Escape from the Drooling Octopod!

by Robert West

  The radio argument continued on the rest of the day. From what the captain could gather from Ms. Franck’s translations, it looked like it might take another eon before all the cities would trust their world enough to open up. That night, the local “mole people,” as the captain called them, held a big celebration in the center of the city. There was much more to the city than the captain had at first thought. Most of the city — about three times as much as they had seen on the surface — was belowground.

  Thanks to the big planet glowing beyond the cloud layer, night here was not that dark. Of course, the thick cloud layer had kept the mole people from knowing about the planet above them, or the stars either, for that matter. In fact, when the Star-Fighters tried to tell them about the beautiful ringed planet, most of the excessively wrinkled population just laughed, believing that the story was a silly fairy tale.

  The next morning, tears rolled down her wrinkled cheeks and over her rumpled chin as Ms. Franck said good-bye to all the friends she had made among the mole people. The fact that the people believed the girl to be a goddess troubled the captain. Ms. Franck tried to discourage such ideas, but many of the mole people clung to them anyway.

  Several minutes later the ship took off and plunged into the moon’s cloud layer.

  It was raining when the ship came out of the clouds. Beamer flinched at a lightning flash and noticed that they were back in the tree. Alana was next to him, her eyes wide in wonder.

  He watched her as she walked about the tree ship and touched the plywood fixtures. She looked at her watch and shook her head in wonder. “I went to this strange place far away and stayed there for weeks,” she said in a voice that seemed almost ready to break into joy, “and yet I just climbed into the tree only a few minutes ago. Is that possible?”

  “Alana, how did you get here?” he asked. “We never saw you come over.”

  “Oh, I . . . I came through the trees, like you described to me. After you left last time, I explained to Ms. Warrington and Daddy how nice you all had been to me and how you were not evil at all. Daddy was so happy that I had friends to play with. He wants to meet you, though. Isn’t it wonderful?”

  Beamer had never seen Alana so happy. She was wide-eyed with excitement, her eyes shining bright within that crinkled face. Her alien clothing had dissolved into twenty-first-century American attire. From the looks of her pink dress, she’d not thought what could happen to a dress when you climbed through trees. Her nanny was not going to be happy.

  “What happened to that big, fancy ship you picked us up in?” she asked.

  “Uhhhhh . . . this is it,” he said.

  “But, but, but, but how did we get there . . . and how did you get there . . . and how did we get back here . . . and . . . and how . . . ?” Dashiell asked in a flurry of words.

  “Uh . . . all good questions,” Ghoulie answered, “for which we have few answers. All we know is that, for some reason, the ship’s transporter beamed you to a moon of Saturn.”

  “It’s not even supposed to work,” Scilla jumped in, “until the tree ship transforms from this plywood box you see now to the fancy one that picked you up.”

  “But that’s amazing!” exclaimed Dashiell. “How do you do it?”

  “Uh, we don’t,” Beamer answered. “We don’t know why or how the ship transforms. We don’t even know when it’ll happen.”

  “As you noticed,” Ghoulie said, taking another turn, “we get changed too and are able to do things kids couldn’t normally do. It’s great! It’s incredible! But we can’t make it happen.”

  “D’you mean we can’t go back?” asked Alana.

  “Maybe,” Beamer piped in. “We’ve visited some places a second time, but it’s never been our choice. All we know for sure is that God’s in the middle of it. The story’s almost a legend now,” Beamer said as he went outside and leaned against the trunk. “Long ago a meteor struck this tree.” He turned back to the others. “But it was the finger of God, and it made Murphy Street into a place where God works mysteriously in the lives of kids.”

  “Aw, man . . . I could say I don’t believe you,” groaned Dashiell, “but I have to. I’ve lived through it. I’ve seen things . . . felt things . . . I’m definitely not as smart as I thought I was.”

  For a moment Beamer wondered if Dashiell had slipped a neuron. He actually sounded nice! Since talk was cheaper than actually being nice, he looked him straight in the eye. Hmmm, he’s either a great actor or he’s had a serious brain-remodeling job.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever be afraid again,” Alana said, almost dancing in place with excitement. “You were right,” she said. “You can’t let the scary things keep you from enjoying the good and beautiful things.”

