Mascot knows he must…
Mascot decides to…to…
Mascot…
“Heroes,” Kirby said patiently, “put ideals above everything. They risk everything for ideals. You say you believe in heroism. You say you love comics. Well, you know what, Mascot? Saying stuff is all well and good, but the measure of a hero is what he does. And what you’re doing, here, now…it’s not heroic. It’s just not. And all these people standing here”—he gestured toward the policemen and the spectators who seemed to have sprung up from everywhere—“you tell them you’re Mascot, and they’re not gonna believe you. They’re just going to think you’re some kid with a way overactive imagination. But me…you tell me you’re Mascot, and I’m willing to keep an open mind. You gotta prove it to me, though…and doing what you’re doing, well…if you want to prove to me you’re anything but a hero, then you just go right ahead and dump the pages. Go ahead. Let’s see how much of a hero you really are.”
He lowered the megaphone, folded his arms across his chest, and waited. He realized that Josh’s mother was standing on one side of him and Kelsey’s father on the other.
“Nice speech,” commented Doris Miller. “You should be a writer.”
“That’s what a lot of people say,” said Kirby.
Josh stood there for what seemed years with, literally, his life in his hands.
It would have been so easy, so darned easy, to send the pages crashing down to the parkway. If he did that, then Mascot would be saved. He would be saved.
What should I do?
He waited for Mascot’s internal narrative voice to reply, to give him guidance. Nothing came.
Surrounded by people, he was alone.
For the second time that day…and maybe forever…Mascot had deserted him.
Perhaps that was because, if he continued on this course…if he destroyed the artwork, destroyed that which Kirby had put so much time and effort into…then he didn’t really deserve to be Mascot in the first place.
He was still holding the portfolio over the edge. He could see the pages within through the open section.
He let out a long, heavy sigh.
“Okay,” he called. “Fine.”
He started to haul the portfolio back to his side of the railing.
That was when the truck came barreling down the parkway.
Despite what the comic book pages showing Mascot’s death had depicted, Josh knew that trucks weren’t allowed on parkways. They’re too tall, and not all the overpasses are built high enough to let them past. He once heard about some trucker getting his rig stuck under an overpass.
That wasn’t happening with this truck, though. It was big—a moving truck—but it wasn’t so big that it couldn’t get under the overpass that he was standing on. At least, Josh didn’t think so. But the nearer it got, the less sure Josh was.
It was going to be real, real close.
And the truck was moving real, real fast.
Just as Josh was starting to pull the portfolio out of harm’s way, the truck barreled right under the overpass. The first thing that happened was that a massive gust of wind was generated by the truck’s approach, and the second thing was that the top of the trailer ripped up the underside of the overpass. The noise was so loud, so earsplitting, that Josh was startled. The violent shaking of the overpass from the impact threw Josh off balance. The gust of wind was so ferocious that it blew right into the open section of the portfolio and puffed it up like a parachute even as the damaged truck kept going and headed off down the parkway.
The result was that the portfolio was, for just a second, yanked clear out of Josh’s hand.
Josh let out a terrified, alarmed scream, and he lunged for the airborne portfolio, paying absolutely no attention to where he was.
He sailed right over the railing.
With certain death yawning beneath him, Josh caught the portfolio with one hand and desperately reached out to grab the railing with his other.
His frantic fingers snagged one of the support struts and he dangled there, his feet flailing.
He lasted only about two seconds, and then he lost his grip.
A hand wrapped around his fingers.
He looked up.
It was Zack Markus.
“Give me your other hand!” yelled Zack. “I haven’t got a good grip! Your other hand!”
“I can’t! I can’t let it go!” He tried to bring up his other hand while still holding the portfolio, but it was big and made of leather and too awkward.
“Josh, you’re slipping! Now! Now!”
He wanted nothing more than to keep holding on to it, to find another way.
