But wait, that was it! John remembered reading an Adventurators comic where the Dust Devil ambushed the hero, Brody Dudecool, in an abandoned putt-putt course. The villain used the powers he’d gotten from a magic ant farm to flood the golf course with sap sand. For a while Brody tried to use his hyper-strength to get out of the quicksand, but it didn’t work because his muscle mass was too hyper-dense. Then he tried to use the windmill in the golf course to create a makeshift hovercraft, but the Dust Devil jammed up the engine with a sand missile. Just when it looked like the end for Brody Dudecool, the hero came through with the right idea. Though it went against all his awesomely valiant instincts, Brody Dudecool gave up. He went limp and lay face-first in the sand. The Dust Devil thought he had won. Soon the world would be his. But to his surprise, Brody Dudecool hadn’t actually given up. No, he had let his body go limp so that he could slowly raise his legs out of the sand without putting pressure on any one part of his body. It was über-brilliant. His punch to the Dust Devil’s face sent a tornado to the moon. Binky Lacelass was saved from the hydraulic jaws of the putt-putt clown.
As he performed the dead man’s float from his waist up, slowly leveling out his legs, John was dreaming about a kiss like the one Brody got. He didn’t know how long it took to free himself. All he knew was that he’d have to find a way to explain the crimson sunburn blistering the back of his neck as he was finally able to escape the sand. As he struggled to stand, making sure to keep his feet moving, John realized that he was dizzy with dehydration. All he wanted now was to get back to Marlowe, find a water fountain, and stumble to biology class.
John surveyed the scene. It was desert unending. If he squinted, he thought maybe he could make out an oasis in the distance. Tiny palm trees and the slightest hint of blue water waved in the distance, probably a mirage. His adventurous spirit wasn’t in the mood anymore. The strange, closed-off feeling that was ever present in the labyrinth was starting to affect him. It was as though this underworld had a way of physically sucking out a person’s enthusiasm. He felt gloomy and hopeless. John looked in every direction for the Eye of Ra, hanging in the air where the portal would be, but he couldn’t find it.
The sudden fear struck him that maybe a janitor had shut the door in the basement, sealing him in this desert until he could remember the name of the hour — or until the Dark Lady found him. John whipped around, splashing sand, frantic, when he caught sight of the eye. It was directly above him, about ten feet up.
Oh no, thought John. The sands must have shifted while he was freeing himself. The eye was ten feet up, so the bottom of the door must have been just barely above his head. But it didn’t matter. There was no way he could jump to catch the ledge in the soft sand.
OK, think, think. What would a boy genius do? John took a look around to find something, anything, that he could use. Still nothing but sand. John was afraid to shift around too much, but when he moved his foot over a little, he thought he felt something solid. John precariously bent over and dug near his foot. His hand touched something. It felt like a baseball bat. He pulled it out, slowly, so as little sand would shift as possible.
As soon as the item came into view, John recoiled and dropped it. It was a piece of a skeleton. A human arm. It was shattered at both ends, but he knew it was a forearm. (He was the best student in advanced biology.) The desert sand had grated any shredded flesh from it, bleaching it a whitish gray. Some tattered wrapping flapped around it in the wind. Must be some poor jerk who tried to navigate the desert without Adventurator training.
Well, don’t look a gift bone in the mouth, I guess, thought John. He picked up the bone again. It would make a decent grappling hook. He took off his hoodie and tied one sleeve to the bone. While he did this, he estimated that he lost about three more inches of height from the sand. He had to work quickly. Squinting to make out the charcoal eye above him, he swung the bone through the lowest point of the door, which he could just barely reach with his fingers. It slid uninterrupted and disappeared through the bottom of the door. But just as quickly it came back down to him. He needed the bone to catch onto something on the other side.
