by C. M. Bacon
“Oh, no. I look like Devon.” I said.
“Trust me,” Arvin said, “it’s an improvement.”
“Hardy-har-har.” I dusted the glitter out of my hair and pulled the rhinestones off my cheeks.
Arvin pointed over to a slender woman examining the spire’s shattered pieces. “Let’s go talk to that woman.”
“Why her?” I asked.
“She’s the only one not running.”
He was right again. “Lead the way,” I said.
Arvin walked ahead and got to the woman first. She was pretty and probably in her early 30s. Her blonde hair was tied neatly in a ponytail which rested against the white collared shirt on her back. She wore matching white pants with silver vertical stripes. Silver-laced white work boots completed her uniform. Rhinestones and glitter were stuck to her boots and pants at the ankles, but it looked to me like she had stepped in it like Arvin and I had done. I stayed behind to let Arvin do the talking.
“Excuse me, Mam. Are you ok?” asked Arvin.
“I’m fine. You two should back away. It’s not safe this close to the spire. We don’t know if another piece will break off,” she said, standing up, looking at us through dark blue eyes.
“Why aren’t you running away like everyone else?”
“I’m responsible for the upkeep and repair on this spire. This whole area is going to be sectioned off until we can figure out how to fix it for good.”
“We heard you need a lot of copper to fix it. Is that right?”
“Sadly, yes. It’s too rare and expensive to keep it in stock. So unless you have six inches of 5-gauge copper wire, you boys need to get out of here.”
“Will this work?” Arvin asked, pulling the wire out of his pocket.
The repair woman gasped, seeing Arvin holding a short, twisted fortune. “Where did you get that?”
“I’ve been saving it for a special occasion. Can you use it?”
“Of course. What’s the catch? How much do you want for it?”
“To know your name, lovely lady,” said Arvin, handing the wire to the much older woman. “We also want to see how you’ll repair the spire. It’s almost as beautiful as you.”
“Geez, Arvin,” I said, clenching my teeth, “focus on the mission.”
“I’m Leora,” she said, twisting the wire around her finger. “Knowing my name is free, but be serious. You could buy your own shuttle with this. Why would you give it to me?”
“It’s what we do. We help people, Leora,” Arvin said, reaching out, closing Leora’s fingers into a fist over the copper wire.
“Arvin,” I said, my teeth clenching harder, “mission.” I had to take over. “Leora, you can have the copper wire for free. We want to see how this thing works. Can we watch you repair it?”
“Wait here for a moment,” Leora said, walking into an entrance at the base of the spire. She returned carrying three hard hats. “Most of the damage is outside, so it’ll be safer inside anyway. You can watch the repairs, but we have to wear these.” We put on the hard hats and followed Leora into the spire’s repair entrance.
The inside wasn’t glass and shiny silver like the outside. The spire’s frame looked like a tornado of wires spinning around various pipes, going into wall panels with flashing red lights, up the side of an elevator, over rusted steel girders, and looping around a spiral staircase leading from the base to the top. This thing was a mechanical monstrosity under the beautiful glass and steel facade.
Lucky for us, we didn’t have to climb all those stairs. Leora walked over to a small panel on the wall and opened its small beige cover. I hoped to see colorful touch-screens and information displays. Instead, there were eight analog dials with little black arrows. Each had a green dot on the right, a yellow dot in the center, and a red dot on the left. All the arrows were stuck on the red dots. There were eight circular plugs like electrical outlets at home - each one under its own dial. Two holes were in the center of each plug. Copper wires passed through each hole in a loop from one to the next. The center plug was cracked down the middle. Its copper wire was burnt black and useless.
I thought, What’s this junk?
Leora reached into the panel and pulled out the old burnt wire. “Boys, this is what you wanted to see. Better come closer to get your money’s worth.”
Arvin and I watched as Leora took the loop of copper wire off her finger, straightened the ends, and plugged them into the socket.
