I Left My Sneakers in Dimension X (9781439113240)

by Bruce Coville

  Though I had struck at the monster out of rage over what he had been willing to do to Tar Gibbons—and with the faint hope that I might buy enough time for the Ferkel to escape—I was now taken by the totally weird idea that I might actually be able to beat him!

  That thought lasted until he hit me. Smorkus Flinders’s lack of skill was more than made up for by the fact that he was still twice my size. Groaning with pain, I stumbled backward and fell to the floor again. My stomach hurt so much that I might have given up then and there, if I hadn’t already learned to deal with that kind of pain from getting beat up by Billy Becker all through sixth grade.

  Besides, the Tar had been teaching me how to get past pain, how to put it out of my mind until later. I took a deep breath and staggered to my feet, still woozy from the growing ray. It didn’t help that the Ferkel chose that moment to give me still another shot of it—though the fact that I put on an additional twenty feet, bringing me up to chest height with Smorkus Flinders, spooked my opponent so much that it was almost worth it.

  Crouching, I began to circle slowly to the left. Smorkus Flinders pivoted in place, bracing himself for my attack. Perfect; I wanted him to think I was getting ready to attack. The truth was, I was just stalling for time, hoping the wooziness would pass.

  Finally the monster roared with frustration and threw himself at me.

  I ducked, bent forward, and sent him flying over my back.

  When he crashed to the floor, I turned and flung myself on top of him.

  Just as quickly he flung me off.

  I lay still, facedown. Smorkus Flinders threw himself on top of me, pinning me to the floor. He grunted with satisfaction, thinking that he had won, until he realized that he still had to do something with me. He tried to roll me over. I didn’t make it easy. I was ignoring him, ignoring the fight, trying to touch the deeper streams of joy, to find the greater strength.

  I located it in a memory of bopping the twins good-night with their teddy bears. Suddenly I had the Katsu Maranda. I hadn’t even noticed that Smorkus Flinders had been pounding my back. Shouting the Tar’s battle cry of “Hee-yah! Frizzim Spezzack!” I rolled over and trapped the monster beneath me, pinning his shoulders to the floor.

  To my astonishment, he began to cry.

  “Don’t hurt me,” he whimpered.

  I should have known better. I shouldn’t have been so naive. But when someone with the size and face of Smorkus Flinders starts to cry, it’s hard not to feel sorry for him. And at the moment I had no desire to hurt him, only to stop him.

  That moment of foolish weakness on my part was all it took. With a laugh Smorkus Flinders threw me off. At once he was on his feet. The joy left my heart, replaced by a black rage at letting myself be tricked. At once my strength faded. I had lost the Katsu Maranda, and the wooziness that came with being enlarged overwhelmed me again. Seconds later I was flat on my back, Smorkus Flinders’s hands around my throat, his hideous face pressed close to mine.

  His breath alone was enough to kill a person.

  I heard a sound, a hiss and a sizzle, and realized that the Ferkle was shooting bolts of energy at him.

  I could smell burning flesh. If it caused him any pain, Smorkus Flinders ignored it. He continued to tighten his grip on my neck, staring into my eyes, laughing.

  The world swam back before me as I began to lose consciousness. I was almost out when I heard Snout’s voice whisper in my head: Rod, don’t give up!

  Snout! I thought in astonishment. Is that you?

  I may have been unconscious at that point; I’m not certain. I am certain that it truly was our missing friend—and not just because his next words to me were, Yes, Rod, it really is me. The certainty came from something deeper, having to do, I now understand, with the link he had established between us back when he did the training transfer.

  Where are you? I thought.

  You have to understand that this was happening in milliseconds, far faster than I can explain it.

  I can’t tell you. But I have to give you a message.

  What is it!

  Smorkus Flinders can tell you something about your father. He knows something, but I’m not sure what. I have to . . . No, don’t! Rod, the Ferkada. Tell Grakker that the Ferkada has me!

  And then he was gone.

  My eyes flew open. I lifted my hands and thrust them between Smorkus Flinders’s arms, arms that were huge and knotted with muscles. Though those muscles were bulging with the effort of choking the life out of me, they were like butter in the face of my righteous indignation.

  With one sharp move I snapped my hands apart, breaking his grip on my throat. In another move I had rolled over and was on top of him.

  I shall never forget the look of terror on Smorkus Flinders’s face as I began to smash his head against the floor, screaming, “Where is my father? What did you do with my father?”

  “BKR!” he cried. “You’ll have to ask BKR! He’s the only one who knows!”

  It was about then that I blacked out.

  CHAPTER

  21

  The Secret

  I WAS IN THE SHIP when I woke.

