by Henrik Tamm
To Timmy’s surprise, he sounded calm and collected.
“You guys?” she scoffed. “Not in a million years. It’s a highly advanced machine.” Then she smiled and added: “But I can fly it for you.”
Chapter 9
THERE WAS ROOM for only two passengers in the flying machine. Simon was prone to airsickness, and Jasper and Casper were both eager to go but finally agreed (this took a moment’s awkward discussion) that they were a little too heavy. So in the end, the duty fell to Timmy, and this was of course what he had hoped for all along. He was to borrow Simon’s magical goggles so he could get a peek inside the abandoned factory.
Alfred checked his wind charts. He gazed for a long while through a peculiar-looking spyglass aimed at the sky and finally declared that tonight would be perfect flying weather. The sky would be clear, with light winds from the southwest.
It was therefore a huge embarrassment for Alfred that as evening fell, large storm clouds rolled in from the north. They were an angry dark gray, almost black, and with them came a heavy rain. Soon the sound of thunder echoed across the mountains, and lightning bolts flashed with icy blue electricity across the sky. Deafening cracks jarred the group to the bone as nature unleashed its awesome power. The driving rain fell sideways, and the wind tore at the window shutters, making them clap and bang against the outside walls.
“Well,” Alfred said finally. “My predictions were wrong. I must have looked at some outdated charts, or perhaps the spyglass needs some adjusting.”
Timmy suggested that they wait until the following night, but Flores wouldn’t hear it. “I’m an excellent pilot. A little weather can’t deter me.” Timmy was about to object when one of the shutters blew open, and wind and rain hammered into the room. Alfred quickly hurried over and managed to close the window.
“See?” Flores declared. “We’ll have a strong tailwind. Perfect!”
At that, Timmy gave up. They discussed the plan. Flores was to circle the factory compound at least twice, as close as she could get, while Timmy used the goggles to look inside. The goggles had been designed to work well at night, even if the image quality would be a little grainier. Should anything out of the ordinary happen, or if anyone spied them, they would dash out of there as quickly as possible. Simple.
It was a five-minute walk to where the flying machine was parked, but it took about three times as long to get there because they were walking against the rain and wind. It howled around them. Flores’s voice was barely audible as she turned to Timmy:
“You okay? Try to keep up!”
Timmy had borrowed a spare helmet from Flores, and he was just in the process of trying it on when she turned around. It was way too big, and at that very moment it was down over his eyes, and he knew he must have looked like a fool. Typical, he thought. He was drenched through and feeling quite miserable.
They finally reached the airplane. It was parked under a shed, and for the first time Timmy got a proper look at it. It wasn’t very big, but it had three rows of wings on the front and two at the back. The tail was split in two. A wooden frame held it all together, and cloth was stretched tightly over everything. There were wires and pulleys and cogs and exhaust pipes all over the body of it. It looked like a mess, Timmy thought, but Flores insisted that it was the best flying machine ever built.
“Who built it?” Timmy asked.
“I did, of course!” Flores answered.
They climbed on board. There were two seats, one behind the other, and Timmy sat in the back. He was secretly grateful for that, so that she wouldn’t see how afraid he might get. He was actually quite scared of flying but had neglected to mention that to anyone. He had been too eager to impress Flores.
Before they took off, he asked (just in case anything unforeseen should happen) if there was any kind of device that might be used to jump from the plane with, like a big sheet that could strap to their backs and inflate to break their fall, or something like that. Flores didn’t know about such a thing, and thought it was the most ridiculous idea she had ever heard. Instead she told him to strap in properly and pressed the starter button.
The steam-powered double propeller started with a loud bang. There was lots of black smoke, and then the wooden blades started whipping viciously through the air. Flores gave the plane some throttle, and the engine roared. They rolled out of the shed and swung left, past some trash cans, as the speed and noise increased. To Timmy’s horror, they were now heading straight for a building. He tried to point this out by wildly waving his arms and screaming at the top of his lungs, but Flores couldn’t hear a thing over the noise. Instead she gave the plane even more throttle, and the machine jerked forward, bouncing and skidding over the cobblestones. He immediately regretted having been so keen to accompany Flores.
Rain whipped Timmy’s face, and he had a hard time seeing anything at all, just glimpses and flashes. The tips of the wings must have been only inches from the walls on both sides, but that didn’t seem to bother Flores either. The flying machine just barreled forward, and the building ahead grew bigger and bigger. Timmy was stiff with terror. They would surely crash into it in a few seconds, exploding like a fireball. Realizing that his life might be ending, Timmy supposed he was okay with that. He had lived a short but rich life. Good friends, grand adventures, and all that. But it had been a short life. He wished he could have lived just a few more years, maybe even had a chance to travel and see some of the world. Alas, it was not to be. He squeezed his eyes shut and waited for the inevitable.
When Timmy and Flores were what seemed like only a few feet from imminent death, the plane rose almost vertically, just barely missing the chimneys of the building.
Timmy could feel himself soar upward, pinned to the back of the seat. His stomach did somersaults, and his throat was sore from screaming. He looked down and saw rooftops. They were just regular rooftops, but he thought they were the most beautiful rooftops he had ever seen, simply because he was still alive.
