Parker, Sunny, and Bubba inched down yet another isle of Sky City Hobbies and Toys. After the formation of their military-school friendship pact, there was a tight-lipped embarrassment. Parker had seen this before, when he’d complimented Old Lady Smattering on her new hair-do. They’d passed each other late one evening in The Cloud Deck. He’d gone up there the night his dad left for the airport to return to his unit, the location of which Parker had pleaded to know. His dad had ultimately refused to say. Alone in their apartment that night, Parker lay in bed, tossing and turning until finally throwing on some clothes and going to The Cloud Deck around midnight. Sandy was closing up for the evening and Parker found a smidgeon of comfort in the hot-fudge brownie sundae Sandy had prepared for him. On his way back to the elevator, he’d nearly walked head-on into his reclusive neighbor as she was beginning her night shift. For once she didn’t look like an electrocuted zombie. “Your hair looks very pretty today. I mean tonight,” Parker said.
“Why, thank you, Parker,” she replied. She patted the underside of her hair with her palm.
They endured an uncomfortable silence. She finally freed them both by suggesting he get to bed.
In the toy store, Parker, Sunny, and Bubba avoided looking at each other during a similar silence.
“So!” said Bubba, “Who wants a bite of my last Frinkie?”
Parker felt glad Bubba had been the one to break the trance, confident he wouldn’t have been able to do it himself. He and Sunny happily accepted Bubba’s gift as he broke the Frinkie into thirds and shared it with his friends. Bubba wiped his hands on a napkin as they chewed in silence, each of them happy to have something to do.
Together they went back to the business of trying to forget they were standing in what was becoming an interminably long line.
Parker busied himself playing with a Firecracker Baseball he’d found out of its package. He and Bubba had spent many summer nights playing baseball in Canary Downs. Parker would hold the ball in his hand and curl his first two fingers over the top of it, placing them on the red seam, with his thumb on the bottom of the smooth leather, and a gap between the ball and his palm. Bubba had explained how this was the key to throwing a good four-seam fastball, one of the fastest pitches in baseball, just like the pros used. Bubba had learned it from his dad, and had readily taught Parker the technique, how to grip-it-and-rip-it. Parker was grateful, and he often practiced gripping and throwing the ball to Bubba, and found he liked the pitch. Whenever he practiced pitching fastballs to Bubba, part of him longed to have learned it from his own father, in a time-honored tradition more about learning how to be a man than how to throw a baseball. When Parker’s arm had begun to tire, he and Bubba took out their Firecracker Baseballs. They took turns lobbing balls to each other. Each time they connected, the ball soared into the air. After a few seconds it exploded into a spectacular display of fireworks. He and Bubba were currently hashing out a secret plan to hit them off the roof of Sky City North, hoping to blame it on Brent Spade. They were thus watching Brent whenever he came to Skycade, waiting for him to take off his precious jacket and leave it unattended, so they could quickly swipe it in order that they could leave it at the scene of the crime.
Bubba counted the dead insects he’d noticed inside the fluorescent light fixtures. Sunny talked quietly to herself, eagerly repeating and memorizing the writing printed on a shiny black box containing a Chocolate Critter Kit. Splashy pink-and-green writing on the front of the box boasted it contained not only the dehydrated ready-to-hatch eggs of perfectly edible insects, but also the fondue pot, long, tiny forks, and the chocolate sauce used for dipping. Not suitable for children under eight and some assembly required. Sunny said she could easily find the insects herself in the park and then melt a chocolate bar at home in her mom’s double-boiler. The ecstatic kids featured on the box were about to enjoy what looked like wriggling green tomato worms, their fat bodies and little caterpillar legs drenched and dripping with melted chocolate. Sunny said she had seen plenty of those in her mom’s garden, crawling on the undersides of leaves. She suggested they would make an excellent interactive appetizer during Parker’s birthday party at Bubba’s.
“Does that mean you’re not going to Lonnie’s party?” asked Parker.
“I already made plans with you guys,” said Sunny. “I couldn’t accept the invitation.”
