The Boy with 17 Senses (15 page)

“I have to get back to work. Here, go get me some cream.” Jaq felt Fiona's arm reach for something. “But bring back the receipt
and
the change. Every cent.”

“Okay.”

Fiona stood up, keeping Jaq inside her jacket and safe from view. She held him with a gentle hand, but as she hustled away from Gunther, Jaq began to feel sick again. He wasn't sure if it was motion sickness or because he knew they were heading away from the wormhole, and away from safety.

A part of Jaq wanted to ask her to drop him off in the bushes. The wormhole was so close. But he knew he couldn't leave Bonip. That little wipper had never bitten him, not once, and Jaq knew it wasn't because he tasted funny.

Fiona stopped suddenly, and Jaq peeked out of her jacket.

“Look,” Fiona said, pointing to a sign on the wall. “Morgo has another show in an hour.”

“We can rescue Plenthy?”

“We can try.”

“We have to find Bonip, too. We left him in that restaurant.”

“Oh! I'm so sorry,” Fiona said. “Do you think he's okay?”

“Are you kidding? He's in a sea of food. That's his paradise. Let's get the itch cream, and then we'll find him and make our plan to rescue Plenthy.”

“Okay,” Fiona said. “I just hope that pharmacy has itch cream. I kind of made that part up.”

As we have seen, the people of Yipsmix value glug above nearly all natural resources.

The people of Epsidor Erandi love the rich colors of the minerals from the Hamaryth Mountains, which they crush into powder and mix into body paint. Some rare colors are extremely expensive. People who can paint themselves ultramarine every day are probably richer than the queen.

The people of Zanflid use the shell of the sea thub as currency. Sometimes the thub is still hiding in the shell, and it has very sharp teeth. Zanflidians are not kidding when they say a deal can come back to bite you.

Jaq was about to learn that on Earth, diamonds are highly prized. Fiona passed a jewelry store on the way to the pharmacy and pointed out the shiny gemstones to Jaq.

“Those are diamonds. Plenthy said he'd get me some.”

“Those? Yeah, we have lots of those on Yipsmix,” Jaq said. “Kids polish them up and give them to their moms on Gratitude Day.”

“Well, here on Earth they're really valuable. If I had a few diamonds, I could sell them, and my mom and I could move away from Step-uncle Gunther. That's why we have to save Plenthy.”

“I need Plenthy to get my grandpa out of jail,” Jaq said.

“And he needs us, too,” Fiona said.

They hurried to buy the itch cream and take it back to Gunther, but he wasn't in the restaurant. Fiona left it for him behind the counter and then took Jaq back upstairs to find Bonip.

It wasn't hard to find the little wipper. Fiona held Jaq in front of her, nestled in her jacket, as she walked by the salad bar. Jaq spotted Bonip lying in a heap next to a container marked
GUACAMOLE
.

“So . . . full,” Bonip moaned.

Jaq grabbed him, and they returned to the booth in the back.

When Fiona placed Jaq on the seat, his gaze drifted up toward the underside of the table. All at once he remembered
the other reason he'd come back—glug. There it was, a deformed little blob just within his reach. He pulled a sticky string of it down and showed it to Bonip. “Glug!”

Fiona leaned down. “Plenthy used to have me scrape gum off the bottom of the tables. It was so disgusting.” She laughed. “He told me that gum is very valuable on your planet, which is funny.”

“Why is it funny?”

“Because it's so cheap here. That chicken I gave you cost four dollars.” She noticed Jaq's blank look. “Less than a meal at McDonald's?” she tried.

Jaq's brow furrowed in confusion.

“A few songs on iTunes?”

Jaq shook his head.

“Really cheap!”

Jaq smiled and nodded.

“Why do you guys like gum so much?” Fiona asked.

“Because it's sticky and squishy,” Jaq said. “Why do you like diamonds so much?”

“Because they're shiny and pretty.”

They both shrugged, as if to say,
To each his own
.

“So Plenthy was collecting gum here and bringing it back to Yipsmix?” Jaq asked. This was Jaq's plan, too.

“At first,” Fiona said. “But what he really wanted to do was grow a sapodilla tree on Yipsmix. You can make gum out of the sap of that tree. But I think he was having trouble getting it to work on your planet. The trees would die, and he kept running out of seeds. That's when I met him. He asked me to get some seeds from one of the trees in this restaurant.” She pointed to some decorative trees along the wall.

“Glug . . . from trees?” Jaq said. “That's crazy! Glug is a synthetic product.”

“Mostly, but we can make gum from trees here, too,” Fiona said. “Anyway, I asked the owners—they're really nice—and they gave me the seeds. Plenthy said he'd give me a diamond in exchange for each seed. That was our deal.”

“What happened after you gave Plenthy the seeds?” Jaq asked.

“He disappeared! All this time I've been thinking about how stupid I was to believe that someone would trade diamonds for seeds. I mean, really, it sounds so ridiculous.

“But you saw him!” she went on, full of excitement. “If he's here, then maybe he didn't ditch me. He might have my diamonds. We just have to get him away from Morgo the Magnificent.”

“How are we going to do that?” Jaq asked.

Fiona's excitement seemed to leak out of her, and she slouched in her seat. “I don't know,” she said.

They were quiet for a moment, thinking, and then Bonip bounced up from the vinyl seat to the tabletop. “Plenthy mouthed the word
music
when he saw Jaq waving at him. Right before he warned us about the giant Gunther.”