A second after they were airborne, the wind took them. It jerked them violently sideways, then up, then down again. The plane was like a rolled-up ball of paper in the massive force of the storm. He could see Flores struggling with the controls. The sharp bang of a lightning bolt tore through the air right next to them, and again he thought about his much-too-short life. Why had he volunteered for this? Who did he think he was, with this whole ninja crime-fighting business? And he wouldn’t even get to die fighting like a ninja. He would die from falling from the sky in a little machine of cloth, metal, and wood. All he could do was hang on for dear life.
But Flores hadn’t exaggerated about her skill as a pilot. She countered every blow, somehow defying gravity and keeping them up in the air. The wind and rain still whipped them this way and that, but now they had gained some altitude, and Timmy felt the tight grip of fear on his heart loosen a little bit. He swallowed hard and looked out over the city.
It was actually a beautiful sight to see, and the lightning and storm clouds made the view even more magnificent. The bamboo skyscrapers were lit from within and looked like strange shining beacons through the rain. When lightning flashed, it lit up the entire city like daylight. Then darkness would return and a million glittering lights would glow through the clouds from below.
Flores looked back and shouted something.
“Haven’t you ever been in a tiny flying machine in a lightning storm before?”
“No!”
She laughed at this.
“Neither have I!”
This amused her to no end, and Timmy could hear her laughing wildly through the wind.
Timmy smiled. Flores was obviously a little crazy. He found that he liked that about her.
The good thing about flying in a lightning storm was that there were no other machines in the air that night. If anyone was in the factory, they would never suspect that anyone was spying on them from the air. Not on a night like this.
After a few minutes, Flores pointed to someth
ing below them: the abandoned factory. It was shrouded in rain, barely visible in the darkness, but it lit up sharply whenever a lightning bolt struck nearby, and then they could see it quite clearly.
The factory had many buildings, but one stood much taller than the rest. It looked more like an ancient abandoned castle than a factory, and its stone façades had intricate carvings, like those on an old cathedral. There were smokestacks and dozens of chimneys, and hundreds of dark windows that looked like black holes in the walls.
Flores swooped down. The erratic winds tossed them around, but she held on, and they soared in a wide angle around the complex.
“Get closer!” Timmy shouted.
He put on the goggles and scanned the buildings as the plane got within range. He had to fiddle a bit with them to adjust the distance, but after he got the hang of it, he was amazed at how effective they were. He could see inside rooms, even in almost total darkness. Magic goggles indeed.
At first, Timmy couldn’t spot anything unusual. Just empty rooms with abandoned factory equipment sitting around. Hallways, big rooms, small rooms. No movement, no sound. He tapped Flores on the shoulder, indicating that she should bring the plane around again. She gave a thumbs-up and did as he’d asked.
This time he focused on the taller structures and adjusted the goggles so that he could see farther in. And there, a figure! It was standing perfectly still. On the top of its head, he could make out two odd shapes, like tall ears. To Timmy, they looked like rabbit ears. He thought he saw more movement. Was someone else there too? Timmy tried to zoom in, but it was difficult with the plane bobbing up and down. Still, he got enough of a glimpse to know who the other figures were. He recognized seven thick necks attached to seven stocky bodies. The Gribbles!
There was definitely something going on inside this supposedly abandoned factory.
Timmy tapped Flores on the shoulder again and gave her a thumbs-up. She increased the throttle and pointed the machine upward.
But just as they were about to fly off, Timmy saw the figure with the tall ears rush up to the window. It pointed straight at them.
“They saw us! Get us out of here!” he shouted.
Flores maxed the throttle, darting the plane away and up. They took cover in the dark clouds, and for a while all they could see was gray and black, and flashes of blinding white light as bolts of lightning shot past them with thunderous crackles.
Timmy decided to just squeeze his eyes shut and try to pass out.
Many violent jolts and jerks later, they were back on the ground. Timmy stumbled out of the plane, trying not to let his knees buckle.
Chapter 10
“HE SAW YOU? Are you sure? And he had long ears, like a rabbit?”
Alfred had listened intently to Timmy and Flores’s report of the flight, and now he was leaning forward with a serious face.
“This is not good,” he continued as they both nodded. He tugged slowly at his long, thin beard. “I knew this time would come.”
It was the first time any of them had seen Alfred so anxious. Jasper and Casper made calculations on their notepads and squabbled silently about whether the level of concern was ten or ten point five on a scale of one to ten.
Timmy looked at Flores. She had softened toward him just a bit and had even given him half a smile while they’d walked back to the toy shop through the rain. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. Now she sat looking serious, with a little frown.
“You know who this rabbit is?” she asked.
Alfred looked even more troubled. He shifted in his seat before he answered.
“I do.” He paused a moment. “I made him.”
The five friends looked at him with shared apprehension.
“You made him? So he’s a toy?” Timmy asked with unease.
