“What is this place?”
“It is everywhere and nowhere. It is where stories are born.”
“What stories?”
“Stories we tell children. Magical worlds. They exist. They are born here in Aquavania and they seep into the minds of the people who write the books and paint the paintings and film the movies. Why, you’re creating a world right now. A world where a girl named Fiona swims with her bush baby friend named Toby.”
The only world Fiona wanted was the world where she came from, with Mommy and Daddy and her brother, Derek, and her sister, Maria.
The thoughts about swimming and the bush baby had been made real, and so too was this one. Fiona felt the fizz fill her body again, and in a flash she was back, standing on the box, her hand on the warm boiler, the lightbulb dangling above her in the basement of her family’s home. She went upstairs and clambered into bed.
Three years would go by before the radiators spoke again.
Fiona had tried to forget about her trip to Aquavania, but it was one of the only things from her days as a four-year-old that she remembered. She told her family about it a few times, and they called it “nothing but a silly dream.”
The night the radiators did speak again, Fiona was not so willing to follow. She had recently stopped sleeping with a night-light, so maybe it was the darkness of her room—punctured only by the glow-in-the-dark constellation stickers on the ceiling—but the voice didn’t sound as inviting as before. It had a mischievous bite to it.
“I don’t want to go there,” Fiona whispered as she pulled the sheet up over her head. “It’s wet and lonely and scary.”
“It doesn’t have to be that way.” The voice crackled in the air, an irresistible enticement.
Fiona peeked out from the sheet and asked, “What can it be?”
“Almost anything.”
To a girl of ample imagination, “almost anything” was far too tempting. So she snuck back down the stairs to the room with the boiler. The boiler disappeared, and the cylinder of water hung there. She touched the cylinder. She went back to Aquavania.
Toby was floating in the ocean, waiting for her.
“It’s been so long,” he said.
“You’ve been waiting ever since I last visited?”
“More or less. Time is different here. People like you arrive precisely when you need to and go home exactly when you left.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“You will.”
There was a rumble in the ocean. It was Toby’s stomach.
The bush baby named Toby liked popcorn, and he liked to eat it on the beach of a beautiful island where amazing animals lived.
A dome of water rose up from the ocean, and geysers burst out of it and froze into the shapes of palm trees. Ferns and creatures and soft earth followed, and Fiona and Toby soon found themselves sitting on the sand, inches from the surf, a giant bowl of popcorn resting between them.
“Wonderfooool!” Toby exclaimed, his mouth full of popcorn.
Fiona giggled and ate the popcorn until she couldn’t fit another kernel in her stomach, and then she and Toby explored the brand-new island. There were glorious birds with neon wings and corkscrew beaks. There were waterfalls as tall as skyscrapers and enormous swimming holes full of singing sea lions and ringed with flowers that smelled like bacon and pie, which were Fiona’s favorite smells.
“Did everything come from my mind?” she asked.
“It did,” Toby told her.
“But I don’t remember thinking about all of it.”
“Your mind is constantly wishing, even if you don’t realize it. It’s all in there somewhere. Aquavania is the place where it’s released.”
“Anything I can imagine can come true?”
“Yes and no. You are the author. But these things are now alive. They are no longer a part of you, but you are responsible for them.”
“Like a pet?”
“Sort of,” Toby said. “Thoughts change. Evolve. On their own. Be careful, though. Aquavania is a strange and powerful place, and you are not the only one here.”
“There are others like me?”
“Yes.”
“Does everyone get to come here? My brother? My sister? My parents?”
Toby shook his head and pointed to Fiona’s ears. “Only the children with the imagination to hear.” Then he pointed to her eyes. “Only the children with the willingness to see.”
“So only young people?”
“Not every child is young,” Toby said.
The explanations were too weird and exhausting for Fiona to contemplate. Instead of pressing Toby further, she imagined a bed made of marshmallows hanging from vines under the shade of palm trees, and Aquavania gave her exactly what she imagined. She climbed onto the bed and fell asleep.
