Chapter
1. Front Page News
Did I ever tell you about the time
they made me King of the Universe?
It’s
true. I’ve got the crown and everything to prove
it. But you don’t have to take my word for it. It’ll
be in all the history books. Believe me.
Oh,
uh...in case you’re trying to check it out, it only
happened last Thursday, so it might be a while before
it makes it into the records.
Anyway,
like I was saying... It really all started last
Thursday. I’d slept through my alarm again. Muffy
was licking my face, trying to get me to wake up.
She purred louder and louder, but I slept on.
"Let
me sleep," I yawned and nudged her away.
"Junior,
you’re going to be late for school again!" Muffy
meowed and rubbed her furry head against my nose.
"JUNIOR,
you’re going to be late for school again!" my sister
Ellie yelled, sticking her head in my door.
I jumped up in the bed and Muffy flew onto the floor.
"Oy!"
Muffy sighed as she landed on her feet.
"Sorry
about that, kiddo," I yawned, trying to wipe the
sleep out of my eyes.
"WHATEVER,"
Muffy meowed and started cleaning her fur. "Better
get the paper, it’s starting to beep out there on
your windowsill!" she said without looking up.
Huh? Oh, you’re wondering why my cat Muffy can talk.
Well, that’s another story. Remind me to tell you
that one sometime. But for now, just take my word
for it. My cat talks. Whew, can that cat talk!
Anyway, back to last Thursday.
I couldn’t care less about that newspaper out on
the windowsill. Someone had been delivering it every
day for years. I never paid for it and I never read
it. And I certainly didn’t have time that morning!
But that weird beeping sound it was making would
definitely annoy the neighbors while I was at school.
I dashed over and threw up the window, grabbed the
paper and tossed it on the bed while I pulled my
shirt on. It continued to beep. The papers had never
done that before. Flashed strange colors, yes. But
they never beeped.
"Muffy,
can you just toss it in the closet with all the
others," I pleaded.
My cat looked up at me with a funny smirk. "Yeah,
right..." she laughed and went back to cleaning
herself. "You know you really better read those
papers someday. One of these days you’re going to
be tested on all those current events you aren’t
keeping up with."
"Yeah,
yeah," I groaned and grabbed the paper. I ran over
to the closet and opened it. I was just about to
toss in the new paper, when a thousand or so beeping-flashing
newspapers crashed down on me and knocked me to
the floor.
I struggled to climb over the slippery neon-colored
plastic-wrapped papers. The beeping and flashing
was driving me crazy. "Maybe if you opened one of
them they’d stop!" Muffy roared over the noise.
I was still holding the latest paper and I tore
open the flashing wrapper. Sure enough the thousand
beeps stopped beeping and the blinding lights stopped
flashing.
"MILKY
WAY GAZETTE..." the masthead said.
The headline caught my eye right away. "JUNIOR,
THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO BE KING OF THE UNIVERSE."
"Hmm..."
It definitely got my attention. Who wouldn’t want
to be king of the universe! I read on. "You’ve been
chosen by our nominating committee as a candidate
for the position of King of the Universe..."
Muffy was peeking over my shoulder. "You have to
mail it in TODAY!" she said pointing at the deadline
mentioned at the bottom of the article. She reads
MUCH faster than me.
"But
I have to get to school!" I complained.
"Okay,
Your Highness. I’ll fill it out, while you throw
all these papers back in the closet. And then you
mail it off on your way to school."
I handed Muffy a pen and she got right to work.
Meanwhile, I threw the papers in the closet. The
funny thing is that each one of them disappeared
into thin air as I tossed them. Before I knew it,
all the newspapers were gone.
Muffy shrugged when I pointed out what had happened.
"Big deal," she mumbled as she handed me the pen.
"Sign your Royalness."
I did as I was ordered. Muffy folded up the completed
application with her paws and stuck it in a glowing
envelope she had found in the newspaper.
"Have
a nice day," she laughed as I grabbed the envelope
and dashed down the stairs.
Ellie was standing at the bottom of the stairs looking
at her watch. "Not a moment to spare!" she sniggered.
"Hey
Ell, look at this," I panted holding up the envelope.
"They want me to be King of the Universe."
"Whatever,"
Ellie said, rolling her eyes. She tossed my backpack
into my arms. Fumbling, I stuck the letter in my
pocket. Then she stuck a bagel in my mouth and picked
up her own backpack. "Better get the lead out and
get going, your Highnee. Or I'll have to wake Dad
to give you a ride."
My eyes widened in horror. Dad's just about the
worst driver on the planet and believe me, you do
not want to start your day with a hair-pulling,
stomach-turning spin in the car with Dad.
Just the thought of it made me feel nauseous. I
dashed out the door, running as fast as I could
to the bus stop, trying to outrun my previous memories
of driving with Dad.
Fortunately, I remembered to stop at the mailbox.
I pulled the envelope out of my pocket and looked
down at the neon colored "NO POSTAGE NECESSARY IN
THIS GALAXY" envelope. "Here goes nothing," I laughed
as I popped it in the mailbox. I chuckled and dashed
for the bus which was just about to pull away without
me, with visions of my Dad driving still dancing
in my head.
Chapter 2. Taxi to the Stars
I really didn’t think about being King of the Universe
TOO much that morning. Well, maybe it did pop into
my daydreams a couple of times.
Actually I couldn’t pay attention to anything else.
Besides, I kept seeing this yellow-checkered taxi-like
thingy out of the corner of my eye, flying past
the schoolroom windows. It happened about a hundred
times that morning, but every time I blinked there
wasn’t anything there.
But then at recess... well ... that’s when the spaceship-taxi
came to get me.
I was playing kickball, and man did I kick it. It
went up, up and then a yellow-checkered flying saucer
swooped down from the sky and swallowed it. The
spaceship-cab landed and out stepped... an entirely
all too-familiar-but-I-couldn't-place-it-looking
cat in a backwards-baseball cap and sunglasses.
He tossed the ball over to me.
All the kids stood there with their mouths opened.
"Greetings, Dudes," said the cat.
Their mouths opened wider.
"Are
you ready for me to take you to become King of the
Universe, Junior?" the Cat asked me.
"WOW,
King of the Universe!" the kids whispered.
"Um..."
I stuttered. "I can’t leave now. My parents will
be worried."
My sister stepped forth. "Actually, here’s a permission
slip Mom gave me for you."
"Huh?"
I gasped. My sister's high school was miles away.
How did she get there?
"Here
come your parents, now," my best friends, Artie
and Merle, pointed out.
There they were, coming from the school parking
lot, and there was a whole crowd around them.
"Isn’t
that the Mayor?" someone whispered.
"And
that’s the President!" someone else gasped.
Everyone’s mouths fell open again.
My Mom and Dad hugged me. "We’re so proud of you
son," they said. "King of the Universe!"
"But..."
I began.
The Mayor stepped forth. "I knew you could do it,
Joey," he roared, pumping my hand up and down.
"Uh...Johnny,"
I mumbled.
Then the President stepped forward. "Son, make your
country proud," he said and he shook my hand.
Then the President introduced the Secretary- General
of the United Nations. She shook my hand, too. "Don’t
forget about your home planet, Earth. Remember to
rule wisely and justly."
"I..."
I couldn’t form any words at all. Everything was
spinning around.
"But
I’m going to a galaxy far, far away..." I finally
mumbled. "And the registration said that I’d be
King for 1000 years. Won’t you all miss me?"
"Of
course we will, dear," my Mom assured me. But you’ll
be back before you know it. Just ask the nice Taxi-saucer
driver."
The Cat stepped forth. "That’s right, Junior. I
drive so fast that time will actually go backwards.
And even though you’ll be there for a thousand years,
you’ll be back before school’s over today."
"I
will?" That didn’t seem to make any sense at all.
But everyone around me was nodding as if it was
the simplest fact.
"Or
my name isn’t Sly!" the Cat insisted.
I guess I’d have to take his word for it, because
before I knew what was happening, the Mayor and
the President and the Secretary-General lifted me
up on their shoulders, and all the kids were singing
"For he’s a jolly good fellow." And they brought
me to the taxi-saucer and waved, "Good bye, Junior.
So long. Be a good and wise and just King."
