look over his shoulder. I'm staying still, afraid to unclench my toes.

–
Oh, yeah. You don't know what you're doing.

He drops beside me, as confident and at home in the air as any seagull. –
Start by relaxing your toes, slowly.

I try, slowly, and nothing happens. I relax my left foot a bit more, and immediately topple to the left. I start to somersault, so I clench my toes.

Now I'm stopped in the air again, but this time I'm upside down.

Norbert glides over.

–
Balance is tricky. It's important to do everything with both feet together
, he says quietly.

I nod. I can feel blood pooling at the top of my head.

–
Let's try it again. Relax your toes, and wiggle them. Remember to wiggle both feet together, or you'll spin in circles.
Point the slippers in the direction you want to go. If you stop moving your toes, you'll slow down and then start falling. Clench your toes, and you'll stop. Okay?

“Okay.” We nod to each other, but he's right side up and I'm upside down. Our heads nod in opposite directions.

–
So begin. First try to turn right side up.

Slowly, I unclench one foot. The left one. Slowly, I begin to turn over. Blood rushes from my head. I feel better. I wait until I'm upright, and clench the foot again. There. Made it. I give Norbert the thumbs-up.

–
Great. Very Sid, Dingwall. Now let's go.

I'm starting to get the hang of this. I smile at him, and put myself into the Superman flying position, hands forward. Not that Superman ever wore a bathrobe or plaid slippers. I relax both feet, wiggle all my toes, and fly straight as an arrow, backwards – into the wall behind me.

Suffering kryptonite, what a shock!

I hear Norbert's voice right beside my ear.

–
Clench your toes, Dingwall. You're falling!

I am? Oh, yes, I am. I clench, and stop. “What happened?”

–
What did I tell you, Dingwall? Point your slippers where you're going. Your slippers are not your fingers. In fact, they're at the other end of the body.

Thank you, Captain Sarcasm. I try to visualize the correct position for flying on Jupiter. “So, I should stay standing straight up?”

–
Yes. Standing is good. When you're better at it, you can try somersaults.

He's joking, of course.

So I get myself upright, keep my feet pointed straight ahead, wiggle my toes hard … and fly like a bullet right into the wall across from me.

–
Clench! Clench!

Oh, yeah. I'm falling again. I clench.

–
Boy, you stink. It's a good thing you fell into the Chasm. Way down here we're not going to be spotted by the Dey or his minions.

“What are those minions, anyway?”

–
Minions are like myrmidons. Or helots.
“Um….”

–
Or slaves.

“Oh, good. A word I know.”

–
Slavery isn't good, Dingwall.

“No. No, it's not.”

–
Fly, now. You need lots of practice. And remember to clench to stop.

Some time later – probably a short time but it feels like forever, like the last couple of minutes of a basketball game where they keep calling time-out – I begin to get the hang of it. I keep my knees bent for balance, and my slippers pointed where I'm going. I practise wiggling gently, every now and then, to keep airspeed. I can steer in a straight line, and make gentle turns.

I'm sweating from concentration. Remember learning to ride a two-wheeler? It's like that. It's fun, all right, but
Slippers it takes a lot of effort at the beginning. I'm starting to get a headache.

Norbert is a horrible teacher. He makes snarky comments and keeps telling me to hurry. –
We haven't got all day, you blockhead!
he shouts.

“I'm doing the best I can!” I snap back. “You want to leave? Go ahead. Try to find the castle and rescue the princess by yourself. But I thought you needed me. If you want my help, then shut up, you … poopy prince!”

I'm so mad I fly right up to him, sheering off at the last minute. He twists his legs around somehow to back up. I haven't mastered that move yet. I point my slippers upwards. I'm sick of the dimness, down here in the Chasm. The circle of sky way up above looks blue and bright.

It takes Norbert a minute to catch me.

–
Hey, Dingwall, where are you going?

I don't say anything.

–
You ready to move on, now? We've got a ways to go, if we 're going to make it to Bogway Fen tonight. You know, I think you might be. Your flying looks pretty Sid. I had to push myself to catch up.

“You think so?” On Jupiter, Sid means good. I turn with a smile. I'm ready to make friends again. “You really think so?”

