I did. He glided up to me and said, “Don’t want to get trapped under there, mate. They’ll have us for sure.”
I looked back toward the kelp forest in time to see the four raiders break out of the vegetation and spot us.
“Do you trust me?” I asked.
“Well sure, mate, but—”
“Then c’mon!”
I hit the throttle and shot under the rock ledge. I did a quick look back to see if Spader was following. He was. For a change I could take the lead and he believed in me enough to follow. Now all I had to do was deliver.
The rock ceiling looked different, but only because the last time I was here I was going the other way. But that wasn’t a good excuse for being lost. I had to find the gate. The raiders had already gotten to the rock ledge and were still coming fast. All they had to do was follow our bubbles and they’d have us. I could only hope that I’d find the gate before I hit the dead end of rock.
I started to panic. I was lost. I didn’t know where the gate was. This rock ledge was huge. We could swim around here for hours without finding it. What was I thinking? I had led us into a trap. I had to calm down and think. Where was it?
The answer hit me instantly. I had been in such a rush to get in here that I wasn’t thinking straight. There was an easy way to find the gate. It was my ring. I swept my hand out in front of me and saw that the stone would dim or grow brighter, depending on the direction I pointed. I carefully judged when the ring was shining brightest and that told me our course. It was like following a compass. I took off in that direction and seconds later, I saw it. The round hole in the ceiling was only yards ahead. I aimed my water sled toward it and gunned the engine.
A quick thought went through my mind. Maybe I shouldn’t be leading the raiders to the gate and the flume. But I reasoned that it didn’t make a difference. If it was Saint Dane behind us, he already knew about the gate. If it wasn’t Saint Dane, then it wouldn’t matter if the raiders found it. The flume didn’t work for non-Travelers. No, this was the right move for all sorts of reasons.
I broke the surface inside the cavern and looked around quickly. It was exactly the same as we had left it. A moment later, Spader broke the surface next to me and looked around in wonder.
“Hobey, mate! How did you know about this?”
I pulled off my air globe and tossed it onto the ledge. I threw my water sled there too. There was no time to explain things to Spader. The raiders would be here in a second. So I yanked off his air globe and threw it and his water sled to the side. The two of us floated in the middle of the pool, treading water.
“I hope there’s another way out of here,” he said.
I laughed at that. I actually laughed.
“Spader,” I said. “You have no idea . . . but you soon will.”
I glanced up at the opening to the flume. I counted on the fact that we didn’t have to climb up the sheer rock face to get there. We didn’t have time.
“I’ll ask you again,” I said. “Do you trust me?”
“Of course, mate, but you better come up with something quick or we’re going to have our own natty-do right here and—”
“Zadaa!” I shouted.
The flume came to life. The familiar bright light shot from the opening. The jumble of musical notes grew closer. Spader looked up in awe.
“Hobey, Pendragon,” he said softly. “Where did you say you were from again?”
The water around us started to swirl. The light from the flume grew bright and the two of us were pulled up, together, out of the waters of Cloral.
A second later, we were on our way to see Loor.
END OF JOURNAL #6
SECOND EARTH
“Why did he go to Zadaa?” huffed Courtney. “Why didn’t he bring Spader here to Second Earth? This is his home!”
Mark knew the answer. Loor was a Traveler. She would be able to help Bobby explain things to Spader. Things were getting hairy on Cloral and Loor was the kind of person you went to when things got hairy. Mark felt that Courtney should have realized this, but her jealousy toward Loor was clouding her thinking. Not that he’d point that out to her. No way.
Courtney stood up angrily and shoved the pages back at Mark.
“Well, if Bobby Pendragon thinks his new friend can help him better than we can, then good luck is all I have to say!”
“C’mon, Courtney,” said Mark softly. “You know he did the right thing.”
Courtney looked as if she wanted to argue, but backed off. She knew.
“Yeah, well, whatever,” she said with a pout.
