It was Friday. Oliver knew he wasn’t capable of going an entire weekend without answers. The fear would eat him alive. He had to enter the weekend with a plan. He had to do it that afternoon. With Josh.
Back home after school, Oliver sat at the kitchen table, playing the drums with his fingers, as he waited for Josh to dig through the refrigerator to find them a snack. Tasha went to a friend’s house after school, leaving them alone for the entire afternoon. The excitement caused by this knowledge made it difficult for Oliver to wait. But he knew he must. Josh told him in no uncertain terms that he didn’t want any Bump-talk until snack time.
Josh set a plate of hummus and celery on the table. He knew Oliver preferred carrots to celery. However, oddly enough, there were none in the refrigerator. Josh hoped that Oliver’s excitement would keep him distracted enough to eat the celery without complaint. He was already afraid Tasha would tattle on him for allowing Oliver to watch television the day before and didn’t want to compound the problem by getting caught giving Oliver an unapproved snack.
In between crunchy bites, Oliver recounted the story of what happened with Bump. In his speech, he mentioned the initial meeting, the snacks, and the tornado. He even admitted he hid himself, shaking with fear, until the storm ended. He ended the story by sharing his disappointment over Bump’s failure to appear the night before.
“So you think eating the chocolate mints made him angry?” Josh marveled at the kid’s odd, imaginative ability to turn a sweet snack into villainy. He knew Eddie and Melanie avoided giving Oliver sugar, but didn’t realize how much they demonized it.
Oliver shook his head. “He didn’t even try them! He flew into a rage when he smelled them.” He dipped a celery stick in the hummus, then chomped on it. Instead of licking off the bit of leftover hummus that clung to his fingers, he wiped it on his jeans. “What if there’s a black hole under my bed that Bump uses to come and go?”
Josh rubbed his face with his hands. The sister, he thought, it’s always the sister. Just as Oliver’s fears settled, she agitated him again. Her relentless, subtle tormenting made her every bit as nasty to Oliver as Josh’s older sister had been to him.
Josh needed to move Oliver away from this subject. Otherwise, Oliver risked falling into another fear-driven vortex. One that put his access to his beloved comic books at risk. Josh didn’t have any ideas with which to distract Oliver so he bought himself time to think by drowning a celery stick in hummus. As he chewed, he scanned his brain for other comic-book travel options for Bump. He needed something safe, but mystical enough to plant a viable seed in Oliver’s fertile imagination.
“I don’t think Bump is traveling via a black hole or tunnel. It’s teleportation of some sort, like how Incredi-girl travels.”
“Bump isn’t a girl.” The thought terrified Oliver. The only thing scarier to him than a monster was a girl monster.
Josh muffled a laugh. It was amateurish of him to forget Oliver’s fear of girls. “That was simply a demonstration. It’s a common enough superpower. Goneman has it. So does Rufus. Both are boys.” He gave Oliver a focused look. “A black hole under your bed would have already sucked you in. Plus, you never hear any noises except those Bump makes. Blackholes are not silent.” Josh did not know whether black holes made any noise, but wagered it was believable to a six-year-old.
“Monsters don’t have superpowers.”
Josh frowned. “Why would you say that? Of course they do. How else does Bump manage to be seen by only you? He travels at the speed of light, using teleportation. Besides, we already know he has at least one superpower. He can manipulate the wind. Like Lightening Boy.”
Oliver couldn’t dispute Josh’s logic. Yet somehow he knew, in his bones, that Bump couldn’t teleport. Otherwise, why didn’t Bump teleport under his bed last night?
Josh examined Oliver’s face then said, “He was busy last night.” Inspiration sprouted a more creative idea. “Perhaps there are limits to his teleportation abilities. He might need ideal weather, moon positioning, or some other unimaginable variable. You should ask him about it the next time you see him.”
Oliver’s crossed arms told Josh he hadn’t yet moved his young friend’s imagination away from black holes. Rather than continue their bottomless debate, Josh suggested they look for evidence of a black hole under Oliver’s bed. He stood, then guided Oliver towards his room with a gentle hand on his shoulder. He felt Oliver’s muscles grow tense under his hand the closer they approached to his bedroom.
Josh’s hand fell away from Oliver’s shoulder as he opened the door and surveyed the state of Oliver’s room. The mess was a physical manifestation of the chaos fear caused in Oliver’s mind. He struggled to imagine Oliver creating this level of destruction in his room without his family hearing it. But he must have, because Josh knew there was no chance that Melanie and Eddie would have allowed it. Oliver’s parents never allowed him to leave his room in such a mess.
Josh cleared a spot next to the bed and kneeled down. Then he moved more toys aside to create enough space to stretch out. He leaned closer to the edge of the dimness, then blinked as his eyes adjusted. Underneath, he saw a few indistinguishable shapes. As he slid, his clothes made a soft scraping sound against the hard floor. He took his time. He knocked on the floor, wall, and bed in an exaggerated manner to ensure Oliver heard a thorough investigation. On his way out, he grabbed hold of the three items from the bed’s center and pulled them out along with his body.
