“Um,” Tiny began, “you’ll need to ride.” He set the dinosaur down on the ground, which meandered away to check out the nearby vegetation.
“No!” Cassandra protested vehemently. “You’re not going to carry me any more. I’m not going through that again.” She was, of course, referring to the trek through the hills that felt more like riding the surge of a typhoon.
Tiny laughed loudly, causing the Group to cover their ears. “No, no. We have special traveling carts for our visitors. Although, it’s been a long time since—” Here again he lost his train of thought. Instead, he entered the city through the gates and disappeared. Soon after, however, an Engineer appeared and rolled up next to the Group.
“I am Q,” the Engineer introduced himself. “Please board my exterior cart. I am to conduct you to the Main Hall.”
“You’re an Engineer!” Carl exclaimed.
“Of course,” Q agreed, not understanding the significance. “You are a human boy.”
“We met three of your brothers in Portaland,” Carl explained.
“Yes. I have many brothers,” Q said. “I have been separated from my brothers when the portals failed.”
“Enough chit chat!” Uniqua barked impatiently. “We can talk later. Everyone get aboard.” And everyone complied.
Q drove the Group into the city proper. The streets were laid out in straight lines, creating orderly squares. While the streets were exceptionally clean and the buildings beautifully decorated, the city was curiously quiet. There seemed to be no other Giants or even other people living here.
The Main Hall occupied the center square of the city. Unlike most of the buildings in Big Head City, it was perhaps the shortest—or squattest—building. Tiny waited for the Group outside this building, and after the Group disembarked from Q he escorted them into this building.
The internal composition of the Main Hall was peculiar, to say the least. All of the furnishings had been designed specifically for visitors from all over the Island, meaning that they were the perfect size and shape for all the members of the Group. In the center of the Main Hall, a table sat, and upon it all kinds of fruits and vegetables had been set out.
“Please be seated,” Tiny bade them. “My brothers will be arriving shortly.” As he turned away, he walked down a steep ram to his right. You see, the entire perimeter of the Hall, except for the entranceway, was a very deep trench. Being that the Giants were so large and imposing, they were able to make themselves a good deal less so and could sit at eye level with their guests.
Soon after the Group seated themselves, Tiny returned with his brothers. He had told Uniqua that he was the shortest of all the Giants, and he was not kidding. Six more Giants entered the trench: three on one side, three on the other, and the tallest Giant at the “head” of the room (opposite the entranceway). The tallest Giant stood twice the size of Tiny; the others in-between stood at different heights in decreasing size.
“Let me introduce my brothers in ascending order,” Tiny began. “Since I’m the youngest, my older brother is Root, then Berry, Bole, Trunk, Grove, and Ginger.”
“Ginger?” Carl whispered to Karen, thinking it to be more like a female name.
“Yes,” Ginger confirmed, his hearing very excellent. “It is our mother’s favorite snack.” He grinned and showed enormous crooked teeth. “Speaking of food, please try some of ours. It may not be as good as the fare the Rabbit warrens used to give us, but I hope you will like it.”
“Excuse me for asking,” Carl addressed Ginger, “but I notice that no one seems to eat meat.”
The Giant brothers looked at each other for an answer, but not one of them could offer an explanation.
“Meat is cannibalism,” the Rabbits chorused. “That’s why we grow vegetables to taste like meat. If Islanders ate real meat, there would be no more Rabbits. And that would be so sad. Hmm-hmm.”
“Sorry,” Carl repented.
“We have urgent business,” Uniqua said abruptly. “We need spare parts for Portaland. We need them quickly before more damage happens to our Island. People’s lives are in jeopardy.”
“Spare parts?” Trunk repeated. “We have no spare parts.”
“Why not?” Uniqua asked, quite shocked by the news.
“No one ordered any,” Berry answered.
“How does one order spare parts?” Uniqua pressed. Her tone was patient, but underneath her calm exterior she was beginning to become irritated.
“Through the portals,” Root said simply.
