by David Gordon
The night made the narrow space between Mr. Sombra’s little house and the block wall beside it very dark. The trellis was gone. It was very quiet. Then Alejandro dropped to the ground and grunted, “Oof!”
He crouched in the darkness, listening, but heard nothing. He crept to the front of the cottage and peeked around the corner at the back of Brian’s house. There was a light on somewhere deep in the house, perhaps in the kitchen. Other than that, the windows were dark. He slipped back into the darkness, to the place he had jumped down from the wall. Looking up, he reached up with his hands and whispered, “Okay.”
There was a scraping sound and a grunt, then Brian’s bare feet slowly descended into Alejandro’s hands. He eased Brian down to the ground, then held up his hands again. A moment later there was another scraping sound and Sami’s red shoes dropped down into his hands. He let her down to the ground.
“See anyone?” Sami whispered.
“I think someone might be inside,” he whispered back.
Sami took the lead and started heading out from behind the cottage and into the back yard. Just as they emerged from around the corner of the cottage they heard, “Sccnort knuugck!” They froze and looked to their right. Ten feet away, a policeman was asleep in a lawn chair, facing the house.
Sami turned to Brian and Alejandro with a finger to her lips, then continued tiptoeing across the back yard toward the house. Halfway across, the distant kitchen light went out, then a moment later the living room light came on. It cast a bright rectangle of light across the back yard, and right in the middle of it were the three friends. They scurried back into the darkness and waited. The living room light went out. All was darkness until a few seconds later, when the light in Brian’s bedroom came on. This threw another patch of light into the backyard, but this one was smaller. The sleeping policeman snorted and wheezed, twisted in the lawn chair, then settled down again. Sami motioned her friends forward.
They were crawling on all fours when they got to the living room window they had used to break in the day before. All three peeked over the windowsill, but saw no one in the darkened room. Alejandro took out his pocketknife, opened it and went to work on the window lock. But he could not open it this time. He put his eyes close to the glass to check the inside of the window frame. He could see the heads of long screws that had been screwed into the frame, locking the window shut.
“Wait here,” he whispered, then scooted off along the wall of the house. Sami and Brian watched as Alejandro stopped at each window to peer through the glass. Eventually he disappeared around the far corner of the house. Sami and Brian huddled together beneath the living room window to wait. They gazed at the light from Brian’s room that was now splashed across the dead lawn. The shadow of the person in his room appeared and moved about in the rectangle of light. Then it stopped at the window to look out. Then it disappeared. Brian rested his arms on his knees and hid his face where his arms crossed. Sami put her hand on his arm, then let it slide down so that she could hold his hand.
Suddenly Alejandro was back beside them. He was panting and looked angry. “I can’t open any of the windows,” he said.
“Rats,” said Sami.
Brian looked up. “What should we do?”
Alejandro just shrugged. “We’re sunk,” was all he could say.
But Sami was not going to give up, not after coming so far. She crawled a few feet out from the back of the house and began scanning it for some possible way of getting inside. She noticed that the window to the bathroom, just to the left of Brian’s room, was open. She began looking for a way to get up to that window. Just below the window and running the whole length of the wall was a pipe. Inside the pipe were wires for the electric lights that used to shine into the backyard. One end of this pipe was impossible to reach. The other stopped just above the roof over the patio.
Sami waved Brian and Alejandro over to her, then pointed out the pipe and the patio roof. Then she started crawling toward the patio. The boys scurried after her.
Once they got to the patio they were able to stand up. No one would be able to see them here except for the sleeping policeman. “How do we get up there?” Alejandro wanted to know.
The three of them looked around, but there was nothing on the patio. No patio furniture, no barbecue, nothing they could use. Sami nodded and said, “We have to do it ourselves. Come here.” She dragged Alejandro over to one of the posts that held up the patio roof. She put his hands together into a cup shape and put her foot into his hands. “Boost me up,” she said, then stood up in his hands, like she was standing up in the stirrup of a saddle. He was shaking as she rose. She held onto the post to steady herself, then carefully put one of her feet on Alejandro’s shoulder and slowly pushed herself up until she was standing. She planted her other foot on his other shoulder, then let out a big sigh of relief. Alejandro was weaving back and forth. He was bigger than Sami, but not that much bigger. Sami looked down at Brian, whose golden eyes were shining back up at her. She waved him up. “Now you.”
