The Rivers of Zadaa

by D. J. MacHale

  “And Kasha would still be alive,” Courtney shouted. “And Spader and Gunny would be helping Bobby on Zadaa right now. Saint Dane played us, Mark. He gave up Eelong to help him win the bigger war, and we made it easy for him.”

  “N-No!” Mark shouted back, pacing. “We don’t know that for sure. Things might have been worse if we didn’t help.”

  Both wanted to believe that, but there was no way to know if it was true or not. Bobby wrote that they shouldn’t blame themselves, but Mark and Courtney were having trouble following that advice.

  Courtney wiped her eyes and stood up, saying, “You should go home, Mark. Bring the journal to the bank in the morning.”

  Mark rolled up the parchment paper and tied it with the leather twine.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  Courtney nodded. “Let’s let this sink in and talk about it later, okay?”

  “Sure,” Mark said as he climbed the basement stairs. “I’ll see you tomorrow at school, okay?”

  Courtney didn’t answer.

  Mark went to school the next day as usual, though it wasn’t easy. He was a very different guy than the day before. That’s because in between the two days, he had spent an entire month on Eelong, matching wits with Saint Dane. To everyone at Davis Gregory High, Mark was wallpaper. His claim to fame had always been that he was the best friend of the popular Bobby Pendragon, but it had been two years since Bobby and his family disappeared. People forgot. The disappearance of the Pendragon family was yesterday’s news, and without Bobby around, nobody thought twice about Mark Dimond. They had no idea that Mark was taking part in a battle to save everything that ever was or ever will exist. To them, he was a quiet little guy with long, black hair, who ate carrots to improve his vision. He was a member of the prestigious Sci-Clops science club, but that was his only nonschool activity…other than fluming to another territory to save a race of cat people from extermination. The most anybody ever spoke about Mark was when they saw him hanging around with Courtney Chetwynde. That’s because Courtney was beautiful, smart, athletic, and not even close to being the kind of girl people expected to hang out with a dweeb like Mark. People would whisper. What did she see in him? Of course nobody could know that they were joined by a common bond—their friendship with Bobby and their knowledge that the universe was in danger.

  Most of all, Mark and Courtney needed each other to stay sane.

  Going to school that next day was one of the toughest things Mark had ever done. He had just taken part in a grand adventure that none of these kids at school could possibly even imagine. Now he had to go to school and act like nothing had happened. But it had. He was a different guy.

  And Courtney didn’t show up.

  He didn’t call her at first, figuring she needed time to decompress. But after a few days, she still hadn’t come to school. Mark called her cell phone. It was turned off. He went by her house when he knew her parents were at work. Nobody answered the door. He didn’t want to have to talk to her parents, but the scary thought started creeping into his head that the Chetwynde’s might have disappeared the same way the Pendragons did, so he took the chance and called her at home. He was relieved when Courtney’s father answered the phone. Mr. Chetwynde said that Courtney wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to talk with anyone. Mark thought the guy sounded tense. He was glad to hear that nothing bizarro had happened, but he was getting more worried about Courtney by the second. Was she okay? He knew she had been having a tough time of it, even before they hit the flumes. He feared that the realization of how badly they had messed up on Eelong might have pushed her over the edge. Courtney was incredibly proud, maybe too much so, Mark thought. He knew that one of the reasons she had so badly wanted them to jump into the flume was that she was scrambling to prove something to herself, and what better way to do that than save an entire territory?

  Mark didn’t blame her for convincing him to use the flume. She may have been the one driving the bus, but he was a willing passenger. She didn’t twist his arm. Much. Now he feared that after having salvaged her self-confidence by saving Eelong, finding out that it was the wrong thing to do would crush her. He desperately wanted to talk to her, but her parents wouldn’t let him. No calls, no visits, no letters. It was like she was a prisoner in her own house. Or a patient.

  Courtney hadn’t come back to school for the rest of the semester. He asked around and found out that she was having her school work sent to her house. There were lots of rumors that she was sick, but Mark didn’t believe them. He knew that her problems were more psychological than physical, not that that was much better. After a while he stopped calling. He figured that he’d wait until he got Bobby’s next journal, then he’d somehow get a message to her that it had arrived. He knew that there was no way she could resist finding out what was happening to Bobby.

