CHAPTER NINE

The Whey of Life

The monks silently climbed the foothills as Luno followed them, his head spinning from having just learned that the supposed fairy tales his father had told him his entire childhood were actually real. The most vicious alien in the universe owned the biggest pizza chain in the galaxy and it would be up to Luno to defeat him. Sure, this would save Zorgoochi Intergalactic Pizza, but Luno had no idea if or how he would even do this.

Also, he really didn’t want to die.

And what did all of this have to do with cheese making?

Clive trailed behind, gathering information, contentedly scanning rocks and plants with his device. Chooch, however, was getting nervous. The suns were setting and he was afraid of the dark. He held Luno’s hand tight, causing a few of his knuckles to crack.

“Our monastery is a treacherous ten-mile hike into the Muenster Mountains,” said Master Uno, motioning to a lone peak off in the distance.

“Why didn’t you just build your monastery over there?” Luno asked, pointing back at the flat expanse behind them where he parked the pod.

The monks angrily turned to Nove and then Quattro smacked him upside the head.

“See?” said Quattro. “Even he said we should’ve built it over there!”

“I said I was sorry,” Nove grumbled.

Luno scrambled over the rocks, pulling Chooch along and trying to keep up with the monks as they marched ahead.

“Look,” said Luno, catching up to Master Uno, “thanks for the offer to show me how to make cheese, but I really think I should get back to my deliveries.”

“Then you should inform your feet,” said Uno, “because you’re still following us.”

“But I really can’t stay here,” said Luno. “I need to get back out there.”

“There is no ‘here’ or ‘out there,’” said Master Uno. “There is no difference, young Zorgoochi.”

Tre recommended Luno accept Master Uno’s offer to train him in the art of cheese making, but Luno couldn’t see how it would help defeat Vlactron.

“Well, it couldn’t hurt,” said Master Uno.

Luno was concerned that he was already going to be late for his next delivery, but Master Uno assured him that his training would take no time at all.

“Well, exactly how long will it take?” Luno asked.

“Exactly as long as it’ll take for you to learn how to make cheese,” said Master Uno. “And not a second more.”

“That did not answer my question,” Luno grumbled.

“Well, then don’t question my answer,” said Master Uno.

Chooch announced that the reason they flew into the wormhole in the first place was because Luno was running away from Vlactron’s delivery ships.

Luno glared at Chooch, but then hung his head in shame.

“Ah, sometimes the better part of valor is discretion,” said Master Uno, giving Luno a consoling pat on the back.

“What does that mean?” asked Chooch.

“I’m not sure,” said Master Uno. “But it sure sounds good, doesn’t it?”

“I believe what Master Uno is saying,” said Tre, “is that there are times when being cautious is wiser than being courageous.”

“Young Zorgoochi, you may not have been running away from something,” said Master Uno, “as much as toward something.”

The rest of the journey was made without a word. However, there was a full-on debate inside Luno’s head. Why him? Why did he have to take down Vlactron and not the monks? There were nine of them and only one of him! And what about Dad? He should do it. He was an adult!

Luno wanted all this to go away. Maybe if he didn’t do anything, it would resolve itself on its own. Maybe Vlactron would never even find the Golden Anchovy. And even if he did and used its powers and protection in order to destroy Zorgoochi Intergalactic Pizza and become the most popular pizzeria in the Mezzaluna Galaxy, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad living in a galaxy dominated by Quantum. Maybe the universe would blow up and he wouldn’t have to deal with any of this. Maybe …

“Welcome to the Fromage Friary,” said Master Uno, pushing open the squeaky gate to the Mozzarella Monk’s mountaintop monastery.

 A bright moon shone down on a very large, but simple structure, quite the opposite picture Luno had in his head when his father told him about the monastery so many years ago. He always imagined a grand, ornate palace with carved columns, mosaic floors, and some sort of cheese shrine in its center. This looked more like a barn. And it smelled like one, too.

Luno’s brain was buzzing with fear, anxiety, and panic, but mostly fatigue. He was led to what he surmised in the darkness to be a stable by the faint animal grunts and rank odor.

