What Came From the Stars (16 page)

Mr. PilgrimWay’s eyes were on his chest.

“You’d better begin,” said Mr. PilgrimWay.

“I don’t really draw,” he said.

Mr. PilgrimWay put his hand up around his neck, as if he were fingering a chain. “I don’t think that’s true,” he said.

Tommy picked up his pencil. His chain was very warm.

He drew the Reced, with its high tower and long glazed gliteloit. He drew it on a night when the pennants were snapping, and when Ecglaef himself, ancient Ecglaef, was sending his spectacular naeli into the air, high into the air, where they exploded into swirling whirls with a shock that tasted of the sea. The hanoraho were sounding and the rylim tides were over and a new season full of light and cool winds was upon the city. Tommy closed his eyes. The sea! The smell of the clean sea!

Tommy drew thrimble and the pennants began to move and faintly, faintly, the naeli hissed. He could almost forget that...

“Who’s ready to tack their picture up?” said Mr. PilgrimWay. He stood by the empty boards, a box of tacks in his hand. “Patrick Belknap?”

Patrick stood, still bending over his desk to finish his last couple of stars. Then he brought his picture over to the bulletin boards and Mr. PilgrimWay handed him a tack.

“Beautiful,” said Mr. PilgrimWay. He did not look at it.

“Alice Winslow?” he said.

Tommy watched as Mr. PilgrimWay called up Alice Winslow, then James Sullivan, then Jeremy Hereford, then everyone else in the classroom, one by one. And one by one, he handed each of them a tack. And one by one, they pinned their pictures to the bulletin boards. And Mr. PilgrimWay said “Beautiful” each time. But he didn’t look at any of the pictures.

“You don’t think this is creepy?” said Tommy to James Sullivan when he walked by.

“What?” said James Sullivan.

“Tommy, yours now,” said Mr. PilgrimWay.

Tommy put his arm over his picture. “I didn’t finish,” he said.

“Great art may sometimes have an unfinished quality. Karfyer always left a corner of his work unfinished. Do you remember?”

Tommy did remember.

“I thought you might.” Mr. PilgrimWay grinned.

Tommy Pepper did not grin.

“There’s one more space on this bulletin board,” said Mr. PilgrimWay. He pointed. All the pictures were in nyssi order. Only one spot remained at the top of the angle. “Bring it up,” said Mr. PilgrimWay.

So Tommy lifted his arm and picked up his picture, and brought it to the bulletin board, and Mr. PilgrimWay took it.

“Ah, the old fool Ecglaef,” he said, and he pinned the picture to the board.

Then he looked at Tommy. And Tommy felt those eyes move down to his chest, again.

“Go sit, Tommy,” said Mr. PilgrimWay. And when he sat, Mr. PilgrimWay pointed to the bulletin board. “Class, I want you to look at Jeremy’s picture. He’s drawn colored balls that are hovering in the air.”

“They’re meant to be—” began Jeremy Hereford.

“In our imaginations, we can even create games for a new world, like Jeremy’s.” Mr. PilgrimWay walked over to the solar system projects and plucked the Styrofoam balls from Alice and Tommy’s. “Sometimes, we can make what we imagine into reality.”

He held the eight balls in his hands.

“But only if we have power,” Mr. PilgrimWay said.

He tossed the Styrofoam balls into the air, and they hovered. They hovered! Then he began to move his hand around and around and the balls floated apart and circled the classroom over their heads, near the ceiling.

Tommy kept his eyes down.

“Power,” Mr. PilgrimWay whispered.

And the Styrofoam balls began to circle faster.

“All Art is about power,” said Mr. PilgrimWay. “There is no Art made without power, and there is no reason for Art to be made except for power. That is the way of things, no matter what world you live on.”

The balls were circling so fast that they were hard to tell apart. Tommy heard them whirring above his head.

They whirred a long time.

“Good,” said Mr. PilgrimWay. “Very good. Now it is time to go to your Music Appreciation class. Quickly. Not you, Tommy Pepper. You stay here.”

They all stood, their eyes following the circling Styrofoam balls, and they bumped through the desks. Patrick Belknap clipped his accordion and sent it to the floor, but he didn’t stop.

Tommy watched them go.

He was glad there still wasn’t a door to close behind them.

And when they were alone, Mr. PilgrimWay turned back to him. “You have learned almost nothing,” he said.

Tommy kept his eyes from the circling balls.

“What you wear is the Art of the Valorim, and it is so much more than a child’s drawing. It is so much more than bringing an O’Mondim out of the sand.”

