The Boy from Earth (8 page)

The wind is blowing right in my face. My robe and slippers are dry. Actually, I'm fairly dry myself. I wouldn't mind a drink, and maybe something to eat. It's been a while since the cake. A band of cloud cuts across the horizon up ahead. It's moving towards us, pushed by the wind. Lightning plays off to the right. Norbert is just behind me and we're flying fairly low to the ground.

“Do you know where the Sudden Mountains are?” I call to him.

He shakes his head. –
We're a couple hours from, the Amyg Dale, so the mountains should be nearby. But I don't know exactly where.

“Should we ask for directions?”

–
Dingwall, these are the Random Lands. Sudden forests, sudden deserts, sudden mountains. Look down right now. Go
on, look as hard as you like. What do you see? Rocks. Want to ask a handful of pebbles for directions?
“I see a road,” I say.

–
Where?

I point to a ribbon of gray cutting through the stones. It leads over behind a hill on our left. “Come on,” I say. “The road will lead us to civilization – a place where we can ask directions and find some breakfast.”

–
Wait, Dingwall!
he cries.

But I'm thinking about breakfast. I follow the gray ribbon around the hill with Norbert on my tail, calling me names, telling me to slow down, that he doesn't trust the weather or the road, that there might be minions around.

What a worrier!

By the time we get to the other side of the hill, I realize that the bank of cloud is closer than I thought. In fact, it's right here, a rounded billow of white reaching from the sky to the ground. The road disappears into it, like a snake going under a lady's long skirt. I point it out to Norbert.

“We could head down,” I say. “Maybe there's a restaurant.”

Norbert snorts. –
A restaurant? Why stop there? Maybe there's a movie theater. Maybe there's a hotel, with a hot tub in every room. Or a candy mine, with bucketfuls of raw jujubes.

“Don't be silly. There's no such thing as a candy mine. Not even on Jupiter. Is there?” I say. Mind you, come to think of it, Jupiter is exactly the sort of place where there might be a candy mine. Hmmm. I wonder what raw jujubes
would taste like. “What's your favorite color of jujube?” I ask. “Mine's black.”

–
Dingwall, there's no mine down there. There's nothing. The road doesn't go anywhere.

“Then why build it?” I ask.

–
Why, indeed?

And the mist covers us. The air is suddenly cooler. I pull my bathrobe tight around me, and keep flying until I feel a gentle bump against my chest and hear a faint beautiful
wheet wheet
sound. I've flown into a bird.

I exclaim, and stop.

–
What now?
asks Norbert.

“Sorry,” says the bird, in a musical flutey voice. It seems to be stuck in my robe. I pull it free. A small brown bird with smooth wings and bright red eyes.

“Sorry,” it says again. “You must hate me for running into you.”

“Not at all,” I say. “I ran you down.”

“No, it's my fault! I feel horrible. My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains my senses. As if of hemlock I had drunk, or drained some dull opiate to the drains.”

“That bad, eh?” I say. “You should eat something.”

The bird introduces herself as Jenny. She's not shy. “As a matter of fact, I was on my way to the mill for breakfast, when I got lost in the fog,” she says.

“There's a mill near here? With a restaurant?”

“Sure. A good restaurant. Five stars. I go there all the time. It's easy to find. Just follow the road. Want to come with me?”

I sure do! “Sounds good, hey, Norbert?”

–
Hmph.

“I told you that road went somewhere.”

–
How come you got lost if the mill's so easy to find?
he asks her. He sounds suspicious.

“I told you, it was the fog.”

Just then a gust of wind blows the fog clear for a moment, and I catch sight of rising rocky ground, with a ribbon of road snaking ahead.

“There's the road!” I cry out. “We'll go with you, Jenny. Then you won't be blown off course again.” She perches on my finger, and sings her thanks. What a nice bird. “You're some kind of sparrow, I guess,” I say.

“Sparrow?” For a second, I hear iron in her voice. Then she softens it again. “I'm a light-wingèd Dryad of the trees.” She sings a few liquid warbling phrases. “That selfsame song was heard by Ruth when, sick for home, she stood alone amidst the alien corn,” she says.

“Oh,” I say.

The cloud bank covers us again, thicker than before. It's like flying through mushroom soup. I can't see ahead. Not a block, not a stone's throw, not a car length. I hold out my own hand. It disappears into a thick wall of white mist.

–
Slow down!
cries Norbert, grabbing my arm.

I stop moving my toes. We're barely moving. That's when I hear a strange sound dead ahead.
Creak … creak creak.
What is it?

A gust of wind hits from my left side. I heel like a sailing ship in a storm, barely able to keep my balance. Then,
without warning, the wind veers and attacks from behind.

–
I don't like this
, says Norbert.

No use in staring ahead. I can't see past my nose. I fly slowly, and listen hard.

There it is again.

Creak … creak creak … creak creak.
It's regular, and mechanical. The cloud bank swirls away for a second and shows a triangular sail, which disappears into the mist, and then reappears in the same place. Then it disappears and reappears again. And I realize it's not the same sail. Four sails going round and round.

