Frek and the Elixir (10 page)

“Where's the Anvil at?” asked Gibby when Frek was done. He was like a two-legged lizard with a man's taut, sallow face. “Maybe there's goodies inside it.” Gibby rocked back onto his tail and rubbed his rough hands together, blinking his flat round blue eyes. “I'd surely like to have a look-see. We could make a nice buck off a thing like that.”

“Gov's got it,” said Frek. “One of the counselors said Gov wants to use me for bait to make the Anvil open up again.”

“Gov,” said Jeroon thoughtfully. “The mighty toon who rules the local Nubbies. He's based in the big NuBioCom puffball in Stun City. I'd wager three eggs that's where the counselors carried the Anvil. It would be a treat to see what happens if the Anvil opens
without
Gov's stooges around, eh? I daresay your cuttlefish alien had a boon to share. I've a half a mind that you and Gibby and I should steal what's in the Anvil, Frek.”

The word “boon” reminded Frek that Jeroon had promised to give him something for saving his life. Was it just going to be that healing dose of stim cells? Usually a boon was something a little more gripper than medicine. But Jeroon seemed too wrapped up in his own plans to remember his promise. Frek felt a bit annoyed. Here these Grulloos were scheming to ransack the Anvil and they hadn't even asked Frek what he thought of the idea.

“You'll reap a whirlwind!” put in Ennie, and thumped her mermaid tail on the ground for emphasis. “Don't do it, Jeroon.”

“Our world's a paradise just the way it is?” asked Jeroon, his voice rising to a shrill buzz. “With NuBioCom pinching off the very dance of life? Things grow more wonderful all the time?”

“But Jeroon,” said Ennie, her voice breaking. “Maybe you're forgetting some of the important things you've already got.”

“How would we get inside the puffball to find the Anvil?” interrupted Frek, curious about the proposal in spite of himself.

“Our man Gibby goes there once a month to trade our tribe's eggs for stim cells,” said Jeroon weakly. Ennie's plaint had knocked the wind from his sails. “I often travel along to help. Gibby was planning to go today, as it happens. I'd thought we might bring you with us and try our odds.” He glanced over at Ennie. “But perhaps not.”

“What about hatching out our egg?” wailed Ennie. “Instead of trading them all away for Gov to use in the Kritterworks. You'll die in his horrible puffball and we'll never have hatched even one!”

“You're ready right now?” asked Jeroon, lowering his voice.

“I've been waiting and waiting for you to ask,” said Ennie. “But you want to run off to play the hero and—and—” She lowered her eyes and turned away.

“Oh, my dear Ennie,” said Jeroon. “More fool I. Of course we should hatch out an egg together. It's been my fondest dream, my sweet. Yes, yes, let's do it now. The Earth's blessings upon us!” He trotted over to Ennie. They leaned forward on their short little legs, pressing their faces together, kissing. LuHu and Bili cheered and capered around them. Salla's plump features were wreathed in smiles.

“Wal, I'm going down to Stun City anyhows,” Gibby told Frek. “Gotta get them fresh lumps of stim cells. The folk got better'n a hundred eggs for me to cart along. If you're game, you're welcome for the ride, boy.”

“Do you think it's safe to take him?” wondered Salla. “He's wanted by the counselors.”

“He can wear a disguise,” said Gibby, calmly fishing out a pipe from one of his jacket pockets. “That Anvil could be worth a king's ransom. Is it heavy, Frek?”

“I think so,” said Frek. “Too heavy for me to carry, if that's what you're thinking.”

“I bet you can get it to open up again. Or if that don't work, maybe we could roll it onto the back of my elephruk.”

“You have an elephruk?” said Frek, enchanted by the notion. Gibby wanted him to ride to Stun City on an elephruk? Life in Middleville had never been this interesting.

“An elephruk, but she's a sorry one,” said Gibby, grimacing against the smoke from his pipe. “Grulloos don't get nothing unless nobody wants it. I say let's do it. You ready to go?”

