Clues to the Universe

by Christina Li

  But Benji was already gone.

  Next Best Step. What was the Next Best Step?

  “I know this is a stretch,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “He must have taken the bus into Los Angeles to see his dad at his movie premiere.”

  We’d made plans, long before everything broke down, before Benji and I had stopped talking, before he’d gone missing. We were going to go to the movie premiere Friday and take the bus back to go to the science fair on Saturday.

  But the science fair was the furthest thing from my mind right now. It was over. It had been over since the moment I saw the slime dripping down that poster. Now all I cared about was getting Benji back. I looked Mrs. Burns in the eye. “We have to go to Los Angeles,” I said. “We have to find Benji at the movie premiere.” I stood up. “Now.”

  She stared at me for what seemed like two hours. She put her head in her hands and rocked back and forth. “We can’t right now. Not until we get all the facts.”

  My heart was racing. What more did she want from me? “Mrs. Burns, I’m a hundred percent sure—”

  “I’m not,” she said, her voice shaking. “What if he’s not in Los Angeles? It’s half a state away. What if he’s still around here in Sacramento? What if he stopped on the way at some gas station and he’s just waiting there? We have to talk to the police first. File a report. Search the area. We’ll go to Los Angeles after all that’s been done.”

  I clenched my fists. “But Benji is my friend—”

  “And I am his mother.” She stared me down. “I know how to handle this.”

  We have to go. That was the Next Best Step. We have to go. That was the only way to reach Benji. And yet his mother wasn’t budging an inch. My breath was rising fast in my chest and everything felt dizzy.

  Just as I contemplated racing out of the store and taking a Greyhound bus myself to find him, I felt a hand squeeze my shoulder.

  “We’ll go.”

  I looked up at Mr. Voltz in complete and utter relief.

  “We’ll split up,” he said to Mrs. Burns. “It’ll cover more ground. You go talk to the police and search the area. We’ll go to Los Angeles, just in case he’s there.”

  Mrs. Burns exhaled. She closed her eyes and nodded. “Okay. Let’s do that. I’ll have Danny wait by the phone.”

  “Will do.” He turned to a lady who was organizing the shelves. “Marge, can you take over this shift for me? I have an emergency.”

  “Thank you . . . both.” Mrs. Burns didn’t look at me, and my heart constricted. After all, I’d gotten us into this mess.

  Mrs. Burns took a couple breaths to steady herself, her palms flat on the register counter. And then she picked up her car keys and headed out the door.

  I turned to Mr. Voltz. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait,” he said. “One condition.” He handed me the phone. “You have to make sure your mother is okay with this.”

  I grabbed their phone and dialed Mom. She picked up on the first ring.

  “Mom,” I said hurriedly. “I don’t have a lot of time to explain this. But Benji went missing today.”

  I heard her sharp intake of breath.

  “We know he’s in Los Angeles,” I hurried on. “So I’m going with Mr. Voltz to try to find him.”

  “What? To Los Angeles?” Her voice was sharp. “How do you know that? Did he say that?”

  “We’re sure,” I insisted. “He’s in Los Angeles, and we have to find—”

  “No.”

  “What?”

  “You can’t go. Los Angeles is too far. I don’t trust this.”

  “I’m going with Mr. Voltz,” I said. “We’re going to be fine, I promise.”

  I could hear her hesitating on the other end of the line.

  “Please, Mom. He’s my best friend. I have to help him.”

  “I’m coming with.”

  “What?”

  “Listen, Ro. I have no idea what’s going on, but if you’re going all the way to Los Angeles, then I’m coming with you.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I’ll be there. Don’t leave without me.”

  And before I could say anything else, there was a click and she hung up the phone.

  We raced along the highway. Mr. Voltz drove exactly ten miles per hour over the speed limit, clutching the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles turned white.

  No one spoke a word. Mom sat in the passenger’s seat with the map. She knew the way, mostly, because she and Dad had driven down to Los Angeles together in the past. I sat in the back seat, wringing my hands and trying to keep my thoughts from racing in circles.