The first item Josh removed was a clump of soft, yellow fur. It didn’t surprise him that one of the plush toys lost a clump of fuzz during Oliver’s mess-making fit. The second item was an empty bag of salt and vinegar potato chips. From one corner, it was missing a piece that resembled a big bite. It surprised Josh to discover that Oliver chose that intense flavor. And that he bit directly into the bag instead of tearing it. The third item was a shiny, heavy gold coin, larger than a half dollar piece, and thicker. Its face depicted a creepy, pointed version of a masquerade mask. Oliver snatched it out of Josh’s hand with a squeal before Josh could flip it over.
“Fire! Bump must have left that behind. He’ll come back for it.”
Josh laughed at the strange sound of his own teenage slang coming from Oliver’s mouth. Despite how careful Josh was to avoid imparting unintended knowledge in Oliver’s head, the clever kid picked up on what happened around him, even when he appeared distracted.
Josh watched Oliver’s face as he examined the coin. The other side had a shape that resembled a curly, backwards-facing “E” at its center. It also had some ornate symbols along its outer rim, etched into the metal like hieroglyphics into stone. The coin reminded Josh of an ornate trading card, a beautiful, but useless, object of both great and no value.
The boy examined the coin with a level of concentration that made Josh think he saw it for the first time. He shook his head. That was impossible. The kid must have hidden the coin among his toys long ago, forgetting about it until now. No other explanation existed.
Josh looked on, silent, as Oliver hid the coin in the toe of the snow boots that he rarely wore. Then he asked Oliver to join him in cleaning up the room.
“But I didn’t make the mess. Why do I have to clean it?”
Josh gave Oliver a pointed look. “Do you expect Bump to do it this afternoon before your parents come back from work?”
Oliver sighed. Cleaning up after his new friend seemed unfair, but Josh’s reasoning was undeniable. He counted himself lucky that his mother hadn’t already seen the unacceptable state of his room and double lucky that his father said nothing when he discovered it. He followed Josh’s lead in moving his toys and clothes back into place. As they worked, they brainstormed questions Oliver should ask Bump during his next visit. The combination of chatter and busy hands distracted Oliver from his black hole-related troubles.
Josh didn’t want to clean Oliver’s room a second time on Monday afternoon, so he said, “You need to be firm with Bump this weekend, Oliver. He can’t be spinning up Bump-nados and ruining your room. Not again. You tell him he can’t do that before he even has the thought. Tell him friends treat each other’s rooms with respect.”
Oliver smiled at Josh’s description of the Bump caused wind event then shook his head in agreement. He didn’t want Bump causing a tempest in his room again, either. He disliked the noise and sensation of Bump’s fury, but even more, he hated cleaning his room. For him, that first experience was one experience too many.
Oliver committed to standing up to Bump because Bump wasn’t the source of the fear that plagued him now. Instead, his worries stemmed from Bump’s manner of coming and going.
Josh’s suggestion that Bump traveled by teleportation sounded reasonable. So many of Oliver’s comic book heroes used teleportation, with or without the aid of devices. And Bump possessed a mind capable of creating tremors and tornados. Mind travel was less than a cosmic leap away from those phenomena.
Yet Oliver remained unconvinced. It didn’t feel right. He floated through the evening, detached from what happened around him. His concerns regarding Bump’s manner of travel took all the space available in his young mind.
The more he thought, the further away answers moved. The closer bedtime approached, the faster Oliver’s heart beat.
That night, he lay in bed, restless, his duvet wrapping him in fear and sweat. He clutched Jasper to his chest as his eyes fought the heavy weight of sleep to stay open. But the later the hour moved, the harder the fight became, until finally, his body surrendered to the demands of exhaustion and drifted off into a fitful sleep.
Oliver woke with an involuntary twitch. Except the twitch didn’t come from his body. It came from his bed. The twitching intensified until it became shaking and then again until it became an earthquake. Oliver gripped his headboard to keep himself from being tossed on the floor. He forced his eyes open.
The soft glow of the nightlight made it easy to distinguish the shapes of furniture in the darkness. Nothing moved other than the bed. So unquestionably not an earthquake. A Bump-quake.
But knowing the source of these unwanted movements was of no comfort since the physical sensation of quaking intensified.
The bed’s legs banged against the wooden floor. The headboard bumped against the wall. Oliver’s duvet shook out from under him. With his hands occupied by gripping the headboard, he was powerless to halt its slide. Soon it slipped off the side of the bed to the floor, where it landed in a heap. Oliver gripped his headboard with all his strength. His knuckles turned white. He repeated his mantra: I’m tough, I got this.
Oliver noticed that Jasper was no longer on the bed. He imagined Jasper wrapped in the duvet below, hidden from danger by its folds. He preferred that thought to imaging Jasper under the bed, balancing on the rim of an endless crater. Or worse, plunging through the darkness of a portal into a distant, monster-laden land.
A green smoke drifted out from under his bed. The haze carried with it the scent of rotting fish.
Deep inside Oliver, his fear roared awake, like starved a wild animal shaken from hibernation. It howled inside him, demanding attention. Oliver dug for his courage with a deep breath.
