Chapter 19: The Land of Paste and Honey
“You two are very quick,” the scientist said. “Definitely not pasty enough.”
He checked his watch. “Now,” he said, and behind them, rain filled the dome. The plants disappeared in the downpour. A breeze splattered droplets on Naomi’s face and hands, tickling her skin. Even though this place is so wrong, she thought, it’s kind of beautiful.
They were in a tunnel. Where the air in the dome had been moist and humid, the air inside the tunnel was hot and dry. The tunnel was amber-colored, speckled in places and gleaming like finished marble. A few steps in and a humming sound overpowered the sound of rain.
“What’s that noise?” Naomi asked. The scientist stopped.
“Ah,” he said. “You are a curious one, are you not? But very astute. You are hearing the sound of my greatest invention. Honey bees.”
“You didn’t invent honey bees,” Sammy said.
“You talk, too?” said the scientist. “We’ve got to get you to Pastification.”
“He didn’t invent honey bees,” Sammy told her.
“Paste company holds the patent,” said the scientist.
“You can’t patent honey bees,” said Sammy.
The scientist’s face clouded over. “Well, the paste company owns the patent,” he said.
Sammy moved to the wall and Naomi followed.
The wall was not a wall at all, but curved glass, much like that of the dome. Millions of insects crawled on the other side.
Sammy said, “These bees work together to make the hive. See these patterns here? They’re honeycombs. They’re the walls of the hive.” He turned his face towards her. “They grow their babies in them, and they store the honey there, too.”
She looked at the dancing bees inside. The bee fuzz reminded her of the strawberry.
“How do they do this?” she asked.
Sammy said, “They have special parts that allow them to do all kinds of neat things. All of the these bees are related, so they work together as a family.”
“Is the whole tunnel made of bees?” she asked.
Behind her the scientist said, “This is the honey bee manufacturing facility.”
“What do you do with all the honey?” said Sammy.
“It goes into paste production,” the scientist said.
“You feed it to the horses?” said Sammy.
“They metabolize it, yes.”
“Why do you feed it to horses when you can feed it to people?” asked Sammy.
“Honey has too much energy,” said the scientist. “It would make people crazy. Paste calms people.”
“Paste is boring,” said Naomi. “And it is made from horse poop.”
“Paste company holds the patent,” said the scientist.
“It’s disgusting,” she said.
“It’s very efficient,” he said. “And paste is fortified.”
“Fortified with what?” Sammy said.
“Calming agents,” replied the scientist. “Paste company holds the patent.”
“But people don’t need calming agents,” said Naomi. “They need to eat something that isn’t horse poop.”
“That will never do,” said the scientist. “The paste company would go out of business if that were true.”
“Maybe it should go out of business,” she said.
“I don’t know about that. I am only a scientist,” he said, “I don’t know business, but if the paste company went out of business, what would you do for electricity?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “But this is wrong.”
“I don’t know about that. I am only a scientist. Wrong and right are for the politicians to decide,” he said.
“You’re so awful,” she said.
“We really have to get you pastier,” he said. “Come along now.”
Naomi’s face twisted. She balled up her fists. She felt the blood in her chest driving her heart like a rain-swollen river. How could this man act like he didn’t care about their lives?
“Okay,” said Sammy. His hand was on her back. “Okay,” he said. “It’s not worth it.”
“How can you say it’s not worth it?” she said, turning her anger loose on him.
“That’s not what I mean,” he said. “We got to focus on something we can do. You’re not going to change this guy.”
She looked at the scientist as he ambled away.
“You’re right,” she said. “I’m here for the horses. Anything else we can do is just icing on the paste.”
Sammy smiled at her in a way that let her know for sure that they were in this together. She smiled back. Sammy cocked his head toward the scientist, and the two of them followed him again.
At the tunnel’s end was a door marked “Lab.” They entered the lab. It was filled with tables and sinks covered with all kinds of jars, dishes, knobs, and faucets. One wall was covered with blinking machines. White people wearing white coats stood around the room, turning dials or pouring liquids into other liquids. One stared into a dark window cut into the middle of the wall. Suddenly, a blinding light burst from the window, illuminating the white person’s head like a light bulb.
“That can’t be good,” said Sammy.
“Just some experiments,” said the scientist. “All for science.”
They passed through a storage room. Shelves were filled with all kinds of instruments, rocks, bones, and jars filled with what looked like fish but had small arms and legs.
They entered a hallway with windows on either side. Naomi saw grass and trees and even water through the first window. Long armed animals with white and black faces hung in tree branches. Naomi smiled as they went limb-to-limb, grabbing branches with their tails.
“Monkeys,” Sammy told her. “I read about them in our books.”
“They are crazy,” she said.
