DESTINATION UNKNOWN Part 3 by Lyndon DeRobertis copyright 1994 Lyndon DeRobertis 23. BETWEEN DREAMS AND REALITY LIES A HUGE GULF THAT ONLY LOVE CAN CROSS I'm not sure if I really expected anyone to be there when I turned around. I guess I did, because when I opened my eyes and didn't see her, I was pretty disappointed. Then I saw her down the hill, waving. It was her. I knew it had to be the girl from behind the glass wall. And there wasn't any wall separating us now! Our eyes met and I thought my heart had stopped. I knew time had stopped. There was no time as we stared. There was only us, and we had always been together, and we would always be together. In my mind I could see us starting to run to each other in slow motion through the field of flowers. It was love at first sight, and I was head over heels over her. Actually, it was heels over head, because as I started running down the hill, I tripped on a stump and flipped through the air, over her head, and landed behind her. She ran over and propped my head in her lap. I knew I was in Heaven. "Cassandra," I whispered, our eyes still locked in an endless dream. "Uh...no," she said softly, and the dream began to shatter. She sure looked like my dream girl. Didn't she? "Uh..." I stammered. "Mary," she offered. "Oh," I swallowed. "Hello Mary." She rubbed some dirt off my forehead. "You are George, aren't you?" she asked tentatively. I bit my tongue. "Maybe?" I sighed, wishing I could be a little more assertive. "My name might be Johnny," I sniffled, looking away from her eyes. "I know it's not Billy. I don't think it's Michael -- that was just a play. But it could be. But then, hey, I could be George. Would you like it if I was? I'm sure I could be George... Honest!" Then I told her the story from as far back as I could remember. We sat together, and she listened to every word I said. And then she kissed me. "Well, then. You'll be George to me," she whispered, and I realized she was my dream girl after all. Even if I had gotten the names mixed up. We lay for a while in the flowers that swayed gently in the breeze, looking up at the sky. "What do you think it was that brought us together?" I asked. "Fate, or do you think there is some Great Plan out there? I mean everything seemed to lead up to this moment." "I know what you mean," she smiled as she snuggled beside me. "I don't know, but I'm glad we're here together, now." I held her and I'd never been so happy. "Pinch me, Mary," I laughed. "To make sure it's real. No, wait. Don't, in case it isn't!" I gasped. "Silly," she giggled, and pinched me. It hurt, and she was still there! Then she threw some flowers at me, laughing. I jumped up and pulled her back down into my arms. We laughed and loved and danced and sang together for hours. I didn't know I could sing. I mean, I guess I never really tried. But together we sounded great. It seemed like the birds and the breeze and the trees and everything just sang along. We ran down to the stream and walked barefoot on the rocks, and swam in the pond, then lay in the flowers, our naked bodies glistening in the sun. Then I gave her the ring I had worn on my finger since the beggar gave it to me. "No," she shrugged, she hadn't given it to him. And no, she didn't give him any note to give me. "But," she laughed, "it was 11:00 when we met!" She looked at her watch. "In fact, it still is 11!" Time had apparently slowed to a crawl, and that was fine with us. She pointed up at the road where her car was parked. We ran up together and she put the top down, and we rode through the countryside, soaking in the beauty of life. "Do you want to go on a cruise?" she asked after we'd been driving and laughing forever. "Sure, why not!" I chuckled. She pulled a pair of tickets out from the glove compartment, and we headed for the pier. The ship sailed off, and we danced cheek to cheek on board, mingling with the other passengers, then stole away together to our cabin down below. The ship docked at exotic ports and we strolled arm in arm, drinking in all that life had to offer us. I'm sure we saw the entire world, but before I knew it, we were getting out of her car, and we were walking down to the place where we had met. I looked at her watch and it was a quarter to twelve. Only half of a day had gone by! "George," she whispered softly as we kissed. "Come on over here." She pulled me over to a large stone. She reached into her shoe, pulled out something, and put it on the stone. It was her heart, and it was broken in two halves. She looked up at me. And then I remembered I had my heart in my shoe, too! I pulled it out and placed each of my two halves beside each of hers; they fit perfectly. Then she took off the ring I had given her, and unwound the foil, then rolled it between her hands into a long piece of silver wire. Slowly she sewed the two sets of halves until there were two whole hearts lying in the moonlight. She kissed me and we each took one and put them deep in our souls. "George, you know I love you." "And I love you, Mary." "I'll always love you, forever and ever." "And I you." "You say that now, but try to remember me," she whispered. "What do you mean, remember you?" I gasped. "Well, it's almost time for me to go." She looked at her watch and her eyes widened with horror. "Oh, George, I've got to go right now." She got up and started running towards the car. I ran after her, grabbed her, and pinned her to the ground. "What do you mean? You can't leave me!" I shrieked. "I have to. At Midnight I turn into a pumpkin. I can't let you see me like that!" "A PUMPKIN!" I almost laughed, but it was just the kind of thing I was beginning to expect lately. "But Mary, I won't let you go," I argued with my arms around her. "George," she sighed. "And that's another thing. If you leave me, will I still be George?" It felt so wonderful having someone to be, and someone to be that someone for. Somewhere in the distance we both heard a clock, "Gong..." "This is all a dream," I assured her. "We're going to wake up and we'll be together forever." "Gong..." "I don't want to go, believe me," Mary whispered. "Gong..." "But think of all the fun we shared," she offered. "It was wonderful, wasn't it? Just remember all those good times. They will always be with you whenever you think of them." "Gong..." She looked at her watch again and tried to smile, but there was panic in her eyes and she tried to pull away. "Gong..." "But I don't want to just remember you. I want you with me. I need you. I love you," I gasped, holding her closer. "Gong..." "If you go, it'll just be this crazy pointless dream. I'll be no one again. You give it all meaning, a wonderful kind of...Oh, please, don't leave me..." "Gong..." She looked up the hill where her car was waiting. "How do you think I feel?" she sighed. "I'm the one who's going to be an orange vegetable in a few seconds." "Gong..." "Kiss me, Mary. Maybe we'll wake up and everything will be OK." I kissed her, and she stopped trying to pull away. "GONG..." Everything was going to be all right. The world seemed to melt away. There was just me and... "GONG...GONG!!!" A pumpkin. 