Leven Thumps and the Gateway to Foo

  He stopped just under Leven’s feet.

  Leven’s right shoelace was hanging low enough that it was almost touching the ground. Geth pushed himself up to it and lay on his backside to try and reach the dangling lace with his new arm.

  He could almost touch it.

  Leven shifted, and the lace dropped down even farther, touching Geth’s body. But before he could catch hold of it, Leven stood up, whipping the lace away, and walked off.

  Geth wanted to scream, but that’s hard to do when you have no mouth. He wanted to run after Leven, but that too was impossible. He felt like crying, but as any self-respecting being knows, there is no dignity in a crying toothpick.

  Geth watched Leven and the girl go through the diner doors and out into the dark and windy night.

  iv

  Leven stopped just outside the diner and bent down to tie his shoelace, his dark hair blowing all over in the strong wind. Of course, it was nothing compared to what the wind was doing to Winter’s hair.

  “So what was up with that old man?” Winter asked, trying to hold her hair down.

  “I have no idea,” Leven answered. “I just kept seeing a close up of him. I thought for a second he might be Geth.”

  Winter frowned. “I’m beginning to think we made a mistake. It’s pretty hard to feel like you’re making progress when you don’t know where you’re going.”

  Clover appeared, clinging to the front of Leven’s shirt. “So where’s my food, you guys?”

  “I thought you said you’d take care of yourself,” Leven said nicely, feeling sorry he hadn’t even thought of saving some for Clover.

  “Sure, I grazed off the plates of everyone else in there, but it still would have been a nice gesture for you to save me some of yours.”

  “We need to find a place to sleep,” Leven pointed out, ignoring Clover.

  “There’s always the bridge again,” Winter sighed.

  “This is beginning to feel hopeless,” Leven admitted.

  Clover vanished, and Leven and Winter turned toward the river.

  v

  Geth knew what he needed to do. He was useless in the state he was currently in. Fate had given him vision, and fate had caused Leven to kick him in such a way as to create an arm. Geth knew now that in order for him to get anywhere he needed to make a few more changes to himself. Without some work, he would be dead. He lay on the floor wondering what the best way to do that would be.

  He closed his eye and thought.

  After a few moments he rolled to his left side and pushed off into the walkway of the restaurant, where the heavy foot traffic was. Waitresses and waiters and customers were walking back and forth, going about their business with no concern for the small sliver of wood underfoot.

  It was now up to fate again.

  A teenager with green hair and heavy shoes was the first to unknowingly kick Geth. He skidded across the floor and came to rest next to a booth a heavy woman was currently trying to work herself out of. The woman’s high heel on her left shoe came down on the bottom end of Geth. His vision went momentarily black, as pain stronger and more massive than he had ever felt ripped through his body. He could see stars, and stars circling around those stars, and moons and lightning. He was half glad he didn’t have a mouth for fear that his scream would have garnered a lot of attention. The woman moved off, leaving Geth there on the floor, writhing in pain. He looked down at his crumpled end and winced. He would have taken some time to feel sorry for himself, but the waitress who had been serving the large woman stepped up to the booth to see how much of a tip she had earned.

  There was no tip.

  The waitress stamped her foot in anger. “Well, thanks a lot,” she muttered, hoping the stingy customer might look back and see her making a nasty face.

  Geth might have been slightly interested in the entire exchange, if the waitress’s stomp had not come down on the upper part of his thin body. He was now one tiny bruise. He rolled beneath the bench so he could recover a bit before going on.

  “Ohhhh,” he moaned.

  Geth instantly stopped moaning. Noise had come out of him. “Amazing,” he whispered. He couldn’t hear what he was saying for lack of ears, but he could feel the sound within his head.

  He lifted his left arm to the small hole beneath his eye that the stomping waitress had caused. He had a mouth. He looked to the bottom half of himself where the pain was still strong. The high heel had split his lower half perfectly. He moved his newly formed legs. Geth breathed hard.

  He pulled himself up, and stood, took two steps, and smiled. Fate had worked him over pretty well. Geth wasn’t done yet, however. He spotted the sharp point of a screw sticking out from the base of the bench.

  “I can’t stop now,” he said to himself.

  Geth took a deep breath, closed his eye, and smacked the side of his head into the tip of the screw. The pain was horrific, but nowhere near as bad as the high heel had been. Geth wobbled and felt lightheaded as noise rushed into him.

  He could hear.

  He whacked the other side of his head on the screw to make another ear and then worked on boring out a hole to smell with. It wasn’t actually fun, but the results were miraculous. He could hear, he could smell, and he could walk. Geth tried to jab a hole for a second eye, but he could bang his head only hard enough to make a shallow dent—not a deep enough hole to see out of. Knowing what he had to do, he walked to the far underside of the bench, turned, and ran full speed toward the screw tip.

  Now you might not think what Geth was doing too heroic or amazing. But if you had been under that bench and had watched that toothpick run valiantly across the floor and hurl himself face-first into the end of a sharp screw, you would have been quite impressed . . . or fairly mortified.

  Geth was screaming in pain, but he now had two eyes, one a little lower than the other on his skinny toothpick face.

