Indeed, Sibyl’s body had started to burn up and was threatening to explode. Carrying Rip in her arms, Morgan was able to escape the forest before the explosion happened, but only barely. Once they were safe, Morgan returned Rip to the ground.
“You were right about the microorganisms, Rip,” said Morgan. “They certainly took care of her. Only I didn’t expect her to go off and out like that.”
“Well, I did,” said Rip.
“You did?”
“Yeah. I knew she was a ball of fire the first time we met. I just didn’t think she was LITERALLY!”
All they could do after that line was laugh and go home.
In a future where science has gone horribly wrong, the greatest adventure of all may be a boy’s rites of passage on the path to becoming a man.
COMING OF AGE
M. M. Rumberg
My Walking was tomorrow and I was scared, only knowing half of what to expect. The other half was what was causing my high anxiety–the unknown in the form of rumors and speculation. Everyone kept reminding me how dangerous it was. I guess being scared showed because Gran’father seemed concerned. Usually he ignored what I was doing or thinking, but now he seemed worried.
We stood in front of the heavy, gray metal door and looked through the thick glass at the missile in the space called a silo. Instruments with dials and knobs lined one wall of the room we were in. Gran’father checked the instruments and wrote a note on a clipboard. He clicked his tongue and shook his head. “I wonder if we’ll ever have to launch it,” he said, fingering the key that hung from his neck on a chain.
I knew the key was required to launch the missile–Gran’father had showed me how to use it. “Just in case,” he said.
The song the little kids sang as they played war–throwing make-believe bombs at each other then running and hiding–came into my head. We all played it when we were little.
Missile, missile, in the room,
Watch it go boom, boom, boom.
“Tell me again why we would have to launch it, Gran’father.”
“It’s called retaliation. We’re still at war and this is our reserve bomb. I’m sure there are others around the country in places just like this one.” He shook his head. “After all these years, we’ve never learned. What a waste.”
“What do you mean, ‘We’ve never learned?’ Never learned what?” I asked, but Gran’father began to get lost in his memories again. I hated when that happened, so I interrupted him. “Tell me about the Walking, Gran’father, one more time before I leave on mine.”
“Ah, the Walking. You’re ready for your Walking. You think you’re ready to be a grownup, huh?” He looked at me sideways through his narrowed eyes.
I nodded, but he had turned back to the gray door and said, “Someday this key will be your responsibility. I just hope you’re mature enough and understand enough to handle the responsibility.” He glanced at me again and shook his head as if doubting his own words.
Every time we came by this room, I thought of the boom tune. I couldn’t get it out of my head.
We turned from the gray door and walked into the common room of the bunker. “I used to think this day would never arrive,” I said, “and here it is.” I was excited.
“Calm down, boy. Don’t get overconfident. When will you be eighteen?”
“In two days. I’m eager to get going.” Actually I was very scared, but I wouldn’t admit it.
“I can see that. I keep thinking we should wait until you’re older–maybe twenty-one, or maybe two of you should go together.”
I frowned and watched him as he seemed to get lost again in his memories, but he looked up and said, “Did you choose the Zone or the Mountain?”
“The Zone.” I had told him this many times, but he always forgets.
“And you leave tomorrow?”
“Yes, in the morning.”
Gran’father looked pensive, probably recalling his memories again. He did that often, going in and out of his memories. All the old-timers seemed to do that. Sometimes they talk to themselves. Now, he mumbled something like, “He’s not ready for the key. Will he ever be?” and shook his head. “So, you want to hear again what to look for on your Walking, what to prepare for?”
I nodded, waiting impatiently. Gran’father was one of the few “old ones” left. He has trouble seeing and keeps saying he wishes he hadn’t misplaced his glasses. He’s really getting forgetful. I brought him several pieces of glass just last week but he obviously forgot about them. He has a big, fluffy white beard like a cloud and it has little bits of dirt stuck in it. The top of his head is slick like a rock, except for the wild hair around his ears. His face is very wrinkled and he walks bent over with a cane.
“I’ll tell you again, boy, the first thing is don’t be so cocky. It’ll be your downfall. You’re supposed to kill a beetle, not be killed by one. It’s very dangerous out there. Very dangerous. You’ve got the hot sun, the beetles, and the cold to contend with. Sometimes a Walker doesn’t come back.”
Soon as he said that, another tune popped into my head.
Beetle, beetle is outside,
Waiting, waiting to cut your hide.
Hurry, hurry, run away,
Come on back another day.
“I know, I know.” Several of my friends hadn’t come back from their Walking and we never knew what happened, although everyone thinks the beetles got them. I really didn’t want to go, but it was required to be accepted as an adult. “It’s your right of passage,” the old ones said.
Like us, the girls had their own right of passage they had to go through, but theirs wasn’t anything dangerous like a trip to the Zone or the Mountain. Something to do with babies and things like that.
Gran’father looked at me and frowned. “Now listen up, boy. When you walk into the Zone, pay attention to the size of the rubble heaps. The very big heaps like hills indicate that’s where an apartment house was.”
