I turn to go but he shoots in front of me. The hallway is so narrow, he fills the whole space. I have no choice but to hear him out.
“I agree with you,” he says. “About the importance of getting your friend and his parents back. I’d bet your father does, too, but he can’t let on. These rules are as old as time. He can’t set a precedent by going against them simply because friends are involved. It would show weakness, and that is something your father would never do. Ever.” He glances behind him, then lowers his voice. “But I’ll help you because, well, I really like their beaches.” He lowers it even further. “And fantasy football.”
I give him my full attention now. “But I thought you said it was too late, that the whole solar system is completely gone?”
“Oh, it is. No trace that it ever existed. So what we’ll do is this—I’ll keep the PTB off your trail for as long as I can. We’ll temporarily suspend your pie delivery services so none of the view screens will show your activity. You won’t be able to tell anyone what you’re doing, of course, not even your brothers.”
Laughter comes from the closet-room, and a slurping-through-a-straw noise follows. I lower my voice. “How can I tell them what I’m doing if I have no idea what you’re talking about?”
He glances around to make sure we’re still alone. “You’ll be rebuilding it, of course.”
I stare at his face and am reminded of Annika’s garbage-disposal comment. But even his bizarre appearance can’t distract me from his words. “You want me to rebuild Earth?”
“No.”
“That’s a relief.”
“I want you to rebuild the entire solar system,” he says. “And quickly, because the PTB catch on fast to any unusual activities. You’ll have to make it exactly the way it was before. But this time, Annika can’t be allowed to look in that telescope and find The Realms. It’s your only chance. It’s humanity’s only chance.”
Okay, Gluck the Yuck is officially insane. “That’s totally impossible. How am I supposed to rebuild Earth and its solar system exactly the way it was? Any tiny little change and the whole thing could turn out different. I only got a C in Planet Building class. I couldn’t possibly do this.”
“But you can,” he insists. “All you need to do is figure it out by working backward.”
“Backward? Backward from what?”
He twitches his thumb toward the closed door. “From her.”
I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a Ferris wheel.
—E. B. White, writer and editor
If anyone had told me two hours ago that I’d walk into PTB headquarters with Kal and come out with a human girl from Earth, I’d have said they’d eaten too many fulu berries from that one garden in The Realms where the fruit tastes a little funky. But here we are, strolling down the street together like it’s not completely unnatural and bizarre. Every few feet Annika stops to point at something else.
“That playground looks just like the one by my school!” she says. Or, “Look! That house is like my grandmother’s house in Arizona! Except my grandmother’s house is yellow with shutters and a driveway, and that one is green without shutters and no driveway.”
All I can do is nod and say, “Really, wow, dreams sure are weird that way.” Other than the streets themselves, which are still translucent, The Realms have been redesigned to look like Earth. This happens anytime a planet dies off. We like to pay our respects. Plus it gets really boring looking at the same things for SO many eons, so we jump at any chance to redecorate.
Gone are the shimmering dome-shaped houses and buildings, the multicolored clouds. Gone are the huge sculptures that normally dot our landscape. Judging by the amount of detail I see around us—the vegetables in the gardens, the hand-painted signs on the storefronts—it’s clear people have put in extra effort this time. This is good for Annika, since her surroundings feel familiar and she’s clearly not as scared as she might otherwise be.
“I think I figured out why I’m stuck in this dream,” she says.
I’m too busy glaring behind me at the ever-thickening crowd to ask for her theory. The crowd stares and points at Annika like she has a giant sunflower growing out of her head, which is kind of insulting to the Florapods from the Large Magellanic Cloud Galaxy, who actually DO have flowers growing out of their heads. Word had gone out via the communication network for everyone to pretend it’s perfectly normal to have a human in The Realms, so I give the group of gawkers one last glare, and they finally turn away.
