“You are Mr. Chickee!”
Mr. Chickee smiled and opened his arms to give the boys a hug, but they seemed stuck, like their feet were set in concrete.
Mr. Chickee turned to Richelle and put out his hand. “Othello Chickee's the name, it's a pleasure to finally meet you. Welcome to Ourside.”
Richelle shook the offered hand.
“My name's Richelle Cyrus-Herndon. It's nice to meet you, sir. I've heard a lot about you, but I was starting to wonder if you were nothing but Steven's and Russell's minds playing tricks on them.”
Mr. Chickee laughed and said, “They do have two of the wildest imaginations I've ever seen, which is one of the reasons I'm so fond of them. Another reason is you'll never make two other friends who are more loyal and true.”
Richelle wrinkled her brow and said, “Humph!”
Steven and Russell were still staring at each other in a state of shock.
Steven looked at Russell, then back at Mr. Chickee again, then back at Russell, then back …
Russell looked at Steven, then back at Mr. Chickee, then back at Steven again, then back …
It was hard to believe there was even one drop of common sense between the two of them!
Richelle shook her head. “They're the only two people I know who can get brain freeze without even drinking a slushie! As you can see, they don't handle surprises and new ideas very well.”
Mr. Chickee smiled and said, “But as you know, there aren't two bigger hearts in all of Yourside.”
Richelle snuffled again. “That's the second time you've said something like that, Mr. Chickee. Where on earth are you talking about when you say ‘our side’ and ‘your side’?”
“Yourside, one word, capitalized. And that's exactly right. It's right on Earth.”
Richelle twisted her lips to the right, wrinkled her brow and tapped her foot.
Mr. Chickee said, “Once the three of you came through the porch, you landed in Ourside, one word, capitalized. You left what we call Yourside, which is your Earth.”
“So we're not on Earth anymore?”
“Technically, it's iffy. Earth is another dimension of here, or here is another dimension of Earth, no one's quite sure.”
Richelle began tapping her left foot and said, “I hate sounding like Steven Carter, but huh? I don't get it.”
“Don't get yourself all worked up, Ms. Cyrus-Herndon, it will become clear after you've been here for a while.”
“A while?” Richelle started tapping her foot even faster. “If I'm not back home in fifteen minutes, my mother will bedown here looking for me. She'll turn Yourside, Ourside and Theirside upside down. She'll—”
“Hold on, hold on. I need to explain that right away. You see, time is different here in Ourside.”
Richelle's foot was tapping so fast that her shoelace came undone and retied itself four times.
“A countdown has started, Richelle,” Mr. Chickee said, and handed her a really strange-looking watch. It didn't have hands or numbers or anything that would make you think it was telling time; instead it spelled out the words, “Twenty-nine days, twenty-three hours, fifty-six minutes, and thirty-two seconds,” and it was counting down a second at a time.
Richelle turned hers over several times in her hand. “What is this?”
“That is an Oops-a-Daisy. It tells how much time you can spend here before one second passes on Earth.”
Richelle looked at the watch thingy, calculated and said, “So that means we can be down here for thirty days, a whole month, and only one second will go by on Earth?”
“Correct.”
“So then if we're down here for two months, only two seconds will go by on Earth?”
“No! Exactly wrong. That's why I'm giving you this. Once you're here for one second more than one month, once this Oops-a-Daisy counts down to all zeroes, I'm afraid ninety-nine years, nine months and nine days will have passed on Earth.
“I have to make certain you understand that, Ms. Cyrus-Herndon. If you stay down here one second more than a month, more than ninety-nine years will have passed on Earth and nearly everybody you know will have died before you get back. The only person who'll probably still be alive is Steven's neighbor, Dr. Taylor. It will be as though you've been frozen and have come back almost a hundred years later.”
Richelle reached the Oops-a-Daisy back toward Mr. Chickee.
“Thank you very much, but we won't be needing this. We're just looking for Russell's dog, Rodney Rodent. Once we get him, we're bye-bye.”
Mr. Chickee's forehead wrinkled. “I'm hoping it isn't going to be that simple, Richelle.”
It took that long for Steven's brain freeze to finally thaw out.