When she woke the next morning, she was still on the island with Toby and all the other animals. This frightened her, for surely her parents were missing her back home.
Fiona left Aquavania to go home, but assured Toby and the animals on the island that she would be back.
Once again, Fiona was instantly transported to the box in the room in her basement, her hand on the warm boiler.
She hurried upstairs, expecting to find her family awake and worried, but it was still dark and everyone was still asleep. When she reached her bedroom, she checked her clock. She had been in Aquavania for nearly a day, but according to the clock, she hadn’t even been gone three minutes.
Her family was likely to tell her it was only a dream, but she knew it was more than that. She was no longer that naïve little four-year-old who confessed everything. She was the ripe old age of seven, and Aquavania was now her secret. And she was going back.
Fiona’s version was more detailed, and she told it confidently, as if she’d been rehearsing it for years, patiently waiting to get it off her chest. It wasn’t without emotion, but it was precise and focused, and I didn’t know what to make of it other than wanting to hear more.
More would have to wait.
“Alistair!” my mom hollered.
I peered around Frog Rock and saw her standing on the back deck. Worry ruled her posture. Her neck was craned. Her arms dangled helplessly.
“I’ll be a second,” I whispered to Fiona as I got up from the chair.
Fiona responded with a curt nod, but I could tell she wasn’t thrilled about the interruption. She had only just begun her story.
“What?” I barked as I stepped into the grass. “I’m busy.”
“Thank god,” my mom whimpered. “Oh, thank god.”
She dashed toward me, and we met halfway through the yard, where she wrapped her arms around me and squeezed me as if to test my existence.
“There’s been an accident,” she told me. “Fireworks. Charlie is in the hospital.”
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 22
The details were gory indeed. According to my mom, Kyle woke to a bang sometime around eight thirty on Saturday morning, but, like everyone else in the neighborhood, he had ignored it. It was the beginning of hunting season and men with muzzle-loaders were thick in the forests nearby. At nine o’clock, when Kyle ducked behind the clubhouse for a smoke, he found Charlie unconscious, his hands a mangled mess, and the box of fireworks nearby. Some of the feral cats had gathered and were licking the blood off of Charlie’s body. Kyle shooed them away with a stick, carried his little brother to the van, and ferried him to the hospital. The doctors said Charlie was minutes away from dying of blood loss when he arrived and, for at least a few minutes, Kyle was a hero. When he admitted that the fireworks were his, his reputation resumed its default position. He was irresponsible, dangerous, an unforgivable variety of older brother.
People had wondered if I was involved. My alibi was solid, backed up by Fiona, though we didn’t reveal the nature of our conversation. “We were making up a story together,” she had told my parents and the police.
A boy and girl hanging out behind a rock? Making up
a story? They certainly didn’t believe that, but they also didn’t believe we had anything to do with Charlie’s accident.
I wasn’t allowed to visit Charlie until Sunday morning. He had spent hours in surgery and needed time to sleep off the effects.
My dad drove me to the hospital, and on the way he told me, “When I was a kid, even younger than you, there was a guy down the street who I was friends with. One day we were playing ball. A few days later and he’s diagnosed with polio. He died not long after that.”
“You think Charlie is gonna die?”
“No, no, I don’t think that,” my dad assured me. “I’m trying to tell you that life will sneak up on you sometimes. Even though you’re a kid, it doesn’t mean you’re invincible.”
“I’m aware, Dad.”
The truth is, I wasn’t aware. Not really. But I would be.
* * *
There were cartoon puppies and pinwheels on the fading wallpaper of Charlie’s room. The same motif was echoed in the sheets and blankets. This was the children’s ward, and it didn’t matter if you were four or fourteen; everyone got puppies and pinwheels.
Movies had taught me that hospital rooms were terrifying places, with screaming and crying and human vegetables hooked up to wheezing machines. Charlie’s room, while slightly depressing, wasn’t nearly so bad, and Charlie himself—tucked in and mounted on his mechanical bed so he had a perfect view of the TV—looked almost serene.
“Hey,” I said as I stepped around the curtain. My dad waited in the hall, gathering the prognosis from Charlie’s parents.
Charlie gave me a devilish grin as he pulled his hands out from under the blankets. He waved two gauzy lumps.
“Hey, buddy.” The words crawled out from his dry throat. “Missed the grand finale.”
“Jeez,” I replied. I looked at the heart rate monitor. The blips were steady.
“It’s okay,” Charlie said. “Stupid bottle rockets. Wrap twenty together and they pack a wallop.”
“I’m sorry.”
“What? Why? I’m sorry you missed it. How many times do you get to see a kid blow off five of his fingers?”
“Oh man … that many?”
“Two on the left hand, three on the right.”
My first thought was, How will Charlie ever play video games again? And while that may seem shallow, it had probably been Charlie’s first thought as well.
“I should have been there with you,” I said. “To stop it.”
Charlie shook his head. “You were busy.”
“I guess.”
“Did you tape all of yesterday’s shows?”
“I … no.” This was a big difference between us. Had I been the one in the hospital, he would have been presenting me with a VHS of all the television I’d missed during my hours of surgery and recovery. Instead, I brought him a bag of gummy bears. I set it on his tray next to his barely touched breakfast.
“Oh well,” Charlie said. “I guess there’s always summer reruns.” Gummy bears were his favorite, but they couldn’t make up for missing a day of television.
“Want me to open them?”
He raised the wrapped remains of his hands, and with a grin he said, “What do you think?”
Shortly after that, a nurse whisked into the room to change the bandages, and I used it as my cue to escape. Down the hall, I found my dad sitting on the edge of the reception desk, cradling a cup of coffee to his chest. Standing next to him, Charlie’s dad held the ribbon of a Mylar balloon that was shaped like a cat’s head.
They seemed an odd pair. My dad—clean-shaven, athletic, a polo shirt and khakis. Charlie’s dad—bearded and balding, paunchy, tinted glasses, a red nylon jacket and dark corduroys. Yet their conversation had a natural sweep to it.
“… and they both had about a billion wasp stings. Remember that?” Charlie’s dad mused.
“How could I not?” my dad replied. “We were putting calamine lotion on him for over a week. Man, those boys were so tiny back then.”
A gentle punch to my shoulder greeted my arrival, and I tried my best to sound chipper. “How goes it, old man?” I said to my dad. For some reason, he always got a kick out of me calling him old man.
“Mr. Dwyer and I are sharing some old memories of you guys,” he replied.
“Real nice of you to visit,” Mr. Dwyer told me. “You know, Charlie asked to see you almost immediately.”
“Well … thanks.” I wasn’t sure what I was thanking him for, but I didn’t know what else to say.
A blast of air from an oscillating fan on the desk sent the cat balloon into orbit, and the three of us watched it until my dad stuck out a hand. “Hal,” he said. “We’ll have that drink soon.”
Charlie’s dad joined him in a firm handshake. “You bet, Rich. Long overdue.”
* * *
“It’ll be tough,” my dad explained a few minutes later as we walked through the hospital parking lot. “He’ll need you to be sympathetic. You can invite him over for dinners if you want.”
“You don’t like Charlie,” I said. “I know that.”
“Charlie’s a nice kid. Sure, he can be exhausting—”
“I’ll go over to his house. Every day after school. He doesn’t have to come visit.”
“Whatever you can do. Show him you care.”
We walked past Kyle’s van. It was haphazardly parked, wheels over the lines. “Did you see Kyle in there?” I asked.
“Smoking lounge.”
“What are they gonna do to him?”
My dad shrugged and pulled out his keys. “What can you do to him? He didn’t give Charlie the fireworks. Kyle shouldn’t have had them, but he’s eighteen years old. I’m sure he’s got worse in his van.”
“He’s not a bad guy, deep down,” I said.
