THE BROTHERS AND THEIR STORIES
Once upon a time, there were two boys named Elliott and Oliver...
This has been the start of hundreds of bed-time stories for two little boys who have come to rely on a new narritive, nightly, in order to transition into slumber. One such story became a continuing one, which eventually became known as the "Cloud Islands Story." This is the tale of the two boys' adventure in the clouds.
The chapters are split into "awake times" for the boys, which is intentional for the sake of reading as a bed-time story. When the boys fall asleep, the chapter ends and a new one picks up when they awake once more.
Elliott is diagnosed with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and Oliver is diagnosed with ADHD (Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder). If your child has a diagnosis of any kind, it is encouraged to convey the strengths that both boys bring to the progress of the story. If your child is typically developing, it is encouraged to talk about the differences in all people and how we all bring something great to the world.
We sincerely hope that you have as much enjoyment and wonder in the Cloud Islands as we did.
Ryan, Elliott, and Oliver
CHAPTER ONE
A low rumbling sound made Elliott’s and Oliver’s eyes open. They turned their heads on their pillows and looked at each other. Elliott whispered to Oliver, “Um, Oliver? Did you hear that?”
Oliver, still half asleep, peeked out with one eye at his brother. There was another deep sound, just loud enough to raise his interest and he lifted his head from his pillow. There was a long moment where everything was still before a loud popping sound came from the ceiling.
“Ok, I know you heard that,” said Elliott.
Oliver’s eyes were wide. He started to answer Elliott, but before he could, there was another rumble. This time the sound shook the room so much that the pictures hanging clanked against the walls.
Elliott and Oliver sat up in bed at the same time. They both glanced around the room, uncertain of what was happening. The room was messy, with toys and clothes scattered on the floor near the door that led to the hallway. The clothes had piled to where the door was shut. Their closet was half open from an overflow of more toys and old children’s books.
There was a sudden crack that sounded directly under the floor below them, startling the boys. Their beds jumped and shifted from the shaking ground.
“Elliott, what’s happening?” Oliver shouted as he leapt from his bed and ran to Elliott’s. He climbed up next to Elliott and clung onto his brother. A crack ran up the wall closest to them and the two boys shouted and huddled close to each other.
Then, there was a sudden jerk of the room upward that sent the two brothers falling back against
Elliott’s bed. The dresser fell to the ground and the closet doors flung open, releasing all the shoes and hanging coats that were kept there onto the floor. Toys, books, and stuffed animals flew around the room wildly. The boys screamed and held onto each other as the bed bounced them up and down.
From outside the closed window of the room, a loud whoosing sound began. A dense, white fog began drifting in from the cracks that were now spreading up the walls. The room filled with dense, humid air, making it difficult for the two to see. The room bent and shifted like it was going to completely break apart.
Then, there was an abrupt crash that came from the roof. Everything in the room jolted upward, including Elliott and Oliver who nearly touched the ceiling before dropping back into the bed.
***
The shaking had stopped. The humid fog drifted in more, filling the room completely. Elliott
and Oliver opened their eyes, coming to from the intensity of the episode. They were afraid and sat still next to each other.
Elliott whispered to his brother next to him, “I think we passed out.”
“I never passed out before,” Oliver, the younger brother, responded.
They waited on something to happen but after some time passed, they looked at each other and assumed that the terrifying episode was over.
Elliott breathed in the humid air. It hurt his lungs and he coughed. Oliver also began coughing and put his pajama shirt over his mouth. When Elliott could speak, he quietly said, “Oliver, we need to get out of here, something’s wrong with this air.”
He coughed some more and Oliver agreed, “Yeah, brother,” Oliver always spoke the term as bruh-der, “we got to go somewhere.”
The two slowly crept from the bed and stood on the floor, carefully making sure the ground, which was now warped upward and cracked all over, would hold their weight without collapsing. Elliott moved carefully toward the door to their room. Oliver clung tightly to him as he did. The two reached the door and carefully began moving clothes away from the door. Elliott then pulled at the door handle.
“Oliver, it’s stuck!” Elliott exclaimed.