Of course, when I turn, my slippers turn too and I fly right at him. He sidesteps in midair. I fly past him, clench to stop, and turn myself around with difficulty.

“Sorry,” I say, awkwardly.

–
No problem.
He sounds a bit awkward too.

“Guess I'm not a real Sid flyer yet.”

–
Sure you are. Not super-Sid, maybe, but you're getting there.

“Thanks,” I say.

We fly side by side for a while. The circle of sky overhead gets bigger.

“How deep is this Chasm?” I ask. “I fell so far. Was I just about to crash?”

–
It's bottomless
, says Norbert.

“What do you mean? This hole goes all the way to the center of the … planet?”

–
Farther than that. Mad Guy invented a photosonic probe, working on the intersection principle to find a target. When he tried it on the Optic Chasm, the readings came back as parallel lines. No intersection. No bottom to the hole. It goes down forever.

I look back over my shoulder. The sheer rock walls of the hole go down and down, narrowing, darkening, disappearing. I shudder. Forever is a long way.

I want to stop for a rest when we finally get out of the Chasm, but Norbert says no. We've wasted too much time already, he says. He scoots away.

Everything looks bright after the dimness of the hole. The walls of Betunkaville are rose colored, with the sun above them. The land beneath me, covered in scrub bushes and stands of trees, slopes gently away from the declining sun. On Earth that'd be east, but I don't know where the sun sets on Jupiter. That's the way Norbert leads us.

Lightning flashes in the distance. We're too far away to hear the thunder. Norbert tells me not to worry; there's always electricity somewhere in the Jupiter sky.

I ask him to tell me more about the minions. If I'm going to defeat the Dey, I want to know about his servants. “I see them as little round smelly guys,” I say.

He laughs. –
Those are
onions,
Dingwall.

“Oh, yeah.” They must be what I'm thinking of.

–
Minions are slaves of the Black Dey. Sometimes we call them hired hands because that's what some of them look like, but the Dey doesn't hire anybody. They're slaves, all right. They're not very big, but they work together, and they appear out of thin air.

“Well,” I say, peering around, “I can't see any hands here.”

–
Just because you can't see them doesn't mean they're not here, Dingwall. Back on Earth, people couldn't see me.

Norbert leads the way. I'm on his left, but behind. His slippers are perfectly still in the air. Mine keep sliding to one side, pushing me off course. I have to work harder than he does to keep up.

I wonder where everyone is. The countryside below us looks like Old Mother Hubbard's cupboard. I ask Norbert about it, and he tells a strange and disturbing story. –
This land wasn't always empty
, he says, poking his arms out.
It used to be prime pasture for rocking horses.

“With saddles and big staring eyes and handles you can hang on to?” I say. I had one like that.

–
Many years ago, this land was filled with them. They were everywhere, rocking wild and free. Brown, red, purple, black, orange … all the colors of the ice-cream parlor. And the Black Dey came by and decided that he wanted to ride a rocking horse, so he caught one and climbed on, but he was too big, and he broke the rocking horse. He caught another one, and tried again, but he broke that horse too. He tried again, and again.
The more horses he broke, the more he felt he just had to ride one. He caught them one by one, and sat on them, and broke their backs. And now they're gone
.

Ew.

–
That's the Dey's source of strength. Need. He doesn't want anything; he needs it. He has to have it. And he's stubborn and determined. He never learned that he was too big for the rocking horses. But he never stopped wanting to ride one. He caught every last horse in the land and sat on them and crushed them all to death.

I swallow. I don't feel well. I wonder what happened to my rocking horse.

We fly on. The empty land rolls beneath our slippers. The sun sinks behind us. I keep staring at the sky because it looks so strange with four moons in it. Norbert is on the lookout, checking the horizon, left to right, right to left. I'm feeling hungry, but I don't like to ask to stop.

–
Look, Dingwall!

“What? Where?”

–
Minions!
says Norbert, pointing.
Behind those bushes. Now they've disappeared back into the air again. Did you see them?

I peer over. “Nope,” I say.

–
Blind as a ball
, he says.

I try to work that out.