Yes, Mascot died, but at least he died a hero, and maybe…
“Josh!” and it was his mother, and she was yelling his name, begging him to live, and Harrelson was trying to reach down to grab him, but he was at a bad angle, and Zack was losing his grip.
That was when Kelsey’s voice boomed over the megaphone:
“But what Mascot knows that the others don’t is that there’s a duplicate of the secret plans hidden in a safe back at headquarters! So, in a brilliant scheme to fool the bad guys, he lets the plans go, knowing that they’ll think the plans are destroyed but they are, in fact, safe and sound! Another triumph for—”
“Mascot!” shouted Josh, and he released the portfolio. It tumbled to the parkway as he swung his now-free hand up and grabbed Harrelson’s outstretched one.
Once he was in the grip of both men, it was only a matter of seconds. Hoisted as if he weighed nothing, Josh felt his sneakered feet land on the bridge. The moment he saw Kelsey, he said hopefully, “There are duplicates?”
“Of the pages? Not that I know of.”
He scowled. “So you tricked me, is what you’re saying.”
“No, I didn’t. I counted on Mascot to save Josh, because Josh is the one I care about.” She smiled.
Before he could reply, he vanished into the enfolding arms of his mother, who was sobbing his name.
That was when they heard the sudden honking of cars and the screeching of tires.
“Paul!” It was Stan Kirby who had shouted. “Get out of there!”
Josh twisted away from his mother and looked over the edge of the guardrail—and his mouth dropped in shock.
Paul had slid down the embankment and was running right out into the middle of the Hutchinson River Parkway.
The portfolio had landed smack in the center lane. Paul, paying absolutely no attention to the oncoming cars, sprinted out toward the portfolio.
The foremost of the cars hit its brakes, sliding so hard that it spun out. As if Paul had a force field protecting him, the car windmilled right around him. It skidded into the far right lane, into the path of another car, which cut hard to the side. The Hutch had no shoulder, so the far right car, an SUV, went right up onto the embankment, churning up dirt under its wide wheels.
One after the next after the next, horns blaring, cars skidded, jammed, and slid to a halt, no one wanting to proceed for fear that this apparent lunatic in the middle of the road might dash in front of them. It was all happening so fast that they didn’t have a chance to figure out why he was there; they probably thought he was trying to kill himself.
Nothing could have been further from Paul’s mind. Instead, very calmly, as if he were picking it up off a desk, Paul crouched next to the portfolio, straightened it out, and adjusted the artwork so that it all slid in. Then he meticulously zippered the case back up and held it aloft. “No problem, Mr. Kirby!” he shouted. “I got it!”
Then, for the first time, he noticed that there was an array of cars facing him. The air was thick with the smell of burned rubber.
Miraculously, no one had collided with anyone. That didn’t seem to improve the tempers of the drivers, however, with several of them starting to get out of their cars, shouting at Paul and demanding to know what in the world he thought he was doing.
Paul raised the portfolio over his
head, and in an astoundingly loud voice that carried above all the noise, he shouted, “It’s okay! Everything’s under control! I work for a comic book company!”
This odd pronouncement silenced everyone for a moment, and then the nearest driver, a man with thick glasses, demanded, “Which one?”
“Wonder Comics,” Paul said proudly.
“Oh.” They all looked at one another, and then the man said, “Well…okay, then.”
CHAPTER 17
HOMECOMING
Things happened quickly after that.
The police straightened out all the traffic. Doris yelled at Josh. Zack yelled at Kelsey. Both of them yelled at Paul. Stan told them to leave Paul alone. Zack yelled at Josh. Doris told him to stop yelling at her son. The sheriff told everyone to stop yelling, and then he yelled at everybody. Then he told Josh, Kelsey, and Paul that the only reason he wasn’t arresting the lot of them was because Mr. Kirby asked him not to, so he wouldn’t, but if any of them ever caused any trouble in Northchester again, he’d throw them in jail for ten years without even bothering with the courts, and Kelsey said she didn’t think he could do that, but he said he’d find a way and he sure looked like he meant it. Stan Kirby decided to drive Paul back to Wonder Comics personally while Josh and Kelsey were taken back home by their parents.
