I woke up aching in pain on my bedroom floor. The dream must have shaken me from my study desk. I don't know how long I was down here, but apart from the pain, my mind kept racing. What was that? Why was I on a large boat talking to a bird with some ragged men looking at a map? What did any of it mean? This had been the strangest dream I’ve ever had, never in my life did I have one quite like that. Is this what happens when you turn thirteen, you start to get terrifying nightmares every time you close your eyes?
I did my best to not think about it. I brushed off the dust on my khaki vest and wrinkled green shirt before putting my silver tree necklace back underneath it. I hopped back on my feet and back to my study table, hoping I had gotten further on my essay than before. Nope. Not a single word added since I had plopped myself onto this seat a few hours ago. I was supposed to finish a seven-page paper and I barely had come up with two paragraphs. I couldn’t even tell you what I was writing about. These were just words on a page as far as I knew. And the best part about it was that it was all due tomorrow.
“Jimmy, can you come out here please!” Damien, my small gray furred pet dog with large circular glasses asked from outside my door. “Sal, ugh, he’s just making a mess! And he invited the Dardo brothers too! It's chaos, absolute chaos!”
“Yeah… I’ll be there in a second,” I said, rubbing my eyes and yawning as I opened the door.
“They’re running around, knocking things over and just throwing food everywhere! It's terrible. I tried to make them stop but they just won’t listen!”
“It’s fine Damien, I’ll tell them to clean it up,” I said while putting my notebook and book back into my satchel.
“By the way, did you finish your essay yet?”
Yeah I - uh am alm-”
KLPSHHHH
I jumped as I heard a plate shatter from the kitchen. “Ugh-Sal, SAL! Stop throwing things!” Damien yelled as he ran back across the rope bridge and to the main hut of my family’s treehouse. We had a nice home, similar to many other of the Wildlings that lived in the jungle and I always felt blessed to have such great neighbors.
“Morning Mrs. Pacaya!” I said to a red, long winged Lagia bird who was flying by. She was one of the sweetest neighbors I had.
“Oh hello sweetheart! Beautiful day, isn't it?”
“Hey Mr. Hobbs!” I said as I waved to my mole neighbor, but I don't think he heard me, as he was in his head while dragging a suitcase along, probably frustrated about one of his trial cases as usual.
“Make sure your mom knows this wasn’t me! I tried to stop them, Jimmy. I tried my best!” Damien said anxiously, but I was actually surprised, thinking it was going to be much, much worse than it was.
I wasn’t completely surprised by what I saw. You see this wasn’t the first time Sal got into a food fight with a couple friends from school. In fact, I was practically used to it by now, I’d even been in a few myself.
“Damien, relax,” I said coolly as I pulled my green pet snake out from under a box of Cornley’s Power Pops cereal as he squirmed around spilling the small sugary pieces. I couldn’t tell if he was actually stuck or just trying to eat. “Sal, what are you doing?” I said as I lifted him up.
“Oh, Jimmy! Hey! Uh- well the Dardos came over and well you know how rowdy they are! They started throwing chips at me, so you know I had to-”
“Can so-somebody please help get me out of this bagel!” a small green bird groaned while rolling around on my dining room table. “It's too heavy,” he said, trying to nudge it off of him. And there were bagels all over the room, on the floor, hanging off the coat rack, heck I even saw one stuck in the tape player for all the movies we’d get. Sal must have literally been whipping them around.
“You are so mean Sal!” said his yellow bird brother.
“Hey! You threw a box of cereal over my head!” said Sal as he slithered over to confront the two birds.
“Guys! Stop fighting, alright? Just clean it up. I don't need my parents on me again,” I said just as I walked into a puddle of milk. I pulled off my soaked socks and left them on the floor as I walked over to the couch to see two other neighborhood friends of mine, Goran, a prickly little porcupine, and Forsef, a light furred ferret, sitting on my couch completely covered in mud.
“Wh- did you guys just go mud sliding?” I said before crashing next to them on the couch. I saw their dirty prints everywhere; from the TV, couch, table, remote, even on a can of Cracker O’s and on the bag of Salty Split’s chips.
“Well, you were too busy looking around for all those fruits and berries with your friends, I told ya Jimmy, there ain't too many!” Goran said before he shoved more chips into his mouth.
Normally, I would be upset with all the messes I had seen, but I wasn't sure if it was because of my dream or all the angst of trying to start the essay I had due tomorrow. For some reason, I just didn’t care about anything today and I couldn’t tell you why.
While we were flipping through the channels, a small red bird lifted note cards with its long orange feet, reading them.
“Dury, what are you studying for?”
