TIMO
25
"How would you like your eggs?" I asked. We had moved into the kitchen because Alvin was catching cold. The alligators had a hard time making it up the stairs in the back hall. Hester had to give them a lift with her ironwood wand.
Meeko was snoring in the corner of the dining room. Aunt Speed was snoring in the master bedroom. Brian was snoring upstairs in the attic. It was like an automatic warning system. If anybody stopped snoring, we could douse the lights and make a run for it.
"How do you mean?" said Farraday.
"Hard boiled, soft boiled, scrambled, poached, over easy, sunny side up, marbled or coddled?"
"No thank you," said Farraday. "I'll just eat them raw."
"You want me to crack them open in a bowl?"
"Whatever for?"
"So you don't have to worry about the shells."
"My dear boy! The shells are the best part!"
Meeko twitched. He made a soft "woof." His legs moved slighty.
"He's dreaming," said Hester.
I asked Farraday how many eggs she wanted.
"A dozen should do it," she said. It's only a midnight snack. No sense overeating."
Luckily we had a dozen extra-large eggs. I wonder what Aunt Speed thought when she opened the refrigerator the next morning and reached for the carton.
Alvin still didn't want anything. "I'm on a diet," he said.
"Hester?"
"You mentioned chili?"
"I could open a can."
"Split it with you."
"O.K.."
I put the carton of eggs on the living-room floor in front of Farraday. Before I had time to turn around, she gobbled up the eggs, cardboard and all.
"I can't say I care much for the dressing," she said. "But the eggs themselves were splendid."
I had to go down to the basement to get a can of chili. When I came back up, I found Hester and Farraday engaged in a serious discussion.
"But I like chili!" said Hester.
"A sure sign!" said Farraday. "Where would you end up if I surrendered to my baser instincts?"
"Farraday's a vegetarian," said Hester.
"Except she eats fish," said Alvin. "We all do."
"You wouldn't happen to have any raw fish?" said Farraday. "I'm still a bit peckish."
"Only frozen," I said. "I'd have to thaw it out."
"Frozen!" said Farraday. Digusting!"
"You have to remember," said Alvin, "this is practically the North Pole. Everything's frozen up here."
On this particular night, I couldn't insist that we get down to business. Our mission was, and I quote Mrs. Patch, "To meet with Farraday and Alvin, and to make polite conversation."
I didn't know much about making polite conversation. After Alvin's last remark, I couldn't very well say nice weather we're having.
"Wretched weather we're having," I said.
"Beastly!" said Alvin.
"Intolerable," said Farraday.
"How you can live here, I'll never understand," said Alvin. "It's a free country! You could move to Florida tomorrow!"
"The Everglades!" said Farraday. "A hundred and ten in the shade!"
"Farenheit," said Alvin.
"That reminds me," said Hester. "I've heard of Farenheit, Celsius, and Centigrade. What's the difference between Celsius and Centigrade?"
"No difference," said Alvin.
"They both begin with C," said Farraday. "And they both have three syllables."
"Personally, I consider Centigrade the appropriate companion of the Metric System," said Alvin. "Or Celsius, if you prefer."
"Ice freezes at zero and boils at a hundred degrees. So neat! So plain!" said Farraday.
"Much more satisfying than Farenheit," said Alvin. "What's your opinion, Timo?"
"Oh, I agree, I have always enjoyed Centigrade more than Farenheit. How about you, Hester."
"I can't say I've given it much thought."
We were certainly getting the hang of polite conversation. Meanwhile, I was heating up the chili. I ladled out a bowl for Hester and another for myself. "Crackers?"
"Please."
"What about vegetarian chili?" I asked.
"Too risky," said Farraday. "You never know when someone may sneak in a little meat."
"I had cashew chili once," said Hester. "At the Cabbagetown Cafe in Ithaca, New York."
"Oh, I didn't mean Cabbagetown," said Farraday. "Among alligator vegetarians, Cabbagetown is considered absolutely reliable."
"But we hardly ever get up there to Ithaca," said Alvin. "It's not exactly on a main highway. Besides, it's cold in Upstate New York."
"I don't see why you call it upstate," said Hester. "It's in the center of the state."
"Everything's upstate except Manhattan," said Farraday.
"Even Brooklyn?" said Hester.
"Isn't that part of New Jersey?" said Alvin.
"What about Long Island?" I asked.