“I’ll do it, brother,” Oliver said as he jumped in front of Elliott and took the door handle. he
jerked at it confidently a few times and it finally released from its place. Having it loosed, Oliver flung the door open and the two boys gasped at the sight on the other side. The entire doorway was blocked by a dark-brown rock wall.
Oliver looked up at his brother, “What happed to the rest of the house, bother?”
Elliott touched the rocky wall- it felt cold. He looked around their broken up bedroom, it was dense with the white fog. “Oh!” he yelled, “Let’s check the window.”
The two went to the window across the room from where they were and leaned in, looking through the now dusty glass. It was dark beyond the window, but it appeared that there was a space large enough for the boys to fit through. It was like a dark cave.
Elliott reached up and unlocked the window. It took both boys to lift it open, but with it open, they could see the passageway better. It really was a cave. The white fog was drifting into it and they could only see a few yards in.
“That looks scary, Elliott,” Oliver said.
“I know Oliver,” said Elliott, “but we have to get out of here, the room looks like it’s going to break apart!”
Elliott climbed carefully out of the window and into the narrow cave. It was cold and the stone surface all around was wet, which caused him to slip as he maneuvored into the opening.
Oliver stayed close by reaching up to touch his brother’s pajama bottoms as security.
“Oh wait!” Oliver yelled. His voice echoed deep into the dark of the cave and the boys realized this passageway lead a good distance in. “I got to get my glasses.”
Oliver backed out of the window frame and ran across the room, through the white fog, to retrieve his glasses from next to the overturned nightstand. As he ran back to the window, a loud cracking sound startled him, causing him to leap from the ground and through the window. He crashed into his brother and the two slipped across the slick surface.
As they crawled further into the cave, it became even darker. Oliver clung to Elliott, shivering.
Elliott shivered too, not sure if he was cold or if the shivering was fear. The two boys wore short sleeve shirts with thier pajama bottoms. Elliott still wore his socks, while Oliver was barefoot. The two slowly crept deeper into the dark, damp cave. Elliott put his hands out, using the walls to guide them forward. As they traversed deeper into the passageway, Elliott realized that they were on an incline, moving upward. The angle of the incline became steeper as they progressed forward.
“Elliott, where are we going?” Oliver asked, his teeth chattering.
“I don’t know Oliver,” Elliott replied.
Then Elliott saw a glistening on the rocky surface ahead of them. “Look, Oliver! That must
mean there’s light!”
The two moved faster toward where the glistening was. When they arrived, they were easily
able to find the source of the light. Directly above them, just a few yards up, a narrow opening in the rock revealed a pale light.
“It’s the moon,” Oliver whispered.
“Yeah, but it looks really big from here,” Elliott answered, curious. “How are we going to get up there, though.”
Oliver, being headstrong, jumped from behind Elliott and felt around on the wall. There were grooves everywhere and he easily began climbing toward the light. He had climbed past his brother’s full height when Elliott called to him, “Hey, wait! I don’t know if I can climb that.” Elliott was the more curious and inquisitive of the two, whereas Oliver was the more atheletic and spontaneous.
“You can do it, brother,” Oliver responded, suddenly confident. He didn’t look back down, as he was steady aimed at climbing the wall.
Elliott was more careful finding his footing and climbing the wall. He stuck his body right up against the wall as he climbed, making sure that he had each grip secure. It took him longer to make it up the wall than Oliver. He reached to the final ledge and was surprised that his hand felt a different texture. It was grass.
He pulled himself up and had to lean on his knees for a minute, exhausted from the climb.
He breethed in and out hard. He noticed a strange thing- it felt different breathing.
He looked next to him at his brother, who also seemed to be having some trouble breathing.
Oliver was staring straight up, his eyes wide through his glasses.
“What’s wrong, Oliver?” asked Elliott. But then, he looked up to where Oliver was looking
and gasped. Indeed the light that was shining on them was from the moon, but the moon was three times its usual size and shone brightly on them.
