Any Which Wall

by Laurel Snyder

  “What friends?” asked Tish suspiciously.

  “Alexandria Lenzi.” Susan winced as she said it.

  “Alexandria?” Tish stared in disbelief. “She doesn’t like books! She brings diet soda in her school lunch!”

  “I know,” said Susan glumly.

  “Ugh,” said Tish, thinking things over. “She’s pretty terrible.”

  “I know.” And Susan did know it, now that she had a real friend in front of her. “I’m so sorry! But she was nice to me—sort of. She let me sit with her in the cafeteria, and it was better than being alone.”

  Tish wrinkled her nose.

  But Susan went on. “And then, when I began to really miss you, when I wasn’t angry anymore or distracted, it was too late. I’d already not written so many times. When the postcard came, and I knew you were angry at me, I didn’t know what to say. I just kind of made myself forget you. I threw away the postcard and deleted the e-mails.”

  Tish looked very hurt.

  “But, Tish, I’m sorry. I can’t forget you. Nothing is the same since you left. Everyone at school only wants to talk about boys and hair and nail polish.”

  “That sounds really boring,” said Tish.

  “It is,” agreed Susan. “And you know what else? I put all the things—all my real things—away. My unicorns and books and everything. But it kind of felt like—like I’d put me away, put myself away too. And I know—I know I need to grow up, but there has to be a fun way to do it, right? I don’t want to outgrow the stuff that’s the most fun. I don’t want to forget me anymore. Or you.”

  Tish took all of this in but said nothing. She seemed at a loss for words. Susan waited. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the other kids standing back. Henry was tapping an imaginary watch and she feared he’d come over if they didn’t finish soon.

  “Tish?” Susan asked nervously.

  “Yeah,” said Tish. “That’s pretty awful, because I really needed you. I was the one who’d gotten stuck in this big new place, and everyone else was so cool and everyone seemed taller than me and I had to have a sitter. A babysitter!”

  “I know,” said Susan. “I’m so sorry. I wrote you a letter last night and tried to explain all of it, but now I’ve said everything.” She took the letter from her pocket.

  “I’ll take it anyway,” said Tish, grabbing at the envelope. “I save letters.”

  “So now I guess I’m bleckish too, huh?” asked Susan. “Like Alexandria?”

  “Yes,” said Tish, knitting her brows. “You most certainly are.” But she smiled. “Fortunately, you’re more swizzkilydoo than you are bleckish, so it’s okay. You’re lucky I’m a very forgiving kind of person.”

  Susan looked relieved. “You are,” she said. “You’re the best kind of person in the world!”

  Tish moved to hug her friend, but Susan put up a hand to stop her. “Wait!” she said. “There’s just one more thing I have to confess.”

  “There’s more?” Tish looked incredulous.

  “Yes, but it’s a little thing,” said Susan. “I just need you to know that while I think diet soda is dumb and books are the best, I don’t exactly hate fashion magazines and I do kind of like nail polish, especially the sparkly kind.”

  “Well, yeah!” said Tish, laughing. “It looks like magic, like fairy dust! Just wait until you get your first New York manicure. They can paint flowers on for you!”

  And then the girls hugged.

  After that, Tish said, “Okay, so this is great, and it’s awesome to see you, but I’m confused. I still don’t understand. Where are your folks? Why are you here?”

  Susan stammered. “I—um—I can’t tell you.”

  “What?” Tish said. “Why not?”

  Susan looked uncomfortable. “Wait, can you hang on a second?” Before Tish could answer, Susan ran over to the others, who were loitering not far away.

  Maybe the others would have been more obstinate about holding to their sworn oath if they were not standing on a hot subway platform, waiting to begin their next adventure. But under the circumstances (and given that Tish had been a friend to all of them for years), they caved. In a matter of seconds, Susan was back with the others in tow and a huge smile on her face.

  “Okay,” she said eagerly. “Are you ready for a secret?” she asked. “A big, big, BIG secret? The biggest, most magical secret EVER?”

  Tish nodded vigorously, her face alight and expectant.

