had already passed the half-mile safety border and was showing no signs of slowing down. Even if it threw its engines into reverse, it was already too late. There was going to be a crash.
A second alarm sounded that was even louder and more piercing than the first. Where the first alarm sounded like a warning to Magorran, this new alarm sounded more like a warning to Grallion. Impact was inevitable. The only thing that could be done was to prepare for it.
The habitat of Magorran was looming closer. I could now look onto the deck and was surprised to see that there were no people. Wherever they were, I hoped they were doing whatever they could to slow themselves down.
The aquaneers below us began to stream up the stairs to get on deck. That is, all but Spader. Spader just stood there, staring at the oncoming habitat. It looked as if he were mesmerized by the behemoth that would soon crash into Grallion.
“Cast off lines!” shouted Yenza. “Everyone on deck! Move!”
Spader didn’t move. Somebody had to kick him into gear. I started for the stairs to go down to him, but Uncle Press put a firm hand on my shoulder. I looked up to my uncle and saw that he was calm. He shook his head no, telling me not to go. But something had to be done.
“Spader!” Uncle Press called out to him.
Thankfully, Spader heard him. He turned around and looked up to us. On his face was a look of confusion. Not fear, just concern.
“Time to go, son,” Uncle Press called to him. His voice was firm but unpanicked. It cut through the frenzied energy around us louder than any siren. Spader gave one quick glance back at Magorran to see that it was nearly on us, and then he broke for the stairs. He was the last one up.
“Let’s get out of here,” commanded Uncle Press. “We’ll be safest on deck.”
Spader joined the other aquaneers while Uncle Press and I ran for our lives. We climbed up the stairs as quickly as possible until we got on deck. I didn’t dare look back. I didn’t want to see what was about to happen. All around us was panic. Several different alarms were sounding. Aquaneers were everywhere, desperately trying to cast off the heavy lines that kept Grallion in place. Those who didn’t have specific jobs in an emergency were doing the same thing we were — running back to get as far away from the impact zone as possible.
It was going to be ugly. I briefly wondered if both these giant habitats could withstand a collision without sinking. The thought of these huge vessels both going to the bottom was too horrible to even imagine, especially since I was on one of them. I tried to get that out of my mind. One thing at a time, and right now, the best thing we could do was keep running away from the impact zone.
On the deck in front of us I saw a frightening sight. The shadows cast by the buildings on Magorran were chasing us across the deck. It was right behind us. Impact was imminent. I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and had to turn and look. What I saw made me gasp. The sheer size of Magorran was mind-boggling. The buildings on its bow must have been seven or eight stories tall, and they were headed right for us. Seeing something so big took my breath away. Knowing that it was going to hit us made me think I’d never take another breath again.
“Keep moving!” ordered Uncle Press.
I turned to continue running with him, and that’s when it happened.
Magorran collided with Grallion, full steam ahead into a world that would never be the same.
END OF JOURNAL #5
“How can he end a journal here?”shouted Courtney in dismay. “That’s not fair. He can’t leave us hanging like that!”
Courtney looked to Mark, expecting him to be just as outraged as she was. But Mark had other things on his mind. He had finished reading the journal several minutes before Courtney and was now busily leafing back through the pages of Bobby’s Journal #5 and rummaging in his backpack. The frown on his face said that something was bothering him.
“He’s messing with us,” added Courtney. “He knows we pore over every word of his journals and he gave us a cliffhanger. That’s just… wrong. This isn’t a game. Why did he… What are you doing?”
Mark kept reading through the earlier pages, looking for something. Courtney was suddenly intrigued.
“You saw something, didn’t you?” she asked. “Did you figure out who caused the habitats to crash? Was it Saint Dane?”
Mark didn’t answer. The scowl of tension didn’t leave his face either.
“Mark!”Courtney shouted with frustration.
This rocked Mark back into the room. His look of worry was replaced by the look of a small boy who just got caught doing something wrong.
“I–I’m an idiot. A total idiot, th-that’s all I can say.”
He was on the verge of tears. He held up the pages of Bobby’s latest journal. “It’s missing. The first page is missing.”
Courtney jumped to her feet and grabbed the light green pages from him. She shuffled through them quickly, looking for the missing page.
“That’s impossible. We read it together, in the bathroom at school. It’s got to be here.”
She flipped through the pages once, twice, a third time and then looked to Mark and shouted, “It’s not here!”
“I know!” cried Mark.
“Don’t panic. When was the last time we saw it for sure?”
“In the boys’ room,” whined Mark. “We were reading when Mr. Dorrico burst in yelling and I jammed all the pages in my pack and — “
Courtney dove at Mark’s pack and frantically dug through it.
“Don’t you think I already looked there?” said Mark with frustration. “Like five times already?”
Courtney threw the pack down and clicked into a different gear. She knew that being all frantic and pointing fingers of blame wouldn’t help get the page back. They had to think clearly.
“We had it in the bathroom,” she began, thinking out loud. “That’s for definite. But we came right here. That means we lost it somewhere between the bathroom and here. It’s gotta be here!”
Courtney started tossing the cushions on the sofa, desperate to find the lost page. Mark didn’t help. His mind was already jumping ahead.
“There’s another possibility,” said Mark softly. “M-maybe it never left the bathroom.”
“What?”
“1–1 mean, everything happened fast with Mr. Dorrico and all. Maybe I didn’t grab all the pages.”
Courtney stared at Mark. For a moment Mark was afraid she would lunge at him and tear out his adenoids. But she didn’t. Instead she glanced at her watch.
“School’s closed,” she said, all business. “If Mr. Dorrico found that page, he probably tossed it in the trash. That means it’s either still in that trash can, or outside in the Dumpster.”
The two stared at each other for a solid thirty seconds. Neither wanted to admit what the next step might be. Mark broke first.
“We’re going through that Dumpster tonight, aren’t we?” he said, sounding sick.
“Do you want someone to find that page and start asking questions? Like the police?”
That was a no-brainer. There would be way too many questions to answer if Captain Hirsch of the Stony Brook Police saw that page. Mark and Courtney hadn’t been entirely honest with him about their knowledge of Bobby’s disappearance, so if someone else found that page, they would look really bad.
“I’ll meet you there after dinner,” said Mark. “Bring rubber gloves. This is gonna be gross.”
And itwasgross.
Mark and Courtney met as planned, right after dinner. Both used the excuse that they were going to the library on the Ave. Instead they spent a solid two hours digging through the Dumpsters of Stony Brook Junior High. Neither could have imagined that one school could create so much disgusting ick in one day. Going through piles of discarded paper wasn’t so bad. Paper was dry. Where it got tough was when they had to search through the stuff thatwasn’tdry. Their journey through garbageland couldn’t have happened at a worse time. On that very day, the cafeteria had served spaghetti Creole, the furnace had been cleaned and overhauled, and Miss Britton’s biology class had the pleasure of dissecting frogs. That meant that the Dumpsters were loaded with sticky tomato sauce,
