True Heroes Page 5

  “Would you like to play a game, Jordan?” Her mother had a stack of board games and puzzles, but Jordan had grown tired of all of them.

  “No, thank you,” she said. “I think I’d just like to rest.”

  Truthfully, she wished she could play games with her father. He could make a wonder out of anything, even chores and schoolwork and eating vegetables. He could even make sad things turn inside out and become happy, but he was gone now. She missed him.

  She wove a crown out of the clover near her blanket and placed it on the head of her Siamese cat, Bouncer. Bouncer pawed at the crown, then ate it.

  “There’s a saying about eating one’s crown,” Jordan said. “Or is it eating one’s hat?” Jordan’s father had always told her it was a good idea to use words and phrases in a sentence to see if they sounded correct. She tried it. “If a fish walks by, I’ll eat my hat.” It sounded correct, even though she knew it was a ridiculous sentence.

  However, at that very moment, a fish did indeed walk by. He was a rather large fish, nearly as big as Bouncer, and he walked on the tips of his tail fins. In his left fin he carried a cane while his right fin was occupied with a monocle. Jordan squeezed her eyes shut and opened them. The fish was still walking.

  The fish was walking toward the lake. Of course. Fish lived in lakes and ponds and rivers. That much made sense. Bouncer crouched low as the fish walked right by them, and then he pounced and gave chase. The fish adjusted his monocle and glanced back. When he saw Bouncer, he let out a sort of shrill gurgle and broke into a run. The fish was quite fast for a fish out of water, though Jordan had no reference for how fast a fish should be out of water.

  In no time at all, he had reached the edge of the pond, and Jordan could not run fast enough to catch up, so she called to him in the off chance that a fish with a cane and a monocle might understand English.

  “Oh, Mr. Fish!” she cried.

  The fish did not respond. He tapped the water with his cane. The water began to swirl. The fish dove into the funnel and was sucked down.

  “Wait!” said Jordan, but it was too late. The fish was gone, and now she would never know where he was going. Except Bouncer was not ready to give up. As soon as the fish had jumped into the water, Bouncer pounced after him.

  “Bouncer, no!” Jordan cried. She snatched Bouncer just in time, pulling him to safety, but in the process she lost her balance and tumbled headfirst into the water. She made a small splash and was sucked down, swirling faster and faster in the vortex.

  Bouncer meowed pitifully down at her.

  “Don’t worry, Bouncer! I’ll be right back!”

  It got very dark and then very bright, and she felt she was going up rather than down, though that couldn’t be right. That would defy the laws of gravity, and she knew very well that when something was dropped it would go down, not up. And yet she felt as though she were going up. She supposed facts and feelings were altogether different things, but the fact of the matter was she could see a bird swimming in the pond.

  “I didn’t think birds could swim,” she said to herself, “except penguins, of course, but they don’t swim in ponds, nor do they live anywhere near here. They live in Antarctica. Or is it the North Pole? No, I’m certain it’s Antarctica.” But she wasn’t certain at all. She had learned a great many facts in school, but sometimes they got jumbled, so it was difficult to be certain of anything.

  The bird soared through the water, beating its wings. It joined with a whole flock of birds and they flew in a flying J, which Jordan thought quite a nice change from a V.

  Jordan continued to fall, or rise, whatever the case was. She saw a great many curious things in the water, including a bouncy ball, and tap shoes that tapped. She even saw a plate of chocolate chip cookies and was tempted to try one, except she didn’t think they would taste very good, being in a lake. The last thing she saw was a Chihuahua driving a small car. The dog honked the horn as though he wanted Jordan to get out of the way, but where could she go? She was still going down—or up—and the car was going mighty fast, right toward her.

  Jordan reached her arm through the spinning water and—

  Shleeoooop!

  She was sucked out of the water and tumbled onto dry ground. The car came too. It burst from the lake and landed right beside her.

  “Oi!” barked the Chihuahua. “You need to watch where you’re going! You can’t just swim in the middle of a road, you know.”

