The lizard blinked rapidly, then hit itself in the eyeball with its long, rubbery tongue.
My moon mother had said I had to remember the magic words. And as it was in that tornado story, so too was home a magical word for me. Unlike my moon mother and Sesha, my adoptive parents, Ma and Baba, were completely ordinary and human. Yet they had a magic that came from always being there for me. They weren’t royal, or mystical, or special in any way—except in all the ways that counted. They, not my biological parents, were the ones who raised me, fed me, washed my clothes, made sure I studied, cared for me when I was sick, and tucked me in at night. And there was no place like the home they created for me with their support and love. I just had to get home to them, and they would help me figure out everything. They would help me rescue Lal. They would help me stop Sesha. Suddenly, I wanted to see them, to be with them, so desperately, it made my whole body ache. So this time, when I clicked my heels together, with each click, I said the magic phrase, believing every word.
Click. “There’s no place like home.”
Click. “There’s no place like home.”
Click. “There’s no place like home.”
And with that, everything got misty and wild, and there appeared in front of us the magical shape of …
“A clothes dryer?” shrieked Tuntuni, doubling over with laughter. “You sure you weren’t actually saying ‘There’s no place like a laundromat’?”
“ ‘There’s no place like a clothes hamper’?” chuckled Bunty, and then actually high-fived Tuni. Only Tiktiki One didn’t laugh, bless his buggy-eyed clueless lizard heart.
“I don’t understand.” Had I made this home appliance appear simply by thinking about my parents washing my clothes? What was going on here? I was totally confused until I decided to open the industrial-sized dryer’s giant door.
“Whoa! Check it!” I stared in amazement.
Instead of mismatched socks or white T-shirts dyed pink by a leaky red blouse, a whole universe of colors and shapes swirled inside the machine. Some multicolor galaxies tumbled by at top speed, as did some stars and planets. There were squeaking clouds and shapes, as well as giant forks, spoons, and knives that seemed to be making weird musical noises. I was pretty sure I saw a couple dinosaurs swim by, but they weren’t made of flesh, or even bones, but blocks and flowers and what seemed like origami paper too. Then a worried-looking rabbit ran by, scowling at his pocket watch, and also a little terrier barking at a green-faced witch. A giant polar bear dressed in armor gnashed his teeth at us, before transforming into an exploding bouquet of blue butterflies. There were flying keys and a pen that looked like a sword, and a mouse sailing by in a teapot. This wormhole looked like someone’s dreams after they’d fallen asleep in a library, all different stories jumbled up in their head. Was this because of that story-tangling stuff? And again with those darned blue butterflies! But I couldn’t worry about all that right now; I had to rescue Lal and get him home to his brother. Then, with the help of all my friends, we’d take on my bio dad and whatever evil plans he had cooking.
I gave Bunty a doubtful look. “So this is the part where we get on your back and go through the wormhole, I guess,” I said.
“Pray do so,” said the tiger, pleasantly enough.
And so, Tuntuni and Tiktiki One climbed onto my shoulders as I got on Bunty’s back. The tiger didn’t have a collar or anything on, but a big thick chunk of striped skin at their neck. I held on to this a little tentatively at first, but then harder as, without warning, Bunty jumped from this dimension and into the neon colors of the magical clothes dryer.
At first, it was like being inside a box of rainbow sprinkles. Everything was shining and dizzying and bright. Also, super out of control and out of balance—like the Jersey Shore roller coasters I hated so much. “Whoa!” I yelled, feeling my recently eaten biriyani rise in my throat.
We were running upside down through what looked like some sort of a spaceship, with computer screens and controls everywhere. And then, as Bunty leaped out a hatch, we were in a house that looked remarkably like my own split-level in New Jersey, only with shag carpeting made of grass and a ceiling that hung heavy with stalactites. I held on to Bunty’s neck as the tiger ran out the side door of the house and into what looked like a giant wardrobe. The back of the wardrobe swung open onto a shimmering forest whose trees hung with picture frames, cameras, and old-model cell phones instead of leaves. I almost asked the tiger to slow down so I could pluck one. But before I could tell Bunty anything, the scene changed again and we were surfing on some waves that weren’t made of water but, I guessed, the very fabric of space-time.
“They’re gravitational waves!” Tuntuni trilled, looking terrified. As for me, I felt shiny with excitement.
I smiled at some tiny fellow surfers with itty-bitty surfboards who looked like the workers from that story about the secret chocolate factory. One of the little surfers gave me a whooping hang-ten back. I thought for a moment of Buddhu, Neel’s preposterously laid-back half-monkey brother, and wondered where he and their half-owl brother Bhootoom were.
The scene changed again. Now we were standing at the top edge of an old-fashioned, if unnaturally giant, typewriter. There was a sinister, swirling darkness in between each key that bubbled with something that smelled poisonous. This magical ruby-red-boot-created wormhole was weirder than any other interdimensional traveling experience I’d had so far. But if it was following standard story threads, I knew what facing a giant typewriter meant.
“If this is like other stories I’ve read, we must have to jump from key to key,” I said to Bunty.
“I’m trying, but I can’t!” As the tiger tried to jump to the first row of keys, there seemed to be some sort of invisible force field stopping the beast from making it across the machine. The tiger reached for the T, the Y, and the E, but couldn’t seem to get beyond whatever magic was holding them back. Bunty roared in frustration.
Tiktiki One click-clacked its tongue and rolled its eyes almost 360 degrees around, as if trying to give helpful input, but none of us could understand what it was trying to say.
“I bet we have to spell something—like a magic phrase or word,” I said, vaguely remembering a scene from a story in which people had to do that.
“I know!” yelled Tuntuni. “Something like ‘jadu-kar’ or ‘chi-ching-phak’ or ‘jhuri-jhuri-alu-bhaja’!”
The first two phrases Tuni said meant “magic” and “abracadabra,” but I was pretty sure that last phrase was just describing crunchy french fries. “What about where we’re going?” I said. “Like ‘Parsippany’ or ‘New Jersey’?”
“Indeed, that makes infinitely more sense than jhuri-jhuri-alu-bhaja!” said Bunty, which made Tuntuni sniff in offense.
“I happen to be a little hungry,” said the bird. “Crunchy fried potato strings sound pretty good right now.”
My stomach growled at the thought. Crunchy alu bhaja sounded pretty good to me too.
I was super hopeful about the location suggestions I’d made, but when Bunty tried to jump toward the P or even way down toward the N, nothing seemed to happen. After that, he tried Tuntuni’s words, but those didn’t work either. “Incorrect! Insufficient! Inept!” complained the tiger. “This is worse than the password on my academic departmental computer.”