Akiko in the Sprubly Islands (5 page)

Soon we were
only half a mile or so from the shore. From what I could see, the beach appeared to be wide and sandy, with huge black boulders jutting out all over the place. As we floated closer, the raft got caught in a current that swiftly carried us toward land.

“Everybody hunker down, now,” Spuckler warned. “If we hit one of them boulders, there’s a good chance of gettin’ knocked right outta the raft!”

I crouched low and braced myself as best I could, covering my head with my arms and drawing my legs under my body. Water sprayed over the edges of the raft and soaked us, just like on one of those water rides in an amusement park. The roar of the waves grew louder and louder as the raft rocketed past one black boulder and then another, until finally an enormous wave tossed the raft onto the beach, sending all of us sprawling headfirst onto the sand.

The water quickly receded into the sea, and we scrambled across the sand to avoid the next wave already sweeping in behind us. Spuckler picked both Gax and the raft up in his arms and carried them to a dry, sandy area far from the tide line. Mr. Beeba, his face covered in sand, stumbled after them and finally collapsed in exhaustion. Poog floated along to join them, and I walked unsteadily after Poog, my feet somehow unused to the feel of dry land.

We all sat down on the beach to catch our breath for a moment. Gax clicked and buzzed as he deflated the raft, carefully folded it up, and placed it in a compartment somewhere deep inside his body. Poog was humming quietly a few feet away from me, gazing out at the sea. I sat there on the sand, my elbows on my knees, watching the waves roll in one after the other. The late afternoon sun lit the beach from a very low angle, casting long thin shadows from every stone and seashell. A bunch of tiny crablike creatures skittered along a few yards from where I was sitting and a warm, soothing wind blew across my back. I could have sat that way for
the rest of the day, except for one thing: My stomach was almost completely empty.

“I’m hungry,” I said to no one in particular.

“You ain’t the only one,” Spuckler said, turning his head toward the forest behind us. “I wonder if there’s anything eatable around here.”

“
Edible
, Spuckler,” Mr. Beeba instructed. “Edible.”

“All right,” I said decisively. “We’ve already achieved one of our goals: We’ve arrived safely in the Sprubly Islands. The next thing we have to do is find Queen Pwip.”

“Agreed,” Mr. Beeba said, as if he were checking things off a list in his head.

“But we’re not going to find Queen Pwip tonight,” I continued. “It’s almost sundown, and besides, we’re all half starved.”

“So what’s your plan, ’Kiko?” Spuckler asked, knocking his head with an open hand to dislodge some water from his ear.

“I say we go into this forest and see if we can find anything eatable,” I answered. “I mean,
edible
.”

“Good thinking, Akiko,” Mr. Beeba said. “But we’d better get moving. We only have a few minutes of sun light left.”

So we got to our feet and made our way up the beach and through the tall grasses that grew at the edge of the forest. The sun had nearly set, and the light gave the trunks of the trees a red-and-orange glow. Spuckler took the lead and we all followed obediently behind him. The forest was strangely quiet, apart from the occasional call of a bird high above.

As we went along, Mr. Beeba pointed out a number of plants he recognized from his studies in botany. He kept trying to make us memorize the names, like some overenthusiastic schoolteacher. Unfortunately, Spuckler and I were way too hungry to be appreciative students.

“Can anyone spot the coniferous twump?” Mr. Beeba asked as we lumbered farther into the increasingly dark woods. “Come on, now. I’ve pointed it out several times already.”

“Beeba,” Spuckler answered, “we don’t want to hear about no more of your highfalutin plants. Not unless it’s somethin’ we can
eat
.”

“Well, you wouldn’t want to eat a coniferous twump,” Mr. Beeba answered, a troubled expression coming over his face. “It’s been known to make people’s intestines explode!”

“We sure are hungry, Mr. Beeba,” I said, trying not to imagine what it would feel like to have my intestines explode. “Aren’t
any
of these plants safe to eat?”

“I appreciate your desire for a good square meal, Akiko, but you can’t go through the forest eating things willy-nilly,” Mr. Beeba answered, reaching out and grabbing hold of a small, smooth-surfaced fruit hanging from a nearby plant. “Take
this
fruit, for example: plump, fragrant, and pleasing to the eye; one might think it would make a
delightful
snack. . . .”