  “But I didn’t see a road,” said Jordan. “It’s a lake. There aren’t any roads in lakes. Besides, cars don’t drive in lakes, only boats do.”

  “Boat?” said the Chihuahua. “Boats are for flying.”

  “Then what are airplanes for?” asked Jordan.

  “Swimming,” he said. “Everyone knows that. Now get out of my way. You’re in the middle of an intersection.”

  Jordan looked around. She saw no intersection, just grass and trees and rough walking paths.

  “I don’t see how this can be an intersection.”

  “Well, you’d better open your eyes,” said the Chihuahua. “If you don’t pay attention you could go in quite the wrong direction, or worse, you’ll remain in the same place and never go anywhere.”

  “Where is there to go?” Jordan asked.

  “Everywhere.” The little dog honked his horn and sped off through the trees.

  “Well,” said Jordan, “you don’t see that every day. But I suppose he’s right. I can’t just sit here forever. I need to find Bouncer, and I had better move before I’m run over by a turtle on a motorcycle.” She was laughing at her silly imagination when something burst through the lake and sped by her with a roar. Jordan was splattered with a fair amount of mud, but she could see well enough to make out a motorcycle and the distinct outline of a turtle shell on the back of the bike. Its head was pulled down into its shell.

  “I don’t think that’s at all a safe way to drive,” said Jordan.

  She started walking back toward the house, but when she got to the place where the house was supposed to be, it was not there. Instead she found the fish, the turtle, and the Chihuahua gathered around a table with a large cake in the middle. Jordan’s stomach grumbled to remind her how hungry she was.

  “Hello,” she said. “Might I join you?”

  “That depends,” said the turtle. “Do you wish to shrink or grow?”

  “Grow, I think,” said Jordan.

  “Then you may not,” said the Chihuahua. “This is a shrinking party only. We’re all shrinking ourselves.”

  “Why would you want to shrink?” asked Jordan. “Being small is such a hardship.”

  “Not necessarily,” said the fish, who put his monocle up to his eye to observe Jordan. “If you grow, you might become bigger, but then everything around you becomes smaller. However, if you shrink, then everything else becomes bigger, so really, the more you shrink the more everything else grows, and that’s the greater feat.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” said Jordan, though she wasn’t sure at all. All she knew was that she was hungry, so she sat at the table and cut herself a slice of cake. She took a bite. It was delicious. Chocolate. She took another bite, and this time it tasted of strawberry. The next bite tasted of roast beef and carrots, which might not sound quite right for a flavor of cake, but it tasted perfect.

  She felt a curious tingling sensation in her fingers. A buzzing started in her ears. The fork in her hand was getting bigger. It was as big as her arm, then as big as her leg. It kept getting bigger until she could no longer hold it. The table was getting bigger too, and her chair, the turtle, fish, and Chihuahua, until she realized that nothing was getting bigger. She was getting smaller.

  She got smaller and smaller until she was surely no bigger than a mouse. Everything around her had become so large that she could see things she hadn’t noticed before, like all the little ridges in the grass, and the web of roots in the ground, and the man walking in the distance who looked incredibly like her father.
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  “Dad!” she called, but he did not hear her. Of course not. She was too small, but she couldn’t let him get away. She had to go after him. She walked to the edge of the chair. It was too high to jump, and the legs of the chair were rather straight and smooth, so there was no possibility of climbing. Besides, even if she could get down, there was no way she would be able to catch up with her father. Not at this size.

  “I think I’d rather be a bit larger than this,” said Jordan. “How do I grow larger?”

  “Eat less cake,” said the turtle. “You just ate too much. If you eat less, then you’ll grow, because less is more and more is less.”

  “I’m not certain that makes sense at all,” said Jordan, but she found a crumb of cake on her jeans and ate it anyway. This time the buzzing in her ears came first, and then the tingling. She grew up and up, past the table, past the fish, turtle, and Chihuahua. She grew above the trees. The lake was nothing more than a pond, and the party below her looked like a set of toys.

