James Grippando - Leapholes

The suction was tremendous. It was more power than Ryan had ever felt. He tried with all his strength to release the leaphole, but his fist was locked shut. He tried to turn the pages back to Hezekiah's exact destination-back to 1857. There seemed to be no way to change the leaphole's course once the journey began.

The noise was deafening, a swirling, swooshing sound like a hurricane. "Mom!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, "I'll be back as soon as I can."

"Where do you think you're going?" she asked in a panic.

"I don't know. I think it's someplace close to where the brood follows the dam."

Suddenly, it was as if a rocket had fired. Jarvis grabbed Ryan by the ankles. In a final orange flash, they were sucked into the pages, zooming down the leaphole.

Ryan had no idea where they might end up.

Ryan hit the ground so hard that he nearly bit his tongue. It was the roughest landing yet, by far. He chalked it up to the fact that he wasn't traveling with Hezekiah. Or perhaps it was because Jarvis was still holding onto Ryan's ankles. He was like a baby chimp clinging to its mother.

"Uh, you can let go now," said Ryan.

Ryan's new surroundings were completely foreign to him. There were no cars and no traffic lights. He didn't even see bicycles. Telephone wires and electric-power lines were nonexistent. Ryan could have stared up into the bright blue sky all day long and never seen an airplane. He heard no music blaring from boom boxes. Skateboarding down the bumpy cobblestone streets would have been impossible.

"Outta the way!" a man shouted.

Ryan quickly rolled to one side. A horse-drawn carriage rolled past him, nearly flattening him in the street. "Did you see that?" Ryan said.

"You were expecting a Hummer?" said Jarvis.

Ryan picked himself up off the ground and brushed the dirt off his clothes. He was wearing what he usually wore: Blue jeans, sneakers, and a baggy sweatshirt with an NBA jersey underneath. Earlier that morning, he had decided to switch out of the white "home" jersey for the black "away" jersey. It turned out to be the right call. He was nowhere near "home," and there was no telling how long this road trip would last.

Ryan and Jarvis walked for several blocks, just taking it all in. The sidewalk was made of bricks, not concrete. Most of the buildings were also made of red brick, though some had iron or stone facades. The tallest buildings were perhaps seven-stories high, but four or five stories were much more common. Old-fashioned gaslights were spaced at even intervals along the sidewalk. The smell of burning coal lingered in the air. A horse-drawn trolley bumped along the street. It rode on wagon wheels, not rails, and the passengers seemed quite uncomfortable. People on the sidewalks were dressed very differently from Ryan. Many wore fashionable hats and capes, but Ryan hardly noticed. He was too busy reading the hand-painted signs on storefronts and the stone-chiseled markers on buildings, trying to figure out where he was. He saw the Barnum Hotel, St. Paul's Episcopal Church, and the William Barr Dry Goods Company. He spotted several more churches, a public park, a library, and a bank. He found a barbershop and a blacksmith, and many other places of interest. As they passed a dentist's office with a big wooden tooth hanging in the window, a shrill scream startled Ryan. Inside, some poor guy was probably getting a molar yanked out by the roots with a pair of pliers and no anesthetic. Ryan prayed that he wasn't going to be in town long enough to get a toothache.

After several minutes of exploring, Ryan and Jarvis stopped outside a bakery. The smell of fresh bread made them both very hungry.

"Let's buy something to eat," said Ryan. "You got any money?"

"Even if I did, I don't think they take bills from the twenty-first century."

"Oh, right," said Ryan. "Any idea where we are?"

"Not yet."

"Why don't we just ask someone?"

"Because they'll think we're two crazy people who should be locked up."

"I guess you're right: We must look totally weird to them as it is."

Jarvis looked away, as if his feelings were hurt.

"Sorry, I wasn't talking about your face," said Ryan. "I meant the way we're dressed. We look so different."

"Like a couple of clueless clowns," said Jarvis. "We don't even know what day, month, or year it is."

As best Ryan could figure, it was early spring. He had no coat, but it was warm enough that he didn't need one. Some of the windows along the street had flower boxes, and the lilacs looked ready to bloom. Even the stray dogs seemed to have spring fever. A couple of yelping mutts were chasing chickens down an alley. It was the first time Ryan had watched hens try to fly. They weren't very good at it. Ryan could have soared higher and longer on his BMX bicycle.

They passed a theater on Third Street. At Fourth Street they found another large hotel called Planters House. They were on Olive Street, Ryan discovered, and there they spotted the most impressive building yet. It was made of red brick with a big dome on top. The stone marker above the entrance told Ryan exactly where he was. It read: CIRCUIT COURT, ST. LOUIS MISSOURI. An American flag was flying in front. It looked slightly different from the one Ryan saluted at school every morning. He counted the white stars against the blue background.

There were only thirty-eight.

"Holy smokes. We're in St. Louis, Missouri in the middle of the nineteenth century. How can that be?"

"The leaphole, of course. The case in Hezekiah's law book was from

"But I wasn't wearing the Virtual Legal Environment helmet. All we had was a leaphole."

"That's all we needed. That's all you ever needed. It's like Hezekiah told you. You are Legal Eagle material. Nice driving, kid."

Ryan looked around. The town was like a movie set, only real. He still wasn't sure about the power of the leapholes, whether it was magic or computers or something in between. "I just thought of something," said Ryan. "If I'm not a Legal Eagle yet, why do you suppose that leaphole worked for me?"

"Because you have what it takes to become one. You'll only get better with experience."

"I'm not so sure about that. But answer me this: Once a leaphole is used, can you use it again?"

"It has to be re-energized first."

"How does that work?"

"You have to charge it up with another leaphole."

"Do you have another leaphole?"

"Nope. I'm not a Legal Eagle, so I don't have any."

"Yeah, and like I just said. I'm not one either. Not yet."

Jarvis stopped cold. The significance of Ryan's words seemed to hit him like a mule kick. "We have no return leaphole," said Jarvis.

"We sure don't," said Ryan.

"What do we do about that?"

Ryan tucked his spent leaphole into his pants pocket. He looked off to the distance, toward the endless stretch of prairie that marked the edge of town. "Looks like finding Hezekiah is even more important than I thought."

Dr. Sharon Coolidge sat in silence at her kitchen table, her fist clenched tightly around a moist tissue. Ryan's dog Sam lay at her feet, seeming to sense her sadness. Two detectives from the local police station were seated across from her. The older one was heavy-set with a large, fleshy nose. Whenever he furrowed his brow, the skin folded into little steps that led up to his salt-and-pepper hair. The younger man was more handsome, more athletic looking. His clean-shaven head glistened like a polished bowling ball beneath the kitchen chandelier. They were waiting for Ryan's mother to dab away the tears and regain her composure.

"I'm sorry, gentlemen," she said in a voice that quaked.

"Take your time, ma'am."