by Dave Barry
Four hundred miles to the west, a massive oak suddenly came alive, its leaves and branches thrashing as though buffeted by a sudden storm. But it was no storm. It was the beating of hundreds of black wings.
Momentarily blinded, Sarah and Aidan couldn’t see J.D.’s reaction. But they heard him—first a gasp, then a moan of pleasure. Then—“Whoa.”
Sarah turned the wheel shut. As suddenly as it had appeared, the golden light was gone. J.D. was still behind his desk, a look of astonished delight on his face.
“What was that?” he said.
“That,” said Sarah, “was starstuff.”
“Which, according to you, doesn’t exist,” said Aidan.
“Well, I admit it was pretty…amazing,” said J.D. “But I can think of various ways you could have done that…some kind of chemical mist with a fast-acting hallucinogenic—”
“Professor,” said Sarah, cutting him off. “Look at your feet.”
“What?”
“Your feet. Look at them.”
J.D. looked down at his feet. They were a good six inches off the floor. “Oh my god,” he said.
“Exactly,” said Sarah.
“Try leaning forward,” said Aidan. “Just a little.”
J.D. leaned. He floated gently upward, his feet brushing his desktop, sending some papers fluttering to the floor. He drifted across the office, Sarah and Aidan stepping aside to make room. He put his hands out as he reached the door, stopping himself. He looked down, and his feet began to rise; in a few seconds he was upside down, facing Sarah and Aidan, his sneakers gently bumping against the ceiling.
“Oh my god,” he repeated. “It’s not a chemical mist,” said Aidan. “No,” agreed J.D. “You might want to turn right-side up,” said Sarah. “It wears off.” By waving his arms in a swimming motion, J.D. got himself roughly upright, two feet off the floor, smiling hugely.
“Okay,” he said. “I believe you.”
“Duh,” said Aidan.
J.D. pointed at the golden box on his desk. “Now,” he said, “I want to know everything.”
“You’re going to want to sit down,” said Sarah. “If you can.”
J.D.maneuvered himself to his desk chair, then took hold of its arms and positioned himself above it, hovering.
They told him the whole story, starting with finding the map in the desk. It took more than an hour; J.D. wanted every detail, and had many questions. When they were finally done, he sat utterly still in his chair—the starstuff had long since worn off—staring at the box. Finally, he spoke.
“So to sum it up—you found the last of the hidden star-stuff, and now Ombra’s after you, and you can’t trust anybody because Ombra can get to anybody.”
“Or be anybody,” said Aidan.
“So you came to me for help,” said J.D.
“Yes,” said Sarah. “We need a Starcatcher.”
“But I’m not a Starcatcher. My grandfather was…I guess,” he said, looking at the box. “And maybe my dad, as well. But I’m not.”
“You are now,” said Aidan.
“You made a promise to your dad,” said Sarah.
“I did, but I didn’t realize—”
“—that you might actually have to do something?”
J.D. winced. “Guilty,” he said.
“Well, are you a man of your word?”
J.D.’s smile was gone now. “I like to think I am,” he said.
“All right, then. We have starstuff, and we need your help.”
J.D. thought long and hard. “Trouble is, I don’t know how I can help you. You know more about this than I do.”
“Are you sure? Your family were Starcatchers!”
“Seriously, most of what I got from my dad was really vague.”
“Good thing we just about killed ourselves getting here,” said Aidan.
J.D. was drumming his fingers on his desk, frowning. “Okay,” he said. “Listen, I’ve never believed it.”
“Believed what?” said Sarah.
“I’ve always dismissed it as the ramblings of a Victorian woman who had nothing better to do than brood over some…some fairy tale she’d been told as a child,” said J.D.
“Dismissed what?” Sarah pressed.
“There’s this book, supposedly a diary.”
Sarah was leaning forward now.
“My grandfather left it to my dad, who kept it in a safe-deposit box,” said J.D. “When I was going through my parents’ stuff, I flipped through it once. It made no sense to me. Of course, at the time I thought this starstuff business was ridiculous anyway. I almost threw it out.”
