by Kwame Mbalia
Like, really hard.
But I needed to stall.
“The boy here,” Brer continued, “has done well, in spite of the many, many, many mistakes that we will address later. One of which,” he said, twitching his whiskers at me, “was not following directions as they were given. I seem to recall instructing you to bring the Story Box straight back to MidPass. Hmm? Is that not so? I believe it is, if my memory serves me correctly, and—unlike someone I know—mine always serves me correctly.”
The snarky chastising rubbed every single one of my nerves the wrong way. But I didn’t get angry—or angrier.
I just waited.
Brer continued. “Had you just done what I asked, some of this unnecessary violence might have been prevented.” The giant rabbit shuddered before smoothing his whiskers down and straightening his ears. “No matter. Lessons learned, I’m sure. We can’t all be calm and cool under pressure, now, can we? No, don’t answer—it was a rhetorical question. I’m afraid we were right—you just don’t have what it takes to be the hero that unites Alke, young man. So sad. Truly. I’m crushed.”
He tried to twist his mouth into a disappointed expression, but it ended up looking like a smirk.
“Now, if you’ll kindly hand over that Story Box, I will start fixing this mess you caused with that temper of yours.”
He held out a paw, and I resisted the urge to slap it away. Instead, I backed up.
“What are you doing? Come now, boy, this isn’t the time for games.”
A small dark shape flipped across the sand behind him, and I tried not to look at Gum Baby as she scrambled up John Henry’s shoulder. The giant man jerked in surprise, then relaxed when he saw who it was. He opened his mouth, but Gum Baby shushed him and whispered in his ear. She showed him Nyame’s bright adinkra charm, which winked under the red blaze of the hole in the sky, then pressed it against his temple.
“This is not a joking matter, Tristan,” said Brer. “Hand over the Story Box!”
He lunged forward to snatch the straps of my backpack, but I skipped to the left to put some space between us. Brer tried again, and I ducked, leaving him clutching at air. Dad would’ve been proud of my bobbing and weaving.
“Now look, you spoiled little child,” he wheezed.
I held out the backpack and taunted him. “Is this what you want?”
He glared at me. “Blast it, boy! You’d cross a hero? You are more foolish than I thought. Give me that, or so help me, I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” I teased.
By this time Gum Baby had leaped from John Henry—who stood awestruck by what he had just learned—to High John, and now she dropped to where Miss Sarah and Miss Rose sat. I needed her to hurry up and get to the Alkeans. They needed to see this, too.
“You’ll what? Stomp your little paws again? Go ahead. The Thicket is gone, remember? Whatever magic was in those thorns burned away when the iron monsters attacked.”
Brer stopped chasing me for a second to catch his breath. “Because…of you,” he said, panting. “You did this! Your childish anger, your tantrums, your incessant”—he lunged forward again, but I was ready for it—“need for attention. You brat! You spoiled brat!”
Gum Baby finally reached Thandiwe and Nyame. The Ridge warrior’s frown turned into a gasp when the doll touched the adinkra to the side of her head. Then the little acrobat spun through the air to land on top of Nyame’s fuzzy golden-gray afro. Honestly, I was worried about the sky god the most. Sometimes the closest people fool us the longest. As Gum Baby said earlier, it be your own people.
The little doll gave me a gums-up (Arrrgh, now she had me making bad puns!) and I took a deep breath.
“You want this?” I shouted. I dangled the Story Box and pranced backward until I was on the top of the dune where I had left my bundle. “Do you? Well, come and get it!”
I took another step back and pretended to lose my balance. Brer grinned and dove forward. “Aha!” he shouted.
I pivoted and he tackled air, falling and rolling down the dune, coming to a stop right next to the creature I’d pulled from the hold of the Maafa.
“Gaaaaah!” he yelled, spitting sand out of his mouth. “I’ve had it with—”
I smiled when he came face-to-face with his mirror image.
That’s right—it was a rabbit.
A skinny, soaked, unconscious bunny with matted fur.
We’d rescued Brer from the holds of the Maafa. The real Brer Rabbit.
Which meant the rabbit we’d all been talking to, the one who’d come up with the plans, the one we’d all trusted, was none other than—
“Anansi!” Nyame shouted.