Sunny had answered the question but Parker still felt strange. She said she wasn’t going to the party, but did she want to? It was obvious Lonnie liked her. Lonnie and his yacht-buying out-of-town parents. It seemed strange that in a time of war there were people out there living their lives and buying yachts. If so, it made sense that there were also people out there living their lives and having slumber parties. Parties were fun. It was natural for Sunny to want to attend; she had a lot of friends, a lot of people liked her. Including Lonnie. It was natural for Lonnie to like her. But the real question was: Did Sunny like Lonnie?
“We’re not really going to eat bugs, are we?” Parked asked.
“Of course not,” said Sunny. “This whole insect-eating craze is lunacy if you ask me.”
“You guys hungry?” said Bubba. He was eying the chocolate worms on the box Sunny held in her hands. “Wanna blow this off and get a pizza? It’s been almost three hours. My feet hurt. My stomach hurts. There’s seventeen dead flies, nine dead moths, and thirty-four dead roaches in the lights. Even the worms on that box look appetizing.”
“Manduca quinquemaculata,” said Sunny.
Parker and Bubba stared blankly. “Man duke-uh what-uh?” said Bubba.
“Quinquemaculata,” said Sunny. “It’s binomial nomenclature. Naming all plants and animals on earth according to their Genus and Species names. A Swedish botanist guy named Carolus Linnaeus invented it in 1757. Scientific taxonomy. Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. Pretty smart, huh?”
“Did you learn all this at your old school?” asked Bubba.
Sitting next to Lonnie, maybe, thought Parker.
“No,” said Sunny, “it says it right here on the box.” She showed them the small print.
“Good,” said Parker, “I don’t feel quite as stupid now.”
“But I’m still just as hungry,” said Bubba. “Let’s go get a pie. Salami and black olives, Park, just the way you like it.”
“I am pretty hungry,” said Parker. “Sunny?”
“If we leave now,” said Sunny, “I can use the extra time to find the tomato worms and maybe some crickets and get the chocolate melting.” Parker and Bubba exchanged alarmed looks. “Or we could just eat pizza.” She put the Chocolate Critter Kit back on the shelf. “But meeting Colby Max and seeing a real Go-Boy Battle-Suit is your birthday wish. Bring on the war mice, remember?” She surveyed Parker for a moment. “No, I say we stay here. We’ve come too far to quit now. Besides, I’d rather not ride the monorail again just yet if I can help it. Bubba, can you see the front of the line? We’ve got to be almost there.”
Bubba stood on his toes and tilted his head back. “I can only see heads of hair, balding heads of hair, and baseball caps.” He jumped up in the air once, then a second time, then a third. “Yeah, I can see the suit.”
“Really?” Parker dropped the Firecracker Baseball into a bin of Semi-Artificial Dog Doo marked Clearance! “What does it look like?”
Bubba jumped up and down, up and down, again and again. People nearby began to look at the boy leaping into the air in the middle of a toy store. “It looks like it does . . . on SV . . . and . . . in the movies.” He gasped for breath between bursts of words.
“Cool,” said Parker. “We definitely can’t leave now.”
“But look . . . .” Bubba leaned forward with his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. He held up his wrist so Parker and Sunny could inspect his Go-Boy watch. The tiny Battle-Suit soared through the sky, pushing puffy white clouds into giant numbers: 12:15. They had about forty-five minutes to get to the front of the line.
“We’ll make it,” said
Sunny.
Parker hoped she were right. If she were wrong, this birthday would be even worse than he’d previously thought.
Thirty minutes later, they were near the front of the line. The store manager, a short, plump man with glasses perched on the tip of his nose and sweat stains under the armpits of his yellow shirt announced Colby Max would be leaving at one o’clock sharp. The line seemed to move a bit faster after that. The swarm of teen-aged toy store employees did their best running the registers and herding the excited fans, even enlisting the help of the handful of bored-looking security guards perched near Colby Max and the impressive Battle-Suit display. A handful of people dressed in business suits hustled to and fro, always hovering protectively over the expensive Battle-Suit. Sunny suggested they were movie studio executive lackeys, sent to baby sit. Try as he might, Parker couldn’t quite get a better look at Colby Max or Igby Fry or the Battle-Suit for all the jostling and moving back and forth going on in front of them. Colby and Igby were the same age as Parker, Sunny, and Bubba, and Parker wondered if they would look the same in person as they did on-screen.
