Akiko and the Great Wall of Trudd Read online

  For my son, Matthew

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Excerpt From Akiko on the Planet Smoo

  Excerpt From Akiko in the Sprubly Islands

  About the Author and Illustrator

  Copyright

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  First and foremost I want to express enormous gratitude to my editor at Random House Children’s Books, Fiona Simpson, for simply being a joy to work with, and for the wisdom and guidance she has given me (and continues to give me) as I work on this series. Thanks as always to Robb Horan, Larry Salamone, and Joseph Michael Linsner of Sirius Entertainment, publishers of my Akiko comic books and the friendliest folks I know this side of Smoo. There are so many other thank-yous I’d like to send out, but I’ll limit myself to just two more for the time being: one for my wife, Miki, and the other for my son, Matthew.

  The road grew narrower and narrower, with patches of incredibly tall grass creeping in from either side. The sun was right in the middle of the sky, and the air was hot and very humid. It was pretty quiet, apart from the sound of our feet on the dirt road and some weird insect noises coming from deep in the grass. I felt as if I were on a field trip or something back at the Middleton Nature Park, and I had to keep reminding myself that I was actually thousands of miles from Earth, walking along a little dirt road somewhere on the planet Smoo.

  Spuckler Boach was out in front, leading the way, with his robot Gax rolling along behind him on his squeaky little wheels. Mr. Beeba and I followed, and Poog was floating in the air just above our heads.

  “So tell us, Akiko,” Mr. Beeba said, “what were you doing on the night Bip and Bop came to bring you here to the planet Smoo?”

  “I was in my bedroom studying for a geography test,” I replied, recalling all the weird stuff that had happened that night. The letter I’d received. The tapping sound on my window. The strange little spaceship floating outside, with the strange little men seated in it. It all seemed so long ago and far away. Well, it certainly was far away. Light-years away! But it really wasn’t so long ago. Just a few days, as a matter of fact. With all the crazy stuff that had happened, though, it felt as if I’d been on the planet Smoo for months.

  “Studying, eh?” Mr. Beeba said, sounding very pleased with me. “I had a feeling you were the academic sort, Akiko. Every spare moment with your nose in a book, eh? Keep it up and one day you could be an emissary of King Froptoppit, like me! You are planning to pursue a master’s degree, I trust.”

  “Master’s degree?” I repeated. “I’m only ten years old, Mr. Beeba. I’m still trying to figure out long division.”

  “You tell ’im, ’Kiko,” Spuckler said enthusiastically, strutting along the road with his usual boundless energy. “You ain’t no bookworm. I had ya pegged as an adventurer the minute I saw ya. I’ll bet you were chompin’ at the bit to get goin’ just as soon as King Froptoppit told you about the Prince bein’ kidnapped.”

  Ha! If Spuckler had seen how I had really reacted when I was asked to lead the Prince’s rescue mission, he’d have had a very different first impression of me. Looking back, though, I felt glad that I’d been forced to stay on Smoo. For one thing, becoming friends with Spuckler and Mr. Beeba was fun, even if it meant spending a lot of time trying to keep them from driving each other crazy. Gax was really cool too. I mean, how many fourth-graders get to make friends with a robot? Then there was Poog. I turned and looked at him, his round purple body floating effortlessly in the air above me, his big black eyes sparkling in the midday sun. I knew that becoming friends with Poog was going to change my life forever.

  “I don’t know if I’d call myself an adventurer, Spuckler,” I said at last. “But I’ve definitely had fun on this rescue mission so far. There’s been some pretty scary stuff too. But plenty of fun in between.”

  “Now, don’t rule out the idea of becoming an academic, Akiko,” Mr. Beeba said, refusing to give up the idea. “Spending the day in a reference library can be every bit as adventurous as rescuing a kidnapped prince!”

  Spuckler rolled his eyes and kept walking.

  Two or three hours had passed since we’d left the palace of Queen Pwip, and still there was no sign of the Great Wall of Trudd.

