by Greg Weisman
And Charlie chuckled at his little joke. And ’Bastian chuckled at his own. And Rain giggled at the both of them. Boys.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Laissez les Bontemps Rouler…”
Rain, Charlie and ’Bastian climbed the carved steps up to the moonlit N.T.Z. As soon as they got clear, the sandstone block slid back into place quickly and automatically—with a heavy echoing thud as it found its home. “Glad it waited for us,” Charlie said. Suddenly jokes about getting stranded in the Cache didn’t seem so funny.
Rain thought her mind was playing a new song. Not just music. A song. Rock guitar, bass, and drums. A pounding beat and lyrics she couldn’t quite make out. The volume kept increasing, so by the time she deciphered the refrain, “Let the Good Times Roll…” she knew the music wasn’t coming from her head. It was approaching from the jungle.
Ramon Hernandez emerged into the N.T.Z. with a massive MP3-compatible boom box on his shoulder. He shouted back over the box and the blaring song, “See, there’s someone here ahead of us!”
Like familiar spirits, local teens poured like smoke into the N.T.Z. Charlie’s older brother Hank. Linda Wheeler. Jay Ibara. Renée Jackson. Marina Cortez. And more by the minute. Marina saw Rain and smiled at her, as Ramon leaned back and yelled to the heavens: “IT’S THE END OF SUMMERRRR!!!!! Time to PARTYYYYY!!!!”
Charlie exhaled loudly and leaned in to ‘whisper’ over the music to Rain, “Closed up that Cache in the nick-o-time, huh?” Rain didn’t nod. Even in profile, he could see her eyes were shining, focused on new goals, a new world.
“… GOOD! TIMES! ROLL! LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL!” Ramon cranked the music even louder and lowered the boom box onto a flat rock. Jay dumped the first armful of driftwood into the fire pit. Someone, maybe Hank, got it burning nearly as fast as those torches flamed to life below. More driftwood appeared, fueling the blaze, and soon the N.T.Z. was sporting a legitimate bonfire.
Rain, Charlie and ’Bastian watched the kids dance in their bare feet and shout at each other over the music. A big grin began to emerge on Rain’s face, as she finally seemed to become aware of the party that had indeed materialized before her. Standing on her right, Charlie watched her turn left to make eye contact with oxygen. “C’mon. Let’s dance,” she said.
“You’re kidding,” the ghost replied.
“Can’t a girl dance with her grandpa?”
The Dark Man smiled. “I don’t see why not.”
Getting the gist of their exchange, Charlie made a half-hearted effort to inject some reality: “Uh, Rain … You’re overlooking…” But Rain rushed toward the crowd around the fire and joined the dance. Charlie sighed and shook his head. “Never mind. You two just have fun.”
Rain danced with her grandfather. Young as he looked (to Rain) and felt (to himself), this wasn’t really Old Sebastian’s preferred style of music or movement. In addition, various teenagers kept inadvertently sticking various body parts right through him. Hank Dauphin literally jumped through the Dark Man’s chest at one point. But ’Bastian made a conscious effort to ignore all of that, even made an honest attempt to mimic the moves of some of the other boys. He was quite deceased, but he felt very much alive, and one awkward dance seemed a cheap price to pay for the opportunity to see the non-supernatural glow radiating from his granddaughter.
Charlie was watching from the sidelines—completely annoyed that he was jealous of his platonic friend’s dead invisible grandfather—when a semi-familiar voice said, “Hi,” in his left ear. Charlie turned.
“Oh, Miranda, hi.”
“Hi,” she repeated. She turned toward the “dance floor” and, seeing Rain, wondered why Charlie was scowling here by the cliff alone. “Uh, Charlie … Why is Rain—”
“Dancing by herself?” Charlie heard the bitterness in his own voice and didn’t like it.
“Uh, yeah.”
Charlie looked back toward his friend, and Miranda watched his expression change. Anger quickly melted into genuine admiration. Smiling, he leaned in to Miranda and said, “Because, and trust me on this, she’s the strangest person you’re ever going to meet.” Miranda shot him a confused look, and he laughed, adding, “But that’s a good thing. Come on. If we dance next to her, she won’t look like such a freak.”
Miranda shrugged happily and slipped off her own shoes as he took her hand and towed her over to Rain’s general vicinity. Rain glanced his way, and Charlie yelled, “You’ll thank us in the morning.” He tried to arrange things so that Rain appeared to be dancing with both of them, and he even adjusted Miranda’s position so she wouldn’t be situated where he guessed ’Bastian was.
More teens manifested from between the banana plants. The N.T.Z. was packed. Full of laughter and shouting and the tribal drums of current generations. Sparks from the bonfire sailed up toward heaven on a ferry of pungent smoke. Black and white ashes floated down, leapt and danced and lighted, resembling the mosquitoes that the smoke had driven away. From under the branch of a mahogany tree, I watched the ghost of Sebastian Bohique lean forward out of habit, so that his sly “voice” could be heard over the music. “School starts tomorrow. You still feeling trapped, Raindrop?”
Rain Cacique’s eyes flared with their own fire. “No, I’m not trapped.… I’m the Searcher.”
Belatedly, I realized my tail was wagging. Probably had been wagging for some time. Well, so what? I thought. I’m not ashamed. I had been feeling fairly trapped myself, these last few years. Now the Searcher was found, and the Search had finally begun. So let it wag. Let the ol’ tail wag!
