“Take us home!” bellowed Elspeth. “TAKE US HOME RIGHT NOW, YOU CREEP!”
My sentiments exactly. Not that Smorkus Flinders paid any attention. Of course, it was easy for him to ignore us; he probably couldn’t hear us, even though we were screaming at the top of our lungs.
After a while it became clear that (1) he was not going to squish us right away and (2) he was not going to pay attention to a word we screamed. We stopped struggling, partly because it wasn’t doing any good, partly because we were exhausted.
“Rod, what’s happening?” whispered Elspeth.
The whispering was unnecessary, of course, given the fact that even if you were yelling this guy had to jam you into his ear before he could hear you. But Elspeth’s tear-stained face was so frightened I decided not to point that out. So I just said, “I don’t know.”
“Who’s this Grakker guy he wanted to know about?”
I hesitated for a second, then replied, “He’s sort of an alien police officer.”
Normally that would have gotten me a snort of disbelief. Under the circumstances, Elspeth didn’t have much choice but to accept it.
“How did you meet him?” she asked.
Considering our situation, I couldn’t see much point in secrecy. So I told her everything that had happened after the good ship Ferkel had crashed into my tub of papier-mâché earlier that spring.
Elspeth listened to the story with wide eyes. When I was done, she said, “That’s amazing! But I still don’t understand what it has to do with this guy.”
“I don’t have the slightest idea,” I said, shaking my head. A huge shape, something like a cloud but thicker and red, went swimming (that’s the only word that makes sense) past us. I shuddered, wondering if we had any chance at all of leaving this world alive.
I don’t know how long we traveled, or how far we went. Given the size of the creature who had kidnapped us, it didn’t take that many steps to go a mile. On the other hand, the world we had entered was so weird I wasn’t sure it made sense to measure things in normal ways. More than once we walked through something that looked like a hole in the air—not the kind of opening the monster had ripped in the air to bring us here, but a huge floating oval that brought us out someplace altogether different from where we started.
The ground shifted and moved beneath us as we traveled; sometimes our captor was walking on it, sometimes through it.
We crossed a valley where multicolored streamers dangled from the sky, shooting off huge sparks whenever they happened to touch each other. In another place house-sized bubbles of mud drifted up from the ground, some bursting open to spatter in all directions, others floating off until they disappeared in the boiling purple sky.
Occasionally we saw other monstrous creatures shambling along in the distance. None of them came very close to us.
Eventually I saw a building somewhere ahead of us. Or at least part of a building. Some of it was visible, but the walls seemed to end in odd places, as if something had chopped off big chunks of it. It was hard to figure out the size of the building at first, because I had nothing to compare it to except the boiling purple sky. But as we drew closer, I began to sense that it was built on the same scale as our captor—which meant that it was unbelievably enormous.
It had no doors that I could see. This did not stop Smorkus Flinders. He simply walked through the wall.
The room we entered was like a cavern, the ceiling so high it was lost in distant darkness. We passed through two or three more such rooms, which did not seem to be connected in any way that made sense, until we found ourselves in a somewhat smaller room—meaning the ceiling was only a little way past our kidnapper’s head.
A table, or something like a table, stood against one wall. On the table was a cage. Smorkus Flinders thrust his hand into the cage, dropped us to its floor, then withdrew his hand and closed the door. Putting his eyeball close to the cage, he looked at us for a moment. I thought about trying to punch him in the eye, but figured he would just squash me. Since I didn’t want to end up as a grease spot on a table in another dimension, I held still. (The fact that I was too terrified to move probably had something to do with this as well.)
“Grakker will come for you,” he said confidently in a voice like thunder. “Even here in Castle Chaos, he will come for you.”
Then he turned and left the room, which he did by once again walking through a wall.
I wondered if the monster was right about Grakker. Though I was not happy about being used as bait to draw my alien friends into a trap, the idea that someone might actually try to rescue us was the only thing that kept me from dissolving in complete terror.
Elspeth didn’t have that hope. When I turned to say something, I found her huddled in a corner of the cage, her arms around her knees, her head pressed against them so that I couldn’t see her face.
I went and sat next to her.
“What was that thing?” she whispered after a moment.
“I don’t have the slightest idea. But did you hear what he said? He expects Grakker to come and rescue us.”
“When?” asked Elspeth dully.
For that question, I had no answer.
* * *
I stared at the walls of the gigantic room, wishing I had read more of Snout’s book on the secrets of the mental masters when I had had the chance. “Stay calm” was probably a good starting place for getting out of this situation alive, but it certainly wouldn’t do the job on its own.
I took a deep breath, counted to ten, and began to examine our prison. It was shaped something like a birdcage, with a rounded top and a door that went halfway up the wall. It had nearly as much floor space as my bedroom. The bars were thick as my wrists and spaced about four inches apart. I grabbed two of them to see if they would bend. That might sound stupid, but it would have been even stupider not to try. Their silky surface felt nice, but when I tried to shake them, they released a smell like rotten eggs.
Coughing, I let go and rubbed my hands on my pants.
The smell persisted.