  She searched for her father. She thought for certain being as big as she was she would be able to see him quite clearly, but that was not the case. Everything was so small she couldn’t tell what was what.

  “Come now!” said the fish. “There’s no need for such gluttony. You ate far too little!”

  “When I eat too much I shrink, and when I eat too little I grow into a giant. When I’m small I see too much. When I’m big I can’t see enough.”

  “That just goes to show that bigger is not always better and more is sometimes less,” said the fish.

  “How can I make myself a normal size again?”

  “You must take neither too little nor too much,” said the turtle, “but just the right amount.”

  “And how am I to know if I am taking just the right amount?”

  “You can’t know, silly creature,” said the Chihuahua. “You’re supposed to have somebody else serve you. For example, I gave a slice of cake to the fish, and he gave a slice to the turtle, and the turtle gave a slice to me, and now we all have the right amount.”

  “Well, then, would you be so kind as to serve me the right amount?”

  “You’re so very large, I do believe you’ll have to eat the rest of the cake to shrink down to proper size.” The fish reached out a fin and pushed the cake toward her. Jordan reached down and took the cake between her fingers. It was more the size of a small cookie. She ate it and tingled and buzzed and shrunk back down to her proper size.

  “And now we’re out of cake,” said the turtle.

  “I’m very sorry,” said Jordan. “Shall I make you some more? I’m actually quite good at making cake.”

  “Goodness, do you want us all to disappear? You can’t make us more, only less.”

  “Of course,” said Jordan. “I will make you less, but I’m afraid I must go now. Good-bye! Thank you!” Jordan left the inside-out, upside-down cake party and ran in the direction of her father. She found a lovely little path going through the trees and thought for certain it must be the path her father was on.

  “Dad!” Jordan called. She saw him just as he turned around a corner of the path. “Dad! Wait for me!” She ran along the path, but when she turned the corner, her father was nowhere in sight.

  She was determined that she would find him. It seemed impossible that he should be here, and yet it had to be him.

  “Everything has been impossible here,” said Jordan, “from the walking fish to the driving Chihuahua to the shrinking and growing. So why would I not see my father, too? It’s the least strange of all of them.” But the faster she went and the more she looked for him, the farther and farther away he seemed to become and the fewer and fewer glimpses she saw of him, until Jordan was ready to give up entirely.

  Jordan sighed. “Everything is upside down and backward here. Perhaps if I try to get lost, I’ll find a way home.”

  Jordan stepped off the path. She wound around the trees and hopped over logs and stones until she came to a meadow. It was full of dancing dandelions. The wind rushed, and the dandelion fluff rose and danced in the air. Her father once told her that each dandelion fluff was a wish. Jordan closed her eyes.

  “I wish . . .” She made one wish a thousand times, but she didn’t say it out loud. It was too deep and close to her heart, so Jordan lay down in the grass and closed her eyes. She let the dandelions and wishes wash over her.

  “Jordan,” said a voice. It was very familiar, the voice of laughter and joy. It was the sound of comfort and home.

  “Dad?” said Jordan. She opened her eyes. She sat up, and there was her father. He looked just as she remembered except the sun surrounded him in such a way that made him all the more real and alive.

  He held out his hand to her. “Will you come with me?” he asked.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Everywhere,” he said.

  “Is it very far?”

  “It’s so close, most people miss it.”

  “I’ve missed you,” said Jordan.

  “I am quite easily missed,” he said with a smile. “But now I am here and so are you, so we should not waste our time missing anything when we can discover everything.” He tipped his head up toward the sky. Jordan took her father’s hand and they went Everywhere together.

  Liesl Shurtliff

  Liesl grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, the fifth of eight children. She loved dancing, singing, playing the piano, and reading books. Today she lives with her husband and three children in Chicago, which is a wonderful city except that it is decidedly flat and very cold in the winter. When she writes, she often wanders back to her childhood and gathers the magic that still remains. She hopes to share that magic with children everywhere.

  http://lieslshurtliff.com/

  Sarah

  (Acute Myeloid Leukemia)

  Meet Sarah! Sarah dreams of becoming an astronaut and space explorer. She is also one of the most outgoing and sassiest cancer fighters I have ever met. She has dealt with countless difficulties, including staying in the hospital for more than three hundred days. Sarah is also the recipient of a lifesaving bone marrow transplant. It is amazing to me that some of us carry lifesaving cures to cancer. So cool!

