Paraworld Zero (20 page)

    

    Simon’s feet dangled in the air. “What?” he said, looking down
incredulously.

    He collapsed the second he realized his feet weren’t touching the floor.
Tonya rushed to his side, but Simon scooted backwards on his rear.

    “Get away from me!”

    “Oh, don’t flatter yourself, runt.” Her hair had already turned back to its
normal green color. “I was only trying to get you to stand up by yourself.”

    “Did anybody see that?” Simon whispered.

    Tonya looked around. All the nurses were helping other patients.

    “I don’t think so.”

    “Good. Well, don’t ever do that again.”

    “Don’t worry,” Tonya said in a superior tone of voice. “Kissing you is the
last thing on my mind.” A thin, almost unnoticeable, white line ran down her hair. “That was
amazing!” she remarked. “Simply amazing! You were using magic for sure. What did it feel
like?”

    “It just felt like I was standing.”

    “I didn’t hear you say anything. What were you thinking?”

    “I wanted to get away from you—that’s all.”

    “Oh… Well, I’d say something strange is going on. You just cast the
Halo-Marine spell. It’s supposed to be very difficult to perform. No one in my class can do it
yet. How did you cast that without E.M. waves?”

    “I have no idea.”

    Tonya nudged him and said, “Come on, Simon. Get up. I wanna see
something.”

    “I can’t stand.”

    “Oh, yes you can.” She grabbed his hands and pulled him up. His legs wobbled
a bit, but he was standing. “See! You’ve been too dependent on those bars.”

    When she let go of him, a surge of pain ran up his legs. He put his hands out
to balance himself, as if he were standing on a high wire.

    Tonya skipped a few feet away and coaxed, “Come on, Simon. Let’s go do some
magic.”

    “I can’t walk.”

    “Okay, then… I’ll see ya later.” She turned towards the door.

    “Wait!”

    Simon took a step forward. He took another step. The muscles in his legs
ached but held him up, nonetheless. He felt like a baby walking to his mother for the first
time.

    One more step and then another and then another. Tonya walked backwards,
which irritated him even more. He realized the pain in his legs had gone down considerably—maybe
he was just getting numb. Finally, he reached Tonya. She allowed him to lean on her like a
crutch.

    “I need my hover chair,” Simon said.

    “Well, go get it then.”

    Simon breathed a long sigh of frustration. Tonya let go of him again, but
this time the pain didn’t return as strongly as before. He wobbled to the wall where his hover
chair lay and threw himself down onto the mechanized contraption. It rose into the air.

    “That was wonderful,” Nurse Salfree said, rushing over to them. The husky
woman gave Simon a hard pat on the back. “Konya, you should have told me Simon was
walking.”

    “This is actually his first time,” Tonya said with a wink.

    “Good work, Simon. I’m pleased you’ve finally decided to walk. Your muscles
have been reconditioned for some time now, but Dr. Troodle instructed me not to push you.
Earthlings are slow creatures, he said.” The nurse smacked him again—this time, so hard he
wondered if something in his chest had become dislodged. “How do you feel?”

    Other than the stinging sensation on his back and the slight numbness in his
legs, he felt marvelous.

    “Great,” he answered. “Never better.”

    “Good. You’re recovering just nicely. I’m so glad we were able to save your
legs.”

    Simon nodded. “Nurse Salfree, you’ve done amazing work, and I never did thank
you. Not only did you help restore my legs but you also cured me of being sick all the
time.”

    The short woman frowned. “Simon, we didn’t do anything to stop you from being
sick. In fact, we haven’t seen any signs of illness in you since you arrived.”

    “What about my asthma?”

    “We never detected any respiratory problems.”

    Simon adjusted his glasses. “That’s weird. I wonder what happened to
me.”

    “Nurse Salfree,” Tonya said anxiously, “Simon and I need to get back home. Is
it okay if we cut today’s therapy session short?”

    “I suppose so, but I want you in here double time tomorrow.”

    “All right,” Tonya said quickly. She grabbed Simon’s fanny pack and urged him
out the door.

    “What’s going on?” asked Simon.

    “You’ll see. Let’s get out of here.”