  But suddenly there was a thunderous noise. All in a moment, there was a blast of heat and a rush of metal, and the subway slid into the station. The doors opened and people spilled out. Rebecca called for Tish to follow her and disappeared with her friend through the next set of doors.

  This all happened very fast.

  “Come with me?” Tish begged as she ran over to the train and stood at the door, waiting to see what Susan would say. She beckoned wildly and called, “Please come! I want to know the secret! I want to see you!” She flailed her arms so wildly that she almost knocked over a jaunty blond teenage boy in a blue T-shirt who happened to be standing beside her.

  And Susan, who couldn’t help noticing the jaunty blond boy, did just as Tish asked. She ran over, jumped aboard, turned, and called out, “Come on, guys!”

  Henry followed immediately, and leapt in with a loud thunk, just as the blond boy regained his balance and straightened his sunglasses.

  “Get on,” Susan yelled to Roy and Emma nervously. They were moving more slowly than Susan and Henry. “Get ON! Hurry!”

  They didn’t hurry fast enough, and the doors slid shut, almost catching Emma’s nose. Roy and Emma were stuck on the outside of the subway car! Tish, Henry, and Susan stared at them through a pane of scratched glass.

  “Wait!” yelled Roy, banging on the window. “Let us in!” But it was too late.

  The train took off down the tunnel.

  Just. Like. That.

  INSIDE THE SUBWAY CAR, Henry turned to Susan, furious. “Now what do we do?” he asked. “Bad enough we didn’t get to meet any mobsters or King Kong or anything, but now we’ve left Roy and Emma behind!”

  “Mobsters?” Tish looked interested. “What mobsters?”

  Susan was aghast. “Henry’s right. We have to go back!”

  “Wait!” Tish exclaimed. “King Kong? What is the big secret?”

  “Hold on, Tish!” said Susan. “We just lost Roy and Emma! We have to go back—”

  Tish shook her head. “There’s no way to do that, really. We can get off at the next stop and wait for a train heading back the other way, but this is an express line, so we won’t stop for a while, and there’s no telling how long it would take to catch the return train at this time of day. It’ll be at least twenty minutes before we can possibly get back to them, and by that time, they might be gone. Won’t they just get on the next train?”

  Susan considered this. “I doubt it,” she said. “They won’t know where to get off. Can we call them? Can we call the station?”

  “No,” said Tish. “There’s nobody to call. New York is really different from Quiet Falls.”

  Susan looked miserable.

  “But you know,” continued Tish, “I bet they’ll figure out how to board the next train and ride it to the end of the line.”

  “How would they know that?” asked Henry.

  “Just considering where this train is going,” said Tish.

  “Where’s that?” asked Susan.

  Tish grinned and pointed at the sign above her that read CONEY ISLAND.

  And while Susan and Henry still felt sick to their stomachs, there wasn’t much they could do until they got to where they were going. Hoping desperately that Tish was right, they found themselves seats and told Tish all about their wall. About Merlin, and Sam, and Wichita Grim, and Bernice the dog, and even the blond boy from Susan’s glimpse, who had turned his back on them and was talking to a friend.

  “Why did you see him when you said the word ‘love’?” asked Tish excitedl
y. “You think you’re going to fall in love with him?” She stared at his back in wonder.

  “No, goofball.” Susan elbowed her friend. “I thought I was seeing him, but I wasn’t. Obviously, I was seeing you, only I was so distracted by him that I didn’t even notice you were in the vision!”

  “Oh,” said Tish. This was complimentary but not nearly as romantic or interesting. “Okay!”

  Another subway platform flashed by.

  “And where’s the dog now?” asked Tish.

  “She’s with this librarian friend of Emma’s,” said Susan. “You might know her. Her name’s Lily, and she wears superbright colors.”

  “Sure, I remember her,” said Tish. “She’s cheerful, right?”

  “Emma calls it chirky,” Henry laughed.

  “Yeah,” said Susan. “I used to think she was weird, but she’s not. Or she is, but in a good way.”

