TIMO
5
Wolfgang was still sitting in front of the stove in the family room talking about ozone when another thing occurred to me.
"How do they do it?" I asked.
"Pardon me?"
"How do the bugbears influence television? I mean, wouldn't the news leak out if all those advertisers and sponsors kept having conferences with Abominable Snowmen?"
"Not at all. Only a few of them meet the monsters. The others invent ads in the good old American tradition of cut- throat competition. The bugbears didn't have to do much. Once the machine starts turning, it keeps going all by itself."
"Still," I said, "quite a few humans must have seen them."
"Yes and no," said Wolfgang. "Those the bugbears hypnotize don't remember them. Post-hypnotic suggestion. Others, thanks to bugbear suggestion, are considered cranks. We're told to laugh at people who see flying saucers or Abominable Snowmen. And that, my lad, is why you're going to camp."
It seemed that Wolfgang had my whole future planned for me. That summer I had to go to photography camp. Photography is my hobby. I'm pretty good at it. Wolfgang told me to apply for a scholarship to Camp Kittiwake.
At camp I was supposed to learn nature photography. Wolfgang didn't know if Brian's life would ever be threatened by bugbears. But since I already knew about the monsters, he figured that I could protect Brian and at the same time help add to the evidence that bugbears exist.
"You have to learn the techniques of nature photography," said Wolfgang. "Then you can take pictures if you get the chance. Go for some good clear shots of the creatures. Never mind their flying saucers. Too easy to fake."
"I'm supposed to protect Brian and take pictures at the same time."
"Right," said Wolfgang. "If it isn't too much to ask."
"Maybe I should interview them while I'm at it. You know. Get their opinions down on tape."
"Good idea," said Wolfgang. "Get yourself one of those pocket-size tape recorders."
Don't waste your sarcasm on a wisedome. He'll always pretend he doesn't get the point.
I won the scholarship and went to camp.
If Brian tried to tell this story, he'd probably spend about a hundred pages explaining what went on at school that spring. But I'm going to skip all the boring stuff. Nothing unusual happened until June, when I went to camp. Wolfgang and his two friends kept visiting. We went on a couple of dull field trips. Once we went outside to look at the stars. Wolfgang tried to point out the star the aliens come from. I couldn't tell which one he meant. Another time, when we had nine inches of snow, he tried to teach me what to do if you get buried in an avalanche. You lose all sense of direction under the snow. So you spit. Then you observe which way your spit goes and you dig in the other direction. It's based on the law of gravity. But when Wolfgang and the two foxes buried me, I couldn't see anything, so I couldn't tell which way my spit was falling. Maybe it only works if you happen to have a flashlight.
Most of the time Wolfgang had me sit by the stove in the family room. He'd warm his toes and explain the philosophy of self-defense.
"First of all, never think of anyone as an attacker. If someone comes at you, think of him as a dancing partner. You want to blend your movements with those of your partner. If he accidentally bumps into you with his boot or his fist, you should say 'excuse me.' It's your fault, see? If you had blended your movements properly, it wouldn't have happened."
I didn't see the sense of this philosophy, and I said so.
"Look at it this way," he said. "The person who does the violence hurts himself. The greatest danger to you is that you might respond with violence. Then you would be hurting yourself the way he hurts himself. Nobody else can ever hurt you. You can only hurt yourself."
I didn't believe him, of course.
"If you fail to blend properly," said Wolfgang, "and you bump into a fist, certainly it hurts. Pay no attention to the pain. If you get mad, you'll never blend."
In one way or another, he talked about self-defense almost every night. At first I thought his advice didn't apply to bugbears, but I found out it did. If an alien attacks me, I'm supposed to dance with it.
I asked him once if the wisedomes always stick to this philosophy.
"Oh no," he said. "We never do. I'm teaching you an easy philosophy, suitable for humans."
I wanted to know what philosophy the wisedomes follow.
"Kill or be killed."
"What?"
"We have no dangerous enemies but the bugbears. And with them it's kill or be killed."
I thought he meant what humans mean when they say kill or be killed. I felt my throat close. I considered him a hypocrite.
"Obviously," he continued, "in a kill-or-be-killed situation, any civilized being would choose to be killed."
"Oh."
"Unfortunately, the bugbears aren't quite civilized. That's why we have to hide our younglings."
"Like Brian."
"Exactly. And we depend on dancers like you to keep the aliens away from them."
6
I thought that my month at camp would be a vacation from Wolfgang's lectures. But the night my parents left me there, after I met my bunkmates and had my first experience with cream- style peas and instant whipped potatoes, I heard a scratching noise. I looked up and saw a fox at the window screen.