THE DISGUISED GOD YELPED AND scrambled backward. He slipped on a piece of broken barrel and slid down the dune, landing on his fake rabbit tail in a tidal pool. He froze as the others gathered next to me, their expressions ranging from confused to disgusted to furious.
“What is the meaning of this?” Nyame demanded.
Ayanna shook her head. “How could you?”
“This whole time, you let us believe you were gone,” Thandiwe spat. Her kierie was raised, and she looked seconds away from dashing down the slope to beat some honesty into the impostor below.
John Henry leaned on his hammer with his good arm. “We trusted you.”
“And you played us like a new-string fiddle,” High John said. “Sure you did.”
“Now see here,” the disguised Anansi began, getting up and dusting the sand off his furry disguise, “whatever that devious little scamp told you all—”
Nyame stepped forward again, and the words died.
The sky god looked like the sun on earth. Everything around him paled in comparison to his shining robes, and his golden stare threatened to melt Anansi into a puddle. Even John Henry watched him warily.
And Gum Baby rode on Nyame’s head like a princess in a carriage, my adinkra bracelet dangling from her hand.
“You know,” I said, “the last time I was here, the sky god made me a charm. An adinkra. If I remember right, he made it out of light and air.”
“I fail to see how that is at all relevant,” the trickster god muttered, but he didn’t move.
“Oh, it’s relevant, all right. See, that charm was special. What could it do again? Oh yeah. As long as I wore it, I could see through any illusions. Pretty useful, right?”
The impostor rolled his eyes, and I shook my head and continued. “You were there when the real Brer Rabbit was taken by iron monsters. Before I punched the Bottle Tree, I might add. So you can’t pin all this on me.”
He started to protest, but I talked right over him. “You and Brer were trying to figure out how to build a Story Box when the monsters came. They were attracted by the stories you had won from Nyame, and they captured Brer.”
I stopped for a minute, imagining how that scene had gone down, with Anansi only looking out for his own butt. It made me even angrier.
“You stashed Nyame’s broken Story Box in the Ridge for safekeeping,” I went on. “But rather than warn everyone, and get them prepared, you hid in a bunny suit like a chump. Like a coward.”
“Strange hearing that word from a boy who left his friend to die,” the impostor snarled.
A week earlier, that comment would have sent me flying down the dune ready to fight. Even a day ago, maybe. But not anymore. Now those words rolled off me like drops of seawater. I smiled and shrugged, but my accusations were hard, punctuated by a jabbing finger.
“But then, when I created the tear between our worlds, you were stuck! Trapped! You needed a new plan, so you used the Warren to keep tabs on everyone. You sent us after the Story Box—the Story Box you had already drained—not to make things better, but because you still wanted its magic. You still thought you could fix it and everything else on your own.”
I shook my head, disgusted by Anansi’s selfishness. “You put us through all this to satisfy your greed, even though you knew it would only make things worse between
Alkeans and Midfolk. You’re already a god, but that wasn’t enough for you. You also had to be the only storyteller. Isn’t that the truth?”
Silence.
A hand dropped on my shoulder, and I ended my closing statement, balling my hands into fists. Nyame nodded at me, then turned to the sulking god below us. “Reveal,” he said to him.
One word.
The power in it slammed the impostor back into the sand. “What are you—?”
“Reveal.”
Suddenly I felt the urge to admit all my wrongdoings. The times I lied, the times I snuck candy home after school…That time I told Mom I was going on a run but instead I sat on a park bench and read the latest comic book releases.
And I wasn’t the only one.
“Gum Baby confesses!” The little loudmouth dropped from Nyame’s head and collapsed on the sand, pounding it with her fists. “Gum Baby was the one who ate the big biscuit! She knew it was John Henry’s, but it was fluffy and buttery and—”
“Enough!” Nyame said, and he turned back to the impostor, who wriggled furiously on the beach. “I will not say it again.”
“Clever boy.” The voice coming from the shivering, twitching body sounded distorted. Like someone talking with a stuffy nose. Or with their hand over their mouth. “Clever, clever boy. Tricking the trickster. Well done.”
