D. MacHale - The Merchant of Death

Once they were out of the building, they walked silently for a long while. The police station was right near Stony Brook Avenue, which was the main business street in town. Most of the shops and restaurants were there. Since there was no mall in Stony Brook, the “Ave” as they called it was where everybody hung out. But Courtney and Mark weren’t interested in any of the temptations that the Ave held that day. They walked by the CD Silo without even a glance into the window; they weren’t tempted by the smell of the best french fries in the world coming from Garden Poultry Deli; they had no interest in ice cream from The Scoop; and they didn’t even think of going to the library. The front steps of the library was where everyone stopped first on a trip to the Ave because you were sure to find someone you knew there.

But not today. Not for Courtney and Mark. Somehow these familiar haunts didn’t seem so familiar anymore. Everything looked the same, but the last few hours had opened their eyes to the possibility that the world didn’t work exactly the way they thought it did. Between Bobby’s adventure and the strange disappearance of the Pendragons, everything they’d ever believed was thrown into question. With thoughts like this running through their heads, somehow grabbing a box of fries at Garden Poultry Deli didn’t seem all that appetizing. So the two walked past the usual places where their friends hung out and went into a small, quiet pocket park that was sandwiched between two buildings. They sat down on a park bench and stared at the ground.

Finally Mark looked to Courtney and asked softly, “Should I have told them about Bobby’s letter?”

“I don’t know,” was Courtney’s reply. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

Mark tried to put his feelings into words. “I have a feeling,” he began, “that there’s an important reason Bobby is sending me his story.”

“Why? We haven’t even read what he wants yet,” said Courtney.

“Yeah, I know. But I think it’s more than that. I’ve got a feeling that something big is going on and Bobby’s only one part of it. There’s some serious stuff going on here. I mean like, cosmic stuff. Am I being weird?”

“Weird?” chuckled Courtney. “How could anything sound weird now?”

“Exactly! The idea of Travelers who understand languages, and territories, and flumes that send you across space and time…that stuff changes everything we know about how things work.”

This made Courtney fall silent. Mark was right. Up until now she was only thinking about Bobby and the Pendragons. But the implications of what they were reading were totally huge. Too huge to comprehend.

Mark continued, “As we were sitting with the police, I thought about what might happen if I gave them Bobby’s story. I came up with two possibilities. One was that they’d announce it to the world, there’d be a huge furor and we’d be smack in the center of it. Remember, I might still get more pages. I don’t think Bobby would want that kind of uproar, especially if he wants me to help him. If he did, he would have started right off by telling me to take his story to the newspapers.”

“What’s the other possibility?” asked Courtney.

“The exact opposite might happen. The stuff Bobby wrote about might be so disturbing to the world that they’d bury the whole thing and pretend it never happened…kind of like the aliens from Roswell, or the Kennedy assassination. People don’t like to hear that their nice, orderly world isn’t what they thought it was. I wouldn’t blame them; I’m not so thrilled about it myself.”

“There’s a third possibility,” added Courtney. “People may think we’re responsible. Everyone always wants easy answers and the easiest answer is that we made the whole thing up. It would be easier for people to think it’s all a hoax than to believe there are people who jump through wormholes and travel through the universe.”

It was hard to believe that only a few hours ago their biggest concern was that Bobby Pendragon had missed a basketball game.

Courtney looked to Mark and asked, “What do you think we should do?”

Before he could answer, someone reached in from behind, grabbed his backpack and yanked it out of his hands! Courtney and Mark looked up in surprise.

“What’cha got, Dimond? More magazines?” It was Andy Mitchell, the kid who caught Mark in the boys’ room reading Bobby’s first journal. He fumbled with the clasps on Mark’s pack, trying to open it.

Mark jumped to his feet, shouting, “M-Mitchell. G-give it back!”

Mark lunged at him, but Mitchell danced away.

“Aw, c’mon,” laughed Mitchell. “Don’t you want to share?”

He held the pack out toward Mark. Mark swiped at it, but Mitchell pulled it away and laughed.

“How bad you want it back?” Mitchell taunted. “Bad enough to swim with the rats for it?” He backed toward a storm drain in the curb. It was plenty big enough for the pack to fit through.

“Don’t!” Mark shouted desperately.

Mitchell dangled the pack over the drain. “What’ll you give me for it?”

“What do you want?” asked Mark nervously.

Mitchell thought for a moment, then spotted something on Mark’s hand. “I’ll trade the pack…for that big old ring”

Mark couldn’t give up the ring, no way. But he didn’t want to lose the pages, either. He hadn’t read what Bobby wanted him to do yet.

“Think fast, Dimond,” snickered Mitchell as he dangled the pack over the storm drain. “The pack or the ring…pack or the ring.”

Mark didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, a steely-strong hand clamped down on Mitchell’s wrist. He looked up and came face to face with Courtney. She had been calmly watching the scene from the bench. She might not have known how to deal with the mysterious disappearance of Bobby and the Pendragons, or the fact that the world had just turned upside down, but the one thing she knew how to handle was a bully like Andy Mitchell. She squeezed his wrist and stuck her nose in his face.

“Drop that in the sewer,” she said through clenched teeth, “and you’re going in after it…headfirst.”

They stood that way for a long moment. Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, Mitchell smiled.

“Jeez. I was just kidding around,” he said.

Courtney reached over with her other hand and grabbed the pack. Once she had it, she let Mitchell go. He pulled away quickly, while rubbing his wrist to get the circulation flowing again.

“It was just a goof,” he said, trying to save face. “Where’d you get that butt-ugly ring anyway?”

Mark and Courtney stared at the guy until he felt so uncomfortable that the only thing he could do was leave.

“Jeez, lighten up,” he said as he turned and jogged away. Courtney tossed the pack to Mark.

“Thanks,” said Mark with a bit of embarrassment. Now that the crisis was over, he knew he hadn’t handled it well.

“I hate that weenie,” she said.

“We’ve got to go somewhere and finish reading this,” Mark said seriously. “I’m nervous about having these out in public. Let’s go back to my house.”

“Uh-uh,” Courtney said uncomfortably. “No offense, but your room is like…rank.”

Mark looked down, embarrassed.

“Hey, don’t sweat it,” she said with a smile. “All guys’ rooms are rank. It’s just the way it is. Let’s go to my house.”

It was a short walk to Courtney’s house, and neither of them said much along the way. Both had their minds on the pages. There were a lot of questions to be answered, but one stood out above all others: What was the dangerous favor that Bobby wanted Mark to do for him? Courtney was dying to know. So was Mark, but he wasn’t all that sure he liked the idea of having to do something dangerous, no matter how important it was. Up until now, Mark’s idea of doing something dangerous was to ring somebody’s doorbell on Mischief Night and run away. Given what Bobby was going through, the stakes here were a wee bit higher than that.