“It’s not a pen,” he said shakily. “It looks like one, but it’s not. It’s . . . it’s what opened the wormhole.” Seeing their narrowed eyes, he took advantage of the silence and pressed on, climbing to his feet as he did so. “It was rigged to a tripod, set up in front of the wormhole kind of like a camera. I think it was what opened the wormhole in the first place. That’s why they needed it back so badly.” He frowned, peering at the device. “This isn’t the one I stole, though. We did an exchange. But it’s similar.”
“Probably a dud,” Ant said. “If I were visiting an alien world and some idiot stole my only means of getting home, I’d offer whatever I had in my pocket—which is a lot considering how rich I am.” He said this without an ounce of conceit.
Liam nodded slowly. “I don’t think they needed the . . . the device, the wand, to get home. I think the wand just opens the wormhole, and then its job is done. So they could have gotten home without it just fine. But then they wouldn’t have a wand anymore, and they wouldn’t be able to visit any other places. Not without a new wand, anyway.”
“Wonder how much they cost,” Ant mused. “I wonder if they can get them at their local convenience store or—”
“Guys!” Madison exploded. Her voice echoed throughout the graveyard, liable to stir the dead. She took a deep breath and pushed her hair back from her face. “I’m done with this. I made a huge mistake bringing a couple of boys along. You’re not ready. You’re dangerous. You have no sense of . . . of responsibility. It’s just one big joke to you, isn’t it?”
Even though she aimed her glare at Liam, the force of her displeasure caused Ant to hang his head in shame as well.
“It’s not Ant’s fault,” Liam mumbled.
“No,” Madison said. “It’s my fault. The biggest idiot here is me—for telling you my secret.” She put up a hand to ward off any further protests. “We’re done. Go home to bed. Forget this ever happened. Just . . . just go.”
Chapter 8
“Nice going, doofus,” Ant muttered as the boys trudged along the wooded path toward home.
Despite Madison telling them to go home, it was she who led the way—several hundred feet ahead.
“She’s really steamed,” Ant said.
Liam sighed. “I know.”
“You ruined your chances with her.”
“I know. Wait, what?”
“She’s never gonna date you now.”
“I don’t care about that,” Liam said, giving his friend a sideways shove.
“You don’t care about anything.”
“That’s not true!”
The path narrowed, and they were forced to walk single file. Conversation died, but Liam was glad; he was about done with the jabs by now. When he next spoke, he’d regained some of his self-confidence.
“She’ll come around,” he said quietly. “She has to.”
Ant, in front, slowed. “What makes you so sure?”
“We have a wormhole wand now. We can make our own wormholes. That’s better than a bunch of cryptic messages.”
Scoffing, Ant resumed his pace. “You really think that thing works? I’m telling you, it’s a dud. If it worked, why would the alien bother swapping it? Nah, I’m sure it’s broken or something.”
“So why was he carrying it in his pocket?”
“I don’t know. But he seemed pretty concerned about getting the one you stole back, and he didn’t seem to care a whole lot about the one he gave you.”
“Well, we all have favorites,” Liam argued. “If someone stole my favorite pen, I’d want to swap it for one I didn’t like as much.” He paused, realizing how silly that sounded. “Let’s just call it a night and we’ll figure things out tomorrow, okay?”
They were back at the lane now. As they emerged from the woods, Ant flashed his light ahead. In the darkness, they glimpsed Madison skulking in the shadows, her own flashlight aimed at the ground, dancing from side to side as she walked.
Ant deliberately clicked his beam on and off three times. Immediately afterward came the sound of an engine starting. Two dazzling headlamps lit up the lane, and Madison flinched and shielded her face. She hurried into her driveway and vanished.
Barton brought the gentle, rumbling limousine closer as Ant stopped and turned to Liam. “What you did tonight was stupid. But I’ll let it pass because I nearly did it myself.”
Liam smiled. “So we’re still buddies because you nearly did the same stupid thing as me?”
“I just wasn’t quite as stupid, that’s all.”