  How is this state so big? It was three hundred and seventy-three miles to Los Angeles. If we drove at exactly seventy-one miles per hour . . .

  It would take just under five and a half hours. More, with traffic.

  Each minute dripped by slower than the last. I was normally fine with silence—I preferred it, even—but this was the kind of silence that expanded and filled the car and pressed against my chest until it was hard to breathe. I stared at the unending highway roads. A sign appeared in front of us.

  We’re going to Los Angeles. We’re going to the movie premiere. Benji’s going to be there. We’re going to bring him back.

  I ran this plan over and over again and tried to keep my thoughts from racing.

  You did this to him. And what if he isn’t in Los Angeles after all? What if—

  I clenched my fists.

  We’re going to bring him back.

  “You’re out of gas,” Mom said, breaking the silence.

  Mr. Voltz glanced at the dashboard. “I’ll take the next exit.”

  We pulled into a rest stop with nothing but a gas station and a Carl’s Jr. We all clambered out of the car.

  “We’re near Bakersfield,” Mom said, pointing to the map. She smoothed it down and placed her purse on it so it wouldn’t blow away in the wind. “I’m going to get something to drink. Anyone want anything?”

  We shook our heads.

  Mr. Voltz pumped gas. I leaned against the trunk and looked out to my right, seeing miles and miles of farmland. The sun dipped into the horizon, turning the sky shades of orange and pink.

  There was an audible tsss as the pump released. I glanced back. Mr. Voltz caught my expression. He straightened up and his expression softened. “Don’t you worry, kid. We’re going to find your friend.”

  I shook my head, my throat closing up. “It’s all my fault. I made him do this.”

  Mr. Voltz paused. “No, you didn’t. He did this himself.” “But I—” I started. “I was the one who gave him the idea to find his father. I—” Tears welled up in my eyes. “I dared him. I told him he was too scared to. And now—”

  What if Benji didn’t come back? What if he wasn’t in Los Angeles?

  “We’ll find him.” Mr. Voltz’s voice was calm.

  “I just wanted him to find his dad so badly,” I mumbled. My eyes smarted, and I looked at the ground to keep from crying.

  Mr. Voltz didn’t say anything for a second. And then he said, “You miss him.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I miss Benji. I want him to come back.”

  “No,” he said. “Your dad.”

  I looked up at him.

  He knew.

  He knew that a tiny part of me, buried deep down, had yearned for Benji to find his dad because I wanted mine back. It was this part that wished, in an aching way, that getting my dad back was as easy—as possible—as putting a star over a city on a map and chasing it down winding roads until I finally saw him and everything was whole again.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Benji

  THERE’S A STORY my brother had to read for one of his classes in high school called The Odyssey. Apparently it was this super long and boring book about this ancient Greek hero who couldn’t come home from war for twenty years, because along the way he kept running into inconvenient things like one-eyed giant monsters or wars or flesh-e
ating mermaids who sang songs to lure sailors to death.

  There weren’t monsters or flesh-eating mermaids, but as we passed miles and miles of endless flat land, this trip was starting to feel more and more like a twenty-year voyage.

  Everyone on this bus was either sleeping or looking out the window, except for the teenager sitting across from me on the aisle, who was reading a book. A tattoo peeked out of his jean jacket collar. I tried to look out the window, but there wasn’t much to see.

  There were small towns with big gas stations and mountains in the distance.

  There was an avocado stand.

  There was a shiny red Corvette sitting by the side of the road that looked out of place.

  We passed five Carl’s Jrs.

  But mostly there were just fields and trees and hills, and I wondered how much more farmland there was between here and Los Angeles.

  Destination coming up in two hundred and twenty-eight cow sightings.

  Amir was right, after all. A sea of cows really did come between me and my dad.