“Tell me again about a part ment houses, Gran’father.”
“I keep forgetting you’ve never seen them before. An apartment house is where large groups of people used to live.”
“Like we have now.”
He shook his head. “No, grandson. Before the blast we used to have tall buildings with many people living side-by-side and on top of one another. Now people here only live side-by-side. No one is on top of anyone and we don’t have so many people any more. Where we live now is called a ‘bunker’.”
I visualized many people standing on top of each other and smiled at his senile ways. Gran’father often doesn’t make sense. Why would you want people to stand on top of each other? Side-by-side I could see, since that’s what we do now. Everyone has their own place with their family, but no one has anyone on top of them. Suppose the person on top of you wanted to go to the pit but you didn’t? And what happened if one of them fell? And how many people can you hold up?
“What about the things inside these tall a part ment buildings, Gran’father?”
“Well, each person’s house was furnished differently. They could do whatever they wanted in their home. Furnish it however they wanted, come and go like they wanted. We called them apartments.”
Even though I’d heard this before, I wrinkled my brow and smiled at his strange words. “What’s a ment?” I asked.
“A ment?”
“You said ‘everyone lived in a part ments.’”
Gran’father shook his head. “You’ve got a sense of humor, boy.” But he didn’t smile. I’ve never seen him smile.
There were so many times I didn’t understand him, especially when he drifted into his memories. Now, he looked pensive again. He keeps going in and out of his memories. “What’re you seeing, Gran’father?” I asked.
“Just thinking of the past, boy, way before your time. Before the blasts. Before the wars. Before all this damned rubble. When everyone had a father and a mother, good food, and new clothing.”
I didn’t want him to get
lost in one of his memory lapses because he could go on and on, so I quickly asked, “What should I look for during my Walking, Gran’father?”
He looked at me for a second then said, “Look for white boxes with doors. We used to store food in them.” He used his hands to show how big they were. “They used to keep food cold for us.”
A box with a door that kept food cold? I smiled. “What else?”
“We had devices to heat our food. We called them toasters and microwaves and ovens.”
“Why did you have so many things to heat food but only one to keep it cold?”
“We used these things to heat different foods. Some things we cooked quickly, others took a long time to cook.”
I shook my head. “You made different fires for different foods? Isn’t that wasteful?”
He sighed. “I keep forgetting you never saw any of these things. And now your food is…”
“Anything else, Gran’father?” I said, quickly, before he lapsed again into his memories.
“Bathrooms. We had bathrooms.”
“I know. That’s a place to take a bath. Like we do now.”
“More than that,” he said, shaking his shaggy head. “It was a room where you’d bathe or wash or use the toilet. The toilet was a place where you sat on a large white pot to poop.”
That made me laugh. “Suppose you didn’t have your white pot with you when you had to poop?”
“A toilet is like the pit you use now,” he said. “It was always there.”
“You also washed or bathed in the pit, I mean, the pot?” I asked, my eyes wide.
“No, no, boy. The pit…er…the pot was nearby. We washed and bathed in separate…uh, containers.”
I always had trouble imagining what he was talking about and tried to visualize a pit with everyone peeing in it and some people carrying a small container to wash in. I shook my head at my doddering Gran’father. Sometimes he got lost in his memories and other times it seemed like he was losing them.
“Anything else, Gran’father?”
“You know that small piece of glass I gave you? The one that looks back at you? The mirror?”
“Yes.” It was in my pack. I undid the strap, took it out, and looked at it. It easily fit in the palm of my hand. My eye stared back at me. If I held it farther from my face, I could almost see my whole face.
“Well, we used to have bigger ones,” he said. He spread his arms out and up. “Very big ones. You could see your whole body in them. People would decorate their houses with them. It could make a small room look bigger.”
I looked at the glass fragment, the mirror, I held in my hand. All I could see was my eye. I frowned and squinted at it, trying to make my eye bigger. I didn’t know what he was talking about. “You’ll have to show me how to make my eye bigger, Gran’father.”
“Make your eye bigger?”
He’s really losing it. He just said it could make a room bigger so why couldn’t it make my eye bigger? “I’ve got to go and get ready, Gran’father. I’ll see you in the morning before I go.”
“One more thing, son.”
“What’s that, Gran’father?” I was getting anxious.
“Be very careful in the larger piles of rubble. That’s where the beetles are.”
I knew about the beetles. They were big like a cat, Gran’father said, only I’ve never seen a real live cat. I’ve seen pictures of them, but they seemed so small.
“The beetles move slowly but are very strong. They can only be stopped with brute force. They’ll slice and cut you if they get close enough,” he said.
I nodded. I’ve heard many stories about the beetles. They’re the only animals that survived the blasts. They eat anything and are very dangerous. Once they see you they won’t stop coming after you. They’ll cut you to shreds and eat you. That’s what probably happened to my friends who didn’t return from their Walking.
“Remember, boy, if you see them, get away fast. Don’t get cocky around them. They have big mouths and large pincers and slicers. It won’t take much for one to cut you into little pieces and devour you in seconds. And they can fly at you. You got to be real careful or they’ll kill you.”
