Ziff under fire

Part 19 - The Atom Bomb

Exhilaration changed to horror as, instead of sliding gently down to the courtyard, I shot rapidly upward. More than a month had passed since I was last in a gravity shear and I had forgotten how to fly!

Luckily, Dunc had seen my predicament.

'Will yeh no quit panicking,' he called as he lazily glided alongside. 'Calm doon. An updraft off the barn roof pushed yeh upward and yehr now drifting to the east . . . use yehr hands. They're connected to yehr brain and it knows how to shift gears, if yeh'll let it.'

I closed my eyes. 'It's okay for you. You were born with wings.' I stuck out my arms and immediately did a double somersault followed by a triple axel . . . upside down.

'I'll give yeh 8.7 for that,' Dunc honked. 'Yehr landing was off.'

'Will you quit being funny,' I yelled. 'This is NOT ice dancing.'

'Use yehr pinkies,' Dunc advised. 'Yehr making too much leeway.'

I lifted both pinky finger and immediately stabilized in roll, pitch and yaw. The only problem, I was still upside down.

'Tha's much better . . . honk, honk, honk. I give yeh a 9.1 for that.'

'Dunc we have to get down. Now!'

'Gloik. Why didn't yeh say so,' he giggled. 'Move yehr arms back a tad.'

Suddenly I was sliding down but a little too fast. I rolled a little and side-slipped into the wind. Now I was getting it. I was beginning to enjoy flying again, almost.

Dunc called urgently, 'Put yehr arms out.'

Which I remembered to do just before I hit the cobblestones.

Keeping my arms down, I scampered across the cobblestones to the garage. I was nearly weightless so I had to push against the door frame while I pulled the heavy door open and peered inside. I still had mass and the laws of equal and opposite reactions applied.

The blue glow was coming from an old horse stall. There was no sign of Kozak.

'He's gone through,' Dunc hissed. 'After him! Afore it shuts down. Ah'll be right behind yeh.'

I pushed off the doorframe, skimmed across the garage floor and threw myself into the light.

I barely noticed the transition from the smelly old German garage but suddenly I found myself groping around in the dark. I bumped into something alive.

'Gloik! Would yeh no get yehr great flat feet off of mah toe,' Dunc grumbled.

'Sorry,' a voice said.

'Dunc,' I hissed in alarm, 'there's somebody else in here.'

'It's me, Ziff,' the voice said. 'Beryl.'

'Beryl!' Dunc and I yelped at the same time. 'What are you doing here.'

'Your friends, Yonnie and Treeka, said you needed help. So I hustled over to Silverwood School and jumped into the light just like they told me. So, what just happened? Where are we?'

The place looked like a gloomy old wooden barn smelling of ancient horse manure.

'Good question. Dunc, where the heck are we?'

'Well, ah'm no certain but Kozak was talking to Murga about Oak Ridge, Tennessee.'

'How did we get to Tennessee?' Beryl asked.