What Came From the Stars

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Weoruld Ethelim

  Plymouth, MA

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  The Testament of Young Waeglim

  A List of Weird and Strange Words . . .

  Sample Chapter from OKAY FOR NOW

  Buy the Book

  About the Author

  Clarion Books

  215 Park Avenue South

  New York, New York 10003

  Copyright © 2012 by Gary D. Schmidt

  All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

  Clarion Books is an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

  www.hmhbooks.com

  Map illustration by Blake Henry

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE PRINT EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Schmidt, Gary D.

  What came from the stars / by Gary D. Schmidt.

  p. cm.

  Summary: In a desperate attempt for survival, a peaceful civilization on a faraway planet besieged by a dark lord sends its most precious gift across the cosmos into the lunch box of Tommy Pepper, sixth-grader, of Plymouth, Massachusetts.

  ISBN 978-0-547-61213-3 (hardcover)

  [1. Fantasy. 2. Plymouth (Mass.)—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.S3527Wh 2012

  [Fic]—dc23

  2011045439

  eISBN 978-0-547-86868-4

  v1.0912

  For James,

  with your father’s dear love

  ONE

  The Last Days of the Valorim

  So the Valorim came to know that their last days were upon them. The Reced was doomed, and the Ethelim they had loved well and guarded long would fall under the sharp trunco of the faceless O’Mondim and the traitors who led them. The Valorim looked down from the high walls of the Reced and knew they would find no mercy in the dark fury of the O’Mondim massed below—none for all they had loved.

  Not a one of the Valorim did not weep for what would be lost forever.

  Not a one of the Ethelim did not fear what would come.

  But the Valorim would not yield, though day after day they watched the O’Mondim flash the gray metal of their trunco, though day after day they heard the O’Mondim pound at the barricaded gates of the Reced. But a First Sunrise finally came when the hearts of the Valorim began to beat with the rhythm of the battering rams, and by Second Sunrise, the gates could hold no more. The Valorim abandoned the Outer Court and fled into the Great Hall of the Reced, where the hanoraho had once sounded for the victories of the Valorim, and where there was none now left to play them. They barred the doors, and in the Great Hall, the sons of Brythelaf stayed with orluo drawn and held before them.

  The Valorim fell back into the inner courts, and then upward into the Council Room of the Ethelim, which held the Twelve Seats of the Reced. There did the ten daughters of Hild stand, while the last Elders of the Valorim were brought into the Tower, and the stout doors of the Tower closed and barricaded behind them—though none believed those doors would hold the tide of the faceless O’Mondim.

  And truly, when the O’Mondim found the Great Hall closed, their fury was renewed, and the last Elders heard the battering of the iron rams at the doors of the Great Hall, and the terrible groaning of the O’Mondim.

  Then spoke Ecthael, who had warned to no avail of the treachery of the Lord Mondus and the stirrings of the O’Mondim.

  “Now are the days of rancor ended. Now is the time of feuding over. Only these few remain of the Faithful Valorim, and when we have passed, who will stand by the Ethelim then? Who will guard the Twelve Seats? First Sunrise saw the blood of the O’Mondim spilled over the Reced steps, but Second Sunset will see our own. The Song is over. The Silence begins.”

  Then spoke Brythelaf. He spoke words of anger. “Ever have you warned of the Silence,” he said. “Ever have you spoken of unending woe.” He faced the other Valorim. “I say this: It may be that our time is over. Perhaps the Silence that we beat back with the strength of our hearts at Brogum Sorg Cynna—there were gumena weardas!—perhaps that Silence may overwhelm us and the Ethelim we guard. It may be. But if it is to be, then let us take all our song, our story, our beloit, gliteloit, all we have made from our hearts, all we have brought against the Silence, and let us forge it together and send it out from us, so that the Art of the Valorim might still be heard and seen and known even when the Valorim are no longer. Then shall the Silence be defeated.”