Mark now faced a dilemma. He had to tell Courtney about Andy Mitchell. He made a dumb mistake by leaving the page in the boys’ bathroom and because of it, Mitchell knew about the journals.
“I’m sorry, Mark,” added Courtney. She had calmed down. “You’re right. You’ve been right about everything from the beginning. It’s good that one of us thinks straight. At least now we know why these pages are different than the last ones. He wrote this journal on Zadaa, not Cloral, right?”
Mark wanted to scream. Courtney Chetwynde relied on him to be the brains of this duo and right now he was feeling like anything but. She trusted him and listened to his advice, which is more than anybody else ever did, except for Bobby sometimes. It killed him to have to admit he had screwed up royally.
“You okay?” asked Courtney, sensing that something was wrong.
“Yeah, sure, I’m f-fine,” answered Mark quickly. “Just worried about Bobby is all.”
“You’d better get those pages back to your house before anything else happens.”
Mark looked at Courtney, saw the trust in her amazing gray eyes and made a decision. He couldn’t tell her about Andy Mitchell. At least not yet. He wanted to work this out on his own rather than risk losing Courtney’s faith. This was his problem and he was going to have to deal with it.
So he gathered the pages of Journal #6 together, put them in his pack, and left for home. Normally, once they finished reading a journal, Mark would stash it in the safest place he knew—an ancient rolltop desk in his attic. His parents hadn’t gone up there in years and Mark had the only key. He wore it on a chain around his neck just to be safe. Every precaution had been taken. As soon as a journal was finished, it went into the desk.
Tonight was a little different though. Mark crept up to the attic and unlocked the desk drawer. He placed Journal #6 inside next to the brown rolls of parchment that were Bobby’s journals from Denduron. But rather than lock them up, he took out Journal #5—the journal Andy Mitchell had seen the first page of. This was the journal he would show Mitchell. He hoped that maybe this would be enough. Maybe Mitchell would think it was all a crazy joke and get bored after reading these pages. It was the best Mark could hope for.
He spent a sleepless night, wondering how he was going to get out of this predicament. Sharing the journals with Courtney made sense. Courtney was Bobby’s friend. Courtney could be trusted. But Andy Mitchell was different. He was an idiot. Worse, he was a bully-idiot. There was no telling what Mitchell would do with the information about Bobby once he got it. But as hard as he tried to figure a way out, he just couldn’t find it. He had no choice but to show Mitchell the pages tomorrow.
At school the next day Mark did his best to avoid Mitchell. He held out the desperate hope that Mitchell had forgotten all about the journal page he’d found in the boys’ bathroom. Mark got through the entire day without even seeing his nemesis. His hopes started to rise. He told himself that Mitchell didn’t care enough to even show up for school! Maybe this would all blow over.
Wrong. No sooner had Mark stepped out of his last class than he felt a hand clamp down on his shoulder.
“Time for a little homework, aye, Dimond?” chuckled Andy Mitchell.
Mark’s heart sank. The guy hadn’t forgotten at all. It was time to deal with the devil. Mark shrugged Mitchell’s hand off his shoulder and said, “Let’s go.”
Mitchell snorted
and chuckled. He made Mark’s skin crawl, but there was no way out of this. So Mark led him up to the boys’ bathroom on the third floor. No one would bother them there, especially not Courtney. After her run-in with Mr. Dorrico, they decided not to read the journals there anymore. This was the best place Mark could think of to get some privacy, and to avoid Courtney. He felt guilty as hell about it, but there was no other way.
When they got inside Mitchell stood with his hand out. Mark stared at him. Mitchell snorted back a good one and hawked a lougie into a urinal. Mark nearly retched. He had a fleeting thought of barging past Mitchell and running away, but that would have been useless. No, this was the only way. So reluctantly he reached into his pack and pulled out the roll of green, slick paper that was Journal #5.
Mitchell reached out to grab it, but Mark pulled it away.
