Realand (book one of the Portal Series)

Pretty pollen (chapter ten)

Max watched the ground as he ran, worried he would fall into a puddle of slime like Laura. The slime seemed to lie in patches to his left as he ran around the outside of the field of speckled plants and grass strips. He remembered how pretty the flowers had looked when he was watching them swaying in the breezling wafts from his view point on Oscar’s back. And then in the way that remembering works, he remembered how the sluggers had only left slime trails through the grass. None of the flowers or their spotted leaves had been slimed. Max stopped and looked right and left at the field where he could see that the slugger slime was only in patches by the grass; none in front of the rows of flowers.

         Max thought and started walking towards a slime-free area. He walked quickly to the first flower he could see and started to climb it. He found it so simple compared to the trees he climbed at home. All he had to do to climb the flower stalk was to place one foot on a leaf where it joined the stalk, hold onto a leaf near his face, place his other foot on a leaf higher than the first and so on. In no time at all he was holding onto the flower itself and looking out over the field. He could feel breezlings moving about again, almost as if they were cheering him on, though he didn’t have time to relax his eyes to see if they were smiling at him.

         Max wrapped his arms around the stem so the flower poked out past his head and jumped off the leaf he was standing on. The flower head gently lowered him to the ground and then dropped a load of pollen all over him. Max sneezed several times and then looked at himself. Covered from head to toe in a rainbow-coloured dusting of pollen. Rainbow coloured, just like the corices! He stopped himself from brushing off the pollen.

         ‘I need some of these, lots of these probably,’ Max said out loud. He climbed up another stem and when he got to the top he said, ‘Please work!’ and jumped off while holding onto the stem a couple of feet below the flower. The stem bent with the weight of his body and, as his feet touched the ground, broke in half with the stem landing on the ground and the flower facing up.

         ‘Result!’ Max shouted and pulled several leaves off the rest of the stem. He shoved them inside his shirt, making sure it was tucked inside his trousers so they didn’t fall out. He ran back to where Laura was, dragging the flower with the stem trailing behind him.

As he came around the corner where he had left her he could see that she was very still.

Too still.

With a trail of slugger slime over her face and body.

 Max screamed, ‘Lala!’ and ran the rest of the way as fast as he could. When he got there he could see Laura was breathing, though he couldn’t understand how because her face was completely coated in slime.

The breezlings ruffled his hair and cooled his sweaty face as he tried to decide what to do to help Laura without getting stuck himself. He stuck the flower stem under his arm and angled the flower so it was over Laura before giving it a firm shaking. The pollen fell on Laura, popping and fizzing as it dried up the slime on contact.

Laura sat up, smiled at him and said, ‘Thank you, Max. Could you do my feet too, please?’

Max angled the flower over her feet and gave it a shake. He laid the flower on the ground and leaned over to give Laura his hand.

‘Those horrible sluggers touching me has made me feel a bit numb all over and my legs are shaky, Max. I don’t think I can step over the rest of the slime.’ Laura pointed to the ring Max was reaching over.

Max lowered Laura back to the patch of slime-free ground she stood in.

‘The flower is out of pollen, Laura. Wait here and I’ll go get another one!’

‘Wait, what’s in your shirt?’

Max looked down. ‘Leaves from the flower stem. I grabbed them just in case.’

Laura smiled. ‘Well place some over the slime, please. Just in case.’

Max laid the stem in two pieces side by side and then all the leaves he had over one area of the slime surrounding his sister. They watched as the leaves wove together to make a sturdy bridge over the slime.

Max offered Laura his hand once again and she walked over the bridge her brother had made while holding onto his hand.

He allowed her to hug him and then asked, ‘How did you breathe when you were covered in slime?’

‘The breezlings managed to get underneath and kept it from touching my skin. I guess you didn’t see them fly away when you sprinkled the pollen over me?’

Max shook his head. ‘Let’s go get as many flowers and leaves as we can carry and go and try to save Oscar and the corices.’

Max and Laura ran in safety along the flower strips until they got as near as they could to where Oscar and the corices were. They climbed up several stems and broke off the flowers, keeping a look out for the sluggers each time they were up high. The corices and Oscar lay very still but they were slugger free.

‘I suppose they move on once they have devastated everything in their path,’ Laura said.

‘I hope so, for all our sakes, because the last thing we need is for a slugger to sneak up on us while we are distracted by trying to save Oscar and the corices.’ Max gathered up all the stems he could and waited while Laura collected up the rest.

‘Ready?’

‘Very!’

Max and Laura made their way to Oscar first. ‘Oscar?’

His sad eyes looked at them.

‘We think this is going to work.’ Max and Laura each raised up a flower on a long stem. ‘Close your eyes!’

Oscar closed his eyes and Max and Laura got to work shaking the flowers. The pollen made a popping fizzing sound again and soon Oscar was able to stand up and move around again.

‘What a relief, thank you both.’

‘It was Max’s idea. He’s my hero!’

Laura told Oscar what had happened to her and then Max explained how he had come up with the idea to try the flowers.

‘Do you think they will work on the corices without causing them any harm?’ Max asked, ignoring Laura’s claim that he was her hero. It made him feel proud and embarrassed at the same time.

‘I should think the speckle plant would work exactly the same on the corices as on us. I know it won’t cause them any harm because the leaves are what the corices use for fuel and what gives them their distinctive colour.’

Oscar moved quickly back and forth carrying the plants from the speckle plant patch to where corices were. Max and Laura broke off the flower heads and set them aside. They laid the stems and leaves all around and in between the corices. Then they put all the flower heads up onto Oscar’s back and sprinkled the pollen over the corices from the high platform of Oscar’s back as he walked them slowly amongst the corices.

Once they were sure each corice could move about freely, and none of their gears were stuck, Max and Laura sighed with relief.

Laura wandered from corice to corice, smoothing under their chin and behind their ears, feeding them speckle-plant leaves and chattering away happily to them. Max did the same with the corices on the other side of the herd while Oscar kept watch over all of them.

‘Almost time to leave if we are going to get home before your parents wake up!’ Oscar warned them after a while.

‘I’m ready for home now, anyway,’ Laura said with a huge yawn as she climbed onto Oscar’s back.

‘Don’t we need to get you some salt, Oscar?’ Max asked as he followed Laura, hoping for an excuse to prolong their time in Realand.

‘We’ll get it when we go to Raffie Island,’ Oscar promised.

‘Oh goody, when are we going there?’ Max asked

‘Soon I hope,’ Laura added.

Oscar laughed. ‘How about tomorrow morning? Don’t forget to bring me with you,’ he said as they all stepped into the portal home.

The end of book 1