  But no more journals had arrived.

  Mark did his best to put Bobby out of his mind and get on with his life. He tried not to think of what a mess they had made of things by jumping into the flume, though he often sat in bed late at night, wide awake, trying to decide what they could have done differently. He never found the answer, which in some ways was comforting. They may have seriously messed up, but after going over every fact, it didn’t seem as if they’d had any choice but to do what they’d done. It gave him a small bit of comfort. Very small.

  Mark immersed himself in the Sci-Clops science club. But that was difficult too, since his archnemesis, Andy Mitchell, was now a member. Mitchell was an idiot. A thug. A guy who had bullied Mark his whole life. Yet there Mitchell was, a member of the most prestigious science club in the state. At first Mark thought it was a mistake, but the more he saw Mitchell at work, the more he reluctantly had to admit that the goon did have an aptitude for science. Math, in particular. He may have barely been able to write his name with a crayon, or read a stop sign, but Mark saw that Andy Mitchell had an incredible ability to see mathematics on a 3-D level. It was uncanny. Mark figured he was one of those idiot savant types. Heavy on the “idiot.” On the one hand he was actually creating chemical compounds that might revolutionize manufacturing, on the other hand he’d go out and extort money from the geeks at school to buy cigarettes.

  The only real solace Mark took from this twisted situation was that Andy Mitchell didn’t target him for abuse anymore. It was the first time in the history of dorkdom that being the member of a science club actually saved someone from getting beaten up.

  The rest of the semester passed uneventfully. Meaning, there were no journals from Bobby. However, with only a few weeks left of school before summer vacation, Mark received a letter that changed things once again. It was from Courtney.

  Dear Mark,

  Hi. I hope you’re doing well.

  I shouldn’t be avoiding you like this, but as you know, I’m pretty much avoiding everything these days. I’m sorry to say this, but most of all I’m avoiding you. I know, it’s wrong. But I am so disappointed in myself, seeing you makes me feel even worse. I’ve let you down. I’ve let Bobby down. When I start thinking about how I let all the Travelers down, and what that could mean, all I want to do is cry. The idea is too much for me to even think about. I used to believe I could handle anything. Now I can’t even handle seeing you, someone I think the world of.

  I’m writing you now to tell you that as bad as I feel, I’m getting better. I’m going to be okay, I think. But I’m leaving. My parents want me to go away to summer school. I agree with them, for a change. It’s a good idea. I’ve got to get my act together. Going to a place where nobody knows me sounds like a good thing to do. I’m hoping that in a couple of months I’ll have sorted things through enough that I can come back and be the kind of person I know I can be: a better friend to you, a better friend to Bobby, and a better acolyte.

  I don’t mean to leave you on your own. I’m sorry for that. But I really think for the time being you’ll be better off without me. If another journal comes in before I return, I don’t
want to know. I’ll read it when my head is in a better place. Please don’t think I don’t care. I do. More than I can even tell you. I think that’s part of the problem. I’ve got to get some perspective.

  As much as I’m trying to put what happened on Eelong out of my head, the one thought I can’t shake is that someday, maybe soon, Saint Dane will set his sights on Second Earth. I believe that when that happens, if it happens, we will be needed again. I want to be ready. It’s the one thing that keeps me focused.

  I want to say something happy like “have a nice summer,” but that seems so trivial. Please know that I think about you every day. I’m going to get through this, and I’m going to come back.

  I know that’s the way it was meant to be.

  I miss you.

  Love,

  Courtney

  Moments after Mark found this letter in his mailbox and took it to his room to read, his ring began to twitch. He jumped in surprise. Bobby’s next journal was on the way in. Mark didn’t even have time to process Courtney’s message before having to think about news from Bobby.

  “Perfect,” Mark said to himself sarcastically. “Why does everything always happen at the same time?”