“Where is the O’Mondim?” said Tommy.

“In the ocean, waiting on the word of his Valorim master.”

“He wants to go home.”

Mr. PilgrimWay walked closer to Tommy.

“What an O’Mondim wants means nothing. But you, Tommy Pepper. You have worn the Art of the Valorim. You have seen another world. You have felt what the Art can do.”

Far down the hall, music class began. Mrs. Low started to play.

“Give me the chain and I will show you so much more.”

Mr. PilgrimWay held out his hand.

Mrs. Low was playing the Bach piece.

“I can show you nothing without the chain, Tommy Pepper.”

His hand still out.

The Bach piece played from down the hall. And suddenly Tommy remembered his mother’s voice: “Oh, Tommy, I love to hear you play. Especially the Bach. I want to cry when I hear you play the Bach.” He remembered his mother’s voice! “I want to cry because it’s so beautiful.”

He remembered.

Tommy stood. “You’re wrong,” he said. “Art is not about power.”

Mr. PilgrimWay smiled. “It is always about power,” he said. He lifted his hand, gripped it into a fist, and pointed at Tommy.

Immediately one of the Styrofoam balls left its orbit and glanced off Tommy’s left knee—and the ball had become as hard as stone.

He fell to the floor.

“Isn’t it?” said Mr. PilgrimWay.

The second smashed into the bookcase beside Tommy’s head.

“Tommy Pepper, we are not enemies. You have a chain that has given you special powers. I know what those powers are. Let me show you.”

Mr. PilgrimWay held out his hand again.

Tommy backed up behind his desk.

The third and fourth balls flashed in front of his face. He felt their breeze.

“This is pointless,” said Mr. PilgrimWay.

The other four balls flew toward his chest.

And then the chain leaped. And Tommy felt ... something.

He held up his hand.

The eight Styrofoam balls were all circling near the ceiling again.

They were ... dancing. Dancing to the rhythms of the Bach piece. Moving up and down, slowly turning, dipping, all in concert.

They were dancing.

Mr. PilgrimWay was staring at him. Then he looked up and began to move his hand around and around again. But the balls did not change their dance.

Tommy gripped his chair and pulled himself to standing. “I’ve learned a lot,” he said.

They watched the eight balls dancing.

Mr. PilgrimWay smiled. “More than I had thought.” He pointed to Tommy’s knee. “And you have taken your lesson like a Valorim. Perhaps we will learn to appreciate each other.”

“Why shouldn’t I tell everyone who you are?”

“Who am I, Tommy Pepper?”

“I don’t know. You’re the barker from the Fall Festival.” He gripped the chain. “And you’re from another world.”

“Who would believe you?”

“You’re with the O’Mondim.”

“I am not
with
the O’Mondim. I am its master.”

Tommy gripped the chain even harder. He felt ... knowing ... pass into him. “You betrayed the Valorim, and you betrayed the O’Mondim. You told them”—Tommy closed his eyes—“you told them to rebel and they would rule the world. And then”—he opened his eyes—“then you took away their names. And you took away their faces.”

Mr. PilgrimWay smiled and bowed.

“That’s what you do. You betray people. You betrayed them all.”

Mr. PilgrimWay stood straight and tall.

“And you, Tommy Pepper, you betrayed your mother. And with that, you betrayed your father and your sister, who no longer speaks.”

It was as if the eight balls had struck Tommy in the gut. He sat down. Suddenly he could no longer remember her voice.

Mr. PilgrimWay came closer. “With the Art of the Valorim, I can do much, much more to help you remember her. But you must give the Art to me before I can show you how.”

Tommy shook his head. “I can’t trust you.”

Mr. PilgrimWay leaned toward him. “Let us be good to each other, Tommy Pepper,” he whispered. “We are the same.”

The Bach piece was still playing sweetly down the hall.

Tommy met Patty at the first grade door that afternoon. He took her hand and they went out to the sidewalk to board their bus. He looked down toward Plymouth Harbor and the ocean beyond. He held the chain underneath his shirt.

Patty looked up at him.

“Nothing,” he said. “I hurt my knee a little, that’s all.”

She squeezed his hand.

“Really, that’s it. I’m all right.”

But nothing was all right.

By the end of the week, Mr. Burroughs still had not come back and everyone seemed to have forgotten about him—except Tommy.

“Isn’t Mr. PilgrimWay wonderful?” said Alice Winslow.