“Maybe you were just too chicken.”
Ant pursed his lips. “You have a point there. Well, anyway, see you tomorrow. What time?”
Liam shrugged. “Nine?”
“Okay. And promise me something.”
“What?”
“Don’t touch that . . . that wormhole wand until I get here.”
“Fair enough. See you.”
Ant climbed into the waiting limousine and pulled the door shut with a soft thunk. The car eased away.
****
It took a supreme effort to leave the wormhole wand alone. Liam crept back into his room and put it away in a drawer, knowing that to leave it in sight would be far too tempting. He diverted attention from it by fretting over his filthy clothes. How would he explain them to his mom?
As he was washing his hands and face—hard to do in utter darkness and silence so as not to wake his parents—he came up with a plan. He’d store the clothes away and wait for the right moment during the week. Maybe after school on Monday he could change into them and sneak out the back, then roll around in the dirt for a while and come back in. That way, the state of his clothes would be legitimately awful.
His mom would never suspect he’d been out in the middle of the night traipsing through the woods and exploring a graveyard.
He lay in bed thinking about the mysterious wand in his drawer. Would he and Ant get it working? Would they open wormholes of their own and visit alien planets?
His thoughts drifted to Madison, and he realized he’d been quelling a great surge of guilt. The truth was, he didn’t regret throwing himself into the wormhole. He wished, however, that he’d done so with her blessing. He wasn’t sure what was worse—missing out on the company of a beautiful teenager or just the fact that he’d acted selfishly, not to mention foolishly, and upset her. He’d betrayed her trust and created a rift between them, one that might never be undone.
He fell asleep at last, dreaming that Madison’s anger would dissolve when the sun rose in the morning . . .
****
He woke abruptly when his mom tapped on his door and called to him. “Ant’s here. Shall I send him in?”
“Mmm,” Liam said, dozing off again.
When he next woke, Ant was lightly jabbing him through the sheets with a sword. “Arise, Sir Liam, for the sun is out and the day is a-wasting.”
“That’s my Frodo sword!” Liam said. “Put it down. It’s worth a fortune.”
“It’s worth about a hundred bucks,” Ant said, putting the sword back into its scabbard. “It’s cheap movie merchandise. If you want a real collectible, I could—”
“What, buy the original from the movie set?” Liam shook his head and stumbled across the room to get dressed. “Money means squat to you. I spent months saving so I could buy this sword.”
Ant said nothing as he stared out the window at the morning sunshine. Eventually he sighed. “What I’d give to save up for something. To put my allowance aside every week and watch it accumulate, and then spend it all on something I really, really wanted.”
Liam glanced at him suspiciously. Seeing the wistful look on Ant’s face, he said, “You could save up too. You just have to think of something you really, really want that costs tens of thousands of dollars, something even you can’t really afford to buy at the drop of a hat. Something you must have even though it seems like a lot of money.”
Ant nodded. “Yeah. I wouldn’t mind a twenty-inch
ACF observatory telescope. I have my eye on one. It’s about thirty-five thousand.”
Liam blinked. “Thirty-five thousand what?”
“Bucks.”
Staring in amazement, Liam opened and closed his mouth a few times. “Thirty-five thousand bucks? As in dollars?”
“Yeah.”
“Thirty-five thousand dollars? For a telescope?”
“You’re starting to sound like a parrot.”
“But . . . I mean . . . that’s crazy.”
“It’s a good telescope. And maybe it’ll be worth having if we’re opening wormholes across the universe.”
Liam’s stomach growled. “What time is it? I need breakfast.”
“Not until we look at this magic wand you pilfered.”
Pulling open the drawer, Liam half expected the alien artifact to have mysteriously disappeared, teleported back to its owner during the night. Yet it was still there, its gleaming silver casing etched with endless, miniature symbols. The device was a little larger than a pen, a little fatter and heavier, and though it narrowed at one end, it had no nib, just a blunt tip. The other end was thicker, the main part of its shaft encircled by a slender ring that could be twisted in either direction. The clickable button on the end was part of what made it so penlike, but it served no obvious purpose.