This wasn’t good. He tried again, this time holding it farther up the sleeve to give a large swing. Just as he let the bone fly, he lunged as high as he dared on the shifting sands. The bone flew upward and went sailing through the middle part of the door. At the height of its arc, it disappeared and kept its momentum. “Yes!” shouted John when he felt the bone catch. Now to reel it in. Slowly, John began pulling his hoodie back, hoping it would stay connected to whatever was holding it. “Come on, come on,” he muttered. To his disappointment, the hoodie kept coming, appearing out of the space in the air, until he could see the edge of the bone. John grunted and pulled the bone back, letting it fall to the sand.
He couldn’t let disappointment get to him. He knew that the longer he waited, the more his probability of success plummeted. John coiled the hoodie again and gave a few small swings. Then, with his best lunge, he launched the bone. It flew farther and disappeared much farther up the sleeve. Almost immediately, John could feel that it had hooked onto something big. He gave it a tug. It was solid. He put half of his weight on it. It held.
John looked in the distance at the oasis one last time. He saw a dust devil coming toward him, swirling sand like a miniature tornado. Not this time, foul villain. John grabbed as high as he could on the hoodie and began to climb. Coach K would have been dumbfounded to see Little Darling climbing a rope. It helped that it was a life-and-death scenario, without the girls watching.
John struggled up to the invisible door frame, using the floor as leverage as soon as he could reach it with his forearms. He grabbed the ledge and pulled himself up. When his head broke the plane, he saw the bone jammed among a pile of props behind the stage. His arms were throbbing. He couldn’t breathe. Sand was glued all over his sweaty body. But finally, he managed to pull himself out. With the last of his strength, he reached up and shut the door. A few seconds later, he rolled over to make sure that the eye had disappeared.
John lay in the heat of the auditorium, panting, relishing the idea of water. He began to laugh, which turned into a cough. He’d almost died a horrible death. How awesome was that? No one could take that away from him now. He had been to the underworld and survived. Now when he walked through the halls, invisible, or felt the scorn of some remedial like Marla, he could always remember the badassery it took to survive the labyrinth. At the thought, John began to shake uncontrollably. Maybe it was fear, or the aftershock of all that adrenaline, but John was pretty sure his sweat was drying and he was getting the chills — even in the heat.
He got to his feet, a little wobbly, and unhooked the forearm bone from the junk all around. It was a pretty awesome souvenir. He turned it over in his hands — the bone had been strong enough to hold his weight. Must be pretty new, then. Probably the last hero who tried to get out of the underworld. He imagined a babe like Binky Lacelass on his arm, exploring his Batcave, asking, “What’s that?” And he’d say, “That? That’s just a little something I took from a god.” And she’d swoon and say, “Oh, Johnny.” And it’d fade to black, ’cause Adventurators don’t kiss and tell.
John was smirking as he walked down the hall, still a little disoriented and woozy, the book hidden in his backpack, the bone flung over his back the way James Bond flings a tuxedo jacket over his. As he strolled the marble halls, John saw Connor Wirth passing by, flanked by a group of jocks. He walked up to Connor and tapped him on the shoulder with the bone. “Hey, Con-man,” he said. “Wuzzup, bro?”
The guys burst into laughter, slapping Connor’s arm for a reaction. But Connor smiled indulgently at his girlfriend’s quirky brother. “Don’t be late for class, kid,” he said, tapping his watch in a way that told John that he was making the watch thing their own inside joke. John tucked the bone into his backpack and zipped it tight.
“No worries,” he said, slurring his words just a little. “I have the
hours memorized.” He knew Connor didn’t get it. But John didn’t care. He was his own adoring audience. An audience that now, as the heatstroke hit him, was getting more and more audible inside his head. John had taken two more steps when he collapsed in the hall.
He woke up twenty minutes later in the tiny, stuffy nurse’s office on the highest floor of Marlowe. Connor, who must have delivered him here, had already left for class.
“How’s that arm?” said the new nurse. Her voice had a creepy reverberation to it.
“That what?” said John. He looked at his newly healed arm, still tingly from the bonedust, and wondered if there was some sign of the injury still left.
