“You’ll find out all you need to know once you get there,” he answered as he nudged me closer to the mouth of the flume. “Don’t worry, I’ll be right behind you.”
“Why don’t you ever give me a straight answer?” I asked.
“I thought you liked surprises?” he answered with a laugh.
“Not anymore Idon’t!”I shoutedback. Uncle Press used to surprise me all the time with great birthday gifts and helicopter rides and camping trips and — basically all the coo-lio things a kid could ever want from an amazing uncle. But lately Uncle Press’s surprises weren’t as fun as they used to be. Especially since they mostly involved me being chased by hungry beasts or shot at or blown up or buried alive or… you get the idea.
“C’mon, you’re no fun anymore,” he teased as he pushed me into the flume.”Cloral!”he shouted, and stepped out as the tunnel sprang back to life. I didn’t even look into the depths because I knew what was coming.
“Fun?” I shouted. “If you think this is fun, you’re crazy!”
“Oh, one thing, Bobby,” he said.
“What?”
“Remember the Cannonball.”
“What ‘cannonball’?” I asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
The light grew brighter and the musical notes grew louder. I was seconds away from launch.
“Just before you drop into Cloral, hold your breath.”
“What!”
The last thing I saw was Uncle Press laughing. Then the light grabbed me and sucked me into the tunnel. I was on my way.
“What are you two doing in here?”shouted Mr. Dorrico, the chief janitor of Stony Brook Junior High. “This ain’t a library. You can’t sit here reading your — hey, you’re a girl! Girls aren’t allowed in the boys’ washroom!”
Mr. Dorrico had been a janitor at Stony Brook for most of his illustrious fifty-year janitorial career. There wasn’t much you could put past him and this time was no different. There was indeed a girl in the boys’ lavatory. Mr. Dorrico may have been ancient and terminally cranky, but he could still tell girls from boys. Most of the time.
Courtney Chetwynde and Mark Dimond had been sitting on the floor, reading Bobby’s first journal from Cloral. The washroom on the third floor was near the art department. It was rarely used by anyone, boy or girl. It had become Mark’s fortress of solitude. When the world got too busy, Mark would come here to escape and think and eat carrots and be alone. If he received one of Bobby’s journals at school, this is the place he would come to read it. And since Courtney was now part of the picture, she would join him. The fact that she was a girl never seemed to matter, considering how important the journals were. But now they were faced with an angry chief janitor who looked as if he were going to have a heart attack at the very thought of a girl being in the boys’ washroom.
Mark jumped to his feet and quickly grabbed up the pages of Bobby’s journal. “It’s c-cool. W-We were just leaving,” he stammered nervously.
Whenever he got stressed, Mark stuttered. Courtney, on the other hand, was at her best under pressure. She stood slowly, walked up to Mr. Dorrico, and stared him right in the eye.
“The only reason I came in here,” she said confidently, “was because there were so many boys in the girls’ washroom. It was getting way too crowded in there… and they never lift the toilet seats.”
“What!” shouted Mr. Dorrico, his face turning three shades of red.
To him this was clearly an offense that threatened to crack the very foundation of etiquette that our society was founded on. He grabbed the mop that he was going to use to swab up the boys’ bathroom and charged back out, ready to do battle with the rogue delinquents who mocked the sanctity of the girls’ lavatory.
Mark stepped up to Courtney and said, “You are bad.”
“Time to go,” she replied with a mischievous smile.
They ran from the bathroom and down the hall, careful to avoid the girls’ room.
Mark knew that he and Courtney Chetwynde made an odd pair. Mark was an introvert. He lived in a world of books and graphic novels. He didn’t have many friends. His hair was always a little too long and a little too unwashed. Sports were a four-letter word to him and his mother still picked out his clothes, which meant he wore a lot of non-name-brand geek outfits that were always about two years out of date. But the thing was, he didn’t care. Mark never wanted to be cool. In fact, being comfortable with his noncoolness made Mark feel pretty good about himself. Where everyone else was busy trying to impress their friends with the way they looked or who they hung out with or what parties they went to, Mark couldn’t be bothered. So Mark considered himself cooler than cool — in a nerdy kind of way.
Courtney, on the other hand, had it all going on. She was tall and beautiful, with long brown hair that fell to her waist and piercing gray eyes. She got decent grades. Not world-class, but good enough. She also had a ton of friends. But the thing that defined Courtney was sports. Volleyball in particular. Courtney was so tall and strong that it was unfair for her to play against most girls, so she played on the guys’ teams at Stony Brook. As it turned out, it was unfair for her to play against most boys, too. She absolutely crushed them. Guys feared her because they didn’t want to be embarrassed by a girl, but more because they were afraid when they faced Courtney, they’d lose teeth. At fourteen she was already a legend.
So the differences between Mark Dimond and Courtney Chetwynde were so huge that a friendship wasn’t something you’d expect. That is, except for one thing.
Bobby Pendragon.
Both Mark and Courtney had known Bobby since they were little. Mark and Bobby were best buds beginning in kindergarten. Bobby spent so much time at Mark’s house that Mrs. Dimond referred to him as her second son. As they grew older their interests changed. Bobby was into sports and was incredibly outgoing. Mark… wasn’t. But where most people who were so different would drift apart, Mark and Bobby had a friendship that didn’t fade. Bobby often said that as different as they seemed, they both laughed at the same things, and that meant they really weren’t so different after all.
As for Courtney, Bobby met her in the fourth grade and fell in love. From the very first second he saw her stunning gray eyes, Bobby got slammed with a crush that had yet to fade. Growing up, they were rivals in sports. Bobby was one of the few guys who weren’t intimidated by Courtney. Just the opposite. Even though she was a girl, he never cut her any slack. Why should he? She was too good. When they played dodge ball, he’d go after her as hard as she went after him. When they ran the four hundred in gym, he’d make sure the two of them went head-to-head. Sometimes he won; other times Courtney took him. In Little League they were on opposing teams and both were pitchers. When the other came up to bat, they’d each dig down a little deeper to throw heat. Naturally there was the occasional brush-back pitch that sent the other into the dirt. No one ever got hit, though. They may have been rivals, but they were still friends.
The thing was, as strong as Bobby’s crush on Courtney was, Courtney felt just as strongly about Bobby. But neither let the other one know until that fateful night when Courtney came to Bobby’s house before a basketball game. That’s when Courtney admitted to Bobby how great she thought he was. It was also the night the two kissed for the first time. For Bobby, it was one of those incredible moments that actually transcended expectations. It was downright magical.
Unfortunately it was also the night when Bobby’s Uncle Press took him away from home to begin their adventure on the troubled territory of Denduron. Bobby’s old life ended with that one sweet Courtney kiss.
It was out of concern for Bobby Pendragon that Mark and Courtney got together. Both were terrified that something horrible would happen to him as he flumed through the territories. It was Mark who first started receiving Bobby’s journals through the magical ring that was given to him one strange night. It was presented by a kind, strong woman who Mark thought was part of a dream. But in the morning the dream was over, and the ring was still there. This woman turned out to be Osa, Loor’s mother, who was doomed to die while protecting Bobby. This ring was the conduit through which Bobby could send the journals of his incredible adventures back to his friends.