Surviving Minimized: A Novel

by Andrea White

  “You mean?” Zert had asked.

  “You’re kicked out of scouts,” Slem Pote, his scoutmaster, had said.

  Cribbie told Zert about his joke as they walked home together. Cribbie had said, “I hated scouts anyway.”

  His thoughts returned to the parking lot when he heard the red-faced leader shouting at the boy. “Evange, one more prank like that, and I’m going to send you back to the bus. You’ll miss the rest of our nature walk. You got that?”

  Evange nodded, but when the leader turned his back, the boy started laughing. Evange took one last long sip of his Vita Coke and set it on the base of a light pole.

  “What’s a nature walk?” Beth asked.

  “They’re going to walk around and look at nature.”

  Beth tilted her head and stared at him. “I don’t get it.”

  Zert sighed. Trying to explain nature walks to Beth was like trying to explain water to a fish.

  The leader blew his whistle. The Boy Scouts lined up.

  “All right, Troop 55, break is over. Get ready to h—i—k—e.” Just like Slem Pote, this leader stretched out the word “hike.”

  “I’m tired. Can’t I go back to the bus?” a small boy whined. He was overweight, and his blue socks bagged over the lid of his boots just as Zert’s used to. A net hung in one hand at the boy’s side.

  The leader ignored the boy with the sagging socks. “Remember, scouts, to keep your eyes and ears open. Now let’s go.”

  The leader set off for a trail that veered off from the eastern edge of the parking lot, and the scouts followed in a ragged line. One by one the blue uniforms disappeared into the woods. The boy with the sagging socks was the last to set off.

  “How can the scouts see nature?” Beth asked. “They’re too tall.”

  “What?”

  “I mean, those BIGS won’t notice anything,” Beth said.

  “You’re right.” BIG Zert didn’t understand one thing about nature.

  A cloud passed in front of the sun, and suddenly, Zert shivered.

  “My dad is going to kill me,” Beth muttered. “I didn’t tell him that I was going with you, and I’m supposed to help set up for the meeting.” She sighed. “It took us so long to get here.”

  Zert looked at his dusty boots. So he had slowed Beth down after all.

  Beth glanced over her shoulder in the direction of Paradise.

  “Go ahead,” Zert said. He wanted to find a water bottle anyway. If she went back, he wouldn’t have to explain his plans.

  “Are you sure?” Beth said, popping up and brushing off. “I hate to leave you, but the path is marked.”

  “No problem,” Zert said, clambering onto his elbows, then his feet. By the time he turned to look at the trail, a cloud of dirt was the only sign that Beth had ever been there.

  37

  AN OLIVE GASH

  “I swear, Mom.”

  Zert stopped pulling the water bottle and started crawling over tangled roots to head toward the boy’s voice. A scout separated from the troop? Or another kid? Just a hiker? He peered out behind tufts of bearded stalks at a meadow.

  The Boy Scout with the baggy socks stood alone in a clearing. He didn’t seem to notice a giant anthill near his feet. He was probably one of those boys who could walk around all day with a toilet-paper tail without realizing it. Other than the clueless air that he had about him, he looked ordinary, with light brown hair, brown eyes, and brown skin. “I’m not making this up,” the boy was saying into his I-ring.

  Zert zigzagged across the field. When he got closer to the boy, he stopped to hide behind a pine cone.

  “I was just swiping my net for fun. At first, I thought it was a butterfly. But it’s a tiny human.”

  A jar had overturned in the clearing. At first Zert thought that the boy had trapped a bug. But then he realized that a Rosie was slumped inside. The man’s long white beard spilled down onto the front of an old-fashioned vest. His cap had fallen onto his lap, revealing a red gash on his head. But his chest shuddered as it rose and fell, so the man was alive.

  “I don’t know where the troop is. I looked up and they were gone,” the boy said into his device.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  Huge feet encased in gray boots with blue socks bunched underneath knobby knees carried towering legs toward him.

  The monster, BIGfoot.

  Zert had to stifle a scream.

  The BIG bent down and squinted at the old Rosie. The Rosie’s head stayed slumped against his chest.

  Zert froze. He dared himself to keep as quiet and still as moss growing.