“What do you mean, we have that language arts test on all the short stories of Haynabok Hurs tomorrow! Don't tell me you forgot!” I threw my head back, knowing this was going to be another week of awful grades. I wasn’t even sure if I was passing at this point, but it was close. I don't know what happened. I used to be so good at school, mostly A’s with usually a B or two. But the classes got harder, more effort was required, and for some reason I just couldn't find that in me. Somehow, I had gotten by copying a friend’s homework, hiding my test grades, but report cards were coming out in a few weeks and I really needed to get my act together.
“WAIT- WHAT TEST?” Sal said as he threw off the bag of chips from his head and slithered over to us.
“What do you mean what test? We were literally studying for it yesterday!” Damien said.
“Oh but that was when we were out looking for fruits - which by the way Jimmy, we still are going to try again today, right? I can’t believe we found nothing yesterday!” Sal was talking about the blooming season, where Wazoo fruits would ripen and Wildlings everywhere would go picking for them together. Usually, it was a very fun tradition, but lately, for some reason this time around, the island had hardly anything growing and we were already in the second month into spring.
“I- I really don’t care. You guys can go with Amelia if you want.”
“Wh- why not Jimmy! You’re that behind on your studying and homework. Did you even finish that essay yet?” Damien turned around and asked me again. I sighed as I rolled my eyes. I hated when he acted like my third parent.
“Damien, I’m nearly done. But I don’t know what’s the big deal, always trying to go fruit picking. It's always the same stupid thing we end up doing, okay? And language arts is the easiest class to study for. The essay, yeah I’m almost done, just a little more to go, but I definitely don’t want to go picking again,” I said, sitting back on the couch and grabbing some chips.
“Well, I dunno if there’s even any left. They’re all so rare these days,” Forsef said as he flipped through the news channels, but suddenly I saw something that for a second looked familiar to me.
“Wait, go back! What’s that reporter on the beach saying?” I asked. He slowly went back but I grabbed the remote from him and flipped faster.
“And these strange footsteps found on the beach resemble nothing ever seen before on the Wazoo. Detectives still are not sure if this had anything to do with the disappearance of Hilligan Higbee, a large Oeipek pig, who owns a few shops around the Wazoo, was last seen just as he was closing down his bodega last night after closing up when Mr. Higbee was reported missing by his wife. Investigators have been unable to find the owner since last night, and have gone back to his shop to notice a severe break-in did in fact take place. Most notably, a strange, long metal object shown here. It appears to be some sort of blade used for cutting, but authorities are still wondering why such a long one of this magnitude would exist nor its exact purpose. Hopefully in the coming hours, we will have more to report on. Back to you Byaro.”
“Can we watch something else please, this is giving me the creeps!” Forsef said, covering his eyes. But I didn’t listen to him or whatever anyone else thought. That metal blade, why had it looked so familiar? Where had I seen it before? Then it hit me, my dream! The men were carrying something almost exactly like that. But still, I couldn’t even figure out why, or even remember who they were. I just had this dream, yet my memory was sparse. I was just trying to piece it all together.
“AHA! You haven't finished your essay! You haven't even started it at all!” Sal said as he threw my book and spiral onto the ground. “CAUGHT YOU RED HANDED, JIMMY!”
“What? You haven't even started? Jimmy this is due tomorrow! When do you plan on starting?” Damien said, freaking out as he looked at my paper.
“Uh- I don't know. I was going to figure out my topic later,” I said as Damien walked back and forth.
“WHAT! You haven’t even picked a topic?” Sal said.
“Jimmy, we had a month to work on it! Why did you lie and tell me you were almost finished?”
“Ugh Damien just stop. I'll get it done tonight or I’ll ask Mr. Dorian for an extension,” I said. Sal and Goran looked at each other and started to roll over laughing.
“What? I’ll say I got sick or something this weekend.
“Jimmy, Dorian is the grumpiest Wildling teacher the Wazoo has ever seen. He loses his patience when his chalk breaks, you really think he’s just going to magically be nice and give you more time to start on an essay he assigned a month ago?” Sal said as he laughed.
“Yeah Jimmy, you really screwed yourself here,” Goran said sitting upright.
“Oh, shut up Goran! And pull your thorns out of my couch!” I said angrily. But deep down, I knew they were right, I just didn’t want to think about it, or even acknowledge it.
There was a sudden knock on the door and I said jumping up. Was mom home already? The place was still a mess and I was not in the mood for another lecture. I walked over to open the door but was relieved to find out that it was only Amelia. She had dark braided hair, clear skin and even a few pretty freckles. She wore khakis just like mine, except they were always buttoned up, even on the hot days. She was my oldest and closest friend. She wasn’t nearly as smart as Damien, but always outworked everyone to get the straight A’s she earned. Sometimes I felt like she was just trying to compete with everybody, whether they knew it or not.
She came in with her two pets, a shy small Jybooan monkey named Barry, and a rude, impatient, sassy tiny purple robin named Riley.