    They left the hospital and traveled through the open field of grass towards
home. About halfway through the field, Tonya bent down and started to hike up her dress.

    “What are you doing?”

    A second later, Simon spotted Tonya’s small wand attached to her leg with a
lacy Velcro-like strap. He laughed. “I can’t believe you’re still carrying that thing
around.”

    “I always like to be prepared,” Tonya replied. She removed the wand and
handed it to him. “Here ya go, Simon. I wanna give you a magic lesson.”

    “Magic lesson?”

    “Yeah, just to see if you can do it.”

    “I don’t think I can, but I’ll try.” Simon nervously rubbed his mother’s
medallion between his fingers. The thought of performing magic was both intriguing and scary.
“What do I do?”

    “Okay, here’s an easy one. I learned this when I was five. All you do is
point the wand at your hand and snap your fingers while saying the word
Shawnee
. Oh, and make sure you keep your thumb pointed upwards and away from your face
when you do it.”

    “Why’s that?”

    “You’ll see. Don’t worry. It’s just a little trick I do at parties sometimes.
It probably won’t even work.”

    With the wand pointed towards his hand, Simon took a deep breath, snapped his
fingers, and calmly said, “
Shawnee.
”

    A tremendous flame erupted from the top of his thumb and shot eighty feet
into the air, forcing a flock of birds to scatter. Simon turned his face away because of the
immense heat that emanated from his thumb. He shook his hand, and the stream of red and orange
fire followed like a whip.

    “
How do I turn this off?
”

    Tonya screamed, “
Eenwahs!
Say
Eenwahs!
”

    “
EENWAHS!
”

    The hot flame recoiled and was sucked back into his thumb in an instant.
Simon’s jaw dropped at the sight of the scorched pathway he had just made in the luscious green
grass.

    “Cool!” Tonya marveled.

    She grabbed her wand from his trembling hand and blew out the candle-like
flame that had caught hold of the tip.

    Simon yelled hysterically, “Tonya! You could’ve at least warned me!”

    “Hey, Simon, I’m just as surprised as you are. That spell’s only supposed to
turn your thumb into a harmless lighter, not a flame-thrower.”

    “Do you think anyone saw that?”

    “I’m not sticking around to find out.” She rushed towards Dr. Troodle’s
house. Simon followed behind.

    Tonya took three steps up the back porch, then turned around and asked,
“Don’t ya think it’s a little strange that no one in your paraworld knows anything about magic,
yet your planet has the most concentrated source of E.M. energy I’ve ever seen? I’ll admit that
my magical abilities are pretty weak, but in your world, they were put on overdrive. For an hour
or two, I was like… an ultramage or something.”

    “Yeah, that’s kinda strange.”

    “And now that we’re on a paraworld that doesn’t have
any
E.M. energy, all of a sudden you’re able to perform magic that even an ultramage
couldn’t do.”

    Simon shrugged. “Don’t ask me.”

    Tonya opened the back door, and both children went in. They saw Thorn and Har
sitting on the carpet, facing each other.

    “How ya doing, Har-buddy?” Tonya asked, patting his head. The large boy
winced in pain. “What’s wrong?”

    Thorn answered, “His new security collar is still integrating itself with his
neural pathways. He’ll be back to normal again in a couple days. Billy next door said that when
their big Pud got his collar, he moped around for a week. I guess it’s like neutering a
dog—they’re never the same afterwards.”

    Tonya scowled at Thornapple. She knelt down and brushed Har’s face with the
back of her hand. “Are you okay, big guy?” The boy twitched his head and stared blindly at the
wall.

    “I hope Har goes back to normal soon. I don’t know how long I can stand Mom’s
cooking,” Thorn said callously. “But hey, look at this!” He touched a button on the collar, and a
holographic screen projected in the air. No matter where they stood, the screen appeared to be
facing them. “Show me area 5 dash 7 sector 8,” he commanded.

    The screen turned black, and tiny specks of light appeared in the darkness.
“Look, it’s the Big Dipper,” he exclaimed, pointing to the constellation on the screen.

    Tonya furrowed her eyebrows. “How demeaning; you’ve turned Har into a walking
encyclopedia.”