“So you think it opens wormholes?” Ant said, leaning close.
Liam held it high, allowing the sunlight to reflect off its exquisitely ornate and very alien surface. “I wish I had an instruction manual. What do you suppose the dial is for?”
The ring clearly had to be twisted a certain way, but the tiny markings were meaningless. The original wand he’d stolen had boasted nine rings. When he pointed this out, Ant said, "Maybe this is a ’lite’ version."
“What if I just click it?” Liam suggested. “Maybe it’ll open a wormhole to . . . to wherever it’s already set.”
“Don’t do it here,” Ant warned. “If you opened a portal and a bunch of aliens came through, I think your mom would have something to say about it.”
“Let’s go down to the lake, then. Nice and quiet, away from everybody.”
He pocketed the precious device and spent the next five minutes brushing his teeth and persuading his hair to cooperate. His parents had finished breakfast already; his dad was in the living room with a cup of coffee in one hand, watching a TV show about ‘dream’ recreational vehicles that had more gadgets than most people had in their homes.
“These are ridiculously expensive,” he commented when he spotted Liam and Ant. “This one costs over a million dollars. That’s crazy! Who would want to drive a million-dollar vehicle along a road and risk an accident?” He shook his head. “I could buy five entire houses with that money. Six or seven houses, maybe. Some people have more money than sense.”
“That’s me, sir,” Ant said, grinning. “More money than sense.”
Liam’s dad closed his eyes for a second as if realizing what he’d just said. “Sorry, Ant. I didn’t mean you. Well, maybe I did.” He turned to face him. “I guess your parents wouldn’t think twice about owning something like that, huh? About paying a million dollars for an RV?”
“In the eyes of a homeless man, it’s no different than you paying a thousand dollars for that plasma TV, Mr. Mackenzie.”
“Hmm. Point taken. I guess it’s all relative.”
Liam edged into the kitchen to grab a bite to eat, leaving his dad talking to Ant. Those two always got along fine. Ant got along with most people, actually. It was a shame Liam couldn’t strike up similarly meaningful conversation with Ant’s parents. He shuddered at the memory of some of the awkward silences he’d been on the receiving end of. Ant’s mega-rich and aloof parents were so removed from reality that they might as well be extra-terrestrials.
No wonder Ant worked so hard to fit into a public school.
Liam made three slices of toast in the toaster oven, watching them carefully as they turned brown and, as was often the case, removing them well before the ‘ding.’ He buttered them quickly, then spread on the cream cheese while the butter was still melting. There was an art to cheesy toast, and nobody else ‘got it’ the way he did. His dad always took too long, letting the toast die on the table. It had to be buttered and eaten right out of the toaster, still hot.
He pondered this as he finished his third slice and popped open a banana cream pie yogurt. His mom came in at that moment with a frown on her face. “Why do you have a pile of filthy clothes in your room?”
Liam froze, and yogurt slopped off his spoon onto the floor. “Oops,” he said, and ducked down to clean it up with a paper towel while feverishly racking his brain for an excuse. “What clothes?”
“The filthy ones. On the floor. In your room.”
“Oh, them.” Liam went to the trash to dispose of the paper towel. “Yeah, sorry about that. I meant to put them in the laundry and forgot.”
“Why are they so dirty? It looks like you’ve been crawling through tunnels under the ground.”
Liam nodded slowly. “Well, there was a hole . . .”
His mom rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Liam. Your white Doctor Who shirt? Really? Of all the shirts you could have rolled around on the ground in, you chose a white one?”
“Sorry.”
“And when did you get so dirty, anyway?”
Ant appeared at that moment. He must have been listening because his timing was too perfect otherwise. “Mrs. Mackenzie, I’m thinking about buying you and Mr. Mackenzie a million-dollar RV like the ones on that TV show.”