  A great cheer rose from the Valorim in the Tower, and from the ten daughters of Hild in the Council Room of the Ethelim, and from the sons of Brythelaf in the Great Hall, and the sound of it chilled the hearts of the O’Mondim, so that for a moment their long arms weakened, and the rams battering at the doors of the Great Hall faltered. But for a moment only—and then, terrible was the strength of the O’Mondim.

  So the Forge was heated again, as it had been long ago, heated in the uppermost of the Tower chambers, and one by one the Valorim Elders gave the songs of their hearts, and Young Waeglim shaped a Chain, green and silver, each link a piece of their Art, each link a piece of the Heart of the Valorim.

  His striking hammer sounded even as the doors of the Great Hall were broken and the O’Mondim leaped through. Fierce were the sons of Brythelaf waiting for them there, and fierce their vengeance upon the O’Mondim. But the O’Mondim were more than could be counted.

  Young Waeglim’s hammer sounded even as the O’Mondim beat past the inner courts and upward into the Council Room of the Ethelim and beyond the Twelve Seats, where the ten daughters of Hild cleaved many before they too fell and the O’Mondim moved upward again.

  Young Waeglim’s hammer sounded even as the Tower door was breached, and the Valorim Elders, unto Ecthael, gave themselves now from chamber to chamber, from staircase to staircase, so that Young Waeglim’s hammer might not be stilled. But the Valorim were hewn down one by one, and the faceless O’Mondim came to the uppermost of the Tower chambers, where the last two of the Valorim held. There the O’Mondim battered and smashed against that door until the framing splintered.

  Then it was Brythelaf who stood in the doorway against the great and terrible host of the O’Mondim, his orlu before him. And it was Young Waeglim who stayed at the Forge, heating the last of the Art of the Valorim into the Chain. Grievous was the battle at the doorway, and grievous the wounds of the noble Brythelaf. But he would not yield, and he would not yield, not until Young Waeglim plucked the Chain of the Valorim Art from the fire of the Forge and carried it to the window of the Tower of the Reced. There he cupped the heated Chain to his chest, and when the Art of the Valorim beat with the song of his own heart, he held it out into the last dark light of setting Hengest, and on the breath of Young Waeglim’s own Song and Thought, the Chain lifted away from him, higher, then higher, until it was so high that Young Waeglim could see its bright shining no more, and the Art of the Valorim flew from him and was gone.

  Then did Brythelaf fall, and Young Waeglim did turn to meet the O’Mondim triumphant.

  But the Chain
of the Valorim Art flew upward, far away from the victory of the O’Mondim, and far from their sudden despair and fierce anger at the loss of what above all things the Lord Mondus had desired to hold in his hand, and for which he had hazarded all.

  And so Second Sunset fell over the Ethelim, and their Reced, and their world.

  But the Chain left that world, and the Song and Thought of Young Waeglim and the Art within that Chain gave it power. It flew past the highest clouds, through the blue air, and into the dark of cold and black space. It flew past moons and planets, past stars whose songs the Valorim had learned and sung, beyond the constellations that wheeled over their world and whose stories the Valorim had told the Ethelim. The Chain flew past comets and nebulae, and past more stars, strange constellations, and so, finally, out of the galaxy of that world.

  And still it flew on through the cold darkness, past farther galaxies that had once shone to the Valorim like distant stars, and which the Chain tumbled by until it left those galaxies as small as single stars again. And so through cold light and colder darkness and cold light and colder darkness, the Chain sped.

  And sped.

  And sped, until listen! It came to a small wheeling galaxy, and to a single small star at the edge of that galaxy, and to a single small planet—blue like its own— that rolled around that star. The Chain streaked past its moon and shuddered into its canopy, where it fell, glittering in the light of the strange, single sun. It fell, passing through the cold mist of high white clouds, down through their shadows and into the sunlight again. It fell, cooling as it went, down toward the sea and the green land and the red brick building, until, with a final tumble, the Chain of the Valorim Art, the Chain that held their Song, the Chain that was all that was left against the Silence, struck a window ledge, dangled through, skidded across a white plastic table top, fell toward a gray plastic bench, and dropped into the Ace Robotroid Adventure lunch box of Tommy Pepper, sixth-grader, of the class of Mr. Burroughs, of William Bradford Elementary School, of Plymouth, Massachusetts.