  This close, the boy’s face looked like a tract of canyon country. The pores in his cheeks were black holes. His nostrils were caves. His blue eyes were pools. His squirming wet lips were trickles.

  “I’m not lying, Mom,” the kid said into his I-ring. “I’m looking at the little old man right now. I’ll show you. I’ll bring him home. He can live in my old bird cage.”

  From the other end of the I-ring, laughter roared. “Ralphey!” a woman’s voice shouted.

  Ralphey frowned at the I-ring. “You never believe me, Mom.” He sighed. “I can’t help it that your screen is broken and you can’t see him. Just a minute. I can’t hear you.” He took a step away from the jar and started pacing the clearing, hunting for better reception. “I told you. I don’t know where my troop is.”

  Ralphey turned his back to the jar. “I’m not lying. You’ll know that when I bring him home,” he said into the I-ring. “I’m going to take him with me to the bus and wait for the other scouts.”

  Now or never. Zert ran as fast as he could. Kapow. He rammed his shoulder against the jar.

  The jar swayed like a darting minnow’s tail, then started to wobble back into place.

  He shoved it again. This time, the jar toppled over onto the leafy ground.

  Zert glanced up to see if Ralphey had heard the crash.

  The boy was still talking on his I-ring. “I promise, Mom. I’ll take care of him all by myself. I’m sure he’ll eat birdseed.”

  Rosies don’t eat birdseed. Zert bent down, placed his hands underneath the Rosie’s armpits, and dragged him to a stand of dandelions.

  As white pods rained down on them, the Rosie moaned. He wasn’t dead. Not yet.

  Once Ralphey discovered that the Rosie was missing, he’d start searching the meadow. Ralphey might accidentally step on them with one of his BIG boots.

  Zert lost all sense of direction as he pulled the Rosie away as fast and as far as he could. He’d never be able to find the place where he’d left that water bottle now.

  “Hey!” Zert heard Ralphey yell. “He’s escaped.”

  Zert wanted to run, but he couldn’t unless he dropped the old man.

  Ralphey started crashing around, searching for the old man. The boy’s feet pounded the ground like thunder gone wild.

  Zert couldn’t see over the tangles of brushwood. He couldn’t make any sense of where the feet were, in which direction they were coming or how fast.

  At any second, the sky would grow ridges, like an old-fashioned potato chip. The gray sole of the boy’s boot would loom overhead.

  He’d have no time to run away. The boot would descend, and his life would be over. His gravesite, the sole of the boy’s boot, would have only a piece of squashed gum for a marker.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  Zert hauled the Rosie over the clumps of gray moss and bits and pieces of bark littering the lumpy ground. He dodged pine cones, gnarly roots, and sprigs of thistles. Luck was with him because he backed into a log with a knothole in its center, the perfect hiding place—at least for a few minutes.

  Zert shoved the Rosie inside the knothole, squatted next to him, and tried to catch his own breath. It was musty and damp inside, but a red-and-white mushroom, twice his height, grew out of the worm-eaten wood. The umbrella-like mushroom was so cheerful he could almost pretend this was a game of hide-and-go-seek.

  BIG kids
didn’t know how to treat animals, much less humans the size of insects. If Ralphey’s sun-like eyes glowered down at them, the boy might tear off one of his arms or smush his head when he tried to capture him.

  “Where are you, little man? I swear I won’t hurt you. Come back!” Ralphey shouted.

  The Rosie slowly lifted his gashed head. Kind eyes stood out from a face almost as wrinkled as the gray old-fashioned suit that he wore.

  “Hello,” the Rosie said.

  Zert put his finger to his lips.

  “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” Ralphey called out. It felt like an earthquake as he stomped around.

  Zert locked eyes with the old man, keeping his finger to his lips. When the old man nodded, Zert crawled to the opening and peeped out.

  Ralphey was bent over and skimming his net in the grass. If it accidentally hit him or the old man, it’d chop off their heads.

  “Come out, little man,” the boy yelled as he patrolled the other side of the clearing.

  The ground underneath them stopped quivering, but the boy moved so fast that he could return to the log in less time than it took to say A blue bug eats blue blood or one of the other tongue twisters that Millicent liked.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked the old man.

