CHAPTER 2 There are many gods? Bo stopped me as we reached Chapter 2. I was all ready to jump through again, but Bo shook his head. He reached up and pulled the giant page back, and I saw a room down below. The walls were covered with paintings of faces I hoped I'd never meet. There was a giant chandelier in the center that tinkled softly. And below the chandelier was a table, around which sat the ferocious looking gods from the pictures on the wall. Bo tugged on my sleeve. "Jump," he whispered. "Looks like they're having dinner..." I stammered. I was definitely not in the mood to meet these guys. Bo pulled me. "GERONIMO!" he yelled, and I prayed for my life. We landed on one of the plates, and the hairy god in front of me rubbed his greasy hands on his shirt and picked me up, eyeing me carefully. "Don't hurt me...please!" I squeaked. Bo jumped up onto the god's shirt and climbed on his shoulder. "Excuse me, your lordship, but this is not supposed to be part of the deal. You're just supposed to tell us the way things are here." "Yeah, yeah. We been expecting you. Ain't we gods," he said, and then he laughed, and it sounded like thunder. The other 11 gods and goddesses hissed and cackled too. "Here you go," the god said as he lifted us both up and placed us in front of the plate next to his. "We even set you a place for dinner. Ain't we sweet. 'Cept you'll have to share, though." I looked at the food on the giant plate and I'm not sure what or who it was, but it made me sick to my stomach. Bo, however, was busy eating away. "Hey, I'm starved," Bo explained, looking up with his greasy stubbled face. "You don't feed your dreams too well!" "So whatchya wanna know?" the god was saying. "I'm da god a thunder. Da head honcho god. You know. Thor, Zeus...whatever. You just call me BOSS, and we'll get along just fine, see." He picked his nose and I felt even sicker. "That's your universe there," he said pointing to a fruit bowl in the center of the table. Inside the bowl I saw this hazy blob that sort of looked like misty jello. "This here," he snorted, holding a magnifying glass up to the jello as he leaned over the table. "This is Earth. We run things there. Got it!" I tried to smile politely. "Hey you want I should make some thunder, or what?" he laughed, and holding a large greasy piece of meat in one hand, he pointed a third hand at the speck under the magnifying glass. A lightning bolt shot from his fingers and landed somewhere on Earth. "Oh, where's my manners," Zeus mumbled. "This here, is Venus, the goddess of love," he said, pointing a fourth hand at a goddess across the table who wore a black negligee. Venus looked up at me seductively. "How do you do," she cooed. I couldn't tear my eyes away from hers. I was glued to them and paralyzed. I felt this great surge of love inside, like my heart was going to burst in joy, and then she twisted up her face like a demon and yelled, "BOO!" and I fell over backwards into the plate of food. The gods laughed and pounded the table with their fists. "That guy over there," a fifth hand pointed, after the laughter had died down. "That's the god of fire." The fire god looked up and fire leaped out of his mouth and licked the dot called Earth. "What's up, Dude?" he burped, and smoke came out of his ears. "This is ridiculous, Bo!" I said to the other me. "How's that?" the thunder god boomed. "Well, how can there be a bunch of gods running things?" "Why not?" the thunder god asked. "Pass the butter, please," he said, turning to the god of water. "Because look around us. I mean we're sitting in a room. It's got four walls. We're all inside of it. There's got to be something outside of it, you know. It's like you stick a pea in a box. The box is in a room. The room is in a house. The house is in a world. The world is in a galaxy. The galaxy is in the universe. There's always something above and outside of it. Something had to have created all of you." "Whatch you talkin? I created them," Boss insisted. "And who created you?" Boss was getting upset. "I really don't see what all this has to do with peas. I don't even like peas! You like peas?" he grumbled to the god of war. "I hate peas!" the war god stormed, and he slammed his fist onto the fruit bowl. "No, I'm sorry," I said determinedly. "There can't be several gods. It's impossible. There would always have to be someone above them." "Uh, oh," Bo groaned, and he dropped a greasy piece of something or other. He grabbed me with his greasy hands. "I wasn't finished eating yet!" He swallowed nervously, and pointed up at the ceiling. "Now you've done it!" Just then a fist smashed through the roof, covering us in plaster. Bo pushed me off the table, and we ran across the giant room as an even more gigantic eye peeked in through the hole in the ceiling. We ran back and forth, trying not to be stepped on by the gods and goddesses as they scampered about, yelling and screaming. I looked at the hole, and giant lips were now pressed against it. Bo held on to me as the lips opened, and a roar smashed the room to bits. When I opened up my eyes, there was only a giant page floating in nothingness. We were at the end of the Chapter. Down on the bottom of the page there was the word: "PROBABILITY," with a huge blank after it. "Well, you want to fill it in, Jack?" Bo asked, and he handed me a giant pencil that just happened to be floating by. "Huh?" "You can put impossible. You pretty much proved it." "I did?" "Sounded good to me." "I guess, but..." "Now hurry up, so we can get rid of this chapter and move on to the next." I scratched my head in confusion. Bo tapped impatiently on the five foot long pencil. I took it from him and wrote "IMPOSSIBLE" in the blank. "Finally," Bo said as the page crumbled to dust before our eyes. Chapter 3 was waiting for us.   Table of Contents | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter