Growed Up

This was to be the most important day of Fudmul Schruck's short life: the day he performed the Ritual of Growed Up, the day he formally changed from being a kid to being... well... growed up.

Fud was puzzled - annoyed, actually - by the clunky use of the non-word "growed" instead of "grown"; he assumed the origins were lost to antiquity. His father claimed lots of things were lost to antiquity - Respect for Elders, for instance, or his good razor.

Some of Fudmul's friends had already performed the Ritual. He remembered how nervous and worried they were. The Ritual was short, and reasonably simple, but had to be performed perfectly, or it would be declared Invalid; that meant waiting another moon-turn before the next chance. The thought of Invalidation haunted everyone who had ever gone through the Ritual, and, presumably, everyone who ever would. His friend Blonk had to make a frantic run to the loo just moments before his Ritual began. His friend Goomie was shaking so hard she could hardly light the Three Candles (one for Patience, one for Common Sense, and one for Helping Others).

Fudmul was not worried or nervous.

Fudmul was frantic. He was panicked. He would've crawled out of his skin if his skin wasn't so stubbornly adhered to him.

There wasn't much time before First Sunrise. The Ritual had to be started after First Sunrise and finished before Second Sunrise. The second sun—much, much further away than the first, and much, much dimmer—had to rise on a Growed Up Fudmul, or—he could hardly bring himself to think of it—Invalidation would result.

Where in the name of Gluff was Drubel? How long could it possibly take him to retrieve the Spirit Stone? The tiny, intricately carved, unique crystal was at the center of the Ritual. It was required, absolutely required, like the Lighting of the Three and the Promising to Behave. For at least the tenth time, Fudmul tried to literally kick himself for leaving it behind. For at least the tenth time, his foot failed to reach his own backside, though, he thought, it seemed to be getting closer.

He tried to calm himself. There's more than enough time between First and Second to start a bit late and still finish on time, he thought. Barely. So far, the sky was still quite dim. The colors of the forest around him ranged from dark gray to black; even his white shoes were gray.

He peered into the clearing where the Ritual was to be held. It was still too dark to see clearly, but he could see the Slab had been set up—the flat, white stone that rested atop the Trestles of Mature Support. Someone—he couldn't tell who—was placing the candles.

A bustle in the undergrowth behind him made him spin, hope leaping. Drubel was pelting toward him, puffing with exertion, hair wild. "I..." he started, then tripped over an untied shoelace and barreled into Fudmul.

Drubel's mother told everyone he was "a stout lad" (sometimes, Fud knew, as she served him another slice of buttered tater pie), but their peers at school had other, less kind, terms for his particular physique. And so the laws of physics—inviolable even in this far-off world—saw to it that Fud ended up on his back, fallen branches digging uncomfortably into his back (and other, less pleasant anatomical bits), with a breathless and squirming Drub on top of him.

"Gluff's sake," Fudmul sputtered.

"I couldn't find it," squeaked Drubel.

Fudmul discovered that under extreme duress, he could more or less slither backwards while flat on his back, like a flattened snake with a stick in its bum. Extricated thus from Drub's -- erm -- presence, Fud frantically scrambled to his feet. "WHAT?"

Drub, now face down, turned his head and spit out a stray leaf. It was getting brighter: Fud could see his friend's face was red from his sprint. "I looked EVERYWHERE, Fud. I looked on the table by your door, I looked on the table by my door... I looked at the ground between your house and mine and the whole way along where we walked." He had regained his feet. "I couldn't find it," he repeated, and visibly sagged.

“Okay, okay, okay, not your fault." Fud's head spun. He started to lurch back along the path they took, then stopped and turned toward the clearing. There was more light than there was when he looked earlier; the white slab was now light gray, and he could make out the green of the candles. First Sunrise was coming, he could see that.

He also saw Drub's drooping form. He thought he might've heard a quiet sob. "I couldn't find it," Drub said quietly, head down.

Fud went to his friend and put his arm around his shoulder. "Not your fault, Drub. You catch your breath, I'll go look." Drub straightened slightly. "Invalidation isn't the end of the world." Drub sagged again. Fud gave one last squeeze and then set off along the path.