"I'll make an exception for Long Island," said Farraday.
Later I looked at a map of New York State. I like to look at maps. You learn a lot. For instance, I always considered New York City big. But compared to Upstate, it's not big at all. And Upstate is only a small part of America.
"I'm frightfully glad we met," said Alvin as we were leaving.
"Awfully glad," said Farraday.
"See you again soon," said Alvin.
"Maybe we can make it a regular thing," said Farraday. "How often do you get down to the Everglades?"
"Not very often," I said.
"But now we can levitate," said Hester.
"True," I said. "And you can always visit us by instantaneous teleportation."
"Alas, no," said Alvin. "Only adults can master that. We fourth-stagers have to rely on alligator methods."
"Every night a crew of elders drops us off up here. And every morning they come to take us home."
"Anything could happen," said Alvin. "We'd be helpless! What if I had a sudden attack of asthma?"
"But we do it all without complaining," said Farraday. "To protect your little second-stager Brian."
"And also to save the planet earth from alien invaders," said Alvin.
"And also to preserve the ideals that made our country great," said Farraday.
"We may be alligators," said Alvin, "but we're also Americans!"
26
"I can't fool around with trivialities," I said the next night. "I have work to do."
"You mean play," said Wolfgang.
"All right. I have play to do. I don't care how you say it. Just don't bother me with anything else."
We were sitting inside the circle of giant rocks. "First things first," said Wolfgang. One fox kept a lookout. The other had gone for Hester. "You have to go home in a few days, so I want you to get busy packing your socks and so on."
"I can do all that in half an hour," I said. "I always wait until the last minute."
"That's where you make your mistake," said Wolfgang. "Civilized beings always pack their socks ahead of time."
"Until we do the play, I absolutely refuse to collect my socks."
"All right then," said Wolfgang. "Be uncivilized. There is something else."
Hester came tripping into camp. She ought to hold her wand in front of her when she walks, to sweep away the obstacles. The pebbles and twigs and roots of trees. Sometimes a root sticks up in a loop, as if it grew there on purpose to trip the unwary. An ironwood wand could sweep away the small stuff; I didn't know if it could uproot a tree.
"Something else?" I said to Wolfgang.
"Hester," he said, "I want you to remember that you're leaving camp soon. You have to plan ahead. You'd better go back to your bunk as soon as we finish here, and collect any stray socks. You know. Get all your belongings together ahead of time."
"Oh, I've already done all that."
"You have?"
"Civilized creatures always do."
"Good job! Timo, you could learn from your associate."
I certainly could. Instead of arguing with Wolfgang, I should have told him I'd already packed my trunk. Since I had never unpacked it in the first place, I wouldn't have been telling a lie. I did pack my trunk--before I left for camp.
"If that's all you meant," I said, "quit worrying. I already packed my trunk."
"Don't give me that!" said Wolfgang. "A minute ago you were squalking."
"You said you had something else in mind."
"Something else?"
"Besides dirty socks."
"Oh, yes. You two might have the answer to something that's been puzzling us. How did the bugbears manage to collect so many snakes so quickly."
"Who cares?" I said.
Hester wasn't saying much yet. She yawned and blinked.
"We do," said Wolfgang. "We still have to rescue Ireland from the snakes."
"Now you're talking," I said. "According to my friend Thomas Zubov, the bugbears ran an ad in the paper."
"You mean a snakes wanted ad?"
"Something like that."
"And I suppose the unemployed snakes lined up outside this flying saucer!"
"No," I said. "I had learned Wolfgang's technique for dealing with sarcasm. You simply take it literally. "Snakes can't read. The aliens wanted humans to answer the ad."
"That reminds me," said Hester. "I don't understand something. How can the bugbears read our newspapers and still think we're nothing but monkeys?"
"What do you mean?" asked Wolfgang. "The papers are full of monkey business."
"No, no," said Hester. "The aliens claim we have no true language. Yet they know that we can read and write."
"You call newspaper English a true language?" I said.
"Timo!" she replied. "I'm serious."
"Serious but young," said Wolfgang. "You don't realize yet how most scientists operate. Most of them aren't the least bit sceptical when it comes to scientific doctrine. They believe whatever they've been taught. If the facts contradict what they've been taught, they make up fancy theories to explain the facts away. Or else they redefine their terms to get whatever results they want."
"That's not science!" said Hester.
