The Last Notebook of Leonardo (12 page)

“But the trail's about a mile long!” I said. “Look at it! It goes right out of sight! How could he hold his breath for so long? Especially with toenails like that, he wouldn't be able to walk very quickly.”

“I suggest,” Noma said gently, interrupting our argument, “that we follow the trail and find out.”

So we did. Dad drove slowly alongside the prints and we tracked them across the open plain. After a while we saw a dark blob far up ahead.

“What's that?” I said.

“Let's be careful,” Dad said. “It might only be his mummy. But if I see any tentacles, I'm driving straight up and getting us out of here.”

The closer we got, the less like tentacles it looked. But it also didn't look like a mummy. It was standing upright and looked hairy all over.

“Do you think,” Dad said in a hushed voice, “it's an orangutan?”

“I think it's a bear,” Noma said.

“No!” I said, suddenly understanding. “Dad! Noma! Look! It's a man in a bear suit! It's a space-suit made out of a bearskin!”

“By God, Jem, you're right!” Dad shouted.

We were close enough that we could see the person clearly, standing and waving at us. He seemed to beckon us to follow him. Then he turned and continued walking across the white sand.

Dad drove slowly behind him.

“Is this a good idea, Dad?” I said in a low voice. “We don't know who's been flying to the moon lately. That could be anybody.”

“Don't worry, Jem,” Dad said. “I bet he's from the Russian space program. I hear they've run out of money for regular space suits. He might be able to give us information.”

In a few minutes we reached a hill that had an
open cave in its side. As soon as we had followed him into the cave, the man pulled a lever on the cave wall and a door slid down behind us, blocking the entrance. The cave had glass-covered windows that let in the light, so we could still see okay. In fact, we could see much better, because the light wasn't too bright for our eyes anymore. The man in the bear suit pulled a second lever, and we heard a giant rushing sound like a tornado. The wagon shook around us in a blast of wind, and then everything was still and silent again.

The man reached up and took off the bear head. When his own head came out from underneath, he was so hairy that he still looked like a bear. His head and chin and cheeks and eyebrows were covered in gray shag that shook loose from the helmet and tumbled down to his elbows. I could see his eyes gleaming far back in the tangle of hair. He seemed to be able to breathe okay.

Dad opened the airlock of our spaceship and we climbed out. Dad stepped over to the man and held out his gigantic long arm. “Greetings, Cosmonaut!” he said. “I'm Carl! Carl Martin. Who are you?”

“Leonardo,” the man said, reaching out to shake hands. “Leonardo da Vinci. How do you do?”

We were silent for a moment, frozen in astonishment, while the hairy man looked at each of us curiously. Dad began to stammer, “But. . . . Five hundred years. . . . Did you invent a. . . .”

“Please,” Leonardo said, “let's step into the living room. It's more comfortable.”

He walked to a door in the side of the cave and opened it for us. We still didn't move. I was so surprised I couldn't say a word. Finally Dad staggered toward the door, gripping his head between his hands, and I followed Dad. Noma was the only one of us who remained calm. She smiled politely at Leonardo.

We stepped into a neatly furnished living room. The couch and chairs were made out of carved rocks and didn't look very comfortable. They had fabrics draped over them for style. A low coffee table in
the middle of the room held a plateful of cookies. I hoped the cookies weren't carved out of rocks too, because I was hungry. On the far side of the room, a large screen TV was set against the wall. At first I thought the room was covered in wallpaper, but then I realized that it was painted. I could see at a glance that, whoever the current occupant of the room may be, Leonardo da Vinci must have actually painted those murals. Nobody else could have captured the moonscape so realistically, with the Earth hanging round and blue in the sky.

“Have a seat,” he said.

We sat down, Dad filling up the entire couch. The man sat in a chair opposite to Dad. It made a strange combination, a giant orangutan on one side of the room and a hairy old man in a bear suit on the other side.

“Look here!” Dad burst out angrily. “Who are you really? You're an imposter! Da Vinci lived five hundred years ago! How can you be him?”

The man nodded his head politely. I could see him smiling behind his beard. “True,” he said. “Very puzzling. I might say, similarly, that Sumatran orangutans do not talk. How, then, can you exist?”

Dad stared with his mouth open.

