by Rob Buyea
He was right. I sagged on the couch. “What’re you going to do?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
“I don’t know, but whatever it is, it’s gotta be big.”
It was Sunday, but I was out of bed extra early because I had a big day ahead. There was lots on my to do list. First up was practice at Gavin’s house. I was training him for his upcoming all-star game. I wasn’t going to be on the sideline, but I’d told him I would still be his eyes from the bleachers. I had come up with a series of hand signals so that we could communicate through sign language. Silent communication had worked for the Recruits once before, so I knew we could do it. After our workout we were going to the Senior Center for dinner with Grandpa and Coach. It was going to be an exciting day.
Mom dropped me off at the Davidses’ but didn’t come to the door. Ever since I’d gotten my phone, she’d stopped doing stuff like that because I could call or text her if I had a problem.
I knocked and heard someone come running from inside the house. Gavin’s excited, too, I thought. This is going to be great.
The door flew open. “Scott! What’re you doing here?” Gavin groaned. He looked surprised to see me.
My shoulders slumped. “We’re training today, remember?”
“No,” he moaned. “Scott, I can’t practice today.” He stomped away and left me standing there.
“Why not?” I said.
I stepped inside and saw Meggie sitting next to her big dog. She was wearing her jacket and a hat and gloves, and she had her backpack on, too. Randi was also there. She was helping Gavin fill his bag with sandwiches and water bottles and other stuff.
“What’s going on?”
Gavin sighed. “Scott, there’s been a change in plans.”
“What do you mean? We’re supposed to practice.”
“Scott, my dad got hurt yesterday. Hurt bad. We’ve got to go and get him help.”
“In the hospital, hurt bad?” I asked.
Gavin nodded.
“But won’t they help him?”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“We need money to pay for my daddy’s hospital bills,” Meggie said. “He doesn’t have inchurents. So we’re going to get money.”
Now I understood. “So you’re going to the bank?”
“We don’t have enough money in the bank,” Meggie said. “We’re going to Good Morning America so I can get on TV and save my daddy.”
“Oh.” I thought about that for another second, and then it hit me. “You’re the new secret-weapon play!” I exclaimed. “That’s perfect. Nobody will expect it.
“But wait. Today’s Sunday,” I suddenly remembered out loud. “That show isn’t on until tomorrow morning. Why are you going now?”
“ ’Cause that show is in New York City,” Gavin said, “and that’s not exactly right around the corner.”
“Oh yeah. New York City!” I exclaimed. “We’re off to the Big Apple!”
“No,” Gavin snapped. “Scott, you can’t come. This…I don’t want you to get in trouble.”
“I’m the guy calling plays for this outing, not you. Consider this an audible. I’m coming, and that’s it.”
Gavin groaned. “We don’t have time to fight about it. If you want to come, fine. But you made the call, not me.”
“I made the call,” I said, and smiled.
Gavin threw on his coat and backpack, and Randi got her stuff, too. Meggie squeezed her dog. “We’ll be back soon, Otis. Be a good boy.”
Otis lay down and whimpered. He was bigger than Stonebreaker, but he was acting smaller than me. I didn’t know why yet.
We walked outside and climbed into Mrs. Davids’s car. I got into the back with Meggie, Randi rode shotgun, and Gavin hopped behind the wheel. I got my phone out and started recording.
“Scott, gimme that stupid thing,” Gavin hissed. He snatched my phone and ran inside the house and got rid of it. Then he came running back out and jumped into the car, and away we went.
“My phone,” I whined. “What’d you do that for?”
“We can’t risk your mother tracking you and coming to find us. We’ve got one chance to make this Hail Mary work.”
“But I was going to make a documentary like I did at camp. We could put it on The Razzle-Dazzle Show and—”
Randi handed me her phone. “Use mine,” she said.
Gavin glanced over at her.
“It’s a good idea. It could help,” she said.
I grinned.
“Whatever,” he grumbled. “Just make this part quick, ’cause I’m not supposed to be driving. I don’t have a license, in case you forgot.”
I hadn’t thought about that. This was the most dangerous thing I’d ever done—except maybe getting on the football field with Stonebreaker. We were breaking the law. Good thing Natalie wasn’t with us. I hoped she wouldn’t want to arrest us when we got home.
Eddie had said if you wanted the world to know something, then put it on Good Morning America. So I was getting Meggie on that show if it was the last thing I did. After that, everything hinged on her superpower ability to melt hearts. Scott was right. She was our secret-weapon play—and we needed a touchdown.
Turns out that wasn’t the only miracle we needed. Our first close call showed up way before I was expecting, when the gas light suddenly came on. I’d never even given that a thought, but there wasn’t anything I coulda done anyway. The bottom line was, we needed fuel—or else we weren’t making it very far.
I pulled off the next exit and found the nearest gas station.
“Oh, thank goodness,” Scott said. “I’ve gotta go potty like you can’t believe.”
Meggie giggled.
“Are you kidding me?” I hissed. “This has to be fast, and I mean fast, ’cause the last thing I need is someone to notice me driving.”