"That's human nature," I said.
"And bugbear nature too. No matter what you do to prove your intelligence, most of the aliens will prove to themselves that you're nothing but animals. They don't want to believe anything else."
"How can they deny a newspaper?" asked Hester.
"They simply call it an interesting example of animal communication--like the dance of the bees."
"What's that?" I asked.
"Bees come back to the hive and do a dance for the other bees. By watching the dance you can figure out exactly where to go to find some good flowers full of nectar. Humans have decoded the dance. But bees understand it instinctively."
"Wolfgang," I said, "when you're around, somehow we always get off the track. We never go straight from point A to point B."
"A curved line is the shortest distance between two points," said Wolfgang.
"What?" I said.
"You were telling me about the newspaper ad."
"Oh yes. I suppose a lot of people answered the ad. But the aliens gave the job to Thomas Zubov."
"Who's that?"
"A kid I know."
"Now think about it. Why would they give the job to a kid?"
"Maybe they hired a lot of people, and we only happened to discover Zubov."
"Possible but not likely," said Wolfgang. "The bugbears are sly creatures. They don't like too many humans to see them. Not until after they conquer the planet."
"They wouldn't expect a kid to be able to spy on them," said Hester.
"Good," said Wolfgang. "But they still had to find a kid who could do the job."
"Oh, Zubov knows all about snakes," I said.
"It must have gone like this," said Wolfgang. "An alien disguised as a tall human interviewed people who answered the ad. He wanted an expert, but a harmless expert. Zubov proved he could do the job. They considered any kid harmless. So they hired him. And his plan worked."
"O.K.," said Hester. "What next?"
"Next we pay Zubov a visit," said Wolfgang, "and find out how he did it."
Wolfgang told the foxes to go home. He knew the way to my house, and Zubov lived in the same neighborhood. We stopped off for some polite conversation with the alligators. This time we all had ice cream.
Meeko has radar when it comes to ice cream. He woke up as soon as I opened the freezer. I had to put a scoop in his dish. Otherwise he would have pestered the poor alligators, who had to eat theirs off the kitchen floor, since they couldn't sit at the dining-room table.
Meeko sniffed the fourth stagers, but didn't seem alarmed by them. He must have sensed their good will.
After ice cream and polite conversation, I gave Wolfgang a piggy-back ride to Zubov's house. We levitated, of course. Meeko came along with Hester's ironwood wand in his mouth.
"Now it'll be all sticky!" she said. "He's just been eating ice cream."
"You could have used mine," I said.
"Too late now."
27
I had visited the Zubov house before, so I knew which room belonged to Thomas. He lived at the back of the second floor. We hovered outside his window. I let the tip of my hazel fork tap the aluminum frame around the screen.
"Zubov!" I said. "Wake up."
I tapped louder.
"Sure I can do it," said Zubov. He was dreaming.
"Thomas," I said in a high musical voice. "Wake up. You'll be late!"
I heard him thump out of bed. "Is it morning already?" he asked.
"Zubov!" I called. "Out here."
"What? Where?"
"Outside your window."
He came over to the window. "Timo! What are you doing here?"
"Hovering in mid-air," I said, "By the light of the moon."
"Go away. I have to get up early and serve Mass."
"Open up!" I said.
"Sorry," he said, his eyes closing again even though he was standing up. "Mosquitos."
"Zubov!"
"Bugs'll get in."
Hester said: "I'll open the screen. Give me your wand."
She stood on the ledge outside the window and held onto the shutters with her left hand. With her right hand she pulled my wand out of my belt and raised Zubov's screen. At first it wouldn't budge. Then it flew up all of a sudden with a loud crack.
"Shhh!" said Wolfgang.
Meeko growled. He always growls when you tell him to shush.
"Come on in," said Zubov. "Be my guest."
Hester went in first.
I had a hard time getting Wolfgang through the small opening. He had to climb in by himself. Meeko went next and I brought up the rear.
"Is this a dream or a nightmare?" said Zubov.
"Neither one," I said. It's real."
"I had a dream a while ago," he said. "You rescued me from a gang of aliens."
"How can he call it a dream?" I said. "It really happened."
"What difference does it make?" said Hester.
"Go along with him," said Wolfgang.
"O.K.. Thomas, in this dream about the aliens, you were collecting snakes. Right?"
"How did you know that? Oh. I get it. If you're part of my dream you know whatever I know."