Annika is still talking, something about drinking too much of the coffee her dad had made so he could stay awake for the Mars approach and how coffee can have the opposite effect on teenagers. I mumble something akin to “Oh, yeah, maybe, sure” but I’m only half-listening. I need to ask Gluck more questions. A lot more questions. I must be the absolute last guy in The Realms who should be responsible for bringing back a planet. To say nothing of a whole solar system. If Kal’s going to have any chance of coming back to life, he’s going to need someone who actually has a clue what to do. Any of my six brothers would have a better shot. They get out in the universe a lot more than I do, which is never. I need to convince Gluck he has the wrong person while there’s still time.
I make an interested-sounding grunt when Annika points to a tree that reminds her of a tree she used to swing from during the summer she was eight. At this rate I’ll have aged another million years before we make it to Kal’s house. Gluck told me he sent word to Aunt Rae that Kal had left suddenly on a last-minute trip to visit his parents on their current research trip. If she knew the truth, she would completely break down. She’s very sensitive. Maybe that’s why she makes such good pies. To keep them both occupied, Gluck arranged for Aunt Rae to watch over Annika until we can figure out what to do with her.
We pass a meadow of grazing horses, a swimming pool, a used-car lot, two town squares, and a shopping mall before reaching Kal’s neighborhood. Annika stumbles backward as a walk-in phone booth pops up right in front of us. She stares at it. “I haven’t seen one of those since I was a little kid,” she muses. “Why would I put that in my dream?”
“Who knows?” I say, anxious to keep her from focusing on anything too closely. I steer her around the phone booth and can’t help noticing that Dad was right—her arm is more solid than anything I’ve ever felt before. It feels strange but interesting, and I almost don’t want to let it go. She solves that problem by shaking my hand off and pointing excitedly at a Ferris wheel that has just sprouted up across the street.
I position myself between her and the street. “We should keep moving. It will be dark soon.”
It won’t. It never gets dark in The Realms.
“Let’s ride it,” she says. “We’ll only go around a few times, okay?” Then she laughs. “What am I asking you for? You’re just a figment of my imagination!”
Before I can argue, she grabs me by the hand and yanks me across the street. I’ve never held a girl’s hand before. Especially not a REAL hand, with a pulse beating through it. This day seriously can’t get any stranger.
I let her drag me to the entrance of the Ferris wheel because I am too distracted by the weight of her hand to fight it. I guess Gluck can wait a little longer.
We join the long line waiting for the ride. The sudden loss of her hand in mine makes me feel even lighter than usual, almost like I could float away. I grind my feet into the grass to shake off the feeling. As soon as everyone sees us—the seventh son of the Supreme Overlord and the human girl from Earth—they quickly part and usher us to the front of the line.
“I did that!” Annika says proudly as we reach the entrance. “I wished for them to move, and they did!”
I’d roll my eyes but that is a gesture better left to about-to-be-teenage girls from Earth. “Uh-huh,” I say instead. “You are truly Master of the Dream World.”
The ride operator turns out to be none other than my second-oldest (and most popular, charming, handsome, cheerful, bl
ah blah blah) brother, Grayden. He grins as Annika climbs into the small metal carriage. His ridiculously bright green eyes sparkle in that annoying way of his. “Aren’t you going to introduce me, little bro?”
I climb in behind Annika. “Aren’t you supposed to be off inspiring great artists?”
“I’m on dinner break. They’ll have to create their masterpieces without me.” He keeps his eyes on Annika, who, I’m not surprised to see, is blushing.
“This is your brother?” she asks, leaning over. “Now, he would make a good love interest.”
“We don’t want to hold up the ride,” I snap, securing the safety bar across our laps even though it’s completely unnecessary. You can’t get too seriously injured in The Realms. If we fell, our atoms would just sink into the ground and then pop back out into our shape. Well, I guess hers wouldn’t, seeing as she’s so solid. I test the bar to make sure it’s tight.