“Bump, stop.”
He waited. The intense movements continued. He concentrated on maintaining his grip. Josh was right. He needed to be firm. He thought of how his parents managed Rocky’s unacceptable behavior.
“Bump. NO. NO SHAKING.”
His voice sounded big to his own ears, powerful. He marveled at his own ability to create that confident sound even as he shook with fear.
The shaking stopped. The smoke dissipated. Oliver released the breath he didn’t know he held. Then he climbed out of bed and kneeled on the duvet. He closed his eyes and willed himself to master his fear of peaking under the bed. Hands trembling, he leaned over and pressed his head to the floor. Then he opened his eyes. His breath caught in his throat.
Fragments of an unseen world materialized before his eyes. A green haze floated in place, partially obscuring jagged rocks that disappeared into deep blackness. Three fingers from two brown hands gripped the top of the rocks, straining to pull the weight of the body that hung below up over the rim of the chasm. Panic surged through Oliver. He closed his eyelids with enough force to squeeze his cheeks.
Oliver took a slow, deep breath. He inhaled bravery into his lungs, along with air tinged with rotten smoke. When he opened his eyes again, they met another pair of eyes which peered over the rim of the abyss. The eyes were a familiar orange.
He watched as Bump struggled to pull himself from the hole. In his worry for his friend, he forgot his fear, and pushed himself forward under the bed, extending one arm to grip Bump’s hand. Then he pulled.
An invisible force pulled Bump back into the void even as they worked together to yank him out. Oliver gritted his teeth. Sweat dripped into his eyes. He pulled with a strength he didn’t know he held, a strength that made his body burn and ache.
WHOOHP. Bump popped free.
The pressure of the release caused the two of them to fly backwards and out from under the bed. They landed in a heap on top of the duvet.
Adrenaline flowed through Oliver’s body, causing his heart to pound in his ears and his senses to heighten. Bump’s soft body quivered against his shoulder. The room was silent, eerie in its stillness. They lay that way, side by side, still as the surrounding room, until they regained control of themselves. Then Bump stood and Oliver shifted to his knees.
Oliver’s mind raced with a speed that made it impossible to move any of the endless questions that bounced in his brain to his tongue. Instead, he looked at Bump, waiting for him to speak.
Bump asked, “Coin, friend?” His voice gurgled from his wet throat.
Oliver shook his head to clear the fog from his mind. Then he crawled over to his closet door and slid it open. He pulled the coin from the boot in which he hid it and tossed it to Bump. Bump caught it between his two clumsy, four-fingered hands. He shoved it up into his fur, where it securely clung. It reminded Oliver of the way burs and branches caught in Rocky’s fur, unseen.
“Are you hungry?”
Bump nodded in the only way he was capable of. He bent his fuzzy body towards his legs in a quirky imitation of a bow.
“I’ve brought some snacks for you. But before I get them, promise me something. You can’t get upset if you don’t like them. You don’t have to eat them. But you can’t get mad and destroy my room again. That wasn’t nice.”
Bump repeated his nod-bob. Oliver gave him a stern look.
“Oleeever, I won’t.”
Satisfied with Bump’s verbal commitment, Oliver retrieved the snacks from the bottom of his sock drawer, then set them on the floor at the edge of the duvet. Bump scrambled over the folds of the duvet, climbing the lumps and bumps as Oliver climbed hills. He bent his face towards the snacks and inhaled a deep, gooey breath. Then he shoved the garlic in his mouth in one giant, disgusting bite.
“Nom, nom, nom. My favorite.”
Bump waved his hand to dismiss the other snacks.
Oliver opened the sleeve of chocolate mint cookies and held it out towards Bump. But instead of taking a cookie, Bump recoiled, as if the mere aroma of the cookies singed his skin with fire. Oliver shrugged and took one for himself. The sweet, chocolaty crunch of the cookie cleared the fog from his brain and focused his mind. Bump’s face contorted and his nose wrinkled.
Fortified with sugar and unable to contain himself, Oliver asked, “Where do you come from? Do you have parents? Do you have superpowers? How can your little arms stretch around my bed?”
Bump blinked, twice. His massive upper and lower eyelids met with purpose in the middle of his bulging eyeballs. “You can come with me, Oleeever. Then you can see.”
Oliver shook his head. He couldn’t do that.
It was impossible for him to do that because he exhausted his reserve of courage when he rescued Bump. To return to that terrible place, and then to go further, to do what Bump asked and plunge into that stinking, sucking abyss was unimaginable. Inconceivable. Other-ables Oliver couldn’t remember in that moment.
And yet…Oliver had faced up to and conquered his deepest fears that week.
He made friends with a monster, then rescued that monster from a vortex, an abyss. Then he taught that monster about good behavior, friendship. And that monster listened, learned. In only a few days, his newfound strength transformed him from a terrified, wimpy child into a boy with character. A hero in the making. No, a superhero in the making.
He asked himself what kid-hero Billy Fantastic would do, what his beloved Tremendous Trio would do. He gulped. He pulled Jasper free from the duvet. Then he took Bump’s hand and said, “Let’s go.”