  “I’d better check the map again,” Mr. Beeba said, carefully unfolding the small piece of parchment Queen Pwip had given us.

  “Beebs,” Spuckler barked, “you’ve checked that thing a hunnerd times. Whatcha gonna see that ya ain’t seen already?”

  Mr. Beeba ignored this remark and continued studying the map, slowing his pace as he did so.

  Spuckler was right. Mr. Beeba had already checked the map many, many times, and he always concluded by carefully folding it back up again, clearing his throat, and making the exact same pronouncement. I wiped the sweat out of my eyes and gritted my teeth a bit as I waited for him to say it.

  “Well,” Mr. Beeba said after a moment, “we seem to be on the right road. All we can do is keep walking, I suppose.”

  “That does it!” Spuckler said, coming to a stop and spinning around to face us. “Gimme that map!”

  “I will do nothing of the sort!” Mr. Beeba replied, holding the map against his chest like a child clutching a favorite rag doll.

  “Give it!” Spuckler said through his teeth, bending over so that his face came down to Mr. Beeba’s level. “I’m sick ’n’ tired of hearin’ you say the same darned thing over an’ over!”

  Suddenly there was a gurgly, warbly sound, and we all looked up at Poog. He was silhouetted against the pale blue sky, his big black eyes reflecting the four of us like little circular mirrors, his oval mouth chirping and whistling.

  “Hmmm,” Mr. Beeba began after a moment, scratching his head thoughtfully as he prepared to translate what Poog had just said. “Poog says you have something to tell us, Akiko.”

  “Me?” I asked as everyone turned to stare at me. “What? What does he want me to say?”

  “He says it’s time for you to tell us about the little conversation you had with Queen Pwip,” Mr. Beeba explained, an expectant gleam in his eye. He looked as if he’d wanted to grill me on this subject for quite some time and had merely been waiting for Poog to give the go-ahead.

  “Well, okay, sure,” I said, glancing nervously at Poog. “I mean, I’d have told you all sooner, but it just didn’t, um, occur to me.”

  Mr. Beeba and Spuckler looked at each other and smiled, clearly not believing a word I’d just said. I coughed and rubbed my forehead, trying to concentrate so I could remember everything Queen Pwip had said to me, word for word.

  After a long pause, during which Mr. Beeba folded his arms and tapped his foot impatiently on the ground, I cleared my throat and began to tell them everything I could.

  “First of all, she told me something about our mission to rescue Prince Froptoppit,” I said, trying to recall the Seeing Room and how Queen Pwip had gazed into the strang
e basin of water like a fortune-teller staring into a crystal ball. “I think she could see the future of our mission.”

  I took a deep breath and looked out into space. Remembering all this stuff was harder than I’d thought it would be.

  “Go on, girl!” Mr. Beeba said impatiently. “Don’t leave us all hanging here!” I could tell he wasn’t used to other people knowing more about something than he did. He was like a hungry kid waiting for me to give him a bite of my sandwich.

  “Let’s keep walking,” I said. “It’ll help me remember things better.”

  Poog smiled approvingly and Mr. Beeba scowled as I strode down the road, leaving them all to hurry after me. Spuckler and Gax positioned themselves on either side of me as I walked along, and Mr. Beeba scurried in front so that he could get a better look at my face, even though it meant walking backward (and occasionally stumbling in the process).

  “She told me there was no need to worry,” I said finally. “We’ll get to Alia Rellapor’s castle eventually, but it won’t be easy.”

  “We’ll get there,” Mr. Beeba repeated, sounding like a newsman taking notes for his big story, “but it won’t be easy.”

  “Some fortune-teller!” Spuckler snorted. “I coulda told ya that.”

  “Hush, Spuckler!” Mr. Beeba snapped, clearly not wanting anything to interrupt my train of thought.

  “Oh, I remember!” I said. “She warned me about a man. His name is Rock, or something like that.” I knew that wasn’t the exact name, but it was the best I could do at the moment.

  “A man called Rock?” Mr. Beeba asked, sounding very puzzled. “A very peculiar name, that. . .”