  “What happened?” I asked, trying to sit up. “Where’s the Tar?”

  “Shhhh,” said Madame Pong. “Try and rest for now.”

  Looking up, I saw a blue light above me, and realized that I was on one of the Ferkel’s healing tables. The chibling was lying at my feet, making its happy sound.

  On a table not far away, I saw my teacher.

  “Is the Tar all right?” I asked, forcing the words past the lump in my throat.

  Madame Pong smiled. “Given a little more time on the table your teacher will be as good as new—as will you, Rod. But you do need time. Close your eyes now and rest.”

  “But I have to tell you what happened!” I said. “I have to tell you . . .”

  Only I couldn’t tell her anything, because sleep had claimed me again. It might have been a side effect of the healing table. It might have been the aftermath of being enlarged. It might have been pure exhaustion.

  Whatever it was, I couldn’t resist it.

  * * *

  The next time I woke, Elspeth was sitting beside me.

  “You were so cool, Rod,” she said, her eyes wide. “I can’t believe you really did that.”

  “I can’t, either,” I said, wishing that the room would stop spinning around. I glanced at the table next to me.

  The Tar was still there, but its eyes were open now. “You did well, my krevlik,” it whispered. “I am proud of you.”

  I smiled. Somehow my teacher’s approval made all the terror and pain seem worthwhile.

  “Where were you?” I asked. “I mean after Galuspa took your place?”

  “According to Madame Pong, the shapeshifters hid my body underneath them, so that I looked like little more than a lump in the surface of the table.”

  I grinned. “What about Smorkus Flinders?” I asked. “Where is he now?”

  “Right here in the ship,” said Elspeth. When she saw the look of surprise on my face, she explained further. “You were so big, and holding on to him so tightly, they had to shrink you in order to get you off of him. When they did, Smorkus Flinders shrank, too. Phil told me he thinks that whatever shield Smorkus Flinders had against shrinking was mentally activated and couldn’t work once he was unconscious. Anyway, when they finally managed to pry your hands off his neck, they locked him up somewhere. I have no idea what they’re going to do with him.” She paused, then looked at me seriously. “What got you so upset, Rod? Why were you screaming about your father like that?”

  I blinked, trying to remember. Then it hit me. “It was Snout!” I cried. “Snout spoke to me inside my head. He told me that Smorkus Flinders would know something about where my father was.”

  Elspeth’s eyes grew wide. “Do you think that’s true?” she whispered.

  “I don’t think Snout would lie to me,” I said. “What I can’t understand is how he was able
to speak to me at all! He wouldn’t tell me where he was. Then . . .” I could feel myself grow pale as I remembered the rest of it. “Then we were cut off somehow. He sounded upset. He said to tell Grakker that the Ferkada had him.”

  The Tar raised its head and said urgently, “We must tell the captain about this at once. Elspeth, please go get Grakker.”

  To my astonishment, Elspeth agreed without a fuss. When she came back, she had with her not only Grakker, but Madame Pong, Phil, Galuspa, and the Ting Wongovia.

  I repeated my story.

  Grakker began to tremble. The look on his face was impossible for me to interpret.

  “What’s the Ferkada?” I asked.

  “I do not know,” said Madame Pong. Her voice sounded troubled. She turned to the Ting Wongovia. “Do you?”

  The Ting Wongovia looked away. When he turned back, his eyes were filled with a strange mixture of emotions—fear and longing, hope and horror, all mingled in one.

  “The Ferkada is only whispered of among my people,” he said. “Some call it evil. Some say it was a thing of great beauty that was misunderstood. More than that is not said, nor do I think it is known, unless by the greatest masters. That my egg-brother is in the grip of the Ferkada is a thing of wonder. But I do not know what it means.”

  “Where is this Ferkada?” growled Grakker.

  The Ting Wongovia shook his head. “I have told you all that I know. To find out more, you will have to visit the Mentat. And they do not like visitors.”

  “What about my father?” I asked. “When BKR said that he knew where Dad was, we all thought he was lying just to be cruel. Now Smorkus Flinders says the same thing—that BKR knows. What’s going on here?”

  Madame Pong looked at Grakker. He hesitated, then nodded.

  “Rod,” she said. “We have not been completely honest with you.”

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “Go on,” I said uneasily.

  Madame Pong’s cheeks turned a deep orange. She was blushing—an astonishing thing for a diplomat. “It was not entirely an accident that we landed in your room that day,” she said.

  My throat felt dry. “Are you going to tell me why not?” I asked after a moment.

  She closed her eyes. “We were looking for your father.”

  I could feel my stomach getting tighter, my heart beating faster.

  “Why?” I whispered.

  “Because he was missing, obviously,” said Grakker.

  “Lots of people on Earth go missing,” I said. “Don’t tell me that you go looking for all of them.”

  “Of course not,” said Madame Pong.

  “Then why . . .?” I stopped, my throat dry. “Why were you looking for him?”

  “I think you know,” said Madame Pong.

  I closed my eyes. I felt like a hand was pressing down on me, squeezing the air out of my lungs. Silence hung heavy in the air. Finally I opened my eyes again.

  “He’s one of you, isn’t he?” I asked.

  “One of the greatest,” said Madame Pong gently.

  Elspeth looked at me in astonishment. “Oh, my god.” She gasped. “Rod—you’re an alien!”

  EPILOGUE

  Some things take a while to get used to. Finding out that you’re an alien—well, half-alien—when you’ve spent your entire life thinking you’re an Earthling is one of them.

  What’s weird is, I still don’t know if my mother knows or not. I mean about my father. Naturally, if she knows about him, then she knows about me.

  What she doesn’t know yet is that I have to go looking for Dad.

  Frankly, I’m not looking forward to telling her. But I don’t really have a choice. My father is out there, somewhere, and I have to go find him.

  Elspeth insists that she’s going to come along, too, but I don’t think the aliens are going to go along with that.

  The aliens. I have to stop thinking of them that way. The crew of the Ferkel, I should say. Grakker, Madame Pong, Tar Gibbons, Phillogenous esk Piemondum—and me, Rod Allbright.

  And Snout, if we can ever find him.

  Boy, have we got a lot to do.

  But at least Earth, and the galaxy, in fact our whole dimension, are safe from the Reality Quakes. At least I don’t have to worry about Mom and the twins turning into monsters. (Well, sometimes the twins are little monsters. And now that I think of it, they must be half alien. But you know what I mean.)

  I’m not sure what we’re going to do with Smorkus Flinders yet. We may turn him over to Spar Kellis and the other monsters. We may take him along with us, on the theory that he knows more about BKR’s plans than we have been able to find out so far.

  Tomorrow we say good-bye to Galuspa and the others. I still can’t get over what a good guy Spar Kellis turned out to be. Well, except for one thing. He wanted a reward for helping us.

  “What, exactly, do you want?” asked Grakker suspiciously.

  Looking a little embarrassed, the big blue monster wiped a line of drool from his chin and said, “Those.”

  He was pointing at my sneakers.

  “Are you kidding?” I asked.

  Spar Kellis shook his head. “I have very tender feet. Those look comfortable.”

  I looked at Madame Pong. She nodded. I took off my sneakers, and we used the Ferkel’s enlarging beam to blow them up to fit Spar Kellis.

  The aliens gave me a good pair of boots to replace them.

  My mother probably won’t be amused. After all, she did ask me not to wear my new sneakers when I went out to the field that day.

  On the other hand, when I tell her everything else that I have to tell her, the fact that I left my sneakers in Dimension X will probably be the least of her worries.

  About the Author and the Illustrator

  BRUCE COVILLE was born in Syracuse, New York. He grew up in a rural area north of the city, around the corner from his grandparents’ dairy farm. In the years before he was able to make his living full-time as a writer, Bruce was, among other things, a gravedigger, a toymaker, a magazine editor, and a door-to-door salesman. He loves reading, musical theater, and being outdoors.

  In addition to more than seventy-five books for young readers, Bruce has written poems, plays, short stories, newspaper articles, thousands of letters, and several years’ worth of journal entries.

  Some of Bruce’s best-known books are My Teacher Is an Alien, Goblins in the Castle, and Aliens Ate My Homework.

  KATHERINE COVILLE is a self-taught artist who is known for her ability to combine finely detailed drawings with a deliciously wacky sense of humor. She is also a toymaker, specializing in creatures hitherto unseen on this planet. Her other collaborations with Bruce Coville include The Monsters Ring, The Foolish Giant, Sarah’s Unicorn, Goblins in the Castle, Aliens Ate My Homework, and the Space Brat series.

  The Coville’s live in a brick house in Syracuse along with their youngest child, three cats, and a jet-powered Norwegian elkhound named Thor.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  Text copyright © 1994 by Bruce Coville

  Illustrations copyright © 1994 by Katherine Coville

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  ALADDIN PAPERBACKS and related logo are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Originally published by Minstrel Books in 1994.

  This Aladdin Paperbacks edition May 2007

  Library of Congress Control Number 94019108

  ISBN-13: 978-0-671-89027-8 (hc.)

  ISBN-10: 0-671-8
9027-7 (hc.)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-3882-8 (pbk.)

  ISBN-10: 1-4169-3882-6 (pbk.)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4391-1324-0 (eBook)