“What in the Heloks happened here?” Riley blurted out as she immediately flew right in. Amelia’s jaw dropped as she looked around the house. To be honest with you, I really hadn’t noticed how much of a disaster the whole place really was until I saw her face. Spilled food all over the floor, mud all over the floor, and some kind of jam somehow on the ceiling.
“Wh- Jimmy, this place is a dump! We have to hurry and clean this up!” she said.
“Yeah well, I was working on my essay so I-”
“It's not his fault really, he’s got the messiest friends in the whole Wazoo! And I don’t even know who any of you are!”Riley yelled at everyone.
“Uh well I’m Forsef,” he said sticking his body out from a bag of chips.
“Don’t you remember me Riley? I’m Goran, we’re in the same -”
“Yeah, yeah I know. Mudpit guy, what about you birdies?”
“We’re the Dardo brothers!” They all said at once.
“I’m Derwin,” said the one with green feathers, still stuck in a bagel.
“And I’m Dyron,” the yellow one said. Barry smilied, walked up, trying to get the courage to say hello.
“Dilrin here!" said the purple one as he popped out of the couch.
“Douooresh!” the blue bird said as he swirled around as he put down the bagel he was eating.
“Dawan, nice to meet ya!” said the orange brother.
“My name is Bar-” Amelia’s pet monkey finally got the courage to say.
“And I’m Dury, the only one here apparently who feels any need to study for our test in Ms. Keaton’s class,” the red feathered brother interrupted. He was the only one Riley even bothered to look at.
“Ok, so let's get going? I don’t want to let everyone pick all the babaloos from us, it's already getting pretty late!” Sal said, looking at the clock.
“No - why do you guys always want to go fruit picking every year? It's boring. Let’s just do something else, something fun,” I said.
“Something else? Where is this coming from? And no we need to clean this up, your mom is literally walking home right now. She’ll be here soon!” Amelia said urgently. I shook my head as I looked around. Luckily, I had the perfect solution.
“Wh- Jimmy where are you going?” Amelia asked as I went into the back closet and got the steel blue vacuum my mom had told me to never use. It was called the Clean Sweeper 9000, the state-of-the-art cleaning device in the whole Wazoo as my dad had put it. It had buttons labeled for everything you could even think of doing: washing, drying, sweeping, wiping, vacuuming, organizing, even arranging! My dad had said he and a few other engineers were able to work on the design. He wanted to try it out for himself before he sold it for entire neighborhoods and communities to share. Indeed, it did not disappoint.
“Woah!” Douooresh said.
“What is this?” Amelia asked as she walked over to it slowly, completely fascinated.
“This is what’s going to clean the mess, and in only a few minutes too, and then we can go straight to berry picking,” I said as I took the black cord and put it into the outlet. All my friends gathered around, amazed to see something like this in front of them.
There were several levels from Passive Tidy Up on the first knob to Massive Mess on the tenth knob. I set the dial to the fifth level, Quick Chores. The Clean Sweeper named the function in its robotic voice before quickly jumping up and going straight to the sink. Four flexible metal rods stretched out each with the paws of a different Wildling. Two began washing and scrubbing away while the third wiped the table clean and the fourth arm cleaned off splattered jello, jam or whatever the heck it was off the ceiling.
“See, everything will be okay!” I said as I jumped back onto the couch and grabbed a few chips.
“Wow! This thing is incredible!” Forsef said.
“Wish I had one, our hut would be so much cleaner,” Goran said.
“Jimmy, your mom is going to be home in a few minutes, there’s no way this will all get cleaned in time!” Amelia said, crossing her arms.
“Uh fine, Sal can you set the dial to ten please?” I asked. Looking back, this was the moment I most regret. Unlike everyone else, I tended not to doubt Sal because he never really learned to read, or think things through, not to mention his concerningly low attention span. Never did I really care about any of that until today. But boy did I really regret it.
But to Sal’s own defense, he really did have the worst vision of all of us and was probably concerningly dyslexic. I mean, I hadn’t seen him read a book since the second grade, and we would often have to hear him complain about how difficult it was to read Damien’s test answers during exams. But nonetheless, he persisted, and look at him now- a proud seventh grader at Cross Rivers Middle School. I could only wonder what incredible feats were in store for him.
Instead of setting the dial to ten, he must have spun it all the way to twenty, an extreme I did not know existed up until this point. Almost instantly, six more metal arms shot out of the machine as the Clean Sweeper scanned the room and accelerated to each of the messes. EMERGENCY CLEAN, EMERGENCY CLEAN it kept saying. At first, I wasn’t alarmed as I saw it zip across the room. But it would do contradictory things, like pick up a pile of plates but then put them on a sofa chair and then it would lift up a kitchen chair, only to have another hand knock it back down again. Then it would go back and lift the single sofa, and let all the plates fall down! I mean at one point, it was spraying water all over the living room floor, putting snacks in the fridge while spilling more milk than Sal even did all over the place. It even grabbed soapy water and a sponge to wipe clean walls. I mean for every mess it cleaned, somehow it made two!