Elliott suddenly found himself breathing quickly, unsure of where he was and what was going on around them. He looked around wildly. They were in a clearing of short grass and the light of the moon glistened across the tops of tall trees near them. There was a sound of whoosing wind rubbing the tree limbs together. Then, the two boys turned at the same time and saw a wonder that frightened them immediately. The clearing led to a cliff just beyond where they stood and below that was an endless sea. This sea was not water, however, it was dense, white clouds stretching as far as they could see.
The oddity was shocking to both of them and they immediately became aware of their breaths. The air was thin and they were having trouble getting enough in their lungs. It made their heads weak and they stumbled onto the ground. Soon, both boy’s eye sight went dark and the sound of the wind went quiet.
CHAPTER TWO
“What in the world are you two kids doing on my island?!” The scruffy voice of an older man barked.
Elliott and Oliver awoke to the poking of a twig at their sides. They started to open their eyes but there was a light shining down on them that was so bright that it hurt to open them. The stick continued poking.
Elliott turned over on his stomach and lifted himself up. Once he could open his eyes, he could see that the grass below them was a dark green. It felt softer than the grass from their backyard. He could also tell from the intensity of the yellow light shining down that it was no longer the moon, but the sun overhead.
“EH?” The scruffy voice continued, “Where’d ya come from?”
Elliott and Oliver sat back and squinted, attempting to see the person addressing them. The bright light made him first appear as just a blurry figure, but as their eyes adjusted, the brothers could see him better. He was short, with broad shoulders. He had a weathered old face with a long grey beard that flowed down to his round belly.
“Well?! Out with it,” he demanded.
Elliott rubbed his eyes quickly and glanced back at him. “Um, I’m Elliott, and this is-” “I’m Oliver,” Oliver interupted.
The old man scratched at his belly, a curious look on his face. “Well, how’d ya get here?”
He talked quickly, as if he couldn’t wait to be done speaking to them. “I take it you two stole a couple stick fliers, huh? I didn’t think they had any sauce up on the learning island- I bet you two stole that too, huh?”
Elliott responded curiously, “What does that mean?”
“What’s a stick flier?” Oliver added.
The old man looked at the two brothers again, a suspicious look coming over his face. Elliott stood and began brushing the loose grass and dirt off of him. “No, we didn’t steal
anything, we were in-” but he stopped short when he looked at the old man. Elliott realized he was the same height as he.
“Yer a tall one too, aren’t ya,” the old man said.
Oliver stood quickly and pressed up against Elliott. He was nervous of the old man.
Elliott put his arm around his brother to calm him. “We were just in our room asleep and, all
of a sudden, our room was pulled up and then we climbed up through that hole,” Elliott pointed at the cave opening next to them as he continued, “and we don’t know how we got here.”
“What do you mean ‘pulled up’?” The old man inquired.
Elliott took a breath before continuing his explanation. The air was still difficult for them to breathe and he caughed every few sentences. “I mean, it seemed like it pulled up our room. I don’t know where the rest of our house went!” He pointed out at the sea of clouds beyond the edge of the cliff. “I don’t know what happened” Elliott motioned a good bit with his hands when he talked, especially when he was upset. “And, we’re kind of scared and don’t know how we’re going to get down to earth below all these clouds and-”
At that, the old man began shaking his head and waving his hands wildly in the air. “No way!” He shouted at Elliott and Oliver, his eyes closed. “Nope, you’re lying for sure! I wondered it, but now I know it! You two are liars! Liars, liars, liars!”
Elliott made an angry expression, “Hey! We’re not lying!”
The old man turned away from them abruptly and began walking. “Nope, nope, nope,” he continued muttering, shaking his head as he walked away from them into the thick woods ahead.
Elliott and Oliver looked at each other curiously. Elliott looked around again, taking in the scenery that they could now see better from the sun’s light. The trees were thick around them and their tops waved back-and-forth in the blowing wind. Oliver turned around and looked behind them at the long span of dense clouds that stretched all the way to the horizon. He noticed the smell of something sweet.
“Brother, I’m hungry,” Oliver said, looking up to his brother. “Somebody’s cooking something.”
