THE PHOSPHORESCENT WOMBAT, PART II

Three years went by.

By the time Rosie had stored her bike in the attic and had started driving a VW bug, Luna was more green than she was brown, and when the sun set, her fur provided the same illumination as a weak streetlight. Hollywood producer Hal Hawson drafted a new contract, and it contained a clause.

Should aforementioned wombat glow any greener, or should her wombat fur glow any brighter, then we reserve the right to void the contract.

Aforementioned wombat did glow greener and her fur did glow brighter, but the contract remained intact. Pocketful of Hullabaloo was now a hit, and not because of the skeet-shooting grandmothers or the scat-singing unicyclists who graced its stage, but because of the tuxedoed wombat who sat on a pillar in the back and shone like a Christmas bulb and reminded the world that there are still strange and wondrous things.

And yet all things, even strange and wondrous ones, lose their luster with time. They always do.

Fifteen more years went by.

Rosie and Hamish’s parents perished in a freak ballooning accident over the Sahara and their bodies were never recovered. Rosie fell into a depression and then into love. She married a baker named Pedro who was a wizard with sourdough, and they left town to live by the sea. While it pained Rosie to be away from Luna, she couldn’t bring the wombat with her.

“We want to have children,” Pedro said. “I’m not sure they’d be safe around Luna. She might be radioactive.”

Even though Luna had passed countless physicals, Rosie had to agree. They didn’t know the source of Luna’s light, so they didn’t know if it was dangerous to children.

Hamish was not a child anymore, so he took on the danger himself and took over watching Luna, shuffling her back and forth to the studio in a tiny red sports car he bought with money from the Sunfirst bank account. He always insisted that Luna stay in the trunk, because her light was blinding when reflected in the rearview mirror.

Pocketful of Hullabaloo was not the hit it once was. Luna’s luminosity, for years the major attraction, was beginning to inspire channel-surfing. She resembled a wombat less and less each day. By spring of her eighteenth year on the show, Luna looked like a green orb, resting atop the pillar. The fabulous Mr. Nickelsworth, short legs, wiggly nose, and all, was a memory, and there were only so many times people would tune in to see sword-swallowing Siamese twins on roller skates.

The show was canceled that autumn.

It didn’t bother Luna. She was tiring of the job, because she was changing. Not her body so much as her mind. Yes, the increasing glow of her fur made her resemble an orb that expanded day by day, but she was like the filament of a lightbulb. Her actual body was still a wombat body, and it hadn’t grown even a millimeter. The glow had simply gotten bigger, denser, impenetrable to the naked eye.

The more significant change was happening in her brain. She was becoming curious about the pictures and symbols she saw along roadways, in libraries, and on television screens. She knew they were trying to tell her something. But what? Surely that there was more to the world than being Mr. Nickelsworth.

By constantly listening and watching, she learned what many words and gestures meant. She understood communication, and even though she wanted to respond with wiggles and winks, no one could see her features anymore. The glow was too bright. Of course, Luna could see the entire world as clearly as ever. Her gaze cut through the glow, and it was only when she fixed it on a mirror that she would see herself as the world saw her.

People assumed she was blazing hot, like a coal from a barbecue pit. Animals trusted their instinctual fear of fire and kept their distance. The truth was, she was cool to the touch. She could be hugged, scratched behind the ear, placed in the shower, and lifted into bicycle baskets and car trunks. Hamish knew this. Everyone else didn’t.

After the show was canceled, the government expressed some interest in studying Luna, but Hamish couldn’t bear to give her up. So he cleared out the bank account and snuck the two of them off to a farm many miles from the studio. Only Rosie knew where they were, and she came to visit every once in a while—always alone, though, which meant Hamish didn’t get to spend any time with her children, his new niece and nephew. There were no other family and friends to speak of, and so Hamish grew fond of Luna in ways he never had before. Even though he couldn’t really see her anymore, he knew there was a heart at the center of that glow. He could sense there was a brain.

Luna spent most of her time in the barn, where there were stacks of cardboard boxes full of old letters and magazines. At first, she only liked looking at the colorful pictures, but eventually she was drawn to the black lines that covered most of the pages.

These, she would one day learn, were called letters. She tried to reproduce them by moving stalks of straw with her mouth and dropping them on the floor of the barn. Before long, she could do the entire alphabet. Then she moved on to words. Order didn’t matter to her at first. ART was the same as TAR was the same as RAT. These, she would one day learn, were called anagrams. They had different meanings, but she didn’t know that quite yet.

While Luna was learning to read and write, Hamish rarely came into the barn. The glow was too much, even for him. He would hover near the door, at the edge of the ever-expanding glow, and he would lob fruit, turkey legs, and cheese balls to Luna.

For a time, Hamish read her bedtime stories, but as the glow expanded, the distance between the two increased. It became too much of a strain to shout such long tales, so Hamish would simply stand on the edge of the glow and holler the same good-night message.

“Miss you, little girl. Be good now.”

Luna missed Hamish as well, but being the polite wombat that she was, she stayed away from the house. She knew her presence was far too distracting. Even when she tried to blot out the light—by rolling in mud or covering herself in a ratty old horse blanket—it always found its way through.

*   *   *

It was high noon the day a blindfolded Hamish came for Luna. It had been years since Hamish had even picked her up, since he’d scratched her ear, since he’d given her a shower. It had been nearly as long since Luna had seen Hamish up close. Hamish was old. His skin was painted with brown and purple splotches. His posture was bad.

“Come into my arms, old pal,” he said.

Luna did as asked. It felt different from before. Hamish was weaker, but it was more than that. Hamish held on to her as if he never wanted to let her go.

“Lead me to the car,” Hamish said, because he knew that Luna understood at least a few things. “Nibble once if I should move left and nibble twice for right. Nuzzle once for forward and nuzzle twice for backward. Can you do that?”

Luna nuzzled once and Hamish was off. She nibbled and nuzzled as the two made their way out of the barn. “Faster, buddy,” Hamish said. “The blindfold is hardly working. My eyes won’t be able to take it much longer.”

So Luna sped up her nibbles and nuzzles as best she could and led Hamish to that tiny old red sports car that sat in the dirt driveway. Its skin was like Hamish’s skin, but the blotches were rust.

As Hamish lowered Luna into the trunk, he told her, “We’ve managed to keep the government at bay, and perhaps they’ve forgotten about you, but I can only imagine what they’d think of you now that you’re so bright. I’ve done my best to hide you, but you’re bound to be detected here. We’ll get you somewhere safer, old friend.”

The car rumbled down the country road, and Luna tried to imagine what the landscape outside of the trunk looked like. She tried to conjure memories of sitting in the bike basket. And as she was lost in thought, she felt the ground drop out beneath them and the car take a plunge.

For years, she would think about what caused it. Had her glow penetrated the trunk and filled the car with a blinding light? Had Hamish’s eyes given out? Had Hamish himself given out and decided to let go of the wheel?

When all was said and done, though, it didn’t really matter. What mattered is the car fell hundreds of feet, tumbled like a toy into a deep ravine, tore apart, caught flame, and killed Hamish in an instant, crushed him, burned him, and made him unrecognizable.

But it didn’t do a thing, not a single thing, to hurt Luna.

TO BE CONTINUED …