"You got lost, too?" asked a young woman who was holding her baby close to her chest.
"Yes, we did," said Sharon. "So we aren't the only ones?"
"News report says that 63% of the population got lost today," said a teenager with a walkman headset covering his ears. "Another report says all the maps worked perfectly."
"You can't believe what you hear on the radio," said the disgruntled old woman who kept on tearing her map into smaller and smaller shreds.
"I couldn't read my map noways," said an elderly man with a stubble of beard on his chin, "so I tried following my nose like I always does and I got arrested for following my nose that I could read instead of following the map I couldn't read."
"I tried to follow my map around the university," said a thin man with a well-trimmed goatee, "and by the time I was arrested, I had found every department except the Department of Literate literature."
"Where were you trying to get to with that map?" Gerald asked the woman who was all wrapped up in hers.
"I asked for the way to Foxborough Court at what I thought was a World CUP System booth, and the man gave me this map of the whole world."
"And then she got arrested for possession of an illegal map," said the man, "since no single map can contain the whole World CUP System except theirs."
"Someday she'll be out of this world," said one of the scruffy boys, drawing laughter from several children.
"I was looking for the baby food store to feed my baby," said the woman, still clasping her little child to her chest. As if on cue, the child let out a long wail.
"So you still haven't fed it?" asked Sharon.
"'Fraid not."
A bit reluctantly, Gerald checked his bag of candy. There was one piece of chocolate left. When Sharon nodded to him, he even more reluctantly offered the chocolate to the mother.
"Maybe this will melt in your baby's mouth," he suggested. "It's milk chocolate."
"Thank you ever so much," said the mother as she took the chocolate, tore off a piece, and carefully placed it in the baby's mouth. The baby stopped crying.
"I was looking for Vivaldi's String Instrument Shop," said a forlorn man with gray hair down his shoulders and a violin in his hand with one string broken, "only my map made a dead end at Ratsfeet Alley."
"There's rats in here, too," said a rough-looking boy.
Sharon let out a squeak and almost tripped over Gerald. The boy and a few other of the children giggled at Sharon's discomfort.
"Rats aren't on the maps," said the boy with a mock straight face, "so there aren't any."
"But they still bite," said another boy who looked even scruffier than the first.
Cold and damp as the floor was, Sharon soon became too weary to stay on her feet. Much as she hated to soil her nice dress, she sat down next to Gerald who, apparently beyond caring about his school uniform, had already plopped himself down and spread the parchment map over his knees.
"My parents are going to be worried about me pretty soon," Sharon complained, as she thought of the breakfast room and the hutch up against the wall.
"Mine won't," Gerald mumbled.
"Why not? Don't they care about you?"
"Yea. They work all the time, so I can have everything I want and go to the school I want. A lot of good that does now that I can't find it anymore. Dad works sixteen hours a day at Sunset Megacorporated and Mom works fourteen hours at Shoe-Shoe Lace Discorporated. It'll take days before they find out I haven't been home."
Sharon did not know what to say about that, so she said nothing. She looked over Gerald's shoulder at the map. It looked quite different from what she remembered of it when she first bought it.
"Is the map changing again?" Sharon asked.
Gerald grunted affirmatively.
A young man dressed in a coat and tie, who seemed to have tightened every muscle in his body, sauntered over looked casually down at the map. When he saw it, his eyes almost popped out.
"What is that map doing here?" he demanded.
"Guiding us out of here, if I can figure it out," Gerald answered.
"But that map is illegal," the man protested.
"That's what the judge said," Gerald replied.
"Now I know how I got lost!" exclaimed the man.
Several other people crowded around Gerald and Sharon.
"This is how we all got lost!" cried a woman who wore a pearl necklace. "This map must have thrown a monkey wrench into everything!"
"Why look!"cried the professor, "that tree is on this map!"
"What tree?" asked a woman.
"That tree that thinks it's so good it can grow anywhere it pleases and insinuate itself on any illegal map that takes its fancy," said the professor. "Why, I ran right into that tree while I was trying to follow my map to my class at the university. I have a sore nose to prove it, too."
"That tree blocked the way to a gang fight I was going to," added one of the scruffy boys.
"Yea," said a teen-age girl. "that tree got right in my way, too. So you're the one who planted that tree and wrecked my map."
"Tear them apart!" cried out another boy, "these are the ones who got all of us in jail!"
Suddenly most of the prisoners were surrounding Sharon and Gerald with angry faces.
"My watch has been inaccurate every since you opened that map in this government-sponsored accommodation," said the man with the golden stop watch.
"GET 'EM!" cried a boy.
All the people in the prison cried out and pounced on Gerald and Sharon. Several prisoners tore the map away from Gerald and ripped it up. The greatest shock to Sharon was the look on the faces of her fellow cell mates. All of their humanity that had made her feel sorry for them had been drained from them. At the height of the yelling, the baby screamed at the top of its lungs. Suddenly everybody let go of their victims and stood silently where they were. The mother soothed her baby as best she could. It quieted down, but still continued to whimper. The map lay on the damp floor in several pieces.
"Look what you did!" Sharon yelled at her fellow prisoners.
"I was trying to find a way out of this place," added Gerald.
"Maybe we were a bit hasty," said the man with the broken violin.
He stooped down to pick up the pieces as best he could. One of the scruffy boys helped him out. A woman opened her purse, pulled out a roll of scotch tape, and rolled it across the floor to Sharon. As soon as she and Gerald had the map put back together again, they studied it some more. Then Gerald picked up the parchment map and walked over to one of the corners of the cell. The other prisoners eyed the boy curiously, but with little hope. To Sharon's relief, the humanity had returned to the faces of almost everybody in the jail.
"See if you can't get something to open in this corner," Gerald suggested.
More anxious about finding a way out of the prison than with looking ridiculous, Sharon stepped over to the corner indicated and ran her fingers along the slimy stone. The man who had been arrested for following his nose helped out with his pocket knife. There seemed to be nothing until he applied just the right amount of pressure. A door slowly opened with a loud creak to reveal a dark stone stairway going down. The air from the stairway, colder and damper than in the prison cell, made Sharon shudder. The way was lit only by occasional flaming torches, hanging from high up the walls.
"Looks like the escape route to me," said Gerald.
"Looks like the way down to the torture chamber to me," said one of the scruffy boys.
"Sitting in this place is torture," said another boy.
"It is a gamble," said the distinguished-looking man in the brown waistcoat. "It might be better or it might be worse. I'll flip a coin." The gentleman took a gold coin from his felt bag, flipped it and caught it on the back of his hand. "Heads it is! I'll take the stairs if any of the rest of you will."
"I'm going!" said Gerald. "I don't want to see that judge again."
"Neither do I," said the man with the computer keyboard in his lap, "but I don't want to see what's down there, either."
"You'll get in trouble for escaping from justice," said the well-dressed nervous young man who constantly paced around the jail cell.
"Since I can follow my nose by going down, I think I'll do just that," said the man with the stub of beard on his chin.
"We'll be right there as soon as I get you disentangled," the man said to the woman who was still wrapped up in her world map.
Several more voices joined in. Some prison mates said they would not move, but several decided to follow Gerald and Sharon, including the man with the broken violin, the university professor, and the woman with her baby. The man with the coat and tie who had started the outcry against Gerald and Sharon shamelessly followed the children as if he had never had a problem with their map. Carefully, the fugitives from the law made their way down the steps, a long way down as it turned out. The old man with the stub of beard helped the mother so that she could hold her baby and keep her balance.
At the bottom of the stairs, the group found a dark underground river with three Viking ships docked in front of them. On the dock there was a counter, and behind the counter there stood a heavy-set man wearing a miner's hat with its light on. His face was stained with coal dust as if he had just finished with a full day's work.
"Are you interested in renting a boat?" the man asked in a booming voice.
Everybody looked at everybody else. Gerald studied the map.
"We'll rent a boat if that's the only way to get from one place to another down here," said the man in the business suit.
"According to this map," said Gerald, "we should go this way."
Gerald pointed in the direction indicated.
"Looks like a Tindy's map to me," said the miner, "if you don't mind my saying so."
"We don't mind at all, said Sharon. "It is a Tindy's map."
"Best maps there is. That's half the battle. Following the map is the other half. That will be ten ducats for the lot of you."
"What are duckets?" asked Gerald.
"It's what I'm supposed to ask for," said the miner.
"Ducats were an old European currency," said the university man, "now obsolete."
"Oh!" said the gentleman in the brown waistcoat with the gold pocket watch. "I have some of those, mixed up with some florins. I'll make it easy for everyone by treating you all."