Elliott was looking in the direction that the old man had walked. He couldn’t see him any longer, but could still hear his heavy footsteps stomping on downed tree limbs and leaves. Elliott noticed right above the trees, there was a faint line of smoke trailing upward. Someone was cooking.
“Come on, Oliver,” Elliott said, beginning to walk toward where the old man had gone. “We better follow him- we don’t have anywhere else to go.”
The two began walking quickly into the woods. They tried to catch up with the old man, but they couldn’t hear him any longer. The trees shaded the bright sunlight and the boys began to feel lost. They looked around as they walked forward, hoping they were still following the old man. The trees and vines looked different from any that they had seen before. Oliver concentrated on a very large leaf that was growing from a vine as he walked past it. It had flecks of silver and gold glistening from its surface.
Then a small, orange creature quickly ran past them and disappeared behind a tree. The boys stopped in their tracks, unsure what the creature was. They became scared and the trees and vines now seemed threatening.
Oliver pressed up next to Elliott and pulled him by his shirt. The two were breathing heavy from being afraid and the thin air made them light headed. This made the already shaded woods seem even darker.
“Brother, I’m scared,” Oliver said pulling harder on Elliott’s shirt. “And, this air makes me feel funny.”
“Oliver,” Elliott said before taking a strained breath, “you’re making me trip.”
Elliott pulled from Oliver’s grip and the two began walking faster. They then noticed what at first appeared to be a wall, but as they got closer, they realized it was a hill that stretched long across the woods.
Elliott pointed up beyond the top of the hill. “Look, Oliver. It looks like there’s something past there.” He had to force another strained breath before he could continue, “Let’s get up there.” The two began climbing the hill, but as they did, the effort forced their breathing to quicken, making it even more difficult to breathe. Heaving and straining, the two climbed toward the top. As they passed the peak, their weak bodies gave and they tumbled down the other side of the hill.
They were now laying down in a clearing of dark grass. Both Elliott and Oliver coughed and strained from the excitement. The strange air made their heads hurt and their muscles began to become weak. Oliver closed his eyes tightly, his lungs in pain. Elliott’s vision began darkening. Right before he passed out, he saw, a short ways from where they were, at the end of the clearing, there was a castle made of stone with tall pointed ends. He tried to yell toward it, but he was out of breath and the effort of attempting to yell for the old man forced his consiousness to fail. Everything went dark and quiet.
CHAPTER THREE
“Eh-hem.” A forced cough echoed around a small room. It woke Elliott and Oliver who both opened their eyes and stared upward, confused.
They were both lying on their back. They could see up walls of bare, gray stone that climbed high up to a rugged, wooden roof.
“Well, you two been out for a while.” The boys could tell the voice was the old man again. He sounded aggravated.
Elliott groaned as he sat up. His hands felt around him and he noticed that they had been sleeping on a bed of yellow hay.
Oliver sat up quickly and adjusted his glasses. He looked down curiously at himself and then quickly to Elliott. “Brother, what are these clothes?”
Elliott looked down at his clothes and suddenly became uneasy. The panjamas they had been wearing were nowhere around them and, instead, the two were wearing strange outfits that wrapped around them and buttoned at one shoulder. They felt at the leathery material, it was different from the clothes they were used to.
Elliott reached down to the legs of the outfit, they were bunched up to the knee and fastened carefully by a thin rope. “Um, how did we get changed?” He asked.
Elliott and Oliver both looked to the old man who immediately became uncomfortable at the question. He shifted back and forth in the arched opening to the small structure the boys were sitting in. “Uh, no, no,” he looked down as he muttered out his response, “I didn’t mess with yer clothes... It was my wife, Gerta. She said, ‘this just won’t do, they need to dress right.’ And, she when in and sewed them there.”
The brothers just stared at the old man. He huffed loudly and continued, waving his hands as he talked, “I told her not to mess with you two, but she insisted. She said, ‘Gerd, we got two kids here needing help, we can’t just sent ‘em off.’ But-” The old man suddenly became serious and glared at them through one eye, the other eye squinted closed. He pointed acqusingly at them,
alternating the pointing finger from Elliott to Oliver. “I’m watching you two.”