“Oh man,” complained Alejandro. But he made his hand into a stirrup.
Brian put his foot in Alejandro’s hands and stood. Sami reached down and took Brian’s hand to help him get higher. When he also had his feet on Alejandro’s shoulders, he was standing face to face with Sami. “Now what do we do?” he asked her.
“Whatever you do, do it fast!” hissed Alejandro, who was really starting to shake under the weight of the two of them.
Sami let go of the post and turned slightly so that she could lean back against it. She formed her own hands into a stirrup. Brian placed one bare foot in her hands, and together they boosted him up. He grabbed the edge of the patio roof with one hand, then the other. He hung there for a moment, unable to pull himself up. Then he reached up with one of his legs and grabbed on with his toes…and pulled. The moment his weight was off of Sami, she and Alejandro fell to the ground.
But Brian was now on the roof of the patio.
Sami and Alejandro scooted back a few feet so that they could see Brian, who waved to them. Sami motioned with her hand to get going. He nodded and walked along the patio roof to the wall, reached up and grabbed the pipe. Then he was off of the roof and dangling by the pipe. Slowly, he scooted his hands along the pipe, inching his way along the wall. It was hard work, and his breathing started to get harder and harder. Sami and Alejandro stayed below him, in case he fell. He was so tired he had to stop when he was directly under his bedroom window, and under whoever was casting the shadow in his bedroom. One of Brian’s hands slipped, but almost in the same instant he caught himself with one of his feet. He rested a moment, then grabbed on again with his hands and kept going.
Finally he was below the bathroom window. With the last of his strength he pulled himself up just enough to grab the windowsill. Then he got one foot on the pipe and was able to stand up on it. From there it was easy to slip through the open window and into the bathroom.
Sami and Alejandro grinned at each other. Brian popped his head out of the window. Sami cupped her hand around her mouth and whispered up to him, “Open the front door!”
Brian nodded and waved to her. But as he pulled his arm back in his elbow banged against the window frame. Sami and Alejandro immediately looked at the black shadow in the light of Brian’s bedroom. They were horrified to see it suddenly stand up and turn toward the bathroom. Then the shadow disappeared.
Brian knew right away from the look on the faces of his friends that he was in trouble. He quickly ducked inside. Already he could hear the footsteps of someone leaving his bedroom. He spun about in the bathroom, looking for a place to hide. He dove to the cabinet under the sink and opened it, but it was packed with bottles and boxes and rolls of toilet paper. Then the footsteps were coming down the hall and there was no time for anything other than hiding behind the door. Which is just what Brian did.
And just in time, too. The next instant someone pushed the door all the way open, flicked on the light, and stood there, lo
oking. “Hmff” Brian heard this person say, then the light went off and he heard the footsteps retreating back to his room.
Brian waited until he calmed down, then he carefully came out from behind the door. He peeked out into the hallway. Light poured from his bedroom, but the rest of the hallway was dark. He slipped from the bathroom and silently padded down the hall to the stairs.
At the bottom of the stairs he waited once again to listen, but heard no one stirring downstairs. He hurried across the entryway to the big front door. It was locked from the inside. He took hold of the dead bolt knob and began to turn it. Two pieces of metal in the lock hit each other and there was a click! that sounded very loud in the quiet house. Brian did not dare to even breath as he stood there, staring up at the stairs and listening. But whoever was up in his room had not heard the click, so Brian exhaled and slowly turned the lock the rest of the way. He turned the doorknob and opened the door just a crack so he could peek out.
The front porch was dark. This time the front gate was open. Two police cars were parked in the opening, and several policemen were sitting in them. These officers were definitely not asleep. Brian could see them moving and talking. He saw no one else. He shook his head and started to gently close the door, but before he could a hand jammed itself into the crack and forced the door open. Brian jumped back, frightened, but in the next instant, Sami and Alejandro were piling in through the door and closing and locking it behind them.
