Downside Up by Richard Scrimger

Author:Richard Scrimger
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tundra
Published: 2016-09-13T04:00:00+00:00

Izzy didn’t believe it. Not any part of it. Not the upside-down part or the sewer portal or the things that were there that were not here. It didn’t make sense, she said. None at all. It was stupid. A fantasy. A dream.

But she kept asking questions.

“And the house there looks just like this one, Fred? Kitchen, hallway, living room, bedrooms upstairs?”

She looked around wildly.

“Just like this,” I told her.

“Except that he’s alive there.”

“Except that, yeah. Casey’s alive”

She blinked, turned to Elvira. “And you say the same thing? Your farm was the same and your horse was there?”

“Yeah.”

“Crap!” said Izzy. “That is total crap. You’re both lying.”

Elvira went to the living room and looked out.

“It’s a beautiful evening,” she said. “Let’s go for a walk.”

So we went outside and walked down our narrow crowded street past the parked cars and the porches with old people sitting. The sun was down, but it wasn’t dark yet. Birds flitted around. Or maybe they were bats. The cars that drove past had their lights on. Someone was barbecuing.

“So the world down there is full of the stuff we’re missing?” said Izzy. “Stuff we lost? Do you know how stupid that sounds?”

“All I know is Pushkin was there,” said Elvira. “And Fred’s dog.”

“And what’s that about the tennis ball?”

“I think that’s how you get there. You keep something that’s part of what you are missing—like Fred’s ball belonged to his dog—and the thing pulls you to the other world. Casey’s tennis ball drew Fred. My flashlight came from the barn.”

Huh, I thought. Maybe that was how come the portal could lead to more than one place in the upside-down world. The tennis ball drew me toward Casey. The flashlight drew Elvira to her horse.

Izzy shook her head. “It still sounds like crap.”

—

We were walking east on Wright Avenue. The look of the street changed at Sorauren. Houses on this side of the street, old factories and offices on the far side. Elvira’s hair looked silver under the streetlights. Izzy hadn’t said anything in a while. Now, out of nowhere, she shouldered me into a parked car.

“Why?” she asked.

“What?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

I didn’t know what to say to my big sister. She wouldn’t have believed me. She didn’t even believe me now.

“You never liked Casey,” I said.

“Did you tell anyone? Dr. Nussbaum?”

I shook my head.

“Did you?” she asked Elvira.

“I told my parents, but not like it happened. I knew how weird it sounded, so I made it seem like I was making it up. Like it was a story, a dream.”

The pressure was increasing. Something was about to burst out of me.

We crossed Sorauren. A man walked toward us, pulling a wagon with two little kids in it. The man was making barnyard noises and the kids were guessing them wrong. He went baaaaaa, and the little boy said chicken. Then he went moooo, and the little girl said chicken. Then he went pawk, pawk, pawk. The little boy paused and then said cow. And they all giggled hysterically.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.