Across the room, Ennie and Jeroon were staring raptly into each other's eyes, all but lost to the outside world.

“How long will it take those two to hatch out their egg?” asked Frek. He felt a little shy of the gruff Gibby. He'd rather wait for Jeroon.

“Some men might say three days,” said the petal-covered Salla with a comfortable laugh. “But really it takes the rest of your life. Jeroon won't be wanting to step out with you today, Frek, nor tomorrow, nor the day after that. And on the third day, we'll have the wedding party, right, Gibby? My big sister Pfaffa will help. With Ma and Pa in heaven, the wedding's our responsibility. Stop racing around like that, Bili and LuHu. Leave Aunt Ennie alone.”

“I've a fine nest ready in my bedroom,” Jeroon was telling Ennie. “It's lined with the softest of turmite-silks, and I'll dust them down with stim cells. How I've longed for this day, my love.”

“Oh, Jeroon,” said Ennie, blushing all the way down to the flukes of her tail. She took a little step toward the door that led to the kitchen and Jeroon's bedroom.

Jeroon's rough, plain face was shining with joy. As he turned to follow his bride, his gaze fell upon Frek. “Gibby will take care of you,” he said casually. “Depend upon my good brother-in-law-to-be!” Certainly his vows of lifelong friendship weren't weighing very heavy on his mind.

Frek had never been particularly good at speaking up for his rights. But the little woodsman had promised him a boon for saving his life, and he'd be a fool not to ask for it. Maybe asking for the boon was part of the test. So he looked Jeroon in the eye and said it straight out. “Weren't you going to give me something?”

“Ah yes,” said Jeroon, looking just a bit shifty. “It nearly slipped my mind. Thanks for reminding me.”

“Good on you, boy,” said Gibby. “Jeroon's a tight-fisted little runt. Don't short him, Jeroon!”

“Fine, fine,” grumbled Jeroon. He swung across the floor and pulled a loose brick from the wall by the fireplace. “I'll give you—”

“Give him
two
things,” put in Gibby. “He got your tail out of the log, and he flew you home. He saved you twice.”

“I'm to have this troublemaker as my brother-in-law?” said Jeroon, barely managing to keep a pleasant tone. You could see that he didn't like to give up any treasure.

“Get it over with,” said Ennie. “We've got more important things to do.” She skipped over to give Jeroon another kiss.

“All right then,” said Jeroon in a brighter tone. He handed Frek a translucent seed pod filled with a sparkling gel. “This is chameleon mod, Frek. There's three doses in here. To use it, you take off your clothes, dab it onto any part of your skin, and for the next half hour you might as well be invisible.” Frek had heard of chameleon gel, in fact he'd seen Da Nha Duc use it in a toon. But he hadn't quite understood it was real. He studied the pod. The shiny gel contained colors upon colors.

Jeroon continued rooting in his hidey-hole, looking for something else he was willing to give. Frek heard the clink of some gold coins, but those stayed hidden. Finally Jeroon produced an unimpressive-looking brown twig shorter than Frek's little finger. Its bark was slightly scaly.

“Forgot I had this,” muttered Jeroon and then, after a moment's hesitation, he handed it over. “It was one of Gov's experiments,” said Jeroon. “A crowd-control device, you might say. We tested it out in a corner of the Grulloo Woods. It's called an Aaron's Rod. A plant that grows and branches and grows and branches till it fills up—oh, I don't know, how big would you say the Aaron's Rod thicket is, Gibby? You were there when we tested it.”

“Filled up a hundred meters of woods easy,” said Gibby. “Was a whole gully eaten up in less than a minute, all stuffed with that damned wad o' twigs. And then it dies the next day. What good is a present like that, Jeroon? Don't you got nothing better in that hidey-hole?”