"Oh no," I said. Maybe I could pull the covers over my head and pretend to be asleep. No. I'd have to open the window.
"Timo," said a whispering voice. "Come out here."
So I went out and Wolfgang and the two foxes led me to a place in the woods where several cabin-size rocks rested in a circle. The ground had a bit of a slope to it. We climbed up one of the rocks and sat down.
"It gives me great pleasure to announce," said Wolfgang, "that your probation is over."
"Probation?"
"You are now officially a beginner."
"Thanks," I said.
"Now we can really get down to work."
And he delivered his first lecture on the language of the bugbears. I was supposed to learn the language because it might come in handy. After an hour-long account of the history of the bugbear tongue, I interrupted.
"How long is this going to take?"
"The introduction?"
"No. To learn the language."
"Oh," said Wolfgang. "Five minutes or so."
"Five minutes?"
"Sure. I brought my magnetic learning machine."
"You mean that thing can teach me a new language in five minutes?"
Instead of answering in words, he had one of the foxes fetch his bag. He pulled out the familiar half-watermelon and put it on my head. Five minutes later, I could speak Alien like a native.
The bugbears don't call themselves bugbears, of course. They call themselves people. Every other species they classify as animal--including wisedomes and humans. They don't consider it murder to put animals to sleep.
As it turned out, I enjoyed my nights with Wolfgang more than my days at camp. The boys had to sleep in a barracks full of bunkbeds--two-hundred boys in one big room. We had lockers for our possessions. Around the walls lines of sinks attracted boys who didn't bother to take showers.
Early in the morning--5:30 weekdays, 6:15 weekends--a counselor would come through the barracks ringing a hand-bell. He would usually shout idiotically cheerful sayings. "Up and at 'em, boys. The early bird catches the worm. Rise and shine." That kind of stuff. Then some kids would stumble over to the sinks to wash up. Others would stay in bed until the counselor gave them some personal encouragement.
If you wanted a turn in the showers, you had to wake up a minute before the bell started ringing. You had to hit the floor already running. Then you might get there in time to stand in line. Camp Kittiwake had eight shower stalls in the boys' barracks. Breakfast began at six a.m., and if you didn't make it, you were hungry until lunch.
I liked breakfast better than any other meal at Camp Kittiwake. At home I usually have a bowl of cold cereal and a glass of orange juice. At camp I could have coffee, bacon, sausage, flapjacks, hot wheat cereal, oatmeal, french toast, ordinary buttered toast with strawberry jam, grape juice, apple juice, orange juice, tomato juice, Italian bread, French bread, wheat bread, rye bread, raisin bread, half a grapefruit and milk.
We ate in a big open dining hall known as the refectory. Delmore Blackstone, the counselor in charge of my table, said that they couldn't call it a cafeteria on account of the family- style service. Family-style service meant that one of the kids would go up to the steam trays and take a plate of, say, pancakes to serve his whole table. Another kid would bring the oatmeal, and so on.
At our table, the system had one disadvantage. We'd pass each plate around so that if everybody took a share, somebody would end up with no choice. He might get the smallest pancakes, or a burnt piece of toast. Most of the kids didn't worry about it. We knew that we could go around to the other tables and find extra food. Usually somebody at a table doesn't want a pancake, or doesn't like toast. But one kid at our table, Lester, worried about getting good food. If he was at the end of the line for pancakes, he'd lean over and cough on the serving plate. Then nobody else would want to eat the pancakes, and he'd have as many as he could eat. He never even had to leave his seat. The rest of us would be wandering around the place scrounging, and Lester would be sitting there demolishing a foot-high stack of flapjacks.
For lunch we'd have something feeble, like baloney or peanut butter. For supper we'd have silly imitations of home cooking-- instant potatoes, fatty roast beef, tuna casserole, cream-style peas. Delmore said, "You think this is bad? Wait till you get to college."
Most of what the counselors taught, I already knew. Aperture and exposure, time-lapse techniques, developing black- and-white film, making contact sheets, doing enlargements. I never could have won the scholarship without knowing all these things. I ended up helping the teachers, along with the only friend I made at camp, Hester Schwartz.
Usually I don't get along very well with girls. I didn't mind the way the camp kept boys and girls apart. But I liked Hester. She was the only kid there who knew anything about photography. And owing to her feminist principles, she didn't act silly. She just acted like a normal human being.
