“N-No! We can’t!” shouted Mark.
“Why? Maybe they can help!” said Courtney hopefully. “It would be much safer if weall went to the subway with the stuff! Right?”
Mark really wanted to agree. He wanted to dump this all on an adult who had more authority than he had. But he felt certain he knew what would happen if they did. He chose his words carefully and said, “Courtney, I’d love to tell our parents and get their help and go to this subway station with Captain Hirsch and armed cops from the Stony Brook Police. But you know what would happen if we told them? They’d stop us. They’d probably lock us up. Then they’d all sit around and try to logically figure out what’s going on and by the time they came to any decisions it could be too late for Bobby…and for Press.”
Courtney let Mark’s words sink in. The guy was kind of a dweeb, but he was a smart dweeb. If they told their parents it would be all over. They had to do this on their own. Mark quickly gathered up the parchment papers and started rolling them up.
“We can get this stuff together in a couple hours,” he said. “The trick will be to sneak out without our parents knowing-”
“Whoa, whoa,” interrupted Courtney. “You’re not thinking of doing this tonight, are you?”
“Well, why not?” said Mark innocently.
Courtney spoke to Mark slowly and deliberately, as if he were a child. She wanted him to understand exactly what she was saying. “This is important,” she said. “But by the time we get this stuff together it’ll be dark and something tells me that going where we have to go isn’t too safe after dark.”
This made Mark think. They were headed into a rough part of town and rough parts of town got rougher after dark. They definitely had a better chance of pulling this off in the daylight. It was more important to get it done than to get it done fast.
“You’re right,” said Mark. “I’m not thinking straight.”
“Yeah, you are,” said Courtney. “You’re just excited. Let’s split the list, get the stuff, and then meet back here tomorrow morning.”
That made sense. Tomorrow would be the day. Courtney searched for a piece of paper and a pen so she could write them each their own list. She picked up the piece of parchment paper with Bobby’s instructions and looked at the yellowed paper with the blotchy writing for a long time. Mark could see that something else was on her mind. He waited for her to pull her thoughts together. Finally Courtney turned to Mark and asked, “What was she like?”
“What was who like?” asked Mark.
“Osa. She gave you the ring, right? What was she like?”
It was true. Mark had almost forgotten. He had actually met one of the characters from Bobby’s adventure. She was in his bedroom. Mark put the rolled parchment pages down and allowed his thoughts to drift back to the night before.
“She was like a dream,” he said softly. “But the thing I remember most is that when she looked at me, I felt…safe.” Mark looked down to the ring on his finger and continued, “And now she’s dead. I guess she wasn’t able to make things safe after all.”
The two took a moment to grieve silently for a woman they only knew through the pages of Bobby’s journal. Then Courtney picked up her pen and began to write. There was work to be done. They went over Bobby’s list and picked the items they felt they could each find most easily. Courtney made out the two lists, then with the plan of meeting back at her house at sevenA.M. the next day, they split up and went to work.
Mark went home and brought Bobby’s parchment papers with him. Bobby had asked him to treat them like gold and that’s what he planned to do. Mark had a hiding place that no one in his family knew about. His attic was full of old furniture. Tucked way in the back was an ancient rolltop desk that hadn’t been moved since before Mark was born. The drawers of the desk were locked and his parents never tried to open them because they didn’t have the key. But Mark did. He had found it hidden on a lip under the desk when he was eight years old. He never told his parents because they didn’t really care, but for him it was the perfect place to hide his most treasured possessions. His special stash included mint conditionMad magazines; baseball cards for rookie Yankees Derek Jeter, Bernie Williams, and Mariano Rivera; some Star Wars action figures that were still in their original packaging; a report card from the seventh grade that had two Ds…just to remind him how easy it is to screw up; and an assortment of other small items that had special value to him alone.
Every so often Mark would go up in the attic to look over these treasures. It always made him feel good, like visiting old friends. He especially liked to check out the toys. He was too old to be playing with them, but they always brought him back to a fun time in his life, if only for a moment. It was a pleasure that no one had to know about.
When he opened the drawer this time, he wasn’t hit with the familiar warm wave of nostalgia. As he looked down at all his good junk, he had the strange feeling that it belonged to someone else. And in a way, it did. It belonged to the old Mark, the innocent Mark of yesterday, whose biggest concerns were about finishing homework on time and battling the acne that was running wild on his nose. But that was yesterday. Today he had to deal with issues that not only affected life and death on the far side of the universe, but raised serious questions about the reality of life in his own backyard. It wasn’t until Mark opened that drawer that he realized how much he had changed in the past few hours. He wanted to pick up the Chewbacca figure and let out a Chewie roar. He wanted to flip open aMad magazine and laugh at “Spy vs. Spy.” He wanted to walk the dog with the whistling yo-yo he had kept since his day at the state fair when he was six. Instead he found a cardboard box, pulled out the drawer and dumped everything into it. He closed the box and shoved it under the desk alongside all the other dusty, long-forgotten boxes full of long-forgotten stuff. It was like putting aside his old life to make room for the new one.
This desk drawer was still going to be the place for Mark’s most valued possessions, but they were no longer the trinkets that held warm memories of childhood. This would now be the place to hold Bobby’s story. He carefully placed the rolled scrolls in the wooden drawer. They fit perfectly, front to back. Mark made a mental note that there would be room for many more scrolls. He usually kept the desk key in his bedroom desk, but that didn’t feel secure enough anymore. His mother had given him a silver chain that she used to wear when she was his age. It had a peace symbol on it and Mark had it hanging from his bedroom mirror. Mark took the chain down and replaced the pendant with the key. The chain then went around his neck, never to be away from him again. He now felt reasonably secure that Bobby’s pages were safe. Or at least as safe as he knew how to keep them.
At sevenA.M. sharp Courtney’s doorbell rang. When she opened the door, Mark was standing there wearing a large backpack from L.L. Bean.
“Did you sleep?” he asked.
“No,” she answered. “Did you get any more pages?”
“No,” he answered. “Let’s get this party started.”
They went down to Courtney’s dad’s workshop, where Courtney had laid out all of the items from her half of the list.
“Where are your parents?” Mark asked her.
“They left for work.”
“You know we have to cut school to do this,” Mark said.
“Do you care?” asked Courtney.
Mark didn’t have to answer. The two stood there looking at the items, not sure of what to do next. Courtney broke the tension.
“Try the ring thing,” she said.
Mark scanned the items and picked out the flashlight. It was roughly the same size as the rolled parchment pages and as good a candidate as any. He then took off the ring and put it on the floor. He knelt down, put his finger on the gray stone and looked at Courtney.
“Go for it,” she encouraged.
“Denduron,” whispered Mark. Nothing happened. “Denduron,” he said again, this time a bit louder. Still no reaction from the ring.