“Oh, lord.” Carl buried his head into his hands as he slouched forward.
“What’s wrong?” Uniqua quickly asked, alarmed.
“Is everyone on this Island incredibly stupid?” Carl raised his head, looking rather angry. “Didn’t anyone think that when the portals started breaking that they needed to be fixed?”
The Giants again looked at each other, shrugging their collective shoulders.
“We never thought about that,” Tiny answered for his brothers.
“Carl, don’t be rude,” Karen told him.
“Look. The Engineers lost their Inspectors. When the portals were failing, they denied there were any problems. They didn’t order any spare parts because there were no Inspectors to tell them to. They still wouldn’t order any spare parts when they knew that the portals no longer worked. Only now they can’t! We promised the Submarians we would help them. We even swallowed the poisoned pearls as a promise to help them. Then there were the lava people—”
“Shh!” Karen cautioned.
“The Underground is in danger,” Carl changed his tact. “Who knows who else is in danger on this Island as long as the portals remain broken?”
“How long will it take you to make spare parts?” Uniqua asked the Giants.
“Which ones?” Bole returned with a question. “For which portal”
“All of them!” Carl shouted. He stood up in a fit of anger, but then his face became pale, his eyes rolled upwards, his body stiffened, and he started to fall backward.
It was a good thing Karen was sitting next to him and jumped up when her brother stood up. She caught Carl as he fell, but his weight and momentum caused her to fall to the floor, too.
“No! No!” Uniqua screamed. “I was afraid of this!”
“Is your friend sick?” Tiny inquired. Apparently the Giants had never seen someone get sick before.
Uniqua turned on Tiny furiously. “Yes!” she shouted. “Haven’t you been listening to anything we have said? He will die unless we get the spare parts and give them to the Engineers in Portaland!”
“What is ‘die’?” Ginger asked.
“Make the spare parts!” Cassandra roared, her voice echoing throughout the Main Hall.
It may seem that I have ignored our dear Dragon for a while. Actually, I did not want to write a lot about her foul mood. Ever since their entry into the FOB, she had been in a sour mood. Not only was her mood getting worse, she did not made good company for anyone. So, she was angry for many reasons, and because she felt the Giants were very stupid, she exploded. All of her anger had increased her size to nearly half the size of a full-grown Dragon.
“What are you waiting for?” she roared again, and this time a spark of fire emitted from her mouth. The Giants just sat in their seats and did not react. “Get busy!”
“Oh,” Ginger realized at last. “We forgot. But the Inspectors—”
The triplets jumped onto the table and took up martial arts stances. “We are Inspectors, and we are ordering spare parts! Now! Hmm-hmm. Hmm-hmm.”
“Ah!” Berry exclaimed with sudden understanding. “We should begin making some spare parts.”
“Thank you for your order,” Branch smiled happily.
While the Giants rose and marched out of the room, Karen had scrambled to her knees and was cradling her brother’s head. She looked up at Uniqua. “Is he going to be all right?”
“I don’t know, child,” Uniqua said softly. “Right now, we have to return him to the s
hip.”
“I’ll go with the Giants,” Captain Helf volunteered. “I’ll make sure they don’t forget to make and complete the spare parts with no more delays.”
“Thank you,” Uniqua told him. “Rabbits, a little help, please.”
Together with Karen, the triplets carried Carl, now unconscious, out of the Main Hall and loaded him onto Q. As they exited, Uniqua turned to Cassandra, who had reduced her size back to normal.
“Are you coming?”
“It’s all my fault,” Cassandra lamented. A huge tear fell out of her right eye and dribbled down her snout.
“No, it wasn’t,” Uniqua said softly.
“If I hadn’t been so proud, so angry,” Cassandra continued. “I shouldn’t have brought the children on a quest to see the Lord of Power.”
“They would have gone anyway,” Uniqua disagreed. “Let’s return to the boat. We can’t do anything more here but wait. And, I’d rather wait with the boat.”