I spent a lot of time with Hester in spite of the camp's rules. I can't take any credit for defiance. Hester did all the defying. At Camp Kittiwake, boys get to learn how to build a blind in a treetop and photograph birds, while girls have to take time-lapse movies of flowers opening and turning to face the sun. Boys get to hike into the woods and pitch tents, so they can practice nocturnal photography in the wilderness. Girls have to stay near their barracks and sing stupid folk songs until they go to bed. Boys go on the river in canoes, while girls have a nice volleyball game. The camp had everything organized that way. Hester refused to cooperate. She simply came along on all the boys' activities. Delmore would say, "Hester, wouldn't you rather sit around the campfire and sing?" And she'd say, "No thank you."
Delmore didn't know what to do. With boys, he could use a little mild physical persuasion. But according to the rules for counselors, he couldn't touch Hester. If he sent for one of the female counselors, it wouldn't do any good. Hester would return to the boys' side first chance she got.
Delmore couldn't do anything but give orders, which Hester would ignore. Once, when Delmore wasn't looking, a couple of kids started teasing her--Lester and Chuck. They didn't know, when they tried pushing her around, that she had been a state-champion wrestler. She tripped Chuck and tied Lester in a knot. Chuck got up again and started to go after her.
"Chuck," I said. "Have you ever studied wrestling?"
Chuck looked at me. Chuck's mouth usually hung open, and sometimes he drooled.
"No?" I said. "Boxing? Karate? Judo?"
Chuck hadn't studied any of these.
"Maybe you shouldn't mess with someone who knows what she's doing."
"Maybe I should mess with you instead."
With Chuck it did seem like a dance. I couldn't feel mad at him. He was a big kid, a clumsy puncher. I could tell every move before he made it. He always pulled his arm back before he took a swing. He didn't know how to jab. I had an easy time blending with his movements. I never touched him, except to tap him on the shoulder when I slid behind him. He never touched me either. After five minutes he was panting and holding his right hand against his ribs. Apparently he had a pain in his side.
"Out of shape," I said.
Chuck called me a yellow chicken.
Hester said, "Where's Delmore? It's almost eight o'clock."
7
At camp I felt homesick. I talked to the psychological counselor and somehow got around to telling him about Christmas Eve and Brian's helicopter. The counselor advised me to call Brian up and apologize. I didn't see how calling Brian would cure my homesickness. But I did it anyway.
Brian didn't seem to understand that I wanted to apologize. He gave me a hard time. In fact he irritated me so much that when I hung up I no longer felt homesick.
One night the boys in my group were going up to Owl Cabin. Hester came along. Delmore made cheeseburgers and hotdogs over a charcoal fire outside the cabin. Inside, where we opened our sleeping bags that night, an old wood-burning stove made me think of Wolfgang.
When it got dark enough, Delmore played his tape of the owls calling. Some of the owls on the tape sounded the way you'd expect an owl to sound. Who--who. Others sounded weird.
"Here it comes," said Delmore. "Barred owl. This one usually works."
The barred owl on the tape made a yipping sound, a cross between a small hound and an ocarina with a crack in it. From somewhere back in the woods a barred owl answered. Delmore played that section of the tape over and over again.
The sound of the answering owl came closer.
"Up there," said Delmore. "See it? Wait a minute. Two of them."
At first I couldn't see them. We were sitting in lawn chairs on the deck of the cabin. Delmore had taken the cassette out of the tape recorder and had replaced it with a blank one. The two owls were hooting back and forth. He started recording their voices. He turned on a flashlight and pointed out the owls.
Then I saw them. I had been looking too far away. They were in the trees right next to the cabin, about fifteen feet away from my eyes.
Lester did an imitation of the yipping sound the owls made. One of them answered him.
One owl came even closer.
"Does anyone remember what we're doing out here?" said Delmore.
"Won't a flash scare them away?" asked Hester.
"Try and see." Her strobe went off when she clicked the shutter release. The owl blinked, twisted its head sideways, and looked at us.
These owls were quite big. They had grey and white plumage. They could turn their heads from side to side in a way that made them look like monkeys.
After Hester's experiment, the rest of us started shooting. I don't think the owls really liked it. But Lester kept yipping at them, and they kept answering.
We all ran out of film, and the owls were still at it. Finally Delmore said we should turn in. I could hear the two owls talking until I fell asleep.
I felt a wet nose against my cheek and woke up. A fox was standing next to my sleeping bag. "Give me a break," I said.
The fox took a few steps toward the door and then turned around and looked at me.
"All right, all right," I said. I climbed out of my sleeping bag.
"Timo?" said Hester in a loud whisper.
"What?"
"Who're you talking to?"
"Nobody. Go back to sleep." I followed the fox to the door.