When the car pulled up at Josh’s house, Zack spoke for the first time since they had left Northchester. “I’d better come in and tell the officer that everything is okay.”
“Do you think he’s still here?” asked Doris, who had frankly forgotten that there had been a police officer dispatched to the house.
“It’s possible. I told him he could go, but he might have stayed. It’s not like I’m his boss. And it would probably help matters if the whole explanation for this came from me because, well…we speak the same language.”
“English?” asked Josh.
“Don’t start, Josh,” Doris warned.
It didn’t seem if Josh had even heard her. “You know, I saw this movie the other day about a guy on trial, and the lawyer says, ‘Tell the jury what happened in your own words.’ And if a lawyer ever said that to me, I would tell him everything in Flurbish, which is this whole language that I made up, because those would be my own words.”
Zack stared at him. Kelsey sank into her seat and waited for an angry response.
To her astonishment, Zack laughed.
Really, really laughed. Laughed louder and longer than anything she’d ever heard from him since her mother died.
Doris watched, amazed, and then she smiled and shook her head at Zack’s reaction.
Finally Zack managed to regain control of himself, and then he said to Doris, “He never stops.”
“You get used to it,” she said.
“Yeah. I guess you do. You getting used to it, honey?”
Kelsey sagged in relief. “I…”
“You what?”
“I thought sure you’d tell me I couldn’t see Josh anymore.”
Zack gave Doris a weird kind of look, then smiled and said, “It’s been my experience that telling kids they can’t see each other never works. On the other hand,” he continued firmly, “there’s going to be some serious grounding that needs to be addressed.”
“Your father’s right, Kelsey,” Doris said.
Surprised, Josh looked from one to the other. “Did you guys go off and get married or something?”
Doris cleared her throat loudly, and Zack said, “Okay, let’s go inside.”
“Did you—?”
“No!” they chorused.
“Okay, okay!”
“Go on in. We’ll be right behind you.”
Kelsey and Josh hopped out of the car and headed into the house. Zack got out more slowly, as did Doris. She said to him with a degree of curiosity in her voice, “You went pretty easy on him.”
“I just figured if I yelled at him again, you’d jump down my throat again.”
“No. There’s more to it than that,” she said, a little suspicious.
Zack leaned against the car, sighed heavily, and then said, “When Josh was dangling off the bridge…I ran.”
“Okay, so…?” Then she realized what she was saying even as she said it. “Oh. You ran. I thought…”
“Don’t get me wrong, my hip hurt like the devil afterward. I paid for it. But for that moment I forgot about everything else. I forgot I’m supposed to be in pain, that I’m limping. Nothing mattered except getting to him as fast as I could. So as crazy as he made all of us, and yes, it was all incredibly dangerous…I guess I owe him one for making me feel like my old self. But you didn’t hear me say any of that.”
“Say any of what?” she asked, wide-eyed.
“Exactly,” he said with a wry smile.
They went into the house.
Officer Daniel Wiener, who had indeed left when Zack and Doris had departed for New York, had returned. He was sitting on an easy chair, munching pretzels, his feet propped up on an ottoman.
There were three other people as well: Mrs. Farber, another woman, and Terry Fogarty, the next-door neighbor. The woman Doris didn’t recognize had one hand resting on Josh’s shoulder. He looked extremely uncomfortable with it there.
“What are you doing here?” demanded Doris of Mrs. Farber.
“I’m sorry, Doris,” Terry said. “They came back here with a court order and the policeman said I had to…”
“It’s okay,” Doris said.
Wiener, who looked as if he were watching a movie unspool, said to Zack, “So you found ’em, huh?”
“What’s going on here, Danny?” asked Zack.
Wiener tilted his head toward the taller woman. “Lady’s from social services.”