24. A ROSE BY ANY OTHER NAME IS STILL A ROSE, SURE...BUT IT'S NOT EASY BEING IN LOVE WITH A PUMPKIN "Mary," I gasped, but the pumpkin I was hugging was silent. Tears streamed down my face as I walked up the hill to the road. Her car was a pile of dust and it blew away in a gust of wind. I held the pumpkin tightly and walked slowly down the road. After a while I was getting tired, so I sat down on a wall that looked out over a steep cliff, with trees and hills in the distance and a sky that would have been spectacularly beautiful if my sadness hadn't colored everything gray. There was a flash of light to my left and I saw a window floating in mid-air above the road. Suddenly a shadowy figure leaped out of the window. "Captain Screw-Up," the tall gangly man announced, and he rolled in the dirt in front of me. Off to my right, over the edge of the cliff, another window appeared, floating above the sharp drop to the rocky ground far below. It opened and a smaller ragged dog/shadow leaped into the air, "And his dog Boy Blunder..." it barked, and it sailed straight at me, knocking my beloved pumpkin from my hands. I watched in horror as she sailed up into the air and flew right through the window above the road. Then both windows crashed closed, and I was flying through the air with the mangy mutt attached to my chest. As I hit the ground beside Captain Screw-Up, I broke into a million sharp pieces. "Oh, my," the Captain sighed. "Tsk...Tsk ...Now, Boy Blunder, what did we do with that glue?" I watched with a million eyes as Captain Screw-Up proceeded to glue me together. "OK, now try to talk," the Captain urged as he polished a bald spot on the top of my head that I didn't have before. "I think that about does it. Everything should be in relatively good order." He turned to his trusty companion. "What do you think, Blunder...Hey, Boy, put that down!" Captain Screw-Up grabbed a jagged piece out of the dog's mouth and threw it on a pile by the side of the road. "Those were left over," the Captain shrugged. "Just stuff them in your pocket, if you want." I found myself mindlessly picking up the pieces. My head was jumbled and confused as I tried to reacquaint myself with myself. "Now," the Captain was saying. "I've got a Special Delivery Package for you. Please sign here," he said holding a clipboard in one hand and a letter in the other. I signed the board with an 'X' and he stuck it in his tattered coat and held out the letter. As I looked blankly at it, a flock of birds flew overhead. I heard their honking and it sounded like they were singing, "Oh where, oh where has his little pumpkin gone? Oh where, oh where can she be..." My brain still wasn't working, and I watched as they left behind a gooey mess that landed on Captain Screw-Up's shoulder. He didn't seem to notice and pushed the letter under my nose. An army of ants marched up the Captain's body, and over his arm, and one by one leaped off the letter like a diving board. "His Mary lies over the ocean. His Mary lies over the sea," they sang as they plunged to the ground. "Come on Humpty, open it!" Captain Screw-Up was saying, and I took the envelope when the last of the ants had disappeared. "Humpty," I thought. "I thought my name was George." But George didn't seem to fit anymore. It tasted bitter in my mouth. I did feel more like a Humpty! "But George is what Mary called me," I sighed sadly. "MARY!" I thought, and finally something clicked in my brain. "MARY!" I screamed and dashed across the road. But that darned dog had a tight grip on my pant cuff and I couldn't move. And besides, the window was gone. Captain Screw-Up grabbed the letter from my hands. "Oh, I'll read it to you!" he grumbled impatiently. "Humpty Dumpty has hereby been invited to the first annual meeting of the Royal Society of Screw-Ups." "Sounds thrilling," I hissed. "But no thanks. Now tell this dog to let me go. I've got to get to Mary." "But you're scheduled to be the guest speaker," Captain Screw-Up exclaimed, and he folded the letter up and ate it. "Look, I don't want to be in your crummy Society. I just want to get my pumpkin!" "My, we're awful snippy," the Captain snorted, clicking his tongue and mimicking my words silently as he rocked his head back and forth. "Screw-ups are supposed to stick together," he continued. "Blunder, let him go." The dog loosened his grip suddenly and I fell forward, crashing into the annoying Captain Screw-Up. We both fumbled to our feet and the Captain was laughing. "Now that's more like it, fellow screw-up," he giggled. He laughed again, and whistled for his dog. "Come on, Boy, we've got plenty to do before the meeting. We're off to screw up whatever seems to be going right; to work on our goal of spending our lives working slowly and inefficiently, fruitlessly and out of synch with everything around us. In a word, to screw up better than we've ever done before. Adieu, my screwed-up friend. Adieu and farewell!" The Captain and his side-kick bumped into each other as each headed in different directions. I don't know why I laughed. It wasn't funny. But I did, and suddenly I kind of liked the guy. "Look," I chuckled as I helped them both up. "Really, can you help me? I need to get that pumpkin. I love her." The Captain turned his head away from me, raised his eyebrows and rolled his eyes. "This guy definitely belongs in the Society -- they should make him president!" he whispered to his dog. "Sure," he smirked sarcastically as he turned back to face me. "You're in love with a pumpkin. And just where is this little cutie?" "She went through the window you came out of." "She...Oh...Um...Well, then I'm afraid it's going to be a little hard to find her. She could be anywhere, you see." The Captain put his long muscleless arm around me, and we sat together on the wall. "Do you have anything that belongs to her? It could help in trying to track her down." I bit my lip. "I don't know," I thought and I reached my hands into my pockets. Absently, I rummaged through the pieces that were left over when the Captain put me together again, and felt something soft and rubbery...my heart...our heart! I pulled it out quickly. I held it up to the Captain and showed him the seam where we had sewn our broken hearts together. "That's a pumpkin heart, huh?" the Captain smiled, trying not to laugh. "Well, she turned into a pumpkin. She was a girl first...Oh, never mind. Just how do I get to her?" "Well, keep that close to you, and just go in after her. Your heart will lead the way... eventually." I gazed lovingly at our heart, then stuck it deep, deep in my soul, where a simple fall off a wall wouldn't jar it loose again. Then I turned to where I had last seen my beloved. "But the window is gone!" Captain Screw-Up looked up. "So it is," he shrugged. "Well, that's a special window, you know. It can't hang around forever. It opens up to other times, other places, other dimensional universes (that's ODUs). It can take you anywhere. But then only dreamers, crazies, and screw-ups can go there." "But you said I was a screw-up, remember?" I pleaded. "And I've got to be dreaming, so I'm a dreamer, and I'm sure I'm probably a crazie, too." "Hmm...True...But you haven't been initiated by the Society, yet." "Can't I do that when I get back? I've got to find her. Please, help me get her back." The loony captain put his arm around my shoulder again. "All right, kid, but only because I like you. Now, listen up. YODELing is a very complex art..." "YODELing?" "Well, yes, that's what jumping through time, space, and other dimensional universes or ODUs is called. But don't ask me why it's called that. I was too busy screwing-up when they told that story. I've got a couple of theories, though. It might have something to do with the ancient art of yodeling, you know, that famous mountain call, 'YODEL-AY-EE-OO', but personally I doubt it. I think it has to do with a cream-filled snack cake. I know my first YODELing experience occurred while I was eating one." He leaned back and nearly fell off the wall, then continued explaining as he waved his hands wildly in the air. "YODELing takes a lot of concentration and dedication, I'm told. But I heard that all you've got to do is get a ladder, climb up and grab a star. You following me?" I nodded hesitantly. "Bring the star back home, put it in a box, wrap it up with Christmas paper, and put it in the back of your closet until Christmas. Then if you remember it's there (and that isn't always easy to do, I can tell you) well, take it out on Christmas morning, but only if it has snowed -- there's a lot of magic in the air on a snowy Christmas morning. Tear the paper open, pull out the jar, take out the star and let it go. Got that?" I rolled my eyes and sighing, nodded again. "Then," the Captain continued after a deep breath, "Then you look up in the sky, find your star, sing 'Twinkle, Twinkle little star'...No... No..you sing 'Star Light, Star Bright, take me through the window of light'. Then you click your heels two times, twirl in a circle, and stand on your head until you get real dizzy. Then you should see the window, if you've followed all the steps correctly, of course." I pulled away from the crazy guy and jumped to the ground (carefully!). "You've got to be kidding! I'll never get to her that way!" "Well," Captain Screw-Up sighed. "That's just how to train yourself to YODEL at will, not that Blunder or I have ever had the patience. You could just use a YODELer, like us other screw- ups. If