Even with all my suspicions, and the guesses, and even the aid of the adinkra as Gum Baby handed the bracelet back to me, I wasn’t prepared for the tall, skinny, spindly-legged, deep-brown-skinned man who stepped out of the furry disguise he’d been wearing since the iron monsters first showed up. He wore pants that stopped high above the ankles and a cut-off T-shirt, and his bare toes wiggled in the sand. His eyes twinkled mischievously and he wore an infectious smile. A fickle breeze suddenly kicked up sand around us.
“So,” Anansi said, “now what?”
Turns out there are some pretty steep consequences for gods who don’t care for their people. Nyame had Kumi, the golden statue, march the Weaver back to the palace, where judgment would be delivered. The rest of us escorted the sick and injured to the fairy forest, where we hoped the Mmoatia would agree to help them.
On the way, I learned that MidPass was a wreck. Miss Sarah—in between worried glances at Miss Rose, who was now being carried on a stretcher—told us that the iron monsters had wrecked the Thicket, and the Drowned Forest was a stinking, swampy mess. Well, even more stinky and swampy than usual, I guess.
“Folks left everything behind, just dropped it and ran to us when they heard your message to get to the Golden Crescent. We carried some of ’em here in a basket, and it was as scary a flight as I’ve ever seen. But I’d do it again if it came to that.” She folded her wings around me in a giant feathery hug, and I tolerated it. “Ain’t no telling what it’s gon’ be like when we get back to MidPass. But we’ll get back there—”
Miss Rose opened an eye. “Because home is still home,” she finished.
Her partner shushed her, and Gum Baby and I left the two of them with the Mmoatia. Ayanna refused to stay in the sick bay, and she accompanied us, along with Thandiwe, to Nyame’s palace.
“What do you think will happen to Anansi?” Ayanna asked.
Her hair was half braided, half curly afro, and I was tempted to touch it. Instead, I traced the stitching on Eddie’s journal in my pocket. Its familiar weight was such a relief, I constantly patted it to make sure it was still there. “I don’t know. How do you punish a god? Hey, you, no dessert?”
Thandiwe snorted. “Not likely. Make him work—that’s what the elders would say.”
We walked slowly, making sure Ayanna didn’t overexert herself. I could still see some of the brands lining her skin, and the sight still made me angry. She caught me glancing at her for the hundredth time and swatted my arm.
“I’m fine, flyboy. Quit babying me.”
“Who’s a baby?” Gum Baby popped out of my Story Box backpack, where she’d made herself at home. She was in the middle of trying to do her hair so it matched Ayanna’s. “Y’all talk too much. Hurry up! Gum Baby wants to see Nyame put his foot in Anansi’s—”
“Hey, hey,” I said. “Language.”
“Don’t shush me. Gum Baby was gonna say web! You always shushing somebody. Gum Baby ought to put her foot upside your big ole noggin.” She scrambled up and started jumping on my head. “See? How. You. Like. This?”
“I’m gonna take you back to the Mmoatia,” I warned.
She slid down to my shoulder, where she sat in a huff. “You always threatening people.”
We arrived at Nyame’s palace to see animated statues barring the giant doors. The leader squinted at me before stepping aside with a curt nod. I nodded back, and Ayanna raised her eyebrow.
“Careful now, your head can’t get much bigger.”
Gum Baby and Thandiwe snickered, and I couldn’t respond, because we were in the reception hall. Nyame and Anansi faced each other, the sky god on his throne and the Weaver standing in front of the dais, hands still in his pockets. Leopard swished his tail and Python hissed as we stepped inside, but they both kept their eyes locked on Anansi.
Nyame acknowledged us. “Good. Just in time.”
Uh-oh.
I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. “What does that mean?”
Ayanna sucked in a breath at my lack of godly respect, but me and the big sunny god were cool.
I hoped.
Nyame just pointed at Anansi. “I have determined a punishment befitting his disappointing behavior.”
“Not covering your mouth while sneezing is disappointing,” I said. “What he did seems a bit worse.”
“He is standing right here,” Anansi said with a sigh.