“Mind your own business,” snapped Jeroon. “The Aaron's Rod could come in handy for Frek sometime. Whatever you do, don't start it up anyplace you're fond of, Frek. All it takes is a splash of water to wake it. Think of it more as a weapon, like. Here, you can keep your treasures in this. It'll keep the Aaron's Rod dry.” Jeroon produced a sticky little purse-fungus for holding the mod-pod and the twig. The fungus was a little pouch, pink with a flap covering a smooth green interior, and small enough to fit in the palm of Frek's hand.

“Well, thank you,” said Frek, taking his gifts. “And good luck to you, Jeroon.” He examined the mod-pod and the mighty twig. Three doses of invisibility salve and a plant that would grow to fill a large building in less than a minute. Calling them treasures seemed like something of an exaggeration. Oh well. He tucked them into the purse-fungus.

“So let's clear out and give these love-birds some peace,” put in Salla, registering a coaxing glance from Ennie. “I'll start the fixings for the wedding feast. Only three days from now, and so much to do! Gaia bless you, Ennie. Congratulations, Jeroon!”

“I want to watch them push their eggs together!” cried LuHu. “That's what they're gonna do, isn't it, Pa?”

“Get along with you, sugar-pup,” said Gibby as little Bili guffawed. “Don't be poking your nose into grown-up ways.”

The children skipped down the hall to the door of Jeroon's burrow, with Salla and Frek following them and Gibby taking up the rear, having said a quick last good-bye to Jeroon. And then they were outside on the banks of the gurgling stream.

It was an overcast May morning, with the clouds low in the sky. For a few minutes Gibby busied himself snapping stalks off the overhanging plants that all but hid Jeroon's round windows in the steep mud bank.

“Fresh baccy for the wedding party,” he explained to Frek. “If I hang it by our chimney it'll be fit to smoke in three days. You about ready to hit the road?”

“Let me come, too, Paw,” put in Bili.

“Absolutely, positively not,” said Salla. “Paw's going to have his hands full taking the Nubby to Stun City. Do you really think you might get the Anvil, Gibby? It could be worth a lot. But it sounds so dangerous.”

“Easy as pie,” said Gibby. “I'll hit the Brindle Cowloon by dark, wash off the road dust with a mug of moolk, and get a good night's sleep. In the morning we'll trade the eggs for the stim nuggets over to the NuBioCom puffball. With his chameleon mod, Frek can slip in and likely find that old Anvil laying around lonely. He'll empty that thing out, or roll it out a window into the elephruk sure enough, light and lively, don't blink or you'll miss it. We'll be home tomorrow night. By the way, Frek, Jeroon said to be sure and bring you back for the shindig. Grulloo wedding's a real treat.”

“Does the chameleon mod really work?” wondered Frek, patting the little lump in his pocket. It hardly seemed possible. And if it did work, would he want to come straight back to the Grulloo Woods? Well, no need to decide everything right away. First of all he'd have a look at Stun City.

“If the mod works?” said Salla. “Oh yeah. We'll show you about mods over at our place.”

Gibby and Salla's burrow was only a few score meters farther up the stream. Gibby went inside to hang the tobacco and pack up his store of Grulloo eggs. Salla gave Frek a bunch of carrots and told him to fetch the family elephruk.

“Bili and LuHu can help you,” said Salla. “Be careful not to run out of carrots.”

“Our elephruk's name is Dibble,” LuHu told Frek. “She's old.”

“Old and mean,” added Bili with a grin. “Like Paw.”

As they walked through the woods, Frek made friends with Bili. Though the Grulloo was small, it turned out he was ten, just two years younger than Frek.

After about half an hour of searching and calling, they found the gray elephruk, nearly a kilometer from the burrow. Dibble was tearing low-hanging branches off an anyfruit tree with her trunk and stripping them with her drooling, pendulous mouth. She was smaller than the elephruks Frek had seen carrying the Middleville crops to market—though she was still plenty big enough to carry a load of goods and a few people.

“Yoo-hoo, Dibble,” called LuHu. “This is our new friend, Frek. He's a Nubby. He's going to help you and Paw take the eggs to town. He has carrots.”

The elephruk made a snuffling noise in her trunk and tore another branch off the tree.