*
Captain Helf eagerly wanted to visit the artisan shop of the Giants, hoping to learn a lot as he watched them work. Later, when he returned to the FOB, he brought back a lot of secrets to teach his own people.
From the evidence on large blocks of stone, the Giants had already demonstrated how artistic and accomplished they were. The portals, however, were not very large machines, and the parts needed to fix them were not very large at all. If they had been, then the spare parts would have been gigantic, and it would have been impossible to ferry them back to Portaland aboard the flying ship.
What is remarkable is how these Giants could fashion even the tiniest parts and artifacts. Their clumsy looking fingers seemed too large to perform such minute operations. To make a close comparison with factories in our world, the scale of making such miniature replacements for the portals was almost on the molecular level. Molecules are so tiny that you need a very powerful microscope to see them, and the tools scientists have devised to work on them are also incredibly tiny.
So, too, the Giants had made tools to make small things, like spare parts for the portals, with great precision. First, they donned huge, thick spectacles that greatly magnified their tools and raw materials. They also made their eyes look a thousand times bigger. Then they donned special gloves that narrowed considerably at the fingertips. Each glove was different; each finger became a precise tool: one looked something like a needle, another a spade, another like tweezers, and so on. By the aid of these tools the Giants could manipulate the metals they would turn into spare parts.
Each Giant performed a specialized task. As one Giant finished his part of the process, another Giant continued with the next step. It took all seven Giants, working in assembly line fashion, to run out one spare part. And, since the portals were all different, they had to make a different series of spare parts for each portal.
When the complicated tasks had finally been completed, Tiny turned to Captain Helf. “We made two of each kind. Wow! We must be getting smarter. We’ve never done that before.”
“Where are they now?” Captain Helf asked.
“We put them into a large crate.” Tiny waved Captain Helf to follow him and showed him a large box twice his height. “All the spare parts you need are in here. All we have to do is get them aboard your ship.”
“Fantastic!” Captain Helf exclaimed. “And, thank you!”
“I’m worried about your young friend,” Tiny said. “Is he going to be all right?”
Captain Helf shook his head sadly. “I don’t really know. The children are in grave danger. If we don’t get these spare parts to Portaland, I fear that he—and maybe his sister, too—will die.”
“What is ‘die’?” Tiny asked.
“It means not to exist,” Captain Helf told him.
“We don’t know ‘die.’ No one has ever died before.”
“Well, unless we get a move on, Carl might be the first.”
“Oh. Then we must hurry,” Tiny declared.
*
Returning to the boat, Tiny and his brother Root had pulled the crate full of spare parts to the ship and began loading it into the hold. The hold is a large compartment, or room, inside a ship. To do this, they decided to take apart the left side of the ship to gain easy access.
Captain Lump became apoplectic upon seeing this, because he thought the pair of Giants was destroying his ship. His eyes bulged out. Veins in his neck could be seen pumping blood furiously. His whole face turned beet-red. Everyone aboard thought his heart was going to burst.
But after the Giants had loaded the precious cargo inside the ship and repaired the damage, he was quite pleased. The left side had never looked better—better than new! Captain Lump even looked mollified, which means that he not only forgave the Giants for what they had done but also was very, very happy with their repairs.
“I am sorry about your brother,” Tiny said to Karen.
“Thank you,” Karen returned politely, feeling a little dizzy.
“I don’t want him die,” Tiny added.
“Because you made the spare parts, and when we get back to Portaland, he won’t die,” she assured the Giant.
“Please return to us,” the Giant pleaded. “You will be able to use the portal after it’s repaired and can come visit us again. We have helped you. In fact, we have never worked so hard and so fast. That was kind of refreshing. But we need your help, too.”
Karen sighed. “We will try.”
Tiny smiled happily. “Until we meet again!” He raised his monstrous hand in farewell.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
RETURN TO PORTALAND
“I’m not feeling well, Uniqua,” Karen confessed to the Unicorn. She sat on the edge of her brother’s bunk in the crews’ quarters. Sadly, she looked at Carl who still appeared pale, almost waxy. His body remained taut for his muscles would not relax. “Do you think I’ll look just like that when it happens to me?”
