The Rivers of Zadaa

SECOND EARTH

(CONTINUED)

Mrs. Dimond, Mark’s mother, gave Mark a ride to a lonely, country lane in Stony Brook that Mark knew well. It used to be part of his paper route. There, at the corner of Riversville Road and Carroll Street, they found what they were looking for. It was a beat-up, seventies-looking station wagon with fake wood paneling. Leaning against the hood, smoking a cigarette, was Andy Mitchell. When he saw the Dimonds’ car approach, he quickly stubbed out the smoke.

Mrs. Dimond stared at Mitchell like he was a walking disease and said to Mark, “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” To her, this guy looked like bad news. Mrs. Dimond was a smart lady.

“Yeah, he’s a friend. He’s in Sci-Clops,” Mark said.

“That hoodlum is in Sci-Clops?” Mrs. Dimond asked incredulously.

“Believe it or not,” Mark answered with a smile. “Thanks, Mom. He’ll give me a ride home.”

Mark got out of the car, opened the rear door, and pulled out a full can of gasoline. Andy’s big problem was that he had run out of gas.

“Thanks, lady!” Andy called, sounding as polite as could be. “You saved my life.”

Mrs. Dimond waved and smiled, then turned the wheel and drove off, but not before giving Mark a final, concerned look that said: “Are you sure about this?” Mark waved as if to say, “Don’t worry.”

“Thanks, Dimond,” Mitchell said as he took the gas can from Mark. “Really. Thanks.”

It sounded to Mark as if he meant it too. Mitchell went to the rear of his beater and started funneling the gas into the tank.

“How could you run out of gas?” Mark asked.

“The gauge is busted,” Mitchell said. “Whenever I fill it up, I zero out the trip odometer to tell me how many miles I go so I know when to fill up again.”

“So what happened?”

“The trip odometer’s busted too. Piece of garbage car.” Mark had to keep himself from laughing. Mitchell truly was an idiot.

“I got this call to make a real important delivery. Big rush. I picked up the flowers, got here, and chug chug chug. Dead. You really saved me, man.”

“What’s so important about the delivery?” Mark asked.

“Huge client,” Mitchell answered. “Big-shot corporate guys. They’re having a meeting tonight at seven o’clock, and they ordered a bunch of flowers for the tables. Last minute. Those guys don’t care. Money talks, you know? But if I don’t get ‘em there in time, we’ll never get another order. Those guys don’t fool around. One mistake and you’re gone. My uncle is the same way. If I don’t deliver, I’ll be gone too. And I need this job.”

“So why didn’t you call your uncle for help?” Mark asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Mitchell replied sarcastically. “So he’d know how bad a screwup I am? I may not be smart, but I ain’t dumb.”

That surprised Mark. Hearing Andy Mitchell call himself a screwup was out of character. This was turning out to be a day full of surprises. Mitchell emptied the can and put the cap back on.

“Time?” Mitchell asked.

Mark checked his cell phone. “Six-oh-five,” he announced. “Plenty of time.”

“Let’s go!” Mitchell said, and jumped into the car. He truly had to jump because the driver’s door wouldn’t open. He had to slither in through the window.

The meeting was taking place not far from where Andy broke down, at a posh country club. As Mitchell drove, Mark sat in the passenger seat thinking two things. One was that he couldn’t believe he had come to the rescue of his archnemesis. The other was that he feared the sticky, vinyl car seat was infested with Andy bacteria. The only reason he didn’t gag at the putrid car stench was because the sweet smell from the flower arrangements in the back masked the vile odor. He feared what would happen after they made the delivery and the flowers were gone. It was going to be a long ride home.

“So, why me?” Mark asked.

“Why you what?” Mitchell asked back.

“Why did you call me for help?”

“Sci-Clops,” Mitchell answered. “We gotta stick together, right?”

“Well, no,” Mark said. “It’s a science club, not the Boy Scouts. Why did you call me? You hate me.”

Mitchell didn’t answer right away. At first Mark thought the imbecile had forgotten the question.

“I don’t exactly have a load of friends,” Mitchell finally said. “I know, hard to believe, but it’s true.”

“Not so hard to believe,” Mark said.

Mitchell shot him a glance, but didn’t fire a shot back. Instead he shrugged. “Okay, I had that coming. I’ve given you a hard time.”

“Hard time?” Mark said, incredulous. “You’ve bullied me for years. You’ve hit me. You’ve stolen my lunch money more times than I can count. You’ve hit me. You’ve robbed my house. You’ve hit me. Need I go on?”

“Guilty, guilty, guilty, all right? What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t want you to say anything. You’re a jerk. End of story.” Mark was feeling bold. He no longer feared Andy Mitchell. That stopped a while ago. His fear turned to pity when he realized that the guy was such a lamebrain. But lately, after seeing what a brilliant mathematical mind he had, Mark actually found himself envying Andy. It was all so twisted and weird.