At last it was their turn.
The boy in the lightning bolt helmet was yanked forward by his mother. She dragged him over to the table where Colby Max sat, beset by a sea of posters for his new movie and several stacks of glossy black-and-white production still-photos taken during the film shoot. The boy’s mom purchased several of Colby Max’s eight-and-a-half-by-eleven head shots and he scribbled his name across them. She led her son over to the most amazing thing Parker had ever seen: a life-sized Go-Boy Battle-Suit.
But this one wasn’t a cheap plastic piece of junk like those they played with in Skycade. Nor was it the crummy, ill-fitting costumes Parker and Bubba had worn on Halloween the last two years, trick-or-treating their way up and down the endless hallways of Sky City South accumulating pounds of candy they knew they would never be able to finish. This suit was easily eight feet tall. It stood next to the table where Colby Max sat glancing at his watch. There was no sign of Igby Fry. The suit was a brilliant pewter-gray color, with lots of black accents. It gleamed under the lights. It looked like someone had taken a mold of a professional bodybuilder and combined it with a robot and then re-made it as a menacing jet fighter aircraft. Parker looked under the table at its massive black booted feet, then at the enormous hands dangling at the wrists. He couldn’t wait to get closer and actually touch it.
The front of the suit was open and a stepped platform placed in front of it. The boy in the helmet stood on the first step and then looked slowly up at the suit, at the broad shoulders, at the shiny black canopy. He slowly removed his white plastic helmet.
He opened his mouth and started to bawl. Tears squirted from the corners of his eyes and he balled-up his fists and started to shake all over, howling. “It’s not real! It’s not real! It’s not real!”
“Next!”
Parker jumped as Colby Max yelled for the person next in line.
The boy’s mother dragged him off the platform and out of the store. He could still be heard screaming outside. “It’s not real . . . .” The noise finally faded away as they rode slowly up the escalator.
“What a loser, eh, Dad?” Colby Max rolled his eyes. He exchanged looks with a man standing behind him wearing a smart baby-blue pinstriped suit. Colby’s dad patted his shoulder.
“Maybe he was scared,” said Sunny. She and Parker and Bubba approached the table.
“Maybe he should get a real flight jacket,” said Colby.
“Maybe they can’t afford one,” replied Sunny.
“Maybe his mom should lay-off the bottle and get a job instead of skating by on my tax dollars,” said Colby. “The woman stunk like a liquor store. And isn’t it time the top one percent of earners in this country stopped paying ninety percent of the taxes? It’s un-American. The harder I work and the more money I make, the more I have to pay? No way, Jose. How about if we invert the tax bracket? That way, the more you make, the less you pay. That would encourage people to want to get into those tax brackets and be able to keep more of their money.” He looked Sunny up and down. “By the way, may I just say that you, mademoiselle, are simply breathtaking. C’est très magnifique! I know this is completely insane because we just met forty-eight-point-two seconds ago, but I meet a lot of people, most of them female I might add, and none of them compares to you. You are ravishing. And I love your sandals. I know I’m probably coming on too strong and I’m being impulsive, but that’s the kind of person I am. When I want something, I go after it. I get out of my own way and I don’t listen to anyone who tries to bring me down or talk me out of it. I don’t believe in wasting time, either. Life is too short. If you please, indulge me by granting me the joy of learning your name.”
Sunny’s eyelashes fluttered. Her head tilted to one side. She smiled. “Sunny.”
“How apropos.” Colby held out his hand.
“I’ve always thought so.” Sunny looked at Colby’s outstretched hand. “If I am not mistaken, Mr. Max, a gentleman always waits for a lady to offer her hand. To do otherwise could be considered forward.”