I went back and sat beside Elspeth.
“What are my parents going to do?” she whispered.
I started to mouth off about how her parents had dumped her with us, but decided not to. The fact that Aunt Grace and Uncle Roger had wanted to get away from her for a few weeks didn’t mean they wanted her gone for good. Besides, it got me thinking about my own mother. She already had to deal with the fact that my father had just picked up and disappeared about three years earlier. I was afraid my being missing was really going to break her heart.
“Grakker will come for us,” I said. “You’ll see.”
I honestly don’t know whether I was trying to convince Elspeth, or myself.
After a while, we both fell asleep. (You may wonder how we could sleep under the circumstances, but I’ll tell you, terror can be exhausting.)
* * *
I was woken by someone entering the room.
It wasn’t Grakker and the other aliens.
It wasn’t Smorkus Flinders.
This was a new creature altogether, smaller but also uglier, which I would have thought was impossible.
“My, aren’t you a juicy–looking pair?” he said.
Drooling, he rubbed his hands together and began walking toward our cage.
Elspeth and I huddled against the bars as the new monster approached our cage. He was big, blue, and blubbery, with rolls of fat that wobbled as he walked. He had three squinty eyes—two in the regular places, one centered above them—each topped by a thick brow. He was naked except for a large ring in his right ear, and something that looked pretty much like an orange diaper.
This is it? I thought in horror. I lived through Billy Becker only to end up mashed between the molars of a big blue blob?
The monster began fumbling with the door of the cage. Elspeth and I slid as far back as we could, huddling together and pressing ourselves against the bars as if we could push our flesh right
through them. For a moment, I hoped Big Blue’s pudgy fingers would be too clumsy to work the door.
No such luck. It sprang open.
He reached into the cage. We squirmed and tried to escape, but there was nowhere to run. In only a moment his fingers closed around us.
“Yummy!” he cried, pulling us from the cage and holding us in front of his face.
We continued to scream.
“Quiet, supper,” he rumbled. Then he tipped back his head and lifted us over his mouth. A river of drool was running from the corner of it. Smiling, he opened wide.
I felt as if I was looking into a cavern. The monster’s jagged green teeth were like stalactites and stalagmites, his gullet like a tunnel that led into a deeper, endless darkness.
He opened his hand. Still screaming, we clung to his fingers, dangling above the great blue pit of his mouth.
He gave his hand a shake. I gripped his fat finger even more tightly. My cousin was not so lucky. She lost her hold and tumbled into his waiting mouth.
He closed it, and smiled in satisfaction.
CHAPTER
4
Spar Kellis
A VARIETY OF THOUGHTS WERE colliding in my mind. I was horrified for Elspeth, terrified that I would be next, and at the same time trying to figure out what I would tell my mother about Elspeth if I ever got out of this. I am not particularly proud of that last, but Snout has told me that we are not so much responsible for the things that rise from our minds as for what we do about them. Which was the other thing that I was thinking about: What to do.
The monster was close. If I let go of his finger and landed on his face, could I squiggle into his nose and make him sneeze?
If I did, would Elspeth come flying out of his mouth?
Would either of us survive the force of that kind of explosion?
Unable to come up with any other plan, I was about to drop to his face, when a voice exploded from somewhere in the distance. “Spar Kellis, let go of those children!”
A guilty look crossed the huge blue face beneath me. Lifting his hand, Spar Kellis spit Elspeth into his palm.
She was very wet and bedraggled, but alive.
She was also upset. Looking up at where I still clung to Spar Kellis’s other hand, she screamed, “I’m going to tell your mother, Rod!”
Pure Elspeth. Instead of being glad she was alive, she was looking for someone to get in trouble. I didn’t let it upset me. For one thing, I doubt I could have been any more upset if I tried. For another thing, if we got out of this alive, I didn’t care what she told my mother.
I think she was going to yell at Spar Kellis next. Before she could start, Smorkus Flinders loomed over his shoulder and said, “Put them back in the cage, you fool. I’m using them for bait!”
I could tell by the way he held his face that he was whispering, the way people do when they get really angry. The thing is, for this guy a whisper sounded something like a bomb blowing up.
Spar Kellis, who was about a head shorter than Smorkus Flinders, made a cranky face. But he did as he was told, thrusting first Elspeth and then me back into the cage.
Elspeth was trying, without much success, to wipe the monster slobber off her arms. “I hate you!” she hissed at me.
Like it was all my fault.
Outside the cage Smorkus Flinders had grabbed Spar Kellis by the ear and was bawling him out. Somehow this made me feel better.
“These two are to be kept alive and in fairly good condition until someone comes to rescue them,” said Smorkus Flinders. “Besides, you know you’re not supposed to eat anyone in this dwelling without my permission. Isn’t that right?”
With that he squeezed the blue guy’s ear, which caused him to squeal in what I assume was pain.
“Isn’t that right, Spar Kellis?” repeated our kidnapper.
“Yes, oh Glorious One,” whined the blue monster. “Of course. Absolutely. You couldn’t be more correct if you tried.”
