Mrs. Chetywnde said, “If you boys hadn’t found her…” She didn’t finish the sentence. The words caught in her throat.
“What happened, Mark?” Mr. Chetwynde said, holding back tears. “The police said it was a hit-and-run. How did you find her?”
Mark was prepared for that question. He knew it was coming. “It was luck, mostly,” he began. “Courtney called me yesterday to say she was riding into town to meet some guy named, uh,-“
“Whitney,” Mr. Chetwynde said. “The police told us. Nobody can find the guy. He’s not registered at the school.”
“Yeah, we found that out too,” Mark said. “This is Andy Mitchell, by the way. He’s a friend of mine; he gave me a ride up this morning.”
The Chetwyndes smiled at Andy. Andy nodded. He wasn’t used to being polite.
“Why did you decide to come up?” Mr. Chetwynde asked.
This was the tough part of the story. Mark couldn’t say that he was warned by Bobby Pendragon in a journal from across time and space that an evil demon might have been stalking Courtney. That probably would have made their heads explode, along with Andy’s. Mark decided to be as vague as possible.
“It was just a feeling,” he answered. “Courtney talked about hanging around with a new guy, but for some reason it didn’t feel right to me. I can’t explain why. I’d been planning on visiting her anyway. It was lucky we decided to come up when we did.”
The Chetwyndes nodded. They accepted his reasoning. So did Andy. It was close enough to the truth. Mark continued quickly to get past that rough spot. “When we got here, we found out that Courtney didn’t make it to class this morning. She wasn’t in her room and her bike was gone. That got me thinking the worst, like she never made it back from her date last night. So Andy and I drove into town. We saw the fresh skid marks on the road, and when we stopped to look, I saw Courtney’s book in the bushes. That’s how we found her.”
Mrs. Chetwynde started to cry. “Thank you, Mark. Both of you. You are both angels.”
Andy shuffled uncomfortably. Mark felt a little awkward too.
“It’s getting late,” Mr. Chetwynde said. “You shouldn’t drive home. We can put you guys up in a hotel for the night.”
Mark wanted to stay in the worst way. If they wouldn’t know about Courtney for another day, he wanted to be here. He looked at Andy and said, “What do you think?”
Andy shrugged and said, “Sure, what the hell.”
Mark winced at his language in front of Courtney’s parents. He looked at the Chetwyndes and said, “That’s great, thanks. But, uh, I gotta call my parents and tell them what’s going on. They sort of don’t know we came up today. If you could talk to them for a second and tell them you’re here and all, I’d appreciate it.”
“No problem,” Mr. Chetwynde said. “What about you, Andy?”
“I’ll call my parents,” he said. “No problem.”
Mrs. Chetwynde said, “But first you should see Courtney. She wants to talk with you.”
“Really?” Mark asked. “She’s awake?”
“For now,” Mr. Chetwynde answered. “I don’t know for how long, though. She’s pretty drugged up. She’s in intensive care, just down the hall.”
“Awesome!” Mark said, and started to walk off. He suddenly stopped and turned back to Andy to say, “C’mon.”
“Nah, it’s cool. It’s you she wants to see,” Andy said.
Mark walked back to Andy and said, “If it weren’t for you, she wouldn’t be here right now. She should know what you did.”
Andy looked at the Chetwyndes. They nodded encouragement. Andy shrugged and followed Mark. As they walked along the corridor toward the intensive care unit, Andy scratched nervously.
“Look, uh, Chetwynde’s not exactly a fan of mine,” he said. “I don’t want to bother her or nothing.”
“She should know how much you helped,” Mark said. “Just say hi.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve never seen a banged-up person before,” Andy said nervously. “What if I do something stupid, like puke.”
“Don’t” was all Mark said.
The two guys found the nurses’ station and asked where Courtney was. The nurses broke out into big smiles. They said that normally only family members were allowed to visit in intensive care, but seeing as Mark and Andy were the two heroes who saved Courtney, they’d be happy to make an exception. Besides, they said, Courtney had been asking to see Mark. The nurse led them through the corridor. There were only four rooms, and none of the others was occupied. Mark figured that in such a small town, it was a big deal to have somebody in intensive care. The nurse walked them to the last door at the end of the corridor and stopped.
“How is she doing?” Mark asked her.
The nurse frowned. That was a bad sign. “You’ll have to ask the parents,” she answered. “Don’t be long, okay?”
Mark knew that was bad news. People were quick to give good news. It was time to see for himself.
SECOND EARTH
(CONTINUED)
Mark tentatively entered Courtney’s hospital room. Hemotioned for Andy to wait a second. He wanted to see her first. When Mark rounded the curtain and saw her, he gasped. Courtney was a mess. Her face was black and blue. Her head was bandaged. Her left arm was in a full cast that was held in position by a steel rod that kept it away from her body. She was hooked up to all sorts of tubes and wires, with bags of various colored liquids dangling over her and monitors spewing out graphs and data. Numbers flashed that had no meaning to him. There was an incessantbeep…beep…beepcoming from one of the machines that Mark figured was her heart rate. He was grateful that he couldn’t see the bandages from all the surgery. That would have put him over the edge.
He walked tentatively up to the bed. He couldn’t tell if her eyes were closed because she was sleeping or they were swollen shut. That’s how bad she was.
Mark leaned down and softly whispered, “Courtney?”
Courtney’s eyes fluttered and she said with a weak voice, “You don’t have to whisper, dork. This isn’t a library.”
Mark smiled, in spite of the fact that he wanted to cry. Courtney may have been hurting, but she was still Courtney.
“We gotta talk,” she said with a raspy voice.
“I know,” he said. “But first you gotta see somebody. I know this is weird, but if it weren’t for his help, you’d still be out there.”
Mark gestured to Andy, who reluctantly walked to the foot of the bed. He stood there, looking uncomfortable.
“Hey,” he said to Courtney. “You look good. Seriously. Considering.”
Courtney moved her head a few inches and looked at Andy. Mark said, “Andy gave me a ride up here. That’s how we found you.”
“What happened, Mitchell?” Courtney said. “You get visited by three Christmas ghosts who changed you into a human being or something?”
Andy smiled. “That’s funny, Chetwynde. Glad to see you still got such a hysterical sense of humor.”
Courtney gave him a thumbs-up with her good hand. Andy backed toward the door. “I’ll let you guys talk,” he said to Mark.
“Hey,” Courtney called to him in a weak voice. “Thanks. Seriously.”
Andy nodded. “No problem. Get better, all right?”
Andy left, and Mark and Courtney were alone. Mark pulled up a chair and sat right by Courtney’s head. He didn’t want anyone to hear what they were going to say.
“You’re going to be okay,” Mark said. “I guess there was all sorts of internal stuff going on but they got it in