  “I’m sorry I’ve been giving you such a hard time,”

  Dashiell said to his sister. “I’ve always felt I had to be such a hotshot. You don’t know how hard I tried to impress those people on the planet — or moon, I guess it was. I finally gave up trying to show off and found that they liked me much better when I was just a regular guy.”

  “He was pretty hard to live with until he did that,” Alana said with a light laugh.

  “Yeah,” chimed in Dashiell. “No matter what I did or said, those ugly dudes on that moon avoided me like I was as ugly as sin. And you,” he said with a laugh to Alana, “who look just like them — except for the hair, of course — they thought you were beautiful.”

  It happened too fast for Beamer to stop it. Alana stood there for a moment like a statue made of glass. Then her eye caught her reflection in the porthole window — the only window in the whole ship that had glass.

  Alana slowly approached the window, her hands touching her face. They could see the horror building in her expression. Suddenly she screamed! She turned and ran through them like she couldn’t see them. Before they could stop her, she was out the door. They ran after her only to see her thrash through the branches and fall all the way down into the security net.

  Almost out of her mind, crying more than screaming now, she scrambled out of the net and ran through the rain into the street, her arms flailing helplessly about.

  The Star-Fighters stood still as the rain splattered on their hair, washed down their faces, and soaked into their T-shirts and jeans. All that time they had tried to shield her, and then, right when she seemed like the happiest girl in the world, they had shattered her like a glass figurine.

  Dashiell, who had just realized what he had done, was frozen in shock. For the first time in his life, he had actually begun to care about someone other than himself. He didn’t mean to hurt her. In those weeks with the mole people, he had actually come to like her. He didn’t even think of her as ugly anymore. It just didn’t occur to him that Alana had never seen herself in a mirror or in a windowpane or in a clear pool of water. He wasn’t sure he liked caring about other people. It hurt. It really hurt!

  16

  The Secret in the Attic

  A whole week passed without any sign of Alana. Ghoulie tried calling; Scilla tried leaving notes in the mailbox; Beamer even asked Mrs. Hotchkiss if he could deliver more study guides for Alana.

  Mrs. Hotchkiss shook her head and asked, “What did you do to that family?” When Beamer seemed lost in hems and haws, she went on, “Ms. Warrington called me again and asked that, in the future, I either personally deliver the materials or send them via a courier service.”

  Once again Beamer’s chest ached. He almost wished they hadn’t tried to help the girl in the first place. Having things go wrong is one thing, but having them go wrong when you are trying so hard to do the right thing is much harder.

  In the meantime, Scilla did something radically strange: she started doing homework. The last day before spring vacation, one of Scilla’s teachers gave a pop quiz and asked for the class’s homework. At the end of the day when Scilla was happily racing toward the school door, that same teacher, Mrs. Shepherd, caught her in the hallway and took her back to her classroom.
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  What now? Scilla asked herself as she rolled her eyes. It’s not that she hadn’t been in trouble before, but this shouldn’t be one of those times, unless Mrs. Shepherd was mad at her for running down the hallway.

  As Scilla stood in front of her desk, Mrs. Shepherd pulled out Scilla’s quiz paper and her homework. She laid them side by side facing Scilla.

  Scilla stared at the twin scores — 100 percent. Then she looked up to see the quizzical look on Mrs. Shepherd’s face. Was she accusing her of cheating?

  But all she said was, “It’s about time!”

  Scilla was beginning to understand something. She’d been afraid. It wasn’t easy to admit that. Scilla had done everything to prove how tough and independent she was. She could out-wrestle every boy her size, and she had convinced herself she didn’t care if those silly, frilly girls looked down on her. No, she didn’t need anybody’s approval.

  At least, that’s what she had convinced herself. It was a lie, though. She was every bit as afraid as Alana and those mole creatures had been, except that, instead of being afraid of the unknown, she’d been afraid of failing. Everyone had told her she was smart, but what if she wasn’t? What if she tried and failed? Without realizing it, she had believed that if she didn’t try, it wouldn’t hurt so much if she failed to match up to her brother.