He stumbled along the path for a few dozen paces before he realized looking for a small bit of crystal on a path in a forest before First Sunrise was about as futile as trying to teach a muskrat about sums. He could see well enough to follow the path, and the green bits were starting to look a bit green; still, details were all but absent. Also, he thought, these trees insist on dropping leaves and needles and branches and so on.

No wonder Drub couldn't find it. This hit him like a punch to the gut. Of course he couldn't find it. It would be like trying to find a small crystal thingy in a dark forest with leaves and needles...

Fudmul stopped cold. He sagged. He sagged until he was even saggier than Drub. It was hopeless, clearly. Invalidation isn't the end of the world, he thought. But I'll bet you can SEE the end of the world from there.

He turned to make his way back to Drub. He began to rehearse his surrender speech in his head; it was something he did, going over what he was going to say to someone if he had a moment to do so. Or rather, he started to, but just as he was really getting going, a new thought popped in.

The CARVER!

All the Spirit Crystals for all the young in the village were carved by one person. Maybe he has extras!

As sometimes happens, even when we're thinking in an orderly manner (which Fud, to be clear, was not), another thought, tailgating on the first, slammed full speed into the back of it.

That's mad.

Still... He knew that each Spirit Stone was unique. But nobody ever said it was MADE with the particular PERSON in mind. After all, Drub's Spirit Stone looked rather like a willowy girl in a Toe Dance skirt. The Carver never talked to Fud before handing him the Spirit Stone. He didn't interview Fud, ask questions like, “Now what sort of lad are you? Hmm? A sit-quietly-and-read lad or a run-with-scissors lad, or what? Exactly?"

Fud turned again, this time taking the fork in the path that led to (or was it from?) the Carver's house. He saw the fork clearly; it was getting lighter. Fud began to run.

As he ran he rehearsed his "may I have another Spirit Stone" speech in his mind; sadly, this, too, was interrupted.

Just off the path was a girl, someone he recognized from school. She was crouched under the limb of a tree. But no, thought Fud. Crouched isn't the right word. His vocabulary failed him; he couldn't come up with a word for "bent nearly double, with knees almost up to her chin, one arm twisted behind her awkwardly, one foot in a knot of brambles, the other leg stretched far out to her side and held in the fork of another branch, and her neck twisted at nearly impossible angle. Oh, and some branches sticking through her clothes." All Fud's rattled mind could come up with was "good Gluff that looks awful".

Fud stopped. He started again for a couple of steps. He stopped again. He looked at the brightening sky and sagged. "Need some help?" he called, hoping against hope he was witnessing some odd game he didn't know, that another kid would pop up and say, "YOU WIN! That's THE most uncomfortable thing I've EVER SEEN!"

"Yes, please," said the girl. "Might be stuck."

Fud sagged a bit more. He was starting to feel that sagging was more-or-less normal. My own fault, he thought.

He walked briskly toward the girl. "Oh dear," he said. He thought this was the kind of thing Growed Ups said when a kid had trouble. "Let's see."

He slowly began shifting branches, freeing her arm first, then one leg. He somehow managed to bend the branches poking through her clothes without actually tearing her clothes further. Fud thought the lack of further clothing damage must be some sort of grace straight from Gluff; for a terrifying moment he had feared making a big tear and seeing something he oughtn't. He also noticed the pale-blue of her top appeared pale-blue and not a shade of gray. Finally, she was able to carefully wriggle her foot out of the brambles.

"Thank you," she said, and to Fud's utter amazement, ran full speed up the path.

Fud looked around. He didn't have much hope, but maybe, just maybe, if he could get a new Spirit Stone, he could get back to the clearing before Second Sunrise, and if he did, maybe, just maybe, if he spoke the words very, very quickly, he could finish in time.

Fud sprinted.

He reached the Carver's house and burst through the door to the workshop without knocking.

The first thing he noticed was that a heavy door, thrown open forcefully, made quite an impressive sound when it banged against the wall. The second thing he noticed was that a door in that state of violent motion swung back quickly; very, very surprisingly quickly, in fact.

The third thing he noticed (if he'd been keeping count), just before the door walloped him solidly, was that the person in the Carver's workshop wasn't the Carver.

Fud picked himself up off the ground and opened the door more carefully. The person in the workshop looked at him with a curious smile. "Erm. Who are you?" Fud asked.

"This always happens," the person said, quietly, almost under their breath. "They talk about me all the time, but if they ever meet me, they've no idea who I am. Sometimes wonder why I bother."

