Storms and Scarabs

by H. R. Hobbs

  Where are we?!

  Neither boy spoke. They just took it all in with a sense of foreboding.

  How are we ever going to get out of here? Mitch thought to himself. For some reason he doubted they could just hop on the next train or bus to Fairview.

  Brock must have been thinking the same thing. He gripped Mitch’s arm and said, “Where’s the spyglass?”

  “In my back pocket.”

  “Get us out of here!”

  Brock didn’t look at him as he said the words, but the panic in his voice matched Mitch’s, as he looked out at the marketplace around them. Mitch quickly pulled the spyglass out of his pocket. All three arrows were pointing to the eyepiece.

  “Do you think if I line up the ones that are facing the other way, it will get us out of here?”

  “I don’t know! Just try something before someone discovers us!”

  Mitch nodded and began turning each section so the arrows pointed in the opposite direction. He heard each section click into place, but nothing happened. He shook the spyglass. He looked through the eye piece and saw only black.

  “What’s wrong?” Brock demanded. “Why aren’t we falling into that creepy black mist?”

  Mitch shook it again. “I don’t know.”

  “Give it to me.” Brock snatched it from his hand and started turning the different sections randomly. When nothing happened, he threw it into the straw in frustration. “You and your spyglass! Look at what you got us into!” Brock’s voice rose to a loud pitch.

  Mitch grabbed him and gave him a shake.

  “Keep your voice down or this is only going to get worse. Besides, you were just as interested as I was to make it work. Losing your mind right now is only going to draw attention to us.”

  Both boys froze when they heard a gasp behind them.

  As if Mitch’s words conjured her, a girl had popped her head over the top of the pen. She looked to be about their age. A band of fabric held her shoulder-length hair back from her face. Her dark eyes were round with fear as they dropped from the boys’ faces to their clothes. She gasped again. The three of them stood frozen, until the girl turned and looked behind her. Afraid she was going to call for help, Mitch ran over to her.

  “Wait!”

  She turned back to him. Her forehead creased with a confused frown.

  “Please! Don’t tell anyone we’re here.”

  But Mitch realized that the girl didn’t understand a word he was saying. She backed away from the pen. He moved to follow her before realizing that he’d expose himself to the people in the market if he did.

  “We need help!” He pointed to himself and Brock. How could he make her understand when she had no clue what he was saying? Charades? “Any ideas on how to communicate with her?” he asked Brock, who was still standing in the shadows at the back of the stall.

  “Sorry, I only know how to speak English,” Brock shot back.

  “This isn’t the time to be funny. We have to convince her to help us or we’re done for.”

  As the boys talked to each other, the girl followed their conversation. Her head ping-ponged back and forth in confusion.

  The boys stood in silence after that, trying to figure out how to communicate with her. Mitch knew they didn’t have a lot of time before she would run off and find help—and not the kind of help that he and Brock were looking for.

  It was then that the girl gasped a third time. Mitch followed her line of sight and groaned. One of the pigs had the spyglass in his mouth.

  “We have to get it back!” Brock hissed. “It’s our only way home.”

  “You should have thought of that before throwing it in the straw.”

  The girl pointed to the spyglass and started talking rapidly. Brock wrapped his arm around the pig’s head and tugged the spyglass out of its mouth. After letting the pig go, he hid the spyglass behind his back. The girl continued to talk. The fear had left her eyes and she was motioning for them to follow her.

  “I think she wants us to go with her,” Brock said, coming to stand beside Mitch.

  “You think? But why? She caught a glimpse of the spyglass and now she wants to help us?”

  “Or kill us.”

  “Maybe she knows about the spyglass. Maybe she knows about my great-grandpa.”

  He paused as his last words sunk into their brains.

  Mitch went on, “Let’s say she wants to help us—we can’t just walk out of here. The minute people see us dressed in jeans and T-shirts, they’re going to know we don’t belong here.”

  The girl had finally quit talking and seemed to be waiting for the boys to make a decision. Brock pointed to his clothes. “We need some clothes.”

  The girl looked confused for a moment. Then her face cleared in understanding. She held up a finger and then disappeared into the crowds of market-goers.

  Mitch and Brock moved to the back of the pen.

  “I hope she’s getting us something to wear and not bringing back the police.”

  “I don’t think they have a police department around here,” Brock said. He kicked at the straw along the back of the pen. Finding no manure, he sat down. He rested his back against the poles as he turned the spyglass this way and that.

  “What are you doing?” Mitch sat down beside him.

  “I’m looking to see if I can find a way out of this mess.”

  “By the looks of the clothing, we definitely aren’t anywhere near home. But where we are—I have no idea.” Mitch grumbled, “I wish the spyglass had thought to send some water. I’m dying of thirst.”

  “There might be some in that pail over there.” Brock pointed to where a pig had his head stuck in a pail.

  “Funny. I’m not that thirsty.”

  The boys sat in silence as the pigs rooted around them. Luckily, no one besides the girl seemed to be minding the pen they were in, and they were able to wait without fear of being discovered.

