Part 21 (1/2)
”Yes. Though this boy may seem to be seven or eight years old, he is actually eighteen or nineteen.”
”Incredible!”
”Do you think he has any gold?” asked one of the other men.
It had indeed been eleven years since Nathan buried himself in the snow to evade the bear, which, ironically, had gorged itself on so many seals earlier in the day that the mere thought of eating Nathan made it queasy. He lay there, skin blue and eyes frozen shut, in a decade-long dreamless sleep.
After a close vote, they'd decided not to use flamethrowers to melt the ice, and instead, after much effort, carved out a rectangular block of ice and dragged it back to town.
Reporters from all over the world showed up. Hundreds of pictures were taken. For nearly three minutes, the news was dominated by the story of The Astounding Frozen Boy.
”Every scientist in the world wants to study him!” Yukon said to the group of men, who were each in the same number of pictures and received equal airtime on the television stations.
”Even botanists?” asked Tyrone.
”Especially botanists! Well, not especially botanists, but they feel there may be some interesting plant life frozen in there with him, perhaps between his toes, and they'd love the opportunity to study it.”
”Are we going to let them? I think if we sliced carefully, we could get at least eight hundred strips out of him, and if we auctioned each strip to the highest bidder, we'd make a fortune!”
Yukon shook his head. ”Slicing a body like that is not as easy as you would think. But I'm pleased to inform all of you that we have a private individual who wishes to purchase The Astounding Frozen Boy, and he is offering an amount so large that you will call me a liar when I reveal it.”
They did call him a liar, several times, but after Yukon produced the paperwork they apologized and rubbed their hands together with glee. The purchaser was scheduled to pick up Nathan's body first thing in the morning. This led to a sudden lack of trust between the men, and after a long dark night of paranoia and double-crosses they all lay dead except for Yukon.
The block of ice with Nathan in it was sold to an heiress named Monika Truant, who loved the idea of the scientific community clamoring for an artifact that she planned only to display to servants who used her walk-in freezer.
Nathan stayed in the freezer for about two months, completely unaware of his fate or even the smiley face that a prankster carved into the ice. Then, one night, Monika woke a servant up out of a sound sleep in order to fetch her a chocolate bar, slightly chilled. The bleary-eyed servant, Candice, left the chocolate in the freezer for a moment, and forgot to close the door after she retrieved it and delivered it to Monika, who instructed her to go outside, find a vagrant, and slowly eat it in front of him.
Throughout the night, the ice melted.
The next day, Nathan lay in a pool of cold water.
”Oh no!” shouted Candice, hurriedly soaking up the water with a sponge and squeezing it onto him, hoping that it would quickly refreeze. ”The missus will have my head on a skewer! Whatever shall I do?”
After some thought, she came up with an excellent plan: drag Nathan's body out of the house, ask the gardener to bury him in exchange for twenty minutes of frenzied carnality, and vow to never to speak of the incident again.
Nathan opened his eyes. ”Watch out!” he cried. ”There's a bear!”
”You...you...you're alive!”
Nathan realized that there was no bear, and that he was no longer buried beneath the snow. He looked around, confused as to how he got to where he was.
”I'm very cold,” he said.
”As well you should be! Do you realize that you've been frozen in a block of ice for eleven years?”
”Nonsense!” said Nathan. ”What year is it?”
Candice told him.
”That's eleven years after the year I thought it was! How has this happened?” Nathan tried to stand up, but he could barely move except to turn his head. Such cruel fate! Eleven years lost! Eleven birthdays wasted! Jamison must certainly be dead by now. Penny and Mary's memory of him couldn't have lasted more than six or seven years, could it? He was long forgotten by everybody who'd ever known him!
”Your teeth!” said Candice. ”Show me your teeth again!”
”My teeth are unimportant!” Nathan insisted. ”What's important is that I've been frozen for eleven years!”
”You have the teeth of a demon!” Candice screamed. ”That is why you are not dead! You're a blue-skinned, fanged demon! Begone! Begone!” She jammed the end of the mop into his face and began to twist it back and forth.
”Leave me alone!” Nathan shouted.
”Demon! I cast you back to the pits of Hades!”
”Demons aren't frozen!” said Nathan. ”They're extremely hot!”
Candice stopped twisting the mop. ”But they also practice trickery and deception. What better way for a demon to hide its true self than to hide in a block of ice that would melt within seconds in h.e.l.l?”
”I'm just a regular boy! Please, I can't move, but if you draw me a warm bath and let me soak for a while, I will leave and you'll never see me again.”
”I don't know...”
”Please.” Nathan tried to give her his most soulful expression, though with his face so badly frozen he wasn't sure if he looked sympathetic or like a twisted mask of horror.
Candice was silent for a long time. Then she nodded. ”All right. But you can't use one of the good bathtubs.”
There was a lot of hair floating in the tub as Candice eased Nathan into the water. He hoped it belonged to dogs. The initial sensation of frozen skin sliding into hot water was akin to a thousand red-hot needles stabbing into each square inch of his flesh and being jiggled around by a madman, but the feeling gradually improved.
”Where did you come from?” asked Candice. ”A land far away?”
”Yes,” Nathan replied. ”I mean, not like outer s.p.a.ce or anything, but I live several days from here, in a town called Giraffe Pond where the people accept my differences and do not judge me for them, except when...” He almost said ”except when they throw me in jail for them,” but that seemed to be contradictory to the point he was trying to make, so he omitted that part.
”Is it a beautiful place?” Candice asked.
Nathan nodded. ”Very beautiful. They don't have huge mansions like this one, but-”
”Never mind, then. It would be kind of absurd for me to move away without a mansion like this one waiting for me at my destination. Can you move yet?”
Nathan raised his arm out of the water. It was the one that had been dunked in boiling oil, but the eleven years encased in ice seemed to have fixed it up. ”Yes. Thank you.” His skin was still blue, but now it was a light blue rather than a dark blue, almost turquoise, and he guessed that he'd return to his pinkish state before too much longer.
”What is going on here?” said a voice that was neither Nathan nor Candice, at a volume that was significantly louder than what they'd been using to carry on their conversation.
Monika stood in the doorway to the bathroom, looking positively furious. Nathan, of course, did not know that she was Monika or that she owned the mansion, but he picked up on the general idea of their relations.h.i.+p very quickly.
”Nothing, ma'am,” said Candice.
”Nothing? I catch you in the act of bathing the secret illegitimate child you've clearly been hiding in my home all these years, and you say nothing? How much of my food has he eaten? How often have you used the wind in my backyard to dry clothing on his behalf?”
”It's not like that at all,” said Candice, doing some quick mental calculations on whether she'd get in more trouble for accidentally melting the Astounding Frozen Boy or for hiding away a love child. She decided that the melting was worse. ”All right, I apologize for-”