Jack James and the Call of the Tanakee

by J. Joseph Wright

  Mike slammed his fist into his palm.

  “If you know so much, then maybe you should’ve known not to show your face around here without protection.”

  “Bad move, Jack,” Dillon smiled nastily.

  The two boys closed in while the others watched, stricken with horror. Jack saw their torment, their desire to do something, their yearning for him to do something. He gripped the O/A, feeling its energy. It was ready, but he couldn’t use it. Not for such an insignificant task. The machine was meant for greater things, and he knew it. Too much power to wield on mere schoolboys. Still, they did present a problem, and it seemed neither one of them were willing to back down.

  “Jack,” Amelia prodded him again. “What about Takota? Where is he?”

  “I’VE GOT YOU, POTATO!” Pud gritted his fangs, swiping at Takota’s back tire with his foot. He missed and nearly toppled over, then regained balance on the slick, uneven log. Takota lifted his handlebars to take the next bump. Pud did too, just a fraction behind.

  Pud angled close again, aiming his front tire into the spokes of Takota’s rear wheel. With a flurry of pedaling, Takota managed to pull away. That only thwarted Pud for a second. Just like that, he was back, kicking, pushing, biting—anything to get an advantage. Takota heard the other racers—Enola, Ayita and Cheyton—crying foul at Pud’s dirty tricks. It didn’t stop him. Nothing would. Winning the race was Pud’s only goal, and nothing was out of bounds.

  “Stop it!” Takota veered left. Pud angled with him, not letting so much as an inch of daylight come between them. It was almost too much for Takota. The unrelenting attacks. The unmitigated speed. The wind slapping against his eyelids. The tears streaming down his face.

  He saw the finish, and knew what he had to do. He kicked up and shifted his weight back, picking the bike’s front wheel off the ground, preparing for the final, death-defying feat. At the end of the course, just before the tape, a large, mushy marsh stood in his way. There were two ways to negotiate the bog. One was to launch straight off a perfectly-angled rock which jutted over the edge of the wetland. And the other way was to, well, go through it, but that almost never resulted in a win, and created quite a mess. In fact, no matter how good a racer was, if he—or she—happened to miss the jump and hit the mud, then he—or she—could reasonably kiss any previous hopes of winning goodbye.

  Knowing this, with his eyes locked on the jumping-off point, Takota avoided Pud’s final attack, ducking just in time. Pud put so much power into the attempt that, when he missed, he lost control of his bicycle. Arms twisting like a windmill, face elongated in a scruffy look of terror, he headed straight for the swamp. Takota chuckled and almost lost balance watching Pud’s front tire wobble. Then Pud went down hard in the solid ground, trying to steer clear of the muddy pool. It didn’t work. Kicking and floundering, his momentum took him straight in. After that, Takota steered his front tire into the groove and hit his mark.

  He caught the jump.

  Hoots and hollers. The other Tanakee shouted in elation, making it known to all the forest that they were proud of their young friend.

  Takota, for his part, couldn’t believe it. Finally, after so many times trying, after so many defeats and near misses and total embarrassments, it looked like this would be his first time to cross that line first. Once and for all, he’d shut that Pud’s mouth about being undefeated.

  Sailing over the mud bog, he figured Pud couldn’t cause any more trouble. Big mistake. Pud reached from the muck, head to toe in greenish slime, his mismatched eyes the only things recognizable behind a mask of mud.

  “No you don’t!” he flung himself into the air. Takota smelled the pungent aroma of the swamp saturating Pud’s thick, shaggy coat. No way could he reach, Takota thought. No way. He was wrong. The nasty varmint came right at him, on a collision course, ready to snatch Takota’s bike out of the sky.

  “JACK! WHERE’S TAKOTA!” Amelia pleaded. The two schoolyard tormentors moved closer.

  “He’s scared,” Dillon said.

  Mike agreed. “Because he doesn’t have his little machine to perform his fancy tricks.”

  “Yeah, Jack. Why don’t you have your machine? Why aren’t you somewhere showing it off? That’s what I’d do.”

  “I think it was just a big hoax,” answered Mike. “That’s the only way to explain it. That’s why he’s here, back at school. Anyone with a machine like that would be out doing fun stuff—flying to Disneyland or something like that.”