  I sketched the Corvette. I traced out the sharp lines of the front bumper and lightly shaded it in. I drew the jean jacket–wearing teen in the front seat, his arm draped over the side door. I tried to draw his tattoos. I paused. Somehow it didn’t seem finished.

  I ate some chips and added rocket blasters to the back of the Corvette. The farmland outside the windows finally turned into mountains. We hurtled past highway signs and city names.

  The outline of a city finally appeared on the horizon, with faint hills in the background. Hundreds of buildings rose up into jagged little peaks. The sky was beginning to turn pink, like cotton candy, almost. The pink was silhouetted against shades of blue. Man, if I could sketch the skyline with Mr. Keanan’s watercolors, I would. I looked up and saw Los Angeles on the highway signs, and a thrill of excitement picked up within me.

  It was finally happening. I turned beside me to tell Ro, forgetting for a second that she wasn’t there.

  For the first time I felt a twinge of guilt. What was I doing, going hundreds of miles to Los Angeles by myself? I hadn’t told Ro about this. Or Mom.

  I couldn’t even imagine how worried Mom must be.

  I closed my eyes and tried to stop worrying.

  Just think of when you see him, Ro had said.

  I tried to imagine that exact moment. It would be at one of those huge theaters with bright lights and velvet seats. There would be people dressed up in satin dresses and silk suits and a big marquee with Spacebound printed out in block letters. My dad would climb out of a limousine and onto a fancy red carpet. I would shout out his name and run toward him, and he’d turn to see me. I’d yell, It’s me, Benji, and his eyes would widen first in shock and then in delight when he recognized me. The cameras would flash and the people would shout out his name, but he wouldn’t care. He’d break into a goofy grin and I’d run down the red carpet and he’d crush me into a hug.

  Really, it’d be like no time had passed between us at all.

  The bus pulled up next to a big gray building and stopped. There was a big tssss as the doors opened. People stood up and yawned, stretching their arms over their heads. I stood up too fast and my head felt all dizzy.

  Wait.

  This wasn’t the theater. It was just the bus station.

  I had to get to the theater somehow.

  Everyone was getting off. The bus driver gave me a strange look, and so I grabbed my backpack and hurried off before he could say anything.

  What was supposed to happen now?

  I walked around the station. I started to feel hungry again and thought about buying another bag of chips, but I only had twenty dollars of birthday money left and needed fifteen for the bus ride back home.

  Okay. Calm down, Benji. Think.

  What would Ro do?

  She’d get a map.

  A lady in a bright vest was sitting at the empty counter, chewing gum and flipping through a magazine. I walked up to the counter and took a map. It was filled with all these colorful tangled lines, and I stared at it until the lady finally looked up.

  “You looking for something, sweetheart?”

  “How do you get to the El Capitan Theatre?”

  She stared at me for a moment and then took the map from my hands and circled a couple of places. “You walk to this bus station here. And then”—she pointed—“you get off here.” She looked up. “Got it?”

  I nodded.

  Her eyes narrowed. “Where are your parents?”

  I shrugged. “My dad’s waiting for me.”

  Which was kinda sorta true.

  I boarded a rickety bus. I hugged my backpack in my lap and held on to the map like it was a lifeline. I didn’t even think about what it would be like to get lost in the city. I couldn’t exactly walk back to Sacramento.

  But I forgot about all that as the bus rounded the corner.

  One by one, the buildings lit up with their bright neon red and blue and pink signs. Warm light spilled out of restaurants and shops. Music streamed out. Some car was playing Queen, the electric bass intro on full blast. There was a billboard for Taco Bell that was probably taller than a building. Another one for the new Indiana Jones movie with him leaping in midair, whip in hand. I imagined him racing through mazes and swinging from vines as he—

  Tires screeched as a bright red convertible roared by, the people in the car laughing and whooping.

  Cripes, this place was neat.

  The bus stopped.

  I got off and looked up.

  And my heart practically dropped twenty feet.