Regardless, Luno collapsed onto a pile of hay and immediately fell asleep.

In what seemed like only a few seconds, Luno’s eyes fluttered open. The harsh morning sunlight made him squint. A massive hairy gray tongue was licking his face. Its owner was a giant smelly creature, which burped death breath up Luno’s nose.

“Ah, I see you’ve met Bessie,” said Tre, offering his hand to help Luno to his feet. “It’s time for breakfast. I hope you like cheese!”

“Do you have anything else?” Luno asked, picking straw out of his hair and wiping the disgusting, sticky animal slobber from his face.

“Um,” said Tre, “No.”

As Luno walked past Bessie, she wrapped her tail around him, pulling him back and licking him some more.

“Hey!” said Tre as he unwound her tail. “I think she likes you!”

“Great,” Luno muttered, wiping off more drool.

Tre swung open the door to the monastery and Luno walked in. As he was bathed in the aroma of warm delicious cheese, a serene calm suddenly washed over him. Even though it was only a few short hours ago, Luno couldn’t imagine how he could’ve possibly been worried about any of the things that had been plaguing him the night before.

At the far end of the cavernous room was a stone hearth with a massive bubbling caldron hanging over a fire, and in the middle was a long wooden table where the monks, as well as Clive and Chooch, were talking and eating.

Luno sat down and greeted everyone. Sei placed a bowl in front of Luno and Sette filled it with a ladleful of warm lumpy cheese.

“Thank you,” said Luno. Sei and Sette nodded mutely.

Luno asked if they had taken a vow of silence.

“No, they claimed they’ve said everything they’ve needed to say,” explained Due. “Now if only Nove here would do the same!”

Nove rolled his eyes and went back to his breakfast.

Luno looked over at Otto, who was not eating at all, and asked if he was fasting.

“Oh, him? He can’t eat cheese,” said Due. “He’s lactose intolerant, but we let him hang around us anyway.”

Clive was having an intellectually stimulating conversation with Cinque about the chemistry of cheese making. Next to him, Chooch’s face was buried in a giant bowl of fresh cottage cheese.

“They said I can eat all I want!” said Chooch, coming up for air. “This is the greatest place ever! Can we live here?”

As Chooch plunged his face back into his bowl, Luno dug into his breakfast.

It was as if he’d never tasted cheese before. Sure, the homemade mozzarella his father made at the pizzeria was delicious, but it was nothing like this. Luno could actually taste the earthy flavor of the grass Bessie had eaten.

Before he knew it, he was scraping the bottom of the bowl with his spoon.

“Time to begin your training, young Zorgoochi,” Master Uno said, standing up.

Luno dutifully followed him out of the monastery and into a nearby field.

“Dig a hole exactly five feet deep,” Master Uno said, handing him a shovel. Luno obediently began to dig.

He sweated, struggled, and strained under the hot suns as Master Uno sat cross-legged under a tree in the cool shade, watching him intently. Luno had no idea why he would need to dig a hole to make cheese, but figured Master Uno did, so Luno continued to dig, even though it made no sense to him.

After hours of toiling, the top of the hole was even with the tip of Luno’s nose, so he knew it was five feet deep. He climbed out.

“I’m done, Master Uno,” Luno said, panting, dirty, and exhausted.

Master Uno did not answer. He just blankly stared ahead.

“Master Uno?” said Luno, but there still was no response. “Um, Master Uno?” Luno said a bit louder.

“Hmmm?” Master Uno asked, and then yawned. “I must’ve fallen asleep. I sleep with my eyes open, by the way.”

Master Uno stood up and stretched, then sauntered over to the hole and looked in.

“Nice hole,” Master Uno commented. “Okay, now fill it in.”

“Fill it in?” Luno asked. “Then why did I dig it?”

“Oh, I just like watching people dig holes,” Master Uno said, walking away.

“Then this was all just a big waste of time?” Luno huffed. “Why did I listen to you? I knew it made no sense!”

“Ah! Very good!” said Master Uno. “You’ve learned Lesson Number One—trust your instincts.”

Luno sighed.

