That morning, if the inhabitants of New Jersey had looked up from their shoe-shines, they might have seen, in the sky above them, a strange, shingled rocket supported from the bottom of a jet with a large silver girdle. This was Jasper Dash’s remarkable Gyroscopic Sky Suite. It was well on its way to Delaware.
Inside, in the expertly riveted control room, our three heroes were lost in their own thoughts. They gazed in different directions: at the oxygen tanks, or the dials, or the pedals.
Jasper was full of worry for his friends at the monastery of Vbngoom, the gentle monks, but he was also glad to be going back to a place he loved, where he knew what was what and people didn’t rag him cruelly for having come up with a dandy new invention.
Lily was excited, though the only way she showed it was by jamming her fingers into the heels of her sneakers and wriggling them as she sat, hunched over, on a swivel chair. She didn’t know what to expect, but she was very glad to be along for the ride.
Katie, on the other hand, was mainly irritated. She was sick of boys’ pride, the way boys could be so conceited. Especially certain athletic boys named like prep schools. And she was angry that she—who had outwitted giant brains and outrun giant centipedes—actually cared what a boy thought. She was mad at herself, and bunched up her lips in frustration.
Lights on the control panel flashed softly. Jasper checked a map and called instructions into the command snorkel.
Lily asked him, “Are we headed for the monastery in the mountains right now?”
“Mountains,” muttered Katie.
“No, Lily,” Jasper answered. “The location of the monastery is so secret that even I do not know where it lies. Vbngoom, the Platter of Heaven, is shrouded in mystery. We will have to land in Dover, often called the capital of Delaware, and find a guide. From there, we will head into the jungle. We will attempt to retrace my steps from the last time I found the monastery.”
“Jungle,” muttered Katie. She pinched a toggle switch hard between her fingers, just to have something to pinch.
“I worry, however,” mused Jasper. “There is an ancient myth that Vbngoom moves at times of trouble from mountain to mountain. Who knows where it lies now? Who knows how we shall find it?”
Jasper peered into the Oculo-Scope and made some adjustments to cranks and dials. He said solemnly, “We are passing into Delaware.” He reached over and opened the iron shutters so the girls could see out of the portholes.
They were in the shadows of the mountains. The clouds strayed between the white peaks, and the airborne Sky Suite itself was no higher than those icy bluffs and frigid cliffs. Down below, deep in the valleys, lay forests and rivers, the haunt of panther and serpent. Lily caught sight of ruined aqueducts and vine-covered towers, ziggurat steps moldering in the lush undergrowth.
“New Castle County,” Jasper said. He sighed and laid his head against the metal wall. “We face great challenges, fellows, and great danger. Below us lies a realm of wonders and terrors, a land that time forgot, or chose specifically not to remember.” He gestured out the window to the peaks and crags. “For one hundred years, Delaware has been cut off from the other states, isolated completely as a result of its overpriced and prohibitive interstate highway tolls. For one hundred years, almost no one has gone in or come out. Only the bravest of explorers have penetrated this exotic land. We must take care not to attract the attention of the cruel tyrant who rules this state—”
Katie had been wrapping an oxygen tube around her wrist in sheer irritation for the last several minutes and now could stand to listen no longer. “You mean the governor?” she demanded. “The governor of Delaware?”
Jasper said quietly, “No, Katie. Much worse than that. Thirty-two years ago, the governor of Delaware was chased out by a crazed military dictator, who now rules from Dover with an iron fist—a man known only as His Terrifying Majesty, the Awful and Adorable Autarch of Dagsboro.”
Jasper peered again into the Oculo-Scope and made some adjustments on the control panel. He said, “Recently, a few tourists have been allowed in under strict government supervision. But we don’t want the tyrant’s eyes upon us. He would love to get his hands on the monastery of Vbngoom, and we must make sure that he can’t follow us there. If he were to find the monastery, he could force the monks to show him how they gained their sacred psychic powers. Why, then he could be even more cruel and tyrannical than he is now.
“I hope that by attaching the Sky Suite disguised to one of the hotels in the capital, we might evade the notice of the Autarch and his goons. That way we can explore the jungle without the Ministry of Silence interfering.”
“The Ministry of Silence?!” said Lily.
“That is the name the Adorable Autarch of Dagsboro has given his spies. Beware of them. They are everywhere in the capital. Closets. Secret rooms. The tap water.”
“Okay,” said Katie, “I really am only going to say this one time. There is a governor of Delaware, there is no such thing as the Ministry of Silence, there is no way spies could be in the tap water, and there are no—hear me—no no no mountains in—”
“Behold: Dover. Capital of Delaware,” said Jasper.
Its domes and minarets lay before them, glowing gold in the sunlight amid the hanging gardens, the pleasant palaces, the spired roofs of ancient temples; in the harbor, the purple-sailed ships of Wilmington plied the waves, and the dragon-headed prows of the barbarian kingdoms to the south dipped their oars in wrinkled waters while plesiosaurs turned capers at their sides. The Zeppelin-Lords of frosty Elsmere drifted above the city, their balloons gilded with the tropical sun, eating sherbet on their porphyry verandas. Huge tortoises fifteen feet across lumbered through the widest avenues, carrying nomads’ tents upon their backs. Processions wandering through the streets glittered with gold and ancient costumery. But everything was not beautiful: Katie and Lily saw also the huge cement housing blocks looking burnt and desolate, where the hapless citizens lived in fear of their ruler. They saw the brown rivers, the broken factories, the Autarch’s armies drilling on a baseball field.
They saw the lovely and the awful, the jeweled and the broken, the noble and the sad. In short, they saw Dover.
“I think,” said Lily, “we better let Jasper just tell us what’s what.”
Katie nodded with her mouth wide open. “Yeah…,” she said slowly. “Yeaaaaaaah.”
Jasper was all business. “Now, fellows, time to attach the Sky Suite to the side of a hotel. We’ve got to be careful. If we attract attention, it will make our trip to Vbngoom all the harder. There will be government agents everywhere.”
He spoke into the snorkel to the robot in the jet above them, calling out numbers and directions. “Adjust thirty-four point nine! Modulate to the plane of the ecliptic point oh oh seven! Prepare to disengage zirconium girdle!” He turned to the girls. “Hold on to your seats, chaps. You may recall that there is a little bump when the Sky Suite—”
“Oh no,” said Katie. “I remember.”
“Oh, gosh,” said Lily.
“Oh, wowzers,” said Katie. There was a click. “Oh, help. Oh, help. Oh—” But Katie didn’t finish her sentence. Because they suddenly were falling and screaming—and their bellies were flipping around like trout in a washer—and they saw a cheap cement government hotel spiraling toward them—streaked with soot—and then—
They opened their eyes. Katie coughed. Lily blew the hair out of her eyes. Jasper smiled. “Jupiter’s moons,” he said, “we’ve done it. We’re attached. We’ve clamped on to the wall. We are now rooms twenty-three A through E of the Dupontville Fine Excellent View Stay Hotel, Dover. We have landed in utmost secrecy.”
There was a cracking. There was a popping.
With a scream, with a crash, with a horrible bump, they fell again.
The Dupontville Fine Excellent View Stay Hotel had not been built very well. The Gyroscopic Sky Suite had just pulled down the whole wall of the place on top of it.
