Captain A Big Sandwich Wrapped With Carpet was born to parents who wanted to name their kid something nice and normal, something traditional, so he'd grow up without getting made fun of in school, but unfortunately he was a fan of every sport, and so the teasing was merciless, the shame was unbearable, and the wallpaper was removed before the financial advisers had finished their world tour—but hey, we all go through that. When Captain graduated he immediately got a job making life-sized paper airplanes, and that went well for a number of years—one-fourth is a number—until the Soap Box Derby Scandal of 1993, after which he became the tenth chemist, and he invented seven-sided dice, retired, and went to relax on a lawn chair.

Cendall the Lice Wielder came by, clipboard in hand, lackeys in tow, and said, “Okay, that's the chair,” pointing to Captain's lawn chair. The lackeys packed it in a loyal Winnebago and mailed it to the cruise ship, and that's how Captain wound up on the S. S. Dripspout, the biggest ocean liner that ever sailed the Amberlamped Sea. Okay, it didn't sail per se, as it was fusion-powered, obviously, but if we're going to start talking nautical boat stuff, they're big on idioms, so get used to it.

After seven days aboard the Dripspout, Captain wondered why the bill collectors had stopped calling. He reached for his phone but it was the buffet.

“Ain't no buffet in my backyard,” said Captain suspiciously, “which only leaves one place in the world—forward deck of the cruiser Dripspout!”

“Quite so,” said Breadman Jallop. “Now, I have a mind to try the shrimp tails. Give them a whiff for me, won't you? Wouldn't want to eat a rotter.”

Captain glanced over at the buffet and looked for the shrimp tails, but it was too late. Breadman was already making a break for it—but a break could be broken, and Captain meant to. He was up like a shot and took off running, but Breadman was fast, cunning, and supposedly had the first ever LEGO set. Captain was hot on his heels and nearly had him, but then the thing happened where someone pushes a cart out into the hallway and blocks you at the worst possible time, and Breadman leapt into the engine coils. Captain was obfuscated thoroughly.

“Confounded!” said Captain, although he meant to say, “Confound it!” “Whoever he is, he's escaped me yet again! Well, no matter. The milk boy should be by soon. 'til then I can have a lapse of judgment in the pool hall.”

While Captain went and made himself comfortable in the corner pocket, trailing the Dripspout was the cruise ship's natural enemy: a pangolin on a rocket-powered toboggan made of glass. The pangolin had a broadsword, and the broadsword had a shotgun, and the shotgun had a hard time remembering the weeknight TV schedule.

“It's the same four shows every night,” said the pangolin. “They just play reruns.”

“I know,” said the shotgun, “but when?”

“Every half hour! It's not complicated. Honestly.”

The shotgun threw up its hands, exasperation all upon its face. “How's anyone supposed to remember that?”

“Here,” said the pangolin, handing the shotgun an extensive menu for an out-of-business Indian restaurant.

“I dunno,” said the shotgun. “I'm a picky eater. I dunno what this stuff is. What if I don't like it?” It licked its fingers as it turned the pages, admiring the font choice.

“Just get something with chicken and rice,” said the broadsword.

“Oh, what, and suddenly you expect me to speak braille?” said the shotgun. “That's it! This is the worst vacation ever. I'm going to my room, and I'm not doing anything until it's time to go to the airport.”

“Fine by us,” said the pangolin. The shotgun stormed upstairs and slammed the door to its room, and angrily flang itself onto its bed.

“Why can't you two get along?” sighed the broadsword.

“Look, Carol, it's not like I don't want to,” said the pangolin. “It's just—well, okay. I don't want to.”

“You weren't like this when Henry had the remote.”

“Don't start—”

“Oh, I think I will!” said the broadsword, growing more heated by the moment, rearranging the mixing bowls alphabetically. “And what about the bean harvest? You spent the whole time looking at that phone book! Don't think I didn't notice! And what about the medical factory where they ground up all those roosters?”

“They knew what they signed up for!”

“Oh, sure,” said the broadsword, crossing its arms and sitting by the window. “Next you'll tell me OLEDs are the next big thing!”

Focusing on the task at hand, the pangolin pulled the toboggan up alongside the Dripspout. It took out a grappling hook on a rope, swang it around overhead, and lobbed it aboard the cruiser, mainly to attach the toboggan and begin a highly illegal boarding procedure, but also because it was an extra grappling hook they had been trying to get rid of for a while. They made a few phone calls and found a contractor that could build a military-grade ski lift along the rope, and while the contractors got to work, the pangolin and its crew busied themselves watching the Parcheesi championships. The contractors got done at the same time that Rogue Penguin won the finals, and so everyone considered it a good day. The pangolin, the broadsword, and the shotgun donned their life vests and earplugs and began the ascent.

Back on the back of the boat, at approximately the same time, give or take a septade, Limonade Simplistic and Phil were fishing. They weren't using bait, hooks, or rods, but instead yelled at the fish to get their asses up here if they thought they were so damn tough. The fish didn't think they were so tough, and so stayed down there. It was almost an unsuccessful outing, but the radio was tuned to static, because they were sophisticated gentlemen.

Phil suddenly said, “Now, two's a good number. A fine number, that is.”

“What! You sick idiot!” said Limonade Simplistic, nearly dropping his test tube. “What's wrong with you? Two? Two? Menial trash! Regressive traits! Illumination therapy!”