  A family who had slipped into the booth above him heard the tiny screaming and assumed it was a mouse. The mother jumped up on top of the bench, and the father got the manager, who insisted they must be mistaken. The diner was rodent-free and would they like to keep their voices down and enjoy a complimentary piece of pie for their troubles? The family accepted the offer, but moved to a different booth.

  Geth caught his breath and looked around. He could now see well. Even with one eye located slightly lower than the other, he had a full range of sight. He opened and closed his mouth and smiled. He bent his legs and jumped. He flexed his arm. He had only one and it was a bit stiff, but he would now be able to fend for himself. He stuck his head out from under the bench to see if the coast was clear. It had not been long since Leven left, and with any luck Geth could get out of the diner and catch up to him.

  The door of the diner was closed, and Geth could see no opening around it. He watched a couple of people come in and he figured it was now or never. He bolted out from under the bench and sprang across the floor as the doors were swinging to a close. He sprinted harder and jumped just as the doors were shutting.

  He didn’t make it. The doors came together, closing tight with him wedged between them. All the pain and agony he had endured from being stepped on and split apart and poked and gouged were nothing compared to what he now felt. He tried to scream, but he couldn’t open his mouth. Trapped as he was, he couldn’t move his arm or legs or see anything. He was just a squashed toothpick caught about an inch off the ground between two gigantic, heavy metal doors.

  It was a full six minutes before someone walked out of the diner and Geth was able to drop to the ground and roll out to freedom. He was in such agony he could barely move, but he knew if he stayed in the pathway he would only get beaten up further. He crawled into the grass just to the side of the door and flopped over onto his back. He looked up at the sky and wondered what in the world he was doing.

  He began to laugh.

  Geth was not a toothpick. Geth was the last heir of the great realm of Foo. He was a king and a leader. He was cruc
ial to the well being and survival of all mankind. Yet here he was: a beaten up toothpick, tossed to the side of a diner, in the middle of nowhere.

  He thought of those back in Foo and how they would react if they could see him now. He thought of his enemies and the joy they would have knowing the state he was in. He thought of Sabine and the satisfaction Geth’s plight would give that dark figure. His body hurt. Being trapped by the door had crushed every bit of him, but it had also given him total mobility. Fate was too good to him.

  Geth closed his eyes and fell asleep in the grass.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Run Faster

  Leven and Winter walked toward the tree-lined river. In the darkness they made their way carefully through the woods and came to a dry rocky patch of bank. The still night air was cold and clammy.

  “That old man has something to do with us,” Leven insisted, still puzzled over the feelings he had experienced at the diner.

  “How are we supposed to know who we are even looking for?” Winter asked in frustration.

  Clover had been riding in the hood of Leven’s sweatshirt. He showed himself and smiled at Winter. “You’ll know.” His nose wiggled.

  “Why do we need him?” Winter questioned, gesturing toward Clover.

  “He knows the way,” Leven said.

  “This is ridiculous,” Winter moaned. “We’ve wasted—”

  A rustling in the woods shut Winter up. Leven put his finger to his lips. A sudden wind blew and again there was the noise of something moving amongst the trees.

  Clover disappeared.

  “Hello?” Leven asked the wind.

  A low moaning commenced.

  “Something doesn’t feel right,” Winter whispered.

  No sooner had she said the words than the trees around them began to bend inward over them. Dark vapors soared through the trees and swept low over their heads, whispering.

  “You see us, you see us,” the shadows whispered.

  “Run!” Leven yelled.

  It was a silly thing for him to say. Winter was already sprinting off through the woods with Leven frantically dashing after her. Branches scratched and whipped at them as they fled, while the dark shadows swarmed around them, encircling their heads and penetrating their noses and mouths.

  Screaming in terror, Winter came to a sudden stop, with Leven right behind her. He looked to see what had stopped her and gasped.

  The dark shadows were gathered in front of them in a tall, hissing spiral. Beneath the swirling mass, the ground suddenly erupted, heaving up a gigantic mound of rocks, dirt, and twisted foliage. Rising out of the fractured earth, a huge shape emerged. Shaking dirt and tree branches off its massive head and shoulders, it grew as big as a building—with a thick, wide body, like that of a bullfrog. It stood on four sturdy legs with thick scales covering its belly and its white eyes burning over a cavernous, wet mouth. A layer of rocks and dirt covered its back.

  The beast breathed, showering mud and rocks on Winter and Leven. The blast stung Leven’s bare arms, and a gob of smelly mud filled his right eye.

  The beast bellowed, snorted, and moved toward Leven and Winter. The shadows laughed hideously, hissing and screaming.

  Winter and Leven backed away from the beast, eyes wide, their hearts in their mouths, and their minds spinning. Leven was quaking with fear almost strong enough to cause him to simply give up and be swallowed just to be done with it.

  The beast bellowed again, giving Leven the courage to move.

  “Get into the trees!” he yelled.

  Winter and Leven ran back into the trees. The beast lumbered after them but was stopped by the heavy growth. It screamed and again spewed mud all over. Leven and Winter ran even faster as mud clods showered around them. The shadows were nowhere to be seen.

