Diego and the Rangers of the Vastlantic

by Armand Baltazar

  “The Goldfish!” Petey shouted. “Your dad won’t mind?”

  “Nah,” Diego said. “It’s my birthday. And he definitely wouldn’t want me getting a detention for being late. I need to work with him this afternoon.”

  “Great. But we still need to hurry,” Petey said.

  “Yup.” Diego darted over to his father’s desk for the keys. “Ah, shoot.” Dad’s stuff was scattered everywhere. He was going to be so annoyed, but Diego did not have time to clean this up, too. He scoured the mess for the keys but couldn’t find them. Dropping to his knees, Diego looked under the desk, then finally spotted them under the propane tank.

  Daphne hopped over beside him and started yipping excitedly.

  “Not now, girl,” Diego said, “I’m busy.” He strained to reach the keys, but they were beyond his fingers. Crud, he thought, glancing around. I’ve got to get those keys! He grabbed a pencil off the desk and tried with that, each time to no avail. Have to get them—I just have to.

  Daphne’s rapid panting became slow, even breaths, and then she darted forward, flattening herself and scooting under the tank. She slipped back out with the keys in her jaws.

  “Whoa, good girl!” Diego said. He bent down and held out his hand. As Daphne dropped the keys onto his palm, Diego saw a strange, silvery glint in her eyes . . . but then Daphne trotted off, tail wagging, like nothing had happened.

  “All right, Daphne!” Petey said, standing behind him.

  Diego stood. He watched Daphne go, his head tingling, similar to the way it had after building the gravity board.

  “What’s up, D?”

  Diego shook his head. He figured he was still a little woozy from his experience with the Sight earlier. A ghost of a headache knocked at the back of his skull, and Marty throwing them across the room hadn’t helped. “Nothing,” he said.

  “Come on, man,” Petey said. “We need to scramble.”

  “Right.”

  “Should I get your mom’s gravity board?” Petey asked.

  “Nah, I’ll get it,” Diego said. “You’ve caused enough trouble.” He smiled and punched Petey in the arm, then hurried around the shop, putting a few more things away and grabbing the two boards.

  Petey and Diego pushed the Goldfish into the freight elevator and rode to the ground floor. Petey sat in the passenger’s seat as Diego ignited the main boiler. The little car chugged to life. Diego hopped inside and jammed the control levers. The car rolled down the street-level dock and into the green water.

  Horns sounded in the traffic-clogged canal as Diego veered among the slower paddle wheelers and faster boiler taxis while watching out for the tromping legs of robots. The little craft was barely visible to the larger ships, sitting just above the water as it did.

  As the world bustled around them, Petey pulled an old Sony Walkman cassette player from the glove box and plugged in the cable from a simple set of speakers in the back.

  “Which one of these do you like?” he said, flipping through a stack of plastic cassette cases. Petey handled these gingerly; in his house, he was used to music being played from delicate wax cylinders.

  “That one,” Diego said, glancing over.

  “The Replacements,” Petey said. “Which song?”

  “‘Can’t Hardly Wait,’” Diego said. “It should be cued up.”

  Petey slid in the tape, and the speakers burst to life.

  “Your dad’s music is loud!” Petey shouted.

  “That’s the best part about it!”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Where Giants and Monsters Be

  Diego surfaced beyond the public docks in front of their school. The Field Museum of Natural History loomed over its surrounding streets, a great stone building built back in 1893, sturdy enough to survive the Time Collision with only a few busted windows. With so many other structures destroyed, and with unknown seismic activity still lurking, the museum had been chosen to be the first primary and secondary school in the city. It still held most of its vast collection of artifacts and specimens, including skeletons of many giant creatures that had returned in the new world.

  “Just in time!” Petey called, leaping out and tying off the ropes. “We should charge fares for getting kids to school in style. Diego and Petey’s Underwater Cab Service!”

  Diego smiled. “Too bad there’s no room for more passengers.”

  “The girls can sit on our laps!” Petey said. “Speaking of which . . .” He pointed toward a crowd gathered in front of school. “Get a load of this.”

  Diego joined Petey at the edge of the crowd. Everyone watched as two girls skated on the stairs, grinding the rails. The crowd was a mix of times and culture, Steam Timers and Mids, even a few Elders here and there. A teen couple passed in front of them, an Elder boy and a Steam-Time girl, holding hands.

  “Dating a Steam Timer would be swell,” Petey said, watching the couple wistfully.

  “You’d never be able to handle all the proper manners,” Diego said.

  “How do you know? Maybe I’ve been practicing on my own. Good day, m’lady,” he said, bowing like a gentleman.

  “Hey.” Diego nudged him. “Not now.”

  He nodded to the side of the crowd, where a group of older kids were catcalling at the Elder-Steam couple. The two hurried in the other direction, but not before enduring a barrage of insults. Diego recognized the boy at the center of the group, his fire-red hair springing from beneath a derby cap.

  Petey slapped Diego on the shoulder. “Don’t pay him a nickel, D,” he said. “Come on, let’s get a closer look at this rumpus.”

  “I should have guessed it was Paige Jordan,” Petey said as they watched. “She’s something, huh?” he said, leaning into Diego’s shoulder.

  “She sure is,” Diego said, not talking about Paige.

  “Uh-oh,” Petey said, noticing Diego’s stare. “Somebody’s got a doe in his headlights!”