Her thoughts were interrupted when the triplets entered the cabin. Now they played the role of nursemaids. Bringing a bucket of water, some sponges, and a couple of towels, they lovingly undressed the boy down to his underwear and gave him a sponge bath.
“Still no fever,” they reported. “Cold and clammy.”
“Why did Carl get sick so fast?” Karen asked, more to herself than to anyone in particular. “Why haven’t I gotten sick at the same time?”
“Well,” Uniqua breathed, “I do have a theory. Carl was pretty upset when the seizure happened. It might be that his emotions accelerated the poison’s effects. If this is true, then I want you to rest. Don’t think about anything. We’re going to need you when we get back to Portaland.”
The flying ship suddenly slipped to starboard, the right side of the boat.
“Now what?” the Unicorn exhaled sharply. Her emotions were on edge because of her worries and concern, and she was having a hard time controlling them. To Karen she ordered: “You stay put. I’ll see what is going on.” And she quickly exited the cabin.
Topside, Captain Lump was acting his usual unpleasant self. Uniqua found him near the wheel barking orders left and right. Sailors were running to and fro, but nothing they did seemed to correct the attitude of the ship.
She was about to shout up at the Captain, but then she spied Cassandra at the starboard railing, her snout resting on the second horizontal bar.
“Cassandra,” Uniqua approached her. “What is going on?”
“It’s the Lord of Power,” the Dragon wailed. “He’s angry with me. He has sent a storm to crash the boat on the mountains below.”
“Oh, nonsense!” The Unicorn could not for one moment believe that the Lord of Power, the master of the Island, could be angry with them. Look at how much they had accomplished so far. Look at how much good they have done.
She carefully walked to the railing beside Cassandra, which was not very easy. The deck was tipped at a fifteen-degree angle, making it very steep. If the boat had been sailing on water, there would probably be water inva
ding the deck and seeping into the hold by now. If there is too much water inside a ship, usually the ship goes “glug-glug” to the bottom of the lake or ocean.
Two unpleasant surprises awaited her. The first, of course, were the mountains. When they had flown across them into Big Head, they definitely appeared angry. The faces created by the rocks and caves had displayed countenances of dismay, shock, and frustration. But now, these same faces appeared hungry for revenge. It was as if they were alive—animated—and were determined to eat or swallow the flying boat if they could.
“I need more power!” Captain Lump screamed.
“We can’t fight the current!” a crewman shouted back.
Indeed, strong winds whipped around the mountain barrier, probably originating from the lava fields, slammed into the flying boat, and was pushing it steadily downward. The boat seemed unable to fight against them.
The second surprise came when the Unicorn looked out at the Mountain of Power, which seemed closer now than before. Clearly someone was watching them; she could not make out the person’s shape. But whoever it was, he was peering through a large magnifying glass, which made one of his eyes huge and red. It, too, did not appear happy.
“You should be helping us,” Uniqua prayed under her breath. “Why are you so angry?”
“It’s all my fault,” Cassandra wailed. “We should have never come! Me and my stupid pride!”
Cassandra! Stop saying that!”
At that moment, a blessing arrived. The flying boat suddenly righted itself. It was again on an even keel. Also, the boat stopped its dangerous downward movement and started rising again. In fact, the ship seemed to be gaining speed.
“Look aft!” a crewman cried out.
And everyone topside did so. In the not too far distance, the seven Giants were jumping up and down and waving their arms. In front of them stood a huge fan. It might have been ten or twenty stories tall. [Since the twins never saw this fan, it’s hard to be accurate.] But the wind power it generated! It dispersed the evil winds that tried to doom the flying ship. It even scattered the clouds around the Mountain of Power. (By the way, when the clouds were blown away, the Lord of Power or whoever it was that was watching the flying boat quickly disappeared inside the great castle that sat atop the mountain’s peak.)
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