And then the spaceship door closed and Sly pointed
to the three chairs in front of a brightly lit control
panel. I looked out through the windshield at everyone
waving and then noticed Muffy sitting in one of
chairs.
"Muffy!"
I gasped. "What are you doing here?"
"Sly
and I are old Kitty-Kollege buddies. We go way back.
When I found out he was the one bringing you to
Cardeckia to rule the Universe, well, I decided
to tag along. Take a seat, pal-o-mine."
"No,
no, sit in the Captain's chair," Sly insisted as
I headed for the smaller chair next to Muffy. "We'll
let you take us out of here."
My mouth widened in a huge excited grin. "Really?"
I gasped as I dove for the Captain's chair before
he could change his mind.
"Sly!"
Muffy gasped. "He's too young!"
"He's
thirteen isn't he?" Sly answered, raising his cool
sunglasses just a little.
"Yeah,
last Sunday, but..." Muffy began.
"And
he is going to be King of the Universe..."
"Ooh...ooh...
I giggled, fiddling with the knobs and levers and
especially the bright shining buttons.
"Ooh...ooh..."
"Whoa,
Junior, slow down," Sly gasped, grabbing his glasses
before they flew off his head, because the saucer
was starting to move forward, and back and sideways,
rise off the ground, and plunge back down.
"Whoa..."
Sly gasped again as he lunged for the open seat
and strapped himself in. He leaned over, strapped
me in and pointed at a plain boring lever. "This
one..." he gasped. "And take it SLOW..."
I pressed a few more buttons, completely oblivious
to the crowd outside that dashed, screaming in fear
from one side of the playground to the other, before
I looked over at the lever Sly was pointing to.
I pulled it nice and slowly. But nothing much seemed
to happen. So I pulled it a little harder.
Well, I guess I pulled it a lot harder. Because
... YOWZA! We went flying off so fast I felt like
part of me was left behind. Which it was, actually.
Chapter 3. King’s Coronation
As it turns out, part of me was left behind. But
I didn’t realize it at the time.
You see, we went so much faster than the speed of
light, that my shadow was left there on the playground.
He felt mighty embarrassed standing around as everyone
was waving goodbye to me, his owner. Fortunately
my sister spotted him and brought him home in her
backpack. But I didn’t find out about any of this
until later. And, actually, it's not even supposed
to have anything to do with this story, but it turns
out to be important in the end, so I just thought
I'd let you know now, although you'll have to wait
until then to find out why it's important… sorry
about that…
Anyway. Let me get back to where I was...back in
the taxi-saucer...
It seemed like we’d just taken off, when we suddenly
jolted to a stop. Sly and Muffy undid their seatbelts,
breathed a sigh of relief, and then Sly dashed over
and pulled me out of the Captain's chair.
My head was spinning a little, but in a good way,
and I fell down to the floor laughing.
"You're
a worse driver than your father!" Sly screeched.
"NEVER AGAIN!" He breathed a few times, readjusted
his glasses, and regained some of his Cool-Cat composure.
He even started smiling again as he put it all behind
him.
"Well,
we’re here...Your Highness," Sly said and he took
one of my arms. Muffy took the other. They helped
me climb up off the floor. My head was still spinning
as they escorted me out of the taxi-saucer’s sliding
doors into the Grand Palace of Cardeckia.
I’m not sure what I expected Cardeckia to be like.
But it was kind of plain. I mean it looked nice,
and all, but it was awfully dull. All the buildings
were grey. The roads were grey. The hills were grey.
The sky was grey. And the people were grey.
Well, they were sort of people. Some of them looked
like animals on Earth. Some of them looked like
a couple of people stuck together. Some had 2 or
3 heads, some 6 or 8 or a dozen legs. Or 7 ears.
Or 3 mouths. You get the picture. Completely different.
But all grey.
Anyway there was a plush grey carpet rolled out
for me that rolled back up behind us as we walked
into the Grand Palace. It stopped rolling when I
stopped. It waited politely until I started walking
before it started rolling up again.
To be honest, I expected a big coronation awaiting
inside. Instead, as we reached these giant grey
doors, I was handed a crown (grey of course), a
scepter with a grey stone on top, and a grey robe
with a BIG K on it.
"Congratulations,
your Highness," a pair of grey three-headed guards
said unexcitedly, at the entrance to the door as
I put my Kingly garb on. "The Ministers of the Universe
are waiting for you," they droned on as they opened
the giant doors.
"Well,
I guess they don’t believe in ceremonies," I mumbled
as I stepped inside. "But at least now we’ll get
down to business and I can start ruling the universe."
The doors closed behind me as I stepped inside.
It was a giant room (grey, of course) with a small
square grey card table in the center. The three
Ministers turned to look as I came in, but they
didn’t get up from their seats. "Greetings, Your
Kingness. Shall we begin," they said together in
very dull grey voices.
Besides being grey, the 3 Ministers were rather
flat. In fact they looked exactly like giant cards.
I saw instantly that one was a Jack, one a Queen
and one an Ace. But, strangely, they had no suits.
Just a large Grey letter J, Q or A on their fronts.
Their backs were just plain grey.
Grey. Grey. Grey. (Or is it gray? I never could
remember which is the right spelling.)
The Ace, Queen and Jack pointed at the fourth empty
seat and I walked over and sat down.
Then they dealt out some cards.
Chapter 4. Cards, cards
and more cards
I didn’t know what to say. Had I traveled a couple
hundred million miles just to play a card game?
I mean I like playing cards. I’m pretty good, actually.
But...
"Are
you bidding?" the Queen to my left asked.
"Uh,
what are we playing?"
"Euchre,"
she said.
Fortunately, Uncle Mike had taught me how to play
Euchre. It had been a while, but as I recalled,
I was pretty good. "Okay..." I said taking a peek
at my cards.
Suddenly I had the strangest feeling. It was as
if my decision about what to name trump would affect
the lives of billions of living creatures on some
distant planet.
Sounds weird, I know, but I'd never been more sure
of anything in my life. I started to panic. The
sweat started to bead on my forehead. I could see
in my mind's eye millions of people holding their
breaths, hoping I'd make the right decision.
Absently I pulled out a stick of gum and started
chewing. I always chew gum when I play cards. Suddenly
I started to feel better. More self-confident. I
wasn't going to let the pressure get to me. "Spades!"
I said boldly, in between chomps on the gum.
All three of the Universal Cards put their hands
over their ears. "What’s that horrible sound!" they
gasped.
"Um...
I’m just chewing some gum..." I said quietly as
I noticed them all starting at me."
"You
chew like a MilkyWay-Cow."
"Sorry...want
a piece?"
"NO!"
they each bellowed. "Chew more quietly."
I tried, but it wasn’t quiet enough. They apparently
couldn’t concentrate. And then when I started blowing
bubbles... They went ballistic!
The Ace was my partner for a few games. We beat
their pants off every time. With each victory, I
could feel the surge of millions of joyful sighs
of relief welling up from some unknown corner of
the universe and bubbling up inside me. I felt more
confidence. More assured that we were winning some
important universal victory.
Ace was feeling good, too. I don't think he was
feeling the vibes I was getting, but he liked winning.
"Hey, Kingy, I’ll try one of those pieces of gum,
please," he said boldly, ignoring the Queen's nasty
stare.
He sure enjoyed the gum as much as I did. The Queen
and Jack were starting to wilt after a while. Their
grey color got even greyer. They were so upset,
they couldn’t even win a hand.
"That’s
it!" the Queen screeched. "Change partners. Ace,
you’re with me."
Jack and I then proceeded to beat them every single
game, and with each victory the roar of happiness
inside me grew even stronger, as if another and
another and another world had been saved.
Ace popped bubbles with his gum in disappointment.
Defeat didn't feel so good, but the gum took the
edge off it a bit.
It wasn’t long before Jack was chewing up a storm,
too. After a few hundred games or so, Queen demanded
we change partners again. She and I were unstoppable.
And before long, even she was chewing away on a
stick of gum.
We played and played and played. Whoever I was with
won. Everyone fought over me. Then we played pinochle.
And bridge. Black Jack. And crazy eights. And poker.
And rummy. Gin. Casino. Canasta.
