Chapter 12. Books from Bradley’s backpack.
That morning, after John left to go flying around, Bradley was crushed. He was sad to find out that John learned to fly and had such a positive attitude about it. From Bradley’s perspective, he lost his friend. If there were a way to bring him back, he surely wished he knew what it was. Losing John to flying also meant being stuck in the room all by himself. Bradley started remembering his other friends from school and from the neighborhood, and he realized that Huang Fu was the one whom he missed and truly needed at that moment.
Huang Fu was a serious kid, unlike John, and although they all played together, he always brought reason into their games. He was much respected in the neighborhood, and by many was perceived as a leader. If something needed to be organized, everyone turned to Huang Fu. It was not particularly surprising since his father was a project manager, and he probably learned this from him. Huang Fu was a pitcher on a baseball team, and that also contributed to his leadership skills. Like Bradley’s parents, the parents of Huang Fu’s were serious about his studies, and, like Bradley, he was on top of their class in many areas. Huang Fu and Bradley had an unofficial competition for grades. Bradley actually liked it because sometimes, if not for this competition, he would not study as hard as he did.
Pacing from one wall to the next, Bradley wished Huang Fu were here, with his logical mind. Much less reckless than John, he would be the best candidate to help Bradley think of a way to escape without learning how to fly. Bradley tried putting Huang Fu in his shoes. What would his friend do in this situation, left all alone in a room without doors? What DID Bradley have available? Ladder, bed, …and backpack! Of course, Huang Fu would consult with the literature. Bradley opened his backpack, doubtful whether he would find anything useful in it. As far as he remembered, that day he put only schoolbooks in his bag, though sometimes he brought other stuff to school, like his dad’s engineering manual, to read it during breaks and show cool things from it to other boys.
Sure enough, only school books were in the backpack. History, science… Wait a minute! Bradley froze in surprise. On the book cover it read, “Quercutese”. Bradley flipped through the pages. The book was written in English, but it clearly taught this other language, who knows who spoke it… All of a sudden Bradley was struck with the answer: this was the language of the Unknowns! They spoke English of course, but it was possible they used it only when communicating with foreigners. They probably spoke Quercutese when they were all by themselves. However, if Megan could eavesdrop and totally understand what they said, what was this Quercutese for?
Bradley opened the history book and did not recognize any of the pictures that he used to see on the first few pages. The book was also written in English, but when Bradley started to read it, he realized that it was completely different history, probably, of the Unknowns. The science book was also weird. As Bradley flipped through the headings of the chapters, it appeared to him that some of the physical laws in this world were different, and that allowed for such things as flight. Even though Bradley was not sure about that, he did admit that flying was indeed possible, but the problem came from the control of the whole process instituted by the Unknowns. If not for the laws they established for their country, this place would indeed be very enjoyable with all these possibilities that it offered. But Bradley has not learned enough just yet to be able to act on it. What he needed was the Unknowns’ law book.
Bradley was frustrated with himself that he wasted so many days when he could have looked at these books on day one and learned so much by now. When John returned back from his rides and started sharing with Bradley the events of the day, Bradley did not really want to listen to him. He wished to get back to his reading. If he had to talk, he’d rather share with John what he’d learned already about the World of the Unknowns, but he was not sure whether John would listen to him, being so infatuated with flying. Bradley mumbled some incoherent responses and then decided that he could stop John’s fountain of words by agreeing to fly and he said, “Ok, John, I will start practicing tomorrow. Now I would like to go to bed.”
The trick worked, John said, “Great, keep me posted. When you are able to fly up from the floor, let me know right away. We’ll go have fun together.”
Bradley pretended to agree. He lay in bed and opened the history book again.
The history of the country was very long, going all the way back to the ancient society. In the beginning the development of society very much resembled how it all happened in Bradley’s world. At first people lived as a community and were occupied by hunting and gathering, then there was a period when they had kings and noble people, then they did not like the kings any longer and established an elected government.