  Sarah is from Montana but travels to Salt Lake City for treatments and doctor appointments. In November 2014, she was in Utah for a couple of days so we took a day for her photo shoot. You can see some behind-the-scenes images from her shoot by using the QR code below.

  www.anythingcanbeproject.com/dream-blog/2014/11/11/sarah-magera-astronaut

  Swimming in the Stars

  Ilima Todd

  22:04 31.7.2917 Cryo Tank #36: Initializing Cognizant Restoration

  My eyes open, but it’s still dark. I cannot see.

  I am blind.

  I blink and blink and blink. Nothing but blackness. My eyelids struggle to lift and close. Something heavier than air presses down on them. I panic when I realize water engulfs my eyes, my face, my body.

  I am drowning.

  My mouth opens, but my scream remains caught in my throat; my lungs are engulfed by this water as well.

  That’s when I feel the cold. Raw. Biting. It’s an impossible cold. I shouldn’t be alive or aware feeling this kind of cold. I finally remember, as though the cold has slowed the flow of my thoughts. I’m not blind, and I’m not drowning.

  I am swimming in the stars.

  An image of my mother appears. A memory.

  She stands on the shore of a lake with a towel in her hands. “Come back,” she calls to me. “Sarah, it’s too cold. It’s time to come in.”

  “Just one more minute,” I say, arching my back and extending my arms and legs as I float on the still lake. It’s dark out, and the stars reflect on the quiet water, making me feel as though I’m floating among the constellations. I tilt my head back and close my eyes, silently wishing I really was up there in space, weightless, drifting in the emptiness without this planet holding me down.

  A roaring sound jolts me from m
y calm, and my feet drift down to settle in the muddy foundation of the lake. I look across the water to the launching station, to the slender form of the spacecraft, the fiery jets propelling it into the air. I watch until it breaks through the atmosphere and casts a blazing streak through the dark night, like a shooting star. I make a wish that I’ll be chosen soon. That I’ll finally get my chance to launch into space like others before me.

  When I finally step out of the water, Mom wraps me in the towel.

  “Did you see the spacecraft?” I ask, my teeth chattering. “That’s the sixth one today. They’re leaving more often now.” Dozens of people are aboard each one, settling into their cryo tanks for the hundred-year journey.

  “Yes,” Mom says. “I saw it.” Rubbing her hands up and down my arms to warm me, she adds, “Don’t worry. We’re not meant to stay here. We never were. This planet can’t keep its fingers wrapped around us forever. It’ll be our turn soon, Sarah.”

  I follow her gaze to the bits of dust and debris left in the spacecraft’s wake, multiplied in the reflection of the lake. They fall to the surface, left behind like the rest of us. I hope my mother is right. I hope I won’t have to wait much longer to really swim in the stars.

  The memory slips away, along with the water that surrounds me, draining to leave me shivering in the dark of my cryo tank. I still can’t see, but I turn to my side anyway, coughing up the remaining liquid oxygen inside me. When I inhale this time, it’s air that enters my chest, and it burns. Collapsing onto my back, I bring a hand to my chest and will my lungs to move under my direction—breathe in, breathe out. After a few minutes, my lungs remember what they’re meant for, and the burning isn’t as severe. But I continue to shiver in the frigid cold.

  I hear a whisper, as though someone has let out a small sigh, and a thin stretch of light surrounds me as the roof of my cryo tank lifts open, breaking away from its seal. Warmth floods me immediately, making me shiver again, but this time with relief. I sit up, my muscles protesting every movement, while my eyes strain to adjust to the light of the room. It’s as though every part of me has forgotten its intended function and needs a minute to remember.