I Left My Sneakers in Dimension X (9781439113240) Read online

  I decided it would be best to change the subject. “What does your ‘glorious boss’ want with us?” I asked.

  Spar Kellis frowned. “I’m not sure. He said someone was going to try to rescue you. Do you know who?”

  “Yeah. A guy named Grakker.”

  Spar Kellis’s three eyes got even rounder and bigger than they were already. He took a step back from our cage. “Uh-oh,” he said. “You really are in big trouble!”

  CHAPTER

  5

  The Pandimensionality

  THE MONSTER’S WORDS MADE MY stomach tighten. I heard Elspeth moan behind me. “What are you talking about?” I asked Spar Kellis nervously.

  He rolled his two outer eyes toward the center. “My glorious boss hates Grakker for what he did to his best friend.”

  “Who is his best friend?” I asked, feeling even more nervous than before.

  “A nasty little guy named BKR. He’s the only person in your dimension as cruel as Smorkus Flinders. It made for a special friendship between the two of them. Grakker is BKR’s archenemy, and not long ago he managed to arrest him for his crimes. Smorkus Flinders is out for revenge.”

  And what would Smorkus Flinders do if he found out that I had helped Grakker arrest BKR? I wondered nervously. Maybe decide to skip using me for bait and just make me the object of his revenge instead?

  “Isn’t that interesting?” I said, trying to keep my voice from trembling.

  “What’s your connection to Grakker?” asked Spar Kellis.

  Now here was a tricky question. Even though I had finally gotten past my compulsive truthfulness and learned to lie when the occasion called for it, I didn’t want to deny a friend. It seemed traitorous, somehow. On the other hand, given the situation, it was hard to tell just how dangerous the truth might be. (“Oh, you’re actually a friend of Grakker’s, eh? Sorry, but we’re going to have to turn you into a jam sandwich!”)

  I can’t say I was particularly quick in coming up with a skin-saving answer. But then, the weirdness of talking to someone whose face took up my entire field of vision did make thinking fast a little difficult.

  Somewhat to my surprise, it was Elspeth who bailed me out. Breaking free of her sniveling mode, she walked to the front of our cage and said, “Grakker made Rod do something once. I don’t know the guy at all. What’s he like?”

  Thanks, cousin, I thought. I owe you one.

  Spar Kellis looked a little puzzled. “I don’t know,” he said. “I never met him myself. I just know my glorious boss wants his skin.”

  “Just who is your glorious boss?” asked Elspeth, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hands. “I mean, I know his name, but who is he? The king or something?”

  Spar Kellis smiled proudly. “Smorkus Flinders is the most important creature in Dimension X.”

  “Why?” persisted Elspeth.

  “Because he’s the biggest.”

  “You judge people based on size?” I asked incredulously.

  “Don’t you?” replied the monster.

  No sooner did I start to deny the idea than my rebellious brain began supplying examples of times when we did just that—starting with my own experiences on the playground of Cherry Street School. That was one of the problems in dealing with alien creatures; they constantly made me look at the way we did things with a fresh eye, and I often did not like what I saw.

  While I was dithering over matters of size, Elspeth picked up our end of the conversation. “Tell me a little more about Dimension X,” she said.

  Spar Kellis paused. “Well, it’s known as one of the five strangest dimensions in the Pandimensionality,” he said at last.

  “The what!” I asked.

  “The Pandimensionality. It’s sort of a collection of dimensions.”

  “Just what is a dimension, anyway?” asked Elspeth.

  Spar Kellis wrinkled all three of his brows. “Well, it’s sort of like a universe. Except when you start talking in terms of dimensions, it means you’re aware that several universes can exist side by side.”

  “But isn’t the universe supposed to be infinite?” asked Elspeth.

  Spar Kellis shrugged his blubbery shoulders. “I guess so.”

  I saw what Elspeth was getting at. “But something that’s infinite goes on forever,” I said. “How can you have more than one infinitely big thing? Wouldn’t they run into each other?”