  She’d finally figured out that all she was doing was booby-trapping herself. There were so many things out there she could know and do. Now, at least, she was going to give it her best.

  Some days you remember better than others. For Beamer, Easter Sunday was definitely one of them. It’s not that he was this superspiritual guy. To be honest, he usually spent a lot of the time during Easter ser vice looking forward to the famous MacIntyre Easter egg hunt. That’s what his family always did after they got home from church on Easter.

  This Easter morning was different, though. He got caught up more than usual in all the talking and singing about Jesus coming back to life. Jesus made it so that death is not the end of life. That’s why there was always a lot of music and singing on Easter Sunday — the really loud and exited kind. It’s a huge celebration!

  Beamer was just beginning to figure out that there was a lot more to life than just sucking in air. Judging from what he saw on TV, some people didn’t enjoy living that much. Come to think of it, I wasn’t enjoying life all that much last fall when I was trapped in that toilet stall with Jared and friends circling outside like vultures. But for some people it was worse. They’d gotten in trouble, or their parents didn’t take good care of them, or things just went wrong, like they did for Solomon Parker, who was locked inside his mansion for years. Then there was Alana, who’d been buried in that pink house for who knew how long. She looked so happy that day in the tree ship; it was like she’d come to life. Then she lost it, just like that! He couldn’t help feeling it was his fault.

  The MacIntyre Easter egg hunt turned out to be a blast. Ghoulie and Scilla were there. So was Dashiell, who was still being nice. They couldn’t believe how many weird places an egg could be hidden. Beamer’s sister, Erin, as usual, seemed to have some kind of radar for finding the chocolate ones. Yep, candy eggs were included, although Beamer had made a special request for his mom and dad, otherwise known as Mr. and Mrs. Easter Bunny, to exclude pink ones. Ghoulie used logic to figure out where eggs were hidden. Scilla, the resident tree sprite, had the upper hand in the branches.

  Strangely enough, there turned out to be a lot of eggs in the tree. Who knew that the Easter Bunny could climb trees? Beamer cracked to himself. Scilla and Ghoulie found the fanciest egg up near the tree ship. The trouble was they found it at the same time. They bobbled it back and forth until it fell down the tree. Several other hands touched it on the way down as everybody leaped, dived, or swung through the tree for it. Both Beamer and Erin slowed it down. Dashiell tipped it into a gentle loop through the air to land in Michael’s basket. The little squid head didn’t even see it happen. The rest of them, though, looked at one another and shook their heads.

  Finally, pink flag or not, the Star-Fighters decided that they had to see Alana. They sat in the tree outside her window and waited. An hour passed without their seeing so much as her shadow. They tried the balcony window, but it was now firmly locked. Then Ghoulie noticed that the attic window was cracked slightly open.

  Unlike Beamer’s house, Alana’s Pink Palace had a flat roof. The walls of the attic were only slightly slanted inward — too steep to climb up to the attic window like you could at Beamer’s place. But there was a little ledge where the third story met the attic. They climbed up the tree to where they could hop onto the ledge. Scooting along that narrow ledge, Beamer wondered if his parent’s medical plan included tight-rope walking.

  Getting up to the window from the ledge wasn’t all that easy either. Ghoulie and Scilla had to climb up over Beamer. Beamer wished he’d made his will — you know, the written statement that tells who gets which of your belongings after you “pass on.” The idea of his little brother getting his Lego monorail system made his skin crawl. Of course, his skin was already crawling every time the wind picked up and he wobbled on the ledge. At least if he survived, he’d have a career as a human ladder. Finally, Ghoulie leaned out the window and, with Scilla holding on to his legs, stretched down to pull Beamer up.

  The good news was there was no giant spiderweb in this attic. The bad news took a little longer coming. The attic looked like a large medical laboratory. There were racks of chemicals and test tubes, banks of high-tech electronic equipment, and half a dozen monitor screens.

  “I thought Alana’s father made bug killer,” Beamer said with his forehead all wrinkled.

