“Dressed like that, it’s pretty much impossible to think of you as anything other than dorky guy,” I mumbled, taking a moment to roll my eyes at Buttercup, completely annoyed by his tendency to be overly affectionate toward strangers, especially this stranger. Going so far as to actually sniff, then lick dorky guy’s hand, carrying on like the worst kind of traitor.
“And another thing, this whole dorky guy thing? It end snow. I have a name, and I’d like for you to use it,” he said, appearing right before me again.
I stopped, there was no use running a race I couldn’t win. Hands clutching my plaid-covered hips when I said, “Yeah? So, let’s hear it. What would you like me to call you instead?”
“Bodhi.” He nodded, seemingly pleased with the sound of it.
“Bodhi,” I repeated, thinking that as far as names went, it was a good one. Only thing is, it didn’t work.
In fact, everything about it was wrong. Bodhi conjured up images of cute, tan, surfer boys, like the ones who live in Ever’s Laguna Beach neighborhood. The kind who were pretty much the opposite of Mr.
Pocket Protector with the bad hair, worse glasses, and nerdy clothes who stood right before me.
“Seriously,” he said, eyes narrowed on mine for a moment before he looked around nervously. “You have to stop this. I heard every word of that — and so did—” He paused, gritting his teeth to keep from saying anything more. His gaze locked on mine when he added, “Listen, all you need to know is thatI’m your guide. I’m the one you’ve been looking for. Think of me as your teacher, guidance counselor, coach, and boss, all rolled into one. Which means you can not continue to talk to me like that, or to call me that. There will be consequences for that sort of insubordination. Serious consequences. So just stop — okay? My name is Bodhi, and I expect you to use it. You need to—” He hesitated, his eyes darting all around in the most paranoid way, his voice lowered to a whisper when he said, “You need to respect me, okay?”
I squinted, alerted to the undercurrent of begging that rang loud and clear, with just a pinch of paranoia thrown in for good measure.
So this is my guide, I thought, sucking in a mouthful of air, wondering what other punishments might be in store. I mean, he had no wings, no shimmering robe, no halo, nothing that indicated he should in any way be the boss of me, and yet, there it was. He was the boss of me. And despite my wanting to believe otherwise, somehow I just knew it was real. Somehow I just knew he wasn’t lying about this.
“So, you’re like my guardian angel then? For real?” I watched as he shrugged, obviously uninterested in the details. And something about him, something about the slouchy way he stood — not bad-posture slouchy — not low-self-esteem slouchy — but more like cool guy with a cool name slouchy — just didn’t fit with his overall look.
Something was weird about him.
Off.
Something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.
“Listen,” he said, eager to move on. “It’s my job to teach you everything, if you want to get to the next level, that is. And believe me, you havea lot to learn before you can even think about that. But, first things first — we need to get moving. Are you ready to head back to the earth plane?” He buried his hands in his pockets and looked all around, obviously as eager tovamanos out of this place as I was.
“The next level?” I eyeballed him carefully, as I walked alongside him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
But he was already ten steps ahead. Glancing over his shoulder to say, “All in good time, Riley. All in good time.”
It took a trolley, a tram, a bus, and a subway just to get part of the way there.
Or at least I called it the subway.
Bodhi called it the tube.
While the guy who checked our tickets called it the tunnel.
So who really knew?
All I knew for sure is that I was more than a little disappointed there wasn’t any flying involved.
And I don’t mean flying on an airplane flying, I mean the kind of flying usually reserved for birds, or butterflies, or angels, or maybe even dead people like me.
The kind of flying you sometimes get to experience in your dreams, when you just take off and start soaring through the clouds for no apparent reason.
That’s the kind of flying I was hoping for.
And when it didn’t happen, when I realized we’d be stuck with the same old methods of transportation I’d known back home, well, I’m not even sure why I was so disappointed. Especially since, up to that point anyway, nothing in the afterlife was anything at all like I’d expected. So why would flying be any different?
“Wrong again,” Bodhi said, eavesdropping on my thoughts, which, by the way, was really starting to get on my nerves in a very big way. I mean, it was bad enough knowing my entire existence had been documented, but having what I once thought of as my private thoughts so easily accessed by my afterlife guide, well, it really bugged me.
“There is flying.” He nodded, not bothering to push his hair back when it fell into his face yet again, just leaving it to hang there, dangling before his glasses, like a thick, greasy noodle. “And trust me, it’s as fun as you think, if not funner.”
“Funner?”My eyes grew wide as a smile pulled at my lips. “You sure about that — that it’s actually funner?”
I couldn’t help it, I just burst out laughing right there in front of him. And I’m talking the eye-squinching, belly-clutching kind of laughing. But he just ignored me, and continued yammering on and on as though I hadn’t even called him out on his grammar.
“It doesn’t require wings like you think,” he said, straightening his legs until they took up the two empty seats on the aisle right across from me and dangled off the end.
“So, when doI get to fly?” I asked, calming myself down enough to look right at him.
Watching as he leaned down to scratch Buttercup between the ears, glancing at me when he said, “All in good time.”
I rolled my eyes, already sick of the phrase and correctly assuming I hadn’t even come close to hearing the last of it. Scrunching way down in my seat, bringing my knees to my chest, and wrapping my arms tightly around them as I stared out the window, trying to grasp hold of the passing scenery, to pause it, to make sense of it, but the train was moving so fast it was hard to grasp any one thing in particular. Still, I had this sort of inner sense of a whole stream of images. Like a continuous flow of pictures, events that happened on the earth plane, including stuff that was both way before me, and way after me.
The entire story of mankind.
The history of time.
And even though it was impossible to tell just how long the journey took, it didn’t seem like it took all that long. Or at least not nearly as long as you’d think a trip like that would take. And before I knew it we were out of the tunnel, off of the tube, and standing on a platform as Bodhi looked all around us and said, “This is it.”
A gush of wind swept past me as the train we’d just disembarked vanished from sight, leaving the three of us gazing all around, trying to get our bearings in a place that, while I was sure it was part of the earth plane, didn’t look even the slightest bit familiar.
I stayed focused on Bodhi, hoping he knew where he was going as he wordlessly led us down one street, and then another, before reaching a long, narrow alleyway which eventually let out onto a narrow cobblestone lane. He pointed up toward the sky and said, “That’s it.” Then he paused for a moment before adding, “I think.”
“You — think?” I narrowed my eyes, the miniscule amount of confidence I’d granted him gone, just like that.
“No, I’m sure of it. Really. That’s definitely it,” he repeated, straightening his shoulders and nodding firmly, trying to appear certain, commanding, like a confident sure-footed guide, but still I had the sinking feeling he was as clueless as Buttercup and I.
“So, what isit exactly?” I said, following past the tip of his pointing finger, trying to squint through the clouds,