  The gray stone in the center of the ring he had received from Loor’s mother, Osa, transformed into a brilliant, clear crystal. He took the ring off, placed it on his floor and watched as the familiar delivery process took place. The ring grew to the size of a Frisbee, opening up a conduit to the territories. Light flashed from the hole, bringing with it the haunting musical notes that carried the cargo along.

  Mark closed his eyes and waited until the music stopped. Seconds later the ring returned to normal. Lying next to it on the rug was Bobby’s next delivery. Journal #20. It was a scroll of parchment paper, tied with a leather twine…exactly like #19. In the past Mark would have immediately called Courtney so the two could read the journal together. It was their pact. They would never read the journals alone. The note from Courtney changed all that. Courtney didn’t want to read this journal. Mark was on his own. It was an odd feeling. Even scary. As different as Mark and Courtney were, they were always able to bounce ideas off each other to help understand what Bobby’s pages contained. Now Mark would have to do it on his own. He would be the only one to know of Bobby’s latest adventure. So he read.

  SECOND EARTH

  (CONTINUED)

  The words of Bobby’s Journal #20 brought no relief for Mark. The drought problem on Zadaa was bad enough, but Mark was frightened by the fact that Saint Dane tried to flat out kill Bobby. It pained him to hear how his best friend had been hurt so badly, and it put a knot in his stomach to know that Loor was going to teach Bobby how to become a warrior.

  As bad as all that was, the idea that Bobby was falling in love with Loor made Mark wince. After learning about what a hard time Courtney was having, he couldn’t imagine how she would react to hearing that the guy she had a crush on since they were in the fourth grade was now turning his affections toward somebody else. Nothing that Bobby wrote in his journal was good news. A whole boatload of worry had been dumped on Mark.

  The kicker was, he had nobody to share it with.

  The only consolation was that Courtney didn’t want to know about the journal, which meant he didn’t have to tell her that Bobby was falling in love with Loor. He hoped that by the time Courtney returned from summer school, she would be strong enough to handle the news—or at least he’d have time to think of a way to tell her without sending her back off the deep end. No, there was no good news in Bobby’s latest journal.

  Mark rolled it up, along with Courtney’s letter. He brought them both to the National Bank of Stony Brook, where Bobby had opened up and paid for a safe-deposit box in 1937. First Earth. It was the place where Mark kept all of Bobby’s journals, holding them for the day that Bobby would need them again, for whatever reason.

  He left the bank, ready to explode. There was too much bouncing around in his head. He fought the urge to run to Courtney’s house. He needed to talk with somebody, but there was nobody around…

  Except for Andy Mitchell.

  “Hey, Dimond,” Andy Mitchell called as Mark walked out of the bank. Mark jumped in surprise. “What are you, some kinda business guy going to the bank?”

  “Yeah, that’s it,” Mark said quickly, keeping his head down. He kept walking. Andy went with him.

  “What’s your hurry?” Mitchell asked.

  “I, uh, I got homework,” Mark lied.

  “Ahh, homework!” Mitchell scoffed. “The school year’s almost over. Take a break. I’ll buy you fries at Garden Poultry.”

  This made Mark stop short. He looked at Mitchell. The thug looked the same, with the greasy spill of blond hair falling in his eyes and the ever-present redness from acne. Still, something was different. Mitchell had never, ever been nice to Mark.

  “Why?” Mark asked. “What do you want?”

  “Nothing!” Mitchell answered defensively. “Jeez.”

  Mark stared square at Mitchell, not accepting the answer.

  Mitchell buckled. “Okay, maybe something. I want to ask you about that robot you made last year. You know, the one that won the state contest?”

  “Yeah, I know which one. What about it?”

  “Don’t be so twitchy. I was just interested is all. I mean, we’re both in Sci-Clops, right?”

  Mark had more strange information thrown at him in the last few hours than his brain could accept. First there was Courtney’s letter, then Bobby’s journal, then here was Andy Mitchell, the hated Andy Mitchell, wanting to talk shop with him. It was almost more than Mark could take. Normally he would blow Andy off and keep walking. But he needed to get his mind off Courtney, and the journal.

  “All right,” Mark said. “Fries at Garden Poultry.”