"The Carver's gone to the Ritual," the person said more loudly. "May I be of any help?"

Fud had lost all count of how many times he'd sagged that day, but the tally increased by one.

He looked at the person - he hadn't noticed if they were tall, or short; thin, or stout; old, or young. He wanted to know if he should call them "Miss" or "Mister": he felt good manners were likely in order. Something strange, very strange indeed happened then. Fud realized, after staring most rudely for a few moments, that he couldn't make up his mind about any of those things. The person wasn't tall, or short, or any of the rest. They weren't a Miss or a Mister. They were somehow just... just... somehow just there. Worst day ever, Fud thought. On top of everything else, I'm losing my cookies.

Fud took a breath and started to explain. Once started, he talked faster and faster, words tripping over words, perhaps having forgotten, like Drub, to tie their shoelaces; sentences running into sentences without the tiniest fraction of a period between. When he finished, he plopped to the floor and put his face in his hands.

"Oh dear," the person said. "You came here right after your friend..." they paused, looked at the ceiling for a moment, "Grub. Your friend Grub told you he couldn't find the stone? You left him there and ran here?"

"No," Fud moaned. "His name's Drub. He was upset, and I tried to tell him it would be OK. It wasn't his fault. It's mine. All mine." He buried his face deeper in his hands.

"Goodness me," said the person. "Then you came straight here."

Fud looked at them, wondering if they had trouble hearing. "I told you," said Fud wearily. "I had to stop to help a girl."

"Heavens," they said. "I see." They paused. "Why would you do that, Fludmole? Why stop? This is the most important day of your life, you said. What could you have been thinking?"

"Fudmul. It's Fudmul. She needed help," Fud said, helplessly. "There was nobody else to help her. What was I s'posed to do, for Gluff's sake?"

"There! See, you DO know..." They looked expectantly at Fud.

Fud was even more confused than he was in the class where they used letters instead of numbers, X and Y and so on. WHAT do I know? What IS this person saying? He tried to say something, to ask a question, but what came out was an odd combination of "wha?" and "who?" and "bluuurrrrhagh?"

The person smiled.

Fud gawked.

"You chose to help someone else instead of trying to help yourself," they said. "You started out doing something terribly, terribly important, to you. Important to you," they repeated. "But you gave that up. You helped someone in trouble. That seems pretty grown up. In fact," they finished, "that seems to be the kind of thing the whole Ritual of Grown Up is about."

Fud's mouth was wide open. His eyes were wide open. If his jaw hadn't been going in the opposite direction of his eyes, they might've collided. "It's Growed Up. It's the Ritual of Growed Up," he said weakly. Fud wasn't sure what was happening (though he felt that, whatever it was, it was getting away from him pretty quickly), but he was confident about what the Ritual was called.

The person took a deep breath, let out a deep sigh, and muttered, "The ways they wander off the path... 'Growed Up.' 'Growed Up'... Next they'll be saying 'those ducks flied away for the winter...'"

They went to a shelf along the wall of the workshop and picked up a small, glimmering thing. A Spirit Stone, Fud thought.

They held the Spirit Stone out to Fud. "Here, you'll need this. Now go back, quickly, or it'll be too late."

Fud's confusion reached a fever pitch, if confusion can be said to have pitches. "It's already too late," he said, reaching for the Stone.

The person chuckled. "I think you'll find it's not. But go quickly, or it will be." They turned and walked toward the back of the workshop. For the second time in a few moments, something completely outside Fud's experience happened. Fud's confusion hit a pitch above fever: as the person walked, they seemed to fade. Then the person who was neither tall nor short - and so on - the person who was just there - just wasn't.

Fud plodded to the door. At least I have a Spirit Stone for my next try. He left the workshop and began rehearsing what he would tell Drub about what happened.

Fud stopped cold, again. It's darker now than it was when I went in, he thought. Way darker. It's even darker than when I left Drub to come here. He looked around. Everything's gray. DARK gray. He could see the slightest bit of pre-dawn glow low in the sky - it was still well before First Sunrise.

He made the noise again, the one he made when the person in the workshop confused him so.

Good Gluff, he thought. Then it happened: understanding - like the first sun - began to dawn, slowly at first, then enveloping Fud in its glow. Good Gluff! GOOD GLUFF!

Fudmul ran.