  “Of course not!” he snorted. “They vibrate differently, so they can be in the same place at the same time.”

  “So Dimension X and our dimension exist in the same place?” I asked.

  “Where else could they be?” he replied, as if he couldn’t believe I was asking such a dumb question.

  “I’m not sure I understand,” I said.

  Spar Kellis did his eye-crossing trick. “I don’t make the rules. I’m just trying to answer your questions—though now that I think of it, I probably shouldn’t be doing that.” Suddenly he narrowed his eyes, which made them sort of like squashed bowling balls. “Were you two trying to trick me?”

  “Trick you into what?” asked Elspeth.

  “Trouble!”

  He shivered, and I got the sense that getting in trouble with his glorious boss was the most horrifying thing he could think of. Without another word he turned and left the room.

  Unlike Smorkus Flinders, he did not go through the ceiling.

  He went through the floor.

  At least, that was what it looked like. But now that I actually looked at them, I suspected the walls were not where they had been the last time I checked, so maybe it wasn’t the floor after all. This whole place seemed to shift when you weren’t watching it. (If you think it’s confusing to imagine, you ought to try living it!)

  * * *

  For a long time neither Elspeth nor I said anything. Not that we didn’t have plenty to talk about. But we were both too exhausted to do much more than sit and stare at each other. After a while Elspeth crawled over to the side of the cage and curled up against it. She started to cry.

  “Don’t,” I said.

  “Why not?”

  I didn’t have any answer for that. Crying was perfectly reasonable under the circumstances. I just knew that usually when someone was crying you were supposed to try to get them to stop. After a while I surprised myself by sitting down beside her and patting her back, something my mother used to do for me when I had an earache and was crying with pain. After a while Elspeth fell asleep.

  After a while I did, too.

  * * *

  We were woken by the return of Spar Kellis. He came into the room carrying a covered tray that was tiny compared to him, enormous compared to us. I wondered if they had children in Dimension X and he had taken this tray from some poor kid’s doll set.

  “Time to eat!” he boomed cheerfully as he opened the door and thrust the tray into the cage.

  I stared at it nervously. Given how weird this dimension was, the idea of eating was pretty scary.

  Of course, not eating was even scarier.

  Spar Kellis didn’t wait to see if we enjoyed our meal. He turned away and disappeared through the left wall, leaving us on our own.

  “What do you think?” asked Elspeth nervously. “Is it safe to eat?”

  “Considering all the trouble they went through to get us here, I don’t see why they’d bother to poison us,” I replied. I didn’t mention that I was ravenously hungry, which might have had some impact on my thinking.

  Elspeth made a face. “I didn’t think they were trying to poison us. But what if we just can’t eat the food in this dimension? You know, like our bodies can’t digest it, and it clogs up our intestines, and we get horribly bloated and explode or something? What if that happens?”

  I remembered why I wasn’t surprised that Aunt Grace and Uncle Roger had wanted to leave Elspeth with us for a while.

  “What if we starve to death?” I replied.

  “It wouldn’t be as bad as exploding,” said Elspeth
, making a ghastly face.

  I stared at the covered tray for a moment longer, then said, “Well, it can’t hurt to look at it.”

  Now, if you’ve been on as many diets as I have, you know how this goes: You tell yourself you’re just going to look at something, and next thing you know you’re stuffing it in your face as fast as you can. I suspected that might happen this time. But I was too hungry to pay any attention to Elspeth’s warnings—which were not totally stupid, even if they were unnecessarily grisly.

  I tried to lift the lid from the tray. But though it was doll-size compared to Spar Kellis, it was still big enough to use for a Volkswagen hood in an emergency.

  “Elspeth, give me a hand!”

  “I don’t think I should, Rod. If you eat that stuff and die and I ever get home alive, your mother would never forgive me.”

  “Elspeth,” I snapped, “help me lift this thing or I can guarantee you’ll never get home alive!”

  I think I surprised myself as much as I did her. Cranky as Elspeth makes me, I had never actually yelled at her before. But then, I’ve hardly ever yelled at anyone. That’s just not the way I am.