We played and played and played. And I won every
game. I felt unstoppable, confident that before
long, my victories would free every fettered soul
and every unhappy heart in the universe.
But the Card-Ministers didn't seem to notice that
the games were connected to anything else except
whether they were on the winning or the losing team.
Each of them wanted desperately to win, just because
they wanted to win. They argued louder and louder
about who would be my partner, since I seemed to
win every game.
Then they started to argue about who could blow
the biggest bubble. They proceeded with their contest,
blowing impressive bubbles, which naturally popped
all over them.
Did you ever get gum on some cards? Then you know
how stuck together the three Cards got. They struggled
to unstick themselves and they stuck to the table.
They struggled some more and got stuck to the floor.
It wasn’t long before they were stuck high up on
the grey ceiling.
"Guards!"
they screeched, get that King out of here!!!"
The pair of three-headed guards burst into the room
and started dragging me down the hall. The really
strange thing is that I should have been worried
that they’d take me to a dull grey dungeon where
I’d be in chains living on stale bread and dirty
water for the rest of my thousand year reign as
King of the Universe. But instead I felt a great
sadness that I wouldn't be able to free more enslaved
worlds.
A wave of grey sadness washed over me as the guards
dragged me further and further from the card table.
I didn't notice it at first, but the weirdest thing
was happening to me with each sigh of sadness I
breathed as they dragged me away. After each depressing
exhale, I was forgetting to breathe in, and pretty
soon I was feeling, well, pretty card-like. King
of Hearts-card-like, if you catch my drift. Do I
need to spell it out? I was turning into a card!
But you know what, I didn't even care.
Fortunately Sly and Muffy were waiting around the
corner and they were each holding 3 lollipops in
their hands.
"You
boys wanna lollipop?" Muffy asked.
"Yeah,
yeah!" the six guard-heads panted. Six lollipops
were tossed in the air. While the fourteen guard-hands
were grabbing for them, my two Cat-friends grabbed
me, and holding my cardboard edges between them,
flipped me up into the air. Up, up I went and then
sailed straight into the cab. Muffy and Sly dashed
in and then we blasted out of there so fast, the
whole deck-of-cards-palace tumbled down.
Chapter 5. Oops, Wrong Universe
And so, that's how I became King of the Universe.
Only problem was, turns out we'd gone to the wrong
universe.
"I
don't get it..." I muttered after we were far away
from Cardeckia and I was feeling more like myself,
but still a little bent at the edges. "Is the secret
to the universe nothing more than the fact that
there is some crazy card game, played by dull-lifeless
cardplayers that only want to win their game and
have no idea they're affecting the lives of billions
of living creatures?"
"Whoa!
That's Deep!" Muffy marveled.
Sly only chuckled. "Nah," he assured me as he banged
on the controls at the dashboard with his paw. "Oh,
well actually, looks like that is the secret to
the universe. That universe, anyway. Looks like
we went to the wrong one."
"Huh?"
I stared. "Wrong what?"
"Universe,
silly," he laughed.
"Huh?"
I said again, totally confused.
"Look,
it was a computer malfunction," Sly said. while
he banged on the control panel again.
The control panel beeped a few times in protest.
Sly gave it another good bang. "Now, you cut that
out!" the control panel exclaimed. "First of all,
I don't malfunction!" It insisted. "Second of all,
I'm not 'a computer', I'm Joe_Computer-5 - a LEVEL
5 ultimate computer's computer!"
Sly rolled his eyes and banged on it yet again.
"Anyway, Caredeckia was the seat of some strange
universe where the course of millions and millions
of planets are determined by an endless card game,"
Sly said and turned a few knobs, obviously still
struggling with Joe_Computer-5. "Looks like you
did a nice job saving a big chunk of that universe"
he marveled as he scrolled down the text on a screen
on the dashboard.
I couldn't help feeling proud.
"Only
problem," Sly continued, "is that this darned computer..."
"Joe_Computer-5!!!!"
the computer reminded him.
"Uh,
huh ... well, good ol' Joe here seems to have some
kind of virus..."
"DO
NOT!" the computer insisted. "Although there is
a piece of lint caught in one of my circuits that
sort of tickles every now and then…" he admitted.
Sly sighed and rolled his eyes. "Anyway, we were
supposed to go to..." He banged on the panel yet
again, then pulled his hand back quickly, licking
the fur on the back of his paw. "Hey, the darn thing
bit me!" he mumbled.
Joe_Computer-5 chuckled before reluctantly displaying
something on the screen. "Okay, here's where we
were supposed to go," Sly started, still licking
his paw as he peered down at the screen. "Um, Wardeckia?"
Sly read uncertainly.
Joe_Computer-5 giggled in a strangely mischievous
tone that started to make me rather suspicious.
But I didn't have time to complete the thought,
because before that nanosecond had passed we rocketed
sideways so fast my socks fell off.
Which was some trick, since my sneakers were still
on.
Sure wish I'd changed my socks that morning. Maybe
then I wouldn't have gotten into the eensy-weensy,
tiny little spot of trouble we ended up in on Wardeckia.
Oops. My bad.
Chapter 6. Tiny bit of trouble
Yeah. The 'tiny bit of trouble comment.' That's
about me, not the hugely monumental predicament
we ended up in. That was a royal-pain-in-the-butt!
Yeah. I'd better explain. You see, my nasty-smelling
socks got to Wardeckia a couple sniffs after we
did. By the smell of them, they took a few mucky
detours, cause, honest my socks never smell that
bad! Well, almost, but this was ... really bad!
Okay, so picture this. We land on Wardeckia.
(I should say we practically crashed, because, let's
just say it was a pretty nerve-wracking, nail-biting
landing ... Joe_Computer-5 thought it would be funny
to see what would happen if it electronically switched
the gas pedal and brake, and then after Sly'd figured
out what it did, switch them back again, and again,
and again. Fortunately, before we crashed into Wardeckia,
Sly rewired the saucer to bypass the control panel
completely.)
"Oh,
no ... I'll be good, honest...." Joe_Computer-5
whined and then was silent as Sly coasted manually
toward the planet's surface.
"He
can hotwire anything!" Muffy purred proudly, looking
up from the yarn ball she'd been knitting. Maybe
she wasn't worried, but I was sweating buckets.
(And in hindsight, maybe I shouldn't have emptied
the buckets out the window. You'll see why in a
second…)
So, we landed on this weird colorless hill. I mean
it was completely colorless. The even stranger thing
is that on one side of this colorless hill everything
was blue. I'm serious. EVERYTHING! The grass, the
trees, the sky the animals and people - everything.
And on the other side of the hill everything was
just as yellow.
And standing on their respective sides of this colorless
hill there were these two pretty-angry looking Serf-Lords,
one with a completely blue army with blue flags
waving proudly; one with a yellow army. Oh, and
these guys were huge. I mean, I barely came up to
their ankles.
Oh, and each of the Serf-Lords was completely drenched,
and they didn't look too happy about it! I let the
two empty sweat-buckets I'd still been carrying
behind my back roll down the hill before they could
see them.
Unfortunately, everyone did turn suspiciously when
the buckets rolled under the feet of a poor "little"
girl and boy who'd been coming up the hill, causing
them to tumble back down. (I say little because
they were young. But they were at least twice my
height.) "I'm Okay!" the blue boy called, "I've
still got the crown." But then the yellow girl came
tumbling after and landed on it. "Oops, sorry I
broke your crown, Jack!" she moaned, rubbing her
head.
And that's why one of the crowns up there on my
shelf, back home is cracked in half.
But I digress. Back on Wardeckia, as I was saying,
the two giant Serf-Lords were trying extra hard
not to get upset about the buckets of sweat that
had been poured over their heads, or the broken
crown. Or the fact that they'd already interviewed
forty-six million King applicants that morning.
Looking up I could see the other contestants' spaceships
fading away into the distance like little tiny bubbles.
They looked so pretty drifting up into the blue
sky on one side, and the yellow sky on the other.
Obviously I wasn't paying attention to the two scribes
who'd been sing-songing the wonderful tale of Wardeckia's
long history.
That is until I head two things. First I heard the
scribes say my Dad's name. And then Sly was elbowing
me out of my daydreaming, saying, "Junior, that's
your Dad in their history books!"
