The Fantastical Adventure Of William Solney (1)
I used to have this painting hanging on my wall. Not that I am a fan of art or anything, but I was at the fair one day and it caught my eye, sort of like you could look really far into it. “Will,” my mom said, “Let’s go, the fair is almost over, and it’s getting dark.” I stood there looking at the painting. It was simple: a few mountains trailing away into the background, green clouds rising into the sky that you knew were trees, and some strokes of orange to make a forest floor. “Just one shot?” I parried. “The carnie guy probably has his stakes rigged so I can’t get the rings on the hoop anyways, but just one try?” “Will,” my mom said wearily. She reached to guide me away from the booth, but then she stopped. I could see how tired she really was--that she just wanted to go home. I almost said, “Never mind, its only a silly, childish painting. Let’s go.“ but then the weariness lifted away as her face brushed itself into a smile. She almost looked like she used to before. “Okay Will, one try.” I paid the guy at the stand a dollar, and he gave me three rings. He lifted the corner of his mouth in an almost mocking grin, crossed his arms, and leaned against the side of the booth. I looked at the painting again. It was really nice, and I could win it for a dollar. I put my foot back, looked straight at the ring and the stand I was supposed to throw it on. The first ring hit the top of the stand and bounced off. My second ring completely missed, and it hit the back of the wooden booth with a dull thud. I took my last ring. The carnival smelled of huge, barbecued, turkey legs, popcorn, and hotdogs drifted through the air. This was great. It was time to finish our day at the fair, and I was shooting the ring-toss. I threw the ring, yet, I knew, even as it left my hand that it was a little off. A sudden gust of hot, dry, summer air brushed across my face, and I looked into it as was my habit. I heard a thud and turned back around. The ring was on the stand! It must have rebounded off the back of the booth! The carnie looked at me queerly. “Well, I’ll be,” he said, scratching his head. “I’ve been working in these fairs for ten years, and nobody ever put one around Bertha before.” He lifted up the smallish painting, and gave it to my mother. His eyebrows drooped a little above his surprisingly bright blue eyes. “I’ve had this painting for a while, boy, even started to like it. Thought maybe I’d take it home with me and give it as a present to my daughter if nobody won it in a few months. Make sure you take good care of it, boy.” My mom walked back to the car, and I floated next to her. My cheer was so great that she even started smiling. The whole ride home, I bubbled with questions about paintings. “What kind of art style is this? Have you ever heard of the artist? Do you like the painting?” Mom fielded all my questions while she drove. As soon as we arrived at our driveway, I got the painting out of the trunk. Mom unlocked the door and walked into our house. “Will,“ she said, “if you look at the back of your painting, there should be a piece of metal. You can hang it by that on the nail above your bed.” She came over to me, gave me a hug, and kissed the top of my head. “Goodnight, honey. I’m going to sleep now. Make sure you don’t stay up too late.” “Thanks for taking me to the fair, mom.” I said. She hugged me again, tight. “You’re all I have now.” She smiled, sadly. “Goodnight honey.” I walked up the stairs and into my room, almost tripping over a book I had left on the floor. I moved it aside; maybe I would finish reading it later. The painting would go perfectly with the rest of my room and even brighten it up some. I hung it on the nail, which was directly above the headboard of my bed, and leaned back to look at it again. You couldn’t see through the trees, and the mountains obviously extended past the boundaries created by the painting. It made me feel adventurous, like there was an entirely developed world hidden beyond the mountains and beneath the veiling leaves of the forest. I got up to turn the lights off, making sure I didn’t trip over the book again, lay down in bed, and pulled the sheet up. Today was as happy for me as it had been in a while. I was still excited, but I was content, and I fell asleep right away. That night I had one of the weirdest dreams. Of course, for you to understand it, I’ll have to give you the rest of my background. When I was ten years old, three years ago, my dad got a divorce from my mother. And as soon as the divorce was through the courts, he just left. He didn’t leave us an address, a phone number, or anything to contact him. He completely disappeared from the world my mother and I live in. It hurt mom a lot, and since then, she has had to take care of me completely by herself. She works as management at a small company, and even though she has a pretty decent salary, things are tight here. Anyways, these days, I think about my dad as little as possible, so it was really weird to see him in one of my dreams. I guess even after three years of trying to forget something or someone, you can still remember it in great detail. His gray-bluish eyes, his hooked nose, his small build that had always been comforting, even his favorite green shirt that mom had given him as a birthday present, it was all there. He looked at me for a moment and then said, “Go Will, they will take you,” and just like