  “I don’t think so,” the man said as he patted his chest and legs.

  “What about that cut on your forehead?” Zert said, pointing at the gash.

  The man peeled the strip of red off his forehead. “A pimiento.” He sniffed it then and took a bite. “Want some?”

  Zert shook his head. Ralphey must have used an old olive jar to trap him. “So what happened?” He paused. “But remember. Keep your voice low.”

  “I was walking toward Paradise,” the Rosie whispered. “The next thing that I knew, I was swinging in the air in a net like some circus performer.” The man finished the pimiento and rubbed his stomach. “I could have toppled the jar, but I decided to pretend to be knocked out. I was waiting for him to look away, and then I planned to escape. Instead, I guess I blacked out. Not enough oxygen.” He shrugged. “You came at just the right time.”

  “I want to be your friend, little man. I swear it,” Ralphey called.

  “The BIG’s name is Ralphey,” Zert told the Rosie. “I heard him call his mother over his I-ring.”

  “Ralphey likes me so much that he almost asphyxiated me,” the Rosie said. He reached out and shook Zert’s hand. “I’m Dr. Rosario, by the way.”

  “Dr. Rosario!” Zert said. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s a long story,” the doctor said. “And whom do I have the pleasure of talking to?”

  “I’m Zert Cage,” Zert said.

  Dr. Rosario beamed at Zert. “Thank you for saving my life. It’s a small life, but I value it very much indeed.”

  “OK. I’ll agree to try to find the troop, but only if you’ll admit that I’m telling the truth,” Ralphey was saying to his mother with his giant voice.

  As Zert listened to Ralphey’s footsteps dying away, he felt a little sorry for the scout. The boy with the baggy socks had had the most magical experience of his life, and no one would ever believe him.

  The woody room inside the log grew darker. He was sure that it was just a cloud passing over the sun. But it would also be night soon.

  “Are you feeling well enough to walk?” he asked Dr. Rosario.

  Dr. Rosario nodded. “A little bruised, but fine.”

  “Ralphey’s gone. We need to get out of here.” They had been inside the log an hour at least.

  Dr. Rosario nodded.

  Zert crawled out of the knothole and waited for Dr. Rosario. After a few seconds, he reached down and gave the doctor a hand.

  He stood side-by-side with the doctor for a moment, staring at a lake of buttery sunlight that pooled the ground. Zert started to say, “Let’s go,” but when he looked over at the doctor, tears were spiraling through the doctor’s wrinkles, dripping down his cheeks, and running off his chin.

  “It’s just as beautiful as I imagined,” the doctor said.

  The pine needles lining the trail swayed in a gentle dance. The pebbles sparkled in the fading light. An ant marched by, its antennae bobbing as it crossed their path.

  “Bugs are not going to inherit the earth. They already own it now,” the doctor murmured.

  “Is that why you decided to come?” Zert asked. “To see Paradise?”

  “No.” The doctor shook his head. “I came to save this world from treachery.”

  PART THREE

  38

  A SLOW WALK AND A LONG TALE

  White puffs of their breath ornamented the path as Zert trudged behind Dr. Rosario in the starlight. The doctor was so slow. At this rate, they wouldn’t make it to Paradise until the middle of the night. He was going to let his father down. Again.

  “You’re Marin Bluegar’s nephew, aren’t you?” Dr. Rosario said. He wrapped his beard around his neck, as though it were a muffler, to keep warm.

  “Yes,” Zert said, his teeth chattering. He tied his rat cloak tighter, but it did no good. Only his feet were toasty, thanks to the warm boots that his father had made him. “Do you know my uncle Marin?”

  “Yes, I do,” Dr. Rosario said.

  So Uncle Marin is alive. “My uncle was supposed to shrink with us, but he didn’t,” Zert said.

  Dr. Rosario stopped to catch his breath. “I’m sorry to tell you that your uncle Marin and my son Benre have betrayed us all.”

  Zert groaned. He remembered the shadowy figure on the stairs in the doctor’s house wearing the retro Hawaiian shirt. Benre, Dr. Rosario’s son.