"Not everything. Tell me about your dream, Thomas."
"Can I lie down on your couch, Doctor?"
"No!" said Wolfgang. "He'll fall asleep."
"Tell me how you caught the snakes."
"Oh, that! Simple. I used pheromones."
I said: "What?"
"Chemical attractants," said Hester. "They work through the sense of smell. Like those traps that attract bugs. The ones you see on the T.V. commercials."
"See?" said Zubov. "You know whatever I know."
"Where do you have these chemicals?"
"Pheromones," said Zubov. "Not ordinary chemicals. I mean, you don't get them in your Junior Genius Chemistry Set."
"Yeah, yeah," I said. "We're impressed. Where do you keep them?"
"Over there," said Zubov. "In my laboratory. But you know that already, don't you?"
We walked to the other end of his room. In the moonlight coming through the window, I could see a desk and a row of large glass boxes.
"Turn on the lights," said Wolfgang.
Hester turned on the lights. I squinted in the brightness until my pupils adjusted.
The glass boxes were full of snakes. The desk had rows of canisters on it, each one neatly labeled. Coral snake pheromones, sidewinder pheromones, rattlesnake pheromones, cobra pheromones, viper pheromones.
"You can't get snakes like these around here," I said. "These are all poisonous."
"I know," said Zubov, who had gone back to bed. "That's why I enjoyed the dream so much. I had this interstellar vehicle at my disposal, and I could fly it anywhere in the world. I collected some really rare specimens."
"Great!" I said. "Cong's not only full of snakes--it's full of exotic poison snakes!"
"Natural defenses," said Zubov. "They need their poison to survive."
I looked at more canisters. He had also collected constrictors--pythons, boas, snakes that coil themselves around you and squeeze your breath away.
And they were hanging from the trees of County Mayo, waiting to ambush unsuspecting Irishmen!
Then I saw a canister larger than the other: Zubov's Transcendental Snake Attractant.
"What's this?" I asked.
"A secret," said Zubov, half asleep. "I could apply for a patent."
"You can tell us," I said. "We're only characters in your latest dream."
"That stuff," said Zubov, "Will attract every species of snake known to man."
"You mean to humanity," said Hester. "Women are human too."
"Let's not argue grammar at a time like this." I said.
"It has nothing to do with grammar," said Hester. "I'm talking about equal rights!"
"Guaranteed," said Zubov to nobody in particular, "or your money back."
I heard a toilet flush. "Shhh!" I said. Meeko growled. I turned off the lights. I heard footsteps in the hallway.
Meeko said: "Boof!"
"Meeko!" I whispered. "If you don't shut up, I'll never give you another scoop of ice cream as long as you live."
That fixed him.
Somebody knocked on the door to Zubov's room. "Thomas?" said a man's voice. "What are you doing in there?"
"Nothing," said Zubov.
"Well go to sleep."
"I was sleeping," said Zubov. "Until you went to the bathroom and woke me up."
"You know the cure for a smart mouth?" said the man. "Put a muzzle on it."
Meeko barked.
I heard the doorknob rattle.
Unlock this door," said the man. "I'll show you the proper discipline for dogs."
I found some fiber tape on the desk. By the light of the moon, I taped the big canister to my belt,--I went to the window. "Meeko!" I said. "Outside!"
He growled as he picked up the wand and went.
"Are you growling at me?" said the man.
Hester flew out the window.
"I'll break the door down," said the man. "Don't think I can't."
Wolfgang climbed up my back.
"The human voice was made for articulate speech," said the man. "If you act like an animal, we'll treat you like an animal."
We still didn't fit through the window. Wolfgang had to get down again.
The man was trying to break the door down.
"Hey, you guys," said Zubov. "Don't leave me here!"
"It's all a dream," I said.
A heavy body slammed itself against Zubov's door.
"Yeah, but the least you can do is to keep it from turning into a nightmare."
"O.K.," I said. "Hester! You take Wolfgang." She did. I said to Zubov, "When I get outside, I'll hover below your window. Just climb on my back and we're home free."
"I'm home already," said Zubov. "Home is what I want to get away from."
28
Zubov came with us to the cavern in Ireland. Mrs. Patch said she would give him a chance to redeem himself. She promised to have him back in time to serve Mass. Zubov showed the wisedomes how to use his Transcendental Snake Attractant. They were stacking up baskets full of snakes before Hester and I went back to camp. "Try not to hurt them," said Mrs. Patch. And Zubov showed the wisedomes how to handle cobras.