you can get your hands on, I don't know, say a YODEL Time-Splitter, or better yet a pair of YODELshoes, or any YODEL device, for that matter." He jumped off the wall, and of course, fell head first. "Personally, we prefer YODELgum," he giggled as he brushed the grass off his crooked nose. "Technically it's called Trans- Time-Space-Other-Dimensional-Universe gum, or Trans-Time-Space- ODU gum, for short. Blunder and I like bubble gum flavor. Peppermint's nice, too, but the bubbles aren't as powerful." He petted Blunder's head and looked at my impatient face. "Anyway, you just blow a bubble and stick it on your nose, and you've got your window!" My eyes lit up. "That sounds more like it!" "Great," the captain smiled. "I guess we'd better be getting along. It's kind of late, and we've so much to do." "But wait, I need that window gum." "Trans-Time-Space..." "Yeah, yeah, whatever!" "You mean you don't have any YODELgum? Oh, sorry. Hmm...Blunder, come here boy. Give the nice man that piece you're chewing." I started to feel sick, but luckily the dog wouldn't give up his gum. "Hmm..." the captain thought and he reached into his pocket. "Well, what do you know, an extra pack. What luck." I grabbed it from him, and nodded my thanks while I quickly began chewing two pieces at once. As soon as it was moist enough, I blew a bubble, pulled it out, and stuck it on my nose. Sure enough, there was a window in front of me. I leaped through. "CRASH!" Glass went flying everywhere and I felt myself falling in a thick soupy darkness. "You're supposed to open the window first," I heard a voice far away calling. "Quick, take the gum off your nose and blow another bubble!" 25. OH, NO. NOT ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE 'BOY MEETS GIRL -- GIRL TURNS INTO A PUMPKIN -- BOY LOSES PUMPKIN AND SEARCHES THROUGH TIME, SPACE, AND OTHER DIMENSIONAL UNIVERSES TO FIND HER' STORIES. SORRY, IT LOOKS THAT WAY. BUT THEN, YOU NEVER CAN TELL I grabbed the gum off my nose and blew another bubble. As it popped the soup started to clear and I was looking through a pink haze at a gate that stretched across the road. The pink haze was the gum all over my face, and as I tried to pull it off, the gateman coughed impatiently. "Do you need tokens, buddy?" he grunted through his cigar as he looked up from his crossword puzzle. "Tokens?" I stammered. "You're going on the subway, I presume? You and your little friend." "Subway...friend..." I blurted. "Subway, as in Trans-Dimensional. And friend, as in your friend there," the gateman grunted, and he pointed the cigar behind me. I turned around and saw my shadow dash to my other side. I turned to the other side and it dashed back the other way. I turned my head again and again until I fell down in dizziness. "Come on, bub, you're holding up the line," the gateman scowled as he turned back to his puzzle. "Line?" I questioned. I was the only one there, besides my shadow. "Can't you speak in sentences, man!" the gateman hissed, and he pointed above me. I looked up and saw a yellow line floating above my head. It stretched back into the distance, disappearing down the center of the road and into the horizon. I got off the ground and dusted my pants. "Can you help me up, please," my shadow begged, and without thinking I held out my hand. The darkness grabbed it and tugged. "Thank you," my shadow smiled and brushed off some specks of light. It looked up at the gateman, shivered, and wrapped itself behind me. I felt it skirting back and forth in fear, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up. I turned back to the gateman. He leaned out of the booth and puffed cigar smoke in my face, and I smelled the garlic-tabasco breath. "Cupid?!" I gasped as the smells clicked in my brain. I hadn't recognized him with clothes on. And he must have had a blue toupee on, too. "Yeah, in the flesh. What you looking at, anyway. So, I work here nights. You got a problem with that!" "Uh, no. None at all. It's just that I don't have any money. For the tokens..." Cupid threw down his cigar. He crumpled up his crossword puzzle. "Money? Don't you know nothing, man? Now what would I want money for? Your soul, man. You've got to leave your soul at the Gate!" "Don't give it to him," my shadow whispered, and he started to push me toward the gate. "You don't have to give up your soul to enter Eternity!" "Hey, you, what do you think you're doing!" the gateman bellowed. As my shadow and I stepped over a red line that screamed in pain, the gateman yelled again, "Guards! Security!" Lights started flashing everywhere, and sirens screeched. I put my hands over my ears, frozen in fright. "Come on," my shadow urged, and dashing out in front of me, it tugged at my sleeve. I looked around, frantically. The yellow line was wrapping around my legs, tying them in a knot. The red line was reaching for my neck. Footsteps were crashing down from everywhere. My shadow tugged in one direction. The lines tugged in the other. The gateman was coming. I turned and jumped over the gate with my shadow. Colors were flying everywhere like blazing lights, and I was so dizzy I couldn't get up. I felt my body was being torn apart. My mind was reeling. I kept seeing myself jumping over the gate, again and again, and each time, I slipped through a crack of colored light and disappeared. And in a flash I saw a new world, a new existence, a new storyline flowing before me. And then the "me" that was watching all these other me's jumping through colored cracks, saw that the lines of softly glowing light were connected like threads from my mind to each of the me's that jumped through the cracks. And although the cracks closed up, swallowing the me's that jumped, the threads still remained. It wasn't long before I found myself tangled in a million, billion colored threads. My shadow wrapped itself across my face. I could hear tiny yelps of glee as he cut the threads of light away, and I felt like parts of myself were lost somewhere, forever. When my shadow unwrapped itself, we were alone in a long corridor. 26. IT'S ONE THING TO THINK YOU'RE A NOBODY, BUT IMAGINE IF EVERYONE ELSE THOUGHT SO TOO. OR EVEN WORSE, IF THEY THOUGHT YOU WERE ANY ONE OF A MILLION PEOPLE, AND BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHO YOU ARE ANYWAY, YOU HAVE NO WAY TO PROVE THAT YOU'RE NOT NOBODY, EVERYBODY OR EVEN SOMEBODY "Come on!" my shadow yelled as he dragged me down the corridor. We got about 30 feet before we were cornered, and they threw the cuffs on us. "Let's go, you two, we're bringing you down to headquarters," the burly sergeant grunted, and he prodded me along. "Hey, you can't separate us. I'm his shadow. Hey, you..." my shadow was screaming as they dragged him down the corridor. "You can't do this!" He disappeared around a bend and I walked along through the dim hallways until we reached the station. First they fingerprinted me. "Captain," the fingerprinter gasped after they stuck my middle finger onto a stamp pad and wrapped it with red tape that was connected to a computer in the corner of the room. The computer shrugged its floppy disks and spat out a card. "I can't find anything on him," the fingerprinter concluded. "What do you mean, you can't find anything on him?" "He doesn't exist, Captain." "How's that?" the Captain grunted. "Did you try the sub- intelligence data base." "Yes, Captain. As you know everyone in every known universe is in our data base, but yes, I did check the SI. He's not there." The Captain fell back into his chair. A shoe-shiner dashed over and stuck a pipe in his mouth and began massaging his feet. "Did you check his friend?" "Yes, Captain. Couldn't fingerprint him -- he appears to be a shadow. But he says his name is George. Sounds like a good enough name for a shadow to me." "George what?" the captain sneered between puffs. "He didn't say. George Shadow, I suppose." "Very strange. Well, bring this George Shadow in here." A guard entered the room, leading my shadow, which slithered and slunk along the ground. My shadow looked up, and seeing me, dashed across the room, pulling the guard attached to its handcuffs along with it. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you," my shadow sighed a cool whisper, and sliding out of the handcuff, it wrapped itself around me. "Now look here," the Captain bellowed, jumping out of his chair. "Control yourself there, um, George Shadow." My shadow climbed down and stood beside me. "Captain," he demanded, suddenly filled with confidence. "Captain, we'd like to leave now." "Well, I guess you can go, George Shadow, but until we figure out who your friend here is, I'm afraid we can't let him go. You've got to be someone to enter the Gates of Eternity. Then we take your soul away, you see. There are always those who try to sneak in, but we always get them. Now you, you're a shadow. You can come and go as you please. You sort of slip by on a technicality." "Oh, Captain..." "Yes, Lieutenant?" The Captain looked over to the corner, where the fingerprinter stood hunched over a panel of instruments and stared into a green glowing toaster. "Captain, I'm getting a readout now. He's X-Rimrian from the X3-8167 dimension." "Oh, OK. Well all right, then. Take X-Rimrian of the X3- 8167 dimension to the Soul-Removing Room." "Wait, Captain. He's Treegrak Ligzor from the Pointellian era of the XY-6 dimension. Oh, wait, he's..." The fingerprinter rattled off name after meaningless name for about thirty minutes. I looked up and saw the Captain had fallen back into his chair and was sound asleep. "...John Doe from Earth XYZ-1..." "Come on," George-my shadow whispered, and we dashed out of the room. We ran round corner after corner and finally saw the train up ahead. Shadow told me to get on. But, there were no lights inside, and I must admit I was more than a little hesitant to take the leap of faith he was requesting of me. Shadow moaned and insisted there wasn't anything to worry about. "Well," my brain reasoned, rather slowly. "If he's not afraid and he's only my shadow, why should I be afraid?" I guess I convinced myself, because we jumped together through the doors, just before they closed, and I felt the train pull off into the unknown. 27. A NAME, A NAME, MY KINGDOM FOR A NAME...OR... HOW I WISH I WERE SOMEONE, WON'T YOU GIVE ME SOMEONE TO BE...OR... WHOOPIE, CHAPTER 27 AND WE FINALLY FIND OUT MY NAME... It was pitch black inside the train, but my shadow apparently could see just fine. He pulled me along and we sat down. I was feeling kind of depressed. "How come you're George, and I'm...? Well, I don't know who I am. First they tell me I'm no one, and then they say I'm a million different people, and now I'm more confused than ever!" I whispered to the darkness, hoping my shadow was still there. He was. "Why don't we just call you George," the darkness insisted. "No, I want my own name. Well, actually, come to think of it, Mary called me George. Hey, maybe my name is George! That's a nice name. Isn't it?" "George is a very nice name," my shadow agreed. "But your name is George." "Not really. I kind of borrowed it from you during the interrogation. I don't think shadows actually have names, but they kept insisting I must have one. Here, you can have your name back." My shadow reached out and slapped something on my forehead. I peeled it off. It was a glowing sticky tag and it read, "HI, MY NAME IS GEORGE." "George, George, you're going to lose it again," my shadow was saying. He grabbed the tag from my hands and slapped it on my mind, far enough back so I couldn't reach it very easily. Suddenly I felt different. I felt like I was someone. I was... GEORGE! I was beaming a smile, cheek to cheek. "George," I chuckled, and felt the way it rolled over my tongue. But something was missing. "George, what?" I questioned. "You're never satisfied, are you. You've come all this way not knowing what your name is. I tell you, and now you want more." "Well, most people have last names." "Maybe where you come from, but not everywhere." "Well, I think I should have a last name. George...George and Mary...Hey, I bet it's George Bailey. Yeah. That's it, isn't it?" "George, what?" "George, from It's A Wonderful Life. That was a great movie. Hey, I wouldn't mind being George Bailey at all!" "Does this George Bailey go chasing after a pumpkin named Mary, accompanied by a shadow." "Well...Mary's a real peach...but...well, no...I guess not." "Uh, huh. Well, then it's not your name, now is it?" "But..." "It's just a coincidence, George. Actually, it's...Smith, if you must know," my shadow conceded after a long silence. "George Smith, yeah that's the ticket." "Gosh," I sighed. "That's kind of plain isn't it?" "Look, can I help it if you don't have a fancy name?" "Hmm," I muttered. "George Smith. I guess it's not so bad. Sort of has a ring to it. At least it's not something like, I don't know, John Smith, or John Doe, or something like that." I couldn't see in the darkness, but my shadow swallowed, then crumpled up two tags and threw them under the seat. He fumbled in his pockets, pulled out a third tag and sighed in relief. "Look, see, here, it says George Smith. I told you." I greedily grabbed the softly glowing tag and pasted it on my soul. "Ah," I sighed, feeling much better. It sure felt good to finally be a somebody! "But if I'm George, what's your name?" I wondered, facing where my shadow spoke. The shadow sighed. "Look, George, you can call me Shadow, all right? Now we've got a pumpkin to find. Let's get going, already." "OK, Shadow," I smiled, realizing suddenly that now that I was someone, I was going to have some company in my crazy dream. "George Smith," I muttered happily to myself. "Things are finally starting to go right!" Shadow elbowed me in the dark. "Let's get off here," he whispered and dragged me through the door into the blinding light. 28. IT'S NOT EASY BEING A SHADOW, ALWAYS HAVING TO WALK IN SOMEONE ELSE'S FOOTSTEPS...BUT THEN, THE SIDEWALK DOESN'T REALLY TASTE THAT BAD, ONCE YOU GET USED TO IT I looked down before we stepped out of the train. But I couldn't see anything -- just a bright brilliance. We jumped to the ground and I was still blinded by that burning brightness. Shadow held my hand and dragged me along. Thus began the most degrading chapter of my life. I don't think I would have figured out what was going on if Shadow hadn't stopped and sat down on a shadowy park bench and explained it all to me. He pointed at the shadows that reached up into the shadowy sky. They looked like shadows, but they weren't just a blackness of form without detail, as I was used to thinking shadows were. Instead, it was the objects that were reflected down below that were a bright brilliance without detail. "Isn't it beautiful!" Shadow beamed. Well, it was interesting, but to tell you the truth, it was kind of giving me a headache trying to orient my brain to the Escheresque mirror-images. He then apologized for taking this short detour, but this was his first trip on the Trans-Dimensional Subway, and he just couldn't resist the opportunity of visiting the Shadow-Dimension, where objects are simply reflections of shadows. I protested as we walked up and down the streets greeting other shadows and their reflections, and all I could see was blinding light. "But," Shadow pointed out, "That's how the world looks to shadows. Everything is dull and shadowed, and we have to lick the pavement at your feet." I had to admit the pavement didn't taste very good. "Well, maybe just a short holiday," I conceded. "But then we've got to find my Pumpkin." I guess I was fortunate that I had a decent shadow for a shadow. Although, I admit, just a moment as a bright blob of light in that place was more than I could ever have wanted, when Shadow had soaked in all the shadows he could, he sighed, and headed us back to the Station. "Are you sad to leave?" I asked, blinking in the brightness as we waited in the shadows for our train. "Well, I guess not..." "When you've seen one shadow, you've seen them all, huh?" I offered. Shadow glared at me, then softened at the edges. "No. I don't know what's the matter with me. For some reason I just don't feel like I belong here. It's a nice place to visit and all, but it's not what I was looking for." "What do you mean? What are you looking for?" "I don't know. I came here hoping I could feel more like a shadow, but now I feel even more confused." I looked at my only friend in the world. It must be odd to be so human and to be a shadow at the same time, and I started to think poor Shadow was as lost as I was in this crazy dream. "At first," Shadow was saying, "I thought it was just because I have to lead you around everywhere. It would make sense that that would confuse me, right? I mean shadows follow in your footsteps, and now here I am responsible for you and all, always supposed to know what we should do next. The crazy thing is, for some reason, I always do seem to know what to do, but I can't remember why!" Shadow sighed. "You know, I can't remember being your shadow at all. I don't even remember what pavement tastes like. Can you imagine a shadow not knowing what pavement tastes like!" I was now an authority on that subject. "Actually, it's an acquired taste," I offered, because it really didn't taste that bad anymore. "I guess we'll just get through this thing together, old pal," I promised, and I put my arm around Shadow. He smiled. The train pulled up, and we dashed out of the shadows. Then Shadow pulled me inside the train. 29. WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT IF THERE WAS THIS PLACE YOU COULD GO TO WHEN YOU WERE LOST, AND THEY'D GIVE YOU A MAP THAT WOULD TELL YOU JUST WHERE YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO GO, EVEN WHEN YOU YOURSELF HAD NO IDEA WHERE YOU WERE GOING? WOW, WHAT A TRIP THAT WOULD BE As we sat down on the train I couldn't see a thing. But it felt a lot better than living in that mirror-image world, that was for sure. The darkness helped return my mind to normal, and when I tried to picture things in my head they all appeared the right way. I could feel Shadow beside me, and I felt good. It was nice to have a companion. "So, are we going to look for Mary, now?" I asked after a while of silence. "You bet," Shadow reassured me, and he went back to thinking. "You wouldn't happen to be a member of the IDIOT Club, would you?" Shadow remarked after a while. "Uh, I don't think so. But, what is it?" "The Inter-Dimensional-Information-Office-for Travellers. It's kind of like AAA and a Lost-and-Found rolled into one. People are always jumping through time and space and other dimensional universes looking for something or other. An IDIOT representative plots out a TRYPTIC, you know, a travel plan." "Wow. That sounds perfect for us. But how do we get in, if we're not members?" "Not to worry. I'm a shadow, remember. Or at least I think I am. Anyway, shadows have ways." While we waited for our stop, I asked Shadow how come he knew so much about things I hadn't ever heard of. "I don't know. I guess it's because shadows are more close- knit than you objects," he postulated. "When you're all sleeping we must get together some place dark and shoot the breeze. You can pick up a lot of useful information that way." I nodded in the darkness. "You know, shadows are a lot more help to you objects than you give them credit for," Shadow continued; it sounded like he was trying to convince himself of something. "Sometimes when you're walking along and an idea just 'pops' into your head, well, that didn't come out of nowhere, you know. Your trusty old shadow is in there looking after you. Or when you think someone's behind you, and you think you just 'sensed' it. Nope. It's your shadow letting you know!" I was impressed. Then the train stopped, and Shadow pushed me up. "Come on. You lead and I'll be right behind you." I looked out the open door and saw the thin wisps of gas floating about. "Are you sure I can step out there?" I gasped, afraid to move. "Trust me," Shadow insisted. I stepped out and found myself walking on air. "Hey, this is fun!" I thought. It felt much different from walking on the hard ground. I felt so light and airy myself. Shadow was sighing sadly. "This place used to be empty once. That stuff floating around -- it's pollution from all these visitors. Ah, but, oh well, that's progress. Hey, over there," Shadow pointed, and we walked toward a bustling building where people were flashing in and out in bursts of color. When we got closer Shadow stopped me. "OK, now follow me into the lobby, then wait for me. If you go in, they might ask a lot of questions, but a shadow can slink around, if you know what I mean." We entered the building and walked down a long corridor. "Wait here," Shadow whispered, and pushed me in a corner. I watched as Shadow slid down the hall and began mingling with the other shadows that followed behind their masters and I waited. And I waited... Cobwebs were starting to form in my hair, and I had the urge to brush them off, but Shadow had told me to stay put. "Sorry I took so long," Shadow apologized as he shook me awake. In his hand was a flat plastic object with several knobs. It looked like an Etch-A-Sketch. He handed it to me and looked around while he continued talking. But while he talked I fidgeted absently with the Etch-A- Sketch. I watched in fascination while brightly colored lines moved all over the whole screen. "Hey, this is fun," I cackled. "HEY, GEORGE. WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" Shadow screeched, and he grabbed the Tryptic from my hands. He turned a few knobs on the Tryptic and then let out a huge sigh. "Thank goodness it was on backup, too. You know what they do to you if you ask for directions twice? No. You don't want to know. It's not a pretty sight. Now, don't play with it anymore," he chided, handing it back. "This is not a toy!" He sighed and went back to explaining what had happened. "I snuck in line behind this cat-shadow that apparently seemed to know me. The cat was looking for a ball of yarn it had lost while Time-skiing. Don't ask me why he was Time-skiing with a ball of yarn. Everyone knows you can't bring things like that with you. I mean stuff could fall off and crash down someplace in space or time...Oh, yeah, anyway. This cat was in real big trouble with his old lady, and just had to get her favorite ball of yarn back. I spotted some old ball of yarn in a corner, and he was sure it must be the right one. If it wasn't she'd never know the difference. He was quite a nice chap. Seemed a little wild, but just the type you'd like on your side if you were in a scrap sometime..." I coughed impatiently. "Anyway," Shadow sighed, "he agreed to ask for directions to your pumpkin. Now he's happy, and we've got our map." I smiled. "Of course, it wasn't easy tracking her down, let me tell you. The IDIOT computer had a real tough time. You'd think a pumpkin named Mary would be easy to locate. Turns out there's three. The computer came up with all the probable paths we need to take. I'm afraid we're going to have to check them all out." I looked down at the Tryptic. It looked like a million lines zig-zagged all over the screen. "How the heck can you read this thing?" "It's an art," Shadow shrugged. "Luckily, I must have picked it up somewhere or other. Let's see," he sighed, leaning over my shoulder. He pointed to something on the Tryptic. "Right there it says, 'You are Here'." Is that what it says?" I laughed. You could have fooled me. "Trust me...Now, one Pumpkin Mary is over here." He pointed at a dot that was circled in red. "Another here, and the third one is...Oh, here she is." I looked at the three circles and the one that said where I was. "Excuse me. I don't mean to question you or anything, but why do we have to follow all these lines? I mean there's millions and they zig-zag everywhere. Why can't we just go straight here, then if it isn't her, go to this one, and then jump over here?" Shadow shook his head. "George, George, you don't understand. We're not just walking down some street back home. We're time travelling, man. And not just that, we're ODU jumping, er, 'Other-Dimensional-Universe' jumping," he added slowly, like he was talking to a child. "It's also called YODELing by some people." "Hey, I know about YODELing," I exclaimed. "Right. Well, things have to be done just so for other things to have happened." "You mean happen," I corrected. I was quite familiar with the rules of cause and effect, thank you. "You're seeing it all wrong, George," Shadow sighed. "Once you step out of your own time and dimension, you're in Eternity, man. Then you realize that all vantage points -- the past, present, and the future -- all happen at the same time, objectively speaking. It's just a question of ODU jumping or YODELing from one point to the other. Actually, YOGI YODELers are so good