“But you didn’t,” said Sarah.
“No. It’s with some old stuff at my place.”
“Can we see it?” said Sarah. “Like, now?”
“And get something to eat?” said Aidan.
“I don’t see why not,” said J.D., rising.
“One thing,” said Sarah. “You call it a diary.”
“Right.”
“Whose diary?”
“Supposedly, a relative of mine from England, though I’m not exactly sure what the relationship is—something like great-great-great-aunt, if I have it right. I was told she sent the diary to my grandfather for safekeeping when she was getting old and frail.”
Sarah stared at J.D. intently. “What was her name?” she asked softly.
“Mary Aster Darling,” said J.D.
“Mary was her given name,” said Sarah softly. “She was known as Molly.”
CHAPTER 18
THE DIARY
J.D. LIVED IN A BIG, OLD TWO-STORY wood house with a wide front porch facing a lawn that looked as if it were maintained by goats. The sprawling interior was a random jumble of worn furniture, books, laundry, cardboard boxes, magazines, CD cases, and musical paraphernalia.
“You live here alone?” said Sarah.
“Yup,” said J.D.
“Are you, like, rich?” said Aidan.
“I am…comfortable,” said J.D. “Thanks to an inheritance.”
“How many guitars do you have?” said Aidan, surveying the living room, where at least three Fender Stratocasters poked their necks out of the clutter.
J.D. frowned. “Eleven,” he said. “No, wait—twelve.” “Do you play?” said Sarah. “Badly,” said J.D. “But I love Strats. You guys hungry?”
“Yes,” said Sarah and Aidan together.
“I’ll order some pizzas,” said J.D. “You don’t want to know what’s in the refrigerator. Pepperoni okay with everybody?”
“And extra cheese,” said Aidan.
“Could you get the diary first?” said Sarah.
“In a hurry, are we?”
“We are.”
“Okay, then.” J.D. tromped up the stairs, returning two minutes later with a slim book bound in plain brown leather. He handed it to Sarah, who held it in both hands, looking at it reverently.
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “Molly’s diary.”
“So say you,” said J.D. “Mary was the name I was given.”
“She actually touched this,” said Sarah. “She wrote in this.”
“I have something else you might be interested in,” said J.D. “I’d forgotten about it. It was in the same box as the diary.”
“What is it?” Sarah said eagerly.
“This,” said J.D., digging into his pocket. He pulled out a gold chain, which was threaded through a small golden sphere with a tiny hinge and clasp. He handed it to Sarah, who stared at it in disbelief.
“Her locket!” she exclaimed. “An actual Starcatcher locket!”
“You’re awfully dramatic, you know that?” said J.D.
“Tell me about it,” said Aidan.
“Is there anything inside?” said Sarah, fumbling with the clasp. “Because the Starcatchers used these to—”
“There’s nothing inside,” said J.D. “I checked.”
Sarah had the locket open now; it was, indeed, empty. She closed it and said, “Do you mind
if I wear it? While I read Molly’s diary?”
J.D. waved it away. “Keep it,” he said. “And good luck figuring out the diary. I’ll go order pizza.”
Sarah cleared a space on the ancient sofa, plopped down, took a breath, and opened the diary. The paper had yellowed with age, but the writing—a neat, compact cursive, in black ink—was quite legible:
Dear Reader:
I cannot know who you are. I can only hope that, because you have been entrusted with this diary, you understand the importance of our mission, and share our commitment to it.