"Where are you going?"
"Noplace," I said.
"I'm coming too."
"You can't."
"Why not?"
"You just can't."
"By doing it, I prove I can."
I followed the fox and Hester followed me. We came to a clearing. The moon was almost full, so Hester could see clearly. Another fox was sitting next to a stump. On top of the stump sat Wolfgang.
"What have we here?" he said.
"Hester, this is Wolfgang. Wolfgang, this is Hester."
"Pleased to meet you, Hester."
Hester didn't say anything.
"Hester's a feminist," I said.
"Delighted to hear it," said Wolfgang.
"Wolfgang's a wisedome," I said to Hester.
"What's that?"
"I'll tell you later."
"I assume," said Wolfgang, "that you are willing to risk your life in a great adventure."
Hester said: "Me?"
"Otherwise Timo would never have recruited you."
"Wait a minute," I said.
"Now that you have committed yourself," said Wolfgang, "there's no turning back."
"O.K., Timo," said Hester. "How do you work it? You a ventriloquist or something?"
"You remind me of my mother," said Wolfgang. "She also considers me a dummy."
"I have to admit it's a pretty good trick."
"Now class," said Wolfgang, "let's quiet down and get to work. Tonight I have to introduce you to the mysteries of dowsing, levitation, psychokinesis, and canine flight. But first a few words about how to find North if you don't have a compass." He launched into one of his standard lectures. You're supposed to check trees and see which side the moss grows on. The trees near the clearing either had no moss, or had moss growing all around. Wolfgang told us that there are exceptions to every rule.
After talking about moss, Wolfgang remembered to ask about the woodburning stove in Owl Cabin. "Cast iron or sheet metal?"
"I don't remember."
"Cast iron," said Hester.
"Pot bellied, maybe? Or Franklin?"
"Franklin," said Hester.
"Observation, my dear Timo. You'll never get the better of a bugbear unless you sharpen your powers of observation."
"What's a bugbear?" asked Hester.
"I'll tell you later," I replied.
The discussion of stoves reminded Wolfgang of solar power, and solar power reminded him of the ozone layer. By the time he finished with ozone, Hester believed in him and considered him a friend.
"That's all for tonight, folks."
"What about the mysteries of dowsing, levitation, psychokinesis, and canine flight?" I asked.
"They'll have to wait," said Wolfgang. "You kids have to get your rest."
"Can I come again tomorrow night?" asked Hester.
"Of course, my dear," said Wolfgang. "I consider you an extremely promising pupil. I'll show you my magnetic learning machine."
When we got back to Owl Cabin, Wolfgang had to peek in the window at the Franklin stove. "Marvelous," he said. "A real antique. Did I ever tell you about the time I met him? Franklin, I mean.
"Franklin who?" I asked. We were whispering so as not to disturb the kids inside the cabin.
"Benjamin Franklin," he said. "I'm older than I look."
"I thought you were going to let us get some sleep."
Hester had already gone inside.
"True," said Wolfgang. "I'll tell you another time."
I started to open the door.
"Wait a minute," he said. "I have to tell you something. I want you each to bring a knife tomorrow night. And a hatchet. Two knives and one hatchet."
"Where am I supposed to get a hatchet?"
"I meant to tell you last night, but I forgot."
Wolfgang doesn't always notice when you ask him a question.
"Any questions?" he said. "No? Good. On your way, then." And off he went before I could repeat myself.
8
The next day, after the hike back from Owl Cabin, Hester and I cut class and snuck off in search of a hatchet. I told her about the wisedomes and the bugbears and my older brother Brian. We found an ax and some other tools wrapped up in a tarp underneath the front porch of the boys' barracks. Once we found it we relaxed there in the shade while I finished my story. A breeze made the place especially cool, and the dirt floor had a nice damp-earth smell.
We went to the refectory together. Boys and girls eat in the same big hall, though not at the same table. Chuck called Hester my girl friend, and did an imitation of her: "Oh Timo darling, you make me feel so romantic. I long to hold you in my arms." He used a high voice and flapped his eyelids. Lester laughed so much that he slobbered all over the front of his shirt.
I had always wanted to learn the art of levitation, and so I couldn't concentrate on dinner. Chuck's insults made no impression on me because I kept thinking of what I might learn that night. When we talked about it under the porch, Hester said that she was more interested in psychokinesis. "You just sit back in your chair and do your chores with mental energy." Neither of us knew what Wolfgang meant by canine flight.
When the fox came to get me, I went under the porch to pick up the ax. Then I followed the fox to the clearing where the rocks as big as cabins stood in a circle. The second fox brought Hester from the girls' barracks across the river.
