My Friends Are Dead People (17 page)

“
Good one, smart boy,”
smiled Katie. “She’s really running after that one.”

I didn’t care what anyone said. I knew that
all animals liked to play. I just had to find the right approach.
Silky yawned and lumbered over to a hose spouting water.

“
Thirsty?” I said. “Me
too–”

She spat in my face.

“
What’s wrong with you?” I
scolded, drenched in water. “I meant I wouldn’t mind taking a
sip
myself
.”

Silky gave me a blank look and turned back
to the hose. I wondered if Ray would let me take her home next
Halloween. Maybe Duma and she would fall in love and make magical
babies. I would never be bored again. They would chase airplanes,
attack zoo animals, pee on race cars, and eat my neighbors. They
would become the most feared things ever! All I needed is for Duma
and Silky to meet and hit it off.

“
Time to ride with the
wind,” announced Ray. “Silky, you keep them safe. Slimy, Slim,
Slick, Slinky, you take care of them, too. No welgo tomfoolery.
And, Slump, you can go back to sleep. A Bellnicsi!” he said as he
went inside. “I can’t believe it!”

“
Jesse, Katie, time to
go,” said Jacoby atop his welgo.

Lin was having a difficult time with his
welgo, named Slick, who kept on squirming and shifting as Lin tried
to climb on. Finally, Slick lowered himself under Lin, but, as soon
as Lin settled in, Slick slid away from under him.

“
That’s it!” grumbled Lin,
on his butt. “I’m going to dress you in a mini-skirt, four high
heels, lipstick . . .”

Katie and Dorian mounted theirs without a
hitch. Dorian took Slimy, who was indeed a lot slimier than the
others. There was a puddle of slime under him, as if he was leaking
car fluid. Katie got Slim, the thinnest of the welgos. Jacoby’s
welgo was up to some funny business, dipping and lurching about.
That was Slinky alright. Jacoby didn’t look too thrilled with his
steed as he steered him to the side gate.

Moments later, Jacoby called out for me.
Silky was back in the weeds.

“
Jacoby, it’s not me!” I
shouted back, trying to climb on her. “Silky, come on. Jacoby has
no patience for slowpokes.”

Jacoby called my name again, and then Lin
screamed my name. He must have woken up the whole neighborhood.

“
See?” I said to Silky.
“Can we go now?”

Silky wouldn’t even shift her head out of
the dirt. What was wrong with her? Why was she acting so stubborn?
I pressed my heels into her sides like a horseman would, and she
flipped me off into a puddle of mud.

“
You’re making me mad!” I
said sulkily, now soaked in mud.

And with that, Silky let me mount her and
strode out of the gate. We caught up with the group in just a few
long strides.

“
Silky, the shores of
western Europe,” said Jacoby, “near the dark waters of the Gompsli
Isle.”

Slinky, Slim, and Slick began to trot down
the street. Katie and her welgo came next to Silky and me.

“
You ready?” said Katie,
sitting comfortably on Slim. “This is going to be so fuuuun . .
.”

Her welgo took off, and her voice trailed
off into space. Silky wasn’t moving again, eyeing a plane flying
overhead.

“
Why are you being so
stubborn? You’re just like my cat–”

She turned her attention to me.

“
My cat disobeys me and
gets into mischief all the time. But maybe you’re not like
him.”

Silky swung her head around and opened her
mouth.

“
I’ve got an idea: open
your mouth if you want to say ‘yes’ and keep it closed if you want
to say ‘no’. Okay? . . . I’m going to need you to open your mouth.
You got that?”

Silky stared at me.

“
Okay, you understand
then. Uhmm . . . we’d better get moving.”

Silky understood and pranced ahead, moving
up the hill at the speed of a car. The rest of the pack was too far
ahead of us to be seen, but I wasn’t worried. I wanted to talk to
Silky some more.

“
So, Silky . . . do you
like being called Silky?”

I leaned to the side to see if she had
opened her mouth. This probably just wasn’t working. Or maybe she
really didn’t like her name. The only way to be sure was to find a
question where she had to answer “yes.”

