Akiko and the Great Wall of Trudd (6 page)

When Spuckler had
finished with my arm, I thanked him and got to my feet.

“Come on, guys!” I said. “Let’s go see what’s on the other side of this wall!”

We all walked slowly across the top of the wall, which was thirty feet or so from one side to the other. The closer we got to the other side, the stronger the wind became. There was a saltiness in the air, and the sound of seabirds grew louder and clearer. The sun had reached the horizon, casting a reddish orange glow on all our faces as we gazed upon the scene before us.

There, on the other side of the wall, was a dazzling view of the Moonguzzit Sea. The wall had been built parallel to the coastline, leaving just a small peninsula of land on the other side. Gazing down from where we stood, we could see miles and miles of water gently rolling in from the horizon. There was no sign of buildings or other man-made structures of any kind.

Except one.

There, at the very end of the peninsula, was a narrow stone bridge. Not just
any
bridge, though. This must have been the longest bridge ever built! It stretched out over the water, perfectly straight, for miles and miles until it disappeared into the horizon. We all just stood there for a minute or two, taking it in.

“Heavens!” Mr. Beeba said at last. “It’s the Trans-Moonguzzit Bridge! I’d always thought the stories were sheer
fabrication
. . . .”

“Man oh man,” Spuckler said. “Looks like we got a lot more walkin’ to do.”

“We’ll never get down to that bridge before nightfall,” I said. “We’d better spend the night up here and save the bridge for tomorrow.”

“A fine suggestion,” Mr. Beeba said enthusiastically, leaning back against a large piece of stone and folding his hands behind his head. “I could probably fall asleep right
now
if I closed my eyes.”

“It’s starting to get cold,” I said, sitting down cross-legged and rubbing my upper arms briskly with my hands. “We’re gonna freeze if we try to sleep out in the open like this.”

Just then Spuckler began climbing one of the enormous wooden flagpoles that had been built into the top of the wall.

“I can’t believe he’s got so much energy,” Mr. Beeba moaned. “I couldn’t even climb a flight of
stairs
right now!”

“He’s not climbing that pole just for the fun of it, Mr. Beeba,” I replied. “Look!”

Sure enough, Spuckler was taking one of the flags off the pole. A minute or two later he slid back down and brought the weather- beaten old flag over to me, draping it around my shoulders like a blanket.

“Thank you, Spuckler,” I said with a big smile. “This is perfect!”

I don’t know if Spuckler even heard me, though. He’d already run over to another flagpole and zipped up to the top of it with the speed and precision of a circus monkey. Before long he’d brought back enough flag-blankets for everyone, even Gax, who I figure didn’t even really need one.

As the sun dipped behind the horizon and the stars began to fill the sky, it was wonderfully peaceful there at the top of the wall. I folded my hands behind my head, the rest of my body cozy and warm beneath the thick cloth of the flag-blanket. Mr. Beeba bid us all good night and apparently dropped off to sleep almost immediately, leaving Spuckler and me to talk quietly as the sky grew darker.

“Spuckler,” I asked, gazing up at the thousands of stars twinkling above us, “are there other planets out there like Smoo?”

“Oh, sure,” he replied matter-of-factly. “Most of ’em are pretty
weird
, though.”

It got very quiet. I thought I could hear the sound of the sea, the waves lapping up on the shore hundreds of feet below us. It could have been just the wind, though.

“Spuckler,” I asked, “are you scared of that guy Throck?”

There was a very long pause.

“Maybe a little,” he said finally. “But I won’t let him scare me out of rescuin’ the Prince, that’s for sure.”

There was another pause. I heard a flag flapping in the wind somewhere far away.

“Neither will I,” I said before closing my eyes and drifting off to sleep.

When I woke
up it was cold and the sky was grayish pink. I pulled my flag-blanket around my body as tightly as I could and tried to go back to sleep. I couldn’t, though. I suddenly realized how hungry I was. After all, it had been almost a whole day since we’d had anything to eat.

I rolled over and found that Spuckler and Mr. Beeba were already awake. They were sitting near the edge of the wall, having a heated debate. They were
whispering
, but it was still a debate.

“Hey, guys,” I said. “What’s going on?”

“Mornin’, sleepyhead!” Spuckler said with a smile. “Hope we didn’t wake ya.”

“No, Spuckler, you didn’t,” I said, sitting up straight and stretching my arms out as far as they would go. “It’s time for me to get up anyway.”

“
GOOD MORNING, MA’AM,
” I heard Gax say with a cheerful squeak.

I turned to find Gax and Poog just a few feet behind me.

“Good morning, Gax. Good morning, Poog,” I said, rubbing my eyes. “Boy, I sure am hungry.”

“You ain’t the only one,” Spuckler said, rubbing his belly vigorously. “I reckon I could eat a whole
stack
of Bropka steaks right now if I had the chance.”

“Yes, well, we’re all quite famished, to be sure,” said Mr. Beeba, “but sadly, there’s not a scrap of food among us, so we’d best not dwell on the matter.

“We were discussing,” Mr. Beeba continued, “the manner in which we are to descend to the bottom of the wall.”

“What’s to discuss?” I asked. “We’ll just have to tie ourselves together and climb down the same way we came up.”