“Roar,” said Bili, as if to give himself courage. He twitched his striped tail. And then he hopped into the low, flattened bed of the elephruk's rear and scampered up near the beast's head. The elephruk gave an angry squeal and flipped back her trunk, trying to grab the boy Grulloo, but Bili kept out of his reach. LuHu joined her brother, her ponytail lashing so fast that it was practically invisible.

“Give Dibble a carrot, Frek!” squealed the excited LuHu from her perch at the base of the elephruk's head.

The elephruk was half again as tall as Frek, with six wrinkled gray legs like tree trunks. Frek gathered his courage and stepped out in front of the elephruk, holding a carrot at arm's length. The elephruk glared at him for a minute, then stretched out her long flexible trunk to pluck the carrot from Frek's hand. She swept the carrot into her loose-lipped mouth and pulverized the offering with big, yellow teeth.

“Another?” said Frek, holding a carrot up in the air and starting off toward Gibby and Salla's burrow. Dibble followed along, moving faster with each carrot, frighteningly heedless of whether she might accidentally trample Frek underfoot. It felt like running down a hill ahead of an avalanche. Bili and LuHu rode cheering upon Dibble's back. Frek made the carrots last all the way back to the stream.

Gibby was waiting for them in a clearing atop the bank with four woven hampers of pink, baseball-sized eggs packed in bindmoss. The tough old Grulloo went over to Dibble and said something into the creature's great, dusty ear. Gibby must have had some kind of hold over the elephruk, for now the beast became much easier to control. For one thing, she stopped trying to grab LuHu and Bili. For another, she no longer acted like she wanted to step on Frek. Placidly she knelt, lowering her back. To further calm Dibble, Salla dragged over a block of salt. Dibble nuzzled the block contentedly.

Frek helped Gibby drag the baskets of eggs onto Dibble's flat back, jostling the baskets a bit on the washboard of the elephruk's ribs. The eggs didn't have shells; they were more like balls of gelatin, translucent and pink with dark clots and threads near their centers. Gibby produced a wad of mapine pitch and used it to stick the egg-baskets into place.

“Are we going now?” asked Frek. He was excited about the trip to Stun City. He'd never been there before. And to arrive upon an elephruk beside a Grulloo! This was really living. If Frek remembered right, today was a Friday. The kids back in Middleville were sitting in school listening to a facilitator.

“Not so fast,” said Salla, hand-walking up the bank from the burrow. Though quite round in her body, she was very nimble. She held a rolled-up cloth between her flowery tail and the back of her head. “You need your disguise, Frek. From what you said, Gov's counselors are looking for you.”

“Maybe I should use Jeroon's chameleon mod?”

“Weren't you listening? The chameleon mod only lasts about half an hour a dose and you only got but three doses. The chameleon mod's too precious to fritter away. We need to use some cheap, all-day type mods to get you in and out of town.”

“I say get rid of his legs and make him a Grulloo,” said Gibby. His thin-lipped mouth showed no humor at all. He knuckle-walked across the gray elephruk bed and felt Frek's calf with his callused hand. “Just for a time, son. I'm not talking knife, so don't have no heart attack. It'll be easy as pie to dwindle down your legs with some of that khora-khora mod. I believe I got a pod of it on me.” Gibby lowered himself to the ground, and began fumbling with both hands in the many little pockets of his yellow leather jerkin.

“Khora-khora!” hissed Bili, baring his jagged yellow teeth.

Though Frek couldn't quite be sure, it seemed like they were serious. What had he gotten himself into, hanging out with Grulloos? Suddenly it seemed like time for some major changes to his plans. Get to Stun City and find the Anvil on his own. Faster than he could think all this, he'd jumped off the elephruk and run across the clearing, heading for the trees.

“Wait!” Salla yelled after him. “Don't listen to Gibby. He's not going to shrink your legs.” She took a few steps after Frek. “Don't run off, Frek! You need us. If you go off on your own, you'll never get out of our woods. Not all the Grulloos are as friendly as us. And did you forget about Okky? She likes to hunt the road to Stun City—daytimes, too. Gibby can get you to Stun City safe and sound.”

