Rupert's Umbrella Adventures

Chapter One: A Long-Lost Visitor

When I was a kid, my great-grandfather used to tell me the story of Rupert, the boy who had flown off with his umbrella. His uncle was friends with Gramps, you see, and Gramps never forgot it. Nor did I, for that matter. Plenty of us kids thought about flying off with our own umbrellas -- some even said they could do it with broomsticks, like witches, but I never believed them -- but nobody ever got the guts to do it. The cliff was steep. And me, I'm afraid of heights, so I never got closer than fifty feet to the edge.

We all started growing up, stretching and filling out, on the road to adulthood. Since our village was small, with only a hundred and fourteen people (Smithie Rogers' wife had recently had a baby, but if you ask me, it could just as easily have been a monkey), everybody knew everybody. Even if we'd wanted to stop being friends, it wouldn't last. The kids around my age were Minster Jones, who was my best friend growing up; Annabelle Kress, the redhead next-door who Minster liked an awful lot; and Soren Windward, who was an orphan. We were tight.

One summer afternoon when we were all fifteen or sixteen, we were strolling down the street talking about crazy old Gibbons who'd built a shack down on the side of the cliff. We came to the end, and right in the middle of a joke Minster was telling, a black umbrella flew up from the side of the cliff and landed at Annabelle's feet. And it was followed by a top hat, and then a hand, and then another, and before long our wide eyes were looking at a kid about our age dressed in a red shirt and white slacks. We all knew who he was. He was supposed to be dead, or at least old -- he'd left over fifty years ago -- and yet I don't think any of us was all that surprised to see him come back just the way he was when he left. Things were like that, you know.

"Hey, there," Minster said. "You're...Rupert?" We all stared.

Rupert nodded, brushing off his clothes. "That I am, my good man. And who might I have the pleasure of introducing myself to?"

"He talks funny," Annabelle whispered in my ear. I tried not to laugh.

Minster took the lead, puffing his chest out. "I'm Minster, and that's Annabelle" -- and he blushed as he pointed -- "and Soren and Tom."

"Splendid. The pleasure is all mine, I assure you," Rupert said, extending his hand. "It's been a long time, I'm afraid, and I suspect that most of my friends are in the ground now. Might the chancellor be in?"

"The who?" Soren asked.

"The chanc...oh, bother, we didn't call him that, did we. The vizier? The president?" We all looked at each other with furrowed brows. "Ah, the mayor! Yes, the mayor!"

We then took Rupert to meet the mayor, and as we walked down the street a cloud of villagers collected behind us. The mayor decided to call for a town meeting at that very moment. We all gathered to hear what Rupert had to say for himself.

"Esteemed citizens," and here he tipped his hat, "it is good to see your faces again, after so many years away. No doubt you've wondered what became of me." A murmur went through the crowd, with many a muted nod.

"Today I shall tell you. My good friends, I have come from beyond the edge of the world." Gasps. "Yes, yes, it is hard to believe, but it is true. And the stories I have to share are even harder to believe. I wouldn't believe them myself if they hadn't happened to me."

And with that he told us the most outlandish stories I'd ever heard before. Later on I got him to write them down, and here they are. Everything's just the way Rupert wrote it. He was an interesting fellow, he was, but a good one -- he had that look of truth in his eyes, so you knew he wasn't lying to you even when he told you about the craziest things that had happened to him out there in the valley of the spider people, and in the dreamforest, and out on the ocean between worlds, and everything else. He's gone again, but he promised me that when he goes out next time, he'll take me with him. I don't know how long I'll have to wait, though, so in the meantime you can read about his travels. We all miss him. Good old Rupert...