  “The two scoundrels have made a deal with the holoshow New Worlds. I came to warn everyone here. We need to flee,” Dr. Rosario said.

  “I knew my uncle was up to something.”

  Dr. Rosario grunted and picked his way along the trail. “If this outfit New Worlds has its way, Rosies will become celebrity freaks. Tourists will overrun Rocky Mountain National Park trying to get a glimpse of us. We won’t have the time or space needed to continue our important work,” Dr. Rosario said.

  Tourists would pop out from behind bushes and take his photo. No place would be sacred. Not Pancake Rock or PeopleColor Schoolhouse, not the turtle bath, not his corral.

  “When are the tourists coming?” Zert asked, gazing at the pale trail that wound through the darkened field like an uneven part in a giant’s hair. The path sparkled as though someone had smashed a communicator and scattered the crystalline dust.

  “It may be much worse than that,” Dr. Rosario said.

  “What?” Zert said. “What are you talking about?”

  “I should save my strength for the hike. There’s no time to lose,” Dr. Rosario said. “In fact, find me a staff. There’s some frost on the trail. It’s getting slippery. I can go faster if I lean on something.”

  Zert spotted a twig and handed it to him.

  Leaning on the cane, the doctor shuffled along at the same speed as before.

  A few hours later, voices floated down from Pancake Rock onto the plain below. Zert and Dr. Rosario made their way slowly up the steps that were cut into the side of the rock.

  “Your son will never fit in here.” Don G. was badmouthing Zert again. “I knew that as soon as I met him.”

  “Don G., Zert saved your daughter’s life,” a woman said.

  His teacher was taking up for him.

  “He also attacked her with a knife, and now, on the night of this important vote, he’s either run away or isn’t even bothering to show up,” Don G. said.

  Because I’m crawling along with an ancient … who’s here to save Paradise, by the way.

  Dr. Rosario laid his hand softly on Zert’s shoulder.

  Zert reached for Dr. Rosario’s hand and squeezed it.

  “I told you, Dad. We were running late,” Beth’s voice rang out. “It was my idea to go to the parking lot.”

  “Something’s wrong or Zert would b
e here,” his father’s voice wafted down.

  “I’m here,” Zert called from nearly the top step. But his throat was so dry his voice came out in a croak.

  “We’ll organize a search for him as soon as there’s light. After we get back from risking our lives trying to find and rescue him, I vote we close our community entirely to minimized kids. Enough is enough, Rosies!” Don G.’s voice barreled down from the ledge. “We can’t make the progress we need to here if we have to worry about our kids being corrupted by youth with BIG values.”

  “That’s not the Rosie way,” said another voice that Zert recognized. Artica Chang’s.

  “No more minimized kids,” a few other Rosies yelled.

  Zert stepped up onto the rock into the firelight. Behind him, Dr. Rosario had reached the top step. But he leaned on his staff to catch his breath.

  Beth let out a hoot.

  His father rushed over. “I was afraid that I’d lost you,” Jack cried. He wore a rat-skin cloak, muffler, and hat. But despite the strange costume, Jack looked like Zert’s own dear dad as he threw his arms around him. “I don’t know what I would do without you,” he said as he pressed Zert tighter to his chest. “You are more important to me than life itself.”

  Don G. approached them. “You are not more important to me than my life or my family’s lives, Zert.” He glared at Zert. “In fact, you are a drag on our survival.”

  “You’ve said enough, Don. G. We’ll leave in the morning. You—” his father said, but his voice trailed off as Dr. Rosario stepped out of the shadows. Covered in dust from his head and long beard to his leather shoes, the ancient looked as if he had swallowed three bottles of white PeopleColor.

  “Dad. I … um …,” Zert began.

  “What’s this I hear about a closed community? We created this world to welcome all,” Dr. Rosario said.

  Jack looked at Zert with questioning eyes.

  Zert smiled. “You wanted to meet Dr. Rosario. So I brought him here,” he said.

  Don G. took a step back as if Zert had hit him. “How? What? Why are you here, Dr. Rosario?” Cleama Gibson gasped. Like most of the Rosie adults, she had on a gray floor-length coat and gray boots. But she also wore cotton-pad earmuffs that made her look as if she had an earache.