  “Do you think your parents will let Emma keep her—the dog, I mean?” asked Tish.

  “Nah,” said Henry. “Mom really hates dogs, but I bet Lily will adopt her. She really seems to like Bernice, and Bernice likes her. Don’t you think, Susan?”

  “Maybe,” said Susan. “That’s usually what happens in books, isn’t it? The magic creates a problem but it solves the problem too, right?”

  They all agreed that this was usually the case, and Susan made a mental note to herself that they all should go check in with Bernice and Lily after dinner, just to see how things were going.

  Tish changed the subject. “Hey, maybe Roy and Emma don’t even need to figure out the train. If they have the magic wall with them, can’t they find us? Can’t they just wish themselves to where we are?”

  “Ooh! Let’s hope they think of that,” said Susan.

  “It’ll be fine,” said Tish, settling happily into her seat. “They’ll figure it out. They’ve both done it before.”

  Susan still felt worried, but just then the train rose up out of the ground and ran onto an elevated rail over Brooklyn. Down below them were houses and people and streets full of cars and walls painted with colorful graffiti. To Henry and Susan, who had spent their lives in Quiet Falls, this was almost as interesting as the quiet tropical cove, the blazing frontier prairie, and even the dark stones of Camelot, because as different as Brooklyn was from Quiet Falls, it was still part of their world, the world of today. This city, New York, was huge and bustling and colorful and exciting and different from anything they’d ever seen, but unlike Camelot, if they wanted to, they could live here someday. They could visit without magic, and that was pretty neat.

  “Wow!” said Henry, staring at the buildings that went on for miles. “It’s really big.”

  “Yeah!” said Susan, putting a hand to the window and pointing at all the cars going past. “Just one of those buildings has, like, an entire town in it.”

  Then she looked down the length of the subway and couldn’t help noticing a man several feet away who looked like he’d come from some magical past himself. He was wearing a black dress, an ornate silver necklace, and a black headdress. He sat peering over his long gray beard, reading a book of what looked like magical runes. He looked up and smiled, gave a little wave, and went back to his book.

  On the man’s right, a large woman in a flowered dress and a straw hat fanned herself with a magazine, and on his left, a boy with a green Mohawk listened intently to a set of headphones.

  “Wow,” said Susan. “Wow.”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty interesting,” said Tish. “But just wait for Coney Island.”

  Meanwhile, back on the subway platform, Roy and Emma sat calmly, thinking that surely Henry and Susan would come back for them. Roy read a newspaper he found on the bench beside him while Emma wandered over to a snack counter, where a very nice man with an accent tried to sell her a gigantic cookie half frosted with chocolate icing and half with vanilla.

  Emma didn’t have any money, so she left the counter and tried to strike up a conversation with a nice-looking lady sitting on a bench and reading a book. But the lady must have been at a very interesting place in the story, because she simply ignored Emma and scooted over farther on the bench.

  This drew the attentions of a second lady, who bustled over and called Emma “You poor little thing” before offering to “report” her. Emma wasn’t sure what this meant exactly, but it didn’t sound very nice, so she backed away from the woman and returned to Roy on the bench.

  As she climbed up beside him, Roy set down his paper and looked at Emma. “I don’t think they’re coming back for us,” he said. “I think we need to go.”

  “Where?” asked Emma.

  “Somewhere,” said Roy.

  Emma nodded silently.

  “Let’s think a minute,” he said, scratching his head.

  Emma nodded. “Okay.” She tried to think very hard, and scratched her head too.

  This was tricky, as both Roy and Emma were used to being bossed around. Although both of them were perfectly capable, smart, and resourceful, neither was accustomed to taking the lead. Still, Roy enjoyed problem solving, and this was an interesting conundrum. Emma’s rapt attention spurred him on.

  “Let’s consider all our options,” he said, “since we only have a few. We can take the train, we can go aboveground, or we can use the wall. I’m going to suggest that we not go aboveground, since that’s the one place in New York we know Henry and Susan are not.”

  This made good sense to Emma. She nodded.