Sami, Brian, and Alejandro stood in the middle of Alexi’s office. The lights were off, of course, but enough light from the streetlights outside filtered in through the window to make it easy to see inside the room. It was just as Sami and Alejandro had left it yesterday. Yesterday? Had only one day passed since they were last here? So much had happened that, to Sami, it seemed weeks must have passed. The thought occurred to her that this is the way it is when your life is full of adventures.
The three of them turned to the scanner.
Sami was the first to go to it. She pressed its few buttons, but nothing happened. She picked it up with great care and inspected it as she turned it around and around and over. Brian and Alejandro joined her. “Do you know how this works?” she asked Brian.
“No,” he said. “I thought it was just a scanner.”
Sami set it back down. “Well, it’s next to the computer, so probably that needs to be on.” She pressed the power button on the computer.
Alejandro shook his head and looked annoyed. “They took out the hard drives, remember? That computer’s dead.”
Sami’s shoulders sagged. Then a musical chord chimed from the computer’s speakers. Sami dove to cover the speakers with her hands, but it was too late. Once again the three friends held their breaths while they listened to the house. But the only sounds were the clicking and whizzing of the computer starting up. No one had heard them.
The monitor screen came to life, turning a pale green. Sami and Alejandro grinned at each other.
But nothing appeared on the screen.
Alejandro leaned close to inspect it and asked, “Where are the icons? Is it on?”
“I don’t know,” said Sami. “I guess.” She started moving the mouse around and clicking wildly, but nothing happened on the flat green of the screen.
“Wait a sec!” said Alejandro. He had remembered the strange cord he had disconnected the day before. He fished behind the scanner until he found it. He waggled the cord at Sami, grinned, then leaned over and plugged it into the back of the computer.
Nothing happened.
“Restart,” suggested Sami. She turned off the computer, then turned it back on. This time they covered the speakers to muffle the start up sound. Again the pale green screen winked on.
But that was all there was.
“Nothing,” said Alejandro, obviously annoyed.
“Are you sure you put the cable in the correct place?” Brian asked.
“Of course I did,” said Alejandro, with great pride. “I know all about this stuff.”
Sami went from frowning to grinning. “Maybe you know too much.” she said. “Maybe the right place isn’t the right place.”
Now Alejandro was confused. “What do you mean?”
“Where did you find the cable yesterday?” she said.
Alejandro thought for a moment, then he banged his head with his fist. “The monitor!” Quickly he yanked the chord from the computer and stuck it into the back of the monitor.
The green screen flickered once, then glowed to life as a photograph filled it. The photo was of a blue ocean dotted with islands of different sizes. Brian pushed past Sami and Alejandro to get closer. He leaned in until his face was bathed in the blue light of the image. Standing beside the computer now, Sami could see the ocean with its islands reflected in Brian’s golden eyes.
“Adonae,” he whispered. “I think it is Adonae.”
Alejandro noticed that one of the buttons on the scanner was now blinking red. He pushed it. The picture of Adonae winked out and was replaced by a circle of eight symbols. They were all strange and unfamiliar shapes to Sami. They looked like squiggles or doodles you might make on your notebook when you were supposed to be listening to the teacher. In the middle of this circle of squiggles were four spaces.
“What is this mess?” asked Alejandro.
“I don’t know,” Sami said. “But I think it’s important.” She pointed to one of the squiggles. “That one looks like an ostrich, sort of.” She pointed to another. “And that one looks like shark teeth. And that one like—”
“Two,” said Brian, whose eyes were fixed on the screen. “That is the number two. These are numbers.” He pointed to the ostrich. “Zero.” To the shark teeth. “Five.” To something that looked like a comet. “Three.” He smiled at Sami. “These are our numbers.”
“Are you sure?” Alejandro shook his head. “Shouldn't there be ten of them? There are only eight.”
Brian held up his two hands and waggled his fingers. All eight of them.
“Okay, so they’re numbers,” Alejandro said. “So what?”
Sami grinned at him, then touched the first space in the middle and said, “Five.” Then, as she touched each of the other three spaces she added, “Six. Zero. Seven. The combination Shareen gave us at the jail.”