  The sweat had started to run down Mitch’s face by the time the girl came back. She threw a bundle of material into the pen beside them before entering through a gate. She pushed through the pigs, who seemed to know that the gate was their way to freedom.

  When she reached them at the back, she pulled the bundle apart and handed each of them a piece of clothing. The boys looked at the clothes sceptically. The bundle contained two robes and two strips of fabric. They were made out of a coarse material that felt like the sacks Brock’s mom used to store potatoes every winter.

  The girl slipped the cloth over Mitch’s head. He pulled his arms through the openings he assumed were sleeves. He didn’t think he could get any hotter, but wearing two layers of clothes was like bundling up for snow in the dead of summer. The girl grabbed one of the strips and wrapped it around Mitch’s waist before tying it in a knot. The robes covered the clothing underneath and fell over the tops of his sneakers.

  Brock watched the girl dress Mitch and then did the same.

  “I look like I’m one of the shepherds in a Christmas pageant,” Brock mumbled to himself, knotting the fabric around his waist.

  “I don’t care what I look like,” Mitch replied. “I just want to get out of here.”

  The girl motioned for them to follow her back to the gate.

  Shooing the pigs away from the gate, the girl looked left and right before pushing Mitch and Brock out onto the path in front of the pen. Backing out of the pen, the girl held the pigs back with her leg so she could lock it again with a piece of rope.

  Turning, she motioned for them to follow her. Not wanting to draw attention to themselves, Mitch and Brock kept their heads down and followed the girl’s feet as she wove around people and stalls, leading them to who knows where. Out of the corner of his eye, Mitch saw carpets, tables covered in jewellery and gems, and ducks hung from ropes that ran from the corners of each stall.

  When they turned a corner, Mitch glanced up and saw a man sitting cross-legged on the ground. His head w
as wrapped in cloth, so only his eyes were visible. His hands rested in his lap, and Mitch noticed he only had stumps where his fingers used to be. Mitch ducked his head and hurried after the girl.

  It wasn’t long before they entered a building. Mitch sighed as the cool air washed over him. Thinking it was safe, he looked around. The dark room was nearly bare, with only a few wooden stools. A doorway led farther into the house. Mitch could smell something cooking. He also noticed there was no couch or television—not even a power outlet along any of the walls. The only light came from openings high up on the wall, which he saw were glassless windows.

  Obviously, they’d travelled to another country. But where? From what he’d seen so far, Mitch guessed it was somewhere in Africa.

  The girl gestured to the stools and ran down the hallway. She came back holding a container in each hand. Giving one to each of the boys, she gestured for them to drink it.

  Mitch sniffed at the container uneasily. Brock, on the other hand, took a huge gulp.

  “It’s water,” Brock told him, and then brought the container to his lips again, emptying it.

  Mitch took a cautious sip. When he tasted nothing but water, he tilted the container and drank it all.

  Brock handed his cup to the girl. She took Mitch’s cup and went back down the hallway.

  “What’s the cup made of?”

  “It looked like a gourd,” Brock told him.

  “A what?”

  “A gourd. They’re like squash. My mom grows them in her garden and then sells them at Halloween for decoration.”

  “So . . . it’s not anything that can kill me?”

  Brock laughed for the first time since they’d found themselves in their current predicament. “No. No death-by-vegetable.”

  The girl came back and while the boys drank their second cup of water, she stared at them from the doorway. The boys shifted nervously under her scrutiny. It wasn’t like she had a menacing quality; it was more curious. Like they had two heads or something. Which, if they’d travelled across the globe, wasn’t much of an exaggeration.

  The boys handed the girl the empty cups and she disappeared down the hall a third time. The boys took the opportunity to study their surroundings more closely. A row of openings at the top of each wall let air in. Mitch figured that was why it was so cool in the room, even while it was blazing-hot outside.

  “I’ve got a strange feeling about this place, Brock.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look around. No furniture to speak of . . . using gourds as cups . . . and that marketplace . . . I think we travelled to another continent. I feel like we’re on a movie set for Gladiator.”

  “Oh! Maybe that’s it! We’re in Hollywood.”

  Mitch gave him a look, and Brock said, “Fine. How do we get back home?”

  Mitch didn’t answer. He had no idea how they were going to get home.

  Time passed and the girl still didn’t appear again.

  “How long do you think we’ve been here?” Brock asked, getting up from the stool and looking down the hallway.

  “No clue,” Mitch answered. “It seemed like the sun was directly overhead when we landed in the pig pen. It must be getting close to late afternoon based on the shadows on the wall.”

  Brock came and sat back down. “Where did she go?”

  Mitch shrugged. He really hoped that the girl was going to help them. They needed to find a way back home in a hurry. Mitch thought about his parents. The last time they’d seen him, he and Brock were heading out the door to play catch—or that was what he’d told them. How long would it take his parents to realize that they’d gone down to the treehouse? And what would they find when they got there? Baseball gloves laying on the floor? Would his parents think they’d been lost in the storm? His mom was always watching those shows about kidnapped children and crying her eyes out. He could only imagine how upset she’d be to find him gone.

