Intergalactic P.S. 3

by Madeleine L'engle

  Then she gave an uncontrollable cry of horror.

  If some of the “children” in the group were strange and horrible to look upon, the teacher following them was more horrible to Meg than any wild and unfamiliar life form could possibly be. But he was not strange. He was agonizingly familiar. He was Mr. Jenkins, the principal of the village school.

  Charles Wallace said, “Hey!” in a startled way.

  Calvin put his hand firmly on Meg’s shoulder. “Wait. Maybe it’s not—”

  “But it is! It is! I’d know Mr. Jenkins if I found him under a pumpkin on the moon or in a cabbage patch on Venus.”

  “It couldn’t be.” Calvin’s voice did not carry conviction.

  “Why not?” Meg demanded. “If we could be tessered here, why couldn’t he be, too?”

  “Wait,” Charles Wallace commanded in his most authoritative, small-boy manner.

  “What for?” Meg wailed. “I want to go home. If he’s here, let’s get out.”

  Then, at a command from Mr. Jenkins, three of the children separated themselves from the group and came running—though with two of the children it could hardly be called running—towards Meg and Charles Wallace and Calvin. The first one, who was the closest to being a recognizable earth form (though it scampered, rather than ran), was not unlike a small, silver-grey mouse. Its ears were large and velvety, its whiskers unusually long, and its eyes shone like moonstones.

  The second child was a mer-boy in reverse: it had long, strong legs, six-toed feet in thonged sandals, and from the waist up it closely resembled a dolphin, with a great, grey, rather top-heavy marine creature’s head, and a wide, amiable dolphin smile.

  The third child was the strangest of the three, fierce and wild. Meg had the feeling that she never saw all of it at once. There seemed to be an extraordinary number of eyes: merry eyes, wise eyes, ferocious eyes, kitten eyes, dragon eyes. And wings—how many wings could one creature have?—wings in constant motion, covering and uncovering the eyes. It was the most savage-looking creature Meg had ever seen, and it made even Mr. Jenkins seem less disturbing.

  The mouse-thing spoke, but not with either a mouse’s squeak or a human voice. It sounded like harp strings, and the long whiskers vibrated almost as though they were being played. It did not give forth words, and yet it was quite plain that it was saying something like, “Hello, are you the new ones?”

  CHAPTER 4

  Calvin gave a grin of bravado. “I believe I’m supposed to say, ‘Take me to your leader.’” He looked over his shoulder at the band of children disappearing over the hill, Mr. Jenkins with them.

  An amused and slightly shocked laughter rippled through the three strange children. The mouse-thing, who seemed to be spokesman, said, “Oh, no, earthlings, you won’t see the Teachers until you’ve been accepted.”

  “What’s Mr. Jenkins doing here?” Meg asked.

  But Charles Wallace cut impatiently across her. “What do you mean, accepted? Mrs Whatsit, Mrs Who, and Mrs Which brought us.”

  Mouse-thing shook its head, whiskers quivering, mooneyes gleaming. “Pull won’t get you into Intergalactic P.S. 3. It’s not who you know that matters, it’s who you are, and whether or not you can pass the admissions test. Frankly, I have grave doubts, but Mr. Jenkins, as you so oddly call the Admissions Officer, has chosen us to be your partners, and we’ll do the best we can for you. Of course it’s his decision in the end, but he’s made us promise to give you all the help we can.”

  “I might as well go home,” Meg said flatly. “Mr. Jenkins will never willingly pass me in anything.”

  For once, Charles Wallace was not listening to her. He was not, she thought crossly, even caring. He stepped closer to the mer-thing with its friendly smile. Meg thought the alien children were all frightening, but at least Mouse-thing was smaller than she was, and managed to communicate in earth terms. She turned to it. “No wonder you have your doubts if Mr. Jenkins is the examiner. What happens if we fail?”

  “You will be tessered back to your home planet.”