“You landed on your arm,” said the new nurse as she picked up a clipboard and swatted a fly away from her face. “When you fell. . . . Just want to make sure everything’s OK.”
“Oh . . . what happened to your eye?” John said as the nurse turned toward him, giving him a full view of her face. She was wearing a black patch on her left eye, like a pirate.
“Infected,” said the nurse. “But let’s focus on you, dear. How are you feeling?”
“Great,” said John, remembering his exploits. He made an instinctive grab for his backpack and breathed out when he found that everything was still there. The nurse was looking at him inquisitively, as if she was trying to read his mind. Something about her made John feel nervous . . . fidgety. “Um . . . thanks, ma’am, but I have to run.”
“Call me Nurse Neve,” she said. “What were you doing before you blacked out?”
“Having the world’s awesomest adventure,” said John proudly. Then he added, “Um . . . I was just hanging in the auditorium. It’s hot in there.”
“Why would a cool kid like you be hanging in the auditorium by himself?” said the nurse. She looked at him with her one good eye, almost lovingly, almost knowingly, though there was something off about her. John thought he knew what it was. She was so ordinary-looking, so plain. She had probably spent her whole life being overlooked, just like John. She probably used to be a little too smart in high school, too. John shrugged. “I know your father is a teacher here,” said the nurse. “It must be hard to make friends.”
“I don’t have a hard time,” said John defensively. Who was she to lump him in the same category as all the losers in the world? She was probably just projecting her own issues.
The nurse continued as if she hadn’t heard. “I’m just saying, you shouldn’t hide out alone in auditoriums. It seems to me like the answer to your problem is right in front of you.”
“What are you talking about?” said John, getting up to leave. “Look, I’ve got to go. And I don’t have any problems.”
“Suit yourself,” she said, brushing off another bug that was buzzing around her eye patch. She coughed a few times, demurely, probably because of all the dust. “I’ve seen you trying to make friends with that new RA. Peter, is it? Anyway, people like that will never be your friends, John. And why would you want them to be?” Then she leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Real winners don’t need validation from people like that. They don’t need to tag along. They just do what they want.”
Now John was listening. He had never heard an adult talk this way before.
There was a minute of silence when the mousy nurse went back to arranging her instruments. Needles and stethoscopes, and . . . was that a hook? John thought he must be crazy, because ever since his attack, everything looked like a hook.
Finally, she spoke again. “I recently met Simon Grin . . . your father’s new assistant.” She turned away again, and John realized that each time she did that, he forgot the details of her face. She must have had the most forgettable face on the planet.
“So?” John said.
“Nothing,” said the nurse. “He said you were the smartest kid he’s ever met.”
“He did?” John asked, trying not to seem too excited.
“Yes, but . . .” She trailed off for a moment and then said in a soft, almost worried voice, “I just hope you don’t screw it up for yourself . . . waste time that could be spent with a real mentor by chasing more lonely auditorium adventures.”
John began chewing his nails. Worry lines began to form around his eyes as he got up. “Thanks for the checkup,” he said before bounding out of her dusty office.
As he headed back down the hallway, John thought about what the nurse had said. Why should he follow Peter around? Why should he follow anyone around? This realization felt so new, so exciting, because now that he thought about it, John realized that he didn’t need anyone at all. He had friends. He had a friend in Simon, and in the Egyptian exhibit, and in his books and computer. Everyone else can shove it. This felt good — as if a lifelong desperation had suddenly come to an end. . . . But he’d have to be careful not to screw it up. What if he already had? He turned left, realizing that he needed to freshen up and shake the sand out of his underpants. John swaggered into the boys’ room, unafraid of a swirly.
As John was washing his face at the sink, he heard a flush and Simon came out of one of the stalls. “What’re you doing here?” demanded Simon.
“Nothing,” said John — the paranoia of having picked the wrong idol already taking over.
“Where’s your hall pass?” Simon asked.
“How do you like the exhibit so far?” said John, hoping Simon wouldn’t bust him.
