A World Beyond the Waterfalls

First Day's the Hardest

"This is a Percolator," Ryder says, holding up an interesting looking coffee maker. "It's makes the best Foam in the world."

He hands me a cup of a steaming brown liquid and I take a sip of the foaming drink. It tastes like chocolate, the steamy goodness slipping easily down my throat.

"That's what we call Foam."

I raise my eyebrows at him. "Uh, that's hot chocolate."

He looks at me, bewildered. "Hot what?"

I stare at him blankly, my mind racing. "Tell me you don't know what chocolate is..." I say, dropping my mug of "Foam" onto a wooden table.

Ryder frowns at me, his bottom lip sticking out. "No, I don't. Is it like a drink?"

I laugh, pulling a squished candy bar out of my pocket. "This is chocolate. It's a form of dessert."

He looks at it uncertainly, then takes it with a shaking hand and pulls down a corner of the wrapper. He takes a bite and his eyes widen, his face filled with enjoyment. "We need more of this stuff in our town!" He exclaims, stuffing the rest of the chocolate bar into his mouth.

He brings me into another room of my little cabin, showing me two mattresses stacked on top of each other. "These are bunk beds. You and Liam can share them and don't worry, they're perfectly safe."

"I know," I say, "we have bunk beds where we come from, too."

He shrugs; this is news to him. "Cool," he says, showing me what looks like a bathroom-a shower, a sink, a toilet. "This is the Privy," he continues, gesturing to the bathroom.

I smile a little. They use the old name for bathrooms, that's actually pretty cute. "Mhm," is all I say, telling him that I understand. He moves on, showing me a dog, which he calls a Cub, who's name is Duke, a one room school house, a Mercantile-a supermarket-and last but not least, he brings me back to my cabin, showing me the Book Drop Off on the way which is their form of a library.

"Can you rent movies there, too?" I ask. And I immediately regret it when I hear his answer.

"Movies?" He looks quizzical and I can tell they don't have TV or channels or movies or shows.

"Right," I respond, "you don't know what that is." I stop in front of the cabin's door, thinking hard. "It's basically just a book that comes to life. People have jobs being the characters in book and they act out the story. You watch it on a screen, kind of like a chalk board that projects light."

Ryder's face brightens and his mouth hangs open. "That's so cool! I wanna do that some day!"

I nod to him. "When our worlds collide safely, we can go to the movies together."

He grins. "It's a date." And then he enters my cabin, with me on his heels. I guess he doesn't know that people go to the movies for actually dates, but I don't tell him. I don't want to make it awkward.

All of a sudden, my foot lands on a piece of wood, connected to a metal bar by a piece of wire. It snaps shut, the metal bar collapsing on my ankle. "Ow!" I shout, jumping with pain.
Ryder runs over and pries the wood and the metal open and I quickly pull my foot out, massaging the top of it.

"That's a Swaddle trap." Ryder says bluntly, clicking something that makes what looks like an oven ding. He reaches in and brings out a pineapple pie, topping it off with whipped cream.

"A what?!" I question, watching him swirl the pie intently.

"A Swaddle trap. Those things are so damn annoying. The pests," he mutters, slamming the Ice Box closed. "Want some pie?"

I ignore his question, trying to get some information on this so called Swaddle from him. "What's a Swaddle?" I ask, sitting down next to him and grabbing a fork, which he calls a Stabber.

"Well, it's a mix between a Cub and a Rat." So he knows what a rat is but he doesn't know what a dog is. Interesting. His eyes light up then, and he points out the door. "Right there! That's a Swaddle!"

And when I look out the door, I see the most funny looking animal I've ever laid eyes on.

Half rat, half dog, and half lizard, it is probably the most gruesome thing I have ever seen. And don't tell me I have to many hales because this...thing takes at least three halves to complete. It is disgusting and ugly and so out of the ordinary that I scream my head off.

"Oh my freaking god what is that?!"

Ryder laughs. "Don't worry, it's harmless, they're just gross. But they're scared of people so don't worry."

But somehow, as he rants on and on about how they smell up the house and that's why you have to capture them, I decide that him telling me not to worry definitely makes me worry even more.