  Dillon wagged his tongue. “Or zapping up enough money to buy a football team. That would be cool!”

  “The O/A doesn’t work like that,” Jack broke his silence. “And it wouldn’t work for selfish people like you.”

  The other students watched saucer-eyed, knowing neither Dillon nor Mike reacted to criticism well.

  “What are you saying, Jack? You don’t think we could do the things you can do with that machine? You think you’re so great?” Mike shoved him. Jack tripped over his own shoe, falling onto the grass. Another round of uneasy, breathy murmurs from his schoolmates. He had to look twice before recognizing the O/A had fallen from his jacket. Dillon had it in his hand!

  “What do we have here?” his eyes lit up with malicious glee.

  “Give it BACK!” Jack flew to his feet. Mike stood in the way. Then the whole schoolyard erupted, everyone pleading with the two boys to hand the machine to its rightful owner. Amelia was the loudest, but many others stood out. Even Wendy Wurtzbacher and her entourage were unhappy with the tormenters. Despite the begging, the two boys wouldn’t relent. In fact, the more the children pleaded, the nastier Dillon and Mike became.

  “How about I smash this thing into the ground, huh?” Dillon held the device at shoulder level, speaking to a chorus of disapproval. He didn’t seem to mind their agony. In fact, he seemed to get a kick out of it, giggling and pointing. “What’s the matter with all of you? This thing’s a piece of junk!”

  “Jack!” Amelia tugged his arm. “We need the Tanakee. How can we get them here?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered. Deep inside, he wished he hadn’t come to school. His mother was right. Things had changed. Too much was different now, and some kids would never be able to understand or accept the new Jack. The thing was, he didn’t want to be treated differently, and he sure didn’t want to use the O/A and its unlimited omnidimensional power just to get out of a little schoolyard scuffle.

  “We’d better figure something out,” she pressed her hand over her blouse in the spot where she wore her special eagle feather. “Or there’s gonna be real trouble.”

  “Dillon! Mike!” Wendy pushed to the front of the crowd. Jamie, Heather, and Betsy were right behind her. “Give Jack his machine, you guys,” her followers nodded in stern agreement.

  Dillon dropped his shoulders. “Oh. Okay. Whatever you say, Wendy.”

  “Good,” she smiled, watching as Dillon, head low, reached out his hand. Her satisfaction stretched into shock when the boy, instead of giving up the device, tossed it over Jack’s head and into Mike’s grubby mitts. Jack spun on his heels and pushed toward Mike, reaching, grabbing at his machine. Too late. Grinning smugly, the big kid with the bowl haircut flicked his wrists and the O/A went soaring again, this time in an opposite trajectory, back to Dillon.

  “Oopsy daisy!” Dillon faked like he almost dropped it, forcing another big, collective breath from the gathering. Jack tightened his stomach, fighting away the butterflies. He knew something like this was going to happen. So did Amelia, it seemed. She and Jack both lunged at Dillon, but he stepped back and looped his arm over his head. His casual attitude disturbed Jack. All he could picture was the machine on the ground, shattered into pieces, and the two thugs, Dillon and Mike, snorting and taunting in grand contentment over their conquest.

  Jack had to stop that from happening, but, whenever he got close, one boy would throw the O/A to the other, continuing the torture. Each time a toss was made, the throw was a little more relaxed an
d the catch a little more careless. Soon, they started taking ridiculous risks, letting it sail higher and higher, while letting it fall closer and closer to the ground before grasping it.

  “Guys! Be careful! You’re gonna drop it! It’s gonna break!”

  “Not so tough now, are you, Jack?” Dillon threw the O/A to Mike.

  “Just gimme my machine, guys!” it was at that moment Jack started to honestly wish his little, furry friend, and his valued protector, was with him.

  Where are you, Takota?

  PUD’S MIGHTY LEAP PROPELLED HIM so high he actually came within reach of Takota’s back tire. No way, Takota thought. He’ll never get me.

  But he did.

  He clasped the spokes, scratching his nails and digging into the rubber. Takota heard his tire whining and losing air. The least of his concerns. As a direct result of Pud’s abrupt and vicious interruption, his direction had changed. Dramatically. Instead of sailing on a perfect course for the landing zone, he was now looking at a dead-drop into the muck.