Frek hesitated at the edge of the forest. Okky. Maybe he could use the chameleon mod to get past her? But he'd need the mod when he got to Stun City. “Why did Gibby say that about my legs?” asked Frek finally.

“He's trying to scare you so he can feel big,” said Salla, shaking her head so that her petals shook. “He says crazy things to scare people. He thinks he has a sense of humor, but he's just mean. Don't even think about khora-khora.”

“LuHu ate khora-khora right after she hatched,” put in Bili, teasing his sister. “And that's why she's so small. She ate it in a shrinking pill.”

“Did not!” yelled LuHu, rocking over to one side so she could hit her brother with her free hand.

“No more nonsense about khora-khora,” said Salla, unrolling her cloth on the ground. Frek saw lots of bright little pods in there. “Come closer, Frek. I'll fix you up a nice disguise. It's for your own good. I've got all sorts of mods. NuBioCom's always letting us try them out.”

“Gibby has to take back what he said,” said Frek, feeling stubborn.

“I'm sorry,” rasped Gibby. “I didn't mean to upset you, boy. I was just funnin'. 'Course you need your legs. How else you gonna steal that Anvil for us?”

Frek thought things over for a minute, and then he walked back across the clearing. His chances of making it out of the Grulloo Woods were definitely better on Gibby's elephruk. He only hoped there wasn't any such thing as khora-khora.

LuHu and Bili were very much underfoot as Frek looked at Salla's mods. The cloth's pockets were filled with pointed please plant–grown pods, translucent enough to reveal the colored spots of mod-gel nestled in their bottoms. Salla was resting on her stomach, her flowery head next to her unrolled cloth. She was fiddling with her mod-pods, now and then cocking back her head to look up at Frek.

“Here,” said Salla, holding up a pod with curly lines drawn on the top. “Every disguise should start with a beard.”

“Is it safe?” wondered Frek. Lora Huggins had always said terrible things about mods. Nobody in Middleville used mods—or at least nobody admitted that they did. Frek knew from the toons that if you rubbed on a little mod-gel, the stuff got into your cells' nuclei and mitochondria and made them start doing gollywog things. Supposedly the effects wore off. But, according to Mom, “It's like making ugly faces. You might stay that way.”

Salla had a set of thin wooden sticks in her kit, like chopsticks with dents in one end. She used one of the chopstick things to scoop up a little of the beard mod-gel. The gel was pale green. “Okay now?” said Salla, her moon face smiling reassuringly up at Frek. “Lean down so I can reach you.”

“Do it, Frek!” said Bili. “We want to watch.”

Frek hunkered down and Salla used her chopstick to smear the gel along the sides of his face and jaw, carefully going over his face several times to get the stuff smoothly spread out. Right away Frek's skin began to itch, but he was scared to scratch it, not wanting to get the mod-gel on his hands.

“Lips,” said Gibby. “Give him the blub lips too.”

“Mmm, okay,” said Salla.

“How do you mean, blub lips?” said Frek.

“You know,” said Salla. “Puffy kisser. I use this mod myself sometimes. If you put it on even, it looks fabu.”

“Your beard's already startin' to come in,” said Gibby. “Your own maw wouldn't know you. You look ten, twenty years older. All grown up.”

Indeed Frek could feel a steady prickling along the sides of his face. Meanwhile Salla used a fresh chopstick to scoop out a bit of red gel from a pod. Frek pursed his lips and she dabbed it on, a spot here and a spot there.

This mod hit harder than the beard-gel had. Frek's lips began to twitch around like glypher slugs; they tingled and swelled up to what felt like three times their size. In a sudden panic, he scrambled down the bank to the stream and began washing his face. He had hair all over his cheeks and chin, a full beard. Very gollywog. When he felt his lips with his fingers, they weren't as big as he'd imagined. He wondered if it would be hard to talk.