they can be at every point at the same subjective time." Shadow could see that I had no idea what he was talking about. "Look, don't worry. I'll help you out until you get used to it," he assured me. He took the Tryptic from my hands, and I felt relieved. "Look, see, right here. It says you find her eventually. So it's already happened. We just have to follow the lines and we'll reach that point. Unless you're a YOGI YODELer? Then we can just go there directly." "Nope. OK, how do we start?" "Well, first off, you want to find her in a reasonable amount of subjective time, right?" "Yeah. I'd like to find her right now." "Well, we'll just make it a little easier for ourselves." "How do we do that?" "Well, we divide up, assign a path to each of us, and then we all meet back at some given spot at a certain given time, and report back on what we've each found." "But I don't want you to leave me alone." "George, I wouldn't do that!" "But, you said divide up." "Yeah. Oh, I mean Time-wise." I had no idea what Shadow was talking about. "Just blow a bubble, would you. I'll explain when we get there." "What about the train?" "It's too risky. We could get caught, you know. They don't like you travelling through Eternity without giving up your soul for some tokens. Besides, the exercise will do us good." My mind was full of questions, but I just shrugged with a sigh and reached into my pocket for a new piece of gum. "Now blow it nice and hard," Shadow instructed. "This is a big trip." I chomped and chomped like a cow, and then he held on as I blew as hard as I could. 30. IN ETERNITY, THE PAST AND PRESENT ARE ALL ONE, AND IT IS NOT AT ALL UNCOMMON WHILE JUMPING THROUGH TIME AND SPACE TO BUMP INTO A STRANGER AND DISCOVER IT'S YOURSELF, OR EVEN TO THROW A PARTY AND FIND YOU'VE RUN OUT OF PUNCH BECAUSE TOO MANY OF YOU SHOWED UP In an instant Shadow and I were standing in a bustling building that looked very much like the IDIOT office. I peeled the gum off of us and threw it in a wastebasket. Shadow dragged me along the corridors, gazing at the doors. Most of them had an "OCCUPIED' sign up, and I assumed we would keep walking until one said 'EMPTY'. In the meantime, I was really confused about the way this YODELgum worked. "Shadow," I panted, for he was moving very quickly. "How is it that we came to the right place when I blew the bubble." Shadow slowed down, then turned to me. "Trans-Time-Space- Other-Dimensional-Universe gum is very effective when you can picture in your mind exactly where you want to go. If you don't have any place in particular in mind, however, you could end up at the Trans-Dimensional Gate, which is what happened to you before. And I might add, the reason why amateurs shouldn't dabble in YODELing, because as you know, they'll try to take your soul before you enter the Gate." "But, wait. I didn't have this place in mind," I pointed out. "I've never been here before." "Sure you have," Shadow insisted. "But I don't remember being here," I affirmed. "You're here now, right?" Shadow chuckled. "Uh, yeah," I admitted, hesitantly. "Well, when you step into Eternity, things get a little confusing, especially where Time is concerned. You can jump back and forth so that your past is your future, and your future your past, and quite frankly, time really doesn't have any meaning anymore." Shadow saw the confusion in my face and gave me a pat on the back. "Don't worry about it. It'll make sense, eventually." He pointed at the door we had stopped in front of. The sign said 'Empty' and we stepped inside. Shadow flicked on the light switch, and there in the middle of the room was a giant rectangular-shaped clock. Shadow nodded approvingly. "Should do the trick rather nicely." Then he asked me for the Tryptic. I handed it to him and he stuck it in a slot in the side of the clock. "OK, all set." "For what?" I asked, but I wasn't sure I really wanted to know. "Well, we're going to Time-Split ourselves. We can't possibly check out all these paths, as I've mentioned. So the Time-Splitter ODU YODELs us along one path, then takes us back one instant before we YODELed, then ODU YODELs us to another path, etc. I think the Tryptic will be splitting us into..." He turned a few knobs, "312 paths." "But how can there be more than one of us at any one time?" I was really confused, now. "Let me try again. It has to do with Time, George. You ODU YODEL out of here and you can spend all of eternity somewhere far away, then be back before the instant is over. By turning time back an instant each time, the Time-Splitter takes you to before the instant when you ODU YODELed and sends you somewhere else, creating another reality where another you exists..." I still wasn't getting any of it. Shadow chuckled. "I told you George, don't worry your little head about it. We'll all meet back here starting an instant after the time we enter the Time-Splitter." "I...I don't think I like this whole thing," I stammered, backing towards the door. "Well, you've done it before, George." "Look, don't start that again." "Really, you have. Remember when you leaped through the Trans-Dimensional Gate? Well, you sent quite a number of yourselves all over the place. That's why that fingerprinter got so many different readings on you. And plus, I noticed some of them on the Tryptic." I just shrugged. "Whatever. When do we go?" "Whenever you're ready. Just step in this door..." He opened it and we both stepped inside the clock. I heard a loud "CUCKOO" chiming somewhere inside my head. Then a door opened up near the top of the clock, and Shadow and I rolled out and landed on the end of a diving board. "Jump!" Shadow commanded, and we both leaped into the air. The next thing I knew, the clock was "CUCKOO"ing, and we rolled out on the diving board again. But this time when we jumped, we landed in front of the Time-Splitter. I tried to shake the Deja-vu feeling out of my head as I watched Shadow pull the Tryptic out. "So how come we jumped out?" I shrugged. "We're done," Shadow chuckled. I blinked my eyes. "What do you mean?" But Shadow motioned for me to be quiet, and pointed to one of the lines on the Tryptic. It was blinking like crazy. "OK, the first of us is coming back," he said. Then the smaller door on top opened with a loud "CUCKOO" and out rolled Shadow and me. The other-me and other-Shadow leaped into the air and landed in front of us. I stared in disbelief. This happened 310 more times, and each time, Shadow and I came out of the clock and began explaining about the adventures that had befallen us. It was too much for me. After about the third me walked out of the clock I felt a little faint, and Shadow suggested I take a nap. He'd take the reports and wake me when one of the us's had found Mary. I couldn't sleep. I watched dumfounded from the chair as Shadow (the one that had been with me the whole time) listened to the Shadows and me's as they spoke about fantastic adventures and bizarre sights they had seen. And I wondered why I didn't remember any of it, if those were all really me. After each report, Shadow erased their path on the Tryptic by adjusting a few knobs. And still we kept coming out of the clock. The me's and the Shadows walked around sipping punch, and it was kind of crowded, but every moment or two a few would "pop" and just disappear. Shadow informed me that they had reached the "present" and thus no longer exist. I shrugged in disbelief, but occasionally crazy images would flash through my mind, as if I were remembering wild adventures that happened to me long, long ago. After a while, Shadow waved his hand for me to come over to him. I excused myself past several me's and stood by Shadow's side. "OK, we're getting near the end. Apparently someone is sending us on a wild goose chase. That's why there are so many probability paths. One set of us found a pumpkin, but it turns out it wasn't the right one." "How do you know?" "Well, you brought a magical frog you found on some planet or other, and when the frog kissed the pumpkin, it turned into its original form -- a 16-ton, 8-headed monster. Look, I saved the picture on the Tryptic. I presume this is not Mary." "NO! That's definitely not Mary." "Well, actually, it is Mary. But not your Mary." Shadow turned a few knobs. "See this path?" he pointed. "The 62nd us went