*   *   *

An hour later, Master Uno and Luno were sitting cross-legged, side by side on the very peak of Mount Muenster. He instructed Luno to close his eyes.

“See the cheese you want to make,” said Master Uno.

Luno closed his eyes. He shifted and wiggled, trying to picture the perfect cheese, but what would it look like? He’d seen cheese every day of his life at the pizzeria and it all pretty much looked the same to him.

Dozens of cheese wheels, cheese balls, and even cheese sticks floated around in Luno’s brain. For a long time he had no idea what he was looking for until he noticed a hunk hovering far off in the distance of his imagination. Luno focused and drew it closer. It was not entirely round or even square, kind of lopsided really, but he somehow knew, this was his cheese.

Luno’s eyes popped open.

“I think I understand, Master Uno,” Luno said. “I first need to visualize the cheese in order to bring it into existence, right?”

“Oh, I was just asking if you wanted to use a round or square cheese mold,” said Master Uno, “but let’s go with what you just said.”

Luno sighed.

Master Uno explained that the next step was to gather the ingredients.

“Everything you see around us, the monastery, those lemon trees over there, the Mozzarella Monks, even you and me,” Master Uno said to Luno as they approached an orchard, “this is all an illusion.”

“Huh?” asked Luno. “What does that mean?”

“For example,” Master Uno said, picking up a rock, “you only think this is real.”

Then Master Uno dropped the rock on Luno’s foot.

Ouch!

“You only think the pain is real,” he continued. “But pain and fear and that rock, like everything else, young Zorgoochi, are merely illusions. They don’t truly exist.”

“So I imagined that it hurt,” said Luno, rubbing his foot, “and everything around me?”

“Exactly! You must remember that none of this is real and nothing can hurt you, unless you let it.”

Master Uno picked up a much larger different colored rock and said, “Trust me.”

Luno grit his teeth, anticipating the pain to come.

“Most live their lives in fear,” Master Uno said as he dropped the rock on Luno’s foot. It softly bounced off.

Luno picked it up. It was light as a feather. Master Uno grinned and picked up another rock. Luno smiled as Master Uno dropped it on his foot.

“Ouch!” Luno cried. That one was heavy. And painful.

“There’s fear of pain, fear of failure, fear of the unknown, fear of someone dropping a heavy rock on your foot, and in your case, fear of Vlactron, but fear, like everything else, is merely an illusion,” he said, handing Luno a basket. “And I want you to remember while filling this with lemons that you will not be free from fear until you have transcended your ego and let go of this reality.”

Whatever, Luno shrugged.

Luno approached a tree and reached for a lemon, then pulled it off the branch. Before it hit the bottom of the basket, Luno’s eyes were crossed and he was gasping for breath.

“Gak!” Luno struggled to unclench the tree branch wrapped around his throat. Another branch grabbed his feet and turned him upside down. As the tree shook him by the ankles, Luno could see Master Uno waving to him from a safe distance.

“Remember!” smiled Master Uno. “It’s all an illusion!”

Oddly enough, this was not the first time Luno found himself in a situation like this. It wasn’t much different from wrestling the Cosmic Calamari that guarded the Sea Garlic in the giant tank in the kitchen back at the pizzeria.

He wriggled free of the branches.

“Hah!” Luno shouted, triumphantly holding up a lemon, but was soon scooped up by a tree behind him and had to wrestle his way out once again, snatching another lemon in the process. This went on for about an hour, until Luno was crawling back to Master Uno, battered and exhausted, dragging a full basket.

“So? Did you remember that it was all in your mind, young Zorgoochi?” Master Uno asked.

“I think I still need to work on that.” Luno sighed as he collapsed facedown in the grass.

*   *   *

They entered the barn and the moment Bessie saw Luno, her ears perked up and she lovingly wrapped her tail around him and licked him passionately. Blech! Luno somehow preferred the psychotic lemon trees to this.

Once her tail was unraveled, Luno was instructed in the art of milking, which was made all the more difficult by Bessie trying to lick him. Luno learned quickly, mostly because he wanted it to be over with as soon as possible.

Finally finished, he presented a giant bucket of milk to Master Uno.

