Okay, I know this is going to sound a little weird, but it's the truth: I don't have a house. Well, that's not entirely true. I do have one. But it's not the kind of house you're used to. My house is different. My house is a green conversion van. See? I told you it was a little unusual. It's an emerald colored 1995 Chevy towing a half-painted trailer full of props and costumes. The van has a New York license plate and the trailer is registered in Arkansas. Maybe someday, when the trailer is done being painted, you'll see my house on wheels. Maybe you're the guy who just drove by us on the freeway. Maybe, if you're walking along, you'll see our van parked there. If you ever read this, you would want to back away from the place where all this weird stuff happens. Or you would want to move closer and take a good look.
Anyway, as you might have guessed by the comment about the trailer, my family is a traveling theatre troupe, which often, most of the time, in fact, causes us to sleep in the van. My parents keep the back seat folded down for their bed, and I sleep on the floor. There are two other seats that are right against my parent's bed, so the overhanging area of the seat creates a sort of crevice or cubbyhole where my head goes, and this is where most of this stuff happened.
It was only the second night we'd owned the van, and I was thirteen years old, lying down to sleep on my Rugrats pillow. Yes, I'm now a fourteen-year-old-boy, and yes, I still have a Rugrats pillow. Deal with it. Anyway, I was lying down to sleep, and I heard an odd little noise. It was sort of like a spider moving around, whatever that sounds like, but more like a really big spider with two feet. The next thing I knew, a small pair of glowing red eyes peeked over my pillow at me. A small little man that accompanied the odd little footstep noise clambered over my pillow. Well, to say a man is an exaggeration. He was a male, to be certain, but he was not a man any more than a male squirrel would be a man. He was sort of like an elf, but with green skin and red eyes. He was about the size of my index finger.
I was a little surprised, since I am not used to odd little green people interrupting my sleep. The little creature seemed equally surprised to see me. He poked me curiously. Then he clambered onto my hand, carefully climbing up my arm. He stared at me a moment.
"Come with me," he grunted.
"Why?" I asked weakly.
"Just do it," he said. "Follow me." His voice was squeaky, like a cat singing with a rusty hinge.
Now, unlike kids in fantasy books, I am not likely to follow an odd little green person I have just met into who knows where, especially if he is two and a half inches tall, and is may fit into many place where I would get stuck. And I am even less likely to follow him if it is the middle of the night, and if I get stuck, I would just have to think, oh, well, and be satisfied to sleep wherever I am stuck. At least until morning, when somebody gets a saw and cuts me out, if I was ever discovered at all. I could be left there until I waste away into a skeleton, by which time I might be able to get through.
Fictional kids in fictional books seem to have no problem saying, "Oh, what a very lovely idea! I think I follow some green little elf I found in a crevice to who knows where, possibly find out he's a cannibal who's been starved for a month, or an illusion who will drive me crazy and make me burn everything I see, or a leprechaun who wants me to eat buckshot! Oh, this shall be a wonderful adventure!" This is why I am a real person and not a boy in some fantasy book. I'm sure it is a very hard occupation, and I quite like being a real person instead.
This is not entirely true So whenever a lie or half truth in this book is going to appear, I will warn you in italics, like this. I may use a few stretchers to present a more flattering image of myself. Other than that, this book is entirely true, to the best of my beliefs and abilities.
This is a huge lie I, being my bold, adventurous, handsome self, this is true I followed the elf this is not without further question or cause.
And as I squeezed in behind him, a most curious thing happened. The ground seemed to fall out from under me. A strange wind began blowing. And then, just as suddenly, it stopped. When I looked at the elf again, he was my size.
I started to say something, but the odd, no longer little elf wasn't listening. I hurried to keep up with him. We ran past some books crammed next to my pillow. We ran under a metal bar. Finally, as we approached the side of the van, the elf darted into a little crack, which was where the wall that my head was against stopped before the next wall began. I squeezed through.
Finally, we approached a plastic grating that led to the air conditioner. The elf crawled in, and I followed suit. "Be careful," the elf cautioned. "There's a drop…" whoosh! He disappeared. I took a step further, and whoosh! I disappeared too. Well, okay, so I didn't really disappear, or I wouldn't be here writing this.