“Let’s see,” Leora said, pushing the flashing red button at the top of the panel.
ERRRRRR
Nothing happened. Leora pushed the button again.
ERRRRRR
She put her right hand over her left shoulder, squeezing her tense muscles. “I was afraid of this.”
“What happened? Why isn’t it working?” I asked.
“Do you see the metal receptacle in the middle? The one holding the wires?” she asked.
“Yes, I see it.”
“Well, it’s cracked. I hoped it wouldn’t matter, but looks like I was wrong again.”
“Do we need more copper?” Arvin asked.
“No. The receptacle is made out of another rare metal called palladium. It was used in old TTSs. I can get one, but I’ll have to take my son’s.”
“TTSs?” I asked.
“You have a son?” Arvin said, disappointed she was old enough.
“Transmogrify-Transdimensional Sequencers, of course. They let you change form and travel to other dimensions without being noticed. My son loves his TT-Sequencers. The one I need is a family heirloom from his great grandfather. He’ll be heartbroken.”
“Change form? What kind of form?” I asked.
“It depends on the unit. The newer ones will let you change into anything you want. The older ones have a set shape embossed on the sequencer. Everybody loves them. Don’t you have a TTS of your own?”
“Maybe. Does your son have a snake-embossed TTS?” I asked.
“How did you know? He didn’t tell me he’d made new friends since we moved.”
“We’re certainly not his friends,” I said, “but I think we have something of his.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out the coin and handed it to Leora. She looked it over and smiled.
“I see you got an old one from your great grandparents, too. Why did you pretend you didn’t know what it was?”
“We weren’t pretending,” Arvin said. “Perry, tell her.”
Leora turned the coin over in her hand several times as we told her our story. I started with Dad giving me the coin two years before, the balloon and the island, the rock and the volcano, and everything we’d experienced up until we’d met her at the base of the spire. For every place we went, every gewgaw we found, every pain we told her about, the more furious she became until she looked like my own blonde dragon back home. Her face grew a deeper shade of red. Her teeth clenched, grinding against each other. She made two fists, took a deep breath, and hollered at the top of her lungs.
“Levi!”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Shocking Conclusion
“Levi!” Leora said, yelling into the air again. “You little snake, I know it was you.”
“Levi?” I asked. Arvin and I looked at each other.
“He’s my son. He promised he wouldn’t do this again.” She put her hands on her hips, looking around the maintenance room. “Levi, show yourself. You have a lot of explaining to do.” There was still no sign of the snake. “I have your great grandfather’s TTS, and I’m going to use it to fix this spire.”
“SSSSSStop.” Our red-bellied stalker slithered into view, hissing at us. It went directly to Leora, raised its head, and hissed again.
“Don’t you hiss at me, young man,” Leora said, talking to the snake. “TT-Sequencer Revert.”
Arms and legs popped out of the brown snake’s body. As it stood up on two feet, its red eyes turned dark blue, its red-bellied brown scales turned into brown pajamas with red rhinestones on the front and the
snake’s head changed into a boy’s head. Its hissing changed to whining.
“Mom, why’d you do that? It’s not fair. I was only joking.”
“You’re a boy!” Arvin said, shouting and pointing at Levi.
“No duh. And you’re a chipmunk.” Levi said, sticking his forked tongue out at Arvin.
Leora lifted her hand into the air.
SLAP!
She smacked Levi across the back of his head. “Congratulations, you’ve finally done it. You’ve made me ashamed to be your mother. Now fix your tongue and apologize to these poor boys.”
Levi grumbled, changing his snake tongue back to normal. “Yeah. Whatever. Sorry, Perry. Sorry, Arvin.”
“Sorry? All we get is ‘sorry’?” I said, as angry as the blonde dragon.
“Perry,” Arvin said, rolling up his sleeves, “you grab his neck and I’ll find sharp rhinestones and glue.”
“There’s no need for violence,” Leora said. “I’ll use this old TT-Sequencer’s palladium shell to repair the power system while my son explains himself and tells you how he’s going to make it up to you.”
