by D. B. Magee
It was still early as the boys sat down to breakfast, yet the heat was already causing Ryan’s tight-fitting jeans to become uncomfortable.
William, on the other hand, was prepared for today’s scorcher, being dressed in loose-fitting shorts and an oversized, button-up shirt. He, however, no longer buttoned the top button of his shirt, ever since Ryan had told him it looked too geeky.
“Good morning, boys,” Mrs. Walborg greeted on entering the kitchen. “How are we today?”
“Good!” William replied.
With his cheeks full of cereal, Ryan just smiled and nodded.
“Mr. Walborg and I have to go into town today. Do you boys want to come along?”
William shook his head while shoveling a spoonful of oatmeal into his mouth.
“No ma’am,” Ryan replied. “If it’s okay, I reckon I’d like to stay here and go for a dip in y’alls lake.”
Mrs. Walborg poured coffee for her and Mr. Walborg. “Of course, dear,” she said. “I hear it’s supposed to be a record-breaker today, over a hundred and fifteen!” She walked over and set the cups of coffee on the dining room table. “We’ll leave the phone number of the neighbors, in case you need anything.”
Ryan gulped down the last of his cereal milk. “Hurry up, Willy,” he urged. “I wanna take the new RC boats out for a spin.”
William gobbled down the rest of his oatmeal and raced Ryan upstairs to the game room, where the boxes that Granny had sent over had been relocated.
Just down the hallway, Stacy slowly awakened with a stretch and a yawn. Her room glowed dimly with the suffused light that squeezed in around the drawn blinds. Suddenly, it hit her. She sat up swiftly. “I’ve got it!” she blurted out. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of this last night.”
Next door, Lisa was humming to herself and brushing her hair, when in burst Stacy, nightgown-attired and hair all disheveled. “I know how to help them!” she exclaimed, hopping onto the bed next to Lisa.
Lisa looked at Stacy’s reflection in the mirror. “You know how to help who?” she asked calmly, while continuing to brush her hair.
“All of them,” Stacy said passionately. “The spirit kids—the spirit parents—the people on earth mourning those who died—everyone!”
Lisa finished with her own hair and turned to Stacy. “Turn around. Let’s see if we can make you presentable.” Stacy obeyed, and Lisa started in on the rat’s nest that was Stacy’s hair. “Now, tell me your idea.”
Somewhere outside the Walborg property, on a lowly hilltop, Bubba sat sideways in the car’s open passenger doorway, breathing hard and fanning himself with a newspaper while his stomach growled unmercifully. He removed his sports jacket and draped it over his knees, exposing a one-of-a-kind, leather-handled, wooden persuader that he kept tucked in his waistband.
“Boss!” he called out. “Why don’t we go get a bite to eat? We can come back and watch these brats later.”
Just then Mr. and Mrs. Walborg appeared at the front door, dressed for town.
With his binoculars trained on the front of the house, Mr. Smith smiled evilly at the pleasant turn of events. “Your stomach can wait!” he demanded. “I think we’re going to be paying these youngsters a visit real soon.” Then, looking even more sinister, he turned his spy glasses to the activity down at the lake.
At the end of the dock, William rejoiced after having just won the boat race around the lake. “Woo! Hoo!” he shouted, dancing up and down. Beads of sweat pooled on his face as the merciless sun blazed down through the cloudless blue sky.
“Quit your whooping and hollering,” Ryan squawked. “You only won by a horse's hair.” He made for the shade of the butte and placed his controller, cowboy hat, shirt, and undersized borrowed flip-flops on the dry grass.
William retrieved the boats and secured everything in the shade, next to Ryan’s clothes. “It doesn’t matter,” he gloated. “A win is a win.”
“It’s easy to win with a toy. Let’s see if you can do it for real. Come on, I’ll race ya in the water from the end of the dock to shore.” Ryan hopped barefoot along the scorching wood planks and dropped to sit at the end of the pier, allowing his singed feet to dangle over the edge.