Then I paid attention. Or I tried to for a few minutes,
anyway, but the guys were so boring in the way they
recited it. (And wouldn't you be, too, if you'd
already said the same schpeel 46 million times in
one morning.) Turns out a hundred million years
ago, my Dad and his Shadow, saved two warring Universes,
uniting them into the twin universe of Wardeckia.
But a hundred million years later, the universes
were drifting apart again and they needed someone
to save them. One and only one was destined to be
the Second and Future King.
Okay, lots of stuff about the story had me as confused
as I'm sure you are. Twin Universes. A hundred million
years ago? My Dad's Shadow? And by the way, I thought
a royal feast was supposed to be part of this king-me
ceremony. When was lunch?
That's what I was thinking when the blue and yellow
jeweled sword sticking up out of the colorless ground
caught my eye. "Ooh, pretty," I drooled and grabbed
it out of the ground. I was standing there holding
it in my hands looking at it greedily when I noticed
everyone had gone completely silent. I looked up
and EVERYONE was staring at me.
Okay, this would have been a Kodak-moment, the climax
of the movie when the music suddenly swells out
of the silence and the audience gets this wonderful
feel-good feeling that gives them hope and makes
them glad to be alive. And everyone starts cheering
for the hero, who would be me, in this case. But
that's precisely the moment my socks fell out of
the sky and landed on the Serf-Lords' noses.
The socks may have been tiny compared to the poor
noses they landed on, but they were deadly, odiferously-speaking,
if you catch my drift (which for your sake, I hope
you don't).
Okay, we need to stop here for a second. You should
know, back in my Dad's time, a hundred million years
ago, he had a similar smelly sock incident right
there in well, whatever it was before it was called
Wardeckia. Back then he'd been skiing down a Time
Slope, and his shoe fell off into time and landed
under a negotiation table between the leaders of
the warring universes. But unbeknownst to him, in
those two universes it was the worst of all insults
to take your shoes off in someone else's company;
his smelly foot incident started a war to end all
wars.
Yeah, that's what I found out later. Well, fortunately,
Wardeckians had done quite a bit of growing, evolutionarily-speaking,
over the past hundred million years. Now the Serf-Lords
just fainted at the smell, rather than start a war.
Now I did mention they were huge. Well, unfortunately,
they both started wavering unsteadily about to crash
... on me ... I tried to back up, but the Blue Serf-Lord
came down first. Yeah, the sword sort of got him
on the butt a little, just a little, while I swerved
out of the way.
That's one way to wake someone out of a faint. "YOUCH!"
he screeched, bouncing up into the air. You wouldn't
believe it, but the same thing happened to the Yellow
Serf-Lord.
As their hordes comforted them, I stared at the
sword in my hands and, not knowing what else to
do, stuck it back in the ground.
Bad move.
Remember the hill was colorless, right. Well, not
after I stuck it in the ground. Yellow gushed out
of the ground all over the blue side of the hill
and up and out into the whole blue side of the universe.
And Blue gushed out all over the Yellow side.
Yep. You guessed it. Thirty-eight seconds later,
I'm standing there looking 360 degrees around the
hill and everything was green.
I figured I'd definitely used up more than my three
strikes in Wardeckia. I was going to be toast, green
toast, any second.
But that's not what happened. Instead everyone started
dancing around laughing and hugging each other,
waving their green hands up into the gushing green
stuff flowing down on them.
"Hooray
for King Junior!" they cheered. "Like father, like
son!" and they carried me on their huge, giant shoulders.
Apparently, my Dad had united the universe in pretty
much the same way. Who knew that going green could
save the universe so quickly?
Well, we had the most amazing feast ever. Which
really surprised me, because although I like my
vegetables as much as the next guy, and green has
always been in my top five favorite colors, I mean
come on, all the food was green, green and more
green.
The feasting and the dancing and the singing felt
like they were going to go on for at least the thousand
years I was supposed to reign, and as nice and green
as it all was, I was pretty happy when Sly announced
that the computer had had another malfunction and
it wasn't Wardeckia at all that we were supposed
to travel to. And we were going to be late for our
real destination, if we didn't get a move on it.
Needless to say, everyone was sorry to see us go,
but they sent us off with roaring cheers of "Long
Live King Junior" in appreciation and the broken
crown of course, as a memento, and an instant later
we were blasting up through the green universe and
popping out towards the destination Joe_Computer-5
promised we were really supposed to head towards.
I wasn't the only one who was a little suspicious
about his insistence that Bordeckia was our real
destination.
Chapter 7. Boring, Pouring,
Snoring and Galoring!
Yeah, Bordeckia.
Bordeckia was so boring, I'm not even going to waste
time telling you about it. Ditto for Poordeckia
and Sporedeckia and double-decker ditto for Snoredeckia!
In fact, we ending making 327 stops on my King-Me
Tour. The truth is, there not too much more I really
want to relive by describing those experiences here.
They were just too scary and or uneventful for me
to want to waste even a moment thinking about again.
But as you can see, I did end up with a bunch of
interesting crowns for my bookshelf, though, so
it wasn't a total wash-out.
Anyway, stop 327 was the final exit ramp on that
strange Royal Road Trip, so I guess I have to roll
the clip on it for you, even though it really is
the most disturbing of them all, because, well,
it's pretty much the way things seem to be heading
now in all the universes.
Let me start out by saying we weren't expected at
CorporateTechia at all, because, well we were a
little early. Well, I guess a lot early. And of
course, that was my bad.
You see, Sly and Joe_Computer-5 were arguing as
usual, and I have to tell you, with each stop we'd
made, Joe_Computer-5 seemed to get even more whacked
out. At first he seemed more demented with each
course he'd steer us on, with an evil sinister cackle
as he plotted our next course. But then he just
completely lost it and kept spouting incoherent
nonsense. Sly played along and while he kept Joe_Computer
occupied with one convoluted argument after the
next, he meanwhile was secretly running diagnostics
on the computer's circuitry to try to figure out
where Joe_Computer's wires were crossed, or where
that piece of lint the computer mentioned might
be lurking.
Anway, while they argued away for the millionth
time, I was leaning over Sly's chair looking at
the ship console, trying to take it all in, when
I saw this really shiny red button.
"Ooh...
shiny," I thought.
Then I noticed the bold writing. "DO NOT PRESS...NO
MATTER WHAT!" it sad in flashing neon letters, about
a million times all the way around the shiny red
button.
Naturally I figured the warning didn't apply to
me, being that I was King of quite a few universes
by then. In fact, as King of all those universes,
it was kind of like my obligation to press the button.
Look, can I help it if my head size had swelled
a few times too many, what with all those crowns
I'd been fitted for lately.
Anyway, that's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it.
Cause without even knowing I'd done it, apparently
I pressed the button.
"OMG,"
Joe_Computer-5 screeched, his circuits suddenly
firing in perfect coherence. "You didn't just push
that button did you!" But with each word, Joe- Computer's
voice seemed to slow down until everything was quivering
in the weirdest silence I'd ever heard.
This really horrible feeling washed down over me.
No one spoke, or moved, but everyone's eyes were
wide in fear and panic because everyone felt it
too ... like in the next second the biggest explosion
ever was going completely destroy everything in
all of time, space and in every dimensional universe.
We all held our breaths waiting for the final moment...
But then the moment passed and the windshield in
front of us lit up like it was a TV screen and a
receptionist busy "CorporateTechia, please hold"-ing
into her phone headset looked up and stared at us.
"Er,
can I...CorporateTechiaPleaseHold...help you?"
"Um...
I'm here for the King-job?" I offered.
While she stared at us she "please-hold"-ed a few
thousand more times, which was really disconcerting
because each and every time I kept thinking she
was talking to me. "You mean CEO position?" she
said in between please-holding. It took me a while
to figure out she was talking to me that time.
"C...E...O...?"
I thought. "Crazy Eternal Overlord?" I mumbled out
loud.
"Chief
... CorporateTechiaPleaseHold ... Executive... CorporateTechiaPleaseHold
... Officer..."
I scratched my head. "Uh....I guess?"
"CorporateTechia...
Okay .... PleaseHold ... I assume...CorporateTechia
... you have an ... PleaseHold ... appointment ...