“And he can keep on standing while the adults talk,” I shot back. He still had the same snarky attitude as when he had impersonated Brer, and it didn’t irritate me any less.
Anansi just smiled, though.
“If you two are finished,” Nyame said in that weary tone your parents use when you and your siblings are arguing, “perhaps we could proceed? Anansi, Weaver of both tales and tricks, the punishments for your crimes are as follows:
“One, you will immediately cease your research into the stories of other worlds and turn over any and all results to me. Two, you will travel with young Tristan and follow his instructions to the letter to fix the tear in the sky.”
I grinned and Anansi groaned. That would be fun.
But Nyame didn’t stop there.
“In addendum to Two, once the tear is fixed, you will accompany young Tristan into his world to assist in the completion of his story project—it having been so rudely interrupted by your efforts to steal stories from other realms—for a duration of no shorter than twenty days, as Tristan sees fit.”
I choked on air in surprise. “He’s staying with me?”
“I’m staying with him?” Then Anansi got a thoughtful look in his eye. “Actually, that could be—”
“I’m sorry,” Nyame interrupted, and now it was his turn to get a gleam in his eye. “I was not finished. You will accompany young Tristan, but I am not fool enough to trust you any further. No, you will need…constraints.”
Everyone stared in confusion as the sky god began to pull light from the ever-present sunrays beaming through the skylights and windows. He stirred in a piece of a nearby floating cloud, and then blew the glittering mixture toward Anansi. The spider god tried to duck, but the spell held him fast, and a golden whirlwind began to spin around him. Soon he was lost to view behind a funnel cloud of sunlight and magic.
“Tristan, the Story Box,” Nyame commanded.
I shrugged off the treasure and handed it over. Nyame took it, dumped out a protesting Gum Baby, who’d climbed inside to take a nap, and then, before anyone could stop him, tossed the Story Box into the spinning cyclone.
“Wait!” Anansi called out. “Okay, look, I know I did a few things I shouldn’t have—Ouch! That stings!—but we can work this out.
” His head poked from the cloud as he struggled to free himself, and Ayanna gasped. I tried not to recoil either.
His face blurred as it shifted between that of a dimpled, skinny man and that of a jeweled tarantula. Both faces pleaded with the sky god. “Seriously! Let me—Hey, my feet! Let me just make this right. I can—Yowch!—spin up a few—Eeep! It pinches—spells and have everything shipshape!”
His appeals fell on deaf ears, and Anansi turned to me as Nyame’s spell pulled him back inside the funnel cloud. “Look, boy, we started off on the wrong foot. I’ve got eight of them! Easy to do. Look—Watch it! I can’t replace those!—why don’t I give you an even better scribble book?”
I crossed my arms and glared. Anansi continued to plead, even as he disappeared. Finally, after another few spins, the glittering sunlight blew away, leaving nothing behind except for—
“Is that a cell phone?” I asked.
Nyame waved at it. “The spell decided how Anansi might best serve in his, ah, new role.” His golden eyes pinned me in place. “As an Anansesem carried the Story Box into the heart of evil, against my wishes…”
I started to explain, but he cut me off.
“…against my wishes—thereby saving us all—perhaps it is time for the Story Box to be carried by an Anansesem once more. Take it, Tristan, and let the stories of your world fill it. Use Anansi as you see fit. Remember, though—you are now responsible for his actions. You both will have to deal with whatever consequences result from this.”
I walked over and picked up the smartphone. It had a shiny black case, and on the back, a gold spider stretched all eight legs in the cardinal directions. I powered it on, and a spider crawled across the middle of the screen.
“This is humiliating,” the mini Anansi complained. His voice came out tinny, and I grinned. “I feel cooped up!”
“Good,” I said and slipped the phone into my back pocket.
“Doomed to exist in the dark, near a butt. Great.”
“Better than acting like a—”
“Boys,” Nyame said, pinching his brow, “go. Go away before I regret this. And, Tristan…” He inclined his golden-brown head. “Thank you. You have done more for Alke in a few days than many have done in years. You will always be welcome here. Just…next time, try not to bring any Bottle Tree friends with you, hmm?” He fixed me with an Or else stare and held it. “Now shoo. Safe travels.”