But then something happened. The book was very vague about it, as if the writer was restrained by rules of what he could include in the text and what not. Bradley had an impression that the transitional part of the book sounded very artificial. After that, the book went on describing the present state of society, where the main figure in the state was the Chief. Under the Chief not many things were happening, people lived happily and entertained themselves as much as they could without limitations. Bradley expected that the book would have another whole section on the history of this phase of the society, with the names of the Chiefs and years of their rule, but there was no such information. It was as if history had frozen, and for many years, on and on, there was only one Chief and no historical events. Bradley even started to think that all of this happened just recently, but the book dated the beginning of the current Chief’s reign back two hundred fifty years. All of this was very confusing, and the only way Bradley could connect the dots was to assume that people in this world didn’t age and were always twelve-thirteen years old.
“That would be cool actually,” Bradley thought to himself and opened the science book to try to find an explanation why that would be possible. He skimmed the book for any mention of time control or anything of the kind, but there was no mention of time at all. In fact, everything indicated that time did not exist and objects were moving in space instantly or indefinitely long to get from one point to another. Bradley almost broke his brain, trying to understand it, and made a conclusion that as a person from an outside world he still perceived time while the Unknowns probably didn’t. On top of that, his perception of time might have been inaccurate. On one occasion he thought things were happening instantaneously when he and the Tenacious were walking to this building on day one, while John told him that he and the Adventurous walked for a long time. On another occasion, when he and John first escaped, it seemed to him they were walking in that dark corridor for a very long time, but they were not getting out of the building so it ought to be that they were not gone for very long.
Bradley was getting curious whether the Unknowns actually slept. Maybe it was people like him, from his world, who had to sleep. They did not have to eat, for example, which would go well with the idea that they were actually frozen in some point in time at which they got into this country, but why did they have to sleep? “Wait a minute,” thought Bradley, “something is wrong about this picture. All throughout history there is time; they have dates in the history book!” He threw aside the science book and opened the history book again. Yes, very clear, first king Quercutes ruled from 854 to 865… Bradley flipped the pages almost all the way to the very end of the book and suddenly froze at the realization that the time stopped when the first Chief of the Unknowns came into office.
What happened back then? Bradley read the chapter many times, but it still was not clear. Bradley realized that to answer this question what he really needed was a book on the history of science. What discoveries and inventions were made in this world and when. Knowing what they achieved in science at the time of the societal transition could help shed light on this mystery. Bradley rummaged through his school bag, but besides the history, science and Quercutese textbooks there were only notebooks.
Brad
ley set everything aside and lay in bed, staring into the ceiling. He realized that there was a much bigger question: why were all books about the Unknowns written in English? Did that mean that only people from English speaking countries got into this world? Or did it mean that the Unknowns had several versions of this book and provided them according to where one arrived from? “Hold on,” Bradley caught himself, “They did not provide the books! The books were in my school bag! They just changed!” If that were the case, which it apparently was, then where did the books come from? Did the Tenacious somehow sneak them into his backpack while he was not looking? Or, perhaps, when he and John were on the run? Why did these particular ones correspond so well by subject to the books he brought with him? Or, even though Bradley admitted that this was a wild thought, did the text in the books change by itself when they got into this world?
Bradley felt like he really needed to talk to someone about this. John was out of the question. He even dumped his books out in the wooden structure and did not bring them into this world. Instead, he stuffed his backpack full of money. “Hold on,” Bradley caught himself again, “But what does John have in his backpack now? Money or books?” With that thought bothering him, Bradley could not help himself from banging on John’s wall despite the danger of being attacked by propositions to start flying right away. Bradley did not even think how late it was, and only when he heard a loud noise indicating John’s getting out of bed, partially asleep, did he realize that he just woke his friend up.
To Bradley’s surprise, John still had money in the backpack. That made Bradley’s most probable hypothesis of the Unknowns putting the books in their backpacks unlikely. Then what? But John was so worried about losing the money that Bradley had tough time staying on track. Only when he mentioned “Quercutese” did John appear interested. Using his opportunity, Bradley inquired of John’s opinion what languages he though the Unknowns spoke. But John didn’t pay attention. He heard only English, may be some other Earth languages, not sure… From John’s explanations about what kind of people he met in the park, Bradley concluded that those were the Unknowns. John described them as behaving happy, artificially happy, as Bradley would think, as if there was no care in the world, PRETENDING to be always content, self-assured… But Bradley did not share his thoughts with John. Wrapping up his conversation, Bradley was trying to connect all the dots to make sense of what he learned today, but realized that his brain needed rest. He tried to calm John concerning the money, about which he started to worry again, and called it a day.
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