“
Music?
” Fiona said. “That's strange.”

“Did you hear that song that was playing during his act?” Jaq asked Bonip.

Bonip nodded. “Catchy tune, easy to dance to—I'd give it an eight. It got weird at the end.”

“No, it was . . . different. It gave me chills. The shapes and colors and swirls in it were so . . . precise.” Jaq shook his head in awe. “It started with a flowy bit, and then the music rose up, but in a soft and floaty way that made my heart feel light, and then I saw these bursts of red, like giant round berries. It was so surprising. There were more vivid images, but I can't remember them. And then the song ended with darkness.”

He shivered and turned to Bonip, who was looking at him like he was crazy. “That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard,” Bonip said. “It was a song. It had a snazzy beat. That's all.”

“I need to hear it again,” Jaq said. “And you're right—it really did have a snazzy beat.”

Fiona pulled a light blue metallic square out of her pocket. It was no bigger than Jaq's head, with a circle in the middle and a long cord sticking out of one side. The cord split into two, and each side ended with a round plastic bit with a hole at the end.

“I have a ton of songs on here,” she said. “It's my old iPod Shuffle. We could listen, if you like. Maybe we'll find the song.”

She flipped through a few songs while Jaq held on to one of the earbuds, but nothing sounded like the song Jaq had heard. “This music looks too jumbled.”

“What did the other song look like to you?” Fiona asked.

Jaq peeked out of the booth. “Lift me up for a second,” he told her. She stood up and held him under her jacket, so he could peek out but still be hidden from view. “See that guy's plate over there?” Jaq said, pointing. The man had his back to them, but the plate on his table was visible. It was filled with different colors and textures and shapes.

“Yeah—that's their Grande Taco Salad Supreme,” Fiona said.

“Your music looks like that plate of food. When I listen,
I see a jumbled mess of colors and shapes and tastes. Red blobs, green swirls, tan triangles, and other stuff, all mixed together. The song I heard during the magic act was more like that,” he said, pointing to the salad bar, where all the ingredients were laid out in a line. “It made pictures that were ordered and neat, with each one separate from the next.”

Fiona sat back down. She was about to ask Jaq a question, when a familiar voice boomed through the restaurant.

“Fiona! What the heck?”

Her step-uncle was storming through the restaurant, right at them.

22

DO YOU HEAR THAT? IT'S VANILLA

F
iona dropped Jaq onto the seat, and from there he jumped to the floor and hid behind the table support. His heart beat so fast, it felt like it was trying to escape his chest and run for safety. He closed his eyes and listened to the giants.

“I have
had
it with you,” Gunther said. “You know I'm suffering, and you're just sitting here! I feel so sick, so nauseous. And itchy!”

“I got you the cream—”

“You just left it in my restaurant,” Gunther said. “How am I supposed to put it on myself? On my back?”

“You . . . you want
me
to put it on your back?” Fiona's voice sounded so faint and weak. It was as if she were being asked to clean an overflowing porta potty, or something equally sad and disgusting.

“Yes. You're supposed to be available when I need you, not roaming around doing whatever you like. I've given you way too much freedom. You're staying in
my
restaurant from now on. I've got to lie down or I'm going to throw up. I can't even think of a good punishment for you—that's how sick I am.”

Jaq heard Fiona's voice fade away as she tried to explain herself while being pulled out of the restaurant.

She was gone, and Jaq was stuck. If he tried to leave, one of the giants would surely spot him, and then . . . Jaq shivered, imagining the feeling of being grabbed and squeezed and lifted high in the air again. In other words, complete horror. Even if he could leave unseen, he had no idea how to find the wormhole. Sure, he had a fantastic sense of direction, but that was on Yipsmix. Being on Earth had thrown his senses into a tizzy. Plus, he'd hidden beneath Fiona's coat for most of the trip upstairs. He couldn't retrace steps he hadn't seen.

He slumped to the floor, terrified. In his mind, there was
no chance of survival now that his one giant helper was gone.

Bonip hopped down beside him. “Well, that's a bummer,” he said. “Now what?”

“I can't go out there,” Jaq said. “Someone will grab me.”

“So we stay? I can live with that. Did you see all the food up there?”

“I can't stay. My mom will be so worried. I need to be home by dinner.”

“What, then?”

“We wait. When this place is empty, we run for the door. You go first and tell me if it's clear. Nobody notices you, because you're tiny here.”

Bonip nodded.

And so they waited. Bonip occasionally hopped over to the salad bar and brought back little bites for Jaq. But Jaq was too nervous to eat, and he sat there tapping his hands on his thighs, dreading the time when he'd have to make a run for it.

After what seemed like ages but was closer to an hour, Fiona returned. Jaq was so grateful, he felt like kissing her shoe.

“My mom got off early and came to pick me up,” she said. “She's eating downstairs. But, guys, we missed Morgo's last act.”

“Oh, no,” Jaq said.

“I know. But someone in the restaurant says he performs all the time. We can try to find him tomorrow.”

“Did you hear the song?”

“No, sorry. Uncle Gunther made me watch the restaurant while my mom helped him with the cream, thank goodness. He doesn't trust his workers, so he has me spy on them. Here.” She pulled out her music machine. “Take my iPod Shuffle. I'm getting a new one for my birthday, anyway. See if you can find the song. You press the play button in the middle, and the arrow buttons to go forward or back.”