  With an exaggerated sigh, she helped me lift the lid. Even though it looked like silver, it felt as if it was made of seaweed. “Yuck,” said Elspeth, rubbing her hands against her jeans.

  I didn’t know if she was talking about the feel of the lid, or the look of the mess we found underneath.

  CHAPTER

  6

  Dinner Conversation

  I HAD TO ADMIT, IT was pretty revolting—basically a pile of what looked like giant overcooked vegetables: soggy red spheres, leafy blue oblongs, and long snaky things that were probably roots of some sort. Or maybe they weren’t. In this place, who could tell?

  “I want a Twinkie,” I said.

  Elspeth was smirking. I think she had decided that she had won the point, and I wasn’t going to eat anything after all. But hunger can lead you to do desperate things, and I realized it had been stupid to think that in Dimension X I was going to get something that looked like Mom’s home cooking. So I picked up one of the red balls and took a bite.

  “How is it?” asked Elspeth.

  I am not proud of what I did then. Five weeks earlier, before I had learned to lie, I couldn’t have done it even if I had wanted to. But after Elspeth’s stomach-turning predictions about what might happen if we ate some of this stuff, I figured she had one coming. So instead of simply telling her that it was the worst thing I had ever tasted, something like a combination of chocolate and olives seasoned with mucus, I gave her a sickly grin and said, “Delicious!”

  She looked at me suspiciously, but picked up one of the red spheres and sniffed at it.

  Unfortunately for her, the smell gave no indication of how truly horrible this stuff was.

  So she took a bite.

  “Aaaaaagh!” she screamed, spitting it onto the floor of the cage. “That’s disgusting, Rod!”

  She began rubbing her mouth against her arm, trying to wipe out the taste.

  I know, I know—it was a rotten thing for me to do. But I paid for it in the end. Since Elspeth refused to taste anything else on the tray, it was all up to me. As luck would have it, the horrible red spheres turned out to be the best tasting thing Spar Kellis had brought us. You can consider my refusing to describe what the rest of the meal tasted like as an act of mercy.

  Well, at least I now knew one good thing about being stuck in Dimension X: It seemed likely that for the first time in my life I was going to be able to lose weight.

  * * *

  When Spar Kellis came to take our tray, he seemed annoyed that we had not done a better job on our meal.

  “You two have to eat,” he said, sounding a little nervous. “Smorkus Flinders has ordered me to keep you in good condition.”

  “I’d rather die than eat that stuff,” said Elspeth.

  Spar Kellis looked hurt. “I cooked it myself,” he said, his voice quavering.

  “It’s just that it’s not what we’re used to,” I said quickly.

  Spar Kellis smiled. “Oh,” he said. “Well, then it’s just a matter of time. I’m sure you’ll learn to love it.”

  Maybe he was right. Maybe if we had had a hundred years, we could have gotten used to that stuff. But I don’t think so.

  Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait that long.

  Things changed with the third meal that Spar Kellis brought us. As usual, we waited until he had left then lifted the lid and stared in despair at the meal. It looked pretty much like the last two messes he had brought us.

  However, this time there was one major difference. While I was still trying to work up my courage to try a bit of something again, the meal started to move.

  Jumping back, I watched in fascinated horror as a snaky green tendril thrust out of the center of the pile and began shifting the other things around.

  “Rod!” cried Elspeth, clutching my arm. “It’s alive. Our supper is alive!”

  “Alive and waiting for someone to lend a hand,” burped a familiar voice.

  “Phil!” I cried. “Phil, is that you?”

  “Phil?” asked Elspeth, who was pressed against the bars on the far side of the cage again.

  “Phillogenous esk Piemondum,” I replied. “He’s the Science Officer of the good ship Ferkel! At least, I think he’s the Science Officer. Actually, I’m not sure exactly what he—”

  “Are you going to help me out of this mess, or stand there and babble, young meat person?” interrupted Phil.

