Patrick Griffin's Last Breakfast on Earth (3 page)

Half a bottle of Clog-B-Gon drain cleaner, two liberal shots of Summer Shine dishwasher gel, a quarter bottle of Shopmark cooking oil, ten drops of Dr. Rainbow's food coloring, a quarter bottle of Healthy Nailz nail polish remover, thirteen sprays of Today's Gent cologne, the remnants of a long-expired bottle of Borominic cough syrup, ten Clarity Organics window cleaner squirts, three caps of O'Connell's Pore-Reducing Cleanser, one dusty bottle of Miracle Klear eye drops, half a bar of Scottish Dingle soap, one quarter tube of Magic Tuba toothpaste, two Calcicon antacid tablets, two peppermint-flavored Agree mints, a few dashes of Toru's Patented Super Hot Chili Sauce, half a cup of ammonia, and various sprinkles and dashes of other household liquids and powders didn't—Patrick soon concluded—make for the world's most active chemical reaction.

Despite the food dye, the concoction was a boring gray. And, despite the cologne, it smelled really, really bad—kind of like the men's room at a highway rest stop.

He scowled down into the bland-looking soup. All his mixing and careful considerations had been for nothing. Here he'd had his first chance to cause a spontaneous reaction—bubbling, smoke, solid precipitates, anything—and it had been, as Neil would say, an
epic fail
.

Of course he hadn't exactly had ideal laboratory conditions. So as not to press his luck, he'd chosen ingredients as much based upon the unlikelihood of anybody noticing they were missing as upon their likely reactive properties. And there weren't any Bunsen burners, distillation tubes, graduated cylinders, Rotovaps, or Erlenmeyer flasks in the Griffin kitchen; he'd had to make do with the stainless steel sink, some measuring cups, and a whisk.

But Mom was always saying beggars couldn't be choosers, and when would he ever have another chance like this? She would probably be back in a matter of minutes, and after this he was sure he'd not be left alone in the house again, ever.

He found some dishwashing gloves under the sink, wedged next to a box of copper pot-scrubbers, and, reaching for them, bumped the inside of his arm against the elbow-joint drainpipe.

“Ouch!” he yelled, falling back on his butt.

“What the—?!”

As he watched, the letters
YA-WAY
rose up on his skin.

Wincing but too startled and excited to cry, Patrick went back into the cabinet, grabbed the flashlight, and found the source of his red-lettered burn: the manufacturer's name,
JACKYAW-AYERS FOUNDRY
, was stamped along the length of the pipe. It and the underside of the sink were hot as a teakettle.

He leapt to his feet and examined his concoction, now bubbling vigorously and giving off a milky, slightly greenish gas.

“Oh, yeah!” he exclaimed, reaching across the frothing sink to slide open the kitchen window. He should have thought to do it earlier—he wasn't working in a fume hood, after all—but then he hadn't been expecting a reaction quite
this
powerful. The heat, the bubbles, the gas … despite the lame selection of ingredients and equipment, he had touched off a seriously exothermic reaction!

As he grappled with the latch some of the stinging vapor reached his nose and he paused, trying to decide if he was going to sneeze or cough.
Cough
, his throat and lungs quickly made clear—it was definitely going to be a cough. His shoulders hunched forward and he brought the crook of his elbow to his mouth as a searing whiteness marched in from the edges of his vision.

He stumbled back from the sink, nose and lips burning like he'd bitten into the world's hottest chili pepper. And then the cough came—a single, deep, rib-bruising bark that dropped him to his knees.

And no sooner had it subsided than another started to come on, and this was a problem because he couldn't conceive of drawing enough breath to possibly let it happen. A keening tone filled his ears, and his eyes seemed to have been dropped inside a fluorescent bulb—everything was a swirling, brilliant, blue-tinged white.

And then—as if a magician had snapped his fingers—it all went away. His vision came back, he could breathe, and he felt strong and healthy and happy like he'd just had a great night's sleep and it was either his birthday or Christmas morning.

He laughed with relief and decided to sit down on the floor. But somehow it seemed like gravity had weakened and, rather than taking the time to unfold his knees and tuck his legs, he chose to just sort of lean backward. The kitchen phone began to ring as he slowly toppled back to the floor. He wondered if he'd accidentally made chlorine gas … or cyanide … or some sort of powerful neurotoxin? He realized that would be bad … although still, pretty freaking cool to have done it in a kitchen sink …

The phone rang again and it occurred to him that he should answer it—perhaps it was Mom—but he was really busy sitting down right now, and anyhow, it was
way
too far away.

A brilliant green light filled the room as he fell backward toward the polished split-bamboo planks of the kitchen floor. It was the green of a late-spring field day, the shade of a Pentecostal chasuble.

His head bounced on the floor once, twice, three times. The light soon subsided, but the ceiling, the counter ledge, the window over the sink, the wooden-handled cabinets, the plastic-seated kitchen stools—everything around him—was turning green and slightly fuzzy, as if the entire room was growing a coat of Astroturf.