"Big night tomorrow," said Wolfgang after we'd had some spearmint tea and cookies in the room behind the waterfall. "Better get some rest." He gave us a lift back to the stone circle, and we walked from there.
I don't remember the next day at all. In my memory the night of the snakes blends right into the night of the play.
Hester and I started putting up our posters. We used little globs of that sticky plastic clay to make the posters adhere to the walls of the cavern. The wisedomes had chosen a smooth corner of the cave for the focus of the play. When Hester and I got done, you couldn't look anywhere in that corner without seeing a black and white copy of a bugbear. We gave the giant composite poster the most prominent spot. Then we went to work on some ideas that Wolfgang had after I explained how I could use the photographs. First we set up mirrors all over the place. Then we installed television monitors and some of those cameras that you see in banks and museums; the cameras would catch the bugbears on videotape. We could play the tapes over the video screens. We could also show the bugbears their own live performance. The video equipment ran on battery power, since the wisedomes didn't have electricity in their headquarters.
"Where'd you get the money for all this? I asked Wolfgang.
"El Dorado," he said. "Didn't I ever show you?" We had time for a five-minute break, so he took us inside a mountain of gold. Since he used instantaneous teleportation, I have no idea of the location of El Dorado. Wolfgang lifted a cold-light lantern so that we could see all the gold. (Wisedomes use chemicals to produce cool illumination--the same way lightning bugs and deep- sea fish do.)
I didn't especially like the gold we saw. It had a dull yellowish look. We saw pebbles all over the floor of the tunnel where we materialized. I suppose I should call them nuggets. "Take a handful," said Wolfgang. "We won't miss a few thousand dollars worth."
"No thanks," I said. I hate the feeling of heavy stuff in my pockets.
"Me neither," said Hester. She didn't even have pockets. "We have more important things to do. We might have to move quickly."
"Good thinking," said Wolfgang. "You couldn't do that loaded down with a lot of gold."
"Why do people get so excited about this junk?" I asked.
"Search me," said Wolfgang. "I'm not human. My people only use it rarely, when they have to buy a thing or two from humans."
"You just pop into some electronics company and pick up a dozen T.V. monitors?"
"Of course not. We use Irish middlemen."
"Please!" said Hester.
"I beg your pardon?" said Wolfgang.
"Call them middlepersons," said Hester.
"Or how about middlepeople?" I said. "The little people and the middlepeople. I like the way it sounds."
"You never take anything seriously," said Hester.
"Yes I do," I said. "We'd better get back to work."
"To play," said Wolfgang. "The play's the thing." And he smirked as if he had made a witty remark.
Back at headquarters, in the parlor behind the waterfall, we found Mrs. Patch. She was, in a sense, the author, producer, and director of the play. She had Meeko with her. "He's, had so many adventures with you," she said, "it seemed a shame to exclude him from the ultimate adventure."
"What about Juanita?" said Hester.
"Fair is fair," said Mrs. Patch. Wisedomes often say silly things--enough is enough, fair is fair, boys will be boys. Mrs. Patch had been hiding Juanita Iguana behind her back. When Hester saw Juanita, she gave Mrs. Patch a hug, and then started making idiotic cooing noises and addressing the lizard in baby- talk. "Ooo. Did oo come all the way to Ireland to save the planet Earth? Ooo. Does oo want to help Aunt Hester fight the aliens?"
"What's all this oo stuff?" I asked.
"Short for Juanita," said Hester.
"Sounds like baby talk to me."
Meeko was dancing on his hind legs, trying to smell Juanita Iguana.
"Meeko," I said. "Be nice." By now you ought to know what he did next.
"Grrr." said Meeko.
I consider Meeko an extremely reliable dog.
"O.K., kids," said Mrs. Patch. "This is it. No dress rehearsal for this one."
"What about Farraday and Alvin?" I said.
I noticed a whirlwind near the waterfall.
"There they are now," said Wolfgang.
The foxes who had gone to pick up the fourth stagers trotted off on business of their own. The two alligators blinked.
"Here we go," said Mrs. Patch. "Remember, don't overdo it."
She paused for a moment and smiled.
"Break a leg," she said.
Next Section of Brian's Story.