“Indeed it could.” Colby’s hand remained outstretched.
Sunny’s smile broadened.
Parker wanted to scream. First Brent and now Colby Max? This had to be a joke. This whole day had to be a joke. The last three years had to be a joke.
“Is there a problem, Colby?” Nearby stood the man in the yellow shirt. The sweat stains were now spreading to his chest.
“I told you to call me ‘Mr. Max,’ ” said Colby. “Dad, he’s not calling me ‘Mr. Max.’ ” Colby turned back to the man in the yellow shirt. “What happened to the other store manager? Don’t make me call the studio. Barbie can get Terry Hawthorne on the phone in a heartbeat. ‘Here’s your chilidog, Terry.’ ‘Thanks, babe.’ ‘Hey Moody, you owe me a year’s worth of lunches.’ ”
Parker watched and listened as Colby’s voice and expression changed. Nothing Colby said was making sense. Why was he talking about chili dogs? Who was Moody and why did he owe a year’s worth of lunches? Then Parker realized what Colby was doing: he was acting.
“‘Ricky!’ ‘What?’ ‘Where am I and how the hell do I get out of here?’ ‘C’mon.’ ‘Rudy the Rabbit, Rudy the Rabbit.’ ‘It just doesn’t matter, it just doesn’t matter, it just doesn’t matter.’ ‘It’s in the hole! It’s in the hole.’ ‘Come in, Ray. It’s right here. It’s looking at me.’ ‘This city is about to face a disaster of Biblical proportions.’ ‘Well, he’s ugly. He’s not Elephant Man-ugly, but he’s not attractive. Was his father ugly?’ ” Colby turned to Sunny. “‘You can’t go! All the plants are gonna die!’ ‘In the past four hours, I’ve lost my car, my job, my apartment, and my girlfriend.’ ‘Chicks dig me, because I rarely wear underwear and when I do it’s usually something unusual.’ ‘Oh, God, I wish I was a loofah.’ ‘Son of beach, sheet. SON OF BEACH, SHEET!’ ”
Parker watched Colby look directly at him and say, “‘I think we’re getting into a weird area here, tootsie. I’m just afraid you’re going to burn in hell for all this.’ ‘For relaxing times, make it Suntory time.’ ‘Would you like to join my crew? I’ll order you a red cap and a Speedo.’ ” Colby closed his eyes, raised both hands, and said, “And . . . scene!” He open his eyes and began to bow repeatedly. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”
Everyone began to applaud. Parker looked around and saw everyone clapping, even Sunny and Bubba. Everything Colby just said seemed more like schizophrenic rambling than like acting. He hadn’t understood any of it. Yet everyone stood applauding and smiling and shaking their heads in disbelief and admiration.
“You know,” said Colby, “I had a job once buying fabric for Terry Hawthorne’s wife. I went to their house. I knew very well who Terry Hawthorne was. To be in their house was quite surreal. She gave me a soda and the name of a fabric she wanted. So my dad drove me downtown to this one fabric store she said had the fabric and it took forty-five minu
tes to park and they didn’t have the fabric so I had to call her and tell her. I could hear the disappointment in her voice. A few days later I got the part in the first Go-Boy film and the rest is history. I often wonder what would have happened if I had found the fabric. But like I said,” Colby suddenly became angry again, “don’t make me get Terry on the phone!” He snapped his fingers and a young woman with bobbing curly yellow hair and wearing a tight red business suit stepped tentatively forward.
The man in the yellow shirt forced a smile. “I’m Mr. Alvin,” he stammered, “I’m, uh, also a store manager.” He turned to Parker, Sunny, and Bubba. “Welcome to Sky City Hobbies and Toys. Why don’t you two get an autograph from Colby—er, Mr. Max—while you get your picture in the suit.” He carefully escorted Parker to the Battle-Suit and watched closely as Parker climbed the platform. Nearby stood a sleepy-looking photographer cradling an impressive black laser-film camera. The sleeveless vest he wore was rampant with little pockets and zippers and covered with small flags from countries all around the world. Around his neck hung a black leather string to which many large, sharp-looking teeth were attached.