“That’s all I need to hear,” Spuckler said, snatching the fruit out of Mr. Beeba’s hands and twisting it free from its stem.

“Spuckler! Wait!” Mr. Beeba pleaded. “I know
nothing
about this plant! It might upset your stomach! It . . . It could be poisonous!”

But it was too late. Spuckler ate the entire thing in a couple of bites and swallowed with an audible gulp. There was a long, frightening pause as we watched to see what would happen. Gax made a squeaky churning sound as he raised his head to get a closer look at Spuckler’s face. Poog hovered near Spuckler’s shoulder, a slightly nervous expression in his eyes. Then Spuckler let out a loud belch and chuckled happily.

“These things are
good
!” Spuckler declared triumphantly, quickly plucking another one and tossing it in my direction. “Here, ’Kiko. Try one!”

I caught the little fruit with both hands and raised it to my face, slowly turning it over and inhaling its faintly sweet aroma. It was about the same size and texture as an eggplant, but its skin was dark blue with light blue spots, like some kind of exotic butterfly.

I knew that it was wrong to eat something out in the forest without being sure what it was. There was always the possibility that I’d end up getting a bad stomachache or even worse. Still, I was so hungry and the fruit smelled so good that I finally couldn’t resist. I took a tiny little bite, chewed, and swallowed.

“Mmmm, they
are
good!” I said, taking another bite. It was a lot like a peach, except it tasted a little like strawberries, too. It was soft and juicy and had just one seed in the middle about the size of an almond. I went over and helped Spuckler find some more.

“Try one, Mr. Beeba,” I said, handing him a smaller one I’d just picked. “It’s better than staying hungry, trust me!”

“Well . . . ,” Mr. Beeba replied, his resistance wearing down, “it
does
have a rather pleasant aroma. . . .”

After inspecting it thoroughly and wiping it vigorously against his clothes like a boy polishing an apple, Mr. Beeba took a bite of the mysterious blue-spotted fruit. Spuckler and I watched him as he slowly chewed and chewed and chewed. Finally he swallowed loudly and wiped the juice from his chin.

“Oh my,” he said quietly, opening his eyes wide and licking his lips. “ It
is
good, isn’t it?”

Spuckler gave me a wink as if to say “I knew it!”

“Let’s pick as many of them as we can!” Mr. Beeba said excitedly, no longer sounding the least bit cautious. “We’ve got to hurry! The daylight’s almost gone!”

He was right. The forest was growing darker and darker, and now only the very tops of the trees were lit with a faint red-and-orange glow. Spuckler, Mr. Beeba, and I picked as many pieces of the fruit as we could and began placing them on the ground in little piles. Even Gax helped out a little, though as a robot he wouldn’t end up eating any of them. Finally we all sat down on the ground and began our feast.

We laughed and
joked with one another as we stuffed ourselves with the fruit, smiling and spitting the seeds in all directions. Mr. Beeba turned out to have even more of an appetite than Spuckler and me put together. By the time I had reached my limit, Mr. Beeba had eaten more than two dozen pieces of the fruit and showed no sign of slowing down.

“Beeba, take a
breather
for a second, will ya?” Spuckler said, chuckling. “You’re gonna make yourself sick!”

“You’re quite right, Spuckler,” Mr. Beeba replied, grabbing another piece of fruit from the pile in front of him. “I’ll stop just as soon as I finish this stack.”

It was right around then that I started to get this odd feeling all over my body. At first I thought I was getting an upset stomach, except I didn’t feel really bad, just really . . . well,
weird
. It was like my whole body felt a little lighter or something. I looked over at Spuckler and noticed that he had a puzzled expression on his face.

“Hey, Beebs,” he said, “ya really better stop eatin’ that stuff, and I mean pronto. I’m startin’ to feel a little . . . strange.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Spuckler,” Mr. Beeba said between mouthfuls. “I’ve never felt better in my life.”

Suddenly I had the odd sensation that I couldn’t feel the ground underneath me anymore. I reached down to touch the ground and felt myself slowly float up into the air an inch or two!

“Whoah!” I gasped. “I’m . . . I’m
floating
, guys!”

I looked over and saw that Spuckler was no longer touching the ground either. In fact, he was hovering about six inches above it!