  It took some time before Tommy noticed.

  TWO

  Tommy Pepper’s Birthday

  It was Tommy Pepper’s twelfth birthday, and for it he had unwrapped the dumbest birthday present in the history of the entire universe: an Ace Robotroid Adventure lunch box. On the top, Ace Robotroid was flying with the Robotroid Cosmic Flag in his hand. It billowed out over his cape, and an R for “Robotroid” glittered and shimmered depending on which way you held the lunch box. Inside, stamped on the cover, was a close-up of Ace Robotroid, who reminded him that “Even Though Robotroids Can’t Drink Milk, Kids Can and Should!” Ace Robotroid held up one finger and smiled to help make the point.

  The dumbest birthday present in the history of the entire universe.

  Tommy Pepper hadn’t watched The Robotroids since he was nine. Well, twice when he was ten. Maybe three times. But no more than three times that entire year. He looked around the cafeteria. If there was anyone else who had an Ace Robotroid Adventure lunch box like his, he was hiding it—the way Tommy was trying to hide his.

  Or maybe, if someone else had one, he was accidentally losing it, which had been Tommy’s plan as soon as he laid eyes on the thing, until his father—who had probably figured out Tommy’s plan as soon as he laid eyes on the thing too—said, “Your grandmother always gives thoughtful presents. She probably waited in a very long line to get one of these.”

  Tommy had nodded.

  “And you know, it’s not easy for her to wait in a line anymore. She’s getting older.”

  Tommy nodded again.

  “And she sent it all the way from San Francisco.”

  “I know,” said Tommy.

  “And it was expensive.”

  Tommy sighed. If she had asked, he would have saved his grandmother the expense. A football. An authentic Tom Brady-signed football. That would have been worth waiting in line for.

  “And it’s not like she can afford to throw away...”

  “All right,” said Tommy. “I love it. I’m going to show it to every one of my friends and they’ll wish they had one too. Pretty soon there’s going to be all these grandmothers lined up to buy Ace Robotroid Adventure lunch boxes. They’ll be beating each other with canes to get the last one. Blood will be spilled! Lives will be imperiled! Here!” He held it out. “You better put this someplace safe!”

  His father made Tommy take the dumb lunch box to school that morning. He packed in it a hard-boiled egg wrapped in a napkin, a plastic bag of celery and carrot sticks, a chicken salad sandwich on wheat with only a little mayonnaise, two raisin cookies, and—because not everything has to be as healthy as all get-out—a small carton of chocolate milk. He packed the same lunch for Patty, except she got strawberry milk. She liked the color.

  When his father was done, Tommy put on his winter coat even though it was only September and still so warm that the trees hadn’t even begun to blush.

  “Are you cold?” said his father.

  “I think there might be snow in the air,” said Tommy.

  His father handed them the lunch boxes.

  As soon as they got out the door, Tommy hid the lunch box beneath his coat. (“Never mind,” he said to his sister.) He hid it there all the way to school, and when he got to the sixth grade hall outside Mr. Burroughs’s classroom, he took off his coat, wrapped it around the Ace Robotroid Adventure lunch box, and stuffed both of them into his locker.

  Alice Winslow saw him doing this. “Why are you wearing a coat that’s made for fall in Alaska?” she said.

  “I’m not wearing a coat that’s made for fall in Alaska,” Tommy said.

  “Do you think it’s going to snow?”

  “Stranger things have happened,” said Tommy Pepper. He wiped the sweat from his face. “Cold fronts come in all the time. It starts to snow and people who only wore jackets because they thought it was still fall get caught in a blizzard and they die and then they’re found in some snowbank, all blue and stiff. You never know. You should be prepared.”