after he divorced mom, he was gone. I woke up disturbed, but then the light of the sun coming through my open shade fell against the wall, and I turned to look at it. There was yesterday’s painting, still as mysterious and adventurous as it was at the fair, and it cheered me up. I looked at my alarm clock. There were still ten minutes until I was supposed to be up for breakfast. It was only ten minutes: I could be up early so mom wouldn’t have to rush me out of the house to catch the bus. I thought everything would feel okay after I got to school, but through all of my classes I couldn’t concentrate on almost a single word my teachers were saying. I tried really hard, and I even caught a few words about radicals from Mrs. Hall, but I never caught more than those few words. I just couldn’t stop think about my dream, even though it had only lasted a minute or so. At lunch, my friend Chad was telling me about this book he had just read called The Adventures of Goblin Toe and Collin the Dwarf: The Search for the Crystal Sword. I remember him saying it sounded a little childish, but it was actually pretty interesting. Then I just zoned out, and I was back in the dream. There was my dad again, in his favorite green shirt. He said, “Go Will, they will take you,” and I was back. Chad was staring at me. “Are you okay Will?” he said. “You were totally gone for a minute there. What were you looking at?” “Sorry,” I said, dodging his question. “I’m just kind of tired. I didn’t sleep well last night.” “You better watch out. People will think it’s weird if you just start staring off into space in the middle of their sentences. Maybe they’ll stick you in a loony bin,” he grinned. “Yeah maybe,” I laughed with him lightly. “I think I’ll go to class now, maybe catch a little sleep before it starts. Seeya Chad.” I got up, and walked to class. That was basically my whole school day, one big long blur after another, which I couldn’t pay attention to. Going home, I almost missed my stop, but the bus driver yelled at me, “Hey kid! Don’t you get off here?” I looked up, and he was right. When I got home, I unlocked the door. Mom wouldn’t be home for another hour from her job. I remembered tripping over that book last night. I thought I’d go up to my room and read it a little, since I didn’t have that much homework. I sat down on my bed and opened my book. I was halfway through the first page when I felt a dry wind against my face. I glanced at the window but it wasn’t open. For some reason I turned around to look at my painting. It seemed almost to be glowing. Maybe it was just some weird effect of the light through my shades, and then I saw a little speck on one of the trees. This was really weird. I liked the painting so much because it was so suggestive, not because there was anything on the trees. I got a little closer to the painting. It was a little two dimensional man! He looked kind of scared, and I could imagine why: he was stuck up on a branch of the tree. Then I remembered I had never been able to see branches on the trees before. They had been green clouds rising from the forest floor without detail. I reached out to touch the little man on the branch of the tree, and suddenly there was a warm wind blowing through my hair and short grass beneath my feet. A man’s high-pitched voice was yelling at me, “Well! I don’t know where you came from, but what are you staring at? Can’t you see I’m stuck up here! Get over here and give me a lift down on your shoulders.” And there was a little man standing on a tree branch just like in the painting. I must have fainted, because the next thing I remembered was an acorn hitting me on the head. The little man spoke again, “There now, get up! Ahhh! What a nice, tall brute you are. I haven’t seen a human around these parts for quite a few hundred years. There used to be quite a few of you, back when things were a little younger, men in coats of iron. I never really did understand why those, what you do call them? Knights, yes, knights, sat on their horses all covered in metal. I remember having jolly good fun with a few of them in my younger days. If you could just knock them off their horses they’d fall down on the ground and wave their legs in the air like a turtle flipped on its back. Couldn’t even hardly get up and walk, more of a stagger. Well now, sit down. I have to get off your shoulders, you know. Ahh look, I’ve been so rude, haven’t even given you my name. Curt Brannigan it is. How do you do?” Curt extended his small hand up towards me, and I bent down a little to shake it. “My name is William Solney, but everyone calls me Will.” “It’s a pleasure to meet you Will,” Curt said. “But oh look!” he exclaimed. “Our hands are stuck.” I tried to remove my hand from Curt’s, but it was stuck fast. I laughed at Curt’s trick. “Pretty clever isn’t it?” he said. He twisted his wrist in a slight manner, and my hand came free. Curt winked at me. “So Will, what brings a fine strapping human like you out into the middle of the forest to save a little man like me from falling off a tree?” “Actually,” I replied, “I’m not really sure how I got here. I was in my bedroom, and I was looking at this painting, and you were in it, or you had just appeared in it, and I reached out to touch you because you hadn’t been there before, and then I felt a warm breeze and grass under my feet, and I heard you yelling at me from this tree.” “So you think you came from another