He said, “Huh? I don't get it. You can see, Mr. Chickee? You're not really blind? Andre, Smudge, Daniel and Stevie Boy Collins were right when they said you've been pretending you were blind all of this time? You've been tricking us? I can't believe it!”
“Steven, Steven, Steven. I've never pretended anything with you. When I'm on Earth, on Yourside, I truly am blind. When I'm here, in Ourside, I can see.”
Steven said, “Huh? I don't—”
Mr. Chickee interrupted, “We're not exactly certain why, but intragalactic, translateral, cosmal, xenogenistic, fifth-dimensional continuum travel is not as easy to do as itsounds. Moving from Ourside to Yourside does have its problems. And while we're around ninety-nine point nine nine percent successful in keeping a person whole when they go through the porch, that last point zero one percent has presented us with some rather interesting and thus far insurmountable difficulties.”
Richelle said, “That sounds like nothing at all, Mr. Chickee, one-hundredth of one percent sounds like a drop in the ocean.”
“A very good analogy, Ms. Cyrus-Herndon, it is an extremely small amount, but at the same time it is not nothing. As small as it is, it does make a tremendous difference.
“Take my eyes as an example. Here in Ourside I have full use of them, I am completely sighted. But when I travel to Yourside, to your Earth, when I cross through the porch, something as small as a drop in the ocean changes, something that our greatest scientists have figured is less than point zero one percent of the total. That tiny bit doesn't work properly and I'm unable to use my eyes.”
Richelle said, “But wait a minute, Mr. Chickee, does that mean the same thing happened to us when we crossed from Earth to here? Is there something that is point zero one percent different on us now?”
“Excellent question, Ms. Cyrus-Herndon, and the answer is yes.”
Steven whispered to Russell, “Man! I was just about to ask that myself. She shoots her mouth off so quick no one else has a chance to—”
Richelle said, “But we all can see, we all can hear, what's different?”
“You never know. It affects each person differently. It might be something as minor as your hair is one shade lighter, it might be as trivial as your left earlobe is a millimeter longer or it might be something so major that it causes you to lose your vision.”
“Hmmm,” Richelle said, “I'll have to keep a watch on this.”
“Yeah,” Steven chimed in, “me too.”
Richelle rolled her eyes. “Well, we see whatever has changed with you, Steven Carter, it's not your ability to think on your own, that's still as lame as ever.”
Steven turned and looked at Richelle for the first time since they'd landed in Ourside. He knew he couldn't let her get away with saying that in front of all these people.
“Is that right, Cyrus-Herndon?” He looked right in her eyes. “On you I can see the point zero one percent change is …”
“Man,” he thought, “I never noticed before that there's something kind of cute about Richelle when she's tapping her foot and rolling her eyes like that.
“Now, what was I about to say?” he asked himself. “Oh, yeah …”
“On you, Richelle, it's real easy to see …”
He thought, “It's real easy to see you're
about the most beautiful person I've ever seen!”
A look of disgust swept over Richelle's face. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what, sw—” Steven quickly slapped his hand over his mouth before the last word he was going to say to Richelle came out. He couldn't believe it, but he'd been that close to saying “Like what, sweetheart?”
Russell said, “Yeah, Bucko, the way you're looking at Madam President is giving me the creeps!”
Richelle said, “If it's giving you the creeps, think what it's doing to me! I feel like I've got the heebie-jeebies, the walking willies and the creepy crawlies all at the same time.”
Russell looked like a stomachache was coming on and said, “And what were you getting ready to call her, Bucko?”
Steven quickly looked away from Richelle and it seemed like his mind came back to him.
He said, “I was starting to say ‘Like what, sw … sw … sweat hog! That's it! I was gonna say ‘Like what, sweat hog?’ ”
Mr. Chickee and the African woman laughed.
The woman put her hand on Steven's head and said, “Hmmm, I think I see what has changed on this one.”
Mr. Chickee sighed and said, “Ah, Naomi, do you remember?”
“How could I ever forget? I'll always remember my first love.”
Steven slapped his hands over his eyes, Richelle slapped her hands over her mouth and Russell slapped his hands over his ears, and all three screamed, “Noooo!”