  “In that case, we can either take the train or the wall,” continued Roy. “If we take the train, we’re headed in the right direction, but we don’t know where to get off. If we take the wall, we might leave the others behind if they do come back. Hmm.” He pondered the choice.

  “We have to take the wall,” Emma said, “because if we don’t take it with us, it’ll get stranded here, and we’ll all be stuck in New York. Forever!”

  “Huh!” said Roy. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Also,” said Emma, “it’s faster, and we can just go home for a minute and then wish ourselves to wherever Henry and Susan are!”

  “Hey, that’s right,” said Roy. “Good use of logic, Em! We can do what you did in Camelot, can’t we?”

  Emma nodded proudly.

  So they headed back over to the tile wall and touched it gingerly (it was very dirty), and Roy said, “Home, please!”

  Although the lady reading the book was still sitting nearby on the platform as they blinked away, she didn’t notice a thing. It must have been a very good book!

  Emma and Roy were greatly relieved to find themselves back in the familiar field, with a gentle summer breeze blowing across their faces and the sun shining hot on their heads, but they didn’t have time to enjoy it. They kept their hands on the wall, and Emma said right away, without thinking, “Okay, Mister Wall. Now we’d like to go to where Susan and Henry are, please! To the train.”

  But nothing happened.

  Roy wasn’t surprised. “Honestly, I didn’t think it would count as a building,” he said. “We’ll have to think of another way.”

  Emma frowned. “Like what?”

  “Hmm. We don’t know where they’re going, so we can’t go to wherever that is and wait for them to get there. But maybe—could we wish to be where they’re going … in the future? The same way we went to Quiet Falls in the past? Could we wish to be with them in an hour? Let’s try!”

  Emma nodded, and they both touched the wall as Roy said, “We want to be with Susan and Henry, in the building they’re in, at lunchtime today!”

  And sure enough, there they were! In a place that smelled more like hot dogs than either of them thought possible. A few feet away, Tish sat staring at them, with a hot dog in her mouth. She almost choked. She pointed and made a sound like glachgh!

  Henry and Susan whipped around, ran over, and hugged them with hot dogs in their hands.

  “All riiiight!” shouted Henry, slapping Roy on the back. “You did it!”
r />   “It wasn’t so hard,” said Roy. “It just took a little figuring out.”

  “I used logic,” said Emma proudly. “Roy’s teaching me!”

  Susan beamed and patted their heads, Tish wrapped both of them in a big bear hug, and Rebecca the babysitter and her equally beautiful friend didn’t notice a thing. They weren’t really paying attention, which is the way it is sometimes with teenagers.

  After Susan, Henry, and Tish told Emma and Roy about the things they’d missed (which included a wooden roller coaster that had made Susan’s head hurt), Roy and Emma explained how they’d found the group by going slightly—just slightly—into the future.

  “Wow. This is the future?” said Henry, remembering the liquid-looking walls of the high-security bank vault he’d visited with Sam. He looked around and said, “It looks pretty much the same to me. Does it feel any different to you?” Then a thought struck him. “Wait, do you need to go back?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so,” said Roy. “Do we, Emma?”

  Emma shrugged.

  “I mean, if we all went back in time,” said Roy, “we’d just be stuck in the subway again, and if we went further back, then this morning would never have happened. I think it’s better to just stay where we are.”

  “But does that mean you lost two hours of your life?” asked Tish.

  Emma was horrified by this idea until Susan pointed out that they regularly lost hours of their lives: whenever they took naps, or watched really, really, really bad T V. This made the missing time seem less frightening, so they finished up their hot dogs and headed out to the boardwalk.

  A BRIEF NOTE

  ON THE TRUE NATURE

  OF (FUN AND) DISASTER

  Perhaps you’ve noticed in books like this one that every wish seems to result in a chase or a fire, or an important and potentially disastrous event or discovery of some other kind. And perhaps you’ve thought to yourself (because you are clever), “Yeesh! If I found a magic talisman, I’d avoid all that mess and just go to Disney World!”