she like?”
“What was who like?” asked Mark.
“Osa. She gave you the ring, right? What was she like?”
It was true. Mark had almost forgotten. He had actually met one of the characters from Bobby’s adventure. She was in his bedroom. Mark put the rolled parchment pages down and allowed his thoughts to drift back to the night before.
“She was like a dream,” he said softly. “But the thing I remember most is that when she looked at me, I felt…safe.” Mark looked down to the ring on his finger and continued, “And now she’s dead. I guess she wasn’t able to make things safe after all.”
The two took a moment to grieve silently for a woman they only knew through the pages of Bobby’s journal. Then Courtney picked up her pen and began to write. There was work to be done. They went over Bobby’s list and picked the items they felt they could each find most easily. Courtney made out the two lists, then with the plan of meeting back at her house at sevenA.M. the next day, they split up and went to work.
Mark went home and brought Bobby’s parchment papers with him. Bobby had asked him to treat them like gold and that’s what he planned to do. Mark had a hiding place that no one in his family knew about. His attic was full of old furniture. Tucked way in the back was an ancient rolltop desk that hadn’t been moved since before Mark was born. The drawers of the desk were locked and his parents never tried to open them because they didn’t have the key. But Mark did. He had found it hidden on a lip under the desk when he was eight years old. He never told his parents because they didn’t really care, but for him it was the perfect place to hide his most treasured possessions. His special stash included mint conditionMad magazines; baseball cards for rookie Yankees Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, and Mariano Rivera; some Star Wars action figures that were still in their original packaging; a report card from the seventh grade that had two Ds…just to remind him how easy it is to screw up; and an assortment of other small items that had special value to him alone.
Every so often Mark would go up in the attic to look over these treasures. It always made him feel good, like visiting old friends. He especially liked to check out the toys. He was too old to be playing with them, but they always brought him back to a fun time in his life, if only for a moment. It was a pleasure that no one had to know about.
When he opened the drawer this time, he wasn’t hit with the familiar warm wave of nostalgia. As he looked down at all his good junk, he had the strange feeling that it belonged to someone else. And in a way, it did. It belonged to the old Mark, the innocent Mark of yesterday, whose biggest concerns were about finishing homework on time and battling the acne that was running wild on his nose. But that was yesterday. Today he had to deal with issues that not only affected life and death on the far side of the universe, but raised serious questions about the reality of life in his own backyard. It wasn’t until Mark opened that drawer that he realized how much he had changed in the past few hours. He wanted to pick up the Chewbacca figure and let out a Chewie roar. He wanted to flip open aMad magazine and laugh at “Spy vs. Spy.” He wanted to walk the dog with the whistling yo-yo he had kept since his day at the state fair when he was six. Instead he found a cardboard box, pulled out the drawer and dumped everything into it. He closed the box and shoved it under the desk alongside all the other dusty, long- forgotten boxes full of long-forgotten stuff. It was like putting aside his old life to make room for the new one.
This desk drawer was still going to be the place for Mark’s most valued possessions, but they were no longer the trinkets that held warm memories of childhood. This would now be the place to hold Bobby’s story. He carefully placed the rolled scrolls in the wooden drawer. They fit perfectly, front to back. Mark made a mental note that there would be room for many more scrolls. He usually kept the desk key in his bedroom desk, but that didn’t feel secure enough anymore. His mother had given him a silver chain that she used to wear when she was his age. It had a peace symbol on it and Mark had it hanging from his bedroom mirror. Mark took the chain down and replaced the pendant with the key. The chain then went around his neck, never to be away from him again. He now felt reasonably secure that Bobby’s pages were safe. Or at least as safe as he knew how to keep them.
At sevenA.M. sharp Courtney’s doorbell rang. When she opened the door, Mark was standing there wearing a large backpack from L.L. Bean.
“Did you sleep?” he asked.
“No,” she answered. “Did you get any more pages?”
“No,” he answered. “Let’s get this party started.”
They went down to Courtney’s dad’s workshop, where Courtney had laid out all of the items from her half of the list.
“Where are your parents?” Mark asked her.
“They left for work.”
“You know we have to cut school to do this,” Mark said.
“Do you care?” asked Courtney.
Mark didn’t have to answer. The two stood there looking at the items, not sure of what to do next. Courtney broke the tension.
“Try the ring thing,” she said.
Mark scanned the items and picked out the flashlight. It was roughly the same size as the rolled parchment pages and as good a candidate as any. He then took off the ring and put it on the floor. He knelt down, put his finger on the gray stone and looked at Courtney.
“Go for it,” she encouraged.
“Denduron,” whispered Mark. Nothing happened. “Denduron,” he said again, this time a bit louder. Still no reaction from the ring.
“Let me try,” said Courtney and knelt down. She touched the ring and shouted, “Denduron!”
They both looked at the ring, but it lay motionless on the ground.
“I g-guess we’re going to the subway,” Mark said soberly.
Courtney jumped up and started to pack the gear into Mark’s backpack. She moved fast, as if she were afraid she might chicken out if she stopped to think too much about what lay ahead.
“I got a train schedule,” she said efficiently. “We can take the commuter train to 125th Street, then catch a subway from there.” When she finished packing, she closed up the buckles on the pack and looked at Mark. It was time to go.
“Courtney,” said Mark sheepishly. “I’m scared.”
The two let that admission hang in the air for a moment, then Courtney straightened up and said, “You know something? I’m not. We’re gonna do this.”
It may have been a bold bluff, but seeing Courtney being her usual confident self gave Mark hope. Maybe they could do this. So he hoisted the pack onto his back and the two started for the train station.
Stony Brook Station was at the bottom of the Ave. It was early so the platform was still packed with business commuters in suits who were on their way to work in New York City. Courtney and Mark had to keep one eye out for any parents who might know them and question why they weren’t in school. They saw one guy who Mark knew from Boy Scouts, but they saw him in time to make sure they boarded a different car when the train pulled into the station. They didn’t need to be so cautious. All the commuters had their heads buried in their newspapers and didn’t look at anyone else on the platform.
The train ride into New York was a quiet one. The commuters who weren’t reading were asleep. It would have been hard for Courtney and Mark to discuss their mission for they definitely would have been overheard. Mark looked at the commuters reading their morning papers and had to laugh to himself. They were all reading articles about the stock market, or about sports, or about a speech the president had given at some parade. But whatever news they were reading about couldn’t compare to the very real story that he and Courtney were living out right in front of their noses. Mark could imagine the headline: LOCAL BOY FLUMED ACROSS THE UNIVERSE TO LEAD REVOLUTION. Nowthat’s a news story.
All Courtney wanted to do was take these few minutes to relax. She knew that once they stepped off this train their adventure would begin and she wanted to be calm enough to handle whatever came their way. So she laid back in her seat, closed her eyes and tried to keep her heart from beating as fast as it was.
In no time they arrived at their stop, 125th Street in Manhattan. The train would continue on from there to Grand Central Station, where most of the commuters were headed. But 125th Street was much closer to the Bronx, so with a silent nod Courtney and Mark got off the train.
They had always heard their parents say that this was a bad section of town. They weren’t entirely sure what
