D. MacHale - The Never War

Gunny gave him the same curious look he gave me when I asked about the TV. “I’ll see what I can find,” he said. “You two make yourselves at home. I’m going to get you some clothes. Is there anything else you might need?”

“Something to write on,” I said. “We’ve got to keep up with our journals.”

“Right,” answered Gunny. “I’ll be back.”

Gunny ambled out of the room, leaving Spader and me alone. I walked to the far side of the room, where fancy doors led to a balcony. I opened them and stepped outside. It was close to sunset. From our sixth-floor landing, I got a pretty good view south and west, where the sun was headed down.

“Is this where you grew up?” asked Spader. He was standing right behind me. I hadn’t heard him coming.

“No, about thirty miles from here,” I answered. “And more than half a century in the future. How weird is that?”

It really was. This was home, but not really. I had an idea that maybe I should try to find my grandparents. They were around in 1937. But then I remembered that my family had disappeared. Did that mean our whole family history disappeared along with them? I had to stop thinking about it. It was making me homesick.

“It’s a scary-do,” Spader said while gazing out at the city. “I’ve never seen anything so busy.”

“You’ll get used to it,” I assured him. ”I suppose so,” Spader added. “But I’m thinking about Saint Dane. There’s a lot of natty-do that monster could get into in a big city like this. How are we going to find him?”

Good question. Saint Dane loose in New York City was a scary thought. “Something tells me he’ll find us,” I said. “I’m going to take a shower.”

The bathroom was almost as big as the living room. This was definitely a suite for hotshot guests. The whole room was covered with white tiles. The bathtub was huge and stood on feet. There was a giant silver showerhead that sprayed enough water to wash a horse. I cranked up the shower, got it good and hot, and stood underneath the spray to let it massage my head.

As I stood there trying to get brain dead, an odd thought hit me: I wasn’t going to school anymore.

I know. Weird thing to think about all of a sudden. Maybe it was because I was sort of home. Part of me was psyched. School was important and all, but it wasn’t exactly something I looked forward to. On the other hand, schoolwasimportant. It was where you learned stuff. What your parents didn’t teach you, school did. As I stood in that shower, I actually started to get nervous. All my friends were going to pass me by. They were learning things that I wasn’t.

Then I thought of all the places I’d been that day. Hmmm. Maybe I was getting a pretty intense education after all. I wasn’t going to Stony Brook Junior High anymore; I was a full-time student at Traveler U. Maybe that was all the education I was going to need. After batting these ideas back and forth in my head, I came to one solid conclusion:

All this thinking was ruining my shower.

I stood there for another ten minutes, then found a stack of thick white towels, dried off, and left the bathroom to Spader.

A few minutes later I was in the living room, settled into a cushy chair with my feet up while Spader washed away his own thoughts. I was so dog tired, my eyes started to close. It was the first time since we got here that I could let the air out, and it felt great.

Then an urgent knock came at the door.

My eyes shot open instantly. I wasn’t asleep anymore. I wasn’t even tired. So much for letting the air out.

Spader poked his head out of the bathroom. He shot me a questioning look that said, “What do we do?”

I had no idea. We were busted. It looked like our stay at the hotel was going to be a short one.

(CONTINUED)

This looked bad. How could we ever explain who we were and why we were hanging out on aclosed floor of the hotel? In bathrobes. I didn’t want to get Gunny in trouble, but I didn’t want to get arrested, either.

I snuck quietly over to the door, desperately trying to think up a story that would get us off the hook. None came. I peered through the peephole to get a look at who we would have to deal with and saw…

“Room service!” announced Gunny with a big smile.

Phew. Talk about relief. I opened the door and Gunny came in wheeling a big cart that was loaded with those silver domes they put over plates to keep them hot.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“I am now,” I answered. “We gotta get a secret knock or something so we know it’s you.”

“Secret knock. I like that,” Gunny said with a sparkling smile. “Like G-men.”

“Like what?” asked Spader as he walked in with a towel around his waist.

“Can we eat now?” I asked.

“All in good time, gentlemen,” Gunny said. “We’ve got business first.”

The cart was draped with a white tablecloth that went down to the floor. Gunny reached underneath and pulled out two brown packages. “Try these on for size,” he said, and tossed one to each of us. We tore them open to find our First Earth clothes, courtesy of one of the shops here in the hotel. We each had a pair of wool pants with jackets. My pants were light gray with a darker gray jacket. Spader’s were a light brown with a matching jacket. We each had plain white shirts.

“What do I do with these?” Spader asked as he held up a pair of long, white boxer shorts.

Gunny laughed. “Don’t they wear underwear where you come from?”

“Sure,” answered Spader. “But I could make a sail out of these. They’ll get all twisted up.”

I put mine on and they came down to my knees. But you know what? I didn’t care. It felt good to wear regular cotton underwear again, even if I looked like some kind of grandpa. We also had white T-shirts, black socks, and dark leather shoes. The pants had suspenders, too. That was kind of cool. I’d never worn suspenders before. And everything fit perfectly. Gunny was a good judge. After we both got dressed, Gunny looked us over and smiled.

“Now you look like you belong,” he said proudly.

“Can we eat now?” I asked.

“Patience, shorty, patience.” Gunny reached under the cart and pulled out a stack of white paper and a small typewriter. “You can use this to type your journals,” he said. “It’s faster than writing.”

“What is that thing?” asked Spader. ”I’ll teach you,” I said. I had only typed on a computer keyboard before, but figured I could learn how to do it the old-fashioned way. “Now can we eat?” I begged. The smell of the food was making me salivate.

“One more thing,” said Gunny. “Since you boys are going to be coming and going around here, I figured out a way you can fit right in.” He reached back under the cart and pulled out two uniforms like the one Dewey, the elevator guy, wore. “You’re going to work here as bellhops.”

“What’s a bellhop?” asked Spader.

Gunny explained. “You greet guests, help them with their luggage, and run errands around the hotel. It’s easy work, and you’ll have a terrific boss.”

“Who?” Spader asked.

“Me.”

“This all sounds good but, can wepleaseeat now?” I asked in desperation.

“Have a seat, gentlemen,” Gunny said. “It’s chow time.”

We both sat down while Gunny wheeled the cart in front of us. “I wasn’t exactly sure of what to order,” he teased. “But after some deep thought, I believe I came up with the perfect menu.” With a flourish, Gunny lifted up two of the silver domes.

What I saw made me so happy I wanted to cry.

Since I left home I had eaten some very strange food. It wasn’t bad, just different. On Denduron I had lots of vegetables and an occasional rabbit. On Cloral I ate a ton of fish and all sorts of weirdball fruits and vegetables from the underwater farms. On Zadaa, Loor had made us some good crunchy bread along with spicy vegetables. All of the food I had was good, but nothing compared to what was sitting before us right now. We each had our own big, juicy cheeseburger and pile of golden French fries…direct from heaven. Gunny reached under the cart and pulled out a champagne bucket loaded with ice and bottles of Coke.