My dad slipped the key into the door. “Deep down, no one is. But you make choices.”
MONDAY, OCTOBER 23
I was back at school the next day, the events of the weekend informing everything. At lunch, I sat with Mike Cooney and Trevor Weeks, as I often did. They were a couple of guys who weren’t considered cool or lame or anything other than harmless. Trevor had an appetite for gossip, though, and he peppered me with questions about Charlie. I was quick to dispel rumors that Charlie had blown off his arms or that he’d been building a bomb to put under the bleachers in the gym.
Only once that day did I pass Fiona in the hall. Though I didn’t say anything to her, she whispered something to me: “Hang in there.”
I spent the afternoon overanalyzing those words. Were they a reference to worrying about Charlie? Or a promise that more of her story was to come? As wild as the story was, I was hoping it was the latter.
At the end of the day, Principal Braugher called an emergency assembly. We filled the auditorium, where a police officer droned through a lecture on the dangers of fireworks. When it was over, Braugher made an announcement.
“School policy for possession of fireworks is now an automatic suspension and a visit to the police station. I hope that’s clear. And I hope everyone keeps Charlie in their thoughts and prayers.”
Ken Wagner, never one to pass up an opportunity for attention, coughed out a “Captain Catpoop,” which was met with a smattering of giggles. We were dismissed.
* * *
“Did you get to see his nasty hands?” Keri asked me on the walk home.
“They were wrapped in bandages.”
“Think they’ll give him steel pincers?” Keri curled her fingers and gestured at me with an exaggerated sneer.
“I don’t know.”
“Ooo. Think he’ll dress up as a lobster for Halloween?”
Frankly, I was sick of talking about Charlie. I knew that he would be home soon and I’d probably be seeing more than enough of him. So I quickened the pace, hoping it would put an end to the banter.
“Are we taking the long cut now?” Keri huffed as we made a turn a few blocks from home. Yes, I had chosen the longer route, but I had also
chosen the one past Fiona’s house.
The man I had seen in the backyard was now in Fiona’s garage. The crunch and growl of heavy metal provided a sound track as he bent over a machine that looked a lot like the motorized sander my dad kept mounted to a table in our basement. But instead of using it to smooth out a piece of wood, the man appeared to be pressing something metal against the spinning belt. As he worked the metal back and forth, it caught the glare of a shop light and I saw it clearly. He was sharpening a long, thin blade.
I stepped back and nearly tripped over my own feet. As a spy, I obviously failed.
“You’re a stalker!” Keri squealed.
“Am not!”
Before I could defend myself any further, I heard the whir of bike wheels. Fiona coasted past and looked back over her shoulder.
“Busted!” Keri cheered, pointing a finger at me.
Fiona jammed the brakes and skidded out. She waited until we caught up.
“Hey, I was about to—” I started to say, but Fiona cut me off, staring Keri down with an odd intensity.
“You saw me burying something one night?”
Keri turned her head to the side. “I don’t know anything about that.”
“Yes you do,” Fiona said. “Do you want to know what it was?”
Keri turned back. “I. Don’t. Give. A. Crap.”
“It was love letters to Alistair,” Fiona said. “We’re dating now, in case you were wondering.”
The bluntness caused Keri to hold her hands up in surrender. “If you say so.”
“I … we … uh…” I stuttered myself into silence. The logical reaction was to call Fiona a liar or to laugh it all off as a joke, but I was ditching logic in favor of emotion. I kind of liked what she’d said.
“I’ll leave you two lovebirds alone,” Keri told us, and she was true to her word, double-timing it to our house like she was racing curfew.
“Who’s nosier, your sister or that Mandy girl she hangs out with?” Fiona asked, but I wasn’t going to let her off the hook that easily.
“Really? Dating?”
“Oh, come on.” Fiona rolled her eyes. “I’ve been to your room. Your mom found us behind that rock. It’s what everyone is thinking. The more you deny it, the more they’ll believe it.”
The Riverman (The Riverman Trilogy) Page 5