Jenny gives a charming throaty laugh. “That's the mill, silly,” she says.

“What's it doing in midair?” I ask.

We fly closer. Of course, the windmill is not in midair, but on a little outcrop of bare rock. The ground drops steeply away from the mill, and rises steeply beside it.

“It's a mountain!” I say. “See that? The rock goes straight up. Where'd that mountain come from? Wow! It popped right out of the cloud like a jack-in-the-box!”

–
That's why they call these the Sudden Mountains
, says Norbert.

“Good thing we were going slowly. If we'd been flying at a normal speed, we'd have crashed into them.”

The mountainside is sheer and jagged, like a giant steak knife pointing at the sky. The mill perches precariously.

“Let's go inside,” says Jenny. “I wonder what they've got on the menu today. I'm kind of thirsty, aren't you? I
could really go for a draught of vintage that hath been cool'd a long age in the deep-delvèd earth, Tasting of Flora and the country-green, dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!”

“Sure,” I say, “that sounds pretty good.”

Creak. Creak creak.
The windmill has blue sides, a white top, and red sails. It looks very familiar. I fly closer, and find out why. My dad and I put together one just like it. This was before the divorce, when I was small. I couldn't help much. Dad got down on his hands and knees on the living room floor, hunting for different-sized plastic pieces, and cursing the manufacturer.

“Hey, Norbert!” I call. He's behind me. “The mill looks like it's made out of those snap-together bricks.”

–
What? Get back, Dingwall! Get back at once! That's a proteor.

“A what?”

–
It's another of the Black Dey's minions! It can make itself look like anything. Where's that blasted bird?

I feel Jenny crawling up my bathrobe. “Ah, youth,” she mutters to me, “that grows pale, and spectre thin,
and dies!”
She breaks out in a strange thin nasty laugh. Quite unlike her. I look down and –

“Ugh!”

I freeze, clenching my toes in instinctive horror. A large brown spider with Jenny's bright red eyes is crawling across my bathrobe, cackling to herself. Like the windmill, she's made of plastic bricks. I can see where they snap together to make her long jointed legs. I guess she was made of
plastic bricks when she was a bird too. That's the great thing about those bricks: you can turn them into whatever you like.

The windmill, for instance, has turned into a circular saw, complete with a rotating sharp blade.

Jenny, thrown from me when I stop dead, ends up underneath the saw blades.

Norbert grabs my arm and pulls me away. A soft, kindly blanket of cloud wraps itself around us. I don't know if the saw can see us, but I can't see it.

–
Come on, Dingwall
, says Norbert. “Which way?”

–
We've got to get over the mountains, right? So I'd suggest up.
I try to smile, but I'm still shaken. “Jenny was a spider,” I say, in a small voice.

–
No, she wasn't.
Norbert is firm.
She was a bunch of little plastic blocks. By now, she's something else. Think of her as a car, or a chair. Or a window frame. Hard to be scared of a window frame, isn't it?

I almost smile. “You never liked her, did you? How come?”

–
Maybe I'm scared of little plastic blocks.

We angle our slippers upward and begin to climb. My calf muscles remind me that I had to stretch them like this yesterday afternoon, climbing out of the Chasm near Betunkaville. We keep climbing. We take a zigzag route across the face of the mountain, counting to a hundred and then angling back the way we came. My world is narrow: the dwarfish clingy mosses and steeply angled sweating rocks in front of me, and Norbert's slippers above. When we take a moment to catch our breath, I look around. Thick curls of mist obscure where we've been, and where we still have to go.

We keep climbing.

And climbing.

And that's it for a while. We climb, and get blown backward and forward by gusts of wind, and climb some more,
and try to keep a sharp lookout for snap-together enemies. As we climb higher, I find that my body gets more tired but my mind becomes more active.

Altitude, I realize, is more than distance from the ground; it's also distance from all things relating to the ground. I feel this within me as I climb higher and higher. I feel my body becoming less and less important to me. My mind ranges wide and high over all that I know, all my experience, analyzing, judging from a great height. I understand and appreciate more than I ever have, and I worry less.

I consider the phenomenon of the mountains suddenly popping out at me from behind the cloud cover. Sudden Mountains, indeed. An excellent name. Very apt.

I consider the phenomenon of the sail on a windmill. It traps the wind going one direction, and utilizes it in another. A matter of forces and vectors. Fascinating.

I consider my loneliness. I'm an only child. I've been lonely most of my life. The reason Norbert and I get along so well is that we're company for each other.

I consider Jenny's trickery, and why it bothers me. It isn't that she was bad. (I've been in the same class as Mary the bully since kindergarten. I've seen girls behave badly.) No, it's the fact that Jenny started out nice and then turned into a nightmare. Treachery. That's the scary thing. Not the spider, but the bird turning into the spider.

I consider the Dey's castle. The Lost Schloss. Now, that's hard to think, let alone say. Lost Schloss. Lost Schloss. Losht Slosh. Loscht Schloscht. I sound like I'm drunk.
Schloshed. I giggle. I wonder where the Schloss can be schituated? How do you hide something on a plain? A plain is flat, and a schloss is, well, pointy.

