by David Lubar
Life was certainly on its way to becoming fabulous.
“What can you do to my enemies?” Karen asked.
Izma told her.
Karen shuddered. Then she smiled.
That evening, tanned from the sun and filled with the peace of the ocean, Karen slept well.
The next day, she began reshaping the world. She sent her parents away. They weren’t needed anymore. She took her name off the school roster. But that didn’t seem like a good enough way to leave her old world behind. So she went to school, stood outside the teachers’ lounge, and commanded, “Turn the teachers into frogs.”
The frogs weren’t very interesting or exciting. “Turn the boys into snakes,” Karen said.
That seemed to get the attention of the frogs and of the girls.
After Karen returned to the beach, she decided that none of her friends really deserved anything. What had they ever done for her?
She got a mansion, a castle, a palace, and a penthouse suite. She got a hundred cats. Then she tired of them and got a dozen tigers.
But always, each day, as she made her wishes, she could see one thing in Izma’s eyes. He was waiting for her to make a mistake. He was waiting for her to remove the gem that protected her. One slip, and the dream would become a nightmare. She’d seen Izma chase down small animals and do horrible things to them.
Karen knew she was too smart to become his victim.
A month passed, and Karen was sure that, unlike others who might grow bored with luxury and a perfect life, she would be happy forever. There was so much to do, so much to try. So many people who deserved to suffer. The world was hers.
She stood in the bedroom of her palace, admiring herself in the mirror. Maybe she would go to see the pyramids today or perhaps the rain forest. Then one flaw caught her eye, and all thoughts of travel fell from her mind like dead leaves.
At first, she didn’t understand. Or didn’t want to understand. She stared at a small patch of untanned skin just below her neck. The spot was the same shape as her gem. But it wasn’t where it should have been.
The patch was lower than the gem. Which meant the gem had moved higher. There was only one way that could happen.
Karen’s right hand flew to her neck, clutching the gem, almost ripping it off.
She froze as she heard a hiss of anticipation from the corner of the room, where Izma stood awaiting her wishes.
“No,” Karen said aloud. This isn’t happening. It’s just my imagination.
But that night, as she lay in bed, she counted the tiny links. She counted them again the next night. She counted twice to make sure.
And she counted them again the night after that.
There was no mistake. A link had vanished from her chain each day.
A tiny piece of silver.
The words came back to her. He’d asked for gold, but she’d cleverly forced him to accept less than he’d wanted. Karen sat up in bed and turned on the light. Across the room, Izma stood, watching her.
“Take the silver from elsewhere,” she said.
Izma shook his head. “We have a bargain.”
“Forget the bargain,” Karen said. “I don’t want anything else.”
“It is too late to change our bargain.”
Karen held her hand on the chain that was slowly growing shorter, one tiny bit of silver at a time, slowly closing around her neck. Already, even though the necklace was not yet tight, she found herself struggling to breathe. Karen fingered the clasp.
“Tell me what will happen if I remove this,” she said.
His eyes gleaming in anticipation, Izma told her.
Karen shuddered. Then she screamed.
ALEXANDER WATCHES A PLAY
Alexander would much rather have gone to a movie or just stayed at home and watched television. But his mother had bought a ticket to the new production at the Sommerset Children’s Theater, and she was the sort of mom who would never let anything go to waste. So Alexander knew there was no way out.
“What’s it about?” he asked as his mother dropped him off in front of the building.
She handed him the ticket. “I don’t know. It doesn’t say. You’ll find out. I’m sure it will be wonderful.”
“Right.” Alexander gave his ticket to a man at the door, then headed into the lobby. He looked around. There were no signs or posters. No popcorn, either.
Alexander stepped inside and found his seat. It was in the front row. A moment later, the man who’d taken his ticket walked out from behind the curtains. “Welcome,” he said. “It’s my pleasure to introduce our final production of the season. So sit back and enjoy yourself while the Sommerset Children’s Theater presents the world premiere of Alexander Watches a Play.”
Alexander sat up in his seat at the sound of his own name. The curtain opened. On the stage, a boy and his mother were sitting on wooden chairs inside a cardboard box painted to look like a car.
“What’s it about?” the boy onstage asked.
He wasn’t a very good actor, Alexander thought. I could do better than that. Not that I’d ever want to be in a stupid play.
Onstage, the boy’s mother answered. She didn’t seem to be a very good actor, either. They talked for a moment; then the boy walked through a door. The curtain closed.
What in the world … ? Alexander wondered.
The curtain opened. The stage had a row of theater seats. The boy onstage was watching another stage. A man walked out in front of the curtains of the new stage. “Welcome. It’s my pleasure to introduce our final production of the season.”
The man introduced the play. The curtain behind him opened. Alexander watched as the boy onstage watched another boy who was sitting in box painted to look like a car.
This can’t go on, Alexander thought.
But it did. He watched a play about a boy named Alexander who watched a play about a boy who watched a play, and on and on. The theater seemed to get endlessly deeper as each new version started. Alexander thought about getting up and leaving, but he was curious to know how long the play could keep going. After a while, the actors were so far away that Alexander could barely make them out. He had to strain to hear what they were saying.