“I’ll be fast,” Scott promised. “It’s diarrhea that I feel coming on, so it’s going to fall right out of me.”
“Gross!” Randi yelled.
Meggie started laughing. Nothing about this was funny, but if you thought about all we’d been through in the last twenty-four hours, her smiling instead of crying was probably the biggest miracle.
“Make it quick,” I warned him.
He took off, and I hustled inside and paid the cashier. I only gave her five bucks ’cause I needed to save as much money as possible for the rest of the trip. I hurried back outside and grabbed the hose.
Scott got there as I was finishing up, but that was already too late. The old man at the pump across from us was staring at me. “C’mon. We gotta get out of here,” I hissed.
Meggie musta noticed the old man, ’cause she rolled down her window. “My brother’s a late bloomer. We’re not sure if he’ll ever need to shave.”
The old man chuckled. Meggie had used her magic.
“Oh, be quiet,” I said to Megs, trying to play along. I looked over at the man and shook my head.
“Don’t worry, kid. I was a late bloomer, too. Don’t rush shaving. Once you start, you’ll wish you never had to do it.”
I closed the gas cap and put the hose back. I gave the old man a wave, hopped into the car, and drove away.
That was enough close calls for me—but we were just getting started.
The train was my idea. It’s what Mom and I took when I had to go to New York City for my knee surgery. We parked in the garage next to the station because then we didn’t need to worry about paying until we came back.
“Okay. Grab your stuff and let’s go,” Gav commanded.
“I’ve never been on a train before,” Scott said, sounding excited. This was the next big event on his field trip.
“Me neither,” Meggie chimed.
Gav looked at me and shook his head.
I smirked. As much as he didn’t want Scott tagging along, I was happy we had him—and I know Meggie was, too. Her superpower might’ve been her ability to melt hearts, but Scott’s was his ability to keep us laughing and calm. Without him, this would’ve been too intense. Without him, there would’ve been no documentary—and that turned out to be ingenious.
Once we made it into the station, I took the money from Gav and went to make our purchase. Piece of cake—except for one problem. He only had enough cash for three tickets, not four. Oh well. I wasn’t about to give up that easily. Friends don’t quit on each other. I bought three tickets and led the way out to platform five. I didn’t say a word to the others because the less they knew the better.
I remembered from my trip with Mom that you didn’t actually need a ticket to get onto the train. The conductor came by and collected them after you were already on your way. So that made it simple. We were going to ride the rails like they did in the old days. Add that to the list of laws we were breaking.
Our train pulled up, and we boarded with everyone else. We found a set of open seats and sat down. The doors closed moments later, and the train lurched forward. This was it. There was no turning back. Now it was time for outsmarting the conductor—but I hadn’t figured that part out yet.
“It reeks in here!” Scott exclaimed. “I feel like I’m choking on a ninety-year-old fart.”
“Yucky,” Meggie said, and giggled.
I couldn’t have agreed more. The train was far from luxurious. The floor reminded me of the school cafeteria, and the blue-and-red seats were made of cracked plastic that just pinched, poked, and scratched you, but the stink was by far the worst. It stunk of dirty old air. Air that had been trapped inside those doors since its beginning and had never escaped, making it incredibly stuffy. The odor was suffocating, but the real challenge came when Meggie said she had to use the bathroom.
“Now?” Gav said.
“Yes. I’ve been holding it all morning. Randi, can you take me? Please.”
Walking on a moving train was no easy task, especially when you’ve got a less-than-perfect knee, but who could say no to Meggie? Hopefully, no one. Our entire plan was counting on that, and I wasn’t about to jinx it.
“Okay,” I agreed.
“Thank you,” Meggie said.
And then it hit me—or destiny did. The bathroom was the perfect place to hide. I glanced ahead, searching for a sign. Instead I spotted the conductor. I saw him through the windows in the connecting doors, slowly making his way toward us. I turned around and looked in the other direction, and that was when things got more serious. There was a woman wearing a stiff blue hat collecting tickets in the car behind us. This was a big train, which meant it required two conductors. One started in the front while the other started in the rear. They worked their way to the middle until they bumped into each other.
“C’mon.” I grabbed Meggie’s hand and led her down the aisle. We headed in the direction of the male conductor since he was farther away.
When you’re traveling straight on a moving train, it’s not bad, but as soon as the track makes a sudden turn, you get thrown to the side. Meggie and I held on to the corners of the seat backs as we moved forward, doing our best to keep our balance, but one of those sharp turns was a little too much for my knee and peanut Meggie. We got tossed into the lap of a newspaper-reading businessman.
“You girls all right?” he asked, helping us back to our feet.
“Yes, thank you,” I said.
“Sorry about your paper,” Meggie added.
“That’s okay,” the man said. “It’s nothing but the same old depressing news about our economy and health insurance.”
“We could tell you all about that,” Meggie replied.
“We’re looking for the bathroom,” I cut in. Meggie had already said too much and had him curious. We were supposed to stay unnoticed.
“It’s in the next car,” the man said, his eyebrow raised. “Just keep going.”