“You gotta read it here and you gotta give it right back when you’re done,” Mark said. Mitchell wasn’t used to being ordered around like this, especially not from a geek like Mark Dimond. But Mark was intense. He was not fooling around. Mitchell snorted and chuckled, again.
“Whatever,” he said, and swiped the pages away from Mark. He walked over to one of the stalls saying, “I’ll read it in here.”
“You will read it right here, where I can see you!” commanded Mark.
Whoa. If Mitchell wasn’t sure about how important those pages were to Mark, he sure was now. Mark was not going to allow Andy Mitchell to control this situation any more than he had to. He already had too much control as it was. If Mitchell didn’t do exactly as he said, Mark was ready to grab the pages away and take his chances with the police.
Mitchell chose to back off and gave another signature snort.
“All right, be cool,” he said with a shrug. “I’ll read ’em wherever you want.”
Mitchell then walked to the far wall, turned his back to it, and slid down to the floor. With one last snort, he began to read the journal.
Mark didn’t move. He stood by the sinks, staring at Mitchell. This was killing him. With each passing second he felt as if he were betraying Bobby a little bit more.
Mitchell took forever to read the journal. He wasn’t exactly a rocket scientist and he constantly had to ask Mark the meanings of words. Mark would roll his eyes and explain to him what words like “submerge” and “erosion” meant. Worse, when Mitchell got to words that were specific to Cloral like vators or pecks, his total cluelessness made Mark want to scream. Mark felt bad for any teacher who was saddled with the likes of Andy Mitchell. He wondered who had the patience to teach him how to tie his shoelaces.
Finally, mercifully, Mitchell finished the journal and looked up to Mark. This was the critical moment. Mitchell’s first reaction was going to tell Mark how much trouble he was going to cause from here on in. Mitchell stared at Mark for a moment, as if trying to pull his thoughts together. Mark figured that pulling those slim thoughts together couldn’t take more than a nanosecond. It didn’t. Mitchell snorted and laughed again.
“Who are you kidding?” he said with a sneer. “You made this up!”
Mark didn’t react. He just stared at Mitchell. The truth was, he didn’t care if Mitchell believed the journals were real or not. But Mark realized instantly that not reacting was the exact wrong move. He saw it in Mitchell’s eyes. Mark realized that if he had argued with Mitchell and said something like “I didn’t make it up! It’s all true! I swear!” then Mitchell would have figured he was just some loser geek with a wild imagination and that would have been the end of it. But he didn’t. By not arguing, he had done the exact opposite. His silence convinced Mitchell that everything in the journal was true. Mark wished he had a second chance to react, but it was too late.
Mitchell began to stand up. Before he got his balance, Mark swiped the journal pages out of his hand.
“Easy!” complained Mitchell.
“Are we done now?” asked Mark as he rolled up the journal.
“Done?” laughed Mitchell. “We’re just starting! I want to read the other journals. The ones from that Denduroni place.”
“Denduron. I can’t let you—”
“And I want to read the journal that showed up here yesterday. I’m not stupid, Dimond. I saw it. It was brown, not green like this one. You already got another delivery from Pendragon and I want to see it.”
“N-No way! I agreed to let you read the rest of—”
Mitchell lunged at Mark, grabbed him by the shirt, spun him around, and slammed him against the hard tile wall of the bathroom. He knocked the air out of his lungs and Mark nearly passed out. Mitchell wouldn’t let him go though. He stuck his nose right in Mark’s face and hissed, “Stop tellin’ me what to do, you little freak. You wanna mess with me? I’ll hit you so hard you’ll be eatin’ and fartin’ out of the same hole.”
Mark didn’t believe that was possible, but he didn’t want to risk it.
“Now listen to me. Do not tell Courtney Chetwynde I know about this. If you do, I’ll go right to the police and fry both of your butts. Understand?”
“But—”
Mitchell slammed Mark against the wall again. This time Mark hit his head on the tiles.
“Understand?”
“Yeah, I understand.”
“And I want to see the rest of them journals. We are sitting on a very big thing here. Someday we are gonna be famous, thanks to that weez Pendragon.”
