Chapter 7

“So how do I get home?” Danbr asked as they walked the streets of Copenhagen.

“The same way you got here,” Cacta replied, “and the same way I got here. We just need to ask a clapper really nicely.”

Danbr wasn’t sure what a clapper was. He assumed it was maybe the kind of creature the lady from the casino with the toe-earrings and colour-changing hair was. He based this assumption on the way he appeared on the other side of the world when she clapped her hands. “Do you know where we can find one?”

“No,” replied Cacta, “not here.”

“You sent yourself here without knowing if you could get back?”

“If Armaan was living here, it’d have to be clapper central. We just need to find one. They stand out, don't worry.”

Danbr walked alongside her worriedly, umbrella in hand. “I don’t know Danish and I don’t have my passport. Please don’t leave me here.”

Cacta had a plan for getting around the world that involved running through an airport, boarding a plane and letting her vorax friend, Fitch, trail behind to eat any memory of her. It wouldn’t work if she had Danbr with her, partly because vorax wouldn’t eat memories of him, and partly because he didn’t really look he could handle the running. “We’ll find somebody.”

“If we found a clapper,” Burke said from inside the umbrella, “why would they send us anywhere while we’re carrying Armaan’s head in that bag of yours?” Cacta adjusted her green bag.

“They just move stuff around indiscriminately. I’ve smuggled enough stuff to know. As long as we’re careful, we should be fine.”

“Was Armaan the leader of the clappers or something?” Danbr asked.

“The clappers don’t have leaders,” said Burke, “they live in small groups. Armaan was old, though, and old ones are respected.”

Cacta was growing concerned. “The more I think about it, the more I think Armaan would have chosen a place without any clappers. Less clappers he’d have to trust. That makes sense, right? He had a lot of enemies. He might have wanted to keep isolated from his kind.”

“Every time you call them clappers it sounds rude, but I don’t know why,” Danbr interjected. “But if that’s true then how do I get home?”

Cacta thought through her airport dash plan again. “Would it be alright if I left you here?”

“Without my passport, no knowledge of the language and no money? I’d really rather you didn’t.”

“You’re alive, though, right? I can score it as a win?”

“I don’t really think so, because people are going to wonder why I’m here and they’re going to have questions, and my answers are almost definitely not going to be good enough.” Cacta was stumped, so she turned to Burke, “Do you have any ideas?”

The umbrella was quiet for a minute. “Pretend you have amnesia?”

“Let’s try to find a clapper first,” settled Cacta. She stopped and turned to a tree. “Excuse me,” she said to the tree, “have you seen or heard any clappers come by?”

The tree didn’t appear to respond.

“They look like regular humans, but they’re much bigger and their hair color changes to reflect their mood. They can also clap their hands to move anything they have permission to move.”

The three of them stared at the tree. Danbr looked around self consciously at the passing Danes who couldn’t help staring at the tourist couple that was talking to the tree.

“No kidding?” Cacta replied to it. “That was easy. Thank you very much!” She turned to Danbr, “there’s a guy in an apartment a few streets over who’s hugely tall. Apparently he’s always alone and his hair is never the same colour. Let’s go meet him! You never know.”

She started off. Danbr took another minute to look at the tree before following her. “So is that a… magic tree?” Danbr whispered to Burke.

“Just a regular tree.” Burke settled. “But Cacta is a bulbling.”

“Could you elaborate, please?”

“Bulblings,” Cacta said over her shoulder, “are grown from plants who fell in love with humans. My mother was from Nevada, my father was a cactus.”

Danbr winced.

“No, no, it’s just love. My dad thought my mother was a beacon of beauty and kindness and fell head over heels. And one day, poof! I grew out of one of the seeds. I spent most of my adolescent life as a cactus and then transformed one day when I felt comfortable.” She sensed Danbr’s confusion. “Don’t try to figure it out, just try and appreciate the poetry of it.”

“Does this happen a lot?”

“Not really. It’s common for plants to fall in love with other plants, it’s fairly rare for plants to fall in love with people, and of those there’s almost never a bulbling seed.”

“And you can talk to any plants?”

“I can do more than that! I won’t show you right now, but I can turn completely into a cactus!” She turned her hand green and thorny. “I can transform bits of myself part-way if I like.”

“So are you saying I’ve passed by people on the street who are half-plant?”