“He’s terrific,” said James Sullivan.

“The best,” said Patrick Belknap.

Alice Winslow, James Sullivan, Patrick Belknap—even Cheryl Lynn Lumpkin!—walked around as if Mr. PilgrimWay was a gift from the skies.

And, Tommy thought, he was.

But not the way they thought he was.

And not a gift.

At recess, Tommy went to see Mr. Zwerger.

Mrs. MacReady told him that Mr. Zwerger was awfully busy.

Tommy said he would wait.

“Suit yourself,” said Mrs. MacReady.

Tommy waited through the whole recess. The door to Mr. Zwerger’s office never did open.

“It’s time for you to go back to class,” said Mrs. MacReady.

When he got back to his classroom, Mr. PilgrimWay was flipping through pages of
Madeline.

“That was my mother’s favorite book,” said Tommy.

“Was it?” said Mr. PilgrimWay.

On Monday, Tommy went to see Mr. Zwerger at recess again.

“He’s still awfully busy,” said Mrs. MacReady.

Tommy sat down to wait.

When he got back to his classroom, Mr. PilgrimWay had changed the whiteboard to a pale yellow.

He smiled when Tommy came in. “You’re not carrying your lunch box anymore,” he said.

“I lost it,” Tommy said.

“It’s almost certainly hidden in your closet.” Mr. PilgrimWay smiled again.

And Tommy almost flinched, because that was exactly where his lunch box was.

On Tuesday, Tommy went to see Mr. Zwerger at recess again.

“I don’t think he’ll have time to see you,” said Mrs. MacReady.

When Tommy got back to his classroom, Mr. PilgrimWay asked him where he had been. “I never see you outside, Tommy Pepper,” he said.

“Sometimes I go to the library,” said Tommy.

Mr. PilgrimWay waved his hand in the air. “There’s so much to learn, isn’t there? So much to remember. But I don’t think you’ll learn what you want to learn there.”

Mr. PilgrimWay dropped his hand, and Tommy smelled ... he smelled her perfume. The perfume she always wore.

Mr. PilgrimWay smiled.

On Wednesday, Tommy went to see Mr. Zwerger at recess again.

Mrs. MacReady was not at her desk, and the door to Mr. Zwerger’s office was open.

Tommy did not wait. Who knew when Mrs. MacReady would be back? He knocked at the door and went in.

The room smelled of rucca seaweed. The room
stank
of rucca seaweed. But all the windows were closed and Mr. Zwerger was sitting with his back to his desk, painting at his easel, trying to copy the cottage picture.

“Mr. Zwerger?” said Tommy.

Mr. Zwerger did not answer.

“Mr. Zwerger?” said Tommy again.

Mr. Zwerger turned around. “Who are you?” he said.

“Mr. Zwerger, I’m trying to find out what’s happening with Mr. Burroughs.”

“Who?” said Mr. Zwerger.

“Mr. Burroughs.”

Mr. Zwerger held his paintbrush in midair. “I’m very busy,” he said.

“Is Mr. Burroughs coming back to school soon?”

Mr. Zwerger turned to his easel and began to paint.

“Mr. Zwerger?”

No answer.

Tommy shivered, and left.

Tommy went to the library. He found a phone book and wrote down Mr. Burroughs’s phone number. He went back to the office.

Mrs. MacReady was sitting behind her desk.

“I need to make a call,” Tommy said.

“Students are not allowed to make phone calls from the main office,” she said.

“It’s an emergency.”

“Are you bleeding?” she said.

“No.”

“Then it’s not an emergency.”

“It’ll be really quick.”

Mrs. MacReady thought for a moment. “Two minutes,” she said, and pointed to the phone.

Tommy called Mr. Burroughs’s number. He let it ring twelve times. Then he hung up and tried again in case he had dialed wrong. He let it ring fifteen times. Then he hung up.

“Recess is over,” said Mrs. MacReady.

Tommy was afraid to go back to his classroom.

He thought he might start bawling like a first-grader.

Second Sunrise, and the Short Dark of the year.

The rylim tides, and the time of the Leaping of the Waves by the shore.

In the dark room of the Seats of the Reced, the Lord Mondus waited for word of Young Waeglim. That none had come brought fear to his heart and anger to his hands. And smoldering too in the Lord Mondus’s thoughts was the Councilman Ouslim, and whether he might find the Art of the Valorim, and how, when he returned, the Lord Mondus might take the Art of the Valorim and do away with Ouslim and his sly and dreaming lies.