The gentleman took ten gold pieces out of his felt bag and handed them to the miner.
"Thank you kindly. Have a good trip. This underground don't compute on those maps up there, so don't come up too soon. Have a good trip."
"STOP! JAILBIRDS! STOP!" cried a distant voice from high up the stone stairway.
"They're after us again!" Gerald gasped.
"It does appear that the construction of the maps allows for the arm of the Law to pursue us," said the professor."
"My nose says we shouldn't wait for them," said the unshaven man.
"My watch says it is time to disembark with dispatch and promptitude," said the man in the brown waistcoat as he looked at his gold watch.
"STOP IN THE NAME OF THE WORLD CARTILOGICAL UNIFICATION PROJECT SYSTEM!" cried one of the pursuers, his voice much louder.
"Don't worry," said the miner, "I'll make sure they don't have enough ducats to rent a rowboat, let alone one of these ships."
The man with the broken violin and the unshaven man helped Sharon and Gerald step gingerly into the nearest Viking boat and then helped anybody else who need assistance.
"THE WORLD CARTILOGICAL UNIFICATION PROJECT SYSTEM WILL INSURE THAT ALL ESCAPED CONVICTS SUFFER CONDIGN PUNISHMENT IS THEY DO NOT SURRENDER TO THE JUSTICE OF OUR PROJECT WILL NO FURTHER DELAY!" cried a police officer as he and several other officers ran down to the dock.
There was an outboard motor at the stern of the boat, so Gerald sat down there and tried to start up the motor, but he didn't to have the strength to make it run.
"WE NEED THIS BOAT IN THE NAME OF THE WORLD CARTILOGICAL UNIFICATION PROJECT SYSTEM FOR THE PURPOSE OF PURSUING THESE FUGITIVES FROM THE PERFECT COMPUTER-GENERATED MAPS!" barked one of the officers.
"That will be six-hundred and forty-one ducats," said the miner, "provided you have a genuine map bought from Tindy's to guide you through this river way.
The man with the stub of beard lent Gerald a hand and, with one big pull, started up the motor. Its deafening roar drowned out the ensuing argument between the officers and the miner at the counter. Once everybody was settled, Gerald opened the throttle and threaded his way through the underground river. Again, torches along the way furnished enough light for Gerald to read the map and make the turns appropriately.
After about the fifth or sixth turn, the boat passed in front of an alcove that reminded Sharon of her trip to Disney World. A large mechanical dragon with bright red eyes waved to the passengers. Seats were carved out in the body of the dragon for a large group of passengers. Gerald cut down the motor when he heard a voice coming over a loudspeaker.
"You have just reached the dragon ride to the sky," said a computerized man's voice. "Please disembark here and take your seats on this new ride. Please hang on to the guard rail and please, no flash photography."
Gerald stood up. The distinguished gentleman with the brown waistcoat, the university man, the man with the coat and tie, and several other passengers hopped out of the Viking ship.
"It's got red eyes," Sharon whispered to Gerald, "it's the wrong dragon."
"Don't take that ride!" Gerald shouted. "It's the wrong dragon!"
"You have just reached the dragon ride to the sky," repeated the voice on the loudspeaker. "Please disembark here and take your seats on this new ride. Please hang on to the guard rail and please, no flash photography."
"How do you know its the wrong dragon?" asked the distinguished gentleman in the brown waistcoat.
"The map says we have to keep on going until we reach the tree," Gerald explained, "and we were instructed by the man who sold us the map to fly only on a dragon with green eyes."
"This ride looks perfectly safe to me," said the man with the coat and tie who had earlier led the attack on Gerald and the map. "All aboard!"
"All aboard!' cried most of the escaped prisoners.
"Don't do it!" cried Sharon. "We're supposed to keep on going until we reach the tree."
"That tree has already caused all the trouble we've had today," insisted the man in the coat and tie. "Now that tree is trying to trick us into passing up our best chance to get out of this murky underground temple and get back up to the light of day!"
"Yea! Yea!" cried most of the escaped prisoners who, by this time, had climbed up into the dragon ride.
"You have just reached the dragon ride to the sky," repeated the voice on the loudspeaker. "Please disembark here and take your seats on this new ride. Please hang on to the guard rail and please, no flash photography."
"How do you know we should keep on going to the tree?" asked the woman with the pearl necklace, as she seated herself on the dragon ride.