that way. Eventually we found that Mary. Turns out some other universe is filled with pumpkin planets, one of which is named Mary. But the only thing living on it was a caterpillar which had been alone, eating its way out of the planet for the past 6 billion years. Of course we brought it to another planet named George, and there was another caterpillar there, and they got married and lived quite happily, eating that pumpkin planet together for the next 6 billion years." Shadow sighed. "Gee, I just love a happy ending, don't you?" Then his face got serious, and he turned to the clock and scratched his shadowy head. "I can't understand what's keeping that last us." I looked around the room. All the other us's had gone. "A lot of us said something about someone trying to catch us. But something saved them all in the nick of time, and they were able to get back. It must be that darned Time-Catcher. He's always after ODU YODELers who haven't given up their souls." Then the door on the Time-Splitter opened up. "CUCKOO" it sounded, and another Shadow popped out and dove in front of us. "Hi!" he swallowed, gasping for breath. "Where's George?" my-Shadow demanded. "Time-Catcher's got him" the 312th Shadow sighed. Then he told us what had happened. He and George had found Mary and were just about to find the way to turn her back into a woman, when the Time-Catcher grabbed them both. "George distracted him and hid Mary somewhere, then he told me to get help. I got here as fast as I could," the other-Shadow sniffled. My-Shadow looked concerned. "I guess George and I will have to go in after them." I didn't know what to think. When the 312th Shadow had said that they had found Mary, I was ecstatic. But now this Time- Catcher guy had them, and it all sounded so hopeless. "Don't look so sad," the other-Shadow smiled, patting my head. It all works out just fine. After George was caught, I ODU YODELed a little too far into your future, and I had quite a nice cup of decaf with you and Mary, and she wasn't a pumpkin anymore, and you were both quite happy." I really didn't understand all this time stuff, but I wanted to believe this other-Shadow, and I couldn't help beaming. "Well, let's go get her, Shadow!" I roared. Shadow-312 turned to my-Shadow and put his arm around him. "You weren't there in George's future," he sighed. "George just had his old lifeless shadow back." Shadow shrugged his shoulders. "That's OK. I didn't expect it to last forever." They were both looking kind of glum. "Hey, you guys, listen. If Shadow-312 was having a cup of coffee with Mary and me, then that means that you were there with me, right, Shadow?" I blurted suddenly. I don't know where it came from, but it just popped into my head. "You know, George is right!" Shadow laughed. We all felt a lot better after that. The two Shadows were talking to each other as they studied the Tryptic, while I fidgeted and couldn't wait to get going. "First Shadow-312 is going to go back into the Time- Splitter." "OK," I nodded. "See this faint line," Shadow pointed. "That's his path." I noticed it went everywhere on the screen. But it wasn't blinking like the other lines did when there was an incoming or outgoing other-Shadow or other-me. "You know, you're right. That's really odd," the Shadows agreed when I pointed it out to them. "But as near as we can figure, this Shadow-312's got to go back into the Time-Splitter to throw the Time-Catcher off. Something distracted that old Time-Catcher and saved all the other-Georges and other-Shadows, and as far as we can tell from the Tryptic, it's not you and me, so it's got to be Shadow-312, right?" "Makes sense," I agreed. For some reason, this time stuff was really starting to come together in my head. "This is the path Shadow-312 and his George-312 originally took to find Mary. We have to follow it to catch up with them." Then we were waving goodbye to Shadow-312 as he walked toward the door of the Time-Splitter. I sneezed, and Shadow turned to say "Bless you," and when we looked back the 312th Shadow was gone. We hadn't seen the door open up, and I could swear I saw him pop in mid-air before he reached the door, but I wasn't totally sure. Then the next instant the clock "CUCKOO"ed and what looked like Shadow-312 popped out and jumped off the diving board, landing in front of us. Of course, I figured I was mistaken about him not entering the Time-Splitter. He had obviously forgotten something and headed back, so I dismissed the doubts from my mind with a shrug. Shadow-312 whispered something to my-Shadow, who pulled out the Tryptic and made some adjustments, and then put it back into the Time-Splitter. This time I saw Shadow-312 step inside the door. A second later the clock "CUCKOO"ed and he walked out of the top door, dove off the diving board and disappeared. I figured we'd better get going too, so I stepped toward the Time-Splitter door. But it suddenly swung open and a hairy hand reached out and grabbed the Tryptic out of the slot and disappeared back inside. "The Time-Catcher!" Shadow warned, and he pulled me away. "But he's got the Tryptic. We'll never get Mary!" I gasped. "Don't worry, George. Shadow-312, or at least I assume that was 312, although something seemed very different about him when he came back again..." Apparently Shadow had had his doubts as well. "Anyway, he came back to warn us," Shadow was saying. "I changed the settings on the Tryptic. The Time-Catcher will have no idea where any of the Georges or Shadows will be going." "But the Tryptic...how will we know where to go without it?" I cried. "Don't worry, George. I memorized the path exactly. I've got it all under control." "But don't we need the Tryptic to go into a Time-Splitter?" "Yes, but there's no need to go through it again. We only have one path to follow. Besides, it would be extremely dangerous to go back into a Time-Splitter, now. They're all hooked to a central terminal, and the Time-Catcher has surely sounded the alarm. They'll be keeping an eye out for us now." "You mean we're wanted men?" I sighed. "Wanted man and shadow, anyway," Shadow laughed. I failed to find the humor in our predicament. Things were starting to look hopeless again, if you asked me. "So how can we YODEL to all the places we have to go? I only have one piece of gum left!" Shadow put his arm around me. "Don't look so glum, silly. We're going to get you a YODELcar, George. What do you think of that!" "A what?" "Just blow a bubble already; we've got a lot of ground to cover. 31. THE JOYS OF SHOPPING FOR A CAR -- THERE ARE SO MANY TO CHOOSE FROM, BUT YOU KNOW YOU'RE GOING TO WIND UP WITH A LEMON, ANYWAY When I chewed up that last piece of gum, I was determined to blow it right, so it wouldn't pop all over my face like it always seemed to do. I blew the bubble slowly, but big like Shadow had asked. Then I carefully tried to suck it back in so that it would burst inside my mouth. But Shadow leaned over and popped it. "You don't have to stick it on your nose -- that's just for safekeeping. But it doesn't work right unless it gets all over you," Shadow explained as we were pulling off the gum in that soupy timeless place we sometimes seemed to go while YODELing, and which Shadow had informed me was Eternity. I stuck the gum on my nose and we jumped through the window. We landed in a dusty oval room with walls made of glass. I looked around and my eyes were wide with excitement. The first thing I saw was a round disk-like spaceship. "It's just like in the movies," I chortled. Shadow was standing by the window, staring out, as I walked around the room gawking at the displays. "Where are we?" I asked, without looking at Shadow. I saw jet packs and a Time-Splitter clock and a portable toilet stall with weird dials and knobs. "At the Inter-Galactic YODEL Museum, of course," Shadow mumbled absently. I saw a display with 18 different flavors of Time-Space-ODU gum. I saw fancy cars and planes. "They stay in one place," Shadow informed me from across the room, pointing to the long, thin plane, and the souped-up Rolls Royce car next to it. "Time and space flow past," Shadow explained. I walked slowly, gazing at all the different YODEL devices. "This is great," I laughed. "Which one should we take?" "Take?" Shadow chuckled. "This is a museum, silly. They're not really there. They're just holograms." They looked so real, I almost didn't believe Shadow. I tried to climb up the ladder to the space ship, but of course, I walked right through it. "Wow," I exclaimed and went over to see what Shadow was so preoccupied with. Outside there were shiny new YODELcars of every size and shape imaginable. Most of them were bright and polished, and glistened in the sunlight. I was impressed. "That's just the packaging," Shadow snickered as I pointed at the shiny metallic shapes that looked like beautifully streamlined flying machines. "Inside there's usually just a pair of YODELslippers, or a YODELtv with electrodes, or a barstool that spins through ODUs when you have a bit too much to drink. The packaging's just for show. You know, advertising hype." "Oh," I nodded. "And who's that over there?" I asked, pointing to a man with a black moustache that curled in a bow about 6 feet wide, and beneath the mammoth moustache was a gleaming neon-white smile that stretched at least half that distance. I blinked because the teeth were pretty bright, as you can imagine. But I figured out who he was before Shadow had a chance to answer. A little old couple came over and he was all over them like a leach, and his smile burned in their faces. But they had thick sunglasses and earmuffs on, and they weren't listening to a word he was saying. The old man handed the salesman a slip of paper, and the salesman looked at it and tore it up, and his smile dimmed a couple notches on the brightness scale, to, I don't know, say a small atomic blast. The customers shrugged and the old lady pulled the old man's arm and they turned away. The smiling salesman looked down at his shoes, then dashed after them, and the smile was gone and there were tears in his eyes. All this I took in before Shadow said, "That's a salesman, and I think he's having just a bad enough day that we should be able to make a good deal here." Shadow pulled me out through the door and we were standing on the lot. The salesman was just finishing up with his customers. I nudged Shadow and whispered with my hand cupped over my mouth, "What are we going to pay with?" "I was thinking we could hire ourselves out as salesmen. I don't mind saying, I'm a pretty smooth talker, and I think I can get some good sales for him." "But we've got to find Mary!" I reminded him. "That's no problem. We make the deal, get a certain number of sales, then YODEL back to a minute after we make the deal, and we're off without losing any time at all." I wasn't too sure I liked the idea. But I didn't get much of a chance to worry about it. When the salesman finished and turned to us, his eyes lit up, and he reached in his back pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. He held the page up to our faces and compared. "Hey, my brother's been looking for you!" he sneered, and he pulled out a portable phone and started dialing. "Oh yeah?" I shrugged. "Who's your brother?" Fortunately, Shadow was a lot quicker than me, and he grabbed my hand and pulled me away. He snatched the gum off my nose and started chewing. "I sure hope you didn't chew all the bubble out of this!" he muttered as he got it good and moist. He blew a small bubble and we YODELed to Eternity. Then after we peeled the gum off us, he stuck it on his nose, and I have to say I started laughing because a shadow with a piece of gum on its nose is a fairly funny sight. Shadow didn't think it was very funny, and he glared at me before he pulled me through the window, just as the Time-Catcher appeared, waving his net at us. Then we were gone, and Shadow tossed the gum back through the window before it slammed shut and disappeared. But before it did, I heard the gum hit the Time-Catcher square between the eyes and he grunted as he hit the ground and the net fell over his head. Shadow pulled my hand. "Come on, George, we don't have much time before that Time-Catcher tracks us down." I looked around and saw that we were in a junkyard with garbage piled high in mounds all around us. "And what are we doing here with all this junk?" I inquired as Shadow began scrounging around in one of the piles. "It's not just junk. This is a YODELcar Junkyard. We should be able to piece together some parts to create a working YODEL device." I wasn't too sure. It looked like a lot of junk to me. "Sure," Shadow assured me. "People are always junking perfectly good stuff to get the latest models. We would have had our choice of tons of near-factory perfect merchandise to choose from, if those blasted Time-Keepers didn't send junked YODEL devices through a Time-Shredder first. But we'll just use some good old know how, and put this together with that..." Looking a little closer, I discovered some of the hunks of junk were actually kind of interesting looking. I sat down and started fitting some pieces together. Meanwhile, Shadow was lecturing me on the history and finer points of YODELing. "YODELING is a wonderful convenience that may never be totally understood. Some YODELers bring you to a window that leads to Eternity, then another window that leads to some other dimension, like YODELgum. Although YODELgum is kind of unpredictable. Sometimes the window opens directly to where you want to go, without stopping in Eternity. It's all how you blow the bubble." "Uh, huh," I muttered politely. "Then, there are other YODELers that bring you straight to another place and time, without stopping in Eternity, or going through windows. And, in fact, some people don't need a YODELer to YODEL. YODEL Yogis can YODEL anywhere they want to at any time. Legend has it that some Yogis are actually at every place in every known universe at once." I honestly wasn't paying attention to what he was saying. I had already heard most of it before, and besides, I was having too much fun. This was better than being a kid playing with Lego blocks. I noticed Shadow had paused, and I quickly threw in a "Really?". It seemed to satisfy him, because he continued on. "Of course, there is quite a difference between a YODELer and a Time-Travelling device. The early Time-Splitters, for example, could only travel linearly into the past or future. The newer models, of course, can YODEL to any dimension or reality. Or at least to most reaches in the Objective Reality." "Sounds exciting," I muttered as I put the finishing touches on my masterpiece. I had put together a giant 16-port saucer space ship. It had bright shiny control panels and 17-oversized cabins, a dining room with a cathedral ceiling, recreational facilities, a sauna, quadraphonic sound emanating from 3-speed laser rays... "What is that supposed to be?" Shadow choked. "It's a space ship," I said defensively. "Uh, huh. Maybe for a kiddie display. George that pile of junk would stand out like a sore thumb. The Time-Catcher would find us in no time flat. We need something a little more discreet. Untraceable." "Oh, yeah!" I retorted. "Let's see what you put together." Shadow handed me a baseball cap with a pair of sunglasses and headphone attached. "Pretty nice, huh?" he boasted, and I noticed the headphones were connected to another cap-set in his other hand. "Not only does it look exceptionally cool," he smiled as I held the contraption and looked it over, "but it is remarkably functional, as well." He put his cap on and turned to me. "You flip the cap backwards to YODEL," he instructed. "And the glasses..." He put them on as cool as a shadow could, and suddenly I couldn't see him. "Well these reflective lenses aren't only hip, but they make you invisible, to boot!" Shadow took off the glasses and reappeared. He had the headphones over his ears and he was snapping his fingers like a real hip cat. "Must be some great tune," I thought, and I put my set on. MUZAK! "Yuk!" I groaned, but Shadow was pointing behind us. I spun around and saw the Time-Catcher waving his net wildly as he stumbled over a mountain of junk. He stopped at my spaceship and started banging on the door. "Come out, or I'll huff and I'll puff..." he roared. Shadow yanked me back into the shadows. "Glasses on. Turn your cap backwards," Shadow whispered. When I did it, we were suddenly shooting through that white cloudy stuff of Eternity that I was getting so used to seeing. But the lousy muzak was driving me crazy.