I keep climbing. I'm thirsty. I feel as though I've been climbing forever. I wonder what time it is, what day it is.

I catch up to Norbert. This climbing is hard on him. He's braver and smarter than I am, but not nearly as strong. His eyes are almost shut. His antennae are flat on the top of his head.

“Come on, Norbert,” I say, pushing him upward. His feet point all over the place, making it difficult. “Keep going. It's not too far now.” This doesn't feel like a lie because I really have no idea how far it is. For all I actually
know
, I might be telling the truth.

He mutters to himself. –
Hang on, Nerissa
, he says.
We're coming.

I keep climbing. My legs and feet hurt. And I'm so-o-o-o thirsty.

Soon it's clear that Norbert can't go on. I put him on my back, with his arms over my shoulders. I keep climbing, carrying him piggyback. “We're nearly there,” I tell him.

And we are. I just don't know where
there
is.

He falls asleep and begins muttering to himself, having imaginary conversations with Nerissa. –
Sorry I'm late
, he says.
It's all Dingwall's fault.

I can feel Norbert's head swaying back and forth as I make the switchbacks. He snores gently, like a little kid taking a nap. Poor guy, he's totally worn-out.

I keep climbing. The rocks have frost and snow on them now. The mist is getting thinner. It can't be much farther, can it?

Norbert starts talking about me. –
You know what I don't like about Dingwall?
he says.
He's too negative.

He must think he's talking to Nerissa. “You know, I'm right here,” I say.

–
No, no. Don't defend him. You don't really know him. I know Dingwall, and he's the biggest Gloomy Gus you'll ever meet. Always ready to fail. Always ready to back out. If only Dingwall knew how much he has going for him, he'd …

“I'd what?” I say, but Norbert has drifted off again.

The climbing seems to be easier. It's almost like floating upwards on the wind. The higher I climb, the less I feel like doing. I'd rather observe life, smiling with infinite understanding, infinite patience, infinite tolerance. I feel like a feather, or a dandelion seed, or a balloon. Except that my feet are killing me.

The mist remains thick below us, but thins to nothing as I look up. The sky overhead is almost clear.

I see a splash of green on the mountainside – the first sign of life.

–
Know what else I don't like about Dingwall?
says Norbert suddenly.

I look back over my shoulder. His eyes are shut. His head lolls. He's fast asleep.

–
Low self-esteem. Dingwall should like himself more
.

“Well, you're not helping,” I say.

–
I think he's great. He's funny, and creative. He's a good friend.

“I am? I mean, he is?”

–
He doesn't have anything to be scared of. But he is scared. He should let himself go more. Be free. He should realize that who he is is okay. He doesn't have to worry about anything. Oh, except for the nose picking. That's gross! Once last week, he almost totalled my kitchen. Flakes of plaster falling from the ceiling, and this giant –

“Hey!” I say. I wiggle my shoulders from side to side. I don't have to listen to this.

As I reach the mountaintop, the mist evaporates. It's clear, cool, and just past dawn. Looking into the distance, I can see the top half of a yellow disc shining palely.

Sunrise. It's a new day. I wonder what happened to the old one. We must have been climbing all night.

My feet need a rest. I fly over to a flat rock and land awkwardly, with Norbert's weight on my back. I put him down, and drop to my knees. A cup-sized hollow in the middle of the rock contains snowmelt. I drink from my hands. The water is cool and sharp tasting. I splash some on my face, then on Norbert's. He wakes up, groaning.

A creature rears up out of a nearby snowdrift. It's as big as a car, with a single eye staring from the top of its box-shaped head, and a single arm sticking straight out from its body like a crane. I can see the bumps and hollows of snap-together pieces. This is another proteor.

A cage hangs from the end of the proteor's arm. It's a
colorful box with bars – the kind of cage that holds lions and tigers in the old circus movies. The proteor lowers the cage to the ground, and I see that there's something inside. I wonder what lives in the Sudden Mountains.

The long arm has a hook on the end. It swings towards me in a flash, and the hook catches the belt of my bathrobe. The crane hoists me in the air.

–
Oh, no!
cries Norbert.

It's a strong belt, made of good thick toweling. I'm hooked, all right. The arm of the crane ratchets in a series of clicks.

Norbert flies over and tears at the hook, yelling at me to do something. I'm philosophical. The proteor's stronger than I am. I guess this is how things are supposed to work out. It's destiny. What can you do?

The proteor gives off a faint smell of lubricating oil. Not unpleasant.

The cage is just below me now. When I see the animal inside, I almost choke.

Norbert is surprised too. –
Would you look at that! I thought they were all gone.

A puppy-sized animal, with vibrant gold and crimson stripes. A familiar animal, with pointy ears and a long nose and handles sticking out of its neck. A scared animal, round eyes rolling, trembling legs fitted into two curved wooden rails.

A horse. A rocking horse. My rocking horse.

“Barnaby?” I call down to it, in a gentle voice. “Barnaby, is that you?”