“Awesome!” Alejandro was beaming. He reached in front of Brian and started pressing the numbers on the computer keyboard. But nothing was appearing in the spaces on the screen. “Now what?” he said, and gave up.
Brian reached out to the screen and put his finger on the shark teeth and dragged the symbol across the screen to the first space. “Five,” he said. Then he dragged something that reminded Sami of a pine tree across the screen to the next space. “Six.” Then he dragged over the ostrich squiggle. “Zero.” Finally he dragged a symbol shaped like a lightening bolt into the last space. “Seven.”
Instantly, a flashing green button appeared in the center of the number symbol circle. And now a soft green light was shining out from the edges of the scanner cover.
The three friends stared at it for a moment before Alejandro got the courage to slowly lift the cover of the scanner. When he did, the green light shined upward and cast its glow upon the walls and ceiling.
Sami’s placed her finger just over the flashing green button. She glanced at Brian. He nodded. She touched the button. An egg of green light rose up from the scanner. Dots of light began forming inside the shell of the green egg, and then started spinning around faster and faster until the egg looked as though it was made of green fire. There was a soft crackling sound in the room, like the crinkling of Christmas paper. Then the light vanished. The scanner went dark. When the kids looked back at the monitor, the four spaces on the screen were again empty.
Brian did not wait another moment. He quickly dragged the four number symbols back into their spaces. Again the face of the scanner began glowing, and the green button flashed on the monitor. Brian pulled over a chair, hopped onto it, and then ste
pped up onto the scanner. He stood there, looking up at the ceiling, as though he could see through it, into the night sky beyond the house. Then he looked down at Alejandro, and at Sami. “I am going home,” he said.
Sami smiled at him and said, “I’m.”
He smiled back at her and nodded. She pressed the green button on the screen. The green egg rose up around him. The dots of light swirled up and up and up, whizzing around Brian until Sami could no longer see him. Then the egg crackled… and Brian was gone.
Sami and Alejandro stood there for a moment, stunned by what had just happened.
“We did it,” Sami whispered.
Alejandro, also whispering, nodded. “Yeah.” Then he blinked and shook himself, as if he had just awakened and was shaking off a nightmare. He went right to the computer screen and began dragging the number symbols into their proper spaces.
Sami frowned. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going, too,” he said.
“What? Why?” she demanded, and grabbed his arm.
He looked at her. “I don’t want another beating, Sami. I’m not going back there. Why should I? Maybe this other place will be better.”
“Maybe not,” she said.
Alejandro shrugged and smiled. “Yeah. Maybe not.”
He dropped the last symbol into place. The flashing green button appeared and the scanner glowed. He turned again to Sami and said, “Will you push the button for me?”
She just stared at him.
He slipped from her hands and climbed up to stand upon the scanner. He nodded to Sami and said, “Okay.” Then he smiled and waved.
Sami shook her head. “But—”
“Sami,” Alejandro stopped her. “I have to go.”
She could see that it was true. She leaned forward and touched the green button.
The green egg formed and, like a cloud of white bees, the dots of electricity swarmed up and around and over Alejandro. Then he, too, was gone.
Sami stared at the empty place for a long moment.
Then she said, quietly, “What about me?” She looked around the office that was so full of stuff but that now seemed so empty.
She wandered over to gaze out of the window, at the surrounding night. She looked up. The streetlights were so bright that at first she could not see any stars. Then she spotted one, bright enough to shine and flash through the gray of the city night sky. “What should I do now?” she asked the star. Then she remembered Mr. Sanchez, sitting in his green velvet chair, telling her, “You must learn to think for yourself, mija.”
Sami heard a car door slam. She looked to her left and saw the police cars parked in the driveway. Now one of the officers was outside of his car, leaning against it, and drinking from a bottle of water.
“I’m thirsty, too,” Sami said aloud. Then she made up her mind.
She went back to the monitor and began dragging the number symbols into their spaces. The shark teeth…the pine tree…the ostrich… When she deposited the lightening bolt—seven—into its space, once again the green button appeared.
She climbed up onto the scanner. Her red shoes gleamed in its glow. She reached towards the screen to push the button…then stopped herself. What will happen, she suddenly wondered, if the light egg comes up before I can pull back my arm? Will I arrive on Adonae without my arm? She could not take that chance.