  I was facing the biggest marquee I’d ever seen. It was like some huge crown of lights or something, with a star on top and SPACEBOUND: MISSION LAUNCH across in huge letters.

  This was the absolute stuff of dreams.

  I checked the watch I’d borrowed from Danny. Six thirty.

  Actresses wore big dresses and lots of flashy jewelry; the actors dressed up in suits and shoes shiny enough for me to see my wrinkled shirt in. Even in my Sunday best, I couldn’t help but feel out of place. The red carpet was roped off, the cameras flashing. I ducked under the ropes, hoping no one noticed.

  Seven o’clock.

  My heart was about to beat right out of my chest. I didn’t take my eyes off of the red carpet.

  Seven fifteen. Where was he?

  There was a swell of applause as the actress who played Gemma Harris stepped out. She grinned for the cameras.

  Seven thirty.

  People around me started whispering to each other as one last limo pulled up. A curly-haired man stepped out, and suddenly I just knew.

  It was him.

  David Allen Burns.

  Cameras flashed. Photographers surged toward him, and I didn’t even think—I just acted. I pushed into the photographers. Clambered over the ropes and right onto the red carpet.

  He turned and—

  “DAD!”

  People stopped talking.

  Cameras paused.

  Approximately half of Los Angeles turned to stare at me.

  Including my father.

  I was frozen. I had seen him. I had seen his face in the pictures Mom had kept stored away in cabinets. And yet—

  It felt strange to be in front of him. For real. In person.

  “Dad,” I repeated, suddenly very aware of all the stares. My mind scrambled. What was I supposed to do? Or say? “It’s me,” I finally said. My voice came out small. I walked toward him.

  He backed away. “Excuse me?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, two security guards started making their way through the crowd.

  “I’m Benji.”

  He stopped. His expression didn’t change.

  It wasn’t supposed to be happening like this. He was supposed to recognize me. I stared at him fiercely, hoping to somehow make the wheels in his head turn. Come on, come on. I thought about saying something dramatic like I’ve finally made it, but the security guards were cl
osing in, so I blurted out frantically, “It’s your kid! Benji! Remember me? Remember Mom and Danny?”

  His face went white.

  “Benji,” he said, like he was in a dream.

  Finally.

  “That’s me,” I said. I barreled on. I pulled my sketchbook out of my backpack and flipped through the pages. “I found you through your comics, Dad. I like drawing comics, too. You won’t believe it, but it’s the craziest story. I didn’t know where you were, but then my friend Ro found you through the newspaper—”

  The security guard had reached me.

  “—and I took a Greyhound bus from Sacramento—”

  “Mr. Allen.” The security guard grabbed my arm. “We’ll get this fan out of your way.”

  “I’m not a fan!” I shouted, and then security guard let go of me for a second.

  A woman stepped up next to him. “Dave? Is everything all right?”

  “Come on, Dad,” I pleaded, feeling smaller and smaller by the second. He didn’t move. “Don’t you recognize me?”

  The security guard tugged on my wrist. “Come on. This prank is over, and you’re disrupting this event. Let me get you back to your parents.”

  I couldn’t speak for a moment.

  Prank?

  “It’s not a prank,” I sputtered. Desperately, I reached into my backpack with my free hand and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. “Dad,” I said, as a last effort. “Remember this?”

  His own colored-pencil Spacebound sketch, signed and dated.

  Some kind of recognition came back into his expression. He unfroze from his trance and came right up to me. The security guard backed away. My father’s hair was slicked back with gel and was turning gray at the temples. He smelled like cologne.

  But he was grinning at me.

  He had hazel eyes, just like mine.

  He squeezed my shoulder. “Benjamin,” he said. “Of course I remember you.”

  Yes. Finally.

  And then he would reach out and pull me into—

  He backed away. “Listen,” he said. “You can’t be on this red carpet.”

  What?

  “Okay,” I said, because I didn’t really know what else to say. Wasn’t he going to invite me to watch the movie with him?