The three of them stayed locked in awkward silence for a moment before the old man
suddenly stood up straighter, changing his demeanor to a more friendly one. “Right, my name’s Gerd.”
There was another long moment of awkward silence before Gerd abruptly turned from them and began walking away. He spoke as he walked, “So, come on, we got to get you two back to Capital Island.”
Elliott and Oliver looked at each other, unsure what to do. Oliver stood quickly and ran out of the stone building after Gerd. Elliott called to him, “Wait, Oliver!”
Elliott stood and followed his brother. Once outside, the scene had changed once again. Elliott’s and Oliver’s attention was immediately drawn to the sky. The sun was shining brightly on one side of the horizon, but faded to dark on the other side of the skyline. Stars could be seen in the dark side of the horizon.
“That’s strange,” Elliott muttered.
Oliver looked down from the sky and pointed to something a short walk from them. He called to Elliott, “Look, brother, a castle!”
The castle was gray stone, like the building they had stepped from. It was obviously very old and had a green mossy substance growing over it’s top. Vines and overgrown bushes surrounded the tall outer towers at the castle’s four corners. There was a small bridge leading to its large entryway and underneath the bridge was a thin stream of clear blue liquid.
Oliver looked up at Elliott, “It’s just like in a Disney movie!”
Elliott was in awe, “I’ve never seen a real castle before.”
Gerd had just reached the base of the bridge when he turned to the boys and yelled to them,
“You two coming or what?”
Elliott and Oliver, realizing that they were just standing there, instinctively responded by
running toward Gerd. As they approached the bridge where Gerd stood, Oliver yelled to him, “Is this your castle?”
Gerd looked up at the old stone castle and then back to Oliver, “Huh? Yeah, me and the misses live here. Been here forever.” He turned and began walking over the bridge as if he couldn’t stand to be near the boys for more than a moment.
Elliott and Oliver followed. Elliott asked, “Wait, what is Capital Island?”
Gerd half turned to them but kept walking as he responded, “Right, you probably don’t call it Capital Island, since you live there. I don’t remember what you all call it.”
“Oh, you said, ‘live there,’” Elliott said. “So, you can take us home.”
Gerd huffed, “That’s what I said, right?”
Oliver turned to Elliott as they walked, “Oh, brother! He’s going to take us home, that’s
good.”
As Gerd walked past the large, wooden doors that lead into the castle, the boys realized that
they weren’t actually entering it. Oliver had a hard time hiding his dissappointment and he huffed and muttered, “Oh man.”
As they walked along the outside walls and around the castle, Elliott looked up, realizing that the castle was much taller than it looked from the small structure that they had slept in. As he was following with his eyes the vines growing on the jagged stones of the castle’s surface, he noticed something in a narrow window that surprised him. There was a short, old woman staring down at him. Her weathered face made deep wrinkles as she smiled down at him through thick, silver locks of hair. When she noticed that Elliott saw her, she waved kindly toward him. Elliott waved back, almost as a reflex. She seemed like a kind woman, but Elliott was unsure who she was and it made him nervous.
The three of them rounded the corner of the castle and began following a rock path that led down a hill and wove a dense group of trees. Though Gerd was able to walk easily over the rocks in the path, which were crudely jamed into the dirt to make a walkway, Elliott and Oliver had trouble keeping their balance and had to be more careful finding their footing. It was obvious that Gerd had walked the path many times before.
“Where are we going,” Oliver inquired.
Gerd huffed again, “Almost there.”
The three of them wove through the thick woods, pushing limbs out of their way so that they could continue. After a short walk, Gerd pushed a large limb out of the way and held if for the boys to see what was ahead. Just ahead of the path, there was another grassy clearing that ended in cliff. Only clouds could be seen beyond the edge of the cliff.
Oliver pointed at a clay well in the center of the small clearing. Several strange poles leaned against it. “What’s that?” he asked.
