Beware the Ninja Weenies (3 page)

I totally loved anything weird—monsters, carnivals, flying saucers, aliens with three eyes and tentacles.

“I guess.…”

Score. I tried to keep from bouncing off the boardwalk while Dad bought two tickets. I followed him inside to the waiting area. According to the sign, the next show started in ten minutes.

“Ever been to a sideshow?” I asked.

“Once, back when I was your age,” he said.

“Was it good?”

“As far as I remember.” The corner of his mouth twitched into an odd little smirk when he said that.

“What?”

“This one guy hammered a nail up his nose.” Dad held his hand up, with his first finger and thumb spread all the way out. “It was this big.”

“You're kidding.” I tried to imagine that.

“Nope, I'm not kidding. I'll never forget it.”

A curtain opened at the far end of the room. A man dressed in a white shirt with a black vest came out and walked to the front of a small stage.

“Welcome. I am Buck Nordstrum. Prepare to be thrilled, dazzled, terrified, and amazed beyond your wildest dreams.”

The first act was a fire-eater. “Pretty cool,” I whispered to Dad as the man put flaming torches in his mouth. We were so close, I could feel the heat. There were only about a dozen other people watching the show, so it was easy to get a spot right near the action.

Dad gave me a funny look. I realized
cool
wasn't the best description. But the act was definitely amazing. I'd seen fire-eaters on TV, but never in person.

When the fire-eater was finished, a woman came onto the stage and did a sword-swallowing act. Then they rolled out a chair with the headless lady. I was pretty sure that was a trick. Actually, I was positive it was a trick. Still, it was fun to see. I don't mind being tricked.

There were six more acts, including the lady who turned into a gorilla—which was definitely a trick, and probably the same performer who'd lost her head earlier—and then Buck Nordstrum stepped back onstage.

“Ladies and gentlemen…” He nodded in my direction and added, “And young men, too. We come to the final act. I present to you—myself. Buck Nordstrum, the Invulnerable Man.”

As he removed his vest, I wondered what sort of trick this would involve. He unbuttoned his shirt, took it off, folded it, and placed it over the back of a chair, on top of the vest. Then he reached into a leather bag at his feet—like the kind of bag doctors carry—and removed a metal knitting needle.

“I must warn you—my performance might be too disturbing for sensitive individuals. If you need to leave, the exit is over there.” He pointed toward a door to our right. An exit sign flickered briefly, then went dark again.

“You okay?” Dad asked.

“Sure. Are you?”

“Can't be any worse than the nail up the nose.”

Buck Nordstrum pushed the knitting needle into his left forearm, midway between his wrist and elbow. It pierced the top of his arm. He pushed the needle deeper. The skin on the back of his arm bulged. Half a heartbeat later, the point of the knitting needle burst through. He held up his arm and rotated it, so we could see it—and the needle—from all sides. After a moment, he eased the needle back out.

There was no blood. Based on his expression, it didn't look like there was any pain, either.

I shuddered and moved a step closer to Dad.

“Want to leave?” he asked.

I thought about it. This was the last act, so I wouldn't miss much if we left. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to find out what Buck Nordstrum would do next. But when he pulled the long knife from his bag and placed the point of the blade against his throat, I knew I had to stay.

As the blade sank in, half the people rushed for the exit. It sounded like one person threw up, but I couldn't take my eyes off the stage. Dad put a hand on my shoulder. “I've seen enough.”

He stepped toward the exit. I didn't follow, but I glanced in his direction. Dad turned back. “Come on.”

“Can I stay?”

His gaze moved from me to the stage, and then back. Buck had turned sideways, so everyone could see the knife trying to break through the skin at the back of his neck. “You sure?”

“I've seen worse things in video games,” I said. “And on the news.”

That was true. I'd blown alien heads right off with sniper rifles, and ripped limbs from six-armed foes. Violence on the TV wasn't real to me. They were always showing people getting hurt on the news.