  Calvin announced, “If Meg doesn’t pass, Charles and I will go home, too.”

  “What makes you think you have any more chance of passing than she does?” Mouse-thing asked. “If I had to bet on one of you, she’d be the one.”

  “Oh, no,” Meg protested. “Charles and Calvin both have much higher IQs than I have.”

  Again laughter rippled through the three children.

  “How strange you are,” Mouse-thing said. “You can’t measure anything important by earth tests. How can your IQ nonsense mea-sure poetry or music or love?”

  Charles Wallace suddenly looked not nearly old enough for first grade anywhere. “It can’t. And I only know the measurable things. I haven’t had time to learn anything else.”

  Meg flashed to his defense. “You love me, and you know when I’m upset, and it matters to you. That can’t be measured.”

  “It will do for a start,” Mouse-thing said. “Let’s get going. We only have a parsec before I have to make my preliminary report. And I can see I have a great deal to teach you.”

  Meg could feel Charles Wallace bristling. He had let down his defenses and now, she thought, he was regretting it. “It’s not my fault I’m only six. I bet when I’m a billion years old I’ll have learned a few things to teach you!”

  Mouse-thing’s whiskers twitched. “Age is immaterial. I was only born yesterday.”

  “Then what are you doing here? When did you pass the entrance examinations?”

  “I really don’t have to.” Mouse-thing’s ears fluttered airily. “It’s only a form for me. There’s only one of us born every thousand or so years, and we come here automatically. My tree hasn’t had an offspring for seventeen hundred years. Of course it will take me twice that long to become full-grown myself, and this is only my second phase.”

  “You’re going to tell us about your first phase whether we want you to or not,” Meg said in her most ungracious manner. “So go ahead.”

  The many-eyed, many-winged creature gave a series of ripples which might have been either amusement or annoyance. The upside- down mer-boy crossed its legs and sat on the lush green grass, placid smile broadening.

  Mouse-thing reacted only by an intensified quiver of whiskers. “Yesterday morning I was still contained inside the single golden fruit hanging from my tree. At noon it fell and burst open, and there was I, newly hatched. I was then podded and flown to the Veganuel galaxy and tessered here. This morning I flung off my pod, and me voilà! I am called Sporos, not Mouse-thing, by the way. When I finish the course I will be cowled and sleep for an eon, and then I’ll send a small green shoot up out of my cocoon and start growing into a deciduous spore-reproducing, fruit-bearing conifer.”

  Charles Wallace looked horrified. “You’re mad. My father is a physicist and my mother a biologist. You’re not possible.”

  “Neither are you,” Sporos replied indignantly. “Nothing important is. Come on, let’s go, Charles. It’s my bad fortune to have you assigned as my partner. Follow me.” It scampered down the hill and into the field where it was immediately lost in the high, green grasses.

  Charles Wallace said, “Meg—”

  “You’d better go, Charles—”

  “But you might need me—” he said anxiously. His extremely prickly pride would not allow him to say, “I need you.”

  Meg said, “If I need you, I’ll call. You’ll hear me. You always do.”

  “Will we all be together, maybe, for meals?” Charles asked. He looked at the mer-boy and the multi-eyed-and-winged creature. Mer-boy had taken off his sandals and was plucking blades of grass with his long, prehensile toes. The ferocious-looking child appeared to be asleep; its many wings were folded over its eyes. A small plume of smoke rose from somewhere within it.

  “Go on, Charles,” Calvin said. “Maybe this is part of the test.”

  Meg gave him a push. “Don’t say goodbye. Just go.”

  Without a word, without l
ooking back, Charles ran down the hill and into the field. As he reached it, the grass seemed to stretch up until it was taller than the little boy, and he disappeared into its green depths.