The boys continued into the clearing toward the well and Gerd let go of the branch he was holding back. He walked past them to the well and pulled up a rope that was draped over its side, running down into it. He continued pulling until he had the bucket at the end of the rope up and set on the edge of the well. There was a ladle already in the bucket and Gerd stirred a silvery liquid that glistened like diamonds within the bucket.
“This here’s my well.” He pulled up the ladle and nodded toward the liquid in it. “And this here... well, I don’t know what you people call it, but we call it ‘lite juice,’ or ‘the sauce.’” He took a big gulp and retrieved some more with the ladle. He then held the full ladle toward the brothers.
Elliott and Oliver were unsure of what to do or why he wanted them to drink the strange liquid. Gerd only waited a moment before sighing, “Well, come on, we got to get going.”
Oliver, feeling very thirsty, ran down and quickly gulped the liquid, taking all that was in the ladle. Elliott jumped, his hands out toward Oliver, “Oliver! What are you doing?”
Oliver turned to his brother. He had a curious look on his face as if he didn’t wonder if he should or shouldn’t drink the liquid. Then, he shrugged and answered his brother, “It tastes like grape juice.”
Elliott walked slowly over to the well as Gerd scooped another ladle-full of “the sauce.” Elliott was uneasy about the prospect of drinking it and reasoned with Gerd, “I’m probably allergic to that.”
“Can’t be,” Gerd returned. “It ain’t nuthin’ to it.”
Elliott leaned over the ladle and nervously looked into the strange swirling liquid. He leaned closer to smell it to see if it actually smelled like grape juice. He started to ask about what it was, but when he opened his mouth to speak, Gerd quickly stuck the ladle in his mouth, forcing Elliott to swallow a good bit of it.
Elliott fell back and coughed, spitting out what he didn’t swallow of the liquid into the grass.
“Ugh, why did you do that?” He yelled.
He breethed in hard, the air was still bothering him and made him cough worse. He sat on
the ground and waited to catch his breath. As he sat there, he began to feel very light.
“Uh, brother?” Oliver called, a strange look on his face.
Elliott looked up at his brother and saw a strange sight. Oliver was standing on his tip toes
and then his feet left the ground. He was floating!
Gerd was inspecting the poles that were lined up at the side of the well and took three from
the others as he muttered, “Alright, these will work.” He hoped to Oliver, his body moving up and down slowly like there was little gravity pulling at him.
Oliver laughed, “Look brother, it’s like we’re on the moon!”
Elliott then looked down to see that he, too, was starting to lift off of the ground.
Gerd took one of the poles from the three and roughly tapped the end on the ground below
them. When he did, three blades shot up from the top of it like tools in a Swiss Army knife. He used his foot to release a hook from the bottom of the pole he had in hand and grabbed Oliver’s foot, securing it into the hook. As Oliver put his arm around the pole, his hand met a handle and, as he grabbed the handle, the blades at the top began spinning.
“Uh, Elliott?” Oliver said nervously. He started to lift higher off the ground and yelled to his brother for help.
Elliott tried to stand to run to him, but he was floating just above the ground and couldn’t reach the ground to run. Gerd thrusted one of the pole devices into Elliott’s arms and the blades immediately began spinning. Elliott clung to the pole and began to lift higher. Gerd grabbed his leg and pulled him down just long enough to secure his foot into the hook at the device’s base. Gerd then let go and Elliott flew up next to his brother. The two awkwardly glided toward and away from each other in the air. The sound of the wind roared around them.
Gerd then flew up on one of helicoptor-like poles and, seeing their awkward movements, called out to them, “Boy, you two really don’t know how to use a stick flier, do ya?”
Oliver pulled back and began flying quickly toward Gerd. He screamed, thinking he was going to crash into him. Gerd quickly maneuvored the flying machine out of the way, allowing Oliver to pass.
“Alright, get a hold of yerselves,” Gerd yelled. “Just lean where you want to go. We need to hurry- you know, the sauce don’t last forever.” Then, Gerd leaned intently from them and started flying away from the land that they had flew up from.