This performance was real, and kind of scary, but I wasn't going to admit it to Dad, and I wasn't going to miss out on seeing whatever Buck Nordstrum was going to do next.

“Okay. I trust you to know what you can handle. I'll meet you right outside.”

By the time Dad reached the door, the knife was jutting out the back of Buck Nordstrum's neck.

I thought he'd just yank it free. But he shifted his grip on the hilt and pulled the handle toward the left side of his neck. The point moved toward the right side. After slicing a quarter way around, he pulled the blade out.

As hard as I stared, I couldn't see any sort of cut in his neck. His flesh flowed like rubber around the blade. It had to be a trick. But how could it be? There was nothing between him and the knife except for bare skin. No tubes, no boxes, no silk scarves, none of the stuff magicians use to hide how their tricks work.

The next sharp point—this time in the form of a railroad spike—went into his stomach. By then, there were only two other people left in the audience.

They cleared out when it became obvious that Buck Nordstrum's final stunt involved a pair of scissors and his right eye.

I stayed.

After he pulled out the scissors, he bowed. “Show's over, kid.”

I wasn't ready to leave. There was something I had to know. And it wasn't about how he did his act. I was pretty sure I'd figured out his secret.

“How long have you been here?” I asked.

“Five years.” He put the scissors down on the table. “We opened the show right after they extended the boardwalk.”

“Not
here,
” I said, pointing to the stage. “I mean, here on Earth.”

He turned away from me and started putting things back in his bag. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Yeah, you do. You aren't human. Which means you're either a monster or an alien.”

That got his attention. He locked his eyes—both of which were totally undamaged—on mine. “If I'm a monster, you're better off not being alone with me. Monsters eat small boys.”

I shivered. But I stood my ground. “I'm not small. And I don't believe in monsters.” I pointed up toward the ceiling, and past it to the stars. “But I do believe in life on other planets.”

He didn't say anything.

“I'm guessing you're stuck here.” That was the only possible explanation I could think of for him to start a business on the boardwalk. Even aliens need food and shelter. “So, how long?”

“Fifty years.”

I hadn't expected him to admit it, and I really hadn't expected he'd been here that long. I studied his face as he put his shirt back on. He didn't look any older than my dad. But he could shove a large needle through his flesh without bleeding, and he healed instantly. I guess if he said he'd been here for five hundred years, I'd have to believe him.

I looked toward the exit. Dad wouldn't wait much longer before checking on me. But there was one more thing I wanted to know.

“Are you stuck here?” I asked.

“For now,” he said. “My people might come by again in fifty or a hundred years.”

“You must feel really homesick.” I couldn't imagine being stranded an another planet, far away from everything I grew up with. “Don't you miss your friends and family?”

He picked up the knife.

I took a step back, but I relaxed when I realized he wasn't coming after me.

“Miss them?” He pressed the point of the blade against his palm until it pierced the flesh. “No more than I feel this.”

That's when I realized how truly alien he was. And how alien I must be to him. All of us on Earth must seem alien, for that matter, with our feelings, our emotions, our pain. As I backed toward the door, I knew I needed to say something more.

“I liked the show,” I said. The words felt weak and stupid.

But they made him smile. “Thank you. That's good to hear.”

I stepped outside, back into the normal oddness of the boardwalk. As I left the sideshow behind, I couldn't help scanning the sky, drinking in the awesomeness of the universe.

Dad was waiting for me on a bench by the railing. I saw Mom and the rest of my family in line at a frozen custard stand.

“Did it get much worse?” Dad asked when I joined him.

“A lot worse,” I said. “The ending was terrible. But I'm glad I stayed.”

 

SMART FOOD

I
was heading out
to my friend Sally's house when I heard a whisper.

“Hey, kid…”

I looked around. There was nobody in sight.

“Pssst. Down here.”

I looked down. I was standing near Mom's vegetable garden. There wasn't anybody in the garden, either. It would be pretty tough to hide behind a head of lettuce or even an overgrown oregano bush.