  Then he had another thought. Maybe it would take a while for his parents to even notice he was gone. They were so involved in getting the farm going, it would take them forever to notice. Which was why Mitch had been so confident his parents wouldn’t notice him and Brock sneaking the spyglass down to the treehouse in the first place.

  But Brock’s mom would notice when she went to leave. Mitch felt a knot begin to form in his throat. By the time his parents figured out they were missing, it would all be too late. The girl had gone to find a guard and they were going to burst through the door any moment and drag him and Brock to some dungeon or put them to work leading cows around in their underwear.

  Just as he was ready to let his feelings of despair bubble up to the surface, the door burst open. The girl stood in the doorway, followed by a man Mitch hoped was her father. He was dressed in robes similar to the ones the girl had given them. Like his daughter, he had dark eyes and black hair, but his was short, and a bushy beard covered the lower half of his face.

  The girl pointed to them and spoke to her father in a rush of words. He frowned as he considered the boys. Suddenly, his eyebrows went up and Mitch squirmed on the stool. By her hand gestures, Mitch knew she was telling him about the spyglass.

  The man raised his hand when she paused for a breath and spoke quietly. The girl finally quit talking and waited. Mitch and Brock held their breath for what was about to happen next.

  The man stared at them a moment longer. Then a row of white teeth split the beard in half. He stepped forward and held his hand out to Mitch.

  Shocked, Mitch wasn’t sure what to do.

  “Shake his hand,” Brock whispered beside him.

  Mitch slowly brought his hand up and the man grasped it in a firm grip. He shook it once and let go.

  Okay. So they know what a handshake is.

  “Does this mean they aren’t going to kill us?” Brock asked.

  At Brock’s words the man turned and repeated the gesture. After shaking Brock’s hand, the man’s grin widened and he spoke.

  “Hello. Welcome to Egypt.”

  Mitch and Brock just stared, dumbfounded. He pronounced the words in a stilted manner, like they were words he’d never used before. But the boys were able to recognize what he was saying. When neither of them replied, the man went on.

  “I am Jabari.” He put his arm around the girl’s shoulder. “And this is my daughter, Rehema.”

  The girl bobbed her head in their direction.

  When the boys said nothing, Jabari added, “It has been many suns since we’ve had a visitor from the Great Beyond.”

  Chapter 11

  “Rehema tells me that she found you hiding in the pig pen this morning.”

  Unable to believe what was happening, Mitch blurted out, “How do you know how to speak our language?”

  Jabari chuckled at Mitch’s words. “We have much to talk about, little George. Please, follow me. We will find you some food to eat.”

  Little George? He knew my great-grandpa? But that’s impossible! That would make him nearly a hundred years old!

  Turning, Jabari and Rehema set off down the hallway.

  “What’s going on?” Mitch whispered, more to himself than Brock. “How does he know my great-grandpa’s name?”

  “I have no idea, but I think we should follow them. It’s the only way we’re going to get any answers.” Brock started towards the entrance to the hallway, muttering over his shoulder, “Besides, I’m starving.”

  In a state of shock, the boys followed Jabari and Rehema down a hallway that ran the length of the house. They passed doorways on their left and went to the back of the house, where a fire was burning in the center of the room. A clay pot with a blackened outside sat on the edge of the fire.

  This must have been where the smell of cooking had come from. Rehema pulled the pot back from the fire and lifted the lid. Mitch’s stomach growled at the smell of meat cooking. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was until then.

  Rehema scoo
ped something that looked like stew into small clay pots with a ladle made from a gourd. Jabari handed them each a gourd filled with . . . Mitch sniffed it.

  Beer?

  “What is this?” he asked Jabari before taking a drink.

  “It is beer, of course.”

  Mitch burst out laughing at the look of shock on Brock’s face.

  “You let kids drink beer?”

  Jabari looked confused. “Everyone drinks beer. Do you not do this in the Great Beyond?”

  “No way. You have to be twenty-one to drink in our country,” Mitch told him.

  “We do not have such rules here. Go on. Try it.”

  Together, Mitch and Brock peered around as if their parents would burst in to the room at any second. Then, grinning at each other, they took a sip of the drink—and wrinkled their noses at the taste.

  They gladly set the gourds aside when Rehema passed them the bowls with their supper. Steam rose up from the stew. For a moment Mitch thought they were going to have to eat it with their fingers. While the boys deliberated how they were going to eat, Rehema got up and took something off the shelf built into the clay wall. She returned and handed them both crudely made spoons. She got bowls for Jabari and herself and sat by the fire next to her father.

  “I wish I could offer you some bread with your meal, but we are in the middle of a drought and grain is sometimes hard to come by. Each day we pray for rain.”

  Farmers through the centuries have a lot in common, Mitch thought. Pops had talked about how hard it was when he was a boy during the Great Depression. They’d hardly had any rain over ten years.

  “To answer your question from before, little George, it may seem hard to believe, but your great-grandfather was an old friend of our family. In fact, you resemble him greatly.”

  Mitch remembered the photo from the trunk. His dad had said he looked like his great-grandpa.

  “It’s Mitch, not little George. And this is my friend, Brock.”