“Jimmy! Something’s wrong, it's too overwhelmed by the messes!” Damien said as he dodged one of the long metal arms thrown over him. Soon enough, the arms chased us ripping the pillow cushions, tossing plates everywhere, throwing a chair to the other side of the room, and even flipping over our dining room table. WORK OVERLOAD, WORK OVERLOAD! it said in a now loud monotone voice.
“EVERYONE GET DOWN!” I yelled as we all hid behind the couches as the machine spiraled out of control, throwing pots, pans, spoons, food containers; even the tablemats all over the place before it started to come after us. It grabbed Damien and waggled him throughout the air. All the Dardo’s flew out the shattered window while Goran and Forsef ran out screaming, taking my chips with them too.
“You have to turn this off!” Amelia yelled.
“How? It’ll yank us if I go and try to change the dial now!” I yelled back from behind the living room table.
“Th-the plug! Y-you have to p-pullll th-the pluggg,” Damien said while dangling around. If any of us even tried to go for the cord, we’d be dangling right next to him in seconds, so I came up with the next best thing.
“Throw stuff at it!” I yelled, thinking if we could distract the machine, I could have enough time to crawl past it and pull the cord. Everyone started throwing back all the kitchenware, now was the perfect chance.
Had this plan actually worked out, I would have considered it to be one of my few brilliant ideas. As I began to slowly pass by all my furniture and scoot through the dirty floor, I could see the black cord just up ahead. All I needed to do was get past the counter.
ACCELERATED MESS, ACCELERATED MESS! It alerted and began zipping all around the room. I opened a cabinet door to try and get something to throw at it so the Clean Sweeper would stay away from me.
“Sal? What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be helping us turn this thing off!”
“No way Jimmy, that thing will either run right over or crush me!” Sal said before slamming the door shut.
“Sal, open this and give me something at least!” I said knocking on the cabinet door to which he opened it slightly.
“No!” he said before slamming it shut again.
Just as I was approaching the machine, ready to pull the plug and end this, the worst, WORST possible thing happened.
“Jimmy? Jimmy what’s going on?” I heard my seven year old brother say with his soft voice. He was always kind and sweet, only wanting to read whatever book he could get his hands on if Damien wasn’t already going through it himself. “Wh- what is that?” he said as he came downstairs in his pajamas as he rubbed his eyes.
“JACKSON NO! GO BACK UPSTAIRS!” I yelled, but it was already too late, the Clean Sweeper had come over and grabbed my little brother, dangling him by his shirt.
“Help! Help me Jimmy!” he cried. I completely abandoned my plan and hopped onto the counter to grab him. Instead of pulling him down though, I was being twirled in the air.
“Jimmy!” Amelia yelled, trying to help get me down before she was grabbed by the foot and raised up.
It all seemed hopeless, and I wasn’t sure what the Clean Sweeper was going to do with us to be honest with you. That was until the front door opened and my mom walked after her long shift at the hospital.
“JIMMY JEFFERSON JUNGLES, WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?” My mom yelled as she stared right at me.
“MOM, STAND BACK! IT'S GOING TO GRAB YOU,” I yelled as the machine moved towards her.
“Cleaning complete!” she said firmly. Instantly, Amelia, Jackson, Damien and I were all thrown to the ground as the long arms swiveled back into the machine. The light that was shining red turned white.
Cleaning operations complete, the machine said calmly before shutting down completely, all of its arms quickly going back into it. When I looked around the room, the whole place was a mess. Chairs everywhere, dishes broken, food all over the floor, and little tub containers anywhere but the kitchen. It was an awful mess, and it was all my fault.
My mom had crossed both her arms as she shook her head. She still had her white coat from working overtime at the hospital the night before, all because of the sudden rise in patient sicknesses for some reason. Her eyes were bagged, her dark hair was messy from running around all night, and I’m sure she barely had the patience at this point to deal with a son like me. But I honestly didn’t know if she was about to yell at the top of her lungs or tear up and cry about how miserable I made her life sometimes.
“Mom, I-I’ll clean it up. Don’t worry. You just go to bed.”
“You- you think at this point I can really believe that Jimmy? Hm? Do you really think I can trust you to do anything? Did you even finish your homework? Don’t you lie to me Jimmy. Gosh, how do I already know the answer Jimmy?” she said, putting her hand up before I could even reply. I looked at her and nodded my head silently as my mom did her best to hold back the tears in her eyes.