“Ah,” the man said gently, holding up his hand. “As I have heard the French say, touché. I would
love to hear how you arrived at such an interesting state, and then of course to sketch you. As to my own longevity, it is easily explained. On Earth, it transpires, the gravitational force pulls on the body and ages it rapidly. In the lesser gravity of the moon, the human body degenerates more slowly. By my calculations, I have aged approximately five years since I arrived on the lunar surface.”

“But,” I said, piping up. “Mr. da Vinci, I didn't know you could speak English?”

“A fair point,” he said. “I learned it on TV.”

“Ah ha!” my dad shouted, thrusting out his hairy hand and pointing. “You
are
an imposter! If you're really Leo, then how'd you get hold of that TV?”

The man chuckled. “Oh, I built it, of course. About forty years ago, a spacecraft landed not too far from here. It seemed to be uninhabited. I confess, I snuck up on it and knocked it out of commission by hitting it with a whip. I did not know if it was hostile or friendly and I worried that it might harm me. When I was certain that it no longer functioned, I carried it home and built a television out of the parts. Once I was able to receive transmissions from the Earth, I learned a great deal about your current affairs, and also became proficient in several languages. It is a fascinating tool for the transmission of knowledge. Listen to this.” He tilted back his head
and bellowed, “IT'S THE FLINTSTONES! MEET THE FLINTSTONES! WITH A YABBA DABBA DO ALL DAY!!!”

I clamped my hands over my ears at that horrible noise, and Dad leaped up out of his seat and shouted, “All right! We get the point!”

“Leonardo,” Noma said, “people call me Nomasis. Do you know what that means?”

Leonardo stared at her in wonder. “My little grandmother,” he said. “I have not heard that language in a long time. Yes, I lived among the Mahicans. They were wonderful people. Did you find my cave and my notebook?”

After that, I was convinced that the man really was Leonardo da Vinci and not an imposter. Dad, however, needed one more proof. He ran out to our wagon, dug through the trunk strapped on the roof, and came back with the framed sketch of da Vinci.

The man looked at the picture in astonishment. “I know that sketch,” he said. “I drew it myself.” And although he was hairier now, and his face was more creased, he was recognizably the same person as in the portrait.

Our quest was over. We had found the final resting place of Leonardo.

At first we meant to stay a few weeks and then go back home. Dad and Leonardo had a lot to talk about,
since they were both inventors, and they wanted to swap ideas before we left. But as time went on, we realized that we liked living on the moon.

Noma was very old. Back on Earth, she had less than ten years to live. But on the moon, by Leonardo's calculations, she might last another thousand years. And besides, she loved the moon. She would take the wagon out and drive around at top speed, zipping all over the lunar surface like a crazy person, practicing wheelies, jumping off of natural rock ramps, and exploring new craters. Sometimes she packed supplies and went out for two or three days at a time.

Dad wasn't very keen on going back to Earth either, because he would have to face more discrimination against talking orangutans. He would never be able to find a respectable job or go out in public without attracting unwanted attention.

As for me, if I went back, I would have to go to school. I liked school, and I generally liked learning new things. But in the secret lunar laboratory of Leonardo da Vinci, I could learn an incredible amount. By his estimates, I had about eight thousand more years to improve my mind.

I was worried that Leonardo might have gotten used to living alone and might not want so much company. But he didn't seem to mind. He and Dad
spent all day in the laboratory room talking and arguing and inventing new things. The last I heard, they were going to dig out the center of the moon and start a giant bat colony.

I have about eight thousand years ahead of me in low gravity. That's a lot of time to explore. Maybe someday I'll fly the spaceship off the moon and visit the rest of the galaxy, in search of aliens. As Dad says, once you free up your imagination, there's no knowing how far you can go. We're living proof of it.

B. B. Wurge began writing children's books after leaving his first career as an entertainer in a primate house. He says, “I've been told the world is crazy, more now than ever. That may be true, but children should know they can navigate successfully through our crazy world if they stick to fundamental principles: loyalty to family and friends, compassion, and an open imagination.” Wurge holds degrees in hair growth and zoology. He lives in an elevator in Manhattan.

The Last Notebook of Leonardo © 2010 by B. B. Wurge

 

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Published in 2010 in the United States by
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eISBN : 978-0-979-64153-4