Pop! Sizzle! Tommy liked the sounds all those liquids and powders made. He was playing with his chemistry set at the attic of their house. He had gotten the set from his father for his birthday last month. It came with a useful guide that taught him the useful stuff. Explosions and sizzles and lots of foam and all that. Jumbo looked up sleepily from the corner. When he saw that it was his little master busy again with those strange tubes and all, he put his head down again. His big ears covered his face, and soon he was back asleep. The young boy looked out the window, but his mother’s car was still not there. She was out with his twin sister Carol. They had gone shopping for clothes. Mother had asked Tommy to accompany them, but he had refused. He didn’t like to go shopping, especially for clothes. How contrary to his sister. Carol loved shopping; trying new dresses on and going to shops she had never seen before. That was Carol. Always curious what would be behind the next corner. Tommy had stopped counting the times she was lost, and was brought home by some concerned adult. Tommy liked inside more. He was always looking for how things worked. With him, his father had stopped counting the times Tommy had dismantled some piece of equipment and forgotten how to put it back together again. There certainly weren’t any dull moments with those twins.
Tommy gets back to his experiment. According to the book he has arrived at the big moment now. Only a few drops of the yellow liquid, and he would have a nice little explosion. But not more than a few drops, the book said specifically. The first time he had read that, he had laughed. Being the young and enterprising boy he was, he had of course ignored this warning. His hair had almost grown completely back now… Carefully Tommy collected a few drops, and moved the pipette towards the powder mixture in his mother’s cake paste bowl. But what he hadn’t noticed was that Jumbo had woken up. The small dog dribbled over towards his young master, his big ears hanging at the floor. Jumbo stopped just behind Tommy, but the boy still didn’t notice. Instead he slowly moved the pipette over the bowl. Just as he wanted to release a few drops into the bowl, the dog decided to lick his boss’s other hand. That really startled Tommy, and caused him to totally empty the pipette into the bowl with one big splurt. For a fraction of a second nothing happened, but the relieved boy’s
“Phew!”
Was overpowered by a powerful reaction. The contents of the bowl were reacting strongly to each other, which resulted in a big sizzle. Suddenly a big powder cloud emerged from the bowl. Tommy and Jumbo jumped back. The powder cloud expanded towards the ceiling, but then something strange happened. The cloud seemed to travel in a certain direction. Normally you would expect it to expand to all sides evenly. As a matter of fact, it was moving in a certain direction. From a safe distance child and dog followed the cloud towards the corner of the attic. It landed at a big brown box. The powder cloud totally covered the box. After a while Tommy saw something he couldn’t believe. The box started glowing. Jumbo covered his eyes with his ears. The glowing got bigger and bigger, but then in an instant it was gone. The powder fell to the ground and there was silence.
Just as Tommy wants to open the box, he hears his mother’s car pull up the driveway. As soon as the door opened, he heard his sister chattering unstoppably about what she had bought, but more importantly: what new shops she had discovered today.
“Tommy, lunch is ready!”
Shouted his father from downstairs. So Tommy decided to examine the box later, with his sister. He just hoped she wouldn’t go on and on about her new clothes like she usually did. Tommy helped his dog down the stairs, and they both rushed to the kitchen table. The boy sat on his chair near the window, Jumbo lay down besides him in his basket. Both were treated to a nice meal and an ever talking Carol. However the latter one seemed to be lost on the dog. Tommy envied his little companion. Impatiently Tommy ate his lunch, and rushed back upstairs again. His sister had understood his excitement, so she followed him on foot. When they arrive at the attic, Carol is disappointed. She had expected a lot more than a box with some dust next to it. But when Tommy explained what had happened, her curiosity was aroused. She wanted to open the box. But Tommy stopped her.
“What if something’s wrong with the box? Be careful!”
But Carol had never been the careful type. So she opened the box. Nothing happened. She looked inside. It was empty. Tommy and Jumbo joined her over the edge of the cardboard box. There was nothing in the box, but still something wasn’t quite right about it. But they couldn’t figure out what. Jumbo growled at it a bit. Suddenly Carol saw what was wrong.
“Look at the bottom!”
Her brother looked and asked
“What bottom?”
“Exactly.”