  Twisting, turning, he managed to kick Pud free, sending him end over end, and falling into the swamp. Pud didn’t seem to mind.

  “Ha! Gotcha! You’re not going anywhere now!” he watched Takota flail helplessly.

  Pud’s self-satisfied smirk faded quickly when, somehow, Takota righted his bike and, with the skill of a daredevil, landed on both wheels. He shot forward into the steering wheel and lost his breath. His front tire dug into the ground. He thought he was going to flip end over end, but, miraculously, he regained balance and, much to Pud’s dismay, was still in the running. And only feet from the finish line.

  “NO!” Pud lamented. “He can’t beat me!”

  “He can, and he will,” Ayita answered, taking the jump with ease and flying over him. Enola and Cheyton were directly behind her, both cheering loudly.

  Takota pedaled out of the soft earth and eyed his destination, still in disbelief it was finally going to happen.

  “GIMME MY MACHINE!” DILLON MIMICKED Jack with a sickly squeak. He tossed the gadget to his partner.

  “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” Mike tormented in an even more disgusting voice. He lifted the machine high and Jack jumped feverishly, pulled on the boy’s arm, even stomped on his toe. Nothing worked. Mike simply laughed and hurled the device once again to Dillon.

  “He’s not tough at all,” Dillon caught it, barely, letting it slip through his fingers over the blacktop. More groans and moans. “Not when his teddy bear isn’t around to protect him!”

  Please, Takota! Jack screamed inside. Come to me, please!

  His inner cries went unanswered. When Dillon reached back, bent at the knees, and let the machine loose with the strongest, highest throw yet, it made Jack’s stomach burst with fluttering butterflies. He tried to position himself in place and catch it, but Mike stood in the way. Both kids got their legs tangled and toppled to the ground. The last of the O/A Jack saw, it was soaring over the asphalt, nobody to catch it, nobody to stop it from smashing to the ground.

  “No!” Jack shouted out loud. “Takota!”

  “YES!” TAKOTA PROCLAIMED his elation. After all the failed attempts. After all the humiliating crashes. The skids and tumbles. The rocks embedded in his knees. After all of Pud’s taunting and teasing, he, for the first time in two weeks, had the finish line in his sights. It was all his. An unblemished, undeniable, unchallengeable victory.

  “Takota!”

  He heard Ayita one last time before securing that ever-elusive triumph. Then, in a fraction of an instant, he realized it wasn’t Ayita. That voice. He knew it in his sleep. Jack was in trouble. Takota lost his breath. Everything from his spleen to his kidneys jumped into his throat. Somehow he managed to scream when, inches from the finish line, just before he was about to taste sweet victory, the entire forest fizzled into a shimmering, blinding, twisting chasm. Then he fell directly in.

  Spinning, churning, he was a feathery, weightless cloud. It only lasted milliseconds, and it left him breathless. Not that he needed to breathe. The trip, wherever he’d gone, was so brief that if he’d blinked, he would have missed it. But he didn’t blink. And he didn’t miss it. It was like watching a constant stream of never-ending comets and supernovas and meteors all rolled into one. Then, without any fanfare, he felt a sudden Thud! and the cold, wet wind of the real world. The human world.

  He didn’t have time to think. All of a sudden, he was in the middle of a crowd of children. He felt a tremendous pull to one of them, and knew Jack was there before he even saw the boy. Then he did see Jack’s face, fraught with worry.

  “Takota!” Jack gestured to the air, to the O/A as it sailed toward certain destruction. Without another thought, he soared over Willow School and its playground, way up, to the same elevation as Jack’s machine.

  The purplish-blue luster dazzled his vision, and when he snatched it, he got a sudden shock. Surprising, but not unpleasant. A friendly, warm embrace. With another subtle notion, Takota closed his eyes and when he opened them, he was where he wanted to be—right next to Jack.

  A mob of elementary school kids rushed to meet him, dozens of smiles and laughs. All but two. He recognized them by their sullen stares, and thought those two boys should have learned by now.

  “Dillon and Mike,” Takota shook his head. “Isn’t it about time you two grew up and stopped picking on people?”