Seeing Ryan inspecting his burnt feet, William charged silently forward and tackled his friend from his perch. SPLASH! They hit the surface of the rippling lake and quickly submerged as a tangled mass.
The boys wrestled briefly underwater, where Ryan, being the stronger of the two, quickly got the upper hand and bear hugged William until he quit squirming. William emerged, spitting and sputtering.
Ryan surfaced victoriously behind William and laughed. “Give it up, squirt. You’re never gonna beat me when it comes to a physical challenge.”
“You got lucky, is all.” William said, splashing Ryan.
Ryan snorted. “You just don’t learn, do you?” He swam over and positioned himself near the end of the dock. “Let’s go. I’ll make it two for two.”
Cunningly—and with an omniscient grin—William dog paddled over beside Ryan.
Ryan shook his head in disbelief. “You do know how to swim, don’t ya?”
William treaded water next to Ryan. “I’ll manage,” he retorted. “Just count off.”
The boys turned toward the shore.
“On your mark!” Ryan called. “Get set—go!”
Both boys immediately plunged forward into the gentle waves.
Ryan splashed his way through the water, using an unskilled freestyle stroke. He powered on forcefully, his head turning back and forth above water with each stroke.
William, on the other hand, glided up next to Ryan effortlessly with a scientifically calculated, drag-reducing, streamlined freestyle. Breathing minimally, he reached the shore first and stood in waist-deep water awaiting Ryan. “You were saying?”
Ryan stumbled to the shore and plopped down on the dirt bank, panting. “I gotta say,” he said, breathing heavily. “For a scrawny thing, you sure can move through the water.”
“I just swim smart,” William said, sitting down next to Ryan. “No need exerting more energy than necessary.”
“Okay boys we’re leaving,” Mrs. Walborg called down from atop the terrace. “The phone numbers are on the refrigerator. We’ll be home this evening. Be sure to drink plenty of water.”
The boys waved in acknowledgment.
A short while later, as the Walborgs’ pickup truck turned off the private dirt road and onto the two-lane thoroughfare toward town, neither Mr. nor Mrs. Walborg noticed the two shady characters keeping tabs on the boys from the nearby hilltop. Mrs. Walborg settled in for an enjoyable Sunday afternoon ride into town.
Back at the house, Ryan and William had come in, to get out of the heat, and to check on Stacy and Lisa. After stopping by the kitchen for a quick snack, they found the girls in Stacy’s room on the bed, hunkered over a tablet, writing notes of some sort.
Ryan leaned against the dresser, chewing on a toothpick. “What’re y’all doing?” he asked.
Lisa looked up. “We’re working on a plan to share the Frequency Glasses with other kids.”
William shot a hard look at Lisa, and with thoughts of pushy town’s kids lining up outside the house, or worse yet, groups of kids overrunning their bedrooms in order to gain access to the home network, he asked nervously, “What other kids?”
“All kids,” Stacy offered, smiling proudly.
Ryan folded his arms tight to his chest. “Why would ya wanna do that?”
“Because of what we talked about last night,” Lisa said, “because of all the sorrow that exists on earth and in the spirit world when someone dies.”
Stacy tapped her notebook. “We’ve come up with a way to alleviate all that pain and suffering.”
Ryan looked puzzled. “How is sharing the Frequency Glasses gonna do that?”
“By reuniting the living with the dead, uh, I mean transitioned,” Stacy said, correcting herself. “Think about it. Sadness over death wou
ld be eliminated, and the mourning process would become a thing of the past when people realize that nobody really dies, and that they would be able to see those in the spirit world anytime they want.”
William stood silently off to the side, wrinkles forming between his brows as he listened with focused attention.
Glancing at her brother, Stacy noticed the pensive look on his face and knew that he was trying to figure out what her plan was. She returned her attention to Ryan. “Let’s not forget,” she continued, “all of the kids facing death due to illness. Most of them are afraid of dying. But being able to see, ahead of time, what to expect will relieve their fear and make their transition much easier.”