“
Do you know where you’re
going?”

I leaned over – nothing.

“
Jacoby
just told you. Weren’t you listening? Great! You
had better catch up before they take off. Crapper!”

I looked around to gauge our speed. We were
going no faster than a bicycle.

“
Even my mother can go
faster than this. You slow cheetah-wannabe–”

Silky went a little bit faster, getting up
to maybe thirty miles per hour.

“
That’s better. At least I
know you can understand me. Just catch up. I don’t want Jacoby
getting mad at me again.”

As we neared the summit of the long street I
saw Katie and Slim.

“
Okay, back to the
questions. There’s got to be something you can say ‘yes’ to. Uhmm .
. . Got it!” I smiled and articulated very clearly, “Are - you -
the - color - black?”

I tilted my head. Her jaw stayed rigidly
clenched.

“
Do I need to ply your
mouth open? What other name for black is there? Don’t get smart
with me . . .
Silky
. I think I like Silky. Silky Cilia is what I’ll call you for
now–”

Silky’s hide began to loosen around my
legs.

“
Okay, okay,” I said
hastily, throwing my arms around her neck. “Okay, no Silky
Cilia.”

She turned around and glared at me.

“
Well, you better start
answering ‘yes’ because this isn’t getting us anywhere. I bet you
don’t even know who you were in your previous life.”

I tilted my head. Again, there was no
response.

“
Fine. Have it your way.”
I paused for a moment. “You really don’t remember? Okay, you don’t
know who you are. Do you know who I am?”

Silky beamed back at me.

“
What?” I said as she
opened her mouth. “What? Yes! Yes, to what? You know who I
am?”

She opened her mouth again as she began to
slow down.

“
Well, that doesn’t say
much. I know who I am, too.”

I tilted my head. Her mouth stayed shut as I
thought of something. I wondered . . .

“
I don’t know who I am?” I
asked.

Nothing again.

“
Dang it, I thought we
were getting somewhere,” I said in frustration. Silky turned back
at me. “So that’s a ‘no’? I don’t know who I am? Wait, that can be
interpreted in two ways. Okay, let’s try this way. Is my name Jesse
Jayden?”

Silky opened her mouth.

“
How can I not know who I
am? Do I have a mother named Oz? Wait, how do you–”

She opened her mouth.

“
What? You – how do you
know what my mother’s name is?” I demanded, forgetting she couldn’t
speak. “Do I have a father?”

I waited patiently. Silky turned around,
staring. She turned back, but as she did she opened her mouth. Okay
. . .

“
Is my father’s name
Rob?”

Silky didn’t turn around. Maybe she knew I
was trying to trick her. The perfect question hit me.

“
Does my father live with
me?”

Silky didn’t turn around. I full expected
her to say “yes” and be wrong, but she didn’t.

“
Good–” I stopped myself
as she opened her mouth.

“
Sorry, you’re wrong,” I
said sadly.

She turned around, looking at me intently,
as if she really thought she was correct.

“
He lives in Hawaii. He
left me before I was born. Have you been to Hawaii?”

Silky opened her mouth as we reached the
group.

“
Silky, look at me,”
commanded Jacoby. He waited until she looked at him.
“
The shores of western
Europe
. You know which border. I know
we’ve been through rough times. I’m not riding you anymore, so
please be a good sport and take care of Jesse. He’s your
responsibility.”

She opened her mouth.

“
That’s a ‘yes’,” I
translated.

“
Good,” said Jacoby.
“Let’s get going. We can’t stop until we reach land–”

“
What? What do you mean
until we reach land?”

Jacoby continued, as if he hadn’t heard me.
“Once you get there, I want you to stay put. We’ll be running
through the North Sea. This late at night, sealons come up to the
surface. If you see one,” he seemed to be speaking strictly to
Silky, “you know not to go near it. Alright. Just hold on tight,
you two.”

By the time I took my eyes off Silky,
everyone was gone. Great, we were left behind again. But what was a
sealon?