  “Oh—sorry,” I said. Stepping onto the tray, I shoved aside the vegetables and helped Phil to his roots.

  “That’s better,” he said, using his tendrils to pluck bits and pieces of our dinner from his body. “Even though they were not sentient, I don’t like being buried under things that in a better life might have been my cousins.”

  Unlike the first time I had met him, when he was only about two inches high, Phil was now full-size—which meant that he stood slightly higher than my waist. He had broad leaves and more curling tendrils than I could count. His face (if he had a face) was hidden in the large yellow-orange blossom that grew at the top of his center stalk. Only one thing was different from the way I remembered him . . .

  “Your pot!” I cried. “Where’s your pot?”

  Phil usually traveled in a large pot that had rockets mounted on the bottom. Now I saw bare roots waving about at the base of his stalk. It made him look naked somehow.

  “I had to remove myself from my pot in order to perform the deception that let me locate you.”

  I assumed that by “deception” he was referring to disguising himself as part of our dinner.

  “Where are the others?” I asked.

  “Coming soon, I hope,” said Phil. “I am carrying a homing device which should allow them to locate us. With luck, they should arrive before much more time goes by.” He paused, then asked, “Who is your companion?”

  I wondered if he had seen her or only heard her. I really had no idea how Phil sensed things. His light sensors, if he had them, could have been located anywhere.

  “This is my cousin, Elspeth.”

  “Greetings, Elspeth,” said Phil.

  “You’re a plant!” said Elspeth.

  This was none too intelligent, but no dumber than the things I had said when I first met Phil.

  “And you’re an animal,” replied Phil. “Is this an issue for you?”

  “But you’re talking!”

  “So are you.”

  “But you don’t have a mouth!”

  Curling a tendril, Phil drew aside a leaf to show one of the air pods that dangled from his inner stalk. “I use pod burps,” he explained.

  A blue face, small and furry, peered out from under another leaf and squeaked at us.

  “You’re infested!” gasped Elspeth.

  “That’s Plink,” I said. “He’s Phil’s symbiote.”

  “His what?”

  “Th
ey’re a team. Plink runs and fetches for Phil. In return he gets to eat any branches, leaves, and nuts that Phil is done with.”

  Elspeth made a face. “That’s sick!”

  “Careful,” I said in a whisper, “or he’ll start telling you what parts of human biology are really disgusting.”

  “We have no time for a meaty discussion,” said Phil. “We must prepare for the arrival of the Ferkel.”

  “How are we supposed to prepare?” I asked. “It’s not like we have to pack or anything.”

  “Prepare mentally,” burped Phil. “Be ready for rapid action.”

  Yeah, and stay calm, too, I thought.

  And then there wasn’t any more time to think, because the Ferkel came through the wall.

  My joy at seeing the ship was cut short by the fact that the world suddenly went crazy. A burst of pink light filled the room. A high-pitched whine sliced through the air. The walls began to waver and change color.

  And Elspeth grew tentacles.

  CHAPTER

  7

  Reality Quake

  ELSPETH BEGAN TO SHRIEK. FLASHES of pink light continued to erupt in the room. The whine got higher and shriller.

  “What’s going on?” I cried in horror, even as I backed away from Elspeth’s writhing, lashing tentacles.

  “Reality Quake,” burped Phil.

  I noticed that the Ferkel was tumbling end over end. It seemed to be going backward and forward at the same time, which didn’t make any sense, but somehow didn’t surprise me, given everything else that was happening.

  “What’s a Reality Quake?” shrieked Elspeth, who was about a foot taller than she had been a minute before. She was also turning green. I wondered what I looked like now, then decided that I didn’t want to know.

  Phil raised his blossom, and I saw behind his petals for the first time.

  He had Elspeth’s face!

  “A Reality Quake is a Dimension X natural disaster,” he said, shifting his feet—not his roots, his feet!—as the floor of our cage began to bubble. “It is like an earthquake on your world, except that what shifts is not the earth, but reality itself.”