D. MacHale - The Quillan Games

All these thoughts about Bobby and Quillan kept sleep from coming. But another thought kept tugging at her. Why hadn’t Mark called? She had gone from being angry with him to being worried. Mark was nothing if not the most responsible person in the history of responsibility. This wasn’t like him. Not one bit. She had to believe it had something to do with Andy Mitchell. She was happy that Andy wasn’t bullying him anymore, but if it meant that Andy’s jerkyness was rubbing off on Mark, it wasn’t worth it. She couldn’t wait to hear the explanation. Why hadn’t he called?

Somewhere between thinking about Mark not showing, and wondering where Bobby would stay when he came to Second Earth, Courtney fell asleep. As great as it was to be back at school, she hadn’t built up her stamina yet. Her sleep was so deep, she didn’t dream. She must not have even moved, because the next morning she found herself in the exact same position as when she’d gotten into bed.

What roused her was her mother calling. “Courtney? Courtney! Wake up!”

Courtney had to pull herself out of coma mode. For a second she thought she was back in the Derby Falls hospital, looking forward to another grueling day of physical soap operas. Seeing her bedside clock was a relief, until she registered that the clock said 6:10… 6:10! Her alarm wasn’t set to go off until 6:30; 6:10 was still night. What was her mother doing calling her so early?

“Courtney, come down here, now!”

There was an urgency to her mother’s voice that Courtney didn’t like. Had she done something wrong? Courtney pulled her creaky body out of bed. Sleeping in the same position may have been restful, but it didn’t do much for her healing muscles. She limped across the room and wasn’t able to walk without stiffness until she was halfway down the stairs. Blood flow was good. It took away the pain. The TV was on in the living room. Courtney headed that way, but was intercepted by her mother. Mrs. Chetwynde looked bad. She had a wild look in her eyes that Courtney had never seen before.

“What’s up, Mom?” she asked.

“Did Mark leave for Florida last night?” she asked tentatively.

Huh? If Courtney wasn’t awake before that, she sure was then. By the look on her mother’s face, something was definitely up.

“No,” she said. “He stayed to help Andy Mitchell clean up his uncle’s florist shop. Why?”

Courtney saw the relief in her mother’s eyes. “Oh, thank God,” she said.

“Why? What’s going on?” Courtney asked.

“Come here,” Mrs. Chetwynde said. “It’s all over the news.”

Mrs. Chetwynde headed back for the living room. Courtney followed apprehensively. The term “all over the news” was never a good thing, especially not first thing in the morning. Good news was always expected and usually didn’t end up on TV. Bad news came suddenly and spread fast. Courtney saw that her father was staring at the TV. On the screen was a live shot that looked to be taken from a helicopter over the ocean. There was a coast guard ship in the water, and another helicopter flying nearby.

“What happened?” Courtney asked.

“A plane went down,” Mr. Chetwynde said. “An airliner. Apparently it had engine trouble over the Carolinas and flew out to sea to dump fuel before landing. It never came back.”

“Oh, man,” Courtney said. “Did it crash in the ocean?”

“That’s what they think,” Mr. Chetwynde said. “There’s no wreck, but there’s no sign of the plane, either. It had to have gone down.”

“Such a tragedy” Mrs. Chetwynde said. “All those people.”

“How big a plane was it?” Courtney asked.

“Wide-body, fully loaded,” Mr. Chetwynde said grimly. “Two hundred and eighty passengers, seven crew members.”

Courtney inhaled quickly. It was an involuntary reaction to such horrible news.

“That’s why I asked about Mark,” Mrs. Chetwynde said. “The flight left last night from JFK around seven o’clock, bound for Orlando.”

“Mark didn’t make that flight,” Courtney said with authority. “He was going to help Andy and then maybe get a later flight or take one early this morning-“

The words froze in Courtney’s throat. A realization hit her so suddenly that it felt like a rush of blood in her brain. It made her ears ring. Mrs. Chetwynde saw the look on her daughter’s face change suddenly.

“What?” she asked Courtney.

Courtney’s thoughts went into hyperdrive, calculating the possibilities. She wanted to come up with an undeniable fact that would prove her fear couldn’t be true. She went through everything she’d heard the day before, every option, every scenario, but came up empty.

“What’s the matter?” Mrs. Chetwynde asked. “You said he wasn’t on that flight.”

“He wasn’t,” Courtney croaked, barely able to get the words out. “But his parents flew out last night.”

Mr. Chetwynde pulled his eyes from the TV and shot Courtney a look. The three stood there, frozen, not wanting to believe. Courtney broke the trance first. She ran to the kitchen and called Mark’s house. She got the answering machine and a cheery greeting from Mrs. Dimond that said: “Hi there! Leave a message, okay?”

Courtney slammed the phone down. Her parents had followed her and stood together, watching.

Mrs. Chetwynde asked, “How do we find out if they were on that plane?”

Courtney bolted from the kitchen and ran for the stairs. She leaped up, three at a time. The stiffness and pain may still have been there, but she didn’t feel them. Courtney blasted into her room and found her cell phone. She was going to call Mark, but when she turned on the phone, she saw that she had a message waiting for her. She wasn’t sure if that was good news or bad news. All she could do was play it. Courtney hit the message code, and listened.

The digital voice said, “Message recorded at three thirty a.m.” Courtney allowed herself a small breath. The call had come in long after the doomed flight took off. A moment later Mark’s voice was heard.

“I… It’s me,” he said.

Courtney was hit with two huge waves of conflicting emotion. Mark was alive. She would have screamed with joy and relief, if not for the tone of his voice. Courtney knew Mark better than most anyone on the territory. She only needed to hear those few words to know that he was hurting. She feared she knew the reason why.

Mark was crying. Courtney could hear him sniffle, then let out a soft, pained whimper. “They’re gone,” he said.

Courtney’s knees went weak. Those two simple words confirmed it. The plane that went down over the dark ocean was carrying Mr. and Mrs. Dimond. Courtney started to cry. Mark’s parents were dead. If not for the accident at Andy’s uncle’s shop, Mark and Andy would have been on that plane too. She wanted to be with Mark to hold him and tell him how everything was okay, though she knew it wasn’t. She wanted to know where he was. Probably at the airport, or the police station, or somewhere. Where did people go when they heard that their family was lost at sea and wouldn’t be coming back? Who tells you those things? She hated herself for not leaving her phone on the night before.

Courtney knew what she had to do. She would find Mark and bring him back to her house. She wasn’t sure what other relatives he had, but she knew that none of them lived in town. He was an only child. Until things could be sorted out, she wanted Mark to stay with them. Maybe even after they were sorted out. They would be his new family. Courtney had no doubt that her parents would take him in. After all, he’d saved their daughter’s life!

All of these thoughts and plans flashed through Courtney’s head in the few seconds after she heard the words that his parents were gone. It may have been a defense mechanism to keep back the pain, but that was Courtney. She was ready to take positive action and provide solutions. What she heard next, though, knocked those thoughts right out of her head.