They realized the box didn’t seem to have a bottom. The blackness inside just seemed to go on and on. They stared, and stared some more. It was almost as if something inside that blackness was moving, but they just couldn’t see it properly. So they leaned over the edge of the box some more. All three of them, because Jumbo was also a very curious dog. Suddenly the edge cracked, and they all tumbled into the box. They expected to land on the hard attic floor, but they were mistaken. They tumbled and tumbled. Tommy, Carol and Jumbo were all tumbling down. Or maybe up or sideways, they couldn’t tell. They had lost their sense of direction and felt weightless. And all that time all they could see was each other. After what seemed like an eternity they saw a light in front of them. They were heading for it. The light became closer and closer, and brighter and brighter. In the end they had to cover their eyes. And then, they felt like they had all their weight back, because they felt themselves falling down fast. The three adventurers landed on a big pile of fluffy pillows. When they looked up, they saw nothing but a clear blue sky. Curious as they were, they crawled out of the pillows and onto the grass. They looked around, there was only grass. As far as their eyes could see. And above them only the clear sky. Their world consisted of nothing but green, blue and a touch of white at the moment.
Tommy had the sharper eyes of the two, so in the end he spotted something.
“Hey Carol, look over there. I see something. It looks like a boot!”
Carol had to agree.
“Strange, who would leave a boot out here in the middle of nowhere? Come on, let’s go and check it out.”
But Tommy didn’t want to. He first wanted to know how they got here, and why they couldn’t see the tunnel they fell down through. Carol however didn’t give him the chance. She pulled him by his hand and dragged him along over the grass field. Carol and Jumbo led, Tommy followed. They were getting closer to the boot, but it seemed to grow only bigger. After about an hour Tommy noticed something weird on top of the boot. It seemed like there was a roof on it. And when he looked even better, he thought he saw windows on the boot. Another hour passed. The boot grew bigger, and Tommy’s ideas were confirmed. The boot was a house, probably about 10 meters high. They now can see a nice little garden with a fence around it, and smoke coming out of a little chimney. Soon they arrive at the house. Carol wants to open the gate, but it opens on its own. The twins are a bit scared by that, but their curiosity wins. They enter the garden, closely followed by Jumbo. From the boot house comes a stumbling sound, like someone walking down the stairs. And indeed, after the sound is over, the door to the boot slowly opens. And out comes a gnome.
“Hello, my name is Jerome the Gnome.”
He didn’t waste time on introductions, so after they had given their names, he invited them into his boot. The small hallway had only one other exit: the wooden stairs they had expected from the sounds the gnome made. Going up, they now all made those sounds. Upstairs, halfway up the boot, was the gnome’s living room. There they all sat down and had tea. Jerome told them how he liked riddles. He was a big fan of riddles. And it showed: everywhere they looked where books full of riddles, and the walls were scribbled full of them. When they had finished their tea, the twins got.
“You have been very kind to us with the tea, but we must move on now. We have to find a way to get home.”
At that moment the polite smile disappeared of the gnome’s face. Instantly the door to the stairs shut with a hard bang.
“You do not leave me! I have finally found someone to test my riddles on. You shall not leave until you have solved this very hard riddle.”
Tommy and Carol were shocked by the sudden change, but they ran for the door anyway. Unfortunately, it was closed and they couldn’t move it one bit. Jerome the Gnome laughed. He demanded that they answer his riddle, but he was sure they would never get the answer.
“What is once in a minute, twice in a moment but never in a thousand years?”
Wow, that was a difficult one. They thought about it hard. A minute had second, and so did a moment. But a year had seconds too. So it couldn’t be seconds. They thought hard and considered every option. They tried different angles: clocks, time, emotions, et cetera. But they couldn’t find the answer. In the meantime the gnome couldn’t stop laughing. Tommy looked down at his shoes in despair. They were nice shoes with all the letters of the alphabet on it. Suddenly he had an idea.
“Can you repeat the riddle for us please?”
The gnome obliged. But this time the young boy listened carefully to what the gnome said literally. It took him a few seconds, but then his face gave birth to a big smile.
“I know the answer!” He said proudly.
Both Jerome and Carol were surprised. The gnome didn’t believe it.
“Be very careful what you answer young boy. You get only one chance. If you answer wrong, you will stay here forever.”
Carol brought her mouth to her brother’s ear, and whispered if he was sure. He whispered something back to her, and after a short while she smiled too.
“The answer is the letter M.”
The gnome fell silent. With a sad look on his face he admitted that the boy got it right. He agreed to let them go, the door swung open at the snip of his fingers. Before they left, Tommy turned around.
“Do you know how we can get home?”
The gnome got a bit of his smile back.
“Yes I do, but I will not tell you. Goodbye.”
He turned around. But Tommy didn’t give up that easily.
“What if I have a riddle for you that you can’t answer? Will you tell us how to get home then?”
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten