Standing in the middle of a quiet street with few persons out-of-doors enjoying the last rays of the day, Frederick stuck his left hand in his pocket and pulled out package of rather odd-looking gum. The package was entitled, “Dr. Sticky Gum,” in a horrid shade of magenta with a sickly green background. On his back was a burdensome black pack with several changes of clothing for the journey. The sun was setting on the quaint little neighborhood tucked away in the corner of a town too insignificant to be named. The houses slouched carefully in the fading light, casting long, relaxing shadows on the fresh-cut lawns be-speckled with brown patches. Frederick sighed, to no one in particular, and casually popped a stick of the gum in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully before vanishing completely on the spot.
A nearby purple-haired grandmother gasped so suddenly that she almost swallowed her dentures, but regained her composure enough to stand up from her rocking chair on her dirt-encrusted porch. Frederick had evaporated from a spot not more than twenty feet from the older woman, practically standing on her front lawn. The evening had been winding down, the sky spreading a mixture of pastels and bright colors across it, as a careless artist would.
I bring your attention to this old woman in particular because she was, by all accounts, a quite ordinary woman who had been happily married for fifty-seven years before her husband departed, leaving her all alone with her six children and twenty-one grandchildren. She had, in fact, been knitting a dress for the newest grandchild, Lily, when she saw Frederick disappear. I am afraid we must leave the old woman, who you will later learn the name of, to find where Frederick has gone. Not that she is not a wonderful woman, but merely because all she will do for the next several days is sleep, eat, and knit, wondering if she might have imagined the whole ordeal.
Our friend Frederick appeared in midair, spinning fast in a downward spiral, his shoes gone, lost somewhere in space on the journey, and his feet bare. He landed in a tall sand dune and, regaining his rather short stature, licked his lips that had become uncommonly dry from traveling. He tasted iron and assumed that his lip must have begun to crack from the dryness. Not the best way to travel, he thought, but still, it got him where he was going. Forgetting he had sand on his hand, he reached up to dab at the blood with his finger. “Owww…banana muffins!!” he shouted in pain.
Sudden movement beneath him caused him to divert his attention from his minor injuries to the heaving sand dune. With two great sighs, the land gave way and fell, forming itself into a large pit. Frederick fell gracelessly onto his side. He had forgotten almost entirely about the irritable landscape on Fardula. One had to tread rather lightly on the dunes, otherwise they collapsed, in a self-defensive measure. Climbing out of the pit was next to impossible, something Frederick recollected as he attempted to do so.
He first attempted to get a foothold in the side of the sand crater, but it was in vain, as the sand merely poured around his foot, mocking him. He tried to dig his hands in but only succeeded in getting two large fistfuls of sand. He lay his body against the side of the almost sixty degree wall of the inverted dune and pressed into it. How did he get out of the last one? He tried to remember as he pushed off and attempted to climb, but all that happened was a great landslide of sand came pouring down.
He lay down in the bottom of the pit, and recalled how he had gotten out of the last one. It had been Arena, a native who had dropped in on her space craft when she saw his plight and laughed at him, speaking in a series of clucks and tsks. Would he be so lucky this time? He decided to stand up and call for whatever help may be nearby.
“Hello?” he shouted. “I know you probably can’t understand me, but I need help! You hear me? HELP!!!!!” He kicked the wall of the sand pit in anger and more sand crumbled down. Getting an idea, he started kicking the wall all around him, causing more sand to fall down and collect at the bottom of the pit, and then he pulled his feet out of it and kicked again. He kept this up for a while, and, after about an hour, figured he had probably gained about a foot and a half of height.
Though the sun was just rising on Fardula, he felt exhausted, as he had left at nighttime and endured the draining journey of the “Dr. Sticky Gum.” The strenuous kicking he had been doing had not helped the matter, and he resigned finally, lying down to have a quick, and rather sandy, rest. He dreamt of white polka dots that kept sticking to his arms and legs and, when he would pull one off, two more would appear. He awoke to a loud popping noise and felt the ground beneath him surge. The dune shot up again.
Frederick noticed the sun was high in the sky, as were the Nullif and Dunye stars, so he knew it must have been about midday. He gave a triumphant whoop and stepped carefully over the rest of the dune to begin his journey. A mile or so into his journey, Frederick heard the whirring of an engine overhead and looked up to see an enormous craft moving slowly and raining down water over the desert around him. He had spent but a few minutes in the desert on his last trip here and had no idea why anyone would be watering a desert.
“It’s a lost cause!” he shouted up to them, smiling wryly. Seeming to take notice of him, the craft paused overhead, drenching him in cool, refreshing streams of water, which he opened his parched mouth to drink before spitting it out, gagging. “That is definitely not water!” he cried indignantly, spitting again profusely. The liquid was more of a jelly-like, thick substance that tasted the way that engine oil smelled, if you know what I mean.