We keep flying. The landscape changes. The bushes and trees become scarcer. Now there're grasses and mud, and more and more water. Bored, stagnant water. Some of
it trickles gently; most of it just stands around. If the water were a teenager, it would be hanging around a street corner with its hands in its pockets. The smell is strong and swampy. The teenager had beans for lunch.

I'm getting tired. Correction. I was already tired. I'm tireder. I realize that my feet are asleep. I concentrate, trying to wiggle my toes. I forget to look where I'm going, and, “Help!” I cry.

Now my feet are pointing at a clump of trees, and, of course, so am I. I'm flying through leaves before I know it. I clench my toes, and stop just in time.

I'm hovering beside a smooth gray tree trunk. There's a branch in front of me, with a comfortable-looking notch next to the trunk. A perfect resting spot. I step out of the air and feel the springy give of the branch under me. After a bit of squirming, I'm sitting comfortably, with my back against the notch of the tree and my knapsack open on my knees.

That's better.

Norbert flies over.

“Can we stop a minute?” I say. I already have my knapsack open. “I don't know about you, but I'm going to see if there's anything to eat. I'm famished.”

–
Good idea.
He hops onto the branch beside me.
Hi, Casey. How you doing?
he says.

“Who are you calling Casey?” I ask.

There's a Frisbee in my knapsack. And a
TV
remote. And a jar of brown liquid. And a packet of sandwiches. Mmm, sandwiches. I wonder what kind.

Rowf! Rowf!

At first I think it's a dog. Then I realize it's the tree that's making the noise. Of course a tree would bark. There's no wind, but the branches wave back and forth, like a tail.

Norbert leans over and pats the branch we're sitting on. –
Good girl. Good Casey.

“You're talking to the tree?”

Rowf
, says the tree. I can feel it shiver.

Norbert uses that talking-to-a-dog voice. –
You're a good boy! Aren't you a good boy! Oh, yes, you are! Yes, you are!

“But how do you know the tree's name?” I ask him.

–
There's a birch tree outside my window. Her name's Casey too. All birch trees are named Casey. Just like Casey here. Isn't that right, girl? Hey?

Casey shivers a bit at the sound of its name.

I pat the trunk I'm leaning against, the way you'd pat a dog's head. “Wait a minute,” I say. “Is Casey a boy or a girl?”

– It's a tree, Dingwall. Didn't you pay attention in science class? It's a boy and a girl. Aren't you, Casey? Aren't you a good boy? Yes, you are! Aren't you a good girl? Yes, you are!

The tree wags its branches again. Norbert pats it. I do it too, hesitantly, because I'm not used to strange trees.

We eat a snack sitting in Casey's branches. I worry about bothering the tree, sitting on it, dropping crumbs, but Norbert assures me that there's no problem.

–
Trees like to be useful
, he says.

So we sit on the branch and eat strange sandwiches. They taste like chocolate bars from a delicatessen. Pretty good, but, well, strange.

“What kind of sandwiches are these?” I ask.

–
Smoked chocolate.

I take another bite. Okay, I guess. I take out the jar. “Can I drink this?”

–
Of course, you can. It's a liquid. You can't grate it or shred it. You can't read it or drive it. Your options are limited.

I take off the lid, and pull back my face. “Yuck!” I say. “It smells awful.”

–
But it works. Your feet will feel better immediately
.

“Huh?”

–
If you decide not to drink it, I might recommend rubbing it on your feet. They're working harder than usual today.

Casey gives a whine. That's the only way to describe it. It's a bit like the creaking noise a tree makes in a windstorm. Norbert sits up straight.

–
What, girl? What is it?

The tree's long thin light greenish leaves turn over, showing their gray undersides.

–
Is something coming, Casey?

ROWF!

–
Something bad?

ROWF! ROWF!

Norbert closes his knapsack and motions me to do the same.

“Wow!” I say. “The tree understands.”

It's like the dogs on
TV
that can add and answer the phone and spray the house with air freshener when they make a doggie mistake.

“Thanks, Norbert,” I say. His hand's out to help. I let him take my sandwich container and the jar of brown liquid while I check the ground for intruders. I remember what he said about things being there, whether I saw them or not. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see his little hands fumbling with the top of my knapsack.

