Invasion of the Hazmats

  “But, in the abyssmal realms, people are completely dependent on the lights. It’s too dark even for fairies, Sky included. Not just to see. Their agriculture relies on fairy lights. Without light, whole cities would be deserted. Thousands of people would be displaced. Many more would go hungry. Any problems with the fairy lights down there are serious. Very serious.”

  “I have already given the matter some thought,” Zazkal announced.

  What he meant was – ‘I have decided what must be done and now I am going to tell you what to do.’

  “We’re working with only the vaguest sort of information,” Mele’ said. “Someone needs to be on the spot to confirm what we’re hearing up here.”

  “It will take weeks for anyone to reach the nearest abyssmal city,” Zazkal said. “But… it will take Miriam and me only a couple of days using the travel-bubble. It got us here. It can get us there.”

  I was beyond bored at the coral reef. The only time Zazkal talked to me anymore was to yell. Cleaning up after him may have been stressful, but it was still boring. As far as writing practice went, well, I prefer reading. A road trip to the bottom of the ocean, even with you-know-who for company, sounded like heaven.

  I smashed my lips together to keep my mouth shut. I knew that ‘no way is this going to happen’ look on Grandma and Grandpa’s faces. That was Mom’s look and now I know who she got it from.

  All eyes now turned to Zazkal.

  “That is correct. I have been working on a new spell to use with the bubble. It’s an amplification of the natural tendency of outsea people not to notice fairy things. Chances are that land people wouldn’t notice it anyway unless it bumped into them. This is just an extra sort of security.”

  Very politely, Grandpa pointed out his reservations about sending Zazkal at all.

  “We have very little contact with the fairy communities in the deepest parts of the ocean. Past experience tells us that a trained diplomat is the best way to acquire information.”

  That was what he said. What everyone knew he was actually thinking was that Zazkal couldn’t spend more than five minutes with anyone without getting into an argument. We were way past five minutes now and he was getting testy.

  He proceeded to prove Grandpa’s point by losing his temper. Zazkal had very little patience for anyone who did not immediately see his point of view and agree with him. Convincing people of anything they did not already think was not his strong point.

  “Don’t be an idiot,” he said. “How would your so-called ‘diplomat’ get back? You know perfectly well I’m the only one who can construct the traveling bubble. And I’ll need that bag to do it,” Zazkal said. “Therefore, Miriam must come.

  “She’ll be perfectly safe. We will be traveling in a practically invisible bubble to another Sky kingdom. It’s not as if we are going chasing off after the Hazmats ourselves or some such foolery.”

  “Why,” asked Flora “do you need the extra assistance of Miriam’s sampo on such a ‘safe’ trip?” Why can’t you preset the bubble for the return trip when you make it?

  Not having an answer better than ‘Because I want it’, Zazkal said nothing and turned on his best eye-piercing glare. The non-conversation continued to deteriorate in this manner until finally, Flora said, “Both of you please go outside. Mele’ and I would like to discuss this privately.

  “Miriam,” she added, “Verona is somewhere in the library stack. Why don’t you look for her? One of us will let you know what we decide.”

  I was gone before Flora finished talking. The last thing I wanted to do was hang around with Zazkal, while my grandparents made decisions that he thought should be his.

  CHAPTER 4

  ROAD TRIP

  I found my salt sister, Verona, in the music library. She was pretty focused on the scroll on her lap and didn’t notice me come in.

  Verona was not exactly the big sister I had imagined, but if Ethelred my science project partner from school was telling the truth about her own sister, then Verona was probably pretty standard teenage sister material. We may have taken an oath to take care of each other, but apparently BFF wasn’t part of the deal.

  I wasn’t complaining, but I was careful.

  “Hey, Verona.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Of course. What else would it be? Zazkal kicked you out, right? I knew you wouldn’t last a week.”

  “It’s been two weeks, and no, he hasn’t kicked me out…yet. That would be okay. This is… like I said…complicated.