She climbed down from the scanner to think. There was a high bookshelf, right above the scanner. She climbed onto the table, picked up the monitor and carefully heaved it up over her head and onto the shelf. Then she slid it forward so that the screen would be just inside the egg of green light when it formed around her. Satisfied, she reached for the button.
But again she stopped.
She was thinking about her mother. Sami dug into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone. When she looked at the tiny screen she saw that she had missed thirteen calls from her mom.
Sami punched in her home number. There was only one ring before Mrs. Lightfoot answered. “Hello?! Sami? Sami? Is that you?”
Sami could hear how upset and scared her mother was. “Hi, mom.”
“Sami! Oh, thank goodness! Sami, where are you?!”
“Um, I’m with Brian and Alejandro. I’m okay.”
“But where, Sami?! Where are you?”
“Mom, I can’t say.”
“What do you mean you can’t say? Sami, please, just tell me.”
Sami glanced toward the window and thought about the policemen standing outside the house. “I’m sorry, mom. I just can’t tell you right now. But I’m okay. Honest.”
“Oh Sami…” said Mrs. Lightfoot, and Sami could hear the tears coming.
“I love you, mom,” said Sami.
“What?” Mrs. Lightfoot said fearfully. “Why are you saying that?”
“Mom…I’m really sorry, but I have to go away.”
“What? What are you talking about?!”
Sami could not answer. She heard her mother sobbing and panting for air. And then she thought she could hear her mother wiping her eyes and trying to calm herself. A few seconds later, Mrs. Lightfoot said, “Someplace safe, sweetheart?”
“I’ll be okay.”
“Sami,” began Mrs. Lightfoot, “I—”
There were strange sounds on the phone, bangs and grunts, and then Sami heard her mother yelling, as if far away, “You can’t!” and “Sami!” It was silent for a moment. Then Mr. Sombra’s voice came on the phone.
“Now I got you!” he crowed.
Sami snapped shut the phone and jammed it back into her pocket. The doors of the police cars opened and slammed shut. Men shouted. They had been alerted. And now they were coming for her. Above her head she heard the clumping footfalls of the policeman upstairs as he ran from room to room, searching.
Sami reached up to touch the flashing button on the screen above her head. But again her hand stopped halfway there. She had often wondered if she would ever see her father again. Now she was wondering if she would ever see her mother again. Or her bedroom. Or Mr. Sanchez, or Paradise, or Earth, or anything she had known her whole life. Can I leave everything? she wondered. I don’t even know where I’m going.
Heavy footsteps pounded onto the front porch.
Well, she decided, I’m going to find out.
“Bye, mom,” Sami said out loud, and stretched all the way up to touch the button on the monitor screen.
But it was too high and just out of reach. Even when she got onto her tiptoes. Keys rattled in the front door and she heard it bang open.
Sami looked around quickly, trying to find something she could stand on. On the shelf, beside the monitor, were stacks of books. She reached up and grabbed the first one she laid her fingers on. As she pulled it down she glanced at the title. It was Huckleberry Finn. She had heard of it. But the important thing now was would it be thick enough? She set it on the scanner, stepped onto it, got to her tiptoes, and stretched for the green button.
She touched it.
Sparks of light began swirling around her glittering red shoes, weaving the shimmering egg of green light around her legs, hands, arms, body, and finally her head. It was marvelous. The light shimmered all about her, as though she were surrounded by flowing water made of the thinnest green glass. The last Fourth of July popped into her head. Her mother had bought her sparklers, and now she remembered how much fun she had had waving them in the night and how beautiful they were, fizzing with light, and how…alive they were.
Sami smiled and said, “Now I’m a giant sparkler!”
Then there was a soft, crackling sound in the room.
* * *
I hope you enjoyed Sami's first adventure. If so, of course I would much appreciate your taking a moment to tell others about it at your favorite eBook retailer.
And if you would like a taste of Sami and Alejandro's next adventure, just turn the page...
Out There
Book Two: Adonae
Chapter 1
“What are you doing here?”