“Oh, fine, says you! What's your favorite, then?”

“Well, I'm glad you asked,” said Limonade Simplistic. He made some gestures toward the fish. Not rude ones in any culture, but esoteric and arcane motions meant to display a willingness to respect others' choices. “Real glad. It's fine time you did. So—ahem—the way I see it, there's only two real numbers: three, and a hundred and seventy-one thousand, seven hundred and seventeen. Everything else? Pah! Nothin' but the refuse of our forebears.”

“Oh, you're one of those,” said Phil.

“One of what?” said Limonade. “Educated folks? Geniuses? Listen. Think about it. How many colors are there? Three. How many trees are there? A hundred and seventy-one thousand, seven hundred and seventeen. What more numbers could you need?”

“What about, ah, let's say—” Phil thought for something mundane—“how many bent spoons gifted to an old man named Gertrude accidentally?”

“Accidentally gifted, or accidentally named?”

“Either.”

“Well, that can be derived as a simple function of three and a hundred and seventy-one thousand, seven hundred and seventeen. The equations are pretty complex. You wouldn't get it.” He adjusted the radio. The static crackled.

“S'pose not,” said Phil.

“They use spherical coordinates, after all.”

The fish got bored and went to the movies.

So anyway, after the whole business with Old Missus Lopkit's house and western north-central eastern downtown Nesodi Iveent all turning into woods, there was Roby and Ben Garment, ready for the next step, but first, before anything else, they had to put on some flannels and show each other the new knives they got just for this trip. Roby counted out their supply of canned goods and Ben Garment looked at some sticks and said a storm was coming. They were foresteers now, for there was only the woods, and perhaps the woods would last forever, or perhaps they would fade away in time. The birthday party was all the way over, and everyone had gone home, and Roby and Ben Garment were alone and Traycupless.

“So,” said Ben Garment, poking the campfire with a technically good stick, “what's your plan?”

Roby smiled and nodded, for she had a good plan, and she was proud to show it off now. “The plan of me is simply to see if we can find someone smarter than either of we! Traycup is missing, his location unknown, so we must start seeking a mind overgrown with lots of thoughts and solid smarts who knows the spot that we do not: the place the cage was placed away to safely stay far away! Ask about all around up and down town until someone expounds upon the sought-for grounds where Traycup is found!”

Ben Garment considered this. It was a good plan, but he couldn't let that slide. “That's but one step of a journey of leagues,” he said, broodingly. He gazed at the fire to aid his thoughts, which science might be able to prove really works. “If we find Traycup's spot, we'll find his taker as well, and she's a power-haver! What's to be done thenwise?”

“If we find a smart enough person,” said Roby, “they will know how to verse them.”

“Like who?” said Ben Garment.

“Like anyone likable,” said Roby, “and be friended with them, as many as are able—it is nice, in the end.”

“Not what I mean, but close enough,” said Ben Garment. “All right, so let's become askers.”

So Roby and Ben Garment went all about the city, hither and yon, here and there, to and fro, asking each and every person, sparrow, or large household appliance they came across whether they were smart, but no one was—no one in the entire city, because no one had ever been to school. Oh, they'd been to schools in a literal sense—some schools had vending machines that still had Jolt Cola, or sometimes people wanted to take some aesthetic photos about jeans and sneakers, and also one time a cat got into music class and everybody wanted to pet it. But, in the sense of taking classes, earning credits, passing tests? No. Oh, no no no no no. That would take all day!

“There is a new idea of me,” said Roby.

“Well, you're a regular spout today!” said Ben Garment. “Make it said.”

Everyone took a deep breath and Roby said, “We will make our own school, likable to fools, where everyone is cool, and there are no rules! If folk fear tests, we will not be pests, but do our best to let them rest—if classes for masses are always so shunned, and passing a hassle for near everyone, then lower our standards so any can handle, and none hold to a candle to our zealous fandom! When school is a breeze and passed with great ease, then any of these will be as smart as they please, and whoever is smartest and knows the most things will be able to tell us near anything, including the place where Traycup may be, as well the whereabouts of the mother of me!” Roby smiled brightly.

“A standard and measured response,” said Ben Garment. “I supposed this spot will do.”

The sky is yellow. Oh, sure, there's clouds up there, something like a diffused nebula of haze, or maybe a hazy, diffused nebula. The sun in the center of the world lights it all up, but it's hidden like a candle in a paper lantern, and the whole sky glows a pale, washed-out sort of yellowish. It's never really clear. You can see far away, the world crawling up in the vast distance, and eventually it just gets lost in the fog. Sometimes it gets darker, the clouds thicken, and it rains.

There are oceans and there are mountains, there are earthquakes and there are volcanoes, there are blizzards and there are tornadoes. There are valleys, plains, forests, swamps, tundras, and deserts. There's no sunset and no sunrise inside the hollow Earth. There is no night.

One clock measures a day of five hundred hours, and another measures a day of fifty, and another fifteen, and another ten thousand. If you named the days, you'd have to fight tooth and nail to get yours to stick, because everyone's got their own ideas, and runs on their own schedules. There needs to be routine, but that's a personal construct. The world doesn't demand it. The world does what it wants.

So, who knows how long it was until Roby finally said, “That concludes the lesson of today!”

The bell rang and most of the students went home.