written on National Bank of Stony Brook stationery. The words were written in Bobby’s handwriting. Dear Mark and Courtney,
I gotta make this fast. I don’t have much time. Here’s the deal. I lost my ring. I haven’t had it for months now. That’s why you haven’t been getting my journals. I’ve been writing though. Every thing that’s happened I put down on paper, just like always. But it’s been making me crazy. I hate having all the journals together. They’re not safe with me. I can’t believe it took me as long as it did to come up with a solution.
I came to Stony Brook. I knew the National Bank was around forever and sure enough, here it is. What a rush. The Ave is a totally different place, though. I was kind of hoping Garden Poultry was here to grab a quick box of fries, but no such luck. You know what’s there instead? A barbershop. Same building, different business. Weird.
I could go on forever about how strange this is, but I don’t have time. If my plan works, and I can’t think of why it won’t, you’ll be sitting in the same spot where I am right now, reading this letter.
I’ve put all four journals in the safe deposit box. The whole adventure is contained here. Hopefully, the next time you hear from me it will be through the rings. I think I might know where mine is now, and that’s where I’m headed.
Thank you, guys. I miss you.
Bobby
May 31, 1937
P.S. If they still have these wooden desks in the vault, look under the one to the far right. Courtney and Mark both read the letter a few times to make sure they understood. Somehow Bobby got here in 1937 and left his journals. It made sense. Bobby knew the National Bank would still be here in the present, so there was no reason why it wouldn’t work. The bigger question was, how the heck did he get to 1937? It began to raise all sorts of questions about the flumes sending Travelers through time as well as territories.
They both turned their attention to the desk they were sitting at. They looked pretty old and were probably the same desks that Bobby had sat at. They both got down on their knees to look under the desk on the far right. They had no idea what they should be looking for until
“Oh, man, look!” Courtney said.
She pointed to a spot underneath the desk. Something was carved into the woodwork. The only way you could see it was to be down on the floor, looking straight up. The words said: “Happy Birthday, Mark.”
As they lay on their backs, looking up, Mark and Courtney started to laugh. This was so perfectly Bobby. Mark wished he had a camera with him so he could take a shot and keep it with the journals. He planned on coming back and doing just that.
The two then pulled themselves out from under the desk and stood up. They stared at the open safety deposit box and the four journals inside.
“I can’t believe there’s a whole story here,” said Courtney.
“We should bring them home,” Mark said.
“Yeah,” agreed Courtney, “but this is killing me. Let’s just look at the first page.”
Mark couldn’t think of a reason not to, so he reached inside and took the first journal off the pile. It was nicely bound, like a book that had never been opened.
“Not exactly old parchment papers,” Mark said. He then carefully opened the cover to the first page.
Unlike the stories from Denduron and Cloral, Bobby had typed this journal. The pages were the size of regular computer printer paper, but they were heavier and cream colored. Also, the typing looked all messy. This wasn’t like a clean page from a printer. This had actually been typed on an old-fashioned typewriter. Neither of them had ever seen something like this — it was like looking at a piece of history. In a way, that’s exactly what it was.
“Let’s at least see where he was,” said Courtney.
“Okay,” agreed Mark.
The two sat down at the desk and began to read. to be continued
FIRST EARTH
That’s where I am. First Earth. Veelox was a misdirection. Spader and I flumed to Veelox, but found the action wasn’t there. It was here on First Earth.
Where is First Earth? The better question is, whenis First Earth? I’m in New York City and it’s 1937. March of 1937 to be exact. To bereallyexact, it’s March 11 of 1937. I’m writing this on my birthday. Here’s a weird thought: If I’m in 1937 and it’s my birthday, did I still turn fifteen? Kind of freaky, no?
I’ll begin this new journal by telling you I stumbled into the most bizarro, confusing, dangerous situation yet. But then again, haven’t I said that before? Let me give you a little taste of what happened in only the first few minutes since I got here…
Spader and I were nearly killed. Three times. We were also robbed and witnessed a gruesome murder. Happy birthday to me! The way things are going, I know what I want for my fifteenth birthday… the chance to have a sixteenth.
When Spader and I flumed in from Veelox, I had no idea of what “First Earth” meant. Since I’m from Second Earth, I could only guess that First Earth was sometime in the Earth’s past. But how far past? For all I knew we were fluming back to a time when quigs were dinosaurs and we’d be on the run from hungry, yellow-eyed raptors.
I was totally relieved to find that when we landed at the gate, it was the exact same rocky room that I had been through many times before. Yes, we had arrived at the gate off the subway tunnel in the Bronx, New York. Phew. At least there were no T-rexes or Neanderthals waiting for us. That was the good news.
Bad news was that we weren’t alone. As soon as the flume dropped us off, I saw two guys standing there, facing us. They wore old-fashioned gray suits, like Clark Kent wears in the oldSupermanshow on TV Land. Actually, a better analogy is that these guys were dressed like thebad guysfrom that old show, because that’s what they were. Bad guys. Verybad guys. They wore wide-brimmed hats that were pulled down low and had white handkerchiefs around their noses and mouths like ban-ditos. There’s only one word to describe these dudes.
Gangsters.
Their eyes looked wide and scared. No big surprise. They had just seen Spader and me drop out of nowhere in an explosion of light and music. They seemed totally stunned, which was good because there was one other detail I haven’t mentioned…
They were both holding machine guns that were aimed at the flume — and at us.
“Down!” I yelled at Spader.
The two of us jumped to opposite sides of the flume just as the gangsters started shooting. I crouched in a ball, totally unprotected as the deadly clatter from their rapid-fire guns echoed off the rocky walls. I thought for sure I’d get hit, but after a few seconds the shooting stopped, and I was still intact. I was afraid to move and even more afraid to look over and see if Spader was okay. The sharp explosions fell off to a distant echo that bounced around the cavelike room. My ears were ringing and the chemical smell of gunpowder burned my nose. I figured this was what it must be like to be in a war.
“Get up!” one of the gangsters ordered. “Hands in the air!”
I cautiously looked over to Spader and saw that he was okay. We stood slowly and raised our hands. The gangsters held their guns on us. I didn’t know why. It wasn’t like we had weapons of our own. The second gangster kept glancing nervously between the two of us. He looked almost as scared as we were. Almost.
“Th-They from Mars?” he asked his buddy nervously.
Under less terrifying circumstances, I would have laughed. It must have looked like we had just landed from outer space. Not only did we flash in through a storm of light, we were still dressed in our bright blue swimskins from Cloral. For a second I thought about pulling a huge bluff and chanting: “Drop your weapons or we will vaporize you with our mind-heat,” or something equally sci-fi, but I didn’t get the chance.
“Don’t matter,” barked the other gangster. He was definitely the one in charge, but I could tell from his voice that he was a little shaky too.
“We done our job,” he added.