The subject of himself immediately distracted Simon. “What? It’s amateur. The only good thing about it is that it’s short.”
John couldn’t help but wonder about the exhibits Simon oversaw at the British Museum. They must have been pretty amazing.
Simon walked over and began washing his hands, making sure to stick his watch conspicuously under the water. “It’s waterproof up to 300 feet below sea level.” He looked over and noticed the deposit of wet sand in John’s sink, the miniature dune at his feet. He shook his head knowingly.
“The track-and-field kids buried you in the long-jump pit?”
“Uh, yeah,” said John, “something like that.”
“You should get some baby powder. Helps with the chafing,” said Simon.
John gave a knowing half smile that only a couple of dorks like he and Simon could understand. Simon may not be stacked like Connor, or slick like Peter, but he really was a lot like John. He was smart, and sad, and bitter . . . and that was only because he’d probably spent his entire childhood, like John, being misunderstood by the bigger, dumber, less-visionary plebeians of the world. A guy like Peter could never understand the two of them, and John wished that Wendy would just get it and stop her obsession with the new RA. And even though John liked Connor and the LBs, they could never get it either. It was like the nurse had said: Real winners don’t need validation from people like that.
When John unzipped his backpack to look for his eyedrops, Simon noticed the bone inside. “What is that?” he asked.
John sucked in his breath. “That? Uhh, that’s —”
“Is it from the exhibit?”
“Uh, yeah, yeah,” said John. “It wasn’t cataloged.”
“And you were going to use it to bludgeon the track kids,” added Simon.
“I thought about it,” said John. They both laughed at the shared fantasy.
Simon patted John on the back approvingly. John couldn’t help but admire Simon. He remembered what the nurse had said and realized how badly he wanted to be liked by Simon. “You can have it,” John blurted out.
Simon paused, then said, “If it’s not in the catalog, it’s not on any of the books.”
John thought he understood Simon’s meaning. One of them could keep it. It would make quite a paperweight for the up-and-coming preeminent scholar in the field. John could see that Simon wanted it.
“Go ahead and take it,” said John. He knew that only a guy like Simon could really appreciate the artifact anyway. Why should it rot away in an exhibit for the rich Marlowe kids who had no clue? And this way, he wouldn’t lose Simon’s
respect, as the nurse had implied. Why burn bridges?
“You sure?” asked Simon.
“Yeah,” said John, feeling generous.
“We won’t say anything to your father,” said Simon absentmindedly.
“Uh . . . yeah.”
“Well, thank you,” said Simon with a nod. He snatched the bone.
A small pause, and John said, “I should get ready for class.”
Thinking back on his adventure as he walked back into the halls of Marlowe during the next passing period, John felt invincible. He’d skipped advanced biology, as if it wasn’t even a big deal or anything. He’d snuck into a lost magic kingdom of a god, where all the myths were real. He’d survived being stranded in the desert. And now he’d impressed Simon — who was ten times better than Peter — with a gift. For a second, he wondered if it was OK, if he shouldn’t have shown the bone to Wendy first. Did this count as one of those brother-sister obligations that Wendy was always going on about? But then he remembered what the nurse had said about tagging along with his big sister, and how cool Simon had been in the bathroom. He would never tell on him for taking an artifact. And he had no way of knowing where it came from.
John swiveled around the cliques, oblivious to all the other kids. He’d have to go back to the basement before his next class and replace the book so no one would know. He puffed out his chest and took the steps two by two, replaying his adventure over and over in his head. This exhibit was the best thing that ever happened to him.
The next morning, I woke up and it was still dark and I couldn’t breathe ’cause there was all this stuff on top of me. I realized I was buried under all the sleeping bags, and the other kids were jumping on them. I started screaming ’cause I was gonna suffocate, and it was really scary for a second. I was kicking so hard that I didn’t notice when they stopped and everything was quiet. I got out from the sleeping bags, and they were snickering. I was all red. Rory said, “Hey, John, we were playing King of the Hill. Guess you lost.”
Another Pan Page 15