CorprateTechia ... Your Name ... PleaseHold..."
My head was spinning. "Junior...I mean Johnny CorprateTechia,
I mean...Chronicles...please hold" I offered, not
really sure what I was saying.
"CorporateTechiaPleaseHold...Well
Mr Please Hold...CorporateTechiaPleaseHold...the
CEO Position doesn't open up for...CorporateTechiaPleaseHold...
about a million years... ...CorporateTechiaPleaseHold...
You might have a short wait ... CorporateTechiaPleaseHold
... Let me tell Human Resources you're ...CorporateTechiaPleaseHold...
here..."
The screen went blank and the worst phone music
ever filled the cabin. Sly turned the volume down
and everyone sighed as we waited ...
...and waited...
...and waited...
I wiped a few cobwebs from my face and saw for the
38 billionth time that the screen was still blank
and the hold-music was still hissing under the 15
pillows we'd thrown over the console speakers. Sly
had dropped his GameBoy a few hundred years ago,
and was sitting comatose in his chair, with his
cool-glasses dangling halfway off one ear, while
he stared up at the ceiling with drool dripping
down his furry chin...
Muffy was half buried under the half-trillion sweaters
she'd finished knitting and had pulled apart and
reknitted...
And Joe_Computer-5 was busily involved in a perfectly
coherent, well-structured five-part heated argument
with himself, an argument, I unfortunately already
knew word for word for word... Most of the words
being, "I'm so sorry that piece of lint caused me
to act so irrationally before," and "I'm REALLY
starting to wish that piece of lint was back disrupting
my circuitry so I could forget this all," and of
course "I can't believe he pushed that button!"
Okay, let's fast forward a couple more million Millennia,
when finally the receptionist reappeared on the
screen.
"Mr
Please Hold..." she called annoyedly for probably
the billionth time. But of course I was spaced out
in zombie land and although I thought I heard something,
far-far-away, it didn't click at all.
But then she leaned forward through the windshield-monitor
and stuck her head into my ear canal, screeching
"Mr Please Hold!" That's when I jumped up out of
my daydream and out of my seat.
She was back on the windshield-monitor, with a plastic
neon-white blinding smile plastered on her face.
"Mr. Please Hold, the Man will see you now."
"Er,
that's Johnny Chronicles," I stammered uncertainly,
because to be honest, I'd been waiting so long,
the name didn't seem to fit anymore. Plus I was
kind of thrown off because she wasn't "CorporateTechia
Please Hold"ing anymore. It was as if she had all
the time in the world and was keeping everyone else
on hold. Or, it occurred to me, it was more like
there was no one left in the universe anymore to
put on hold.
But she was gone and the Man was seeing us, apparently,
but we couldn't see him. We heard him clear enough
though. Way too clear. "Alright, Please Hold, so
you're here for the Crazy Eternal Overlord position
are you?" a deep, dark, creepy voice echoed from
the now blackened windshield-monitor.
"Uh,
no...I'm...uh supposed to be..." I swallowed nervously,
staring into the blackness, way too afraid to correct
him about my name, and way too confused to finish
a sentence coherently.
"Uh
huh," the voice darkly droned cutting off my stammer.
"Says here you like pushing buttons. Well, lucky
you, that's exactly ALL the job entails."
Much as I had to admit my apparent button-pushing
addiction, I was pretty sure I wouldn't want to
push the button this voice had anything to do with.
"Uh,
no..."
"Quite
an honor to push this button, of course. The end
of all buttons..."
I tried to back away from the console as the voice
continued on. "The economic cycles have all cycled
out, and the last unresourceful consumer has consumed
the last resource, so time to cash out with the
big bank of all market crashes. Just step into the
Resumé Reader, so we can make sure you've got what
it takes to take it all away."
Unfortunately I'd backed into the back wall of the
saucer-cabin and there wasn't anywhere else to hide.
"Help..." I croaked helplessly as this giant semi-transparent
ghostly paper shredder appeared floating in front
of me, and slowly approached. Everyone else was
still zombied out and didn't notice my pathetic
whimper at all.
The paper shredder got closer and closer and I squeezed
my eyes shut, quit my whimpering, gave in to the
inevitable, and waited to be shredded.
Okay, so what exactly did it feel like to be stuck
through a cosmic corporate paper shredder. Well,
it was weird. On the one hand I could feel it violating
every privacy act ever enacted as it shredded up
everything I ever was, am and will be, and then
dumped it into an overflowing recycling bin. And
pretty strange as all the shredded strips were then
scanned and analyzed and weighed and who-knows-what
else. But on the other hand, it kind of tickled.
In a good way.
"Hmm..."
the voice was saying as the tickling stopped, leaving
me a little giddy, and I peeked open an eye. "Far
below par on assets, skills, knowledge base and
lifetime earning potential. I've never seen such
a dismal score. And your net worth isn't even worth
netting. But you scored really high on button pushing...
and we do need to fill the position IMMEDIATELY.
Wait, what's this..."
Uh oh... I didn't like the sound of that at all.
"Says
your name isn't Please Hold. Says your name is Chronicles.
George Chronicles' kid? No. Not THE JUNIOR CHRONICLES!"
"Um..."
The Man was silent a moment as I tried coughing
up a voice to answer him. Then I clearly heard him
dialing a phone. "This is the Man," the voice said
into his phone, muffled as if he were putting his
hand over the headset so I couldn't hear. "Get me
the Time Catcher fast..."
Now I must admit, although the name sounded vaguely
familiar, I had no idea who this 'Time Catcher'
was. But my subconscious seemed to know because
I suddenly felt even more nervous and scared and
freaked out than I already had been. If that's possible.
Sly and Muffy and Joe_Computer-5 knew exactly who
the Time Catcher was, and although they had slept
through my cosmic soul shredding and all the other
gruesome interview moments I'd endured, they sprang
to attention at the mention of those two words.
In fact, they were instantly in overdrive mode.
Sly was tapping on the computer console with lightning
speed murmuring commands back and forth with Joe_Computer-5
as if they were a well-rehearsed acrobatics team.
Unfortunately, CorporateTechia appeared to have
masterminded a hostile-takeover of our navigational
controls, and nothing Sly and Joe_Computer-5 tried
seemed to be the deal-breaker we needed.
"Our
only hope is the Emergency Yodel-Overdrive..." Joe_Computer-5
insisted.
"But
we've tried it and it won't respond," Sly gasped.
For the first time he looked really nervous.
"Not
for you, but for Junior it will," Joe_Computer-5
said calmly.
"Oh
no... not again ... you saw what happened the last
time we let him drive!" Sly gasped.
"First
of all, he'll be yodeling, not driving. And second
of all... do we have a choice?" Joe_Computer-5 said,
his voice rising to a nervous screech.
"Oh,
I sure hope he doesn't yodel the way he drives..."
Sly mumbled. "Junior, get over here!"
"Uh...."
I stuttered, a little nervous myself, but even more
confused about what they were talking about.
"Dude.
Yodel us out of here ...fast!"
My head was spinning. "Yodel? Like, Yodel-a-e-o
yodel?"
Sly was shaking nervously. "Yodeling is the ultimate
way to travel through time, space and other dimensional
universes…It's an age-old…" Sly began but he shuddered
and pulled me over to the control panel. "Sorry,
Junior, no time to explain right now…"
He pointed at an invisible button on the panel and
whispered hoarsely, "You can do it, Junior!" Then
under his breath added, "I hope!"
Okay, two things went through my head. "Ooh ...
a button..." I admit was the first. But the second
thought was, "Huh, I can see an INVISIBLE button.
Maybe I CAN do this..."
"Time
Catcher. This is the Man. I've got HIM..." the horrible
voice beyond the darkness laughed.
"Now,
Junior! Yodel!" Sly begged.
I still had no idea what Sly was talking about.
But the urgency of our situation I guess brought
something up from inside me. Because as I started
to drift off into my normal daydreaming mode, I
instinctively pressed that invisible button and
did in fact yodel us out of there.
I think I overdid it a little. Well, truth is, I
over-yodeled a lot.