Meggie and I smiled and hurried on, but I was terrified. Since the bathroom was in the next car, that meant we had to go through the connecting doors, bringing us closer to the conductor, but that wasn’t the worst of it. Nothing scared me more than those connecting doors—not even back tucks on the beam.
The first door had to be pulled open and the second one pushed. Much easier said than done. I gripped the handle and leaned back, pulling with all my weight and strength. I got it open just enough for Meggie and me to slip through, and then it slammed shut, trapping us in the area between connecting doors—on a moving train! Just so you understand, we were standing on a rubber floor made of two separate panels, each extending from the car it was attached to. The panels shifted up and down in different rhythms as the two cars jockeyed side to side. The thunder of the train and the beating noise of air whipping by filled the space all around us. And just below, the ground raced by in a blur. Walking from one car to the next felt like playing with death, and yet Meggie was giggling. She found it fun. Not me!
I held my breath and lowered my shoulder. I leaned into the second door, again using all my weight and strength. It barely budged, but we slipped through the opening. The million-pound door sucked shut behind us, and I breathed a sigh of relief—because we were alive, but also because destiny had finally given me a break.
The bathroom was right there. I lifted the small silver lever and slid the door open. We ducked inside before the conductor ever laid eyes on us. I closed the door and locked it. We were safe, tucked away inside the most disgusting bathroom I’d ever seen. It was a porta-potty on wheels, but I told Meggie to make herself comfy because we weren’t leaving.
It had to be the worst way to travel, stuck in a moving porta-potty, but Meggie was a trouper. Fighting to keep my balance every time the train jerked one way or the other was harder than staying on the beam, and my knee was aching by the end, but we made it.
“GRAND CENTRAL TERMINAL,” the mysterious train voice announced.
I sighed. “Finally.” I looked at Meggie. “Ready?”
“Yup,” she replied, as excited as ever, eager for the adventure ahead.
I slid the bathroom door open, and we melted in with the rest of the passengers getting off. We found Gav and Scott, and I relaxed. I hoped the hard part was over—but we had a long way to go yet. Mr. Davids was still stuck in intensive care, and destiny had much scarier things waiting for me.
We got off the train and hurried up the platform and into Grand Central Terminal.
“Wow,” Meggie said. “This place is huge.”
“Everything in New York City is big,” Randi said, looking around.
“Gavvy, look at the ceiling. Look at all the constellations. How do you think the artists got them up there?”
“I don’t know. C’mon.” I pulled her along. I wanted to get us over to the side, where we would remain undetected. The place was massive, made of what looked like beautiful white marble or stone, but Meggie was definitely going to catch people’s attention if she kept standing there gaping at the ceiling like that. Everyone would find that cute.
“Gavvy, how do you think they got up there?” She was still talking about the stars and the artists.
“Angels,” Scott answered. “New York City has lots of them.”
Meggie didn’t say anything. She musta liked that answer. I did. We were gonna need the help of angels to save my father.
“All right, listen,” I said. “Here’s the plan. We’re making the trip to Times Square now so that we know how to get there in the morning.”
“So this is like our walk-through practice on the day before our game?” Scott said.
“Yes, exactly, but we need to hustle, ’cause it’s getting late in the day, and I want to be back here before dark.”
“Why back here?” Scott asked.
I sucked in
a deep breath. It was time. I had to tell them eventually. “ ’Cause this is where we’re sleeping.”
That was the first I’d told any of them about that part of the plan. I’d known from the beginning that we’d have to find some random place to crash ’cause we didn’t have enough money for a hotel, and Grand Central Terminal looked and sounded better than the streets.
“We’re going to be like Claudia and Jamie in From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler,” Meggie said.
“I love that story!” Scott squealed.
I shook my head. Saved by a book, I thought. Mrs. Woods would be so proud. I glanced at Randi, and she shrugged. What choice did we have?
Scott used Randi’s phone to pull up a map with directions to Times Square. “Okay,” he said, pointing. “That way.”
We walked through the doors, leaving our home-for-the-night behind, and stepped out onto Forty-Second Street. We were hit smack in the face with New York City. Let me tell you, this was a lot for a small-town boy to take in.
“Wow,” Meggie said. It was a lot for my little sister to take in, too.
Standing across from us like a wall of defensive linemen were buildings so tall, you had to strain your neck back to glimpse the tops. Taxicabs darted in every direction, bullying their way through traffic and blasting their horns. And everywhere you turned there were people. People, people, and more people.
“C’mon. We’d better keep moving before we get run over,” I said. Stonebreaker had never sacked me, but standing in the middle of New York City people traffic was definitely a way to get knocked to the ground.
I took over holding the phone so that it didn’t get dropped or stolen, and led the way. I counted the intersections but didn’t see any signs for Times Square. I was beginning to get nervous that I’d somehow missed it, when all of a sudden there it was, off to my right. We’d made it. We entered the world of bright lights and colors. Signs shone everywhere, advertising different companies and stores. Massive billboard-like television screens hung in several locations, broadcasting previews of upcoming movies and events.