“If it makes you feel any better, you aren’t the only one I stepped on,” Mitchell said.

“Oh, good, now I can rest easy,” Mark said, dripping sarcasm.

“Hey, you asked, I’m tellin’.” — “Sorry, go ahead.”

“I ain’t the sharpest tool in the deck, in case you hadn’t noticed,” Mitchell continued.

“I noticed,” Mark said, rolling his eyes. Mitchell couldn’t even get the figure of speech right.

“But that only has to do with words and talking and whatnot. The thing is, with numbers I’m pretty good.”

Mark didn’t argue. He’d seen Andy at work. With numbers he was better than pretty good.

“That didn’t go down so well when I was a little kid. It was like, how do you say it, I had the worst of both worlds. Half the guys gave me a hard time because I sounded like an idiot. The other half gave me grief for being a brain. I was too smart to hang with the tough kids and too dumb to hang with the geeks. That works on you after a while, you know? Not fittin’ in anywhere.”

Mark knew. He was an old pro at not fitting in. “So I guess I kind of built up this, I don’t know, this shell. I didn’t let nobody in; didn’t put myself out there in case I might get whacked; and didn’t take nothing from nobody. It’s not like I had a choice. It was either that, or hide under my bed. But it was tough. I was angry all the time. I guess I took it out on a lot of people, including you.”

“Especially me.”

“Yeah, whatever. But then I got hooked up with the university and they actually liked that I had some good ideas. They encouraged me, you know? I wasn’t used to that. That got me to join Sci-Clops and-hey, I don’t mean to get all girly on you, but for the first time I’m starting to be happy with the way things are going. Most of the time, anyway.”

Mark didn’t comment. For a second he thought Andy might cry. It was a strange feeling. For the first time, ever, he was looking at Andy Mitchell as a human being, not a cartoon bully. He wasn’t entirely sure he liked it. Life was already weird enough. Having Andy Mitchell turn into a good guy just put things another notch higher on the surreal meter. Thankfully the conversation ended, because they had arrived at the Burning Hill Country Club.

“We’re here!” Mark announced to break the tension.

Andy pulled the car up to the wide, flagstone front entrance and rolled to a stop.

“Looks kind of quiet,” Mark observed.

“And dark,” Andy said. “What time is it?”

“Six thirty,” Mark answered. “There has to be somebody here if the meeting is in half an hour.”

Mark and Andy got out of the car and walked up the few steps to the front door. Mitchell tried the knob. It was locked.

“What the hell?” Mitchell said, confused.

Mark looked inside the glass pane in the door and said, “There’s a board in there with the schedule. What’s the name of the company?”

D. J. MacHale

The Rivers of Zadaa

Mitchell pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and read, “Praxis Associates.”

“There it is,” Mark announced. “Praxis Associates. Seven o’clock.”

“Exactly!” Mitchell said. “Half an hour from now.”

Mark looked inside again and said, “Uh, actually, it’s twelve and a half hours from now.”

“Say what?” Mitchell shouted.

Mark said, “The sign says it’s a breakfast meeting.”

Mitchell quickly looked back at the packing slip. He reread it and yelled, “No way! It says right here. Praxis Associates. Seven A.”

Mark took the paper and read it. “Yeah, seven A, as in sevena.m. The meeting is tomorrow morning.”

Mitchell stared at the page blankly. He then sprang back to the door and looked inside. “There’s gotta be a mistake.”

Mark said, “Well, yeah. There was.”

Mitchell banged his head against the glass, finally accepting that the mistake was his.

“Will the flowers keep?” Mark asked.

“Yeah,” Mitchell said, sounding beaten. “I am such an idiot. C’mon, I’ll drive you home.”

The two didn’t say much on the way back toward town. Mitchell was too embarrassed and Mark was too cool to make him feel any dumber. When they got to Mark’s house, Mark hopped out of the car and grabbed the gas can.

“It’s been…interesting,” he said.

“Listen, Dimond,” Mitchell said. “Thanks. I know how you feel about me, that only makes it all the cooler that you helped me out.”

“Hey, we Sci-Clops types have to stick together, right?” Mitchell laughed. “Yeah, sure. I owe you one. I mean that. If you ever need anything, all you gotta do is ask.”

“Sure, uh, Andy. Good night.”

“G’night.”

Mitchell hit the gas, the car belched once and rolled off, leaving Mark standing alone on the sidewalk in front of his house. It was a strange ending to a strange day. Mark couldn’t help but wonder what the next chapter in the strange saga of Andy Mitchell would be.