  “Zazkal wanted to talk to Grandma and Grandpa about the fairy lights…and...he wants to go on a kind of fact-finding-mission…and…he wants me to go with him.”

  She crossed her arms and looked me in the eye.

  “Okay. Details. Now. Don’t leave anything out.”

  Verona knew about my encounter with the weird pirate people but I hadn’t mentioned my little souvenir. When I did, she was not impressed.

  “How could you be so dumb? You should have seen at once that they were the same thing as the power nuts in the fairy lights.”

  “Well, I didn’t. I bet you wouldn’t have, either. It had been days and days since I had taken my lucky pebble out and looked at it, and I just didn’t think of it.

  “I don’t think Zazkal cares if I come or not,” I said. “All he really wants is access to my sampo.”

  “So, do you want to do this?”

  “If you mean, do I want to spend two days in a traveling-bubble with Zazkal, what do you think?

  That produced Verona’s famous snarky smile. “Hey, better you than me, but visiting a abyssmal city, that’s like, the trip of a lifetime. I don’t know anyone who’s ever gone.”

  “Don’t forget,” I said. This is already the trip of a lifetime as far as I’m concerned, but yea, that part sounds pretty cool.”

  We were still in the library when Grandma and Grandpa showed up. Grandma got right to it.

  “Mele’ and I have decided that you can go, but with two conditions.

  “The first is that our chief minister, Bibi, will be coming with you. As an official emissary, he will be able to open doors.”

  I shifted into adult-speak translation mode and heard…nobody will talk to either of you on your own.

  She paused and said to me. “I see you’re a little skeptical,”

  “Zazkal is okay with this?”

  “Actually, I think he is relieved to have someone else to do the talking. But Miriam, it will not be easy having Bibi along. Do try to stay out of the middle.”

  I was thinking that we are going to need a really big bubble.

  “This sounds like a good time for me to concentrate on my writing practice,” I said. Preferably with top notch pair of noise canceling headphones, I thought.

  “What’s the second condition, grandmother?”

  Flora smiled and said, “Something much simpler I hope. Zazkal thinks you have progressed enough with your writing to be able to learn some simple magic.”

  I perked up immediately. This was more like it. I am dying to learn some real spells.

  “We want you to learn a sleep spell before you leave.” She turned to Verona. “Verona, Miriam needs someone to practice with. Do you think you have time to help?”

  “You mean like, put me to sleep, wake me up, put me to sleep, wake me up, about a million times.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Miriam’s bubble friends were hanging around onsea earlier. I bet they would think that kind of thing was fun.”

  I didn’t think that anyone in the dolphin pod would find endless nap and repeat any more fun than Verona did, but it was worth a try

  “I’ll go onsea and ask,” I said. Maybe Stan and Ollie will help.”

  “If it doesn’t work out, you know where to find me,” Verona said. She must have been feeling guilty.

  “Zazkal is still in the Great Hall. He’s waiting to teach you the spell before we take him to meet Bibi.??
? Verona and I exchanged glances. Hanging around with Zazkal was not on Verona’s list of fun things to do.

  “Well, you won’t be needing me anymore, so I’ll just take off.”

  “Coward!”

  “If you spend the rest of today practicing,” Grandma said as we left, “you should be ready to go first thing in the morning.”

  CHAPTER 5

  CRASH TAG

  I found Zazkal swimming around impatiently in the Great Hall.

  “You realize that you could have spent the two days in the bubble learning the sleep spell, using Bibi and me to practice on.” He was mad.

  “I told your grandparents that you were ready and would have no problem learning such a simple spell before we reach our destination. The only magic involved is the actual putting to sleep. Once asleep, the person is not under any kind of spell. If they’re tired, they will sleep for a long time. If they’re rested, they will just nap.”

  “Just because they insisted that you learn the sleep spell before we go, does not mean that I will tolerate any pointless delays. I am leaving in the morning, with or without the sampo.”