“I’m Ellen Sanchez,” she informed them. “Mrs. Farber contacted me and told me some frankly very disturbing and shocking things about young Joshua here.”
“Everything’s under control,” Doris said.
“From what I’ve been led to understand, absolutely nothing is under control. Fights in school. Running away.”
“Everything worked out, everyone’s fine,” Zack assured her.
She looked him up and down. “Are you the boy’s father?”
“No.”
“Then you really don’t have a say in this.”
“Look, lady,” Zack said, his annoyance rising. “This woman is a great mother, so how about—”
“Zack, it’s okay,” Doris told him, putting a hand on his arm. “I can handle this.”
“With all due respect, Mrs. Miller,” Mrs. Sanchez said, “according to Mrs. Farber, handling this is not one of your strong suits. Joshua,” she continued, cutting off Doris before she could speak, “where did you run off to? What happened while you were gone?”
“You don’t have to say a thing to her, Josh,” Kelsey said.
“Yes, he does, young lady, and either it will be here or we will simply be taking him back to our offices.”
“You’re not taking him anywhere,” Doris said.
“Oh yes we will. Officer Wiener here will see to that.”
Wiener shrugged helplessly. “She’s got the authority to do it, Zack,” he said.
“Now, Joshua…just tell me everything that happened. Use your own words.”
“Oh no,” moaned Doris softly.
“Gerb,” said Josh. “Mxyzptlk. Zabagabe zabagabe zabagae. Warhoon, kreegah bundolo…”
“Wait, wait, wait…what are you doing?”
“Using my own words,” Josh said innocently, and then continued, his voice becoming nasal and his pronunciation elongated, “Zeeeebignew. Flarkle mindari…”
“This is gibberish!”
“No, it’s not!” Josh archly corrected her. “It’s Flurbish.”
“I’d like him to learn gibberish, but tutors are so expensive,” Doris said.
“Do you think this is some sort of joke, Mrs. Miller?” said Mrs. Sanchez. “Clearly you don’t comprehend the situation you’re in. A situation t
hat, as nearly as I can determine, is entirely of your own making as a lax, uncaring mother.”
“Lady,” snapped Zack, “you are so off base that you could be picked off by an armless pitcher. Danny, get her out of here,” Zack said to Officer Wiener. Wiener looked conflicted, uncertain of what he should do.
Now Mrs. Farber stepped forward, waggling a finger in Doris’s face. “I warned you that it would come to this, Mrs. Miller,” she said severely, “but you wouldn’t listen. You’ve no one to blame but yourself.”
“Get away from my mother,” Josh said heatedly.
The arguing went on for close to half an hour, until finally Mrs. Sanchez declared, “All right, this has gone on long enough. Clearly nothing is going to be settled here. Joshua, I hate to do this, but you’re coming with me. Your obsession with comic books has brought you to a very unhealthy place, and the sooner you’re out of this environment, the better.”
Doris stepped directly into Mrs. Sanchez’s path. “You take him over my dead body.”
“Officer,” Mrs. Farber called out, “get this woman out of our way.”
“You get out of my house!”
“Happy to, but Joshua is coming with us.”
“Stop calling me Joshua! It’s ‘Josh’! Ma!”
“Calm down, Josh. You’re not going anywhere.”
“Oh yes he is, and you have nothing to say in the—”
“Pipe down!”
None of them had spoken. It was instead a thunderous, angry voice filled with age and authority.
Stan Kirby was standing in the doorway. He was holding the portfolio under his arm. “What the blazes kind of example are you setting for these kids”—he pointed at the adults accusingly—“shouting so loud I could hear you down the street?”
“Sir,” Mrs. Sanchez began, “this is none of your—”
“Shut up.”
“Sir, there’s no cause for…”
Stan strode toward her, and his presence, his energy, seemed to fill up the room. “Girlie, I’m old enough to be your grandfather, which means I’m old enough to take you over my knee and give you a good paddling for disrespecting your elders. Now shut your pie hole right now, savvy?” “I—”