First off, thanks goes to NickyFox13, whose delightfully blunt review lit a fire under my-- well, lit a fire under me, anyway. Hope youse enjoy.
Ch. 2-- It's Not The Fall That Hurts
As the title of this chapter notes, technically it's not the fall that's painful. Actually, as a bunch of dudes with musical instruments from Sweden noted, the pain comes in when you hit the ground.
Charlie and Manfred discovered that the hard way.
They hit the ground almost at the same time. Oddly enough, the ground they hit didn't seem to be the same ground that they'd fallen off. Charlie, unfortunately, only had a few seconds to notice this before Manfred landed on top of him. Even an underweight, rather sickly person is not fun to be crushed by. Of course, Manfred was very bony besides. The resulting sensation was like getting crushed by petrified twigs that swore loudly.
"What happened?!" Charlie wheezed after they'd disentangled themselves and gotten their breath back enough to talk. "Where is this? How'd we get here?"
"Here" was apparently the middle of a strawberry field. At least they hadn't hit any of the plants, Charlie thought, otherwise they'd be in even more trouble. Somehow they'd ended up far from where they'd begun.
Beside him, Manfred looked just as lost. He had his own clothes on again, Charlie noticed.
"Manfred.. that thing in my room- you built it, didn't you? What is it?"
"Normally, I'd tell you 'none of your business', but under the circumstances..." Manfred exhaled loudly. "It's a Gate of Translocation. Its purpose is to transport anyone who steps through it to the place they picture in their mind. Obviously, it wasn't calibrated correctly."
"I guess not." Charlie stood up, searching for signs of life. There didn't seem to be any, at least as far as he could see through the tall trellises.
"Stupid," Manfred muttered. "Your curiosity is gonna get you killed one of these days." He stood up too, but encountered only the last foot of the trellises. "Shit! How tall can a freaking trellis be?"
He knelt back down and pointed to his back. Charlie blinked. "What about your shoulder?"
"Dolt! Get on! It's the only way we'll be able to see over these damned things. I swear they're growing by the second."
Charlie hurriedly clambered onto the former head boy's back. It was either that or get sworn at some more, after all.
As Manfred wobbily stood up, complaining over the effort, Charlie recalled a vague snippet of memory from the days before his father had been kidnapped. In it, he was balanced atop his father's shoulders just like this, with his feet dangling onto his carrier's chest. The contrast between his cheerful father and surly Manfred was so great it was almost funny.
"Well? What do you see?"
Charlie was about to reply when a loud, irate voice behind them barked, "I don't know about you, but what I see is two very suspicious-looking trespassers!"
The unsteady tower of two lost it completely. Manfred and Charlie hit the dirt of the strawberry patch for the second time in twenty or so minutes.
There was an overweight, florid face above them. It seemed to be connected to a Hawaiian shirt.
To be continued...
My apologies for this horrible delay. Will have the second half of this chapter up hopefully before I'm dead.