  He closed his locker and twirled the combination lock.

  “I really hope you’re getting the help you need,” said Alice Winslow.

  Tommy Pepper ignored her.

  But he worried about the Ace Robotroid Adventure lunch box all through the morning. Maybe he could dump his lunch out by his locker and carry the chocolate milk and the chicken salad sandwich to the cafeteria. Or, if anyone was too close, he could just take out the chocolate milk.

  But that kind of plan never works. When the lunch bell rang, Tommy Pepper went to his locker and held the door mostly closed while he reached through his winter coat, found the Ace Robotroid Adventure lunch box, started to open it—and suddenly there was Mr. Burroughs, as if he had appeared out of subspace. “You’ve only got twenty minutes, Tommy,” he said. “No time to pick and choose. Take the whole lunch box and let’s go.” He stood, waiting.

  What could he do? Tommy took the Ace Robotroid Adventure lunch box and carried it to the cafeteria. He sat down close to the window and set it open on the gray plastic bench between himself and the wall. He breathed heavily. He thought he would give just about anything if only he could get the lunch box back into the locker without anyone seeing it. If he didn’t—if anyone saw it—he was doomed.

  When Patrick Belknap came and sat next to him, Tommy Pepper pushed the Ace Robotroid Adventure lunch box a little farther under the table while Patrick took out his own lunch. It was in a brown paper bag, which is what all lunches for sixth-graders should be in. How come only Tommy Pepper’s father didn’t get this?

  When James Sullivan came and sat next to Patrick Belknap, Tommy Pepper pushed the Ace Robotroid Adventure lunch box to the very edge of the bench, as far under the table as it could get without some sort of antigravity device. James Sullivan laid his football—his authentic Tom Brady-signed football—on the table, and he put his lunch next to it. His lunch that was in a brown paper bag. Of course.

  When Alice
Winslow came and sat across from him and asked, “Were you wearing that coat because you were trying to hide something?” Tommy Pepper pushed the Ace Robotroid Adventure lunch box a little farther under the table again.

  “No,” he said.

  “Hey, Pepper,” said James Sullivan, “Mr. Burroughs said it was your birthday today. Is it your birthday?”

  Tommy Pepper nodded. The Ace Robotroid Adventure lunch box teetered.

  “So we get ice cream cake when we get back,” said James Sullivan.

  “And I get to play my...”

  “Accordion,” they all said.

  “Accordion,” said Patrick Belknap.

  “We can hardly wait,” said James Sullivan. “What did you get, Pepper?”

  Tommy shrugged.

  “Are you sure you weren’t hiding something?” said Alice Winslow.

  At the very end of the bench, Jeremy Hereford sat down. He was the smallest kid in the sixth grade. He weighed about what a cantaloupe weighs. Maybe it was the vibration of Jeremy’s butt hitting the seat. Or maybe it had something to do with the quick flash of light Tommy saw at the window. But whatever it was, the Ace Robotroid Adventure lunch box tipped enough, just enough, so that it fell down, down, and clattered its tinny clatter on the wood floor.

  “What was that?” said Alice Winslow.

  Tommy Pepper closed his eyes.

  “What kind of ice cream do you think it will be this time?” said Patrick Belknap.

  “Did something fall?” said Alice Winslow.

  “Butter pecan,” said James Sullivan.

  “What fell?” said Alice Winslow.

  “Probably his birthday present,” said Patrick Belknap.

  This is what happens when you are doomed, Tommy thought. It’s all been decided. Nothing can stop it. Even your friends become part of the Universe’s Plan of Doom and Destruction.

  Tommy Pepper looked down beneath the cafeteria table at his fallen Ace Robotroid Adventure lunch box, and there among the spilled carrot and celery sticks, something ... well, something glowed. Tommy blinked. Whatever it was, it really was glowing a little bit. He reached down and picked it up.