“But, Mom!” Levi said, whining again.
“Do as you’re told before I get hungry for snake soup,” Leora said, pushing Levi to us.
“Fine. What do you want to know?” Levi asked, crossing his arms, sneering at us.
“First, how did my dad end up with your TT-thingy?” I asked.
“He stole it from me.”
“My dad never stole anything in his life.”
“Did, too. I was exploring your pathetic world when I saw something pink on the sidewalk. I tried to taste it, but it got stuck in my mouth. I lost my grandfather’s TTS when I spit. That’s when your dad stole it. I tried to stop him, but he kicked me into the soggy grass. I was lucky Mom found me.”
“You mean you ate bubblegum off the sidewalk and threw up your coin. Disgusting. Why did you swallow it anyway?”
“Duh. Snakes don’t have hands or pockets.”
“Why didn’t you use your other coin to return and ask my dad or me for it?”
“I’d have to be a boy to ask for it. What if one of my friends saw me on Earth? That would be so embarrassing. I was lucky to see you leave the house with it, even though I promised Mom I would stop trying to get it.”
Arvin asked his questions as I looked around for some glue. “Why did you want to hurt us?”
“You hurt each other, not me. A TTS can take you anywhere you want to go. If the dimension you want doesn’t exist, it can even create one from your own imagination. You created every place you experienced and every person you met. If you wanted it, the TTS gave it to you - in one form or another.” Levi snickered.
“We wanted to go home,” Arvin said, punching his right fist into his left palm.
“I know you’re a little slow, so let me explain it to you,” Levi said.
His neck looks fragile, I thought.
“Perry wanted to soak you in water, so the TTS helped. You wanted to heal the gash on your leg, so you got it.”
“What about the crazy Kingdom? We almost died there.”
“In the mudflat, you told Perry you’d ‘make him sorry,’ so you created your own insane doppelganger to do it. That was some messed-up stuff. You must have been furious to hurt each other so much. Ask Perry; he tried to warn you several times.”
“What about the Black and Silver armies?”
“You said you wanted a battle.”
“The ice cave and albinos?”
“You both wanted a snowball fight. You got snow. You had a fight.”
Arvin scowled at him. “We never said we wanted to fight in a frozen cave.”
“It’s an antique model TTS. You get what you pay for,” replied Levi.
“Then why would it bring us here?” I asked, unable to find any glue in the room.
“You told the TTS to take you to the person responsible. It did everything you wanted it to - including sending you to meet my mother and me. Do you get it now?”
“I’m getting there,” I said. “Then explain the gewgaws. Why did it give us problems to solve with magical gewgaws?”
Levi laughed. “You assumed the gewgaws were magical, so they became magical. You wanted to save the world, so you did - every single time. Those worthless gewgaws were nothing until you made them something. I tried to tell you all this in the mudflat.”
“No, you didn’t. I would’ve remembered you doing something other than hissing at us.”
“Did, too. I waited until you woke up after a good night sleep. I started to revert, but Chipmunk over here splashed mud all over me. By the time I cleaned all the mud from between my scales, someone had thrown his muumuu over my hole.”
“And the dream?” Arvin asked. “Why did Perry and I have the same dream about his dad that night?”
“How should I know? I’m not a psychic,” Levi said, shaking his head. He made Mom’s “tsk-tsk-tsk” sound. “You two should see a couples’ counselor.”
“I heard that,” Leora said as she worked to replace the disc and wire fuse.
“Why didn’t it turn us into snakes, too?” I asked.
“You never asked it to. And you said you hate snakes. You even created people to warn you about me.”
“So all the gewgaws we used, the places we went, and people we met - none of them are real?” Arvin asked.
“Each pocket dimension still exists along with everyone and everything there. Sometimes, you can take harmless objects with you into other dimensions, though I’ve never seen anyone pull out something as large as your yellow balloon. As long as you want those dimensions to exist, the TTS can take you back. But since you don’t have a TTS, you won’t be going anywhere else. Congratulations, you’re stuck here.”