Elliott was afraid and looked down at the land, which was now far below them. “Oliver!” he yelled. “We have to go toward him! He’s leaving us! We don’t want to fall, we can’t fall! It’s too far down!”
Oliver was moving in every direction and suddenly darted in the direction that Gerd was moving. Elliott yelled for him and, as he did, he reflexively leaned toward them, which caused his flier to move in their direction.
“Whoa,” he yelled as he clung tighter to the pole, his foot secured in the stand at its bottom. As he moved he looked back at the land that they were flying from. To his amazement, the land was an island of green floating in an ocean of clouds. There were tall poles with propellors at the tops of them jutting out all over the ends of the island. The propellors were all spinning at an even speed, seemingly in synch with each other.
“What? Is that what’s keeping it floating in the air?” Elliott said aloud. He tried to see their bedroom or any part of their house from the Earth, stuck in the bottom of the island, but the clouds hid everything below where they started.
His flying pole made a squeeling sound and Elliott clung tighter, turning his attention back toward Oliver and Gerd flying just a little ahead of he. The sound only lasted for a second, but it was enough to cause Elliott to feel panicked. He was worried that they would get too far ahead of he, so he tried leaning forward more, which caused the blades of the flying pole to move faster, sending him to moving faster toward them. Now he was worried that he was going to crash into them, which made him lean back, causing the propellors to spin slower, dropping altitude. He yelped, trying to maintain control of the flying device.
Gerd her him and yelled back at him, “Hey, quit messing around, it’s just up ahead.”
As soon as he said it, Oliver noticed a small something up ahead of them. It looked out of place in the clouds. As they moved closer to the mass, Oliver squinted to see, as it was difficult to look directly with the wind hitting their faces. Soon, however, the details of the land before them became more apparent. It also became apparent that it was no small mass at all, and they were moving very quickly toward it.
“Look, brother!” Oliver yelled.
Elliott had shut his eyes, afraid. Fortunately, his stiffened body leaned just enough ahead that the proppellor spun faster, lifting him higher. Elliott was flying just below Oliver and Gerd when he cautiously peeked to see what his brother was calling his attention to.
The first thing he saw ahead was the tall, gray mountain. It’s top was covered in snow and it jutted out of the center of another island in the clouds. This one was much bigger than the one the boys had left, however, and appeared to have much more built on its surface.
Spanning all the way around the mountain was a castle. From where they were looking, at the left end of castle, there was a large tower with a circular stained glass window on it. Elliott figured that the glass window had to be enormous to be seen in such detail from as far away as they were. From the detail he could see, he figured they were still over a mile away.
The island had arms of land that reached out in four directions, like an uneven compass. Elliott noticed that this island also had those long, cyllindrical structures with propellors at their tops positioned all around its edges, even running along the arms of the island.
Elliott was studying the strange structures at different places on the island, all jutting from openings in the trees and natural growth on the island. He followed with his eyes the cliffs of the island and how the island’s bottom half dissappeared into the clouds below. Then he realized that they were flying too quickly toward the island.
“Hey, um, Gerd?” Elliott yelled through the rushing sound of wind.
“Almost there,” he responded.
Elliott tried to lean to make his ‘flying stick’ move up closer to Gerd. When he couldn’t gain
control, he yelled louder, “How are we going to land?”
As he spoke, Oliver started looking down at the clouds below them. He spoke with uncertainty, “I feel heavy again.”
Gerd glanced over at Oliver and pointed toward the island ahead. “Alright, sauce is wearin’
off. We’re gonna have to lean in and go faster.” Without waiting on the boys, he leaned in, his small, round frame somehow taking full control of the propelling device.
Oliver, in alarm, leaned hard toward the island, causing his flying stick to speed too quickly. He flew right past Gerd who yelled for him to lean back.
Elliott, too, began feeling the weight of his body return and the flying stick beginning to descent. He was hesitant to lean in, but realized that, at the distance he was from the island’s edge and the rate he was descending, if he didn’t lean now, he might not make it to the island.
He closed his eyes as he leaned and felt the stick accelerate rapidly. He caught up with Oliver in no time and opened his eyes just in time to see that the two brother’s were about to crash onto the edge of the island.