“
Sealon?” I said to Silky.
“What is that? Hey, how about a new name for you?”

She opened her mouth.

“
How about Spotty? . . .
Cheetah? . . . Tiger? . . . Speedster? . . . Smokes? . . .
Cockroaches? . . . No Good Slimy Chunks?” I was getting tired. “Oz,
Lisa, Katie–”

She swung her head side to side.

“
What about
Jesse?”

She opened her mouth immediately.

“
Okay, sure. It’s going to
make it difficult, but okay. And it’s a boy’s name. This is going
to be too confusing, how about . . . Duma?”

That could go both ways. My cat seemed to
like it, so maybe she would, too. She opened her mouth.

“
Okay, then, Duma! Let’s
get going. You don’t have to prove to me you’re the fastest
welgooooo–”

Duma shot forward barely missing two cars at
two intersections.

“
That’s my cat’s name,
too!
” I shouted. “
You should meet him! He’s cool!
”

I looked far down the hill and saw what I
had forgotten about.

“
Y-you can run on
wat
–”

Duma shot forward even
faster. Streetlights blurred, and the air turned freezing cold. I
wasn’t sure how fast she was going, or where in the world we were,
but what I did know was that she was cutting across a blanket of
blackness like a supersonic jet, skimming the watery expanse and
passing by large islands. It was the coolest thing ever. I opened
my mouth and let the prickly air stab the back of my throat.
“
Laaaaaaa
. .
.”

Duma maneuvered gracefully to the left and
slid along the crest of a rocky island, getting momentary traction,
and bolting back into the dark. What I saw next was the most
amazing thing ever. The sun was creeping over the horizon and
moving into the dark clouds, as if God had hit the fast-forward
button on time. I couldn’t describe how it felt: it was something
outside of the scope of human experience, the pinnacle of wonder.
Yet even more amazingly still, I could perceive the curvature of
the earth as clear and palpable as one would the pavement under
one’s foot. I could actually see and feel us speeding around a
giant sphere.

“
D-Duma,
f-faster!
” I yipped ecstatically through
the walloping wind.

But there was a hard jolt, and a tremendous
loss of speed smashed my face into the back of her head. She
swerved gracefully to the right, then left, right away making
another hard left that nearly swung me off her back. Something was
definitely wrong. I couldn’t call out to her, breathless and
disoriented from the violent turns we were making. She skidded
sideways, just as a giant glossy snake shot past us into the
clouds.

“
Sealon?
” I asked in a shaky
voice.

Duma agreed as she ramped off a churning
ripple. We picked up speed again and leaped over maybe hundreds of
miles before skidding against the surface again.

The creature was enormous. Spread out, its
flippers spanned two or three football fields.

“
It’s trying to enclose
us!
” I shouted over the ranging waves.
“
We have to find an island!
. . .
Duma, back there!
I think I saw one!
”

The sea monster arched a length of its body
above the waters and struck us as we passed, sending us hurtling
toward its lower coil. We were going to slam into it. I hugged Duma
as tight as I could and pressed my face into her neck. We were
going to be in a thousand-mile-per-hour-head-on collision. We were
going to die. . . .

“
Jesse, get up, you’re
okay,” rang a cheerful voice.

Katie and Lin were kneeling next to me on an
isolated white beach, shadowed by huge rain clouds. The welgos were
resting in the sand near a boulder.

“
Lin saved you,” said
Katie.

“
Thanks,” I said
absentmindedly, seeing Jacoby and Dorian talking at the edge of a
forest.

“
I sliced it,” explained
Lin. “It’s dead.”

“
Oh.”

Jacoby turned to us. “I warned you, Jesse,”
he said in that stern parental tone of his.

“
It wasn’t my fault! The
sealon shot up out of nowhere. How could we plan for
that?”

“
Doesn’t matter anymore.
Lorseria’s home, so we’ll stop by. I don’t want you two leaving
our–”

“
Okay
. . . . Bye, Duma.”