“My thoughts precisely,” Mr. Beeba said, apparently very relieved to find me on his side of the argument. “Spuckler, however, has this outlandish notion that—”

“I think we oughta
parachute
down,” Spuckler interrupted, hurrying over to me, full of enthusiasm. “I figure one of these here flags is just about big enough for the job. Why, if it works we’ll be able to drop down there as gentle as a feather on a breeze.”

“
See
?” Mr. Beeba said to me, as if Spuckler had just offered proof of his own insanity.

“A parachute?” I asked, trying to stay open-minded.

“Here,” Spuckler explained, picking up one of the smaller flags he’d taken down from a pole the night before.

“Oh, goody,” Mr. Beeba said sarcastically. “A demonstration.”

“These here pieces of junk will represent you ’n’ me ’n’ Beebs ’n’ Gax,” Spuckler continued, removing four small pieces of metal from inside Gax.

“
SPARE PARTS, SIR,
” Gax said.

“Huh?” Spuckler asked.

“
I PREFER THE TERM
‘
SPARE PARTS
’
TO THE TERM
‘
PIECES OF JUNK,
’ ” Gax explained, sounding slightly offended.

“Oh. Right,” Spuckler said. “Spare parts. Sorry about that, ol’ buddy.”

Gax clicked and buzzed his approval.

“Just you watch,” Spuckler said excitedly, tying the four pieces of metal to the four corners of the flag. “This is one of my best ideas yet.”

A moment later he was done.

“Course, this is just a model,” Spuckler continued, carrying his creation to the edge of the wall. “The real thing’ll be even
cooler
.”

Raising a finger in the air to see which direction the wind was coming from, Spuckler twisted his body back and hurled the flag up into the air. The wind rushed underneath it and raised it up at the center, while the four metal weights pulled it down at each corner. Slowly and gracefully, Spuckler’s little handmade parachute floated over the edge of the wall and down toward the coast. Mr. Beeba and I watched in amazement while Gax popped and sputtered with pride. Poog smiled and said something in his gurgly language.

“Poog says”—Mr. Beeba translated with some hesitation—“Poog says it’s a splendid idea.”

“Well, hot
dang
,” Spuckler laughed. “Me ’n’ Poog seem to be agreein’ on most everything these days.”

“Hmpf!” Mr. Beeba groaned. “Well, I suppose the idea
does
have its merits.”

Spuckler ran off
in search of the largest flag he could find. Eventually he came back with one that looked as if it would be just perfect. It was about twenty feet square and had just a few small holes around the edges. Spuckler tied one corner of it to Gax, grabbed hold of another corner himself, and instructed me and Mr. Beeba to take the other two corners. Poog observed the whole process with a look of curiosity and amusement.

We then walked carefully over to the edge of the wall and agreed that we would jump on the count of three. The only problem was we couldn’t decide what jumping on the count of three actually meant.

“Look, it’s easy,” Spuckler said with an air of exasperation. “I’ll say ‘one’ then ‘two,’ and then when I say ‘three,’ we all jump.”

“Yes,” Mr. Beeba said, adjusting his spectacles, “but do you mean that we should jump
as you are saying
the word ‘three,’ or just
after
you say the word ‘three’?”

“I think he means
as he is saying
the word ‘three,’ ” I said. “Right, Spuckler?”

“I don’t even know what neither of you two are
talkin’
about!” Spuckler cried.

“It’s a perfectly clear distinction—” Mr. Beeba began.

Suddenly a strong gust of wind swept under the flag and began carrying us up into the air. Mr. Beeba and I struggled to stay in place.

“The wind is too strong, Spuckler!” I shouted as the flag lifted my feet off the surface of the wall. “It’s going to knock us over the edge!”

“That’s the whole point, ’Kiko!” Spuckler called back to me as he allowed himself to be swept away. “Go with the flow!”

Within seconds all four of us were carried up into the sky, with Poog floating along behind. The flag billowed up like an enormous mushroom, then gradually began to descend toward the sea below us. I stared in amazement at the entire length of the Great Wall of Trudd as the four of us dropped bit by bit, slowly circling around and around like a spinning umbrella.

“We’re. . .” Mr. Beeba gasped, his face overcome with an astonished smile. “We’re
flying
!”

“Admit it, Beebs,” Spuckler called across to him, “you’re havin’
fun
, aren’t ya?”

The entire descent took about a minute and a half. Finally we dropped right down into the waters of the Moonguzzit Sea, the flag settling into the waves like an enormous deflating beach ball. We all got soaking wet (well, all of us except
Poog
, that is), but fortunately no one got hurt. We made our way back to the shore, pulling the flag along with us.

“I say, Spuckler,” Mr. Beeba said with a great big smile, “that was very clever of you, considering you’ve never studied the laws of aerodynamics.”

“I make it a rule never to learn about stuff that’s hard to pronounce,” Spuckler replied. “Makes my head hurt.”

We all agreed to rest up a little before beginning our trek across the bridge. Spuckler sat down and gave Gax a little tune-up. Mr. Beeba and Poog took a quiet stroll along the coast. Me, I just collapsed happily on the beach, closed my eyes, and waited for my blue jeans to dry in the morning sun.

Ten or fifteen minutes later, when Poog and Mr. Beeba came back from their walk, we took our first steps onto the long stone bridge.