What really happened was that I fell down a hole. A really, really big drop. I held my breath and bravely withstood it that was a lie, I was screaming my head off. I saw little creature's telltale glowing red eyes a long way off down the shaft. Then I started bumping against the walls. I slid down a wall for a very long time. Then the wall started to get bumpy. Very bumpy. The blackness started slowly fading away into a sky. Somewhere along the way, the other three walls of the shaft had disappeared. I looked down to see that the wall I had been sliding on had turned into what looked like the trunk of a palm tree, and I felt the unfamiliar sensation of falling from about eighty-seven stories.
It was a very long fall, to say the least. But when I hit the soft sand, it didn't hurt a bit. I was still dazed, though. I looked all the way up to the top of the palm tree, which had to be about three-quarters of a mile high, if not higher. At the top was a mass of red palm leaves, about the size of a cloud.
I just lay there in the soft sand a little while and stared up. Then I sat up and began to gather my surroundings. I was on an island. The green creature sat next to me. He looked around. Just about sixty feet away was more land, but this time in the form of a forest or jungle.
"You," I said. "Who are you? What are you? An elf?"
"Most certainly not," he replied. "I am a gremlin! And my name is Serrin. You are a human, are you not?"
"I am."
"Then follow me just a little farther and we shall come to my village."
Serrin casually walked into the water. He looked back and saw I was not following. "What's the matter?" He asked.
"Uh…" I said. "I'm in my pajamas. I can't get these wet."
"Don't worry! The water here isn't wet."
"How can you have water that's not wet? And if that is true, then how do you know what wet is?"
"I don't know! It's just…some parts of it are wet. Others aren't."
"Oh, that makes sense. How do you tell?"
"Wet is blue. Dry is green."
I had absolutely no reason to trust Serrin.
But for some reason I did. I trusted him just enough to dip my foot into the green water. Oddly enough, he was right. It wasn't wet. So I ventured all the way in. It was a weird experience. The water was cold and damp, just damp enough that I could feel it, but not enough to make my clothes wet.
We waded through the water until we reached the other side, which took about a minute. When we got to the other side, I took a good look back to the top of the palm tree, now outlined by a rising sun, which I thought was weird, since the last time I had checked, it was nighttime. Anyway, the top of the palm tree was a mass of red.
I followed Serrin through several layers of jungle until we reached a village, consisting of a mass of huts made of bamboo and topped with hay. People were coming out of their huts and staring at me. Sorry, gremlins, not people. They all resembled Serrin, though of course there were males and females with different body builds and hair colors and styles.
One of these gremlins approached Serrin with a quirky walk, using half-lopsided motions. He had a head of blue hair tied in a short queue down his back. He had heavy bangs. "Hey, Serrin!"
"What?"
"You got one?"
"Oy, Ragnark, o' course I got one!"
"Well, sorry, I just…" he half hobbled, half pranced after us to catch up. "…never seen one before."
Here I interjected curiously. "Uh…are you another gremlin?"
"Of course he is!" said Serrin.
"Of course I'm not!" said Ragnark. "I'm a goblin. Has Serrin been spouting that gremlin nonsense again?"
"Quiet, Ragnark! You're a gremlin and you know it."
The conversation carried on like this for quite some time. Finally, a third thing joined us as we approached a stone temple with strange writing on the wall. "Are you a goblin or a gremlin?" I asked reluctantly.
"Neither! I am an elf!"
By now I was getting terribly confused. They all looked exactly alike. "Oh, hi, Bednik."
We walked directly to the wall of the temple. Serrin pointed to the writing on the wall. "See that?" he said. "That's our village laws. Right there it says that each night one of us has to go searching for humans in the next world, and if we find one, to bring ‘em here."
"Oh." I was afraid the next part was going to involve a blood sacrifice. Fearfully, I asked, "And then?"
"Uh..." Serrin looked a little embarrassed. "I, um, don't know. That's as far as we've been able to translate it."
"So…you brought me here for nothing because of an ancient village law written in some language you don't understand."
"Well, actually, it's just the second part we don't understand."
"How do you know that the whole thing doesn't just say that chucking stones at squirrels is fun?"
Here Bednik popped in. "He has a point, Serrin. Except that chucking stones at squirrels isn't as amusing as you'd think."
Serrin glared at him. "I translated it. Sort of. It's just that I don't know all the characters yet. I don't see anybody else even trying."
Ragnark lit up. "Who says we brought him here for nothing, eh? To the pub!"
The crowd that had gathered around to stare at me went wild! I was dragged away into the stampede by Serrin, Ragnark, and Bednik.
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