Grayden waves good-bye as the carriage starts to creak upward. Annika leans over the side to wave back. It’s fine with me if she’d prefer him. I’m used to the rest of my family getting all the attention, and that’s how I like it. I go to school, deliver my pies, and hang out with Kal. That’s my day. Every day. Maybe it’s not the most exciting of lives, but it works for me. It’s comfortable. Now I’m on a Ferris wheel, of all things, with a girl whose heart I can hear beating from a foot away. I can tell by their faces that all the people on the ground can hear it, too. If she has her volumizer on, Aunt Rae could even hear it as she waits for us. It echoes like a drum, pounding out a message. I’m still here. I’m still here. The only one of its kind left of her world. I try to tune it out.
“You can see the whole city from here!” Annika exclaims as we reach the top. She leans forward to ooh and aah, Grayden and his charms apparently forgotten.
Rather than explaining how insulting it is for her to refer to The Realms as a mere city, I let it go and look around us. As far as my eyes can see (and they can see FAR), The Realms are now a hodgepodge of brick buildings and wooden houses, storefronts and evergreen forests, movie theaters and train stations with trains that really wouldn’t take you anyplace. My school, usually a free-floating dome, is now a petting zoo complete with kittens, goats, ducks, and a man in a bunny suit selling food pellets.
None of these things exist anymore. Not on Earth, anyway. Everything we’re looking at was pulled from records made by OnWorlders like Kal’s parents. I squeeze my eyes shut to block it all out.
“Oh, you get motion sickness!” Annika says, sounding concerned. “My little brother, Sam, gets that.” She points away from me. “If you need to throw up, please do it in that direction.”
Before I can protest that I am not motion sick, she leans out and yells to Grayden. “Hey down there! Joss is about to toss his cookies! Get me outta this thing!”
I close my eyes and lean back. Oh, how I wish this really WAS a dream. But the giggles I hear below assure me that it’s not. This will give Grayden material to tease me with for the next thousand years, at least.
No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow.
—Euripides, playwright
Are you feeling okay, little bro?” Grayden teases as we climb off the Ferris wheel. “Maybe you should go lie down until your stomach feels better. I can take Annika for some ice cream.” He motions with his head to an ice cream stand that has popped up nearby. His hair flops in front of his eyes, and he brushes it aside. I’m more aware than ever of my stupid haircut. The next people in line give one last chuckle at my expense, then climb into our carriage.
Annika considers the offer, twirling her hair around her finger.
“I feel fine,” I snap. “No time for ice cream, anyway. We need to get to Kal’s house. Annika is going to stay with Aunt Rae.”
Grayden looks over my shoulder. “Where is that sidekick of yours, anyway? You and Kal are usually joined at the hip. Is he still working down at the Afterlives after school?”
I swallow hard. “Kal is… he’s OnWorld. Visiting his parents. It was a last-minute thing.”
Grayden nods. “Lucky stiff.”
I’m afraid if I speak again he’ll know something’s wrong.
Annika looks between us, her brow furrowing. “What are you guys talking about? Afterlives? OnWorld? This dream isn’t making much sense.”
“Oh, you know how dreams are,” Grayden says without missing a beat. “It’s a sign of intelligence if you have complicated dreams. Anyone could dream about forgetting to study for a test, or showing up at school naked. But to dream up a whole world where people talk about things that don’t make sense? That’s like, genius time.”
“Really?” she says, smiling broadly. “I mean, I got mostly A’s last marking period, and I taught my little brother to add and subtract when he was only three, but I don’t know about genius. I’m no Albert Einstein.”
“We really should go,” I tell her, anxious to leave before Grayden offers to take her to the Afterlives to visit the real Einstein. The Afterlives are totally in the other direction.
“What’s the rush?” he asks. “I have a few more minutes before my next gig. Ice cream is very refreshing. Tastes even better in a dream, right, Joss?” He elbows me, but I ignore him. A throng of kids have gathered around the ice cream stand, talking excitedly and licking their cones. It really does look refreshing. Just because we don’t have to eat very much in The Realms doesn’t mean we don’t like a good cold treat when we stumble across one.