These pages recount certain events that occurred in 1905 and subsequently. Our organization—what few of us remained—had agreed that it had become necessary to isolate the island permanently. Our concern was twofold. First, to protect the island and its denizens from outsiders, who were finding their way to its shores with increasing frequency; second, to guard against the danger that the material on the island —to our knowledge, the last large store of it left on Earth—would be discovered and fall into the wrong hands. We believe that we have defeated our enemy, but we have not exterminated him; he survives in the shadows, much weakened, but still a threat against which we must remain vigilant. As I write these words, our efforts concerning the island appear to have succeeded, thanks to the great generosity and unique genius of E. It is our belief that the island, and the material, are now permanently safe. However, we have decided to leave this record of our activities in the event that it might be useful for future members of our organization. I trust, Dear Reader, that your interest in this diary stems only from idle curiosity. If you have a more pressing reason for reading it—if, God forbid, a problem has arisen that we did not foresee—it is my fervent hope that these pages are helpful to you, and that you are able, as generations of us have before you, to meet the challenge you face.
Sincerely, and hopefully,
Mrs. Mary Aster Darling
“Wow,” said Sarah.
“What?” said Aidan, who was attempting, so far without success, to tune a 1969 Stratocaster with a sunburst finish.
“This,” said Sarah, holding up the diary. “Aidan, she’s talking about the island!”
“What island?” said J.D., returning from the pizza-ordering mission.
“Never Land!” said Sarah. “It must be! Read this!”
She handed the diary, open to the first page, to J.D., who read it with Aidan reading over his shoulder.
“She’s definitely right about the enemy not being exterminated,” said Aidan. “We’ve seen that for ourselves. But who’s this ‘E’?”
“I don’t know,” said Sarah. “But I’m sure the island is Never Land.”
“You actually think it exists?” said J.D.
“Yes.”
“With a flying boy?” said Aidan. “And pirates?”
“And mermaids?” added J.D. “You really believe that, Sarah?”
“Do you really believe you were floating back in your office?”
J.D. grinned. “Touché,” he said. “Okay, so let’s say there really is a Never Land island. Where is it? We have satellites now, Sarah. They’ve mapped the entire world. We can see every speck of land. How come nobody knows about this island?”
“That’s the point,” said Sarah. “That’s what the diary is saying. They didn’t want people to find the island. So they did something. They isolated it.”
“What does that even mean?” said Aidan. “How do you isolate an island?”
“I don’t know,” said Sarah, taking the diary back from J.D. “But it’s in here, and I’m going to find out.”
Lester Armstrong sped north on I-95, pushing the Escalade as fast as he dared.
It had taken him several frustrating hours to sort everything out with the Bensalem Township Police Department. Finally, after checking out his references and calling the Coopers in Pittsburgh, the police had agreed to release him without charges. Lester was free, but furious; he considered himself very good at what he did, yet a fifteen-year-old boy had gotten away from him easily and made him look like a fool.
Next time, kid, thought Lester. Next time you’re mine.
The one good thing was that a police sergeant had agreed, after hearing a plea over the phone from a sobbing Natalie Cooper, to put out a missing-children bulletin, which had been broadcast, with photos of Aidan and Sarah, by a Philadelphia TV station. The bulletin quickly produced a good lead: a motorcycle-shop owner called to say that Aidan had gotten a ride with one of his workers to the Princeton public library. The Princeton police had been alerted, and Lester was on his way there now, grimly determined to track down his quarry, especially the boy who’d made him look bad.
You’re mine, kid.
In a park near the town of Indiana, Pennsylvania, about fifty miles east of Pittsburgh, a three-year-old boy pointed at the late-afternoon sky.
“Birds!” he said.
The boy’s parents looked up from their picnic meal of barbecued chicken and potato salad.
“My goodness,” said the mother.
“Wow,” said the father. “That’s a lot of birds.”
They were coming from the west, hundreds of them, flying in a densely packed group, looking almost like a fast-moving cloud. They flew low, so low that the family could hear their wings beating, so low that, as they approached, the mother felt the need to pull the little boy close to her.
The large black birds swarmed overhead in a rush of wind, their mass momentarily blocking the sun. The family watched silently as the swarm swept east, disappearing over a hill, leaving the park sunny and quiet again.
“What the heck was that?” said the father.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said the mother.
“Birds!” said the boy.
“Yes,” the mother said softly, her eyes still on the horizon. “Birds.”