    “Not only that,” Thorn said. “He’s upgradeable, too! Dad says next week we
might even add the weather channel to his database.”

    Tonya’s face and hair reddened. “That’s horrible! I don’t want any part of
this.” She marched to her bedroom, slammed the door, and didn’t come out until dinner.

    Dinner that night consisted of a wide assortment of food that Mrs. Troodle
had found in the cupboards, none of which looked very appetizing. Even her husband had nothing
good to say about the pathetic meal. Breakfast the next morning was about as enticing as dinner
had been, and most of the family decided to go hungry.

    Everyone sat groggily at the table, minding their own business. Thorn broke
the silence. “Does anybody know what today is?”

    Tonya answered smugly, “How could we not? It’s the day before the
thousand-year anniversary of the Battle of Lisardious.”

    “No, silly—it’s my birthday!”

    “Oh, that too,” Tonya added.

    “We didn’t forget,” said Dr. Troodle. “Your mother and I have a surprise for
you, Thornapple, but you’ll have to wait until tonight to find out.”

    Thorn beamed while Tonya rolled her eyes.

    Before the children left for school, Tonya whispered to Simon, “Here, take
this.” She handed him some fruit. “I have plans for us today, and they don’t include going to
school.” She gave him one of her mischievous grins.

    Simon adjusted his hover chair. “Are you sure we should ditch school?”

    “What sounds like more fun: learning magic or doing geometry problems with
Mrs. Larz?”

    He didn’t have to think long for that one.

    “Okay, let me go get my stuff.”

    Simon zoomed to his bedroom and came back a minute later with his fanny pack
bursting at the seams.

    Halfway to school, Tonya announced, “Ah, nuts! I forgot my homework. I guess
I’ll have to go back and get it.”

    Thorn looked at the girl suspiciously. “You did your homework?”

    “Of course I did,” she fibbed. “Simon, will you walk back with me? I don’t
wanna go home alone.”

    “I’ll go with you,” Thorn said.

    “Oh, no,” Simon said, playing along. “You don’t want to be late for school on
your birthday. I’ll go with Tonya.”

    “Well… okay,” the small Pud said with a slight twinge of uneasiness in his
voice. “I’ll see you later.”

    Thorn continued down the cobblestone road alone and was soon out of sight.
Like a giddy schoolgirl, Tonya leapt from the pathway and ran into the forest.

    “Wait for me!” Simon yelled, trying to keep up.

    The two children played tag for a while. Despite the awkwardness of the hover
chair, Simon sped through the forest with great agility. The quick reflexes he had gained from
the countless hours of video-game playing were finally paying off.

    Exhausted from both running and laughing, Tonya stopped to catch her breath.
Simon looked up at the tall trees surrounding them and marveled at their size. He looked closer
and realized that a family of slothlike creatures was nestled in the branches above; their hooked
arms grappled the boughs of the trees as they climbed.

    “Look at that.” Simon pointed at the long-armed sloths as they swung from one
tree to the next.

    At least twenty of the playful creatures were now visible. Some were about
the size of a full-grown human, while others were as small as a cat. All of them had great big
eyes and furry gray coats.

    Simon noticed one of the bigger animals easing itself to the opening of a
rather large and strange-looking tree. Five bright-green branches jutted from a crevice in the
tree like a bony hand. The sloth’s three curved toes wrapped around the welcoming branches,
allowing the curious animal to stand up and peer into the tree. The old sloth poked its head
closer to the gaping hole in the trunk and then quickly withdrew. It did this a few more
times—getting closer with each peek.

    “I love being around nature.” Tonya took a deep breath of fresh air.
“Everything is just so peaceful out here.”

    She had barely finished speaking when the five green branches clenched like a
fist around the unsuspecting sloth. The wooden fingers pulled the terrified animal into the
yawning mouth of the tree. Loud crunching sounds echoed from within the trunk. The other sloths
screamed and moved about wildly as the tree devoured the poor creature.

    After the horrible noises had finally died, the five green branches slowly
emerged from the hole once more. Glimmers of red blood dropped from the hungry branches as the
devious hand stretched its stiff fingers. Becoming still, it patiently waiting for another tasty
morsel of food to come along.