“Very good, young Zorgoochi,” said Master Uno. “Now, the last ingredient is salt.”

After a day of pointlessly digging and then filling a hole, fighting angry lemon trees, and then being covered in disgusting alien spit, Luno finally cracked.

“Now what?” Luno shouted. “Go into a salt mine with a pickaxe and dig out a hunk of salt, lug it back here, and grind it myself in order to attain higher consciousness or something?”

“No,” Master Uno said, calmly reaching for a nearby shelf. “We keep it in this saltshaker here.”

Luno sighed.

He lugged the sloshing bucket of milk and the basket of lemons to the cheese making room as Master Uno trailed behind with the saltshaker.

“Wake me up when you’ve squeezed the juice from the lemons,” yawned Master Uno.

He did as he was told and, with a twisted, puckered, quivering hand, poked Master Uno awake.

Luno was then instructed to pour the milk into a caldron in the center of the room and to light a fire beneath it. Master Uno handed him a spoon the size of a canoe oar and told him to stir the milk and not to stop.

Luno never thought much about stirring, but according to Master Uno, he had been doing it incorrectly his whole life. No matter how much Luno thought he was following Master Uno’s instructions exactly, he still told Luno he was doing it wrong.

After an hour, Luno’s arms were numb, but fortunately, he was used to this from the thousands of hours he spent with Roog back at the pizzeria trying to perfect the Zorgoochi Pizza Toss.

The milk finally began to bubble around the edges of the caldron and once it was at a full boil, Master Uno asked Luno to douse the fire and pour in the lemon juice.

“That can’t be right,” said Luno. “The lemon juice will curdle the milk!”

“Sometimes the right thing isn’t always the logical thing,” said Master Uno, “but you do it anyway.”

Luno put out the fire and, just to prove him wrong, dumped the lemon juice into the milk. Sure enough, the milk separated and big lumps began to form.

“See?” Luno said.

“The curds are the solid part,” explained Master Uno, once again handing Luno the giant spoon. “And the whey is the liquid part.”

It was disgusting to look at, but Luno stirred, trying to do it exactly as Master Uno showed him, but he still wasn’t mixing it thoroughly enough for him.

“Be the cheese,” Master Uno said. “Imagine yourself as one of those curds separating from the whey.”

As Luno peered into the caldron, Master Uno pushed him in.

Luno thrashed around the warm whey, futilely grasping at the curds and the slippery edges of the caldron, churning the milk.

“Ah, that’s much better!” said Master Uno. “You’re really mixing it up nicely now!”

“I’m also drowning!” Luno gurgled.

“Yes, well, that’s to be expected,” said Master Uno, watching Luno flail about. “Remember, young Zorgoochi, this is all an illusion. You only think you’re drowning.”

“No.” Luno gulped, as he went down for the third time. “I’m pretty sure I’m drowning.”

“Just as the curds separate from the whey and float to the surface, young Zorgoochi,” crooned Master Uno, “you must separate yourself from your fears to ascend to a higher consciousness.”

After a few moments, Luno gave up and sunk to the bottom, holding his breath, something he learned to do from Roog “accidentally” knocking him into a vat of clam sauce (with vicious snapping clams no less), an Olympic-pool-size stewpot full of tomato sauce, as well as into one of the ponds behind the pizzeria full of attacking algae.

Luno rested on the bottom of the caldron and watched the cheese curds lazily pulling away from the whey.

After a few moments, he began to gently float to the surface.

Master Uno reached for Luno’s hand and helped him out.

“Do you understand what I mean now?” Master Uno asked a dripping wet Luno.

“I-I think so,” coughed Luno.

“Good,” said Master Uno. “Now maybe you can explain it to me. I’m a little fuzzy on the whole thing.”

Luno sighed.

*   *   *

They then poured the contents of the caldron through gigantic cheesecloth, separating the lumpy curds from the whey. Luno added salt and dumped the curds into a cheese mold the size of a suitcase.

Lugging the massive mold, Luno followed Master Uno as he entered an opening at the foot of the mountain. It was cold, dark, and quiet down in the Camembert Caverns beneath the monastery. Luno could see his breath.