  “It wasn’t Rock, though,” I continued, walking a little faster as if to speed up my brain. “It was more like Thorp or Thork or something . . .”

  There was another long pause, during which Mr. Beeba became increasingly short of breath as he struggled to move as quickly backward as I was moving forward.

  “She warned you about this fellow, eh?” he muttered, as much to himself as to anyone else. “Oh dear. That’s not good. That’s not good at all.”

  “Throck!” I shouted, suddenly coming to a complete stop. “His name was Throck!”

  Poog got a strange look in his eyes, a very serious look, as if the mere mention of Throck’s name was troubling to him.

  “Throck? You’re sure?” Mr. Beeba asked anxiously, panting quite heavily now.

  “Throck,” Spuckler repeated. “Pretty cool name, I gotta admit.”

  “What else did she say about him, Akiko?” Mr. Beeba prodded. “Is he short? Tall? Stout? Svelte?” I didn’t even know what the last two words meant. Fortunately I didn’t really need to.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Beeba,” I explained as I began to walk again, “but Queen Pwip didn’t tell me what he looked like. She just told me we’d need to watch out for him.”

  Spuckler stepped close to my side and put his hand on my shoulder.

  “Don’t worry, ’Kiko,” he said with a reassuring wink. “If I ever run across this Throck rascal, I’ll pop him a good one right inna jaw!”

  Gax clicked and whirred proudly. Even Mr. Beeba looked somewhat comforted by Spuckler’s boast.

  “She also said there’d be a friend,” I continued, “someone who would help us out.”

  “A friend? Only one?” Mr. Beeba asked, sounding slightly disappointed. “What’s his name? Or is it a she?”

  “I’m pretty sure Queen Pwip said ‘he,’ ” I said, rubbing my jaw and trying my best to remember. “She didn’t give a name, though. She just said ‘a friend.’ ”

  “Yes, well,” Mr. Beeba replied, stumbling a bit over a large clump of grass, “I suppose we’ll know him when we see him.”

  “There was one last thing,” I said, glancing up at Poog as if to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. “She said Prince Froptoppit is okay. She said he’s in good health, but he’s very sad and lonely. I guess he’s almost given up hope of ever being rescued.”

  “At least we know he’s all right,” Mr. Beeba said, sounding very relieved.

  “Well now, hang on a second,” Spuckler said, wagging a finger in the air. “We don’t know nothin’.”

  “Anything,” Mr. Beeba corrected.

  “Exactly,” Spuckler replied, as if Mr. Beeba were simply agreeing with him. “How can we be so sure ol’ Queen Pwip was tellin’ the truth? What’s to say her whole fortune-tellin’ routine wasn’t just a big hoax?”

  “Spuckler!” I said disapprovingly. “Queen Pwip was so nice to us! How could you be suspicious of her?”

  “I ain’t bein’ ’spicious of her, ’Kiko,” he protested. “I’m jus’ sayin’ she mighta been a big fake, that’s all.” He kicked a stone off the road with his peg leg, as if to emphasize his point.

  “I’M SO SORRY TO INTERRUPT,” Gax announced suddenly, “BUT IT IS MY DUTY TO ALERT ALL OF YOU TO A HUMANOID PRESENCE IN THE ROAD AHEAD.”

  “Humanoid presence?” Mr. Beeba repeated.

  We all froze in our tracks, startled to realize that we were no longer alone.

  Gax continued, sounding slightly alarmed (in his own robotic way): “HE IS APPROXIMATELY SEVENTY-FIVE FEET IN ADVANCE OF OUR CURRENT POSITION. I ESTIMATE THAT WE WILL HAVE VISUAL CONFIRMATION UPON REACHING THE TOP OF THE NEXT HILL.”

  A shiver ran through my body and I felt the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. All at once a strange sensation came over me, a feeling that we were in very real danger. I looked at Poog. He had a terribly serious expression on his face, as if he, too, knew that something was wrong. I saw myself reflected in Poog’s shiny eyes and was startled by how frightened I looked.