Sounding a lot like the Godfather of Soul, Steven kepthis eyes shut and pleaded to himself, “Please, please, please, don't let this be true. Please!”
He pulled his hands down and thought, “Okay, think like a detective, try to put things together. It seems like something has changed when I look at Richelle. When I think about her, I can't stand her, I know what a rotten, stuck-up little brainiac she is. I know she's about the worst person I've ever seen, I know she stole my presidency from me and I've got to pay her back.
“But when I see her face”—he opened his eyes, looked at Richelle and moaned to himself—“all I can think of is another one of Dad's weak old rhythm-and-blues songs: ‘Heaven must be missing an angel,’ cause you're here with me right now!' ”
Steven shut his eyes, shook his fist at the sky and screamed out, “No! Anything but this! I want something else to be changed! Make it so I'm not so smart, make it so I'm not so handsome, make it anything but this! What have I done to deserve this?”
He looked at Richelle, saw the horror on her face and screamed, “What have I done to deserve this, to deserve living at the same time as the most beautiful, most precious thing to ever have lived in history?”
Richelle's face went from being horrified to something Steven didn't recognize.
Great-great-grampa Carter's dictionary finally stopped downloading all of the new information and said, “Ah, that would be a classic look of mortification.”
Steven's eyes were glued on Richelle. He said, “So, mortification means ‘lovely beyond belief’?”
The African woman said, “Not quite. But simply avoid looking at her, young man, I'm fairly certain that will solve your problem.”
Steven looked away, and sure enough, as soon as he did, he was back to thinking of Richelle as a creepy little genius wannabe.
He knew he had to say something extremely rude, but all he could come up with was “Richelle Cyrus-Herndon is such a pain that no one can stand her.” He knew that was weak, so he threw in “She also eats boogers!”
Richelle smiled and said, “Whew!”
Russell smiled and said, “Whew!”
Steven, being careful to look at anything but Richelle, smiled and said, “Whew!”
Mr. Chickee said, “Well, now that that's over, I've been remiss in not introducing you to my dear friend Ms. Naomi Tiptip. Ms. Tiptip, this is Russell Braithewaite Woods.”
Russell shook the tall woman's hand and said, “I recognize you! Mummy and Daddy force me to read all the time, and they bought me a book about people in Africa. I know you're dressed like a Masai woman. The book says your people do a lot of cattle herding.”
Ms. Tiptip smiled and said, “You're right! I think it's great your parents encourage you to read and to learn about other people.”
“Yeah, the book says the Masai are very friendly and never get angry at anybody.”
Ms. Tiptip and Mr. Chickee exchanged a look.
She said, “Indeed we are a friendly people, Russell, but I'm not really sure what the book meant when it said we never get angry. Believe me, I've seen my sister get quite angry with my brother, and I must admit I've been known to get a little ticked off with him myself.”
“Are you sure you're Masai?”
“Without doubt.”
“I don't know, the book said real plain that you guys are the kind of people who have no mads in the group.”
Ms. Tiptip smiled. “Ahh! Nomads! That doesn't mean we never get angry, Russell, it means we're wanderers, we travel from place to place.”
Russell whispered to Steven, “I'm gonna ignore her definition, I like mine better.”
Ms. Tiptip said, “Guess what, Russell? I've also studied a few things about you. I know you hold many Yourside records for eating massive amounts of food. In fact, I believe the only person in Ourside, in our dimension, who can consume as much as you do is the Incredible Bottomless Pit Glutton Man of Sultana.”
Mr. Chickee said, “I don't know, Naomi. Don't forget, on the island of Cyclopsia there's Bryanne the Wonky One-Eyed Goat Girl, and she's even less picky about what she'll eat than the Glutton Man.”
Russell beamed and whispered to Steven, “Wow, Bucko!I never thought I'd be famous in another dimension! I don't even know what a dimension is!”
Mr. Chickee said, “And this charming young woman is Richelle Cyrus-Herndon.”
Richelle said, “Jambo, bibi. Habari gani?”
The African woman laughed, threw her head back and said, “Swahili! Jambo! Ulijulia wapi kuongea Kiswahili sanifu hivyo?”
Richelle said, “Niliishi Kenya miaka mitatu.”
Ms. Tiptip said, “Nimefurahi sana kukutana na mschana kama wewe anayeongea lugha yangu vizuri sana!”
Richelle said, “Asante sana! Sijafanya mazoezi juzi juzi.”
Ms. Tiptip said, “Unaongea vizuri sana. Naamini tutapata nafasi nyingine ya kuongea.”
Richelle said, “Natumai hivyo pia. Nimefurahi sana kukutana nawe!”
Ms. Tiptip said, “Nafikiri ni vizuri tuendelee kuongea Kiigereza tena. Naamini kwamba marafiki zako wanafikiri tunawasengenya!”
Richelle smiled and said, “Ni kweli, wao si vijana werevu hivyo. …”
Russell looked at Steven and Steven looked at Russell.
Steven said, “What a show-off. So what? Richelle Cyrus-Herndon speaks a little Spanish. Big deal. So does everyone in Puerto Rico.”
He looked at Richelle, his eyes lit up and he said, “And my, my, my, what a beautiful Spanish accent that precious little cupcake has!”
He snatched his eyes away and said, “E-mail to self: No more looking at Richelle. Look other way no matter what. Can't forget this one.”
Richelle pointed a finger at Steven and said, “If you say one more crazy thing to me, I'll hit you so hard you'll think Thor's popped you with his hammer.”
Mr. Chickee said, “And finally, Ms. Tiptip, this confused-looking and -acting young man is my dearest friend from Yourside, this is Steven Daemon Carter.”
“A pleasure meeting you, Steven.”
“Pleeztameetchew, Ms. Tiptip.”
Russell said, “Mr. Chickee, is it okay if I ask you a question? I was looking at that newspaper you were reading and something got me real confused.”
“What is it, Russell?”
Russ pointed at a headline that read: STRANGE YOURSIDE
WEATHER: RIO DE JANEIRO SNOWSTORM, SIXTY BRAZILIANS MISSING!
Mr. Chickee said, “Ah, that is a bit confusing, we're not sure why it's snowing there.”
Russell said, “That's not what's got me confused, what I don't understand is how many is a brazilian?”
Mr. Chickee looked at Ms. Tiptip.
Ms. Tiptip looked at Mr. Chickee.
Richelle's eyes rolled.
Steven saved the day by saying, “I'll explain it to you later, Russell.”
Richelle said, “Mr. Chickee, when I told you we weren'tgoing to stay here long, you said you hoped it wasn't going to be all that easy for us to get back to Flint. What did you mean by that?”
“Richelle, I'd suggest we go to my home to work this out, there's someone there who can explain everything.”
Russell said, “Yeah, Mr. Chickee, I'm starting to get kind of hungry, do you have something to eat?”
Mr. Chickee said, “Of course I do, Russ. I know you're really going to enjoy it too. So what do you say, Flint Future Detectives? Shall we go? It's a very short walk to my porch.”
A WORD FROM GREAT-GREAT-GRAMPA CARTER'S DICTIONARY You are very fortunate that I can also translate Swahili. Here is what Ms. Tiptip and Richelle Cyrus-Herndon said to each other:
Richelle said, “Hello, madam. How are you?”
The African woman laughed, threw her head back and said, “Swahili! Hello! Where did you learn to speak such perfect Swahili?”
Richelle said, “I lived in Kenya for three years.”
Ms. Tiptip said, “It is such a pleasure to meet a young woman who speaks one of my languages so well!”
Richelle said, “Thank you very much! I haven't had much practice lately.”
Ms. Tiptip said, “You're doing beautifully. I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to speak later.”
Richelle said, “I hope so. It's really good meeting you!”
Ms. Tiptip said, “I think we'd better start speaking English again. I'm sure your friends think we're talking about them!”
Richelle smiled and said, “You're right, they're not the smartest couple of boys you'll ever meet. …”
And in any language that you care to choose, Richelle Cyrus-Herndon sure is right about that!
Huh? I Really Don't Get It!
Mr. Chickee's Messy Mission Page 6