“You could say that. Not quite a toy, but something I made when I was much younger, and much more stupid. When I thought I could make anything.” He looked at Timmy. “You remember the flower you picked for me in the caves? I told you I had last seen it forty years ago. It was with that flower that I built the Blue Rabbit. Created, you could say. But I was young, and I didn’t know what I was doing. I had underestimated the power of that flower, and my creation came out terribly wrong.”
“Why did you make it?” Casper asked.
“Because,” Alfred blurted out, “the king at that time commissioned it from me. The Blue Rabbit was meant to be a toy for his daughter’s birthday. Right away I realized that something had gone wrong, that the toy had gained too much power. It grew large and it grew intelligent. It started to turn into something out of my control. It broke my other toys out of jealousy. When I tried to stop it…well, I couldn’t. He used my own magic on me. He must have seen me mix the ingredients. I was paralyzed.”
He paused. Timmy could tell Alfred had kept all this inside for a very long time. Alfred finally took a breath and continued.
“So as you can imagine, I could never give the king’s daughter this toy. I finally managed to take control of the situation again, but before I could destroy it—or him, rather—he escaped.”
“What happened to him?” Flores asked.
“I don’t know exactly. Last time I saw Rabbit, he had stolen a steam balloon and was sailing away across the mountains. Later, I heard he had made a home somewhere in a foreign land.”
“And now he’s back,” Simon said.
“And now he’s back.…” The toymaker’s voice sounded sad.
“To steal children’s laughter.” Timmy looked glum. “What does he want with children’s laughter?”
“I’m not sure. I’ve never heard of such a thing before. But as good as magic can be, it can also be turned into bad. Dark magic. He’s up to something.”
“Well, we’ll stop him!” Flores exclaimed.
At first, the room was quiet. Timmy’s gaze wandered from each of his friends to the next. It finally landed back on Alfred. Timmy gathered his courage and stood up.
“Yes.” He straightened. “There’s nothing we can’t do. If the Blue Rabbit is as bad as you say he is, we’ll find a way to stop him. Whatever he’s up to. We are ninja crime fighters, after all.”
Alfred nodded. One after another, the others nodded too. Best of all, Timmy noticed that Flores was smiling at him.
“Okay.” He looked around at his friends once again. “Only we know what’s going on. Only we have the ability, the responsibility, to stop him. If we don’t, an entire generation of kids might lose their ability to laugh, and we don’t know who his next victim will be. I, for one, do not want to wait around and find out.”
He sat down again. He hated to have to make those little speeches. He worried that it didn’t suit him, or that he sounded bossy, even though he was pretty sure he knew what he was talking about. If he’d had a choice of what to do with an evening like this, he would have liked to take Flores to a movie, and be really funny, and make her realize who he was, that he was a cool cat, then take her for a romantic walk in the park, and maybe even go on another crazy ride in her flying machine. This time in good weather. That was what he wanted. Not to give inspirational speeches about doing the right thing.
Some distance away, in the abandoned factory, the Blue Rabbit stood alone on a balcony, eating a pastry. He loved pastries more than anything. Right now, he was having a chocolate éclair and loving every second of it. Behind him, on a table, was a small mountain of chocolate éclairs. By the end of the evening, he would have consumed at least fourteen of them.
He turned and looked around at the empty room. It pleased him that it was empty. He always felt cranky after seeing the Gribble cousins. Once, they had been useful. They had collected parts for his machine, and they had brought him children whose laughter would power it. It hadn’t been very difficult for them to find these kids. Children were everywhere. It was like picking flowers, the Blue Rabbit mused. Little innocent flowers. All the Gribble cousins had to do was collect them and bring them here. How hard could that have pos
sibly been? He had even let them become captains and had given them the responsibility of recruiting other gangs so he could collect more laughter.
The Gribble captains. What a laugh. What a disaster. He had been good to the Gribbles. Had made them rich. Once, he had even let them smell one of his éclairs.
And now, in return, they had let him down. They had come to him with a children’s tale. A tale about a gang of “ninjas” that had hindered their work and then given them a good beating. Bah! Couldn’t they at least have been a little more creative when making up their story? Ninjas? Really? The Rabbit didn’t mind the beating—the Gribbles deserved as much—but he minded that the Gribbles hadn’t done their duty. He had really needed a boy puppy for one of his ingredients.
He knew plenty of other gang members he could make into captains, and who he would let smell the éclairs. He couldn’t tolerate incompetence or insubordination. He had therefore decided that it was time for the Gribbles to end their employment with him. Unfortunately for the Gribbles, that meant death. Oh, they should have seen this coming; they should have known there was small print in the contract. Who doesn’t read the contract? And, well, of course they had been upset. But what else could he do? If word spread that the Blue Rabbit was soft on his employees, then what would happen? Then everyone would expect him to be soft, wouldn’t they? It would be absolute chaos. Mutiny. Anarchy. No, it would be no good. No good at all.
He took another bite of the chocolate éclair and mused as he chewed. It would be swift; he had seen to that. He wasn’t really worried about the Gribbles. That problem would take care of itself. What worried him, what genuinely vexed him, was this affair with the flying machine. He had seen it fly in, of course, but then it had kept on flying around his compound. His compound. Sneaking, peeking, snooping around. He hadn’t liked it. Not one bit.