  CHAPTER 5

  The upside-down mer-boy turned its great grin on Calvin. With its toes it held a long, broad blade of grass to its mouth and blew. A sound came from it, not the shrill whistle a human being makes when blowing against a blade of grass, but a low humming. Meg closed her eyes and listened. She understood something about partners, and stepped in relief towards the mer-child, then realized in disappointment that it was telling Calvin that they were partners, and inviting him to go swimming.

  Calvin, too, understood. “But I don’t have a bathing suit.”

  Through the blade of grass the mer-child laughed, and Meg understood it to say something like, “You don’t need a bathing suit here. We’re all quite used to everybody looking different from everybody else, and nobody pays any attention after the first few moments.”

  “Meg,” Calvin said, “I don’t like to leave you.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Meg said stiffly.

  The ferocious creature raised one of its wings in what seemed to be a yawn, and folded it again. A small tongue of flame flickered up through the smoke.

  The mer-child blew against the grass again. Meg translated something like, “Can’t you call home if you need anything?” and then a horrified, “Oh, my goodness, I don’t see how anybody as ignorant as you three seem to be can possibly manage. Do you mean on your earth you never communicate with other planets? You mean your planet revolves about all alone in space? Aren’t you terribly lonely?”

  “Maybe we are, a little,” Calvin acknowledged. “But it’s a very beautiful planet.”

  “That,” said Mer-boy, “is probably a matter of opinion, and opinions aren’t going to help you pass the test. I’d better see what time it is.”

  “How do you tell?” Calvin asked curiously.

  “Sporos tells by the leaves, of course, and I tell by the way the water feels. Your schools can’t be very good if you don’t know how to tell time, and if you have to go to school on your own planet.”

  “I do know how to tell time. I tell by my watch.”

  “What’s a watch?”

  Calvin extended his wrist.

  “That’s a funny thing,” Mer-child said. “Does it just work for your time, or for time in general?”

  “Just for our time, I guess.”

  “You mean, if you wanted to know what kind of time is told on another planet, it wouldn’t show you?”

  “No.” Calvin said. “And it’s only the right time for a certain section of latitude and longitude on our own planet. But that’s all we need for practical purposes. It’s like geometry,” he added rather pompously. “Euclidean geometry doesn’t work when you get into Einstein’s theories, but it’s fine for use in everyday life. I mean, like a table surface being flat and solid. It really isn’t, but when you want to eat dinner, it has to be.”

  “My, how confused everything must be on your planet. Come on, we’d better get into the water, because I have to ask time to stretch for us. There’s too much to teach you otherwise.”

  Meg felt a pang of absolute panic. “My partner—”

  Mer-child again blew against the grass. “Somebody has to be the cherubim’s partner.”

  “The cherubim!”

  “What did you think it was? Come on, Calvin, let’s go.”

  “Meg—”

  The blade of grass was blown upon so impatiently that it let out a raucous blast.

  “Go on,” Meg said. “He’s not my idea of a cherubim, but he can’t be any worse than Mr. Jenkins.”

  CHAPTER 6

  Calvin followed Mer-child, running swiftly towards the river, and Meg was left with the—cherubim?! She felt utterly abandoned and forlorn. Somehow she had expected Calvin to protest a little more, to refuse to leave her alone with this fire-spouting beast.

  Flame spurted skywards as she thought this, followed by billows of smoke; the great wings raised and spread and she felt herself looked at by all the eyes. When the wild cherubim-child spoke, it was directly into her mind. “I suppose you think I ought to be a golden-haired baby-face with two useless little wings and no body?”

  Meg sighed. “It might be simpler if you were.”

  Two of the wings crossed and uncrossed. “I don’t know what I’ve done that I should have you assigned to me. I have a hard enough job as it is. I really don’t feel like coming back to school at all at my age.”

  “How old are you?” Meg asked.

  “Age, for a cherubim, is immaterial. It’s only for time-bound creatures that it even exists. I am, in cherubic terms, still a child, and that’s all you need to know.”

  Meg tossed her head. “If you’re going to be rude to me we might as well call it quits right now. Just get someone to tesser me back to earth and you’ll be rid of me.”