Mark was horrified. Mitchell, the village idiot, was already planning on how to release the journals to the world. This could not get worse.
“I want to see another one of them journals,” he commanded, then threw Mark out of the way, and strode toward the bathroom door.
With one final snort, he then kicked the door open and left.
Mark sunk down to the floor, hurting in more ways than one. He had messed up worse than he could imagine. Mitchell now had complete control over him. Worse, if he told Courtney about it then Mitchell would make sure that the police knew everything. There was no one he could go to for help. He wanted to handle this on his own, but he was doing a truly bad job. He had let Bobby down, he had let Courtney down, and he had let himself down.
And then, just to add to his confusion, the ring on his finger started to twitch. In the past this had always been a moment of excitement because it meant he was going to hear from his best friend again. But now the idea of another journal arriving meant that it was going to be one more journal he would have to share with Andy Mitchell. One more journal that he would have to explain to the dimwit. One more journal that marked his total failure as a friend.
Mark took off the ring and put it on the floor. He then rolled over and turned his back to it. He knew what was going to happen. He didn’t have to see. He closed his eyes and softly whispered, “I’m sorry, Bobby. I’m going to fix everything, I swear.”
When he turned back around, the ring was lying right here he had left it. Next to it was another journal.
JOURNAL #7
ZADAA
I have seen things that I never thought possible and most of it isn’t good.
Since I wrote you last, things here have been pushed to the hairy edge of catastrophe and I feel as if it’s up to me to bring it back. The worst part is I don’t know how. Not a clue. I’m frustrated, freaked out, and most of all . . . scared. Definitely scared. Not only for me, but for the whole territory of Cloral. Whoever had the bright idea of making me a Traveler should be re-thinking that decision right about now. Did I mention how scared I was?
I’m writing this journal from a place that is both wondrous and frightening. As I think back on the events that led me here, I can’t help but wonder where it’s going to end. Every time I think I’ve got a handle on things, something new happens that turns me upside down. I thought I couldn’t be surprised anymore, but I am. I guess that’s why they call it surprise.
Once again we are on the verge of a battle. I don’t want to sound overly dramatic or anything, but if things go south, this may be the
last journal I write. I’m not trying to freak you out but, well, okay maybe I’m trying to freak you out a little. Why not? The whole point of writing this is for you to know what I’m going through, right?
I’m getting way ahead of myself. There’s a lot to write about and I don’t have a ton of time. I finished the last journal where Spader and I had hit the flume for Zadaa. There wasn’t anything unusual about the trip, except for the fact I wasn’t alone this time. Spader and I flew side by side. This was Spader’s first flume ride and I wasn’t sure how he would react. He was pretty tense at first, as you can imagine, but once I assured him everything was fine and that he could enjoy the ride, he simply looked forward and folded his arms. We flew along like that for a few minutes and I could tell he was starting to relax. He had been through a lot hairier situations than this under the sea. Maybe not as bizarre as this, but definitely not as hairy.
“What is this, Pendragon?” he finally asked. I could tell he was working really hard to stay calm.
“It’s called a flume,” I answered. “It’s taking us to meet a friend of mińe.”
“And where is that?” he asked. “Your home habitat?”
“No, it’s a place called Zadaa. She’ll help me explain to you what’s going on.”
He nodded as if to say, “Okay. I’ll wait until we get there to ask the eight hundred million other questions I have.” He did ask one more question though.
“Pendragon, are we safe?”
Wow. How could I answer that one? I felt totally unsafe every second of every day. But I couldn’t tell him that. I decided to play dumb to the more cosmic issue and only deal with the here and now.
“Yeah,” I answered. “The flume is safe. I promise.”
Moments later we arrived. The flume deposited us into an underground cavern. Big surprise, right? Spader looked back into the flume that had now gone dark, his eyes wide with wonder.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “It works both ways. We can take it right back to Cloral.”
“You mean we’re not on Cloral anymore?” he asked in shock.