“Hello,” he said tentatively. “My name is Frek Huggins.” The lips worked fine.

LuHu, who was still at his side, echoed him. “Hello. My name is Frek Huggins.”

Frek gave her a smile.

“Look at yourself,” said LuHu, splashing across the stream to a calm pool.

Frek peered into the pool, taking in his new appearance. Quite a change. The beard was gray. And his lips—they'd swollen unevenly, setting themselves into a deformed snarl. What if he did stay this way for good? Again he felt the urge to run away from these Grulloos.

When he climbed back up the bank, Gibby and Salla abruptly broke off their conversation and walked over to him.

“His left arm,” said Gibby finally.

“What about my arm?” asked Frek sharply. It still wasn't too late to run away.

“Gotta change your body too, you wanna fool Gov,” said Gibby. “Like I was gettin' at before. We don't disguise you good, Gov's gonna give you the Three R's and we're never gonna see what's in that Anvil.”

Even as Frek tensed himself to flee, Salla said, “Now,” and abruptly dabbed the back of Frek's left hand with a chopstick that seemed to come out of nowhere. A deep, fluttery sensation went up Frek's arm. It happened before he had time to react.

“Khora-khora!” said Bili in an awestruck tone.

Frek's fingers withered like a balloon leaking air. His ring dropped to the ground. In seconds his hand shrank to half its size. They'd ruined him! His fingers had become limp little worms. His forearm was shrinking as well. It was a nightmare, but he couldn't wake up. His fingers disappeared into five little nubbins at the tip of his arm. The deflating arm shrank up past where his elbow used to be—and stopped.

“Noooooooooo,” moaned Frek, hopping from foot to foot. Yet, as he felt around within himself, he realized that the shrinking of his arm hadn't actually hurt. It was terrible to see, and to think about, but he felt no pain. In fact, in his mind, the arm felt just the same. But in the real world it was a crooked flipper. He stooped to pick up his ring with his good hand, and managed to use his thumb to push it onto one of his good fingers.

Dibble the elephruk had turned her head to see about the yelling. Bili and LuHu were dancing around in excitement, trying to look at Frek's flipper-arm from every side. Salla looked sympathetic, but Gibby—Gibby was up on the elephruk's back laughing.

Frek saw red. He jumped onto the elephruk and aimed a kick at Gibby. But the lizard-tailed Grulloo was too fast. He skipped to one side and yanked Frek's foot as it went by. With his arm the way it was, Frek's balance was off. He fell heavily against a basket of eggs, tipping it over.

“Careful there,” said Gibby, worried about his cargo.

Frek snatched up a Grulloo egg and smashed it into Gibby's face. The egg liquefied when it hit the Grulloo, drenching him in goo. That stopped his laughing. Frek picked up another egg, and got Gibby again. And then Gibby was at his throat, up close and smelling of tobacco and sweat. Frek grabbed onto one of the Grulloo's arms, pulling hard to keep Gibby from choking him. Frek outweighed the Grulloo four to one, but with his left arm missing, it was all he could do to hold his own. Straining and snarling, the two of them rolled off the elephruk bed and onto the ground. Frek hung onto one of Gibby's hands; he held the Grulloo out at arm's length, shaking him back and forth to keep him off balance. Gibby was shrieking curses.

Meanwhile Dibble had lifted her trunk and started trumpeting. Salla was screaming at them to stop. LuHu was crying, and Bili had run off yelling.

And now, before things got any worse, help arrived in the form of Jeroon, dragging a big skin of water that he squirted into their faces. It was a good excuse to stop fighting. Gibby and Frek released each other and lay there panting.

Frek could hardly believe he'd had the courage to attack the tough old Grulloo. And he'd done pretty well in the tussle, too. Gibby showed no desire to resume the fight.

“Gaia save us all,” exclaimed Jeroon, pausing to adjust the buttons of his jacket. “Is this how you treat our Nubby guest, Gibby? The boy who saved my life? You've made him look like a brain-fubbed tramp. Like a gump.”