“Lordy!” he called out, laughing nervously. “So am I! I’m sittin’ on thin air!” Gax buzzed and whirred as he watched his master slowly float farther and farther away from the ground.

By that time Mr. Beeba had also started to rise into the air. Though normally I would have expected him to be in a panic, he was actually giggling and chuckling like a little child.

“Astounding!” he cried, beaming as he turned himself over in the air. “It must be something in the fruit! It’s causing us to defy the law of gravity!”

I floated about two feet off the ground before leveling off, just bobbing up and down in the air like a duck on a pond. Spuckler rose about four feet before stopping and floating there in pretty much the same way. But Mr. Beeba was already nearly six feet off the ground and continued to float steadily upward with no sign of stopping. Rather than trying to slow himself down, he began flapping his arms around and swimming through the air as fast as he could. He was obviously enjoying himself.

“I’m soaring to the treetops!” he cried as he hurled himself into the air like a rocket. By the time he stopped he was at least forty feet above us, swimming in wide circles through the branches of the trees.

“Hey, Beeba, take it easy!” Spuckler shouted. “You ate too many of them things!”

“Yes, Mr. Beeba,” I cried. “Come back down! It’s too dark for you to see up there.”

“Don’t be silly!” Mr. Beeba called to us as he flew from one tree to another. “It’s exhilarating up here! You two really ought to give it a try!”

“Beeba, I ain’t kiddin’!” Spuckler yelled, his voice growing angrier. “You’re gonna get yourself killed!” It was odd and somehow very frightening to see Mr. Beeba acting so recklessly. It wasn’t like him at all.

“Oh, listen to you!” Mr. Beeba laughed, flipping through the air like a trapeze artist. “For once I’m having a good time, and now suddenly you’re crying out for prudence and caution! If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous!”

“’Kiko,” Spuckler whispered, turning to me, “who
is
that guy up there, and what’s he done with the real Beeba?”

“I know what you mean, Spuckler,” I said. “He’s kind of lost his mind, hasn’t he?” We both strained to make out Beeba’s silhouette against the ever-darkening sky. By that point he must have been seventy or eighty feet above us.

“Akiko! Spuckler!” we heard Mr. Beeba shout. “There’s some kind of
animal
up here! I can hear him breathing!”

“Stay away, Beebs!” Spuckler cried, now very agitated. “You’re probably invading his turf!”

Mr. Beeba pulled himself through the trees by grasping first one branch, then another, apparently trying to get a better look at the creature.

“Don’t worry, little fellow,” we heard Mr. Beeba say in a singsong voice. “I mean you no harm.”

Just then there was a rustling from the trees, followed by a deep, rumbling growl. It sounded like a lion or something!

“
Beeba!
” Spuckler shouted as loudly as he could.

There was the sound of a brief struggle as twigs snapped and branches shook. Then the rustling grew quieter and quieter as it moved higher and higher into the trees.

A handful of leaves drifted slowly down from above.

A bird called out from somewhere far away.

Then it was completely quiet.

“
BEEBA
!” Spuckler howled, his voice echoing in the silence.

Spuckler and I, still floating just a few feet off the ground, stared at each other in shock as we realized Mr. Beeba was gone. Poog frowned and Gax made a long wheezing noise. Our little gang had just gone from five members to four!

“
You idiot!”
Spuckler shouted up at the trees, clenching his fists and spinning in circles. “I
told
you not to go up there!”

“What are we going to do?” I asked, suddenly feeling very scared.

“There’s only one thing we
can
do!” Spuckler exclaimed, grabbing a piece of fruit from one of the piles beneath him. “I’m gonna eat some more of this stuff and go up there after him!”

“No, Spuckler!” I cried, my voice trembling. “Don’t go! Don’t leave me alone down here!” Stars were already visible through the trees, and it was starting to feel damp and chilly.

“Take it easy, ’Kiko,” Spuckler said between mouthfuls as he swallowed one piece of fruit after another. “You ain’t gonna be alone. Ya got Gax an’ Poog here to keep ya company!”

Spuckler swallowed five or six more pieces of the fruit, then began floating up into the treetops.

“Don’t worry, ’Kiko!” he called down to me before disappearing into the dark. “I’ll be back with Beeba before ya know it!”