  It only took a few minutes to learn the actual spell. Zazkal took the sampo and left to find Bibi. I headed onsea to look for the pod.

  When I got to the surface, I took a small whelk whistle out of my sampo, making sure it was pitched to dolphin-speak. I swam around for a while, whistling and listening, until I heard the answering call.

  Another minute and I could see a group of dolphins swimming towards me. Two of them cut out of the group and kept coming while the rest turned and swam in another direction.

  One of the dolphins speeded up, racing ahead of his companion. I hung loose in the water. When he swept past at full speed, I reached out quickly and grabbed his tail. There was a sudden jerk, and I was pulled through the water at a terrific speed.

  In less than half a minute, my fingers were torn loose and I found myself floating in the water again

  “That was our best yet,” Stanley said as he swam back. “You’re getting really good.”

  “Where’s Ollie?

  “Here I am, Miss Miriam.” He surfaced right next to us. “Really, Stanley, don’t you think you’re a little old for that kind of game?”

  “Miriam’s not.

  “Want to try again?” Ollie said to me.

  “Only if you can catch me,” I said, swimming off. I reached back with both hands and pulled the chameleon tape off my shoulder blades, opened my wings and rose up and out of the water. I skimmed along the surface with the tip of my very strong but very heavy tail dragging in the water. Flying with a fish tail may not work, but skimming is fun and I can go really fast.

  I made pretty good time this way, but not as good as Stanley, who was already circling back towards me. I saw him coming up fast and started to veer left. As usual, I wasn’t fast enough, and got knocked back into the water as he swam under and past me.

  “Well, this is a nice surprise,” Ollie said, waiting politely for me to catch my breath.

  “Are you rested yet?” Stanley asked.

  “Come on, Stanley, give me a break. I’m exhausted. Anyway, don’t you want to hear why I’m here?” I didn’t give them a chance to answer, but launched immediately into the story of the pebble and the pirates.

  “…so, I need someone to practice the sleep-spell on, and I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind helping.” I said when I was done.

  “Wow!” Stanley was blown away. “There are whale songs about the cities of the abyssmal realms. I didn’t know they were true.”

  “It would be an honor to assist you, Miss Miriam,” Ollie said. “It is the least we can do, since we won’t be able to come along to protect you. We will, of course, be happy to advise you on such a sensitive diplomatic mission–”

  “–Oh, Ollie, we don’t know anything about the cities down there. We’ve never been much past Casalot.”

  “Of course we do. I have heard all the whale songs. I can tell Miss Miriam everything she needs to know.”

  “You told me those songs were just made up stories–“

  I decided it was time to change the subject and I knew just how to do it.

  “Hey, Stanley,” I said, swimming off to put some distance between us, “See if you can catch me this time.” I muttered the spell under my breath staring hard at Stanley as he swam at me at top speed...

  It took us a few minutes to recover after the collision.

  “How come you didn’t go to sleep,” I said. If Stanley had eyebrows, he would have raised them. All he said was,

  “Really!”

  “Yeah, well, I guess maybe I do need just a little practice.”

  “Small steps, Miss Miriam,” Ollie said. “Small steps. Perhaps if we both swim still it will be easier.”

  He had a point. This time, I said the spell in my head and looked Ollie in the eye while we floated next to each other in the water. He closed one eye.

  “It worked Miriam. You did it.” Stanley was elated.

  “Yea, well, I guess that half asleep is not bad for a first try,” I said to Ollie’s open eye. He opened his other eye.

  “I was most certainly not half asleep!” he said.

  “If you were all the way asleep, how could you hear me?

  “Sleeping and hearing are different things. We sleep differently from Sky.

  “Can you hold your breath when you’re asleep? We can, but we have to be awake to breathe. So we only sleep on one side at a time. The other side is for breathing–”

  “–And for noticing where we are so we don’t breathe underwater,” Stanley added. “That’s how Ollie could hear you talking. He heard you with his noticing side.”

  “So you can be all awake and perky on one side but sleepy and ready for a nap on the other?