Chapter 8. You wouldn't
believe it if I could find the words to describe
it
*
See that * up there. Looks like an ordinary asterisk,
doesn't it. Well, you're not going to believe this,
but that 'asterisk' is a hundred and forty-nine
pages of action-packed adventures in... well...
this wordless, timeless, spaceless, place that I
just can't begin to describe, because, well, there's
no words to describe it at all. At least not in
this universe.
If you really want to experience the WHOLE story,
Joe_Computer-5 insists that he can bring you to
that worldless, timeless, spaceless Universe I somehow
yodeled us to. But as you've seen, his circuitry
has been a little suspect throughout this entire
adventure, and although he assures us he's completely
fine now that the piece of lint that had been mucking
up the works is gone, if I were you, I'd pass on
that possible one-way yodel to, well, you know,
that wordless, timeless, spaceless place, and just
take my word for it that we had some totally, awesome,
amazing, well, you know, 'sorry I just can't describe
it' kind of adventures.
Anyway, to keep the integrity of this totally true
and accurate report of my adventures, the publisher
wanted to include those 149 pages of ... well ...
wow ... you know ... adventures in that wordless,
timeless, spaceless place. But since the publisher
is trying to go green and keep their carbon footprint
down, they decided to scan the pages and put them
on a nanochip at the top of the page instead of
including what would look like 149 completely blank
pages. If you tried to read them in this universe,
of course. But if you go to that wordless, timeless,
spaceless place, well, wow, you would not believe
... oh dude, maybe it's worth risking a ride on
the wild side with Joe_Computer-5.
But, I'll leave that decision up to you.
Anyway, that's why the page number at the bottom
of Chapter 8 starts 150 pages later than the last
page in Chapter 7. Just in case you were wondering.
Chapter 9. An Unwelcome
Welcoming Committee
After our amazing adventure in ... well, you know
… Er, well, actually you don't, but well, in that,
wondrous, wordless, timeless, spaceless place ...
Yeah...well, we were all feeling pretty good after
that.
"I
suppose we should plot another King-You course?"
Joe_Computer-5 offered rather unenthusiastically.
Quite a contrast to the previous 327 "You thought
that last trip was something - you ain't seen nothing
yet" evil giggles.
"Eventually,"
Sly conceded with a long peaceful sigh as he kicked
back a notch further back in his captain's chair.
The rest of us murmured in agreement as we sank
a few notches deeper into our own relaxed modes.
That is until I popped out of my daydreams long
enough to notice the three nasty looking witches
on their broomsticks staring evilly in at us through
the windshield. They were pointing at me and whispering
to each other with devilishly twisted smiles. Some
even nastier looking wizards and warlocks, gruesomer
snarling ogres, and a ginormous slimy-wormlike dragon
with bones hanging out of his trillion sharp teeth,
were all huddled behind the 3 witches, staring intently
at none other than yours truly.
“Guys!”
I gasped and I pulled the recline-lever up in my
chair. A little too enthusiastically, of course,
and projectiled into the windshield. I lay there
plastered against the glass, the only thing separating
me from all those ugly faces peering inside. And
even though the windshield was a good six-inches
thick, able to withstand a billion degrees centigrade
(or something like that according to Joe_Computer-5)
I smelled all those nasty breaths clear as day.
Clear as a nasty sulfur-smoking smoggy h-e-double
hockey-sticks day, of course.
“Guys?”
I squeaked again.
“We’re
on it, Junior…” Sly screeched and I heard his paws
tapping desperately at the control panel.
“Unfortunately,
we’re lock-jammed once again,” Joe_Computer-5 added.
I gasped as I noticed the smell had gotten even
worse, and oh-so cautiously peeking open one eye,
I discovered to my horror that all of our hideous
new visitors were crammed INSIDE the cabin. All
except the slimy dragon who was wrapped around the
saucer, gnawing contentedly on the wheel hubcaps,
still keeping one eye on me, for desert, undoubtedly.
I slid down the glass and lay there on the ground
looking up at all the gruesome faces.
“Er,
um, hi?” I offered the broken, who-knows-with-what-stained-toothed
crooked smiles.
“JUNIOR!”
they chorused together, trying to sound pleasant
and inviting, but it was the most discordant, piercing,
clashing sound I’d ever heard in my life. “We’re
the…the Universal..." one of the witches began and
then paused with a twisted grin and an over-exaggerated
wink at her evil-looking cohorts. "...Peace Council..."
she continued, then winked again before breaking
out into a giggling cackle.
"Yeah,
that's the ticket..." the others chortled.
“Liars!”
Joe_Computer-5 slid in under a carefully concealing
cough.
“What’d
you say?” one of the hunched-over twisted warlocks
barked.
“Oh,
nothing…” Joe_Computer-5 squeaked. “War Council,”
he said underneath another cough.
Thirteen pairs of bloodshot eyes glared angrily
over at the computer panel. But then they did their
best to put plastered smiles back on as they all
turned back to face me. I shivered uncontrollably.
"You've
been one tough Chronicle to track down..." a warlock
continued with a high-pitched squealy voice that
sounded like fingernails on a blackboard.
"Yeah!"
they all agreed in perfect 13-part disharmony.
"But
we've finally found you and now you can begin your
new life as the new Grand Wizard of ..." the head
witch continued, then broke into a cackle. With
a final a chuckle and another wink she completed
her sentence: "Pe-a-c-e," she insisted in a long
drawn out slur, then slapped her knee and rolled
on the ground, laughing uncontrollably.
"Guys!"
I gulped, but out of the corner of my eyes, I saw
that the ogres had already tied Sly and Muffy to
their chairs, and one of them was just finishing
a sweaty all-out tug of war with Joe_Computer-5's
plug. To my horror I watched as the victorious ogre
flew across the air and landed on the ground with
the plug dangling from his green teeth, with part
of the cabin wall stuck to the end of the plug.
Poor Joe_Computer-5's voice faded away as he cried
out "Ju-n-i-o-r..." And then there was nothing but
the evil cackling laughter.
"Bring
out the WAND!" I heard the head-honcho witch finally
say as I cringed in the corner with my eyes closed,
wishing somehow they'd just all go away.
I couldn't help peeking as I heard one of the ogres
sliding a large crate across the cabin. And then
it creaked hideously as they pried it open. The
weirdest thing happened as they pulled it out. Everything
around it went completely black. It was like the
wand was sucking in all the light and hope and leaving
nothing but a deep, dismal darkness behind.
"Give
it to him," the Witch commanded.
"Yeah,
yeah, yeah" they all chanted.
I felt them trying to thrust it into my clenched
fist, but the wand kept pushing away from me, as
if somehow it just wouldn't fit.
"Huh?"
they all gasped.
"Have
you been yodeling in places you shouldn't have?!!!"
the Head Witch screeched.
"Umm..."
"Put
it away," the Witch sighed. "We're going to have
to bring it back to Wandcrafters to have it adjusted."
"Duh...how
long will that take?" the ogre who put the wand
back in its case asked.
"Oh,
about an hour. Tie him up!" she instructed.
"Okay,
Junior," she sighed staring down at me, half a second
later as I lay on the ground, bound and gagged.
"We'll be back in an hour ... at Midnight, so...
don't you go anywhere." She winked at everyone and
they all started laughing again. "But then her Witchiness
waved her hand and they all stopped instantly.
"What
are you looking for?" she growled at the ogre who
had tied me up.
"Got
this extra piece to tie up his shadow, but I can't
find it nowheres."
The Witch glared down at me, grinding her broken
teeth as her eyes shot daggers at me. "Your shadow
better be ready when we get back, or you're not
going to like what we'll have to do to drag it out
of you. Kapeesh!"
Truth is, I didn't really kapeesh at all. In fact
I had no idea what she was talking about. What did
they mean they couldn't find my shadow?
She rolled her eyes and they all shook their heads.
"Are
you sure this is the kid? Doesn't seem smart enough
for… you know…" the other two witches asked before
a glare from their leader silenced them. The top-witch
rolled her eyes and reached out her gnarled, warty
hand towards me. My heart nearly stopped when she
rolled me over and pinched the back of my neck,
like she was looking for a tag, like you do on the
inside of shirt collar. And the weirdest thing was
that I did indeed feel her pull a tag out from under
my skin!
"Chronicles,
Junior Chronicles, right there on the label. See
it?" she snarled. And the others nodded.