“Come on, kid, up you go,” said the photographer. Barbie looked on uncertainly. The executive lackeys stood behind her, one eye on Colby, the other on the Battle-Suit.
Parker slowly mounted the steps. He heard the photographer mutter something about combat photojournalism and never again working with kids or animals or robots.
“Isn’t Colby handsome?”
From atop the steps Parker saw a tall, thin woman with curly hair and dangling earrings sitting in a chair behind a cardboard display for Go-Boy . . . Unleashed. She had only become visible when he ascended the platform steps. She smiled up at him.
“Ma!” said Colby, “how many times have I gotta tell ya not to embarrass me in front of my public?”
“I’m sorry, honey, but I’m just so proud of you.”
“My mother, Ginny,” said Colby to Sunny and Bubba. “Say, ‘hi,’ ma.”
“Hello,” said Ginny. Her grandmotherly-sweet voice seemed to come from out of thin air as she sat behind the cardboard display. She batted her big blue eyes at Parker. She and Old Lady Smattering ought to get together for tea.
Parker reached the top step and recalled why he was there. He put his hand on the breastplate of the suit. It was cool and smooth.
“Don’t touch the merchandise, kid,” said the man in the pinstriped suit. It was Colby’s dad. Barbie and the lackeys exchanged nervous looks.
“But I thought—”
“You thought wrong. Didn’t you see the sign?” He pointed to a red and white sign dangling from the Battle-Suit’s wrist by a white string: DON’T TOUCH.
“It’s okay, dad,” said Colby. “He wouldn’t know what to do with it anyway.”
“Wanna bet?” said Bubba.
“How much?” snapped Colby.
“All the tea in China,” said Bubba.
Colby rolled his eyes again. “That’s stupid. What would I do with all the tea in China? I love a steaming hot mug of Earl Gray, but I could never use all the tea in China. And I sure don’t want to be remembered as the guy who took all the tea away from China, even if I did win it fair-and-square. Besides, you don’t own the tea in China so you can’t wager with it.”
“Well, then . . .,” said Bubba, grasping for a response.
“It’s okay, Bubba,” said Parker, “if he’s afraid I might damage his cute little plastic suit, it’s okay.”
“Plastic!” said Colby. He jumped up from his chair and walked over to Parker and the Go-Boy suit. Barbie began chewing on her red fingernails. “This thing is pure titanium,” said Colby. He knocked on the breastplate. It made a solid, impressive sound. “Super strong but extremely light.”
“What about this?” Parker tapped on the black canopy. “Plastic, right?”
“Heck, no!” said Colby. “Photosensitive transparent aluminum, courtesy of Mr. Scot, like on the monorail I rode this morning. Except better, of course.”
“The production team spared no expense on the mock-up,” said Colby’s dad. “Everything was detailed to the exact specifications of Dr. Igby.” He pointed to a second life-sized cardboard cut-out image of a boy with short brown hair and glasses, wearing an oversized lab coat with his sleeves rolled up. “Sorry he couldn’t be here today. He’s at home. Sick.”
“As usual,” muttered Colby, though Parker heard him clearly. He wondered if Igby knew his co-star and supposed friend spoke so derisively of him in his absence. Parker had read that the two boys were very close, though there were rumors Colby was jealous of Igby’s triple doctorate degrees and genius-level Intelligence Quotient. Parker was beginning to think those rumors had substance to them. This gave him an idea.
“I guess I won’t get in it,” said Parker, “since Igby’s not here and everything. We wouldn’t want to mess anything up.”
“I’m the lead pilot,” said Colby. “Not Igby. He’s the hamster running on the wheel back at the lab, wearing that dumb coat that’s too big for him.”
“Still,” said Parker, “he’d be mad if we broke something.”
Colby rolled his eyes a third time. “We’re not going to break anything. Besides, it’s my suit. I fly it and I can do what I want with it. So, if you want, you can get in it. But just for a minute.” Barbie yanked a fingernail completely off with her teeth. The lackeys whispered to each other.