Then, far off, he heard an actor cry, “Oh no, the balcony is falling.”
There was a crash. Another voice cried out, “The poor boy. He’s been crushed.”
The farthest curtain closed. Once again, Alexander heard: “Oh no, the balcony is falling,” followed by another slightly louder crash.
Theater by theater, the crash came closer. Soon it was on the stage right in front of Alexander. A man on the stage shouted, “Oh no, the balcony is falling.” Then the Alexander onstage shot up from his seat and turned around. But instead of running, he froze.
“Stupid kid,” Alexander muttered. This was just too unrealistic, like one of those hokey wrestling matches where one guy is lying there, acting too stunned to get up, and the other guy takes forever to make his next move.
“Run, you idiot!” Alexander shouted. He watched as the balcony onstage fell right on top of the actor playing Alexander. It seemed to move in slow motion—groaning and creaking for a while and then finally toppling. As the curtain closed, Alexander looked up. The theater’s balcony was right over his head. A strange groan came from above.
A man at the end of Alexander’s aisle shouted, “Oh no, the balcony is falling.”
I’m outta here! Alexander knew he had plenty of time to reach the exit before the balcony fell. He shot from his seat and turned around, planning to make a dash for the exit. Instead, Alexander froze, stunned by what lay in front of him. His row of seats was on a stage. He squinted into the lights, then looked out at the people in the audience. That alone wouldn’t have been quite enough to keep him frozen. But beyond the theater, he saw another, and another, and another, stretching away forever.
“Stupid kid,” a boy muttered from darkness.
The boy shouted something else, but the words were
drowned out in the crash and clatter of the collapsing balcony.
MRS. BARUNKI
I hate Mrs. Barunki. She’s the worst teacher in the school. I can’t believe I got stuck with her for second grade. When I found out, I almost ran away from home. The worst part is that I came so close to not getting her. If I was one year younger, I’d have been safe. She’s retiring at the end of this year. That’s just about all she talks about. That and her stupid math facts. She makes us memorize stuff every single day. I’m sick of it. She makes us learn lots more math than we’ll ever need.
But we get her back. All the kids hate her. We play tricks on her whenever we can. It’s war—us against her. She teaches us math facts, we hide all her pencils. She teaches us math facts, we make faces when she turns away.
She used to shout a lot. That’s what I heard from some of the older kids. This year, she hasn’t shouted at all. But I still hate her. And she hates us. I know she does. Mom says that “hate” is a bad word, but Mom doesn’t have to sit here every day.
At least the year is almost over. I made it through Mrs. Barunki’s class in one piece. I survived.
“Well, boys and girls,” Mrs. Barunki said when there was only a minute left on the very last day, “I can’t say I’ll miss you, and I know you won’t miss me. But I’ll tell you one thing.”
She stopped and grinned at the class, taking time to stare at each and every one of us. When her eyes reached mine, I felt like I was trapped on the wrong side of a cage at the zoo. I waited to see what she would say.
“I’m going away—far away. But you’ll never forget me. I can promise you that. I’ll be a part of your life forever. I’ve made sure of that.” Then she started laughing.
The bell rang. It was over. I was through with Mrs. Barunki and her meanness and her math facts. She couldn’t do anything more to me.
And she was wrong. No matter what she said, I knew I wouldn’t ever think of her again. As sure as the sky is blue, as sure as water is wet, and as sure as two times three is seven, Mrs. Barunki was out of my life for good.
MURGOPANA
The old man held a large rock in his left hand and spoke a single word. He reached down with his right hand and grabbed a fistful of sand from the beach. Brendan, sitting on a fallen tree several yards away, watched as his father tried to find meaning in the strange sounds.
“Shanbruk,” the man said lifting the rock higher.
“Shanbruk,” Brendan’s father said, writing the word in his notebook.
The old man grinned. Brendan noticed that he had lost most of his teeth. Holding out his palm with the small mound of sand, the old man said, “Shanpana.”
Brendan got up, walked barefoot across the warm sand, and stepped into the gentle surf that rippled against the north edge of this small island in the Pacific. “I’m going out for a swim,” he called to his father.
Brendan’s father gave him an absentminded wave. “Have fun.”
“I will.” Brendan waded away from shore until he was waist deep in the water, then leaned back and floated. This is the life, he thought. Even if his dad’s work was kind of silly, Brendan was enjoying his time on Senshoji Island. He just wished things would get a little more exciting once in a while. Even paradise could get boring.
Brendan drifted around and looked over toward the shore. His father was still talking to the old man, collecting more words. The people on the island—they called themselves the Wanoshenu—spoke a language that wasn’t used anywhere else. It wasn’t even all that much like any other known language. As far as Brendan could tell, people who cared about languages, people like his father, went wild over the chance to study a new one. It was sort of like when an astronomer finds a new star or a biologist discovers an unknown animal.
“I’ll be staying with them for a month,” Brendan’s father had explained. “I have to compile a lexicon—that’s a list of the words in the language. Then I can start studying the grammar. I’ve made arrangements for you to come with me, if you’d like.”