  “That’s what it said on the Internet,” Ghoulie said with a shrug.

  “So why does he need all this hospital equipment?” Beamer asked. Sure enough, there were walls of curtains that moved on rollers, tree-like things for hanging IV bottles and bags, surgical robes and gloves, a couple of hospital beds, and some very scary-looking tools.

  That’s when they got the bad news. They pulled one of those rolling curtains open and nearly jumped out of their skin. There, lying on an operating table like a wrinkled Sleeping Beauty just a couple breaths this side of death, was Alana.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Scilla asked in a panic. “If she’s sick, why isn’t she in a real hospital?”

  “I don’t know,” Beamer said as he looked around.

  “Are y’all thinking what I’m thinking?” Scilla asked, her eyes supersized. “What if her dad is not her dad at all but a mad scientist! I mean, maybe he’s some kind of Dr. Frankenstein who’s been doing weird experiments on her.”

  “Come on, Scilla,” grumbled Beamer as he rolled his eyes. “That’s crazy.”

  “Yeah,” she shot back at him. “But that would explain how she got . . . uh, the way she is, wouldn’t it?” she added, throwing the sleeping girl an uncomfortable look.

  “Scilla, he’s her father,” Beamer said, trying to calm her down. “He’s not gonna dice up his daughter.”

  “Are you sure about that?” she argued. “Come on, y’all; we’ve gotta get her outta here! Alana! Wake up, Alana!” she said, shaking the girl.

  “Hey, Scilla,” Ghoulie said, pulling her away from Alana. “She’s all wired up with sensors and an IV. We could accidentally do something homicidal if we’re not careful.” He turned back to face a bank of screens. “I think these monitors are showing her vital statistics.”

  “Hey, guys!” Beamer whispered loudly. “I found something.” He was thumbing through the pages of a note-book when the others joined him.

  “It looks like some kind of research log,” Ghoulie said as he leaned over Beamer’s shoulder.

  “There’s a date for each time he wrote something down,” Beamer said.

  “Looks like he spilled something on the book about half-way through,” said Scilla.

  Looking at the book edge, Beamer could see where the pages started getting wrinkled
. He leafed through to the place where the wrinkling started. “You’re right. It’s all very neat and organized up to here. Whoa, the ink even gets smeared a lot from here on.”

  “So what’s that gotta do with anything?” Scilla asked, getting impatient. “We’ve gotta do something to get Alana out of here! He’s drugged her or something.”

  “Look at the date!” Beamer said, his finger planted under it. “Four years and two months ago.”

  “There’s a lot of formulas and stuff here,” Ghoulie said as he took over the book and thumbed through it. “Pages and pages of them,” he said, now flipping faster through the pages.

  “Hey, what’s that?” Beamer said, shoving his hand into the page to keep Ghoulie from turning any more. “ ‘Alana’s aging process is beginning to accelerate.’ ” Beamer twisted around to read. “ ‘She is moving toward old age like a time machine.’ ”

  “See! I told you,” Scilla exclaimed. “He’s treating her like a lab rat, injecting her with stuff to make her get older faster.”

  “What would be the point in that?” Beamer asked with a smirk. “Nobody wants to get old faster.” Beamer turned through several more pages of technical scrawls then stopped to read, “ ‘So far, nothing I have given her has worked. If I don’t get results soon, she will stay locked in a growth pattern that will plunge her into a painful, early death.’ See, he’s trying to stop her from aging so fast.”

  “She’s dying?” Scilla asked in a choked voice.

  Beamer turned a couple more pages. “ ‘I can’t stand the thought of her suffering,’ ” he read again. “ ‘I’m the one who caused this calamity; I’m the one who must save her from it.’ ”

  “How do you suppose he caused it?” Scilla asked worriedly.

  “ ‘Each day I spent in tears, unable to sleep, hoping for a miracle,’ ” Beamer continued to read. He turned a few more pages and stopped. “Look, this one is from only a week ago: ‘When she came home traumatized by the cruelty the neighborhood children had inflicted upon her — ’ ”