CHAPTER 19
ESCAPE
DUSK CAME TO J.D.’S HOUSE, followed soon by pizzas. Sarah chewed slowly through four slices, her eyes never leaving the diary pages. Night fell. J.D. occupied himself on the Internet. Aidan continued, without success, his efforts to cause the Stratocaster to produce some sound that even vaguely resembled music. Finally, he gave up and watched TV.
An hour passed, and a good part of a second. At last, Sarah closed the diary and stood.
“Okay,” she announced. Aidan and J.D. turned to her.
“Okay, what?” said J.D.
“Okay, I read it all.”
“And?”
“A lot of it I don’t understand. But I think I’m getting a rough idea.”
“And?”
“It’s pretty weird.”
“Weird how?” said Aidan.
“Okay,” said Sarah. “Like Molly says in the letter in the front, the Starcatchers were looking for a way to protect the island. So one of the Starcatchers, a guy that Molly calls ‘T,’ who I think was some kind of professor, suggested that they should get in touch with this guy she calls ‘E.’ So in 1905, Molly went to see this E in”—Sarah paused to flip through some diary pages—“a place called Bern.”
“Burn?” said Aidan.
“B-e-r-n,” said Sarah. “Where is that, anyway?”
“I believe it’s in Switzerland,” said J.D. “You said 1905?”
“Yeah. Is that important?”
“Not sure,” said J.D., frowning. “Go on.”
“Okay. So this E guy worked on this for a long time. A couple of years. There was a lot of back and forth between him and the Starcatchers. But finally he came up with a solution to protect the island, which was…well, that’s the part that’s really weird.”
“What was it?” said Aidan.
“A bridge,” said Sarah.
J.D. nodded. “I remember reading that. I think that’s exactly where I decided it was nonsense and gave up.”
“A bridge to the island?” Aidan said. “I thought it’s in the middle of the ocean somewhere? And how would building a bridge possibly isolate s
omething?”
“I don’t think it’s a regular bridge,” Sarah said. “This guy
E was making it in his laboratory.”
“What?” J.D. said.
“And he used starstuff to make it,” Sarah said.
“Starstuff?” said Aidan. “To build a bridge?”
“To make it,” said Sarah.
“How do you know it was starstuff?” said J.D.
“You should have kept reading,” said Sarah. “Molly calls it ‘material,’ but it has to be starstuff. She says the Starcatchers gave E some material from the supply held by M, who has to be Magill.”
“Okay,” said Aidan. “They’re isolating an island with a bridge, which they’re making in a laboratory. Using starstuff.”
“I think that’s what the diary is saying,” said Sarah.
“That makes no sense,” said Aidan.
J.D. cleared his throat. Aidan and Sarah turned toward him. “I think…maybe, in a kind of incredible way…it does make sense,” he said.
“How so?” said Aidan.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” said J.D. “And if I hadn’t seen the starstuff for myself, I wouldn’t be saying this.”
Sarah and Aidan waited.
“I think I know what kind of bridge we’re talking about,” he said. “I also think I know who E is—who he has to be—although I admit I’m having a hard time wrapping my mind around it.”
“Who? Who is it?” begged Sarah.
“If I’m right,” said J.D., “E is Einstein.”
“Albert Einstein?” said Aidan.
“No, Buddy Einstein,” said J.D. “Of course Albert Einstein.”
“But how?” said Sarah. “I mean, how could—”
J.D. held up his hand. “I’ll explain,” he said. “But if you’re going to understand, I’m going to have to teach you a little theoretical physics.”
Sarah sat on the sofa and patted the spot next to her for Aidan to sit down. “Teach away, professor,” she said.
“Okay,” said J.D. “To begin with, what we think of as—”
Bang!
Sarah screamed as the front door burst open, jagged pieces of the wood door frame flying across the room. A large man wearing padding and a plastic face shield hurtled into the room, others right behind him, all of them bellowing, their voices a jumble of harsh commands.