  “Grow up?” Dillon spoke almost too quickly to be understood. “If there’s anyone who needs to grow up around here, it’s Jack. I mean, come on. Best friends with a teddy bear?”

  “We’re not teddy bears!” a tiny yet powerful voice intervened. Heads turned, stunned eyes searching for the issuer of the proclamation. Takota knew who it was. Suddenly, so did everyone else. Up in the oak trees, a silver and black figure peered back at them. An audible hum percolated the schoolyard. Kids watched in wonder as Cheyton exhibited his acrobatic prowess, swinging from one branch to the other.

  “We’re Tanakee!” Ayita appeared, quite out of nothingness, on the opposite side of the schoolyard, another tiny, silver and black creature bouncing from the swings to the slide and back again.

  “And all we want is peace and happiness…for everybody,” Enola materialized near Cheyton. She didn’t move or jump around or display any of her naturally athletic gifts. Instead, she merely stood among the leaves, her snowy coat glistening with its trademark green afterglow.

  “Hey, guys! Where’d you go?” Pud blinked in. He clung to one of the uppermost tree limbs, but lost his grip and fell to the ground as he rejoiced. “Wait a sec…the race! Takota didn’t win!”

  “Pud!” a little girl threw open her arms, rushing at him, ready to capture him in a friendly embrace. She stopped, though, and her giant smile turned sour when she noticed Pud was covered head-to-toe with sticky, soupy mud. “Ewww!”

  Laughing and cheering, the overwhelming majority of students in the schoolyard were genuinely happy to see the Tanakee. And the Tanakee were just as pleased to greet the kids. Dozens of boys and girls gathered round to rub elbows with the tiny heroes.

  Pud especially enjoyed the attention. He made fun of chasing the little girl who’d shown the revulsion to his filthiness, trying to get her to hug him. Takota wanted to join in the fun, but what just happened was weighing on his mind.

  “Jack, you’ve got to take better care of this thing,” he handed over the O/A.

  “I know, I know,” Jack sounded mad at himself. “Sometimes things just get out of hand.”

  “That’s an amazing machine,” he said. “But it won’t work too well for you if you can’t keep hold of it.”

  Jack responded by looking at Dillon and Mike, the two troublemakers. They both backed off. Jack had Takota by his side and the O/A in his hands, so they made themselves scarce, melding into the crowd. That didn’t matter much to Takota.

  “I appreciate there are times when you might feel threatened and need my help,” he said. “But you called me here because of them? Do you realize I
was about to win a bike race—my first one, against him,” he pointed at Pud. The scruffy bum only chortled.

  “Sorry,” Jack said. “I didn’t mean to. It’s not like I was using the O/A to contact you or anything.”

  “That’s right. You weren’t using the O/A, were you?” Amelia pointed out.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time, either,” Takota added. “Remember, Jack?”

  “I do,” he shrugged. “It’s happened a couple of times, now. What about it?”

  Amelia smiled. “Your telepathy is getting stronger.”

  “That’s good…right?”

  “Well,” her hand traveled to the feather on her beaded necklace. “It’s good…”

  Jack sighed. Amelia raised her finger, putting a halt to any further sense of ease.

  “…AND it’s bad.”

  “What does that mean?” both Jack and Takota said simultaneously.

  Ayita stood next to Amelia.

  “It means we have a lot of work left to do.”

  Takota had so many questions. However, by then the onlookers had grown anxious, almost to the point of getting out of control. Pud, in his usual manner, whipped them into hysterics by running along the fence lines, crashing into tree trunks and basketball poles, sometimes on purpose, sometimes not so much. Ayita couldn’t seem to help herself either—jumping and running and showing the kids what she could do. Even the all-business Cheyton got into the fun, putting on a display of speed and reminding Takota of their epic confrontations. The kids loved it. The teachers didn’t.

  “Okay! Okay!” Principal Humbert stood in the middle of the schoolyard, his slick, reddish hair ruffled in the commotion. He spoke to groans of disappointment. “Everyone settle down now. You’ll all get to see the Tanakee at the parade this weekend. Right now it’s time to get to class,” he smiled at Jack in frustration. “Jack, I thought we agreed about this. No talking teddy bears and no, um, interdimensional devices at school.”