Gray animals like great lumps of stone were in the next room. They had huge ears and noses like hoses. Their tails looked like paintbrushes.
“Elephants,” said Sammy. “They’re the largest animals in the world. On land. Or they were.”
“What do you mean ‘they were’?” she asked. “They’re right there.”
“They’re supposed to be all gone,” he said.
“Well, they’re not,” she said.
A sinewy tree grew in the next room, which was blanketed with tall grass. Lounging in the shade of the tree were two enormous cats, one with a stringy yellow mane.
“Lions,” Sammy said. “They hunt everything,” he said. “Look, there are the caribou.”
He pointed to something hidden in the tall grass. It took Naomi a second to see them, but all of a sudden the grass seemed to change into slender animals with long necks, thin faces, and long, straight horns jutting from their heads. Some looked at the lions. Others stuck their heads in the grass.
“They eat grass?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said.
Then a strange thing happened. The wall opened. A white person came out, holding a wet slab of something red draped across both arms. Red marks stained the jumpsuit around its arms and chest. It approached the hill. There was no fear on the person’s face, but in its walk, Naomi recognized an impending catastrophe.
“What’s it doing?” she said.
“It’s feeding time,” said the scientist.
The lions stood. The white person moved slower.
“What?” Naomi yelled. “He’s going to get eaten.”
“Come along,” said the scientist.
“I can’t watch,” said Sammy, and he turned away.
The larger lion stretched. Then it roared. Even through the glass, the roar vibrated through Naomi. The person flinched.
“No!” Naomi shouted.
Sammy pulled her away from the glass. “You shouldn’t watch that either,” he said.
She shook her head, trying to convince herself that there must have been another outcome, that the person did not get eaten.
All these poor white people, she thought.
They came to another archway, but instead of honeybees, there was water. Plants waved everywhere, and different colored fish swam through rock formations. Fish as flat as dinner plates swam by like waving flags. Blue, gold, and black, they darted when a bigger fish swam between them.
“A shark,” said Sammy. “Like the lion of the sea.”
“Look,” Naomi squealed. The shark darted away, only to be replaced by two animals that looked like the shark, only friendlier.
“Dolphins,” Sammy said. “They aren’t fish, but mammals. Like us. They used to live on land, but then started living in the ocean.”
“How did they live on land with those fins?”
“They used to have legs, like us,” he said.
“They used to walk around on their legs?”
“Well, they probably had four legs.”
“How do you know all this?” she wondered.
“It’s all in our books,” he said, “I thought that dolphins were gone, too, though.”
“We don’t have books like that in school,” she said.
“We don’t go to school,” he said. “Momma teaches us.”
“Do you like it?” she asked.
“It’s okay,” Sammy said. “Some farmers don’t teach their kids biology or evolution. Momma always tells us to be careful of people that don’t believe in evolution.”
“What’s evolution?” she asked.
“The idea that plants and animals adapt to their surroundings and grow so they can survive in a changing world. Some families believe that everything was created in a couple of days.”
“Created? Like by a person?” she asked.
“Something like that,” he said.
She nodded at the scientist. “You mean like how the scientist says he invented bees?”
“Yeah. They believe that the world was invented all at once. Like by some giant scientist.”
“That doesn’t sound right,” she said.
“No it don’t. But people swear by it. They’ll like to cut your throat if you say any different,” he said.
The dolphins swam loops. Naomi had the feeling they were dancing for her.
“They may be the smartest animals,” he said. “Besides us, I guess.”
One dolphin flapped a flipper at her. “Maybe smarter,” she said. She waved back.
The dolphins swam along the hallway as Naomi and Sammy continued to follow the scientist. Again fish flashed out of the dolphin’s way.
“I think they like us,” Sammy said.
“I like them,” she said.
The dolphins pointed themselves upward, and flipped out of sight.
The tunnel darkened as something big, like a submerged building, floated downward. Something flapped on the side of it once, then again. It turned. Naomi looked up, and a vast eyeball looked back.
Naomi grabbed Sammy’s arm. “What is that?” she whispered.
Sammy whispered, “It’s a whale.”
“A whale?” she whispered. She felt like the eye was looking right into her, like it was gauging the goodness of her heart.
“It’s like a big dolphin,” he said.
“This is nothing like a dolphin,” she said. “It’s like looking into the eye of the whole world.”
The whale’s gaze moved across them. The giant animal rotated and Naomi shivered when its body cracked open to reveal its big tongue. The shadow of the creature fell across the scientist, and he stopped. Eclipsed, he turned his moon-like face towards the whale. He put on his glasses, and in an instant, the whale was gone.
“Wow,” said Sammy. “Nobody’s going to believe this.”
The world really is a magical place, Naomi thought.