The Book of Chimera

Stan Lee lives forever!

              Strangely enough, while you’re rushing into the uncertainty, your head is being visited by absolutely ridiculous and stupid thoughts that are irrelevant to the situation. For example, Rica was thinking why Gambit was not feeling hot in his coat. Well, yes, of course, it was March, and the sun was hidden behind the clouds, but all the same, they were in Africa, and the temperature was clearly higher than 77 F. And though the coat was open, still, the cloth was quite dense…       Or, for example, why Hank who was hulking up in the back seat made the car smell like a dog but not an ape. Though he didn’t get into the water and didn’t really sweat, and his fur wasn’t doggy by feel at all.       Or that at some point all three of them began to speak English and not French because Remy stated that he needed refashioning well before their arrival to Albion.       And what she should think about was how she so easily agreed to fly to the other edge of the world, where it was cold and raining, with two men who were technically strangers. One of these men had eyes that turned black and red at the same time, and the other was blue altogether. But as they approached the car, Remy asked her again if she wished to learn in Professor Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, and, to her surprise, Rica tossed her head positively: yes, I do.       And that was it. It was enough. No documents, no visa, no agreements, and phone calls. Rica just reached Commissioner Naude and, shouting above the approaching hurricane, said that she would fly to a school. In England. And then LeBeau was speaking, and he was still foppishly holding the steering wheel with one hand even though the car was rocking a bit sizeably. And then Hank was speaking, and while hearing his low, deep-chested voice, Rica realized that Uncle Mbeki’s inner rhino ran against something on a par with it in terms of confidence and firmness. The matter was settled.       Mbeki still had time to tell Rica that he would handle both funerals, the house, and other formalities… And then even the radio communication failed.       The front line of the storm assailed them.       Dust, dust, dust, dust… Not from the boots movin’ up an’ down again but from the whirling wheels — and enormous gusts of wind. Rica already started to fear that soon they would be lifted, spun, and blown away like Dorothy Gale’s house, but Beast assured her good-naturedly that they couldn’t expect a tornado with such a front. Remy gunned the engine so hard that nothing remained for the girl but to cling to the seat and spit the dust that was permanently getting into her mouth. It was infiltrating the car despite the closed windows, getting into the hair, eyes, ears, and nose, and swirling in the air around the car, clouding the sight…       Clouding it so hard that it took quite some time for Rica to notice a husky, broad-shouldered figure on their way. But Beast sullenly bellowed from behind, “Sabretooth!” — and before Rica could say knife, Remy devilishly bared his teeth, floored a pedal (and it wasn’t a brake pedal at all), and the car zipped along driving the last horsepower out of the engine.       The girl shrank into herself awaiting for impact, but the figure made a powerful jump, impossible for any human, soared upward just before their bumper — and the roof of their car sagged drastically under the weight that landed on it. Beast stirred heavily, but Remy shouted in excitement, “I can manage! Rica, take the reins!” And without awaiting her reaction, he instantly turned the handle on the door and hung out of the window. The girl yelled and caught the steering wheel leaning over from the passenger seat. She barely noticed Gambit’s boots that flickered before her face, but there was no time for panic. The seat belt away, jump to the driver seat, feet on pedals, hands on the wheel…       Something purple blazed up outside. Rica was coughing and spitting the dust that rushed into the car. The Beast was coughing and cursing, too, and his curses seemed to be Latin. The wind swallowed all the sounds that tried to reach from the outside so that she didn’t hear any screams, but at one point, that wicked weight disappeared from the caved-in roof. Remy, with a bushy head aflare, hung over upside down on the other side of the car and knocked at the window of the passenger seat.       As she saw him, Rica cussed out so badly as her parents had never allowed — but Beast saved her the trouble of showing miracles of balancing act. He shoved his supple ape paw between the seat and the door — and soon, Gambit was already clambering through the window again, although this time it was feet first and inside, not outside.       Hank closed the passenger window, and Remy closed the driver window, leaning over Rica so that he wouldn’t close her sight. Dust was swirling in the rear-view mirror.       “What did you do to him?” Rica croaked as she tasted the full range of African roads in her mouth.       A white-toothed smile flashed on Remy’s face, the more distinct as this face was yellow and grey because of dust. And then he opened a fan of cards before him, with their slight purple shining. The scarlet flame raging in his eyes was slowly gathering to the pupils, and the blackness was creeping to the corners of his eye-whites. A glaring dead-blue flash of lightning filled the car, and some heartbeats later, an absolutely monstrous thunder blast sounded. And Rica no longer wanted to ask anything else.       Right now, she didn’t understand at all where they were and where they were going. And, perhaps, panic and confusion were so distinct on her face, that the next minute, she was gently lifted above the seat by the armpits, then she appeared to be on the lap of Gambit who moved at the wheel, and then, head over heels, she went to the passenger seat and fastened her seat belt in all haste.       Beast was deafeningly sneezing in the back. Now and then, he came into step with thunderbolts — and overlapped them. Remy was yelling La Marseillaise, and it was even not out of tune. And Rica was convulsively pondering if she should read Pater Noster in such a situation, or conjuring chants of the old bushmen shaman would fit more.       And then rapacious lines of something resembling a fighter aircraft appeared before them suddenly as if some membrane was whipped away from it, and the car finally stopped. Rica had to run somewhere, and she gripped her cap and covered her face with her palm, and the strong male arm supported her left elbow, and the mighty animal paw supported her right elbow.       After a while, the metal of a ramp sounded under their feet. The girl was simply bamboozled. They seated her somewhere, wrapped her in a blanket for some reason, put a water bottle into her hands, and fastened the belt. Rica slurped a third of the bottle in no time to wet her dry, parched throat. Then she closed her eyes and threw back her head feeling the soft leather of the seat. She remembered that she’d never flown a plane before.       One should be scared in the moments like this, and the girl honestly got scared. Then her ears were stuffed up, and she realized that, from the look of it, she missed the process of the takeoff and the plane gained some decent height.       Someone shook Rica on the shoulder, and she opened her eyes. Gambit, dirty as a devil, with a very broad shining smile, was putting a handful of sugar candies in her hands. Rica remembered she had to suck on them when the ears were stuffed up, and she decided that the most important thing was not to choke on them.       The plane was groaning. The rocking was so hard that Rica worried if the water would splash out of the bottle, she drank it up to half, and then she put a candy in her mouth. The Beast was roaring in the pilot cabin, scolding some controls, and his dusted fur stood on end.       “Excelsior!”, yelled Remy pumping his clenched fist.       Another flash of lightning flooded the cabin, and Rica got blind for a few seconds. As she closed her eyes and waited until red and green sparkles ceased to dance under her eyelids, the girl tried to understand what her new acquaintance meant. But her brain could figure out only that it was Latin, and all the vocabulary was scattered down the corners of her memory.       “Excelsior!”       The candy made her tongue cold and hit her nose with crazy mint. The plane seemed to growl heart-rendingly, together with its ape-like pilot. And on the nose of this pilot — what a hoot! — there were neat glasses that were saving him from long sight.       “Excelsior!”       Higher and higher, remembered Rica a line from the textbook, yellow from time, smelling of cocoa beans and mice. Higher and higher.       And then, suddenly, everything was over. The rocking ceased, the plane straightened, the Beast became quiet, and sunshine hit Rica in the face. She opened her eyes, squinting, and looked through the window. There was some blue sky and a solid sheet of black clouds somewhere below, beneath them, and there were faint flashes of blue, white, and purple, and tumbling of thunder they couldn’t hear from above.       They made it.       “If you can’t outrun the storm, you can outsmart it, right?” Remy gave her a wink from the nearest chair. “Coffee, tea, cookies, cold cuts? We don’t have any red caviar in stock, but our airlines care about the comfort of our passengers. The next time, we’ll follow up on all your wishes, mademoiselle. And I kindly remind you again that the destination of our voyage is Great Britain… We fly through without a stop!”       Rica swallowed the rest of her candy and laughed.