Sharon looked at Gerald helplessly, but Gerald seemed to be at a loss for words.
"The----the--the TREE doesn't have a voice from a computer!" cried Sharon.
There was some murmuring from among the escaped passengers.
"Computers are the only reliable source of future career opportunities," said a teen-age boy who was wearing a grungy sweat shirt.
"We really shouldn't be prejudiced against computers," said the man with the gold watch. "I paid for this ride and I'm going to get my money's worth out of it."
"How many Ph. D.'s so you have?" the university man asked Sharon.
"I'm too young to have one," Sharon replied.
"I plan to earn at least six by the time I'm thirty-two," Gerald interjected hastily.
The university professor swelled his body.
"I'll have you know that I have earned four and a half Ph. D.'s by my present age of thirty-one and I have read six dissertations which prove quite cogently that dragons with red eyes know the air traffic routes most reliably."
"You have just reached the dragon ride to the sky," repeated the voice on the loudspeaker. "Please disembark here and take your seats on this new ride. Please hang on to the guard rail and please, no flash photography."
The man with the stub of beard looked at Gerald and Sharon and then at the university man, obviously torn between the two choices. Finally he pushed himself out of the boat and on to the dragon.
"Are you still following your nose?" Sharon asked the man.
"That dragon's got a bigger nose than I'll ever have," the man replied.
Gerald looked up longingly at the dragon ride, and then looked at Sharon and the few other remaining passengers with distaste. Only the mother with her baby, the violin player, and the little boy with a running nose still remained in the Viking boat.
"Guess we'd better take the dragon ride," said Gerald.
Sharon thought she was going to scream, but instead, she reached for the motor and tried to open the throttle. Gerald reached over to stop her, but the violinist was quicker. He sped the Viking boat away just as the dragon ride shot up and disappeared from view.
"THANKS A HEAP!" cried Gerald.
"You're welcome," said a smug Sharon as she steered the Viking ship through another five or six turns until they arrived at a dead end where the roots of a giant tree were embedded in the earth.
"THANK YOU FOR JOURNEYING TO MY ROOTS."
There was nothing electronic about that booming voice that shook the water, the stone, the earth, and the insides of those who heard it.
"Please disembark carefully and climb up my roots to the sky," said the booming voice. "There, an authorized dragon will greet you."
"I hope it will be the right one," said Sharon.
"It had better be," said a weary Gerald as he glared at Sharon.
Gerald stuffed the parchment map into his book pack. The violin player helped the mother with his free hand while Sharon helped the little sniffling boy get off the boat and get a good grip on the root. Then Sharon and Gerald started to lead the way climbing what they thought was up.
"Please climb UP my roots if you wish to meet the sky," boomed the tree's voice.
"I thought we were," Gerald muttered. "I guess I don't know which way is up any more."
"We do now, if the tree is telling the truth, and I think it is," said the man with the broken violin.
"Let's try it," said Sharon, reversing her direction. "Oh my poor dress!"
"It's been pretty poor for some time," said Gerald.
"Thanks a heap!" Sharon returned. "I could say some things about your school blazer if I wanted to."
"I don't want to hear it."
"That's better," the tree purred once everybody was climbing what it thought was the upward direction.
Inching their way down, which was up, Sharon found the earth heavy all round her. Everybody was coughing from the dirt. Sharon was on the verge of suffocating when suddenly a burst of fresh air filled her lungs. The slanted rays of the evening sun lit the way as she and her companions climbed up the trunk of the tree to the branches above. Not only were the branches covered with the same delicate leaves Sharon and Gerald had seen before, but bright pink blossoms were now blooming. They settled on the first solid branch they came to and drank in the air and the warm breeze that greeted them. They all coughed a few more times to clear their throats. The baby started to cry and the mother did what she could to comfort it.
"Now what?" asked the violinist.
"I don't know," said Gerald glumly.
Sharon pulled the map out of Gerald's book bag and unfolded it.
"We should have taken that dragon ride," said the boy with the stuffy nose. "I never do the right thing. Mom always says so."
"Don't forget that we don't know what happened to all those people who took the dragon ride," said the violinist.
"I think we wait for the next dragon," Sharon said. "A dragon with green eyes."
Sharon looked up the tree and again, saw the cute cottage nestled in among the leaves.