Casey is barking continuously.

–
Come on, Dingwall. Time to go.

I freeze. The voice comes from behind me. I turn around. Norbert is facing away from me, wearing his knapsack, looking out through the foliage. One of his hands holds a smooth gray branch for support. The other hand is empty.

Then, what the … I turn back in time to see a pair of hands lift my sandwich container into the air. Not a person with hands – just the hands. Four fingers and a thumb, just like mine, only they're not attached to anything. They flutter around, like giant butterflies, clinging to the sandwich container, lifting it into … thin air. The container, and the hands, fade from my sight, like breath on a mirror. They're gone.

“Norbert, help!” I cry.

Meanwhile, another set of hands is finishing with my knapsack. They start to lift it up. I've been frozen all this time, but now I move, grabbing the bottom.

“Stop!” I cry. The hands do not stop. “Let go!” I cry. The hands do not let go. “Give that back!” I cry. Of course, the hands do nothing of the kind.

–
Get away from me, you minions!
cries Norbert.

The tree barks wildly.

I pull the knapsack away from the hands. I feel more hands plucking at my bathrobe, pinching, pulling, tugging. I flail around, sweeping them out of the way. There are so many of them. It's nasty, like being inside a swarm of insects. I shoulder the knapsack, batting away the hands as fast as I can, and point my slippers, ready to fly away.

–
Hey, Dingwall. Little help?

It's Norbert's voice. I turn.

He's well off the tree branch, in midair, surrounded by hands – a whole cloud of them. He's being lifted higher and higher.

“Coming, Norbert!” I move towards him, batting the clutching hands out of the way. Norbert's covered all over like a cocoon, but his mouth is free. He's still talking.

–
I bet you guys think you're handsome! Really something – sorry, thumbthing! Get it: thumb-thing? Oh, why do I bother? I tell you what. You are the ugliest hands I have ever seen. I'm talking serious moisturizing problems here. Look at that hang nail. Tsk tsk. And those cuticles. Haven't you guys ever heard of pumice or emery boards? Yes, you guys are quite a handful! Hey, Dingwall, I'm dying here!

The minions work in silence. It's unnerving. I can hear the tree barking and the leaves rustling and Norbert talking and my own breathing. The thousand hands make no sound whatsoever.

I find a new technique by accident. Instead of grabbing the hands one at a time, I take them in pairs. When I do that, the fingers lock together and they grab on to each
other instinctively. I set to work, pairing off as many hands as I can. Soon I'm close enough to get hold of Norbert. I try to pull him down towards where I am standing on the branch. The hands resist, pulling him upwards. I pull as hard as I can, a sharp clean jerk, and the hands give way all at once and Norbert drops into my arms. I lose my balance and fall.

We were close to the top of the birch tree. I fall halfway to the ground before I remember to clench my toes and stop in midair. The leaves and small branches slap and batter me, brushing off the remaining hands.

–
Good job, Dingwall. You've shaken them, off. Now, go!

I go. Norbert wriggles out of my arms and takes the lead, flying close to the ground. I follow. Some minions flutter after us, but they stay high in the air.

I take a deep breath. We're free.

The sun is setting behind us, but it's still bright out. We stay low, like swallows, skimming over the smelly bog.

“Can't we go higher?” I ask.

–
Let's see if we can lose the minions first
, he says.

I look up. The evening sky is a wonderful greeny purple color. Behind us I see a small dark cloud. It's going in our direction, following us, even though the wind is in our faces.

I have a question for Norbert. I wiggle my toes harder, to fly next to him.

“Back on Earth, you said that you would always be there when I needed help. But when I was being attacked by the minions just now, you couldn't help. In fact, I helped you.”

–
Ah, that was on Earth.

He says something else, but I miss it. A cool dank breeze hits me from the left side, lifting the back of my robe and making steering difficult. Norbert ends up over my head. I point my toes up to catch him again.

“What did you say?”

–
My job on Earth was to look after you, and prepare you for this.

“For what?”

–
For what you're doing now. My mission on Earth was to find a champion. Once I'd found you, I wasn't going to let you get beaten up by bullies in your own school yard. I wasn't going to let you get lost in New York, or in the woods.