D. MacHale - The Rivers of Zadaa

He picked up the cell phone… and put it back down again.

Hehad to convince himself again that he was doing the right thing. He picked up the phone. He put it down. He picked it up. It was time. Courtney was on speed-dial: #1. He finally looked at the phone to make sure it was on and-

“Message waiting?” Mark said out loud.

Mark had never gotten a message on his cell phone before. He had no idea who could have called him. And when? He almost always had his phone in his pocket, how could he have missed a call? He stared at the blinking words. He didn’t even know how to retrieve a message. He had to rummage through his cluttered desk to find the instruction manual. By the time he found the manual, waded through the table of contents, flipped through the French, Spanish, and Japanese sections to the English instructions, and finally found the right buttons to push to get his message, it was nearly six o’clock. Mark actually laughed to himself. He had made it to six after all.

The prerecorded voice over the phone said, “Message sent yesterday at seven forty-fivep.m.”

Mark realized he’d been downstairs eating dinner then. That’s why he hadn’t heard the ring. He continued to listen. There was a beep, followed by the message. What he heard made Mark want to fall through the floor.

It was Courtney. Her voice was weak, but it was definitely hers. In a frail voice she gasped, “Mark, he’s here.”

That was it. Abruptly there was another beep, and the prerecorded voice came back on, saying, “End of message.” Mark stared at the phone, his heart racing. He played the message over and over and over again. There was no doubt in his mind. Courtney was in trouble, and he feared the reason why. He speed-dialed her number, but gotthe prerecorded voice saying, “The number you are trying to reach is not available.” Mark wanted to throw the phone across the room. Courtney always had her cell phone on, except in class. But it was six o’clock in the morning! No class started that early. Something was very, very wrong.

The police! He’d call the local police! Yes!

No! And tell them what? That he thinks his friend is in trouble? Trouble from what? An interstellar dimension-leaping demon who wanted to trash the universe? Yeah, that would go over real big. He thought about filing a missing person report, but how could he say he knew she was missing? And was she really missing anyway? He didn’t know. They’d laugh him off the phone. At the very least, they’d ignore him. He thought maybe his parents could help. He was about to leave the room to get them, but stopped when he realized he had no idea what he would ask them to do, either.

The more Mark thought through his options, the more he realized there was only one thing for him to do. He had to get to Stansfield as soon as possible. He needed to find Courtney so they could work this through together. Nobody else knew what they knew. Nobody else could help. They needed to be together.

Now that he had a plan, Mark felt better. He went online to check bus and train schedules between Stony Brook, Connecticut and Derby Falls, Massachusetts. He planned on telling his parents that Courtney invited him up to visit for a few days. If they wouldn’t let him go, he’d go anyway. He didn’t like to disobey his parents, but there were bigger issues at stake. He’d deal with the consequences later. Whatever they were, they would be easier to handle than Saint Dane.

He struck out with mass transit. The fastest combination of bus and trains wouldn’t get him to Derby Falls until late that night. Twelve hours! According to Mapquest, it was only a three-hour drive! Mark began weighing the possibility of getting his mother to drive him, when another idea hit. The concept made him physically shudder, but he was desperate. He grabbed his cell phone and scrolled through the list of phone numbers from incoming calls. He didn’t get many. He easily found what he was looking for. Before he had the chance to overthink himself out of it, he closed his eyes and made the call.

Two hours later Mark was riding shotgun on his way to Stansfield Academy.

Behind the wheel was Andy Mitchell.

(CONTINUED)

“Let’s do a little math here,” Andy Mitchell said.”And I’m good at this, so you can’t argue. I called you for help and it took about, what, an hour out of your busy schedule? You, on the other hand, call me at six in the morning and ask me to drive three hours up to the sticks, so you can see a chick I can’t stand, and doesn’t like me so much either. Is that about right?”

“Uh, yeah, that pretty much sums it up,” Mark said sheepishly. “But you said if I ever needed a favor-“

“I did,” Mitchell said, snorted, and hawked a lougie out the driver’s window.

Mark nearly retched. He was grateful the window was open.

“All I’m saying is, this don’t make us square,” Mitchell said. “The way I see it, I’m in for six, seven hours plus here. After this, youowe me.”

This was killing Mark. The idea of relying on Andy Mitchell for anything was worse than swallowing metal shavings. To know he was now indebted to the creep made him want to jump out of the car while they were doing sixty-five on the Connecticut Turnpike. To top it all off, since he helped Mitchell deliver the flowers that morning, there was nothing covering the rancid smell in the car anymore. What else did Andy use this car for? Stashing bodies for the mob? The only thing that kept Mark from losing it was knowing how important it was that he find Courtney.

“I’m really grateful,” Mark said.

“Yeah, we’ll see,” Mitchell said.

Mark closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep.

“Why do you got to see her so bad?” Mitchell asked. “I thought she had the hots for Pendragon?”

“The truth?” Mark asked.

“No, I want you to lie,” Mitchell said sarcastically. “Sheesh.”

Mark had no intention of telling the whole truth, but it was going to be awkward once they got there. He figured he had to tell some version of the truth. “I’m worried about her,” Mark said.

“Chetwynde?” Mitchell scoffed. “She’s the last chick I’d worry about.”

“Yeah, well, I think somebody might be giving her a hard time, and I want to make sure she’s okay,” Mark said.

“And you got this brainstorm at six o’clock in the morning?” Mitchell asked.

Mark shrugged and said, “I couldn’t sleep.”

Mitchell shook his head in dismay and said, “Some guy is giving Chetwynde grief and you want to swoop in like Batman to protect her?”

“I’m more of a Superman guy,” Mark said.

Mitchell laughed. “You’re nuts is what you are. Maybe it’s a good thing you called me.”

Strangely enough, Mark was thinking the same thing. He didn’t want to be doing this alone. He wondered what Courtney would say when he showed up with Andy Mitchell. He hoped she’d get a good laugh out of it. He hoped to hear her laugh about anything.

Mark didn’t hate the drive. Once the “you owe me/I owe you” conversation was over, they began talking about Sci-Clops. It was the one topic they had in common. Mitchell told Mark all about the process he went through to develop the elastic metal with the incredible tensile strength that he had demonstrated at his first meeting of Sci-Clops. Mark was fascinated to hear Mitchell describe how he was trying to find a way to create something with the durability of metal and the flexibility of plastic. The trick was to find the elements that would form an ionic bond on the atomic level to create an entirely new compound. Much of it was trial and error, and he said how he was still a long way off, but the professors at the university thought that what he’d done so far was pretty impressive.