For Courtney, she felt as if her day was just beginning. Ever since Whitney had asked her to go into town, she counted the minutes until seven o’clock. The rest of the day crept by slowly. It seemed like an eternity until she finally made it to art class. She sat there, listening to the guest speaker talk about the challenge of sketching the human hand. With Courtney’s head being where it was, the lecture seemed about as interesting as algebra-trig. Still, she had made a commitment to this class. She wasn’t going to blow it off. Though she might as well have. Her mind wasn’t on sketching. It was on Whitney, and what the rest of the night might hold.

When seven o’clock finally came, most of the students stuck around to talk to the artist and pick his brain. Not Courtney. She was out the door before the echo from the bell had died. To save time, she had ridden her bike to class. It meant bringing her backpack and books into town, but she figured that was better than taking the time to go all the way back to her dorm to drop them off. That would have wasted precious minutes. She quickly unlocked her Tech road bike from the rack, tightened up her backpack, and began pedaling for the main road, and town.

Stansfield Academy was in a rural area of the Berkshires, a few miles outside the small town of Derby Falls. Courtney knew that from when she’d first visited Stansfield with her parents. The road between Stansfield and Derby Falls was a beautiful, winding country lane that snaked up along one ridge of the mountain, through a dense pine forest and then down the other side and into town. As much as she focused on getting to town as quickly as her legs would bring her, it was hard for her not to notice how beautiful the mountains were.

The sun was on the way down, creating long pine-tree shadows across the road. The amber rays sparkled through the trees as Courtney rode, making her feel as if she were riding through the beams of a strobe light. She passed a rolling meadow where black-and-white dairy cows grazed. There were a few farm stands along the way, where you could buy corn on the cob and tomatoes that had been picked that day. They were closing up for the night. The birds were out now. It was time for them to feed. Courtney could hear them twittering in the trees. She even saw a few fireflies spark in the woods. It was a truly idyllic ride. Courtney promised herself that she would make this trip again, maybe on a Sunday when she wasn’t in such a hurry. And maybe she could convince Whitney to come with her. Things were about as right for Courtney as they could be.

The road inclined quickly as it brought her up into the mountain. She was in shape, but still, a steep climb is a steep climb. It was no problem, but she worried that she’d be all sweaty for her date. Lugging the heavy books along suddenly seemed like a bad idea. But there was no turning back now. She had to gut it out, sweat and all.

The road got even steeper and wound sharply to the left. Courtney didn’t remember it being so steep, though the last time she made this trip it was in a car. Roads never seemed as steep in the car as they did when you were riding or running. She rounded the bend and saw that the road continued to bend around the mountain. She couldn’t see how much farther it was to the crest, but she knew it must be just around the curve ahead.

That’s when she heard the car.

It was faint at first. She was breathing so hard that she couldn’t make it out right away. But the sound quickly grew louder. There was no doubt. A car was coming up behind her. Fast. She glanced back, but there was nothing to see except the bend she had just come around. The oncoming car hadn’t gotten there yet. In a few seconds it would scream around the corner and be right behind her. The road was pretty narrow, and she thought about getting off and moving to the side for safety. But the idea of having to start up again on this steep hill wasn’t a happy one. She did a quick calculation and figured the car would see her in plenty of time to move over. She stood up and pumped harder, hoping to get to the top of the rise before the car.

Behind her, the car rounded the curve. The engine was working so hard it sounded as if it were roaring. A quick, scary thought came to her. Could it be the mysterious black sedan? She hadn’t thought about that strange car for days. Her heart raced, faster than it had from the climb. All she wanted to do was get around the next corner and see the top of the rise.

The roar of the car grew louder. She decided to jump off her bike, but a quick look to the side showed her that the shoulder was too narrow. There was a steep drop-off. If she dismounted now, there would be no place to go. If this car wanted to run her down, it had found the perfect place to do it.

Seconds later the car was on her. Courtney closed her eyes, bracing herself to get hit. She gritted her teeth, tightened up, and… the car roared past. It was so close she felt the breeze as it sped by. She opened her eyes and saw that it was a minivan full of little kids being driven by a mom. The woman tried to move over to get clear of Courtney, but there was just so far she could go without going into the oncoming lane, with a blind curve ahead. If the van was in that lane and a car came from the other direction, boom.

Courtney looked up to see the little kids pressing their faces against the rear window, waving at her. Courtney smiled and waved back. She was exhausted, but relieved. She laughed at herself for being so paranoid. Black sedan, yeah, right. Now all she had to do was get to the top of the rise and the torture would be over. The minivan had disappeared around the corner. Courtney put her head down and stood up on the pedals to dig in for the final push. The roar of the minivan echoed off the side of the mountain.

That’s why she didn’t hear the car that was coming the other way.