  “Exactly.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Weird.”

  After that, we followed Ollie’s advice and the drill conformed to a less mobile and more traditional form.

  CHAPTER 6

  READING, WRITING, AND THE SLEEP SPELL

  By the time Zazkal showed up, Stan and Ollie fell asleep more or less reliably about half the time and got sleepy the other half. I could even pick which side went to sleep, but matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make them fall asleep on both sides…which was probably good.

  We demonstrated my new skill for Zazkal

  “Now try it on me,” he said. I did. Three times. Nothing happened, not even a yawn.

  “Keep practicing,” he said and left.

  “Maybe we should try the chase thing again,” I said.

  “If that is your wish, Miss Miriam, then I will leave you to your childish pursuits,” Ollie said. “Farewell, Miss Miriam. I trust I will see you when you are ready to learn about places you are about to visit.”

  “Is he pissed?”

  “I don’t think so. He gets bored when he’s not the one doing all the talking.”

  “Well, it is pretty boring. I thought we could start with slow swimming and build up. At least we would be moving.”

  An hour later, we had mastered speed swimming plus sleep spell. Stanley had gone to sleep and been awakened so many times, that he had doubts of ever feeling sleepy again.

  “You know Miriam,” Stanley said. “This sleep thing gives you an unfair advantage when we are playing.”

  I reached into my sampo and took out a blank scroll. “What makes you think you can’t learn the sleep spell,” I asked.

  “I thought you had to be a fairy to do magic.”

  “I’m not a fairy. Just knowing the spell isn’t enough, though. You need the three C’s, Cooking, Cultivating and Concentrating.

  “Actually, you only need the concentrating part for this spell, because we’re not making anything new. You can learn it the same way I did, by practicing writing first.”

  It was nice being the teacher for a change.

  I held the scroll for Stanley while I taught him the words
of the writing spell,

  “I started by trying to write just one letter,” I said. “Stanley, do you know how to read?”

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” he answered. “Most bubble people learn how to read, because the Sky write so many lovely books.

  “A couple of us hold the book and someone else reads out loud. Usually, there’s a group listening as well.

  “We don’t really understand why reading is such a lonely activity among the Sky. Half the fun for us is reading stories with friends.”

  After a dozen tries, and just as his brain was starting to fuzz up from the effort, a short squiggly line appeared on the page.

  Several backward somersaults and triple twist leaps later, Stanley bumped me out of the water and said simply, but with great animation,

  “I did it!”

  We kept practicing, but Stanley got tireder and tireder. We thought about using the sleep spell, but he needed a real break.

  I said goodbye to Stanley and swam down to the library in Casalot, leaving the scroll on a shelf where he could easily retrieve it when he wanted to practice.

  CHAPTER 7

  BUBBLING ALONG

  I met Bibi the next morning when I went to the great hall looking for Grandma and Grandpa. He was facing the entrance and saw me first.

  Bibi smiled and waved. I smiled back, looked him in the eye and concentrated.

  He was on the small side for a Sky, with a short pointy beard, older than Mom and Dad, but younger than Grandma and Grandpa and by the time I reached him, he was asleep.

  “Okay? Do I get to go?”

  “Yes, you get to go,” Grandpa said, nudging Bibi to wakefulness with his elbow. My smile expanded.

  “Don’t look so pleased with yourself. That was very rude.”

  Maybe it was the oversized grin or just a side effect of one too many sleep spells, but I was suddenly consumed by a giant yawn. I barely got my hands up in time to cover the gap.

  I heard someone snigger.

  “Nice to finally meet you, Miriam,” Bibi said. He had a big grin on his face too. “I’m guessing you didn’t get much sleep last night.”

  “I was too excited.”

  “Miriam,” Grandma said, absolutely deadpan, “you spent nearly all day yesterday practicing the sleep spell…”

  I waited a moment for someone to finish the sentence. No one did. They were waiting for me to dig myself in deeper,