  “Now you’re talkin’!”

  They started to walk off together, but Mark suddenly stopped and said, “Wait, where did you get the money for fries? Did you steal it?”

  “Gimme a break,” Mitchell said. “I got a job.”

  “What job?” Mark asked suspiciously. “Is it legal?”

  “You’re a piece of work, you know that? I make deliveries for my uncle,” Mitchell answered. “He’s got a flower store. Is that legal enough for you?”

  “You have your driver’s license?” Mark asked, surprised.

  “Sure, don’t you?” Mitchell asked.

  Mark didn’t. He hadn’t even thought about asking his parents for his learner’s permit. Could he be any more of a loser?

  “Sorry,” Mark finally said. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  The odd couple walked up Stony Brook Avenue to the Garden Poultry Deli where they picked up a couple of boxes of golden-delicious fries and some sodas. They sat in the pocket park nearby, and Mitchell listened to Mark tell him all about the killer robot he designed that won both the local and state science fairs. It was the project that earned him his invitation to join Sci-Clops. Mitchell listened with interest, which was amazing to Mark. He didn’t interrupt. He didn’t make fun. He didn’t snort and spit. Not once. Mark actually enjoyed telling him about his robot. With all that had been going on, talking about something real like his robot calmed him down. He even forgot for a second who he was talking to…that’s how desperate he was to get his mind off his problems.

  When Mark was finally talked out, Mitchell nodded and said, “I gotta hand it to you, Dimond. You’re a freak, but you’ve got talent.”

  “Thanks…I think,” Mark said.

  Andy stood up and said, “Maybe someday we’ll work together on something. That is, if you don’t mind working with somebody you think is a turd.”

  This threw Mark. It was the first time Mitchell had shown any sign of humility whatsoever.

  “Uh, yeah, maybe” was all Mark could get out. “I mean, I don’t think you’re a turd.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Thanks for the fries,” Mark said.

  “Thanks for the st
ory,” Mitchell said. “I gotta get to work. See ya.”

  With that, Mitchell turned and walked out of the park. Mark was left there stunned. It seemed too surreal to be true, but Andy Mitchell had actually just helped him get through a panic attack. Mark chuckled and shook his head and thought, “Life just keeps on getting stranger.”

  The next few weeks flew by. Mark visited the bank a few times to reread Bobby’s latest journal. He tried not to think about Courtney. He figured she’d contact him when she was ready. All Mark could do was hope that Bobby was fully recovered, and that he would avoid Saint Dane.

  Mark started a summer job where he assembled and engraved sports trophies. It was better than most dumb summer jobs. At least there was a little bit of creativity involved, and it helped him get his mind off everything else. Mark actually hated summers. He didn’t like to do all the things that everybody else did. He didn’t like swimming. His family didn’t take many fun trips. He didn’t like sitting in the sun because his fair skin went from blue-white to raging red with no stopover at tan. But mostly it was because he liked school. Odd as that would seem to most kids, Mark longed for September because for him, summers were boring.

  On the weekend of July Fourth, his summer got less boring.

  He was working late at the trophy shop, but he didn’t mind because they were having a fireworks display in the park at the bottom of Stony Brook Avenue. Mark worked until nearly eight thirty, then stopped off at Garden Poultry for his obligatory box of fries and can of Mountain Dew. With his nutritious dinner in hand, he walked down the Ave to catch the fireworks. Families poured in from everywhere, carrying blankets to stake out their piece of grass and see the show. Mark sat down in the middle of one of the town tennis courts. He didn’t like sitting on the grass much, especially with food. He hated battling ants for his fries.

  With two huge explosions the fireworks began. Everyone’s eyes went skyward to watch the display. Soon after, the traditional “Oohs” and “Aahs” began as each rocket exploded with spectacular sprays of multicolored light. Mark liked fireworks. They were like magic to him. He had no idea how the ancient Chinese could have figured out how to put the right chemicals and explosives together that would erupt in such amazing colors and patterns. He knew it would be easy enough to research and find out how they worked, but he chose not to. He preferred to think of it as magic.