When Wolfgang saw the ax, he said: "Does that look like a hatchet to you?"
"We couldn't find a hatchet," I said.
"Always overdoing it," he said. "Humans! Well, I suppose it'll have to do. Did you bring your knives?"
"I did," I said, and Hester nodded.
"O.K. First you cut some forks of hazel. Then a couple of wands of ironwood. I presume you know one vegetable from another."
"Vegetable?" I didn't get it.
"Well, they're not animal or mineral," said Wolfgang. He seemed a little grouchy. I like grouchy teachers better than the ones who pretend they love you--like Delmore with his patient voice, when all the time he wishes he could scalp you.
"I know the difference," said Hester. "Hazel here." She pointed to a little shrub. "And ironwood over there." She pointed to a sapling. It had grey bark and looked like wrought iron.
"I'll do the chopping," I said.
"No," said Wolfgang. "You do yours. Let Hester do her own. It doesn't work as well if someone else cuts it."
Hester cut hers first. Then I started after a branch of hazel. "Timo," said Wolfgang, "you have to get a nice forked piece, like Hester's. In the shape of a Y. So you have a handle for each hand. Make the ironwood wand as long as your arm from the elbow up to the tip of your index finger."
When we both had suitable forks and wands, Wolfgang told us to take out our knives and whittle away the bark. He said to smooth the wood with sandpaper when we got the chance.
"Now for a short history of dowsing." He started a long story of how country people use forks of hazel to find underground water. A dowser holds the two branches of the Y loosely in the hands and walks over the land. If there's water in a certain place, the rod tugs down. Sometimes it tugs up, on account of what Wolfgang calls Reversed Polarity. Usually people want to find water so that they can sink a well. Wolfgang knew about a hundred million examples of successful dowsing throughout history, and he had to explain each one in detail. In my usual stupid way, I would have waited for him to waste the whole night with his anecdotes. Hester simply picked up her hazel fork and started dowsing.
"That's it!" said Wolfgang. "That's the spirit."
So I picked up mine and followed her example. In less than a minute, I felt a tug. "I think I've got a nibble," I said.
"Lot of water underground here," said Wolfgang. "That's why they call the place Spring Mountain."
"I feel something too," said Hester. "Look! My stick moved all by itself."
"That's how it feels," said Wolfgang. "Really the energy comes from your body as it senses water under the ground. Now maybe you'd like to try a little levitation."
"Would I ever," I said.
"Simply reverse polarity so that the stick tugs up instead of down. In other words, switch hands."
Hester and I turned our hazel forks over. Now my stick was tugging upwards, and I could see Hester's doing the same thing.
"Now," said Wolfgang, "only gravity's holding you back. Remember Peter Pan! Remember Mary Poppins! Think of something ridiculous. A giggle or two will cut you loose."
"Ladies and Gentleman," said Hester, "I give you the President of the United States." I don't know what she had in mind. But I heard a bubbling noise in her throat, a giggle I guess, and she started to lift off the ground as slowly as a hot air balloon with plenty of ballast.
"Keep your arms fully extended," said Wolfgang. "Lean forward on the fork to go forward."
She tried it. Gradually, as she moved ahead and picked up speed, her body went from vertical to horizontal.
Wolfgang forgot to tell her how to stop. She must have known instinctively how to steer. She circled around us and shouted: "How do I stop this thing?"
I couldn't think of anything ridiculous. Have you ever tried to giggle on purpose? Somehow the effort cancels out the effect. I thought of the time my mother put a blueberry pie on the steps to cool and Brian stepped in it. No good. I thought of my grandmother's theory of electricity. Nothing. But when I saw Hester zooming around in circles shouting "How do I stop this thing?" I found myself laughing. Before I realized what had happened, I found myself on Hester's level, 20 feet off the ground.
"Think of something serious if you want to slow down. If you can't think of anything serious, try something awe- inspiring."
Wolfgang explained later that with practice we'd be able to feel light-headed or down-hearted at will. Then we could control our levitation without having to think of something hilarious or terrible.
Hester must have had good control over her spirits even on that first flight. As soon as Wolfgang told her how to do it, she slowed down, gradually returned to a vertical posture, and sank lightly to the ground.
"What'd you think about," I asked. I was still hovering upright in the same place.
"The President of the United States," said Hester. "He's not so funny when you come to think of it."
I don't know anything about politics, so her remark went over my head. Or under my feet. Anyhow, I knew the President wouldn't do the trick for me.
Next Section of Brian's Story.