  The cherubim thought a number of unspeakable things at her. “If you have been assigned to me, I suppose you are some kind of a Namer, too, even if a primitive one.”

  “A what?”

  “A Namer. What I’m at school again for is to memorize the names of the stars.”

  “Which stars?”

  “All of them.”

  “You mean all the stars, in all the galaxies?”

  “Yes. If he calls for one of them, someone has to know which one he means. Anyhow, they like it; there aren’t many who know them all by name, and if your name isn’t known, then it’s a very lonely feeling.”

  “Do you know my name?” Meg asked.

  “Of course. Margaret. Meg.”

  “Do you have a name? Or am I supposed to address you as Cherubim?”

  “Προγινώσκεις: Proginoskes.”

  Meg sighed. “All right. I’ll try to remember. Cherubim would be easier even if you don’t look like one.”

  “I do. I look precisely like a cherubim. And don’t get any ideas about calling me Cherry, or Cheery, or Bimmy.”

  Meg looked embarrassed. “All right. Pro—Progo—Proginoskes. What are we supposed to do?”

  Proginoskes waved all its wings, which, Meg realized, was more or less its way of expressing, “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

  She asked, “Am I supposed to learn the names of all the stars, too?” It was an appalling thought.

  “Good galaxy no! It’s got to be something to do with your own planet.” All the wings were drawn together, the eyes closed. Small puffs of smoke rose. “I think what you’re supposed to do is to help humanoids feel more human.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Who makes you feel most you?”

  “My parents. And Charles Wallace and Calvin. At least they make me not mind being me.”

  “And who makes you feel least you?”

  Meg looked across the cherubim and saw Mr. Jenkins strolling towards them. “Mr. Jenkins.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “He’s right there, behind you.”

  The cherubim shifted wings; eyes opened and shut. “Earthling, you only have two eyes. How can you see something I don’t see?”

  “Not something. Someone. Mr. Jenkins.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Mr. Jenkins. The principal of our school.”

  “Earth-child, what are you talking about?”

  “He’s right behind you,” Meg said. “And I want to know what he’s doing here!”

  All Proginoskes’s eyes opened wide: it was a horrifying sight. They closed, very tightly, then opened again. “Earthling, there is nobody there.”

  At this point Proginoskes was completely blotting Mr. Jenkins from Meg’s vision. She peered around one of the wings. The cherubim was right. There was nobody there. “But he was there.”

  “I don’t like this. I don’t like it at all.”

  Meg said anxiously, “Proginoskes, is something wrong?”

  The cherubim rear
ranged all its wings. “I don’t know. I feel distinctly uncomfortable.”

  “Why?”

  “It was the teacher, and it wasn’t the teacher—”

  “What do you mean?”

  All of the eyes were covered with wings. The great creature moved with incredible grace, and the movement of the wings reminded Meg of a great actress using a fan to express a combination of charm and confusion and a degree of shyness. The words which Proginoskes sent into her mind were, she was quite sure: “What will happen if I fail the examination?”

  “You mean if I fail, don’t you?”

  Again came the fan gesture. “No, no. If I fail.”

  “But I thought you were supposed to be helping me?”

  “We’re helping each other. Didn’t you realize? That’s why we’re partners.”

  “But Mouse-thing—Sporos—I thought he said—”

  “He did. Pride, that’s what they’re apt to flunk out on, the Ancient Trees. There are so few of them, they’re apt to think of themselves as being more special than anybody else.”

  “You mean he really will be a tree?”

  “If he survives,” the cherubim said grimly.

  Meg felt cold. “But won’t he?”

  The cherubim shrugged its wings.

  “But he’s my little brother’s partner.”

  “Let us hope that your little brother has his feet firmly on the ground. How’s his pride?”

  “It’s a problem,” Meg said, “but he does know that now, because it got him into terrible trouble on Camazotz.”