The Merman and the Moon Forgotten - By Kevin McGill Page 0,21
sign clearly marked Disease and Poison Ward: No admittance beyond this point without clearance. He tried to pry the doors open. They beeped a warning but wouldn’t budge. Then Nick saw something very odd. Grand’s eyes lost their hue and turned blue while waves of blue misted from his fingertips.
“Grand?” Nick said.
Their grandfather’s hands formed a hollow circle and plunged into the crack of the door. It rolled apart like paper.
“Scuccas? How could it be?” Grand mumbled to himself. He looked down to Nick, then back through the gap. “It is time we be leaving, boys.”
“Um,” Nick said, “why are you all blue and misty?”
“It’s my jynn’us. Now, let’s go!” Iron-like hands seized their shoulders and shifted the boys away. He mumbled something about “my scent” as they marched out of the hospital.
“In the truck. Don’t doddle,” their grandfather commanded.
The hovertruck’s nose was buried in a mulberry bush, clearly ignoring the parking pads. Both boys tumbled into the cab and were met with the smell of pipe smoke and truck sweat. Before they could manage their harnesses, the hovertruck rocketed upward and in complete defiance of all commercial airway regulations. They sped through a pair of holosigns that read, Beauty and the Botox: When nature has been beastly to you, and Mind Transplants: Don’t die, download! Nick glanced quickly at St. Mary’s. He half-expected a fleet of policedrones on their tail, but there were only a couple of mangy dogs tearing across the lawn.
Or were they horses?
“What’s going on?” Tim said, just as they broke through the clouds.
“Waiting . . . no use waiting at the hospital,” said Grand.
“For what?” said Tim.
Grand squeezed the steering wheel. “For your parents.”
Nick looked sideways to his grandfather. His crinkled brow spoke worry, even fear.
Nick really considered that idea.
Grand? Afraid?
Nine • Going to a Better Place
Grand nearly circumvented the Earth over the next week. He only left the cloud line to eat and use the bathroom. Most of the conversations consisted of Tim saying: “We need to go back.” “Mom and Dad might be dead.” “What’s going on, Grand?” But Grand remained tight-lipped about their parents. In fact, Grand said very little to the brothers. What was said consisted of: “What will you be eating for breakfast?” “Time for bed now.” and “Think we’ll see the Himalayans in the morning.”
As always, it wasn’t what Grand said to them that mattered, it was what Grand said to himself. Three days into their globe-trip, they stopped off at a Mumford’s electrostation in south of Wales to let Tim use the bathroom and recharge the hover. Two paces back, Grand was mumbling to himself, “Mustn’t let them know what I’m thinking, Huron. Keep ‘em confused. Break the scent.”
Huron? Nick thought to himself as he walked inside the food mart to buy a candy bar. Grand hears the same voice?
“Psst,” Tim called Nick over, having just grabbed a bag of Sour Powers.
“Yeah,” Nick said.
“What’s wrong with Grand? Is he getting, you know, Alzheimer’s?” said Tim.
“No,” Nick shook his head. “Grand is incapable of illness.”
Tim gave a withered look. “Dude. I know you think he’s the patron saint of awesomeness or something, but Grand’s mind’s all screwy. He keeps talking to himself.”
“We can drop you off at the nearest daycare if it makes you feel better.”
“Just saying that I’m having major doubts about Grand’s psychological stability.” Tim snatched a bag of jelly beans. “Don’t have to be a jerk about it.”
“He told us to wait; we wait.”
“Since when did you heed an authority figure?”
Nick shrugged.
Grand was the only adult Nick had ever heeded, which makes sense, since Grand was also the only adult that ever scared him. It was like someone had taken Aragorn, William Wallace, Conan the Barbarian, and mashed them into their grandfather. What do you say to a person like that?
Truly, they never had had the average grandfather-grandson relationship. Grand never celebrated national holidays with them, or Christmas for that matter. He never sent them e-cards with e-money. Grand would send real, physical letters. They were twenty pages long, recording his whereabouts and archaeological activities across the globe, giving full details of the local aviary, with samples included. Bat wings. Parrot beaks. Eye and talon of a Sulawesi serpent eagle. It took Nick hours to read the letters because he spent most of the time cross-referencing between Grand’s words and the e-dictionary.
Also, Grand never came groundside, so he never saw where the brothers lived or went to school. He always insisted they meet at a Cappumulus,