place to here. Maybe you were in a warlock’s castle? That would explain you suddenly popping up here. Those warlocks are always trying to make newer, nastier spells, and quite often they mess up.” “No, I wasn’t -- on this world.” Curt’s face twisted up into an amazing expression for a man so small, betraying his obvious surprise. “Well, that is most definitely not true. Everyone knows there are no other worlds than this one. I imagine that you’ll be telling me now that you don’t even know where your home is or where you’re going. You can just follow me then, but make sure you don’t go looking for any pots of gold around the house. The old lady gets offended when someone confuses her with a leprechaun. We’re only little people. By now though, she’ll probably be wondering where I am, and she loves to have guests for supper, even guests with appetites like I imagine you must have.” Curt looked me up and down and then chuckled happily to himself, “some appetite indeed, maybe I can get him to finish up those turnips from last winter.” Curt had already started walking away at a pace surprisingly brisk for someone of his size. He halted to look back over his shoulder at me. “Come on boy,” he said, “no sense standing there. I doubt anyone else will happen along and offer to take you home for supper tonight. And even though these summer nights are quite comfortable, its always nice to have a roof over your head, even if it’ll have to be a little man’s house which will be entirely too small for you. Of course we’ll make room for you though, us little people have more about us than silly hand tricks, up our sleeves.” Curt set out again, and this time I followed. I might have protested, but he did everything so fast that I did not even really have time to think about whether I should follow him, and my mind was still in shock from suddenly finding myself in these new surroundings. He seemed like a nice man though, really a nice little man that is. We walked together and obviously, Kurt must have been thinking to himself, because despite all his past conversation, he was quiet as we moved through the forest. I looked around me as I walked. This place was really amazing, as if it was illustrated into reality straight from a perfect Disney fairy tale. The trees were widely spaced, and everywhere there was meadow grass and wildflowers. I am not one to dance around barefoot in the grass, but I almost felt like taking off my shoes when I noticed Curt wasn’t wearing any. Songbirds were whistling, and squirrels bounded up trees with nuts in their mouths as we approached them. The sun was already starting to make its lazy descent in the sky, and the cooler, afternoon breezes ran against my face. It was entirely pleasant. I half even expected to see Bambi sticking his nose out from behind a tree. “How far do we have to go Curt?” I asked. He stepped away from his thoughts for a moment to answer me, “Well, first we have to get through these meadows, then we have to cross the brook, and then we’ll almost be home.” He felt in his pocket and then looked at me, “You don’t happen to have any gold, do you? There might be a troll on the bridge, and they’re always wanting payment to let anyone cross. You would think they could find decent sized rivers or streams to block up to make a living. Instead they’re always picking on my little brook. They must think little people are made of gold. Not of course, were I made of gold, would I want to spare a chunk of myself to pay to cross a bridge.” I laughed at Curt’s last comment. “I don’t have any gold Curt, but I do have some money. Twenty dollars, maybe.” Curt looked at me quizzically, “Dollars? What are dollars? Oh, never mind, I shouldn’t have asked. They’re from your “other world,” right?” I started to protest, but Curt continued. “Never mind, it doesn’t matter. Trolls love any kind of money, and if I haven’t heard of dollars, the troll probably hasn’t either. So, maybe we can tell him your money is worth a lot.” We reached the top of a hill, and not far out I could see a winding brook cutting through the green of the meadow. Just as Curt had said, there was a bridge across the river with a small shack on it. We started down the hill, and soon I could read the sign that was attached to the roof of the shack. In big red letters it read, “TROLL BOOTH (pay toll or be trolled).” The troll loomed out of his shack, as we neared the bridge, shaking it as he lumbered along. His build was that of an ape though he did not stoop but towered easily to eight feet tall. His matted hair was sparse, but it covered his entire muscular body. And he stank! The troll glanced at Curt and me and seemingly read our thoughts. He threw back his head. “Har! Har! Har!” he roared, “ I love the pleasant smell of the air.” The troll took the huge club that he had been holding with one hand on his back--and which looked more like a small tree than a club--and slammed it down on the bridge. The bridge creaked tremendously beneath the blow. He roared at us again, “I am troll, pay me five pieces of gold, or you don’t pass.” For a moment, I thought Curt would argue with the troll who had opened his mouth in a gruesome smile to reveal his yellowed and missing teeth. I must admit, I thought the air grew fouler when he opened his mouth. Curt must have realized that he was a good five feet shorter than the troll was, because he turned to me to ask for my money.
Copyright © 2002 Daniel Birnbaum |