“Colby, I’m not sure this is a good idea,” said Colby’s dad through clenched teeth and a phony, well-veneered smile. “Think of the potential liability.”
“I’m the star and I say it’s okay. Besides, Dad, you’ve gotta keep your fans happy! First rule of show business. The second rule of course being always leave ’em wanting more. Which is why we’re going to make this quick.”
Parker looked over at Bubba and Sunny, who stood there like deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. Their friend was not only arguing with the biggest SuperVision and movie star in the world but was actually tricking him into encouraging a complete stranger to try on the one-and-only Go-Boy Battle-Suit.
“Colby was always such a generous boy,” said Ginny from behind her cardboard.
“Ma!” Colby rolled his eyes again.
“But that’s how I raised you,” said Ginny. Colby and his dad exchanged a look and this time they both rolled their eyes.
Parker stepped onto the knee joint of the Battle-Suit. He swung one leg and then the other into the cockpit and slid into the suit, just as he had a thousand times before at Skycade. He reached his hands down into the arms, where he carefully pushed his hands into the soft gloves at the ends. He made a fist, then opened it, and watched in amazement as Go-Boy’s massive metal hand matched his every movement. It may not have been real, like the boy in the plastic helmet had said, but it was the next best thing.
“This is cool!” said Parker.
But his head was inside the cockpit and Sunny and Bubba and Ginny all said, “What?”
Go-Boy’s arm moved up, bent at the elbow, and the long black index finger tapped a button below the black canopy and it whisked open, revealing Parker’s beaming face.
“I said, this is cool.”
“You want your picture taken now or what?” said the photographer. His shutter clicked several times as he made lasergraphs of Parker.
“How do I look?” Parker asked.
“Like you were born to wear that suit,” said Sunny. Bubba nodded vigorously.
“Just one problem, kid,” said Colby.
“His name’s Parker,” said Bubba.
“There’s just one problem, Parker,” Colby continued, “this is my suit. So, someday when you’ve spent your whole life making a name for yourself in showbiz and you get your own SuperVision show and a four-picture deal, then you can have your own Go-Boy. Until then, scram, because it’s one o’clock and time’s up.”
Mr. Alvin stepped forward and spoke to Colby’s dad. “He can’t leave yet. What
about all these people? They’re likely to riot.”
“He was never going to meet all of ’em anyway,” said Colby’s dad. “Give ’em a free poster and say better luck next time. We might be back next year. Colby does have a four-picture deal, you know.”
“And I will have to deal with all these irate people. He can’t just leave!”
“Well . . . too bad!” said Colby’s dad. “Colby needs his lunch now.”
“And it better not be bagels!” added Colby. “I’m sick of bagels. Bye!”
All at once the toy store was a mess of shouting, angry people. The people in the front of the line shouted about their chance to meet Colby. The people in the back of the line pushed against those in front of them, who in turn pushed back. The pimple-faced store employees and the no-longer bored security guards fought hopelessly to calm everyone down.
In the chaos, no one noticed as the back door of the store opened and four men in dark suits entered. They strode through the swinging door onto the sales floor. In mere moments they had surrounded the autograph signing area. One of them grabbed the photographer’s camera, opened it with a brief burst of red laser light, and yanked out the roll of film, spilling its entire length onto the floor.
“You just cost me a day’s work!” shouted the photographer, though no one heard him or paid any attention.
Two other men kept an eye on the sea of people, looking malevolently at the mothers and fathers of the countless crestfallen children still in line.
Another man grabbed Parker around the waist and pulled him out of the Battle-Suit. He tossed Parker over his shoulder and walked through the still-swinging door to the warehouse. The other men stopped what they were doing and followed him through the door.
Mr. Alvin and Colby’s dad were still shouting face to face, like an umpire and a coach arguing over a call during a baseball game.
Sunny and Bubba stood motionless next to Colby, who had been forced off the step-platform when Parker was yanked from the Battle-Suit.
The headlights on the car bearing down on them seemed to have just gotten much brighter.
Chapter 13
Riding a Camel