“They’ll have a TTS, Levi,” Leora said, “because you’re going to give them your new one.”
“But, Mom. It was a birthday present from Uncle Logan.”
“You should’ve thought of that before you decided to have fun at their expense. I hope you had a good laugh because it’ll be the last laugh for a Very. Long. Time.”
“There’s one more thing I need to know,” I said. “Why did the holes change? First, there were two, then none, then one, then two again. What did it mean?”
“Do I look like a warlock to you? Figure it out on your own.”
“Ok. All done,” Leora said, pushing the red button again. The little arrows flipped to the green dot. The elevator lights came on, and weird buzzing-peeping music started playing over a small rectangular speaker above the door.
“Great. I love this song,” Levi said, snapping his fingers off-beat. “You wanted to come here, so let’s go up to the observation deck so you can get what you came for.”
“Good idea, Levi. You can give them your TT-Sequencer and tell them how to use it safely,” Leora said.
“Whatever, Mom,” Levi said, crossing his arms, pouting.
We all got on the elevator and rode at an incredible speed to an observation deck under the spire’s broken tip. There, we could get an aerial view of Aurabash. This far up, all those tall buildings looked like crystal blades of grass. They barely reached up a tenth the height of the central spire. We could see all the way to the edge of the city and past to the clouds floating above and below. I never could have imagined this. It has to be real.
“It’s a great view,” Arvin said, holding onto the rails, looking over the vast metropolis.
“Thanks, Leora,” I said, turning to show Levi my own “evil eye.”
“Levi, give it to them so we can all go home,” Leora said.
“Here you go, losers,” Levi said, giving us the old burnt wire. “Together, wish you were home where this all started.”
“Will it matter? It’s already been almost a month since we disappeared,” Arvin said.
“Think about the moment you met at the pool and you’ll go there,” Levi said, rolling his eyes as if the answer were obvious.
&nbs
p; Arvin and I held onto the ends of the old wire.
I want to go home, for real this time, I thought. Nothing happened.
“It’s not working,” I said, looking at Leora and Levi.
“What’s wrong with this gewgaw?” Arvin said, pulling on the opposite end of the wire.
Levi chuckled. “Chumps.”
“Levi,” Leora said, her voice as shrill as Mom’s. “Not the wire. Give them your TT-Sequencer, now!”
“Oops. Wrong one,” said Levi. He stuck his hand into his mouth and retched “HU-LEH,” pulling out another TTS. He gave it to me, still dripping phlegm.
“That’s nasty,” Arvin said, watching a gooey gob of spit drip off the coin and splat on the deck. “Clean it off.”
This coin looked like the other, but this one was missing the twisty-twirly snake path looping around the edge. Instead, a solid band of gold circled in its place.
This must be one of the anything-anywhere types Leora told us about.
“Don’t lose my TT-Sequencer, Perry,” Levi said. “One day, I’m going to come looking for it.”
Leora said, “If you do anything like this again, I’ll lock you in a zoo with real snakes.”
“Then I’ll use Uncle’s TT-Sequencer to be an eagle,” Levi said, smirking at his mother.
Leora smacked Levi across the back of his head. “The only thing you’ll be is quiet!”
“Ouch, Mom.”
She turned back to us. “Arvin, Perry. It’s yours now. Think about home. Remember how this whole mess started and you’ll go back to the beginning. After you get home, keep the TTS safe. If you get stuck like before, say ‘TT-Sequencer Revert’ to change back or ‘TT-Sequencer Return’ to go home.”
“I’ll remember,” I said.
“Me, too,” said Arvin. “Levi, is there something else we should--”
“Time to go!” said Levi, joining my and Arvin’s hands together and pushing us in front of the deck railing.
I held the coin in one hand and Arvin’s hand with the other, hoping, wishing, and praying we could finally go home.