11

"Wait, Baneen!" Rolf shouted again, desperately.

For a second, it seemed that Baneen was almost gone. Then he grew solid again.

"Forgive me, lad," he said softly, "but I can't wait. It's time for us all to be going now, and they're waiting for me aboard the space kite. Farewell . . ."

A single tear ran down the side of his nose. He lifted a hand in a wave and began to fade again.

"Just a minute—please, Baneen—just a minute!" Rolf shouted. "Listen! I know why you're going! But you don't need to!"

"Farewell . . ." sang Baneen, mournfully. As he grew fainter and fainter he said, "A long farewell to Earth." His tone changed abruptly and he almost smiled as he added, "And, Rolf me boy, sorry to have tricked you into helping us. It was the only way we could get away, you know."

"That's not important," Rolf insisted. "What's important is—I know why you're going! And you don't need to!"

"Ah, yes. Too bad that—you know what?" Baneen flickered halfway back to solid visibility.

Rolf could hardly stand still, and Rita was eyeing him in astonishment. Mr. Sheperton was sitting on his haunches, mumbling something.

"I know why you gremlins are leaving, I tell you!" said Rolf desperately. "And you don't have to! Come back, Baneen. Listen to me for just a minute!"

Baneen flickered again, faded almost completely out, then grew more and more solid until he once more stood before them as real as themselves.

"Now lad, it's no use trying to trick a gremlin. Sure, we've known all the tricks ourselves since your ancestors were painting themselves blue and hiding in caves."

"It's not a trick!" Rolf said. "I really do know why you're going back to Gremla. I would have figured it out before, but you kept telling me how you had no use for Earth and how beautiful Gremla was. But you all really like it here on Earth, don't you?"

"Ah, what difference does it make? In less than a minute we'll be all aboard the space kite and ready for blastoff. Look—" Baneen pointed a tiny green finger. The mist of the Hollow seemed to be dissolving. Well, not exactly dissolving as much as shrinking, pulling itself together into one ball of milky whiteness that grew smaller and smaller as Rolf and the others watched it.

"You see?" Baneen said. "The magic gate is closing. I've got to get through it before it shrinks altogether and I'm stranded here while my brothers and sisters fly back to Gremla." He edged toward the shrinking sphere of whiteness.

Rolf grabbed at his skinny arm. "If you hated Earth so much, why didn't you leave centuries ago?"

Baneen looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Well, as I told you, lad, there's that dampness which keeps our magic from lifting us more than a wee distance above the ground. It's helpless we were, entirely, until you humans got the idea of building space rockets. . . ."

The milky white sphere was down to the size of a big beach ball.

"You gremlins had nothing to do with our inventing rockets?" Rolf demanded.

"Well now," said Baneen, squirming in Rolf's grip, "maybe we did give the idea a wee push here and there. What with Mr. Da Vinci, and those Chinese fellows, and Mr. Goddard later on—"

The sphere was down to the size of a basketball. Baneen pulled, trying to get away from Rolf.

"Wait," said Rolf. "Listen to me. It was all Lugh's doing, wasn't it? All of you had come to like it here, but Lugh wasn't going to have anything to do with humans unless they were perfect, would he? He tried to make humans live up to a test that gremlins themselves couldn't even pass, nowadays. And when they couldn't do it, he decided to take you all back to Gremla—but none of you really want to go, now. You're all Earth gremlins—look at you, so Irish-sounding anybody'd expect to see you start sprouting shamrocks! O'Rigami, Japanese to the core! O'Kkane Baro, who's probably more gypsy than gremlin, from the way he looks to me. And La Demoiselle, who's not only so French you can't believe it, but all wound up in a bit of Earth history that won't mean a thing back on Gremla. Don't tell me, all of the rest of you really want to leave Earth! It's just Lugh! Isn't it?"

"Y-yes . . ." stammered Baneen—and clapped a hand over his mouth immediately. "What am I saying? Miscalling my own Prince—but it's true. Indeed it's true. Lugh would have it that we mustn't associate with humans unless they were able to show themselves worthy of our association. Not but what most of us have done our wee best, here and there, when the opportunity came up, little tricks to nudge your people in the right direction. But little avail it was, what with Lugh giving you a mighty push to hurry up and develop your machines and your engines, and all the rest of it, until you had something that could fly us back to Gremla as secret passengers. But how could you know about Lugh, lad?"

"Because I was the same way," Rolf said. "I was doing exactly the same thing, this last year. My mother was all wrapped up in my baby sister, and my dad had to work night and day for this launch, but I blamed them both for not being able to give me all the time they used to. I was expecting them to be perfect where I was concerned, no matter what they had to deal with anyplace else. I finally realized what I was doing, by seeing Lugh do the same thing. He's never gotten over the way it used to be back on Gremla, and he wanted Earth to be Gremla all over again. But it isn't—and he's just got to live with it, the way I have to live with my own family."

He let go of Baneen's arm, but the gremlin merely stood now, staring at him.

"Glory be!" breathed Baneen. "If Lugh could hear you—perhaps he'd change his mind yet.

"But—" the little gremlin wrung his hands together, "he'd never stop now, not for any simple word—"

"I'll stop him!" barked Mr. Sheperton. "I'll stop the whole pack of them, see if I don't!"

With that, the dog leaped at the magic gate.

"No!" yelped Baneen.

But Mr. Sheperton dove right through and disappeared. And the gate shriveled and shrank like a popped balloon, right behind him. As soon as Mr. Sheperton's tail flicked out of sight, the milky white sphere disappeared altogether.

"He's ruined the gate!" Baneen cried. "And he'll ruin the space kite on the other side!" Then Baneen's eyes really went wide with terror. "And how am I going to get aboard? HOW AM I GOING TO GET ABOARD?"

Rolf simply stood there, stunned. It was Rita who recovered her senses first.

"How much time do we have before the rocket takes off?" she asked.

That snapped Rolf back. He glanced at his wristwatch. "Oh no!! There's only six minutes left!"

Baneen was scampering around, distraught, pulling his eyebrows down into his mouth and chewing on them, mumbling, "Hmlgghmmgrmll—"

Rolf grabbed him by the shoulder. "Baneen! Can you get us to the launch pad inside of six minutes?"

The gremlin shook himself. "Well I could . . . no, that wouldn't work. Or if—no, that's no good. . . ."

"Quick!" Rita said. "It's got to be right away!"

"There's only one way to do it," Baneen said, looking up at them. "But it means I'll have to go with you—and all that iron and steel—" He shuddered.

"We've got to!" Rolf insisted.

Baneen squared his shoulders. "You're right, lad. There's nothing else to do. Even though it may be the end of me, what matters one poor wee gremlin when—"

"Can it!" Rita shouted. "Let's get going!"

"Right!" cried Baneen. "Onto your bikes, you two." And he glided up and sat on Rolf's handlebar.

"The bikes?" Rita asked.

"We've only got five minutes," said Rolf.

"Trust me," said Baneen, with an almost saintly smile on his gremlin face.

It wasn't like any bike ride in the history of the world. The instant their feet touched the pedals, the bicycles took off like racing cars and went faster and faster. The bush and sand dunes went blurring past.

"There's the road now!" Baneen yelled over the howling wind. He was hanging onto the plastic handgrip of the handlebar with one tiny hand, and keeping his hat jammed on his head with the other. "Follow it in to the base!"

They were going at least seventy miles an hour, Rolf guessed—and straight toward the double line of cars that still jammed the road.

"We'll crash," cried Rolf, as he squeezed the handbrakes. But the brakes didn't slow the bike at all. He and Rita—with Baneen hanging on by one hand—hurtled directly at the traffic on the road.