Courtney downshifted, pumped her legs, and looked ahead in time to see the spooky black sedan screaming around the corner, headed directly for her. This driver wasn’t worried about being in the wrong lane. The car had crossed the center line and was charging right for Courtney. There was only one thing she could do: bail out. Courtney threw the bike and dove to her right. The black sedan hit the bike’s front tire before Courtney was completely clear. She heard the screech of brakes and the shrieking sound of the tires skidding on the road. The driver didn’t mind hitting Courtney, but wasn’t prepared to crash over the edge while doing it.

The force from the impact twisted Courtney around so quickly and violently that she had no hope of making a controlled fall. The weight from the books on her back made it even worse. They acted like a counterweight, twisting her around with even more force. Before she hit the ground, Courtney had one brief thought: “Why didn’t I wear my helmet?”

Her shoulder hit a tree. The force snapped her head back. She fell to the ground and hit hard on her other shoulder. The pitch was so steep that she kept moving, tumbling head over butt over arms over legs. She was an out-of-control rag doll, slamming into trees and boulders on the way down. Finally, with a rude thud, she slammed into one last tree and stopped. A second later, just to add insult to injury, the bike landed on her legs.

Courtney was in shock. She had no idea how badly she was hurt, or if she was bleeding or if she was even going to live. There wasn’t any pain. It was like being in a dream, half asleep, but unable to move. She opened her eyes to see she had fallen far from the road. Even if she could move, there was no way she would be able to crawl up the steep hill. Worse, she feared that she had fallen so far that nobody would see her lying there, and night was coming on. She moved her eyes slightly to get a better look at where she had fallen, and saw something that made her catch her breath.

Parked on the edge of the road was the black sedan. The sun was long gone, so its headlights were on. Behind the gleaming beams, the chrome bumper grinned at her. The driver’s door opened. She was finally going to see the monster who had run her off the road. Who could it possibly be? The driver walked to the front of the car so he could be seen in the headlights. It was like he wanted Courtney to see him. At first Courtney didn’t understand what she was seeing. It didn’t make sense. Standing on the edge of the road, looking down at her…was Whitney.

The cute, wavy-haired blond athlete stood in the lights of the black sedan with his hands on his hips, staring at Courtney. Courtney felt hope. It was Whitney! This was all an accident! She realized the car must belong to one of his friends. He must have been worried about her and taken the car himself to go back to school and get her. This was nothing more than a horrible, ironic accident. It had to be. She was saved. She wasn’t going to have to spend the night in the forest. Courtney was sure that everything was going to be fine-until Whitney spoke.

“I give, and I take away,” Whitney said with an arrogant air. “You people of Second Earth are so easily controlled. I was hoping this would be more of a challenge but, alas. It was not meant to be. I’ll send your love to Pendragon…Corwind.”

With that, Whitney laughed. It was a horrible, screeching laugh that froze Courtney’s soul. What she saw next did the same to her mind. Whitney’s body turned into a liquid shadow. It hovered in the air, changing shape until he became a huge black bird. With a quick flap of its wings, the bird lifted off from the ground and flew into the Berkshires, leaving Courtney to die.

Courtney was spiraling into oblivion. Soon she would be unconscious. It was over. She had lost. It was the most important challenge of her life, and Courtney had lost.

Courtney didn’t like to lose. It was the one thing that stayed constant throughout her torment and trouble. As bad as things got, she never accepted defeat. That simply wasn’t in her nature. As she lay in that forest, broken and barely conscious, she willed her hand to move. An inch. Two inches. She knew that if she had fallen the wrong way and her hand was pinned under her, her desperate move would be futile. But she hadn’t. She was able to walk her hand along, pulling it forward with crawling fingers, until she grasped the cell phone clipped to her belt. Miraculously it hadn’t been torn off in the fall. Courtney couldn’t see it, but she could feel the buttons. The chances of dialing a number, even 911, were impossible. She was losing consciousness, fast. She had to fight it. Her best chance was to use speed-dial. She felt the buttons until she found what she thought was the number 1. She hit it, while using every bit of concentration and willpower she possessed to stay conscious.

Mark Dimond finished dinner, washed the dishes, and dragged himself up to his room. His plan was to surf the Net for a while, catch a show onComedy Central, and crash. No sooner did Mark get to his room than he realized his night was going to be very different from what he expected.

His ring started to twitch.

Suddenly he wasn’t so tired anymore. A quick jolt of adrenaline will do that. Mark quickly closed his door, locked it, and put his ring on the floor. The light show was beginning. In a few moments Bobby’s next journal would arrive. He knew there would be noComedy Centralthat night. It was time to go back to Zadaa.

Mark didn’t realize that on his desk, another message was waiting for him. His cell phone was flashing. But he never checked that phone because nobody ever called him. With a new journal coming in, there was even less chance of him checking it. His attention was on his ring and the incoming journal. If he had looked at his phone he would have seen a two-word message flashing over and over.

MESSAGE WAITING.

But he didn’t look.