‘It seems like I’m always being chased,’ I said, climbing up the gangplank. ‘Come on. Let’s get going.’
Kaz followed me up, and the gangplank swung closed. The butterfly lurched into the air and swooped
. . . well, fluttered . . .
away from the city in a dramatic
. . . well, leisurely . . .
flight toward Mokia, with a dangerous
. . . well, mostly just a cute . . .
determination to see the kingdom protected and defended!
Either that or we’d just spend our time drinking nectar from flowers. You know, whatever ended up working.
42
Change.
It’s important to change. I, for instance, change my underwear every day. Hopefully you do too. If you don’t, please stay downwind.
Change is frightening. Few of us ever want things to change. (Well, things other than underwear.) But change is also fascinating – in fact, it’s necessary. Just ask Heraclitus.
Heraclitus was a funny little Greek man best known for letting his brother do all of the hard work, for calling people odd names, and for writing lyrics for Disney songs about two thousand years too early for them to be sung. He was quite an expert on change, even going so far as to change from alive to dead after smearing cow dung on his face. (Er, yes, that last part is true, I’m afraid.)
Heraclitus is the first person we know of to ever gripe about how often things change. In fact, he went so far as to guess that you can never touch the same object twice – because everything and everybody changes so quickly, any object you touch will change into something else before you touch it again.
I suppose that this is true. We’re all made of cells, and those are bouncing around, breaking off, drying, changing. If nothing could change, then we wouldn’t be able to think, grow, or even breathe. What would be the point? We’d all be about as dynamic as a pile of rocks. (Though, as I think about it, even that pile of rocks is changing moment by moment, as the winds blow and break off atoms.)
So . . . I guess what Heraclitus was saying is that your underpants are always changing, and technically you now have on a different pair than you did when you began reading this chapter. So I guess you don’t have to change them every day.
Sweet! Thanks, philosophy!
I whistled in amazement, hanging upside down from the tree. ‘Wow! That was quite the trip! Aydee, you’re a fantastic pilot.’
‘Thanks!’ Aydee said, hanging nearby.
‘I mean, I thought thirty-seven chapters’ worth of flying would be boring,’ I said. ‘But that was probably the most exciting thing I’ve been a part of since Grandpa showed up on my doorstep six months ago!’
‘I particularly enjoyed the fight with the giant half squid, half wombat,’ Bastille said.
‘You really showed him something!’ I said.
‘Thanks! I didn’t realize he’d be so interested in my stamp collection.’
‘Yeah, I didn’t realize you’d taken so many pictures of people’s faces you’d stamped on!’
‘Personally,’ Kaz said, untangling himself from the bushes below, ‘I preferred the part where we flew up into space.’
‘We should have done that in book two,’ Bastille said. ‘Then that cover would have made sense.’
‘There were so many exciting things on this trip,’ I said, still swinging in the vines. ‘It’s tough to pick just one as my favorite.’
Kaz dusted himself off, looking up at me. ‘Reason number eighty-two why it’s better to be a short person: When you plummet to your doom, you don’t fall as far as tall people.’
‘What?’ I said. ‘Of course you do!’