Then the phone rang a third time and Patrick closed his eyes, and kept them that way.

 

CHAPTER 6

Unique Qualifications

The heavy stone door slammed shut with a floor-shaking thud. Mr. BunBun shivered and turned on the censer, placing it inside the carved stone bowl of the font. He waited to see the first puff of smoke and then laid his furry brown body down on the straw-covered floor. He would soon be on his way.

He had expected to be more excited. This was, after all, the brink of one of the world's most (if things worked out) historic journeys. He and so many other soldiers for the Commonplace, the book of the Minder's wisdom, had worked so hard—and risked so much—to get here.

But rather than feeling like the hero of some poem about to embark upon an epic journey, he was starting to worry he was more a guinea pig about to be embarked on a laboratory experiment. Or, if not a guinea pig, at least a rabbit. He still wasn't entirely comfortable with his BunBun nickname—weighing more than forty kilograms, gifted with the ability to speak, and possessed of a pair of antlers that would make a young deer green with envy—he was hardly a
bunny
. But his protests had only strengthened his friends' insistence on the nickname; and what did he really care, anyhow? He was a grownup; he could take a joke.

What he wasn't so sure he could take—at least any longer—was this particular situation. None of his friends and co-conspirators, after all, had ever
done this
. None of them had ever (except perhaps in dreams) even
laid eyes on
his destination.

Earth.
It was supposed to be a world where poetry, art, and music still flourished—a world not yet enslaved by Deacons. But it was also a place where untold
millions
suffered from oppression, famine, and war. And it was where Rex Abraham, Decimator of Worlds, was even now plotting another apocalypse.

Which was why he was undertaking this mission.

But a lot of good it did him to have misgivings now. Now, after he had
volunteered
to wake up the people of poor, disconnected Earth to the massive threat at their door. Now, as he sat on the brink. Now, after he had said his goodbyes to all his friends and entered the nave. Now, as the heavy stone door had been sealed. Now, as the vaporous tendrils of transcense were beginning to flow over the lip of the ceremonial font.

He pressed down hard on his whiskered lip and blinked his rabbity eyes.

“Well, you've really gotten yourself into it this time, BunBun,” he said to himself. And then, thinking of his leaders, “I sure hope this is not another classic case of them not knowing what it is they do.”

Checking the time upon the device strapped to his furry wrist, he put back down his antlered head, closed his eyes, and went through the preparations from
The Book of Commonplace
. Preparations he had rehearsed a hundred times in the past week alone:

One: Lie down on your back.

Two: Hold close any items you wish to bring with you.

Three: Close your eyes and relax.

Four: Do not struggle—let your impulses run free.

This last one meant that if his lungs wanted to cough, he should cough. If his eyes wanted to cry, he should let them cry. If his gut wanted to belch or fart, he should let it belch or fart.

Mr. BunBun didn't quite do either of the latter, but as the first acrid wisps of smoke reached his face, he did cough: a single, rib-bruising bark that caused his antlers to scratch along the floor and his legs to kick straight out in the air. A keening tone filled his ears now and a swirling white—as brilliant and unnatural as fluorescent light—crept in from the edges of his vision.

He kept his eyes clenched shut as bouts of vertigo rocked his world. He was barely able to recall the last preparation:

Five: Keep your mind on your mantra.

His mantra! He scoured his dissipating memory. How could he possibly no longer remember it? How many times had he recited the thing—a thousand? Ten thousand?

And then—just like somebody pressed a button—it all stopped. The searing whiteness lifted and he could breathe, and he felt strong and healthy and happy like the morning of a festival day.

Had it happened? Was he there, on the other side?

His eyes fluttered open.

No. No, he was still in the smoky transubstantiation chamber. But a verdant light was gathering. He'd been told of this. Everything in the room—the stone pillars, the vaulted ceiling, the dais, the single-columned font—they all were becoming greener, and greener, and greener. It soon was as if everything was made of golf-course grass.

And then his Commonplace mantra came back,

“Ears are for Earth

Eyes are for Ith

And both in their way

Help the true become Truth!”

He closed his eyes and said it again. And again. And again. And then—finally—it happened.

 

CHAPTER 7

A Different Sort of Homecoming

A flat-faced fire engine dopplered by as Lucie Griffin reached the entrance to the empty, rain-soaked playground between Lexington and Sunset.

She was returning from the public library with a book on George Grosz, an old German painter whose cartoonish depictions of bloated, hypocritical adults had become her latest artistic fascination.

Propping the big flat book and the handle of her umbrella between her chin and shoulder to free her hands, she opened the gate in the chain-link fence. A police car roared by, headed toward Morningside,
her
street. Curiosity and a measure of something else seized her.

“There's no way—” she started to say, but even as she peered through the leafless maples at the back of the O'Donnells' yard, she could see the police car and also a fire engine—plus two other police cars and an ambulance—stopped in front of
her house
.

Lucie hated anything athletic and most especially the act of running, but she furled her umbrella, clutched her book to her chest, and sprinted harder than she had since she was a little kid.

 

CHAPTER 8

A Place of Sense