It sounded pretty boring to Brendan. At least, it had sounded boring at first, but then he’d remembered something he’d learned in school. He’d thought about those twenty-four dollars’ worth of beads and trinkets and how, if he remembered correctly, Peter Someone-or-other had bought Manhattan Island that way. What could I buy with some shiny junk? Brendan wondered.
“I’d love to go,” Brendan told his dad. Then he headed into town, where he’d picked up a nice assortment of fake jewelry, sparkly beads, and other glittery products of a plastic civilization.
The islanders had gone crazy over the stuff—especially the rhinestones. It would have been perfect if they’d had anything good to trade. But they didn’t have lots of knives or spears or anything cool. They had baskets and clothing. Brendan didn’t need baskets, and he definitely didn’t want their used clothing. So he was stuck on Senshoji Island for a month with nothing to do but swim and lie on the beach.
It could be worse, he thought, as he drifted with the rolling waves. The water was warm, the sun was warmer, and his dad let him sleep as late as he wanted. An hour later, when Brendan waded back onto the beach, he saw that his father was just finishing up the interview with the old man.
“Brendan, this is fascinating. Come have a look,” his father said, waving his notebook. He reached down to switch off the tape recorder.
“Sure,” Brendan said, though he wasn’t the least bit interested. He joined his father and looked at the notebook. As his father talked about phonemes, morphemes, and rounded vowels, Brendan nodded and grunted, but he really wasn’t paying any attention. The whole thing was boring.
When his father was finished, they walked back toward their tent. On the way, they stopped to stare at the stone statue that stood in a clearing on the path. The natives referred to it as Murgobruk. But to Brendan, it might as well have been called Bug-Fish. It was a huge statue, towering at least twenty feet in the air, that looked like a combination of a cockroach, a fish, and a lobster. The thing that always caught Brendan’s eyes was the mouth, with a pair of jaws lined with sharp teeth made of carved white shells. A fin with spiny bristles ran along the creature’s back. It had five pairs of jointed legs. The front pair ended with claws. Its body terminated in a forked tail that was covered with spikes.
“I’d hate to run into one of those,” Brendan’s father said. “Not that such a thing could exist. Anything that size would be crushed under its own weight.”
“That’s a relief,” Brendan said. He didn’t think a creature like the murgobruk could exist, but the huge statue still gave him the creeps. A little one would be fun, he thought. Maybe he could get one of the natives to carve a small model for him to take home. Not that there was any way he could communicate his request.
“Real or not,” his father said, “it’s certainly fascinating to observe the beliefs of an ancient culture from such a close vantage point. Imagine how much we’ll be able to learn once we know the basic language.”
He said more, but Brendan had tuned him out again. They reached their tent, which was set up next to the Wanoshenu village. Brendan saw some of the kids his age playing a game with small stones. He wandered over and watched for a minute. Remembering the word the old man on the beach had used, Brendan pointed at the stone and said, “Shanbruk?”
The boy looked at him and laughed. Then he said, “Naybu.”
That was one of the few words Brendan knew. It meant “no.” He tried again. “Shanpana?”
“Naybu, naybu,” the boy said. He held up the stone. “Shantoji.” The word may have been foreign, but the way he said it carried the universal tone of someone patiently trying to educate an idiot.
“Forget it,” Brendan said. He went back to the tent and got out his music player. He was going through batteries faster than he’d expected, but he really needed to sit back and blast some tunes.
His father came in a while later. When he started to talk, Brendan removed his headphones.
�
�Big day tomorrow,” his father said. “Some sort of special ceremony.”
“Like what?” Brendan asked. That sounded like it might be a nice change of pace.
“I don’t know,” his father said, “but we’ll find out soon enough. I think it has to do with Murgobruk.”
Great, Brendan thought, some kind of bug-fish ceremony. He put his headphones back on and listened to music until he felt sleepy.
The next morning, Brendan was startled awake by shouting. A boy named Jasi stuck his head in the tent and yelled, “Murgopana! Tanu gan weroba! Murgopana!”
Brendan shot off of his cot, wondering what was going on. He staggered outside, along with his father. The villagers were all heading toward the mountain that rose from the center of the island.
“What’s going on?” Brendan asked his father.
“I don’t know, but it will be a great opportunity to learn about these people.”
Brendan and his father followed the villagers, who were hustling along the path. The people didn’t seemed panicked, but they were definitely tense. From all around, Brendan kept hearing one word: “Murgopana.”
Once the people reached the inland cliffs, they streamed into a cave. After everyone was inside, they started to drag a large rock across the opening, using wooden handles tied to it with ropes. The village chief looked out toward Brendan and his father. He pointed into the cave and said something.
“Shouldn’t we join them?” Brendan asked.
“We won’t learn anything in there,” his father said. “I’m pretty sure that whatever they’re hiding from is going to happen out here.” He turned toward the chief and said, “Naybu.”
The chief touched his chest in a gesture that Brendan knew meant “farewell.”
Brendan watched as the boulder sealed the villagers within the cave. “You sure we’re safe?”
“Positive,” his father said. “They kept mentioning weroba. That’s the ocean. Whatever is supposed to happen, I think it will happen there.” He headed toward the beach.