"But
look down there in the fine print. It says he's
only 10 years old…" one of the warlocks pointed
out before he jumped back when the witch turned
nastily towards him.
"No
way!" I instantly thought, but I was still trying
to get used to the feeling of the tag sticking out
the back of my neck, and so I must have felt a little
disoriented, because for the life of me, I wasn't
really convinced that I wasn't ten years old. "I'm
back in the Fifth Grade?" I gasped. "That can't
be. I'm 13. I'm in the Eighth grade…right?" But
I couldn’t dig up any memories to convince me, one
way or the other. I strained to turn my head to
look at the tag for myself.
"Stop
fidgeting," the witch growled at me as she felt
for her glasses. Apparently the chain they were
on had broken and they'd slid down her dress. She
patted herself searching for them. Meanwhile, it
was so hard for me not to want to check the tag
myself. I just couldn't be ten, could I? The anticipation
was killing me!
Finally she found the glass chain wedged in her
stockings. She yanked the chain out and threw the
glasses onto her warty, bent, pointed nose.
A few of the ogres chuckled because someone had
taped a fake funny-nose-and-moustache onto the glasses,
and as I peeked backwards, I had to agree that she
did look quite comical. The witch gave the ogres
such a nasty glare that their hair caught on fire.
One of the warlocks quickly reached into his robe
and pulled out a bucket of green slime and threw
it over the ogres heads, instantly dousing the flames.
Obviously he had practiced this a lot because his
aim was perfect and in no time at all the ogres
were obediently staring down at the ground with
smoky steam rising off the tops of their heads,
and green slime dripping down their faces.
The Head-Witch meanwhile was pulling my tag out
further and mumbling to herself. "No wonder the
wand didn't fit! You must have yodeled up quite
a storm recently, because you ARE only 10 now!"
My heart sank. It just couldn't be; but somehow
I knew she was right. She sensed my disappointment.
"Don't worry. The years'll catch up by Midnight,
according to my calculations. You'll be 13 when
the clock strikes 12 and we return, you mark my
words! And then, the wand will fit you perfectly."
She cackled as she pinched my neck again and shoved
the tag back in.
For a second there, I almost hoped she was wrong
and that I'd stay stuck back at 10 forever so that
the evil wand would never be mine. I shuddered and
blinked and the next thing I knew they were all
outside the windshield.
I watched as the slimy dragon pulled its head out
from under the hood (which it had apparently already
eaten), spit out a rusty bolt or two and then reluctantly
unwrapped itself from around the now completely
slimed, stripped-down saucer-cab. It stopped wriggling
a moment so that the entourage could slip-slide
onto its enormous slimy back.
"Back
in an hour," a warlock called through the glass.
"Duh,
don't go anywhere," an ogre added.
They all glared at him and flames burst out of his
hair. Which is quite a trick out in space, at least
according to the laws of science, there being no
oxygen out there, you know. Whatever laws the flames
were operating by, they were quickly doused by the
warlock's bucket-o-slime, and in no time at all
the ogre was staring dejectedly down at his feet,
with smoke rising off his now bare, blackened head.
"Gosh, you all laughed before," I heard him muttering
sadly.
A puff of fire came out of the wormy dragon's rear-end
and it rocketed a thousand feet off into the darkness
of space. It wriggled a few times and another fiery
burst sent it another thousand feet forward. With
each burst its passengers grasped and grabbed to
hold on as they slip-slided in their seats.
Chapter 10. Rendezvous,
Rescues & Midnight Picnic Parties
As I watched that most unwelcome of welcoming committees
through the windshield disappear into the darkness
of space, I felt completely confused and depressed.
My whole world had tumbled down.
You'd think that I'd have been sitting there worrying
about the fact that we were all helplessly tied
up, lost somewhere in the empty voids of space with
no hope of anyone rescuing us before that evil entourage
came back to take me away forever to do something
horrible with that evil wand, and I'd never see
my family and friends ever again.
Or maybe that I was wondering about the seemingly
impossible condition of being completely shadowless.
But the truth is, what I was really most depressed
about was the fact that through some bizarre twist
of fate, I wasn't 13 anymore. I was stuck being
a ten-year- old kid again? No way! Not even if it
was supposedly only for another hour.
"Junior!
Snap out of it!" Sly was saying from over at the
control panel, where he was working on trying to
reinsert the computer's mangled plug. Then I noticed
Muffy was untying the ropes around my wrists and
ankles.
"Thanks,
Muffy, but how…" I stammered as I rubbed my sore
skin.
"Muff's
a world-class knitter, Dude, you know that," Sly
bragged about his best-kitty. "Never met a knot
she couldn't untangle!"
"Aw,
that's sweet Sly..." Muffy blushed and then turned
to me. "Come on Junior, get up. You've got to get
us out of here before THEY get back."
"We're
not going to let him take the wheel again are we?"
Sly gasped.
"Won't
work anyway," Joe_Computer-5 sighed. "It's because
I'm TEN again, I bet," I muttered as Sly let me
lean over and try some of the controls. "And they're
really strict about the yodel-and-drive 13 year
old minimum age, right?" I groaned as none of the
knobs, switches, levers or buttons would work at
all.
"The
witch said you'd be back to 13 at Midnight…" Muffy
offered after we'd all plopped dejectedly into our
seats, wondering what on earth we could do to get
out of this jam. "But of course THEY'll be back
then, too…" she sighed sadly.
"Wouldn't
matter anyway," Joe_Computer-5 insisted.
"Why
not?" we wondered.
"On
account of the fact that the dragon ate the engine,
the yodel-overdrive and the entire outside structure
of the saucer. Probably fall apart if we even try
pushing it an inch!"
Wow, that was depressing news.
The minutes ticked away aimlessly. Not sure why
Joe_Computer-5 had to broadcast the tick-tocking
in Dolby-surround-sound through all thirty speakers
in the space saucer, but no one even noticed. That's
how deep each of us was in our own isolated depressed
heads and/or circuit panels.
Probably we would have sat there like that until
the last stroke of Midnight. Fortunately I happened
to notice something sliding slowly down the windshield.
Upon further inspection, I noticed It was a slimy
snail weaving a slimy trail across the already dragon-slimed
glass.
Ewww…Nonchalantly, without thinking, I reached forward
to hit the windshield wipers to wipe it away, when
suddenly Sly grabbed my hand with his paw and shouted,
"Stop, it's the Chronicles Chronicles Editor!"
It was too late; I'd already flicked the wiper switch,
and I felt horrible as I expected the snail to be
flung off into the emptiness of space. But it didn't
matter because the dragon had eaten the windshield
wiper blades, along with practically everything
else.
Muffy opened the door and the snail slowly slimed
his way inside, "tsk, tsk"ing as he rolled his eyes
at us and shook his head incredulously as he looked
us over.
"Are
you all kidding me?" he grumbled as he plopped himself
down on the ship console. He reached back into his
shell and pulled out a book. I noticed it had my
name on it. The JUNIOR CHRONICLES. Huh? I
tried to peek inside as he flipped through the pages,
but he saw me watching and turned so that I couldn't
see the pages at all.
"This
story is such a mess. You're not going anywhere
in this dragon-slimed junk-mobile, that's for sure.
No offense, Joe_Computer-5."
"Hey,
none taken. I'm a Level-5-micro-computer-chip. This
taxi-saucer was so beneath me anyway. I can't wait
till they plug me into a real vehicle so I can exercise
some of these mental muscles I haven't gotten to
use since my last gig."
"Uh,
huh. And if I'm not mistaken, you're not even supposed
to be in this story in the first place. You're from
a completely different book series! You snuck out
of your original assignment, didn't you?"
"Hey,
I'm a great multi-tasker. Thought I could help out
here in this book. So sue me!"
"Urghh…
these Chronicles Chronicles are so… sooo…"
"Cool?"
Sly suggested, peeking coolly over his sunglasses.
"Urghh…"
the snail muttered. And by the way. This is a 48
page book. Why are we on page 195?!!!"
He flipped rapidly through the pages. "What is this
in Chapter 8 with the supposed 149 pages of adventures
scanned on a micro-chip? You can't be serious!"