“The spirit children in Summerland would also benefit from this,” Lisa added. “A lot of them crossed over when they were very young, and know nothing of the world they come from. They are very curious. When I was with Alphelia, I met a group of kids that badgered me silly about earth life.” She chuckled. “They wanted to know everything—from what we study, to the way we dress, to what we do in our spare time. What better way to learn about their home world, than from kids who are still here?”
Lisa stood up and stretched. “I also have a personal reason for wanting to share the glasses,” she said, glancing down at her dangling arm and reflecting on the joy she felt at having the use of it again while in astral form. “There are millions of disabled people who, I think, would love to have an opportunity to be free of their broken bodies for a while, and this would give it to them.”
“Okay,” Ryan said. “So just how do you figure on accomplishing this momentous task?”
William rubbed his chin and grinned. “You’re going to use the internet.”
“Right!” Stacy exclaimed. “I’m going to create a network over the internet, similar to what I did here, and then design a simple website to be a portal to the frequencies.”
Ryan looked around at the others in astonishment. “Are you saying that everyone with a computer could then astral travel?”
“Everyone with a computer and an internet connection,” Stacy expounded.
“Hot diggety!” Ryan exclaimed, envisioning millions of kids gathering on the astral plane at the same time. “That means,” he said, sticking his toothpick behind his ear for later, “that we would be able to meet kids from all around the world, face-to-face.”
“That would be better than pen pals,” Lisa squeaked. “They would be space pals.”
“That just gave me another idea,” Stacy said, bubbling with excitement. “I could expand the simple FG portal into a full-fledged social networking site. Kids could keep a blog of, and share, their astral traveling experiences with other celestial adventurers. They could even schedule their future visits so others could meet up with them.” She immediately jotted a few notes on her notepad.
William clapped his hands together. “We could call the website—Spacebook.” And with a look of triumph, he added, “This is going to be bigger than the internet itself!”
The Plan Unfolds
“All right,” Stacy said, waving her notepad in the air. “Let’s get started.”
It was high noon, and Stacy’s room was now brightly lit as she, William, and Lisa crowded cross-legged atop the bed to begin laying out the specific details for the Spacebook website.
Leaving the brainwork to the experts, Ryan took this opportunity to resume his search for Blood Island. His recent conversation with his great-grandfather had reignited his belief that the ship’s wheel might indeed hold a secret to lost treasure.
Sitting now in front of the computer screen in his room, his eyes glazed over dreamily while waiting for the system to boot, Ryan envisioned a mysterious and secluded island, within which a pirate’s booty must surely be buried.
At that very moment, looking down from the nearby hilltop, Mr. Smith was also envisioning fame and fortune as he stood, wiping perspiration from his forehead under the blazing midday sun, while trying to concoct a scheme for entering the Walborg residence.
In the car, a few feet away, Bubba sat in sweat-drenched clothes, aggravated by the desert-like heat, and bored over this cat-and-mouse game that Mr. Smith insisted on playing with the Walborg residents.
Staring at the picture resting on the seat next to him, Bubba flipped it over. “Hey boss,” he called out, his voice sounding parched and hoarse, “it says Finch on the back of this photo, but the mailbox said Walborg. Maybe the person you’re looking for doesn’t live here anymore.”
“For all I know, the guy’s probably dead,” Mr. Smith snarled. “But since this was the last place he was known to be, it’s possible that what I’m looking for is still here.”
“Why don’t we just wait until the parents return, and ask them if the previous owners left anything behind when they moved?”
“You lunkhead!” Mr. Smith snapped. “If they’re not aware of it, I don’t want to bring it to their attention. And, even if they are, they probably don’t realize the value it holds. No,” he said. “With the parents out of the way, we can easily get past the kids and have a look for ourselves.”
Elected note-taker, Lisa, sat, pencil in hand and poised over her notepad, while Stacy started the meeting.
“The home page of the website,” Stacy began, “should be kept to a minimum. All we really need is an introduction, instructions, a warning about the dark realm, and a couple of links; one which will open a window broadcasting the audio and video frequencies, and the other to the social networking page.”