  “Stop!” Winter yelled as they came into a clearing.

  Leven was happy to oblige. His lungs were burning and his legs about to give out. He bent over with his hands on his knees, sucking in air.

  “It can’t run any farther,” Winter gasped. “I think the trees stopped it.”

  Leven lifted his head and squinted into the darkness. He couldn’t see a thing. “What was that?” he wheezed.

  “Like I know?” Winter said. “It—” An ominous rumbling noise caused her to stop talking. “Oh, no,” she whispered.

  The noise was coming from the direction of the beast, and it was quickly getting louder.

  Leven squinted into the darkness. A huge mound of earth was rolling toward them. The trees and foliage above it lifted and lowered as it came closer. As the burrow exited the woods, the ground broke open, and the beast they thought the trees had stopped erupted out of the earth once again. It looked much bigger and more angry than it had before.

  Leven’s mind spun as he tried to think of something to do. “Freeze it!” he yelled, remembering Winter’s gift. “Freeze it!”

  Winter trembled and closed her eyes. Ice began to build over the beast’s ankles and on its scaly belly. He pitched and swung his massive head wildly, spewing clods of mud from its mouth in every direction. Ice quickly encased him, sealing his angry mouth and silencing his hideous roars.

  Leven looked at Winter in awe. “Unbelievable,” he breathed.

  Winter was about to accept the compliment when a loud sizzling noise began to come from the huge block of ice. The beast beneath the icy cage groaned and shook violently. The ice covering him exploded with an ear-splitting crack, hurling huge chunks and shards of ice everywhere. Leven barely had time to cover his face before he was struck in the side by a heavy piece of ice that knocked the breath out of him. While trying desperately to breathe, he could see Winter lying unconscious on the ground.

  The monster was now ice-free, and angrier than ever. Leven closed his eyes and tried to see the future. But he was no better at managing his gift now than before. He couldn’t see anything but fear.

  Hoping to manipulate fate into destroying the beast for him, he willed the beast to be gone. Nothing. The beast lumbered closer. Leven’s mind cleared and he could see a possible solution. The solution involved him picking up Winter. He looked at her as she lay there and remembered her voice warning him not to touch her. He shook the warning off and bent over to pick her up.

  The instant Leven touched Winter, there was an explosion that stunned him and made his ears pop. The world began to spin. The air around him appeared to melt and drip downward, and the landscape became smeared, as though a giant hand were being dragged across a still-wet portrait. Shooting stars traced crazy patterns in the sky, and big dots of burning light rose and fell on the horizon.

  Then, like a spinning coin settling, things began to revolve more slowly and finally ceased moving entirely.

  The beast roared again. Leven had no time to contemplate what had happened. He slid his arms under Winter and strained to lift her. Straightening, he looked into the white eyes of the approaching beast and shifted Winter in his hold. He turned and ran as fast as he could, through the trees and out onto the open prairie, praying his plan would work.

  The monster stomped madly, hesitated for a moment, then plunged into the earth and began burrowing after them. Carrying Winter in his arms and trying to run was exhausting. Her weight was breaking Leven’s back. His shoulders ached and the muscles in his arms were burning. Leven shifted Winter and pushed forward faster.

  Winter began to stir. Still dazed, she looked up at Leven as he ran.

  “What are you doing?” she moaned.

  “Saving you!” Leven’s heart and legs ached as his mind tried to calculate how much farther he needed to go.

  Oklahoma is a relatively flat state. No Alps, no Rockies. If you rolled a ball in most places of the state it would stop eventually, due to there being no slope. There was, however, a cliff just to the east of Burnt Culvert. It was a sheer drop-off that towered over the vast prairie far below. It was a site where long ago, Native Americans used to drive huge herds of buffalo over its edge. The buffalo wo
uldn’t see the drop until it was too late, plummeting by the hundreds to their deaths below.

  It was toward that cliff that Leven was now running, his arms and shoulders screaming with pain from carrying Winter and his legs going numb. He pushed on across the prairie, listening to the rumble of the burrowing beast behind him. Leven peered into the darkness. He couldn’t see, he was exhausted, and he was leading a giant dirt clod to a cliff that would more than likely kill him and Winter before it killed the beast.

  The earth directly below him began to rise, and Leven struggled to keep his balance on the hurtling mound that had caught up to them. It was as if he were surfing a gigantic, speeding dirt wave. He teetered, trying to stay on top of the burrowing monster as it rushed forward. Leven peered ahead and prayed that his memory and calculations were correct.

  “Get ready to fall!” he hollered to Winter as he held her, the rumbling of the earth so loud he had to yell.

  “What?” Winter screamed.

  Leven didn’t have time to answer. He shifted Winter in his arms, closed his eyes, and leaped sideways off the mound of speeding earth. He hit the ground hard and lost his hold on Winter, who flew out of his arms and rolled away.

  The giant burrowing creature was caught by surprise. Before it could adjust for Leven’s departure and change its course or slow down, it hurtled through the wall of the cliff and out into space, hundreds of feet above the prairie floor below.