With a snort Smorkus Flinders let go of Spar Kellis’s ear. “As punishment for your presumption, it will be your job to keep these two alive and healthy until my trap is sprung. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Your Magnificence.”
“Then see that it is done.” He gave Spar Kellis a whack on the head that would have flattened a moose, then turned and left the room, which he did by walking through the ceiling. At least, that was what it looked like.
My ears felt like I had been stuck in a thunderstorm.
The blubbery blue monster sighed, which almost knocked me over. Bending down so that his three eyes were in front of the cage, he said, “You two got me in a lot of trouble.”
“We got you in trouble?” I yelped. “You were going to eat us! Talk about trouble! Where would we have been then?”
“In my tummy,” said the blue monster happily.
“I hate you,” said Elspeth. “I hate both of you.” Then she turned around and stared out of the back of the cage.
I figured that, like me, she felt safe now that Smorkus Flinders had made it clear Spar Kellis was not to harm us.
“I hate you, too,” said the blue monster, making the kind of face a three-year-old might make under the circumstances.
“Don’t mind her,” I said. “She’s always that way.”
“Shut up, Rod,” said Elspeth, without turning around.
I shrugged. “See what I mean?” I said to the monster.
I wasn’t just talking for the sake of talking; I hoped if I could get Spar Kellis talking, too, I might be able to get some useful information out of him. If my ears could survive the conversation.
“I have a sister like that,” he replied with a frown.
“This one is my cousin,”
“Shut up, Roddie,” repeated Elspeth.
Spar Kellis rolled his eyes. The effect was very strange, considering that he had three of them, all bigger than bowling balls. “Glad I’m not you,” he said.
I shrugged again. “At the moment she’s the least of my troubles.”
Spar Kellis thought for a second, then nodded his huge blue head. “I see what you mean. You are in a pretty bad situation.” He paused, then added, somewhat wistfully, “Really, it might have been better for you if I had just eaten you and gotten it over with.”
That certainly didn’t make me feel any better, let me tell you. In my head I repeated the motto of my favorite character, John Carter of Mars. (He starred in a whole bunch of books by the same guy who invented Tarzan.) No matter how bad things got, John Carter always said, “I still live!” His theory was that as long as he was alive, he had a chance to get out of whatever mess he was in.
I figured that was the best attitude to take in this situation.
Of course, John Carter’s adventures were just stories. This was real life.
“After all, instant death wouldn’t be much worse than being held captive by Smorkus Flinders,” continued Spar Kellis. “Might even be better.”
“Would you mind talking a little bit softer?” I shouted, putting my hands over my ears.
He looked puzzled, then blinked, as if he realized what I meant. “I always forget about the way my voice affects you small ones,” he said.
“Small ones?” I asked, wondering if most of the people in this place were closer to my size than his.
Rather than answering, he wrinkled his blue face and said, “I don’t think Smorkus Flinders wants me to talk about that.”
“How come Smorkus Flinders gets to boss you around?”
Big Blue looked at me as if I had lost my mind. “Because he’s bigger than I am,” he said, as if that explained everything. “Besides, I work for him. It’s not easy.”
“I bet it’s not,” I said sympathetically. “So tell me, Spar Kellis—that is your name, isn’t it? Spar Kellis?”
He gave me a goofy grin. “That’s right!” he said, as if I was some kind of genius for figuring it out.
“So tell me, Spar Kellis: How come you speak our language?”
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“Don’t be silly! I don’t speak your language. You’re speaking my language.”
I blinked, then blinked again as I realized that what he said was true. Now that I stopped to think about it, the words coming out of my mouth were not only not English; they didn’t sound like any language I had ever heard.
What was going on here?
“Dimensional transfer side effect,” said Spar Kellis, giving me a gap-toothed grin. “If you travel between dimensions the right way, it alters your brain so you can understand the beings on the other side. It’s not easy, of course. I mean, any dimensional crossing is terribly difficult, and doing it this way is even harder. But Smorkus Flinders wouldn’t do it any other way. He’s sort of a perfectionist.”
I put my fingers to my temples uneasily, wondering what else this little trip might have done to my brain.
“Tell me more about Smorkus Flinders,” I said.
I noticed that Elspeth had turned around and was listening to the conversation.
Spar Kellis shuddered, which made his huge cheeks wobble. “My glorious boss is known across six dimensions for his cruelty.”
I was surprised. “I thought cruelty was considered the greatest crime in the civilized galaxy,” I said, remembering what Madame Pong had told me about BKR.
“Your galaxy, maybe,” replied Spar Kellis. “But remember, you come from a different dimension.”
“What dimension is this?”
“We call it Dimension X. It’s sort of next door to yours, if you just vibrate a little differently. Not that changing the way you vibrate is that easy . . .”
“Nothing I’ve ever been able to manage,” I said.
Spar Kellis looked at me oddly, and I realized he didn’t understand that I was joking. Maybe he just didn’t have a sense of humor. Or maybe humor doesn’t make transdimensional crossovers. It was hard to tell.
I decided it would be best to change the subject. “What does your ‘glorious boss’ want with us?” I asked.
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