"Oh,
yeah," we all smiled. "Those adventures were so…
so…" we shrugged, still smiling as we remembered
some of the adventures we just couldn't begin to
describe. Things this snaily guy just wouldn't ever
understand.
"Oh,
I understand all about that wordless, spaceless,
timeless place. That's not the problem!" the snail
snapped. "The problem is that it's a cheap literary
device that's already been used in your dad's Chronicles.
Several times, in fact!"
Huh? What was he talking about?
"Come
on you guys, get serious!" the snail snapped. "They're
going to be back any second and the Universal War
Council's not supposed to catch up to you until
deep into the sequel. At least from the outline
they sent me. How I'm supposed to get this final
chapter tied up so that the sequel makes sense,
is one heck of a hat-trick, that's for sure. But,
fortunately I'm one heck of an editor, so let's
see what we can do."
Sly and Muffy and Joe_Computer-5 murmured in agreement.
Like they understood what the snail was talking
about. I for one had no idea.
"You
really don't have any idea what's going on, do you?"
the snail clicked as he looked up over his glasses
at me. For the second time, I thought he was reading
my mind, but then I saw that he was reading it all
in his book. No, I had no idea what was going on.
So he gave me the ten-cent summary of The Chronicles
Chronicles series in general, and then The
Junior Chronicles in particular. How my family
and our friends were not your typical suburbanites.
No, once upon a time my Dad had the distinction
of single-handedly destroying all the laws of Reality
in this and every other dimensional universe. Which
turned out to be fine for a while, because at first
people liked being able to yodel back and forth
whenever they wanted through time and space and
other dimensional universes. But after a while,
even the Reality-Anarchists got tired of never knowing
what was when and who was or would have been what.
(I know, huh?)
Anyway, my Dad had caused this mess by sending the
Time-Catcher into an infinite time loop. But when
the Reality Right and Left Wing joined forces to
free the Time-Catcher, he went after our family
with a vengeance.
The
Chronicles Chronicles chronicles our adventures
as we hide out in one place or time or another until
they'd catch up and we'd have to yodel out of there
to chronicle another exciting adventure. And of
course, to protect us, since our thoughts apparently
are so powerful they could give us away, none of
us ever remembered our previous and often bizarre
Chronicles Chronicles chronicled adventures. Except
Sly and Muffy of course, because no one thinks to
look for talking cats' thoughts, and besides someone
in the story has to know what's going on.
My initial reaction was of course, to think this
explanation -- that our lives were nothing but words
in a story -- was totally ridiculous. But then suddenly
I started to remember all the previous and some
future outrageously amazing chronicled Chronicles
Chronicles. And whoa, I had my own way cool chronicled
Chronicles series, to boot! Not to mention yodel-abilities
that could spin circles around my Dad's legendary
talents. This snaily guy was telling the truth!
"Of
course I am…" the snail moaned. "Can we get back
to the story, please! We’ve got one page to wrap
up all the loose ends in this story and set it up
so that it matches up right for the sequel."
"The
sequel - is it a good story?" I asked excitedly,
now that I'd gotten used to the fact that my life
was an action-adventure story, it was kind of exciting.
"Quite
an adventurous undertaking; a monumental literary
work of legendary proportions!"
"Err…
But is it exciting?" I inquired. Literature-shmiterature.
I wanted action and adventure.
"Exciting?
Why you only help rescue the beautiful young Peace
Wizard, and help her lead the ultimate final battle
of the forces of good against the forces of evil
to rescue all of time, space and every dimensional
universe from the clutches of chaos to establish
an era of freedom, peace and justice for all… Is
it exciting. Of course it's exciting!" The snail
was clearly excited himself now.
"Wow.
Well let's wrap this up then so we can get to that
sequel," I exclaimed.
"Right.
The snail started making some red notations in the
book with his antennae, then paused as he chewed
his lower lip and scratched behind his head with
his other antennae. "Right. Okay. Let's see. Your
shadow. Let's get your shadow back here. No reason
as far as I can see why you left it behind in the
first place."
"Okay,"
I agreed, not comfortable at all with the fact that
I apparently had been shadowless throughout the
King-Me adventures I'd adventured through. "How
do we do that?" I asked while the snail busily scribbled
notes in the margins of my book.
"Oh,
simple," he muttered, glancing up over his glasses.
"Use your yodel-talents to yodel your shadow here…"
"Er…I…uh…"
I stuttered. "How do I do that again?" Although
I'd yodeled us to save the day previously in this
particular chronicled adventure, I still had no
idea how I'd done it.
The snail sighed and rolled his eyes at me. "Look,
the Chronicles are yodelers-extraordinaire, but
each of you has a different way to engage this mystical
talent. Your sister does it when she tells a story.
Your Mom when she starts baking. Your Dad. Well…he's
just an unexplainable nut, and stuff happens. But
you, your yodeling takes place when you start to
daydream. Kapeesh?"
Now I was starting to kapeesh.
"So
yodel your shadow here by daydreaming something
about you and your shadow out for a nice walk along
the beach or flying across the sky or… Oh…you are
fast…" the snail gasped as my shadow practically
knocked him over as it rushed to my side. "Uh, Junior,
that's enough daydreaming…" he clicked as I just
stood there lost in an amazing daydreaming adventure
with only my shadow by my side, fighting dragons
and crossing swords with dark knights to rescue
the fair princess from the dark castle on the treacherous
windy mountaintops of…
"JUNIOR!"
the snail snapped annoyedly. "The 'last page' was
supposed to happen several pages ago! We've got
to wrap THIS story up already. Okay, your family,
friends and faithful housekeeper Flora, naturally
followed your shadow in their Yodel Bus across the
reaches of time, space and every other dimensional
universe to find you. And they brought a birthday
cake to celebrate your 13th birthday. And you have
a wonderful Midnight Birthday Picnic together and
just before the clock strikes 12 and the War Council
returns to enslave you in their evil plans and drag
you off to do their evil bidding, you all yodel
out of there to the Sequel for new exciting chronicled
Chronicles Chronicles…"
"Really?"
I exclaimed. Sounded great to me.
And sure enough, as I looked out the slimy windshield,
there was the yellow Yodel Bus I now remembered
from previous chronicled Chronicles Chronicles.
The clock started chiming its midnight countdown,
but I just stood there lost in another exciting
daydream, with a goofy expression on my face. (Once
I get started daydreaming, there's just no stopping
me.) Fortunately, Sly and Muffy grabbed my arms,
and with Joe_Computer-5's chip in Sly's pocket we
headed out the taxi saucer door and climbed aboard
the Yodel Bus.
I snapped out of my daydream to find myself in the
middle of my family and friends all standing around
me with Mom holding a huge cake with 13 candles
and everyone singing, "For he's a jolly good fellow…"
as the clock rapidly headed for its last few Midnight
chimes. Wow, I thought. Can't get any better than
this.
"You
ain't seen nothing yet," the snail said from his
perch on my shoulder. "Just wait until the sequel!"
He pointed out the Yodel Bus window, and as the
last Midnight gong roared over the sound of everyone
singing, I saw the Sequel come rushing up to greet
us two lengths ahead of a wriggling, flame-farting
dragon and the 13 screaming evil passengers slip-sliding
to hold on to its slimy back.
Hey, is there anybody still
there?
Please … Don’t leave me…It's me….You know, Joe_Computer-5.
That crazy cool cat left me in the pocket of his
other pair of pajamas. Can someone please tell him
not to leave me behind. The Chronicles are going
to need me in the Sequel, and unless someone reminds
them, they're going to forget all about me...
Hello. Are you listening. Please. The lint in here
is really getting to me. I'm going to sneeze … any
… uh… uh…. You know how allergic I am to lint …
uh… uh.. CHOOO ….
Oops … you better look away; it's not a pretty sight…
Alright, move along…
Oh and never mind, Sly's just sticking his paw in
to get me. Oops, is he in for a surprise. But I
guess I'll be seeing you in the Sequel after all.
Ciao. Thanks for keeping me company.
Look, I know, you can't get enough of me. I'll miss
you, too… But that snail's giving me the evil eye
because we're way too many pages over budget and
he's going to have to edit this all down… so go
to your local bookstore, or log onto amazon.com
and get the sequel and we'll be together again soon…I
promise!
Okay. Peace Out, Yo…