He raised his voice and his eyes locked on mine and seemed to burn into me. The beetle stories scared me, but I wanted to see one and kill it. That was the purpose of the Walking, to get a beetle and to show you could handle yourself out “there.” To prove you were an adult. Most Walkers were afraid of them and many only brought back something they found in the Zone and then the old timers had to explain what they were. Only a few Walkers ever brought back a beetle or part of a beetle. And some of them never came back.
Beetle, beetle, is outside. Hurry away, you can’t hide.
“Don’t stay out too long. You shouldn’t stay more than twelve hours. I mean twelve times. You need to be back when the sun goes down. It’ll get very cold.”
“I know, Gran’father. I know.”
“But you have no way to tell the time.”
There he goes again with that “time” thing. Like putting the sun on my wrist, he said. I shook my head. The old timers told great stories, but they were all crazy. Why would you ever want to put the sun on your wrist? And how could you do that? All I could think about was how hot it would get and burn your wrist. It didn’t make sense. “I’ll be back before it gets cold and see you soon, Gran’father.” I stood to leave. “I’ll bring you a piece of a beetle.”
“Come hug your grandfather.”
He pulled me tight to him. I could feel him run his hand over my back scales and heard him mumble something about green skin. Then I heard him sigh. I wonder why he did that?
“Remember, boy, mark your way and it’s okay if you don’t get a beetle. If you don’t, bring me back something from the Zone. You can find some good things in the big piles of rubble.”
“The a-part-ment things,” I said.
He nodded.
“I will, Gran’father.”
“Be careful of the beetles. If you’re too cocky they’ll get you.”
I pulled away and watched him holding the key hanging from his neck. He always wore it. He looked at me and shook his head slightly. I turned and walked back to my sleeping place. The Walking would be my first initiation in entering the world of the men. All us kids went through it when we reached eighteen seasons.
“The underground bunker was where everyone stayed when war came,” Gran’father had told me many seasons ago. “When the first war started, the Army selected who would live underground. Years later, when we came to the surface, the war started again, so we went back down. The wars happened several times, and each war was worse than the one before it. No one thought we’d have to stay underground so long and because of that we ran out of supplies and had to make our own food.”
The old ones say it’s yucky artificial food, but I think it’s okay. Gran’father said the old food used to smell and get everyone’s appetite going, but why would you want your food to smell? When I asked him, he only shook his head and got lost in his memories. He does that often.
Gran’father said we sleep on the ground because the beds rusted away years ago and the mattresses rotted and had to be burned. I remember what a mattress was, but they were big and heavy and would be difficult to carry, so why bother? Gran’father also said most of our clothes are in shreds and we’ll soon be without them, too, because we never learned to make new ones. I don’t know why we can’t make new ones but unless it gets very cold, we really don’t need them. Whenever I tell that to Gran’father, he shakes his head like he’s exasperated and looks disgusted.
Now, the children here in the bunker are different from the old ones like Gran’father–we have tougher skin with back scales, more fingers, and rotating feet to accommodate the rubble. Gran’father says the children today are much heartier than in his day and the body changes will either save the human race or end it. Why would they end it? Sometimes I just don’t understand him. Then he’ll shake his hea
d and mumble something about radioactivity and get lost in his memories again. He always does that…gets lost in his memories. All the old people do that. They like to sit by the fire and talk about the days before the war. I like to listen to them, but sometimes they get all crazy with their stories and don’t make any sense.
Sometimes they do say good things, though. Gran’father told me a trick he used to find his way back when he went on his Walking, only I don’t know that he really went on a Walking. I think he lived on the surface before the wars, and came down here after they started so he wouldn’t have had a Walking. But then I think that maybe he had a Walking while he lived on the surface. Why couldn’t they have had them then, too?
“You make a mark on the ground with rocks,” he said, “and when you need to come home, you simply follow the rocks.” Sometimes he says funny things like that. I tried to visualize a rock moving and Gran’father following the rock, and I laughed, but now I think I know what he meant–to follow the trail of the rocks, and I thought it might be a smart thing to do. I’d make several piles on the ground, a big pile behind me and a small pile in the direction I was heading toward the Zone, and the reverse would point the way to go home. That made sense. I smiled knowing that Gran’father probably did the same during his Walking. Maybe he wasn’t so crazy after all–at least about this.
“Tell me again how the Zone become the Zone, Gran’father.”
Before he spoke, Gran’father always shook his head. Now, he looked lost in thought and just when I thought he forgot my question, he spoke. “The Zone is where a blast happened long ago. There were many people in different countries before the blast and they began to argue. Soon the arguments got mean and the people began using weapons against each other.”
“Like the missile behind the door in the gray room?” I asked.
“Yes, that’s right.” He looked away, lost in his memories, again. “That’s also when people used to fly in the air,” he told me.
How can I believe such a crazy thing? “I know beetles have wings and can fly, Gran’father, but I don’t understand how people can.”
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