Her mouth dropped open. “What on earth—? Don’t be silly, Ant. I mean, I appreciate the gesture, but there’s no way we’d ever accept such a thing. It’s too much. You’re far too generous, you know. I know your parents are wealthy, but . . .”
She went on for a little longer, giving Ant a gentle lecture about how he should curb his enthusiasm for splurging on things most people didn’t even need. Liam slipped away, knowing that Ant would follow shortly.
“Going out for a bit, Dad,” he said as he passed through the living room.
“Sure,” his dad muttered, staring at the screen. “Look at that. This one has a giant TV in every room. It’s an RV! What’s the point of TVs in every room? If I owned an RV, I’d camp out by a lake and enjoy the great outdoors, not stay inside watching TV all day. I can watch TV at home. I wouldn’t pay a million dollars for a vehicle like that just to . . .”
The rest faded as Liam left the house. Ant came hurrying after him minutes later, and the two headed down the driveway to the lane.
Liam patted his pocket and nodded. The wormhole wand was there. Never mind million-dollar RVs. What he owned was absolutely priceless.
Chapter 9
They stood by the lake at the end of the lane. It wasn’t the prettiest spot on the lake, more of a ‘forgotten corner’ as Liam liked to think of it. Surrounded by trees, the water here was calm and mirrorlike, bordering on stagnant around the edges amongst the reeds. Thanks to his grandfather’s last will and testament, Liam had a small boat moored up to a half-rotten jetty. The Weary Traveler was his pride and joy.
“So . . . we just click the button?” Ant asked.
Liam held the wand high, his thumb poised over the end. “Are you ready?”
Ant nodded.
When Liam clicked the button, both boys flinched and spun around as though a wormhole had opened above their heads. Yet nothing happened. Liam clicked it again and again, then blew out his cheeks. “It’s a dud.”
“Just as I thought,” Ant said, looking relieved.
Liam studied the ring. “Maybe we need to spin this around, line it up a certain way.”
“So spin it.”
Liam did so, feeling it click ever so slightly under his finger and thumb as he twisted it. The ring only spun so far in one direction, and when he turned it in the opposite direction, it halted at almost the same place on the other side of a tiny triangular mark on the wand’s shaft.<
br />
“See that? It’s definitely a dial. The ring has a ‘low’ and ‘high’ setting.”
“For what, though? Heat? Brightness?”
“I don’t know.”
“Pitch? Frequency? Size?”
“I don’t know. I wish I had some instructions.”
Ant paused, thinking. “Range? Speed?”
“I don’t know! Right now I wish I had a low setting for volume so I could shut you up.”
Liam stared at the alien markings on the shaft and ring. None of it made sense. It had to be a dial to set something—but what? And why did nothing happen when he clicked the button?
He sighed. “Well, this was a waste of time. Let’s head back.”
They trudged up the lane. Ant demanded to hear all about the wormhole again, the journey to another planet and the cave at the other end. Liam recalled everything in detail. Ant listened intently, absorbing it all.
“I want to go next time,” he said finally.
Liam felt a surge of pride. Not only had he been the first to use the wormhole, but his friend was now, in a subtle way, admitting that Liam’s reckless journey had actually been pretty cool. It was a shame Madison didn’t feel that way.
His heart sank. “She’ll never take us with her.”
“Yeah, you really blew it.”
“I feel bad about letting her down,” Liam said. “She trusted us with her secret, and I stomped all over it.”
“Tell her you’re sorry. I could order Barton to go get some flowers, if you want?”
Liam shook his head, then frowned, realizing the limousine wasn’t parked in the lane as it usually was. “Where is Barton, anyway?”
“I sent him home and told him I’d call later.”
The boys said nothing as they passed Madison’s driveway. The large mover’s truck was still parked in the gravel horseshoe drive, but the car was missing. One or both of her parents were out, and judging by how quiet everything seemed, Cody probably was too. Madison might be with them, or she could be sulking in her room. Liam was sorely tempted to knock on her door and apologize, try to smooth things over. He’d have to if they ever wanted to travel through a wormhole again.
Into the Wormhole Page 5