To Tim on his 25th Birthday
Love,
Noey
Little Grood was walking home on his first day back from summer break at the Lower Hill Initial Learning Repository, his school for four years now. His birthday had been last week, the last week of summer, and he had turned the big 1-0. On Great Supe, much like other planets with intelligent life, birthdays were very popular with those who could still enjoy the novelty of counting upward. Being a 10 year old Suplean had certain benefits—he would be seriously considered when suggesting grocery list items, he could buy his own Sup-Sup Sugar Pods from the sugar pod truck, and he could walk himself home without adult supervision. His classmates had turned 10 during the last semester and as a result he had endured 6 long months of feeling like a silly toddling slug baby. He was thoroughly excited to finally revel in these new found freedoms and walked out of the school's sliding doors as if he was hiding the galaxy's funniest secret.
His mother and father were convinced that this rite of passage would only distract him from more important things. “Grood is smart and very kind to his classmates, but he is extremely forgetful,” his teachers had told them, and so it was not easy to say “yes” to Grood on these matters. What if he forgot his brunch pail? What if he didn't look all three ways when crossing the road? What if he left his shoes untied and he tripped and a group of mean seven years recognized his vulnerability and stole his beloved grandfather's war pendant keychain (which was a gift and worth a little too much to let a child walk around with, but what can we do, he loves it)? The two of them, his mother a worrier and his father having a vivid imagination, had created many a terrifying after-school scenario.
Grood acknowledged their worries as just another way they intended to smother him. He knew scare-tactics when he heard them, and that walking home alone would not cause the end of the world. The end of the world wouldn't be as simple as walking four blocks, turning right, entering his home, dropping his book bag (“A Living Breathing Suplean Book Sack with New and Improved Helium Geysers!”) into the sorting chute and slipping one's boots into the family boot shelf.
So as he walked, he tried to enjoy every ounce of this freedom, lest the next day his parents decided that they could not afford to allow their only child to walk four quiet residential blocks. He noted every smell, shape, and movement.
“The ground outside the school doors has a lot of gor-gum wrappers, like always,” he documented thoughtfully. “The sky is a pretty good moon celery color. The motor cars and hovercrafts are picking up kids and driving away. The sidewalks are pebbly and crooked in places and nice and smooth in other places.”
“Ooh,” he said, stooping to examine something on the ground.
A miniature band of monk ants were wrestling with a crumb of someone's long forgotten brunch. He watched as they tumbled over one another and quickly regained their composure without a hint of embarrassment. He had the urge to help them, but they were so funny trying to organize moving the crumb, and as small as his hands were he would probably still crush a few of them in the attempt.
“That would really ruin their day. Good luck, ants,” he said, saluting them.
He continued his walk home, making mental notations of the way it felt to walk unattended and swing his brunch pail at this side. He was too excited to eat, so his half-nibbled brunch (grangut fish on rye, a pom-a-berry-fruit clump, and a metal canteen of milk) rattled around in the clear case.
“Every house smells different,” thought. “This house smells like flowers, this one like Upper Hills pine trees, this one like,” he sniffed, “what is that smell?”
Grood walked back and forth in front of the house. It had high, dull brown hedges (at this time of the year in the Great Supe Lower Hills the foliage was desaturated and dry, a popular draw for tourists from the Western and Upper regions). The smell was sweet and sticky, but not like candy, and as he inhaled further, the sweet smell stuck and burned in his nose.
He sniffled madly around the sidewalk and the thick blue grass growing in front of the yard. He crouched down, sitting on the pebbled cement, inhaling and exhaling with his eyes closed. Any other time he would have been meditating, like his mother did after her high impact concentration activities (women were loved, worshiped, and feared for their mental and physical strength), but at the moment he was trying to locate the source of the smell. It reminded him of visiting his Great Aunt Moornoyle's house in the woodsy Mid-Suplean where everything was wild—the badgers, the grass, the flowers that twisted up the abandoned space location tower—even her black cat Tintrim,who would mysteriously disappear into the vast blue helium tree forests for days.
A dark shaped shifted behind the tall hedges. Two bright oval eyes with horizontal pupils flickered between the stalks. The sweet smell lingered in Grood's nose.
It dawned on him.
“It's a charsoil cat!”
His outburst didn’t seem to startle the animal. It was as dark as the space under Grood's bed and it's rotting flower smell a distinctive charsoil characteristic. It's large eyes blinked slowly and it deliberately moved a large paw, complete with long black claws, out from behind the hedge.
A small Suplean Warble Pigeon landed on the dusky brown hedge above Grood's head. The cat perked his head alertly and focused totally on the bird, its dual set of iridescent wings flicking intermittently. It seemed unaware of the cat and even of Grood. It hopped lightly off the ledge and flew to the sidewalk below to peck at a gor-gum wrapper.
Grood watched as the cat lowered its body to a flat board. It stalked out of the grass, eyes fixed on the happy pigeon. Grood's heart raced, his focus shifting back and forth between the creatures. The cat was going to pounce, he knew it. The cat would pounce on the stupid little pigeon and that would be it for the bird, the only life he ever had and all for a dumb, 42 Sup. Gum wrapper.
Of course against his better judgement, against that part of his brain that expressly permitted him from touching strange animals or even locking eyes with a person he hadn't been formally introduced to, (his mother had read an article describing psychic kidnappers and they always entered their victim's brains through their eyes), Grood lunged madly towards the pigeon. He scooped it up and in one swift movement raised himself from the sidewalk, away from the gor-gum wrapper, the tall hedge, and hopefully, please Old Supe God or Anyone Who Will Listen, away from the cat.
He ran faster than he ever had in Physical Economics, cupping the bird to his chest, the transparent brunch pail on his arm swinging against his side rhythmically. He sprinted past 3 blocks, checking for motor cars at three way stops so fast his neck hurt. He felt the birds wings rustling restlessly and gripped it tighter.
He arrived finally in front of his family's split-level home. it must have been the most inviting and beautiful home ever built, he thought. Grood sniffed at the air.
“No charsoil cat smells,” he said between exhausted pants.
He looked down at the bird in his hands. It warbled excitedly.
“That could've been the last hedge you ever flew on!” he said to the pigeon. “You're lucky I was there. A cat like that would chomp you up like that.”
Grood walked to the bench beside the helium tree in his front yard. His father had proudly placed a smiling Great Supe Badger lawn statue on the seat, as if badgers smiled and sat on benches. Grood thought it was ugly, but it would be a safe place for the little bird. It ruffled its wings wildly and chirped at the air (though Grood felt it was a “thank you” in pigeon language).
“Bye, crazy pigeon,” he said. “Watch where you're going next time!”
A creaking was heard from the house and Grood's mother and father stood in the doorway.
“You guys waited for me!” Grood said as he ran up the path, “Come on, I bet no one else's mom and dad does that.”
“How was your walk?” asked Grood's father, his large egg head tipping down in Grood's direction.
“It was good, Dad. And not scary at all.”
“Do you have any homework, honey?” asked his mother as he walked into the house. She peered at him with wide blue inquisitive eyes.
Grood squinted, trying to remember writing anything in his class planner. A short paper on the history of the Suplean Warble Pigeon might have been due the next day, but he had forgotten to bring home the assignment sheet.
“No, I'm free as a pigeon, I mean a bird--no homework, Mom.”