I shake my head. “Aunt Rae is waiting, and she probably made dinner. We don’t want to be rude.”
“Okay, okay,” he says, holding up his palms in defeat. “I give up. Joss here is right. He’s always very considerate, especially to his elders.”
It’s risky hanging around Grayden too long because you never know what’s going to come out of his mouth.
And of course he’s not done. “Brave, strong, brilliant, truly a shining example of a boy on the cusp of manhood. Why, just last week, he—”
“That’s enough,” I say, pulling Annika away before my brother finishes telling whatever embarrassing story he was planning to share.
“He seems nice,” Annika says, looking back over her shoulder as I drag her away.
I grunt, not ready to discuss the complicated relationship between a “boy on the cusp of manhood” and his six older brothers.
We cross the street. I glance back to see that Grayden and the entire Ferris wheel are gone. A 3-D holographic image of Earth hovers in its place, blinking in and out of existence. I hurry her around the nearest corner so she doesn’t see it. She’s going to figure out sooner or later this isn’t a dream, that however smart or creative she thinks she is, she couldn’t have dreamed up The Realms. I’d rather this realization not happen on my watch, though. I pick up the pace and we round the corner to Kal’s house.
Normally, his house is shaped like a pie with windows (Aunt Rae finds the shape peaceful). Now it resembles one of the huge granite heads from Mount Rushmore. I’m glad it looks different than usual. Maybe being here won’t remind me of Kal so much now. “Abraham Lincoln!” Annika exclaims. “Cool! And I like the garden gnome.”
She points to a small bearded creature made of wood and holding a shovel. Must be an Earth thing. In addition to Aunt Rae’s usual colorful garden, her lawn is now covered in simulated Earth grass.
We enter through the president’s left nostril, which is a narrow tunnel that deposits us into the living room. I’m disappointed to see that nothing has changed on the inside of the house. Kal’s drumsticks still lay askew on the ground, right where he’d tossed them when the sirens wailed. Seeing them feels like a punch in the gut. The drumbeats from the last time he played run through my mind. I can almost still hear them here in the room. Right now I’d happily listen to him bang on the drums for the next five hundred years if only he’d return home.
Aunt Rae comes rushing out of the kitchen to greet us, and the drumbeats fade to nothingness. I
want to run and hug her like I used to when I was little. Instead, for her sake, I have to pretend that Kal is just fine OnWorld somewhere. And we both have to pretend that Earth is still there and that this is a dream, for Annika’s sake. I shake my head to clear it. It’s all very confusing.
Aunt Rae’s volumizer is noticeably absent. She sees me looking at her ear and says, “I got my hearing fixed. After what happened, well, I couldn’t take a chance like that again.” She glances at Annika, then turns away as tears fill her eyes.
“Hey, I know this place,” Annika says, peeking around Aunt Rae into the kitchen. “This is from my earlier dream. The one with the old lady. Hey, that was you!”
Aunt Rae blinks away her tears and forces a smile. “How lovely. I’ve never been in anyone’s dream before.”
This is certainly true.
Annika yawns.
“Come,” Aunt Rae says, steering Annika toward Kal’s room. “You must be tired from the shock of…”
I clear my throat.
“I mean, from such a long dream,” she finishes.
Annika nods. “My mom always warned me that coffee could do weird things to teenagers.”
“I thought you were only twelve,” I say.
She glares at me. “My thirteenth birthday’s in two weeks. I totally count as a teenager.”
I’m about to say something mean about how two weeks here won’t bring her even the slightest bit closer to thirteen, but Aunt Rae shakes her head at me disapprovingly. I can’t help it. I know Annika wasn’t aware of the destruction her actions would rain down upon her entire civilization (and on Kal’s parents, and then on Kal, and then on me), but I still blame her for what happened. I better leave before I say something I’ll regret.
I lag behind as Aunt Rae guides Annika into Kal’s old room. I have no need for another reminder of his absence.
“This looks just like my real room,” Annika says sleepily.