“Pull back!” They could hear Gerd yell. The two brothers leaned back as hard as they both could, which caused the devices to spin them out of control. Elliott looked down toward the ground, which he was now over, wildly shifting to-and-fro above. There were patches of grass on top of sand and large boulders were scattered around. He tried maneuvering the descending device away from where the boulders were, but as he became close to the ground, he had no choice but to let go of the flying stick. He hit hard into a sandy spot and his body tumbled over several times.
Oliver also tried to miss the boulders, which sent his flying stick into a frenzy, even turning him upside down at one point. The end of his device came down and drug against the grass before hitting a small stone, which forced Oliver to fall from the stick and tumble across the ground in the grass. The flying stick, released from his control spun quickly onward, digging up the ground until it crashed into a nearby tree. It fell down to the ground and the propellor blades spun and paused a couple of times before stopping motion completely.
Gerd gently drifted down to a small patch of grass, his propellor blades slowing steadily. As he touched down to land, he tapped the end of the flying stick once on the ground and the propellor blades fell down and snapped into its surface making it appear once more as just a pole.
“Gees, you two are bad at this,” Gerd said, unaffected by the boys pain from the rough landing.
Elliott and Oliver groaned as they stood. They heaved in strained breaths, adrenalin still racing through their veins. As they rose, they looked around at the new island- it was much bigger than Gerd’s island that they had left. From the edge, they could only see the top of the main tower of the castle with the stained glass window and the towering mountain next to it. The trees covered everything else. Elliott considered the size of the great mountain and the tower in view compared with how the island looked from the sky and figured there must be several miles of land all around. He looked behind and the never-ending sea of clouds were even more daunting.
The boys could hear an ongoing squeaking sound and they turned their attention upward to see one of the great propellors that lined the edges of the islands spinning just a little ways from them. The surface of the tall, cyllindrical structure oddly appeared to be made of whethered old stone.
As Gerd approached, Elliott questioned through strained breaths, “Do those propellors hold the island up?”
At the question, Gerd became suspicious once more. “Why do you ask that? Of course they do, just as they always have. That and the sauce all down in the islands.”
Oliver ran up to Elliott and Gerd. He was coughing and stumbled as he came near. Hearing the conversation he interjected, “Islands? There’s more of them?”
Gerd stepped back from them. He appeared anxious.
Elliott and Oliver, at the same time, leaned over, putting their hands on their knees. It was hard to breathe here, too.
“Why is it hard to breathe here?” Oliver asked.
Gerd looked from Oliver to Elliott and back rapidly. “What do you mean? You act like you never been here. This is Capital Island.”
“What’s Capital Island?” Elliott asked, taking a hard breath after.
“What?!” Gerd yelled. “Gerta was sure you two were from here, with yer eccentric clothes and- and- and yer tall...” Gerd motioned at the two, “tallness!”
Oliver fell down to the grass, trying to catch his breath. Elliott strained to talk. “No, I told you- we’re from Earth, down below these clouds.”
Gerd, at that, put his hands over his ears and yelled, “Nope! You two are liars and I won’t listen to it! There’s nothin’ below the clouds and everybody knows that!”
Elliott also sat down on the ground. He coughed as he responded to Gerd. “We’re not lying! We live in a house and something happened and we got pulled up through the clouds-”
Gerd shook his head wildly. “Nope, nope, nope. You two are trying to trick me and I won’t have it!”
Oliver leaned down onto the ground and curled up, holding his chest, his lungs burned. Elliott also fell back onto the ground, laying flat on his back. He looked up at the sky and, as his vision became dark, he could see that, though the sun was still setting on the far horizon, stars and the shine of the moon could be clearly seen on the other end of the horizon. It was a strange sky, unlike Elliott had ever seen.
The noise of the wind and the squeaking of the large propellor overhead began to fade. Elliott could still hear Gerd yelling at them. Just before his hearing finally silenced, Elliott could hear Gerd yelling, “I’m going to tell the Queen!”