Pi in the Sky Read online

  I turn to go but he shoots in front of me. The hallway is so narrow, he fills the whole space. I have no choice but to hear him out.

  “I agree with you,” he says. “About the importance of getting your friend and his parents back. I’d bet your father does, too, but he can’t let on. These rules are as old as time. He can’t set a precedent by going against them simply because friends are involved. It would show weakness, and that is something your father would never do. Ever.” He glances behind him, then lowers his voice. “But I’ll help you because, well, I really like their beaches.” He lowers it even further. “And fantasy football.”

  I give him my full attention now. “But I thought you said it was too late, that the whole solar system is completely gone?”

  “Oh, it is. No trace that it ever existed. So what we’ll do is this—I’ll keep the PTB off your trail for as long as I can. We’ll temporarily suspend your pie delivery services so none of the view screens will show your activity. You won’t be able to tell anyone what you’re doing, of course, not even your brothers.”

  Laughter comes from the closet-room, and a slurping-through-a-straw noise follows. I lower my voice. “How can I tell them what I’m doing if I have no idea what you’re talking about?”

  He glances around to make sure we’re still alone. “You’ll be rebuilding it, of course.”

  I stare at his face and am reminded of Annika’s garbage-disposal comment. But even his bizarre appearance can’t distract me from his words. “You want me to rebuild Earth?”

  “No.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  “I want you to rebuild the entire solar system,” he says. “And quickly, because the PTB catch on fast to any unusual activities. You’ll have to make it exactly the way it was before. But this time, Annika can’t be allowed to look in that telescope and find The Realms. It’s your only chance. It’s humanity’s only chance.”

  Okay, Gluck the Yuck is officially insane. “That’s totally impossible. How am I supposed to rebuild Earth and its solar system exactly the way it was? Any tiny little change and the whole thing could turn out different. I only got a C in Planet Building class. I couldn’t possibly do this.”

  “But you can,” he insists. “All you need to do is figure it out by working backward.”

  “Backward? Backward from what?”

  He twitches his thumb toward the closed door. “From her.”

  I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a Ferris wheel.

  —E. B. White, writer and editor

  If anyone had told me two hours ago that I’d walk into PTB headquarters with Kal and come out with a human girl from Earth, I’d have said they’d eaten too many fulu berries from that one garden in The Realms where the fruit tastes a little funky. But here we are, strolling down the street together like it’s not completely unnatural and bizarre. Every few feet Annika stops to point at something else.

  “That playground looks just like the one by my school!” she says. Or, “Look! That house is like my grandmother’s house in Arizona! Except my grandmother’s house is yellow with shutters and a driveway, and that one is green without shutters and no driveway.”

  All I can do is nod and say, “Really, wow, dreams sure are weird that way.” Other than the streets themselves, which are still translucent, The Realms have been redesigned to look like Earth. This happens anytime a planet dies off. We like to pay our respects. Plus it gets really boring looking at the same things for SO many eons, so we jump at any chance to redecorate.

  Gone are the shimmering dome-shaped houses and buildings, the multicolored clouds. Gone are the huge sculptures that normally dot our landscape. Judging by the amount of detail I see around us—the vegetables in the gardens, the hand-painted signs on the storefronts—it’s clear people have put in extra effort this time. This is good for Annika, since her surroundings feel familiar and she’s clearly not as scared as she might otherwise be.

  “I think I figured out why I’m stuck in this dream,” she says.

  I’m too busy glaring behind me at the ever-thickening crowd to ask for her theory. The crowd stares and points at Annika like she has a giant sunflower growing out of her head, which is kind of insulting to the Florapods from the Large Magellanic Cloud Galaxy, who actually DO have flowers growing out of their heads. Word had gone out via the communication network for everyone to pretend it’s perfectly normal to have a human in The Realms, so I give the group of gawkers one last glare, and they finally turn away.

  Annika is still talking, something about drinking too much of the coffee her dad had made so he could stay awake for the Mars approach and how coffee can have the opposite effect on teenagers. I mumble something akin to “Oh, yeah, maybe, sure” but I’m only half-listening. I need to ask Gluck more questions. A lot more questions. I must be the absolute last guy in The Realms who should be responsible for bringing back a planet. To say nothing of a whole solar system. If Kal’s going to have any chance of coming back to life, he’s going to need someone who actually has a clue what to do. Any of my six brothers would have a better shot. They get out in the universe a lot more than I do, which is never. I need to convince Gluck he has the wrong person while there’s still time.

  I make an interested-sounding grunt when Annika points to a tree that reminds her of a tree she used to swing from during the summer she was eight. At this rate I’ll have aged another million years before we make it to Kal’s house. Gluck told me he sent word to Aunt Rae that Kal had left suddenly on a last-minute trip to visit his parents on their current research trip. If she knew the truth, she would completely break down. She’s very sensitive. Maybe that’s why she makes such good pies. To keep them both occupied, Gluck arranged for Aunt Rae to watch over Annika until we can figure out what to do with her.

  We pass a meadow of grazing horses, a swimming pool, a used-car lot, two town squares, and a shopping mall before reaching Kal’s neighborhood. Annika stumbles backward as a walk-in phone booth pops up right in front of us. She stares at it. “I haven’t seen one of those since I was a little kid,” she muses. “Why would I put that in my dream?”

  “Who knows?” I say, anxious to keep her from focusing on anything too closely. I steer her around the phone booth and can’t help noticing that Dad was right—her arm is more solid than anything I’ve ever felt before. It feels strange but interesting, and I almost don’t want to let it go. She solves that problem by shaking my hand off and pointing excitedly at a Ferris wheel that has just sprouted up across the street.

  I position myself between her and the street. “We should keep moving. It will be dark soon.”

  It won’t. It never gets dark in The Realms.

  “Let’s ride it,” she says. “We’ll only go around a few times, okay?” Then she laughs. “What am I asking you for? You’re just a figment of my imagination!”

  Before I can argue, she grabs me by the hand and yanks me across the street. I’ve never held a girl’s hand before. Especially not a REAL hand, with a pulse beating through it. This day seriously can’t get any stranger.

  I let her drag me to the entrance of the Ferris wheel because I am too distracted by the weight of her hand to fight it. I guess Gluck can wait a little longer.

  We join the long line waiting for the ride. The sudden loss of her hand in mine makes me feel even lighter than usual, almost like I could float away. I grind my feet into the grass to shake off the feeling. As soon as everyone sees us—the seventh son of the Supreme Overlord and the human girl from Earth—they quickly part and usher us to the front of the line.

  “I did that!” Annika says proudly as we reach the entrance. “I wished for them to move, and they did!”

  I’d roll my eyes but that is a gesture better left to about-to-be-teenage girls from Earth. “Uh-huh,” I say instead. “You are truly Master of the Dream World.”

  The ride operator turns out to be none other than my second-oldest (and most popular, charming, handsome, cheerful, bl