Akiko in the Sprubly Islands by Mark Crilley

I opened my eyes. I’d been sleeping so soundly that for the first few seconds I had no idea where I was. Then it slowly came back to me: I was on the planet Smoo with my new friends Spuckler Boach, Gax, Mr. Beeba, and Poog. We were floating peacefully above the clouds on our little flying boat, resting up before the next leg of our journey.
    I was a little embarrassed to notice that everyone else was already awake. Mr. Beeba was steering the boat, Poog was floating quietly by himself just behind the mast, and Spuckler was giving Gax a little tune-up. (After all that poor robot had been through lately, I’m sure he needed it.)
    “Hey there, Akiko,” said Spuckler, smiling as always. “How ya doin’? Feels good to get a little shut-eye, don’t it?”
    “Yeah,” I said, yawning and stretching my arms. “How long was I asleep?”
    “Not
particularly
long,” Mr. Beeba said, turning his head to join the conversation. “You’ve nothing to be ashamed of, dear girl. I would encourage you to get all the rest you can.”
    “Yeah, ’Kiko,” Spuckler agreed, “ ’Cause there ain’t nothin’
else
to do on this boat.”
    “You have
entirely
misconstrued the meaning of my statement, Spuckler,” Mr. Beeba said wearily.
    “I’m
right
though,” Spuckler insisted.
    “You most certainly are
not
,” Mr. Beeba answered. He was never one to pass by a good argument with Spuckler. And who was I to stop him? Watching the two of them go at it was as good as any television show. Poog was interested too, apparently. He floated over and gave himself a good view of the debate.
    “I’m sure there are any
number
of interesting activities for an intelligent child like Akiko to do on a boat such as this,” Mr. Beeba continued.
    “Name two,” Spuckler grunted, tightening a bolt on Gax’s underside.
    “Well,” Mr. Beeba began, “she could practice memorizing the names of all the books I’ve written—”
    “That don’t count,” Spuckler interrupted. “You said
interesting
.”
    “She could follow
that
up,” Mr. Beeba continued, ignoring Spuckler for the moment, “by memorizing passages from the books themselves.”
    “Well, that just proves my point,” said Spuckler victoriously. “There ain’t nothin’ for ’Kiko to do on this boat but
sleep
.” Gax clicked and whirred quietly as Spuckler tightened another bolt underneath his helmet.
    “Hmpf!” Mr. Beeba snorted, apparently losing interest in the argument. There was a long pause, during which neither of them said anything. I found myself staring at the clouds and secretly agreeing with Spuckler.

    After a long while I saw some orange-winged creatures flying overhead. They were the same creatures I’d seen way back when we’d just begun our journey.
    “Hey, look, Mr. Beeba,” I said, pointing up at them as they passed over us. “There’s some more of those reptile-bird things you were telling me about before.”
    “Yumbas, Akiko.
Yumbas
,” he replied, sounding slightly disappointed that I hadn’t remembered the name. “An odd species, actually. All Yumbas fly in precisely the same direction by instinct. Northeast, I believe. Or was it southwest? Well, in any case, it is said that the average Yumba literally circles the planet once every fourteen days.”
    “No kidding,’’ I said, shielding my eyes from the sun as I watched the Yumbas fly off into the distance. “Where I come from, birds fly in pretty much any direction they want.” I thought for a moment about my science teacher, Mrs. Jackson, back at Middleton Elementary. She had this big lesson plan one time about birds and how they fly south in the winter. She actually took us out into the school yard so that we could see real birds flying south. We didn’t end up seeing anything, though, and all I remember is how cold it was and how I wanted to get back into the classroom as quickly as possible.
    I leaned back on my elbows and looked up at the clouds again, wondering what direction the