Lisa quickly jotted down Stacy’s requisites.
“The next thing we need,” Stacy continued, “is the social networking page itself—and lastly, is to visit the other social networking sites and spread the word about our site.”
“I’ll write the copy for the homepage, if you want,” Lisa offered.
“Good,” Stacy said. “I’ll begin creating the code for the website while you’re doing that.”
“You know,” William said, “I’m thinking we should probably keep the location of the Frequency Glasses a secret, especially since they were hidden in the first place, and also since they’re not rightfully ours, anyway.”
“I agree,” Lisa said. “But couldn’t people simply discover where the signals are coming from, if they wanted to?” she asked of Stacy.
Stacy shook her head. “No,” she said. “I’ll use an online hosting service for the website itself. Then I’ll apply encryption techniques and special software to block anyone from tracking the IP address to the server. I have a few other tricks up my sleeve, also, that will send any hackers chasing ghost signals all over the world,” she added, with a soft chuckle.
“We are also going to need a dedicated computer, running continuously, with constant internet access to the glasses,” William advised.
“I know,” Stacy replied. “I have an extra laptop we can use. We can put it somewhere where it won’t get disturbed.”
“It would have to be quiet and stable,” William added. “The boom arm speaker couplings aren’t soundproof—nor are they very secure. If the computer gets bumped, the glasses would fall off or get knocked out of position.”
Stacy nodded again. “It would also have to be dark. Any light would interfere with the video signal.”
“Right, so where do we put it?” William wondered aloud.
“We could put it in the cave,” Stacy suggested. “There’s electricity out there.”
William wrinkled his nose, “I’m not too fond of subjecting the fine electronics to the weather. Tree Root Cavern isn’t exactly moisture-proof.”
“Hey!” Lisa chimed. “Ryan said there was an electrical outlet inside the safe, remember? We could set it up in there. It would be safe and secure, and nobody would ever be able to find it.”
“Hmm,” William muttered. “That just might work. I think the compartment was large enough to house everything. Stacy, do you have a tape measure?”
“I think so—let me check.” Stacy slid off the bed and
searched through a few desk drawers, finally pulling out a twelve-foot tape measure. “Here,” she said, tossing it to William.
William caught it and slid off the bed. “Is the other laptop about the same size as this one?” he asked, tearing a piece of paper from Stacy’s tablet.
“Yeah, basically,” Stacy answered.
William began taking quick measurements of the laptop and other required equipment. Then, finished with his task, he folded the paper and stuck it in his pocket. “I’ll be back,” he said. “I’ll just go and make sure there’s enough room in the safe for all this stuff.”
Unknown to William or the other kids, as he headed down the hallway toward the attic staircase, just outside an old clunker of a car was creeping slowly past the front of their house.
With the gravel crunching softly under the jalopy’s tires, Mr. Smith pulled up and parked near the end of the scrapyard. Seeing no one around, he and Bubba exited the car and slipped quietly in amongst the junk.
Stealthily, they crept up and down the irregular and untidy aisles of discarded debris, peering under, around, and behind antiquated machinery, piles of pipes, old wheels and tires, rusty tools, stacks of lumber and bricks, and various other grungy odds and ends.
Not knowing what they were searching for, Bubba constantly consulted Mr. Smith with every curious thing he found.
At the same time the goons were rummaging through the junk yard, William completed his verification of the safe for compatibility as a secure location for the secret network. Leaving Tree Root Cavern, he decided to seek out Ryan for help with the next phase of his self-appointed task.
“Hey! I need your help,” William said, upon entering Ryan’s room.
Ryan didn’t answer; he just stared at the computer screen with his chin in his hands.
“What’s wrong with you?” William said, puzzled by Ryan’s forlorn expression.
Ryan leaned back in his chair, his face twisted in frustration. He looked at William. “I can’t find a blasted thing on Captain Blood or his island,” he grumbled.