"If we wait for a dragon," complained the sniffling boy, "we'll wait forever. My Mom says there aren't any dragons. Or she says a dragon will come and eat me up for being a bad boy."
"Shut up or I'll make you wish a dragon ate you up!" Gerald snapped.
"After what we've been through," said the man with the violin, "perhaps we would do better to speak nicely to each other."
The baby cried out, causing the others to wince and hold their ears until it quieted down.
"It's hard to speak nicely after what we've been through," said the mother. "But it's nicer if we can do it."
"If we have to wait too long," said Sharon, changing the subject, "maybe we can climb up to that house and see if they can take us in."
"Looks like a nice house, all right," said the violinist as he looked up, too..
"I just hope the World CUP System hasn't got an office there," said Gerald.
Before the escaped prisoners had waited long, they saw a flying object off in the distance. With a bit of imagination, Sharon could take it for a dragon. Then a dragon flew high overhead with a load of passengers on its back. Gerald let out a shrill whistle and waved his arms. Another dragon emerged out of the sky and flew straight towards the tree. To everybody's relief, it had shining green eyes. The dragon landed as gently as it could on the next highest branch so as the shake the tree as little as possible. Sharon found that she was more than nervous with a dragon suddenly perched so close to her, but she knew that if she was too afraid to trust the dragon and ride it, she might never get back home.
"I suppose you need rides, too," said the dragon in a smoother voice than anybody expected from a dragon.
"I - I'm afraid we do," Gerald replied, once he had found his voice. "I'm afraid we got terribly lost today. Sharon and I never did find our schools, this little boy is lost, this woman never found the baby food store, and this man never found the music store, and we don't know how to get home either."
"Now that all the ways are mapped out, a lot of people don't know their way anymore," said the dragon wearily. "It has been a tiring day for me and for all of my kind, but I could never sleep tonight if I didn't carry you to where you want to go. Does anybody have an air map?"
"Yes," said Sharon as she handed the parchment map to the dragon.
The dragon held the map in its paws and examined it carefully.
"Yes, yes, everything is in order on this map. Please climb on--mother with child first, and please, no flash photography, it hurts my eyes."
The dragon's back felt a little more secure and comfortable than Sharon thought it would, which is just as well since she had no choice as to how she was going to get home that night. The boy with the stuffy nose hesitated but, seeing he would be left on the tree branch all by himself if he didn't get on the dragon's back, he climbed on with the help of the violinist. Once everybody was settled, the dragon took off into the twilight.
"Thank you for sitting on my branches," said the tree's gravelly voice.
"Thanks for having us!" Sharon called back. "Thanks!" Thanks!" "Thanks!"
The ride was more exciting than unnerving for Sharon. The colorful shapes of cities and forests made a collage of pretty pictures that she would treasure in her mind for the rest of her life. First the dragon took the mother and her child to the baby food store and then on to their home where the husband and father was anxiously waiting for them. The dragon flew over a small country cottage where the boy with the runny nose jumped off and ran into the waiting arms of his mother, who immediately scolded him for coming home so late. The man with the broken violin said he could find his way once he was deposited at Vivaldi's String Instrument Store. The dragon left him talking excitedly with the man who owned the place. Then, back into the air flew the dragon until it came to a large apartment building Sharon had never seen before. Even so, the dragon was zeroing in on that building.
"This isn't where we live," Sharon protested.
"Please take a look into the correct window," the dragon urged her.
Hoping she wouldn't be spying on somebody, Sharon peeked carefully into the nearest window as instructed. At first she thought the apartment was all wrong, but then she recognized the hutch that had been passed down through her family for several generations. Then she saw her father reading the paper and her mother working in the kitchen.
"That's them, but it's so different," said Sharon.
"You never know what's going to happen to things in time," said the dragon.
The dragon hovered at the window for Sharon to grab the window sill and climb into her apartment. Her father didn't look up from his paper and so he was spared a jolting surprise.
"Sharon?" said Gerald, looking like a lost puppy.
"Yes?"
"It will be at least three more hours before either mom or dad get home--"
"Oh--yes, please come in."
Sharon was surprised at how much she wanted Gerald's company a bit longer. The boy hopped off the dragon's back and into the living room. They turned around to wave good-bye to the dragon as quickly as they could, but it was already flying into the sunset.
"Well, Sharon!" father greeted her, "how was your first day of the World CUP System?"
The End