My mother used to tell me not to mess with strange animals. I wish she had told the strange animals not to mess with me. They might listen too. My mother can hit a squirrel with one shoe twenty feet away.
I lay on my belly in the mud. My favorite decade-old T-shirt declaring my allegiance to ninja monkeys from outer space is unrecognizable. Thanks, Bernard. He's busy standing on a rock on the top of the hill, gazing away from me. There is still no cabin, but it must be the same side of the lake. The dock is here, and the ground is shaped the same way, except for all the trees. How are there more trees? Small animals emerge from the woods: rabbits, deer, squirrels, and other tiny things. I could hit one with a shoe at this distance if I needed to....
Dang, I've lost my other shoe.
I keep low and quiet as the animals converge on Bernard's rock, staring at him.
"Watch out!" The words slip out of my mouth. The animals don't notice me. They form a circle around the rock. Bernard glances around at them. They stare up at him, some of them lying down as if settling in for a story.
I hear Spindlewind growl, crouching in the mud beside me.
"They're just deer and squirrels," I whisper to him. "What are they going to do?"
Spindlewind, of course, says nothing. His fur bristles.
Suddenly, a wooden cage drops from a tree right over Bernard!
I leap to my feet, and the animals scatter, including Spindlewind.
"Where are you going?" I say to him. He looks back at me when he gets to the tree line, motioning his paw for me to follow. I shake my head. I have to save my turtle.
Spindlewind grunts, lowers his head, and disappears into the woods, his brown tail the last thing I see.
I scramble up the hill, following the bear's example and using my hands to help me climb faster. When I get to Bernard's rock, he's nothing but a shell. His eyes blink at me from inside.
"Coward," I say. "Come on, I'll get you out."
I try to take hold of the small cage, but it flies upward, taking Bernard with it.
"Don't touch it!" A harsh, small whisper from somewhere in the tree. A band of children drop out of the trees and run up the hill. Have I stumbled into a game? Half of them have bows and arrows, drawn and pointed in my direction. They form a circle around me and the rock. They are wild looking boys and girls. They all have tangled hair, dirty feet, and are dressed in costumes that look like they were stitched together from leaves.
I laugh a little.
A girl, half my height, steps forward, her bow drawn. She glares at me, and I see her eyes are a bright, unnatural purple.
The girl looks me up and down. "You are the Glass?" she says. Her voice rings between my ears like a piece of metal being sharpened.
"My name is Glass," I say, holding my dripping bag with both hands. Could I somehow defend myself with this?
"Do you know where it is you stand?" says the girl.
I look down. "Well, I think there used to be a cabin here."
"Heehee. Not here. Never here," says the girl.
"There," says a curly headed boy hanging out of the tree and pointing at the ground.
I fold my arms. "All right, kids, I don't have time for this. If you can't show me how to get home, or at least to the other side of the lake—"
"But you are on the other side of the lake," says the girl.
"But no. You see—" I say. The girl holds out her hand palm up and flips it over... to the other side.
"Do you see?" She says. "Your world is on that side, but our world is on this side."
I think I'll give up asking for reasonable explanations. Perhaps I can find a psychiatrist that will explain all this to me when it's over.
"Fine. I'm in the Other Side. I'm lost, I'm wet, and I'm about to spank a bunch of brats if they don't give me back my turtle."
"Your turtle?" says the girl. She giggles. The rest join in laughing. Most of them lower their weapons. This could be my chance. But no. They're just kids. I can't hit kids, can I?
"Upside-downer," laughed the boy next to her.
"What does that mean? What's so funny?" I say, trying to smile with them.
"Nobody can own a turtle," says the girl. She looks up into the branches and nods. Bernard's cage flies up into the tree and out of sight.
"Hey, give him back!" I say.
The girl shrugs at me. "You will get him back when he wants you to get him back." She snaps her fingers and the other children fall in around her. "Come with us, Copper-Cleaver Girl. It is almost time for fourth meal, and you must be hungry."
"Why should I?" I say. Their purple eyes blink at me.
"We know how you got here," says the boy next to her.
"And we know where you're going," says a girl a few rows back.
"And we make a yum-yum pudding," says a boy behind me.
"And if you don't," says the first girl. "You might never get home."
I follow the children into the woods. They laugh and play as we walk. Sometimes I mistake them for normal kids, but then I look into one of their purple eyes and am reminded of that time I watched Children of the Corn alone after midnight. I feel a bump on my leg. The fire poker is still tangled up in my belt loop. Focus, Glass! How could I forget something like that? I let a hand fall on the poker and loosen it in my belt as I walk.
Their camp is not far into the woods. I can hear a fire. I smell the best food I'd ever smelled in my life. What is that? What can I compare it to? It sometimes smells like a steak char-grilled to absolute perfection and sometimes like a big fluffy piece of bread smeared in creamy butter.
There's a cloth rolled out across the grass under the trees, which they use like a table, filling it with wooden dishes holding every type of food you can imagine. I don't see any houses or buildings, but it is getting dark, so perhaps I'm not looking in the right place.
They sit me at the head of the "table" and watch me anxiously. The girl who had first talked to me sits on my right, a crown of leaves on her head.
"So, are you the leader?" I ask.
"I am today," she giggles, straightening her crown. "Last week it was Pondhopper. Yesterday it was Moonbeam, but she's not allowed to be leader anymore."
I look around at them, piling plates of berries, fruits, seeds, meats, and breads on the cloth, but none of them eating.
"What should I call you?" I say.
"Hmm..." says the girl with the crown. "Queen Maplewane. No. Her Most Excellent Majesty Maplewane."
"How old are you... um... your majesty?" I say.
"Old enough," she says. "Aren't you hungry?"
I am hungry. My stomach roars. The food smells like heaven. I take a piece of bread in hand. Nobody else is eating.
"We made it all for you, Glass," says Maplewane.
I clutch the piece of bread firmly in my hand but can't bring myself to eat it. The childrens' purple eyes get brighter and brighter as the light dims with the coming dusk.
Maplewane tells me that they are the Tweechens, and that their world is under attack by something she calls the Boogies, evil creatures that live in the woods. She tells me that the only way they can escape is to come over to my world, the "Upside Down World" as she calls it.
"Why are we the ones that are upside down? What if you're upside down?" I say.
Maplewane shakes her head at me and continues her story.
She tells me that I was born on the precise day, in the precise month, in the precise year, at the precise hour, in the precise place that the barrier between our worlds wobbled slightly, giving me alone the power to cross between them. She and almost everyone else of the Other Side had watched me grow up, able to view my life through mirrors and reflections. I am something of a celebrity to them, it seems. Great. That's just what I never wanted. I think of all the times I danced naked in front of my bathroom mirror and blush.
"So will you help us?" says Maplewane, her giant purple eyes looking up at me. The rest of the children gather around. Please, please, please.
"Will you rescue us from the Boogies and take us to your world?"
I'm salivating. Without realizing it, I've brought the bread right up to my lips. This group of children, or Tweechens, I suppose, are staring at me with their cherub faces and hopeful purple eyes. I remember the green envelope and the message:
Help us. You're the only one who can.
I'm a stunt girl, not an action hero. But they're so cute, and I can save them. Can't I?
A bear moans in the distance. I make my decision.
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