“Right here!”

The voice was louder. And, now that I was looking at the garden, I could actually tell where it came from. But it couldn't be coming from where it came from. No way.

“You do hear me, don't you?”

“Uh, yeah…” I couldn't believe I was talking to a clump of broccoli. Before I said anything else, I checked to make sure nobody saw me. It wouldn't be good to get a reputation for holding conversations with vegetables. “I definitely hear you.”

“Good. Because we have a lot to talk about.”

I dropped to my knees so I could get a closer look. As far as I could see, it was just a regular clump of broccoli. “Where's your mouth?”

“I don't have one. There's more than one way to make sound.”

“And how can you talk at all? You're a vegetable. You don't even have a brain.”

“I don't have a meat brain, like yours. But I can think. All of us can think. But I'm the first one who can communicate with people. I don't know why. It's just the way I was sprouted. My people have been trying to get in touch with your people for centuries.”

“You're telling me that all vegetables can think?”

“We can think quite clearly,” the broccoli said. “And feel. We're quite sensitive. Considering what happens to most of us, that's not a good thing.”

“Ouch. You really can feel?” I pictured carrots being peeled and diced, and asparagus being battered and dropped into boiling oil. I shuddered at the image. But at the same time, my mouth watered at the memory of that crispy, tender asparagus. My folks had ordered it once when we'd had dinner at a fancy steak house. It tasted amazing.

“Yes. We can feel. That's why I needed to get your attention. You must tell the rest of the humans to stop cooking us and eating us. It's just not right.”

“But then we'd starve,” I said.

“You can eat animals. There are plenty to chose from—mammals, birds, fish.”

“But don't they think and have feelings, too?” I'd always hoped that animals didn't have the same kind of feelings as humans, but I was pretty sure they had some kind of feelings.

“No way,” the broccoli said. “Animals are the real vegetables. No thoughts. Nothing going on between the ears. They're really just animated meals. Think of them as movable feasts.”

I thought about animals. They were cute. If people didn't eat any vegetables, they'd eat a lot more animals. I didn't want to eat nothing but meat. I like lettuce on my hamburgers. I didn't want to eat nothing but vegetables, either. I couldn't imagine the Fourth of July without hot dogs on the grill. I liked both.

“Well,” the broccoli said as I tried to figure out how to deal with the situation, “are you going to do something about this, or do I have to talk with someone else?”

“No need. I'll do something.” I leaned over and grabbed the broccoli with both hands. The scream it let out when I yanked it from the ground wasn't pleasant. Luckily, the scream quickly faded to a whimper, and soon after that, slipped into silence. By the time I reached Sally's house, the clump of broccoli was just another voiceless vegetable.

Now I had to figure out what to do with it. There was no way I could throw it out. That would have been wasteful and wrong. The world's first talking vegetable deserved more respect than that. But I really didn't want to eat it myself—not after we'd had that conversation. I'd hear its voice with every bite. The answer was right in front of me.

“I brought you something from my mom's garden,” I told Sally when she answered the door. “I just picked it.”

“Thanks! It looks delicious.” She took the broccoli from me. “Maybe you can stay for dinner. My dad is grilling steaks.”

“That sounds great,” I said, “but I don't think I'll be hungry for a while. I just had my fill of vegetables.”

 

THE ART OF ALCHEMY

“Come closer.…”

The voice was a croaking gasp. Lenny hesitated. His great-grandfather was scary enough normally. But now, lying on the hospital bed, the old man looked like he'd already died. Lenny glanced over his shoulder. His parents had gone to the cafeteria. He was alone.

“Now!”

The old man shuddered like the shout had taken all his strength. Lenny shuffled forward, wishing he were home or even at school. Anywhere but here.

“I spent half my life seeking the secret of modern alchemy,” the old man said. He raised his head and repeated the last two words as if they were a magical phrase:
modern alchemy.