“Now you must stay with the cheese until it cools,” said Master Uno, walking away. “And remember—”

“Yeah, yeah,” said Luno. “It’s all an illusion.”

“Oh, I was actually going to say try not to freeze to death,” said Master Uno. “But let’s go with what you just said.”

The cavern was cold and the cheese was still warm, so Luno snuggled up next to it and fell asleep.

While he slept, the cheese slowly chilled, leaving Luno shivering, but a few hours later, a shaft of warm light from the rising suns fell on his face. Luno slowly floated up toward semiconsciousness.

You already know what to do, Luno. His father’s voice echoed in his head. Now do it.

Luno’s eyes popped open.

Everything was clear.

He knew that if he didn’t face Vlactron, he would spend the rest of his life hiding from him. Or worse, Vlactron would eventually find the Golden Anchovy and take over the galaxy forever.

Luno knew that the only thing stopping him was fear and that was just an illusion, just like everything else.

At least he really really hoped so.

*   *   *

“I think I understand now, Master Uno,” Luno said, entering the monastery, lugging the giant cheese. Master Uno, Clive, Chooch, and the monks stood up.

“And what is that?” asked Master Uno.

“I must separate the curds from the whey,” Luno said, struggling to put the cheese on the dining table. “And face Vlactron. My fear, just like everything else, is just an illusion.”

“Your training is complete, young Zorgoochi,” announced Master Uno.

Chooch jumped up and down and cheered, “Group hug!”

Once Luno and everyone else were released from Chooch’s loving yet viselike hug, Luno asked, “So have I really learned the Whey of Life, Master Uno?”

“What’re you asking me for?” said Master Uno. “I’m just an illusion.”

Luno sighed.

After a breakfast of (what else?) cheese, they descended the mountain.

By the time they reached the foothills, Chooch had already eaten the ten-pound wheel of Gouda the monks had given him as a going-away gift and Clive had almost completed a new theory about the physics of cheese making.

As they made their way to the delivery pod, Clive asked Master Uno if he and Luno and Chooch had traveled through the wormhole and found Formaggio2, then why hadn’t others?

“Because no one would be stupid enough to fly straight into a black hole?” Nove asked.

“For once, Nove,” said Master Uno, “you are correct.”

Luno thought about this as they walked to the pod, but then stopped dead in his tracks.

“The fan belt!” he said, smacking himself on the forehead. “I still have to fix it!”

“Oh, I took care of that,” said Cinque.

Confused, Luno turned to Master Uno.

“I told you I didn’t know anything about engines.” Master Uno smiled. “I never said he didn’t.”

After another one of Chooch’s painful group hugs, Luno climbed up to the hatch.

“Say cheese!” said Otto.

Luno looked around for a camera, but no one was holding one.

“Oh, we just like saying cheese!” explained Otto.

“CHEESE!” everyone shouted.

Luno stopped himself as he was climbing into the pod.

“Wait a minute!” Luno called to Master Uno. “I got here through a wormhole. I have no idea how to get back!”

“The appropriate course to take would be back through the same wormhole,” said Clive.

“And so you shall!” announced Master Uno. “The boys and I are going to open it for you.”

“How are you able to create a hole in the spacetime continuum?” Clive asked.

“By performing Tele-Swiss-Kinesis,” said Due.

“How do you think we make the holes in Swiss cheese? It’s all mind over Muenster,” Master Uno said. “Now buckle up!”

Once Clive and Chooch bid the monks good-bye and were all in the delivery pod, Luno popped his head out before closing the hatch and waved.

“Remember, young Zorgoochi, it’s all an illusion,” said Master Uno. “But then again, I could be entirely wrong!”

Luno sighed, closed the hatch, and watched the Mozzarella Monks through the windshield as they sat in a circle cross-legged on the ground with their eyes closed.

Suddenly, the sky grew dark and the wind kicked up, blowing Master Uno’s beard sideways. Luno, Clive, and Chooch buckled their seat belts as a massive black hole began to form right above them.

They lifted off and Luno aimed the delivery pod straight into the wormhole.

Then everything went black.