  “You guys stay here,” Spuckler said. “I’ll go up and have a look.”

  “No, Spuckler! Don’t go!” I said rather too loudly, my voice quivering.

  Both Spuckler and Mr. Beeba looked at me in astonishment. I felt a bead of sweat run down my face.

  “Akiko,” Mr. Beeba said, putting his hand on my arm. “What’s wrong? Are you all right?”

  “I . . . I’m fine,” I said, glancing nervously at Poog. “I just have this feeling that we shouldn’t go any nearer to . . . any nearer to . . .”

  “Any nearer t’ what?” Spuckler asked, his eyebrows drawn together into a look of great concern.

  “Any nearer to whatever’s up there in the road ahead,” I said, my voice still shaking. “It’s something—or someone—dangerous,”

  There was a long pause as Spuckler and Mr. Beeba looked at each other, then back at me. Spuckler scratched the back of his neck.

  “Look, ’Kiko,” he whispered. “I ain’t exactly sure what you’re talkin’ about, but it seems t’ me that I oughta at least go up there ’n’ take a look.”

  “A look,” I repeated. “Just a look?”

  “I’m just gonna take a quick peek, that’s all,” he said. “Then I’ll come back here an’ tell ya what I seen.”

  I looked at Poog. He still had the same serious expression on his face. He nodded very slowly.

  “Okay,” I said after another very long pause, glancing up the road to where it disappeared over the hill. “But be careful.”

  Mr. Beeba, Gax, Poog, and I all watched Spuckler crawl along the edge of the road up toward the top of the hill. He crept much more carefully and quietly as he approached the point where he would be able to see the mysterious figure. My heart was pounding, and there was a part of me that just wanted to turn around and run. Instead, I bit my lip and forced myself to stand there and wait.

  Spuckler stayed at the top of the hill for a minute or two, flat on his belly, before turning his head and motioning for us to join him. Mr. Beeba and I gave each other a nervous glance.

  “No!” I whispered angrily. “I’m not going up there. He said he’d come back!”

  “Now, Akiko,” Mr. Beeba said quietly, trying to calm me down. “Spuckler is an unpredictable sort, I know, but he wouldn’t encourage us to join him up there unless he thought it was per
fectly safe.”

  I looked again at Poog but found his face oddly expressionless, as if he were leaving the matter entirely up to me.

  “Okay,” I said, swallowing hard. “But let’s go slowly.”

  Mr. Beeba went first, Poog and I went next, and Gax followed along behind, moving as carefully as he could to muffle the squeaking noise made by his wheels. Crawling on his hands and knees, Mr. Beeba led the way to the spot where Spuckler was lying among the weeds at the side of the road. I crawled as low to the ground as I could, which unfortunately meant getting poked in the elbows over and over by all the rocks and pebbles on the road. My heart was beating even faster, and I found it very hard to breathe properly. It almost felt as if I were under water or something.

  Eventually we reached Spuckler and had a clear view of the “humanoid presence” in the road. As soon as I saw him, I knew it was Throck. I felt so sure, it was as if he had the name written across his back.

  He was still at least sixty feet or so away, but we all got a pretty good look at him. He was six or seven feet tall, with closely cropped white hair and a large squarish head. He had his back turned toward us, so we couldn’t see his face. A green camouflage uniform covered his entire body, making him look like a soldier from some alien army. The uniform had all kinds of weird tubes and bits of machinery attached to it. Every few seconds there was a loud hissing sound, as if steam needed to be regularly released from the uniform for it to function properly.

  “Heavens,” I heard Mr. Beeba whisper. “No wonder Queen Pwip warned us about this fellow.”

  Since Throck had his back to us, it was hard to see what he was doing. It was obvious, though, that he was working on something. When he was all done, he stood back and crossed his arms, as if to inspect his handiwork. There in front of him was some kind of signpost. He’d hammered it right into the middle of the road so that it would be clearly visible to anyone coming this way. Something was written on the sign in jagged little letters, but they were too small for us to read.