“You’d more likely pass by plants that are half-human.” Cacta replied. “There’s a serenity to planting your feet in the ground and closing your eyes for however many hundreds of years. Most of my fellow bulblings choose the leafy life. Plus we can’t really join society or forge any relationships because of the vorax.”

“So why don’t you plant your feet and be a cactus?”

“Because I get bored too easily,” she patted her green bag, “and I’m useful.” She spotted a tall boy with bright green hair tying his shoes in front of the building they were going to. “Hey!” She called to him, “Do you know English?”

“Yes. Most of us do.” He said, sensing a tourist.

“Okay great,” said Cacta as she ran up to him, ‘You wouldn’t happen to be a clapper, would you?”

“It sounds rude,” Danbr said, “Am I crazy?”

They ignored him. “Yes,” he replied, “I am. Do you want me to put you somewhere?”

“Yes please. A million yes pleases.”

“I’d be happy to!”

Danbr breathed a heavy sigh of relief.

Meanwhile, back home, the giant dog-nosed woman with bright orange hair had followed Danbr’s scent back to his street. She looked bizarre, being a giant woman in a cocktail dress with her nose to the ground. She drew a lot of stares. The surrounding vorax ate very well.

She sniffed up the stoop of Danbr’s apartment building. The door was locked, so she clapped herself inside and continued sniffing. The scent led her to a door. She clapped herself inside. She had found the place. He didn’t seem to be there, but he’d be back. She sat and waited.

There was a buzz from the apartment’s buzzer. She got up and pushed the button.

“Danbr?” said the worried-sounding woman outside, “Danbr it’s been a few days since I’ve heard from you and you weren’t at work, are you okay?”

“Who is this?” Replied the clapper woman.

“I’m his sister Natalie, who is this?”

“His… friend.”

“Oh... oh I’m sorry, I can come by another time. I was just making sure he’s okay. He’s okay?”

The clapper woman sneered and unpressed the button. Her hair turned green. She scrawled a note quickly and clapped her way out of the room.

Not too long after that, the tall, Danish green-haired clapper, Cacta, Danbr, and Burke all appeared in front of Danbr’s apartment building. He wobbled dizzily until collapsing on the concrete.

“Sorry about all of these claps, I’ve never been here before,” said the clapper boy. “Is this the one?”

“Hey,” Cacta said, helping Danbr up and patting his cheek, “Is this your building?”

“Nope,” said Danbr, glaze-eyed, “mine’s the same; same trees and building and numbers and street; but mine doesn’t move like that. Mine mostly stays put.”

“It is the right one.” confirmed Burke. “Thank you so much. What was your name again?”

“Alexander,”

“Thank you Alexander. We’ll make it up to you.”

“That’s okay, I like to travel and meet new people. I apologize for all the wrong tries. There must have been thirty... all different altitudes and atmospheres, one after the other…”

Danbr didn’t need reminding. It had been like riding a roller coaster, except every time he blinked he was in a different part of the country, and the people around him weren’t screaming because they were having fun.

“It’s alright, Alexander. Really, thank you so much for bringing me home. Would you like some tea or something?”

“Thank you, but that’s alright. Some other time.” He turned to Cacta. “You next!”

“Bye, Danbr!” Said Cacta, taking a bamboo card out of her bag and handing it to him. It didn’t have any information on it, just a drawing of Cacta and a green splotch of paint on the back. “Get Burke to explain it to you.” Waving goodbye, she and Alexander clapped away.

The first thing Danbr did when he got home was shower and change. The concept of showering terrified Burke, and the concept of changing perplexed him. “Why not wear the same clothes every day?”

“They’d get smelly and tattered.”

“Why not wear them in the shower and sew them up as you go?”

“I promise I have a good answer for you, Burke, but I’m a little too beat to go through it with you right now.” Danbr said, picking up his mail.

“Fair enough,” said Burke, “we’ve lost a day on the itinerary. We’ll have to double down tomorrow to catch up.”

Danbr wasn’t listening, he was reading a note that had been tucked away with his mail:

Danbr frowned. He flipped to the other note somebody had left.

Burke went on, “The Mad Dancer Mort is going to be at the farmer’s market tomorrow. He’s just a street performer, but he’s very good. And you haven’t seen him before.”

“Burke, my sister is in danger!”

“Your what?”

“My sister!” Burke didn’t respond. “We were raised together! We shared parents!”

“Human mothers can have more than one offspring?”

“Yes!”

“Fascinating…”

“BURKE!”