“Must be an old geezer,” Courtney said. “That car is ancient. It doesn’t even have plates.”
“Somebody should yank his license!” Mr. Chetwynde said, his heart racing.
“Yeah, Dad,” Courtney said. “Let’s go get him. Citizen’s arrest.”
Mr. Chetwynde turned around to give Courtney a look…and laughed. Courtney laughed too. So did Mrs. Chetwynde. It felt good. There hadn’t been a whole lot of laughing with the Chetwyndes lately.
A few minutes later they arrived at the Stansfield Academy. Courtney’s home for the next six weeks. It was a private school, K-12, that had been around since the dark ages. It looked it too. The buildings were brick and covered with leafy vines. There was a grassy campus with huge shade trees that Courtney could envision herself lying under to read and do homework. Kids were everywhere. Some were arriving with suitcases. Others were playing catch with various footballs, baseballs, and Frisbees. Courtney thought it was a pretty place, in a boring New England kind of way. That was okay. She wasn’t there for excitement.
The Chetwyndes’ picked the place out of a catalog. During the school year it was the last kind of place Courtney would be caught dead in. It was an elite private school where the boys wore boring blue blazers and the girls wore… boring blue blazers. But things were much more relaxed during summer session. There were kids from all walks of life, not just the snooty types. After walking across the campus, Courtney’s first impression was that they had picked the right place.
“Heads up!” A soccer ball game flying by, nearly hitting Mr. Chetwynde. Courtney caught it without thinking. A guy came jogging up to get it.
“Sorry,” he said.
“No problem,” Courtney said, tossing him the ball. Courtney sized him up quickly. Cute, athletic, polite, cute. He was nearly six feet tall, with short, wavy blond hair and dazzling gray eyes.
“That was a good catch,” the guy said. “You play?”
Courtney had to think about that answer. Did she play? She could probably dribble rings around this pretty boy. Then again, maybe she couldn’t. She didn’t want to have to find out.
“No,” she said. “I’m not much for sports.”
Courtney’s parents both gave her a quick look, but chose not to comment.
The guy backed away, saying, “You don’t know what you’re missing. Play with us sometime.”
He turned and jogged back to his group of friends who were playing in the pickup game. Courtney watched him go, checking out his muscular legs. A second later she felt the stares of her parents. She looked at them to see they were holding back smiles.
“What?” she said. “I’m not here to play soccer.”
“Neither is he,” Mr. Chetwynde said with a chuckle.
“Oh, please,” Courtney said playfully, and kept walking.
The Chetwyndes spent the next few hours getting Courtney settled. They picked up her registration materials and class schedule. They got a tour of the dining hall, the swimming pool, the game room, the student lounge, the buildings where her classes would be, and finally, her dorm. Courtney caught a huge break and didn’t have to share her dorm room with anybody. It’s not that she didn’t want to meet anybody, but after having spent the better part of the last few months in bed with the covers over her head, Courtney was grateful that she could return to being social on her own terms. So far it was all good.
After spending several hours at Stansfield, any doubt that Courtney had about this being a good idea had vaporized. She was happy to be there. Her mom helped her unpack while her dad brought up the small refrigerator they had rented for the term. Finally, after taking care of all there was to take care of, it was time for her parents to leave. There was an awkward moment, for all sorts of reasons. Courtney had never been away from home for that long before-at least as far as her parents knew. They didn’t know about her journey to Eelong. Beyond that, their relationship had been pretty rocky over the past year. It made saying good-bye difficult.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Mrs. Chetwynde said. “I mean, not that I don’t want you home, but I think it’s better that you’re here instead of…Oh, this is coming out all wrong.”
Courtney broke the tension by giving her mother a hug. “I know what you mean, Mom,” she said. “This is a good thing. But I miss you already.”
“Really?” Mr. Chetwynde asked, surprised.
“Well, no, but I’m pretty sure I will real soon,” Courtney said.
The three had another laugh over that. Courtney hugged her dad.
“You know how much we love you,” he said. “And we’ll always be there for you.”
“I know, Dad,” Courtney said. “I love you too.”
“Call us,” Mrs. Chetwynde said. “We’ll send you a care package. And maybe you can come home some weekend.”
“Mom, it’s only six weeks. I’m not moving out.”
“I know, honey,” Mrs. Chetwynde gave Courtney another hug while brushing back tears. “I’m so proud of you for doing this.”
“Thanks,” Courtney said. “Now go.”
After one last round of hugs, the Chetwynde’s left and Courtney was alone. She looked around the room that was going to be her home for the next few weeks. The dorm was ancient. She wondered how many kids had said good-bye to their parents on this very spot. She suddenly missed her folks, for real. She went over to the window and caught a glimpse of them as they left the dorm and walked across the grass toward the car. She also caught a glimpse of something else.
Parked along the roadway, not far from the dorm, was the black sedan that had nearly run them off the road. There was no mistaking it. Courtney looked to see if her dad had seen it. She wouldn’t put it past him to actually go over there and make a citizen’s arrest. Or at least tell the guy off. But her parents kept walking.^
The mystery of who owned the ancient car that nearly ran them off the road would remain a mystery.
For a while.
SECOND EARTH
(CONTINUED)
Courtney’s summer at Stansfield started out to beexactly what she needed. Nobody knew her. Nobody expected anything from her. People didn’t whisper behind her back, “That used to be Courtney Chetwynde.” She had no reputation, good or bad. Nobody knew that she may have helped a demon in his quest to destroy all of humanity. She wasn’t about to tell anybody either. For Courtney it was like starting over fresh.
She took three classes. Classic literature, algebra-trig, and drawing. She had discovered that she had a talent for sketching, so she figured it would be a fun thing to do. Certainly more fun than algebra-trig. Courtney found that she had no problem getting up and going to class. She looked forward to it. She ate her meals in the dining hall and started hanging with a group of girls from New York. They were giggly and more interested in checking out the boys than finding out about Courtney, which was fine by her. These girls pretty much had only two subjects they could talk about. Boys and themselves. If Courtney tried to change the subject to something she may have read in the newspaper, or learned in class, the girls would look at her blankly, take a beat, and jump right back in, talking about how cute a particular teacher was, or about how the humidity was destroying their hair.
It was all so mindless and trivial to Courtney…she loved it.
She spent hours sitting under the shady trees, reading. Or sweating over math problems. In the afternoons there was always a pickup soccer game going on. The guy who nearly beaned her dad played every day. Courtney thought he was pretty good, too. He was probably a high-school varsity player at home, she thought. She felt sure she could beat him one on one, but had to force that thought out of her head. She wasn’t there to compete.
The other thought she had trouble forcing out of her head was that this guy was pretty cute. Thinking this way made her feel like she was cheating on Bobby. Though they were light-years apart, literally, she and Bobby were supposed to be together. If it weren’t for that silly little thing of his having to leave home to save Halla, they’d be together right now. But it had been nearly two years since she admitted her feelings to Bobby. Two years since he told her he liked her too. A lot had happened in that time. She wasn’t even sure if Bobby still felt the same way. Still, she thought it would be wrong to start a relationship with somebody new, without telling Bobby. So she tried