  The girl met his gaze, just as she was about to jump her board up onto the rail—

  But the board hit wrong, and she crashed to the steps.

  The crowd gasped. Paige hurried over to her.

  “Girl, you know you’re gonna eat that rail if you pop your board up too soon,” Paige said, hands on her hips. But then she knelt down. “You all right?”

  “Fine,” the girl muttered. Her eyes flashed to Diego again.

  This time, Paige noticed, and when she saw that Diego was on the other end of that gaze, she rolled her eyes. “Oh, no way. You’re face-planting because of that boy? Get your head in the game, Lucy! He’s just some seventh-grade runt.”

  A few in the crowd heard this and laughed in Diego’s direction. His cheeks burned.

  “Hey . . . ,” Diego started, but Petey tugged on his arm.

  “Settle down, D. You do not want to pick a fight with Paige Jordan.”

  The school bell rang, and the crowd dispersed.

  “Come on,” Petey said, pulling Diego along. He kept craning his neck, but he’d lost track of where the girl had gone. Lucy, Paige had said.

  Petey and Diego were swept up by a group of their classmates. Everyone was chatting about the gossip of the day, but Diego barely paid attention.

  “Hey, this way,” Petey said when Diego started toward their class. He saw that his classmates were heading the other way. “We’re touring the Ice Age exhibit today, remember? For science? Two hours less of class time.”

  “Oh,” Diego said, catching up. “Right.”

  “Uh-huh,” Petey said, grinning. “I know what’s got you distracted.”

  They fought through crowds of lower-grade and high school students and visitors to the museum, finally catching up to the rest of the class as their teacher, Mr. Nelson, was taking attendance. “All right,” he said, “we’ll be joining the other upper-grade classes in the exhibit hall. Right this way.”

  “Wait, hold on,” Petey said. He grabbed Diego by the shoulder and turned him toward Sue, the famous T. rex skeleton, a relic from before the Tim
e Collision. “Is that the blond skater that was outside with Paige?”

  “No way.” Diego saw that Lucy had traded in her skater clothes for a prim dress with a white collar and high boots, her hair tied back.

  “Looks like your crush is actually a Steam Timer.” He punched Diego’s shoulder.

  “Maybe,” Diego said. He couldn’t get over how different she looked.

  “Come on, you’ve gotta say hi,” Petey said, elbowing him in the ribs.

  “Nah,” Diego said. “She probably won’t even talk to me.”

  “Come on, D. Besides, she’s gorgeous. If you won’t, I will.”

  Diego took a deep breath. “Okay, fine, but you’re coming with me.” He dragged Petey along by the arm and made his way around the back of their class, keeping out of Mr. Nelson’s sight.

  Paige spotted them approaching and whispered to Lucy. They shared a laugh, and Diego wanted to die. Still, he wasn’t going to turn back now. He willed one foot in front of the next until they were right beside the girls, who were now acting more interested in Sue, as if Diego and Petey didn’t exist.

  “Hey,” Diego said, shoving his hands in his pockets.

  “What you want, North-sider?” Paige snapped.

  Diego looked at Lucy. She eyed him curiously. “I’m Diego,” he said. “This is Petey. We just want to, um, welcome you to our school, and . . .”

  Lucy smirked. “Are you the official Mid-Time welcoming committee?”

  She had a thick accent, and it took Diego a second to decipher what she had said. “Oh, you’re from . . .” He was trying to place it. “Over there . . .”

  “Over there?” Lucy said. “Indeed . . . if by ‘over there’ you mean across the Vastlantic. And how uninformed of you to think that you’re from here and we’re from there, as if one is superior to the other. If that were true, it would certainly be that there was here and here was there.”

  “Wait,” Diego said. “I wasn’t, um, saying that. I just . . . your accent . . . it’s . . . Irish?”

  The second he said it, Lucy’s mouth dropped open.

  “Oh, sorry, I mean Australian.” There was a more obvious spot he could have named, but it was like his brain was a steam compressor on the fritz.

  “My manner of speech is neither from an island of peasant farmers nor one of criminals,” Lucy said.

  “Hey,” Diego said. “Watch it. My mom’s from Ireland.”

  Lucy made a face Diego couldn’t decipher. “Be that as it may,” she said, “for your information, Mid-Time American, I am a loyal subject of the true sovereign of the United Kingdom, Her Majesty Queen Victoria—”

  That was it! England!

  “And I’m not new to your school,” Lucy continued. “I was homeschooled when we first got here, but I’ve been here in your eighth grade for a few weeks now. And I will be for the rest of the semester while my father is in town on important business. Now why don’t you little boys go find some other tikes to play with.”

  “We’re not little boys,” Diego said. “We’re both thirteen.”

  “You sure act like little boys,” Paige said. “Now step off and go back to your playdate.” She and Lucy turned toward Sue.

  “Come on,” Petey said. “Let’s go find some real girls to talk to.” He started to turn away.

  But Diego stood his ground. There was something about this girl.

  “Why are they still hanging around?” Paige said, her back to the boys.

  “I haven’t the foggiest idea,” Lucy said.

  “Hey,” Diego heard himself blurt out. “You think that T. rex is so cool, maybe you’d like to see a real one.”

  This made Lucy glance over her shoulder. “How’s that?”

  “Well, my dad loaned the museum some equipment to help install their new T. rex exhibit, and when I helped deliver the loaders, I memorized the combination to the service entrance door. It’s here in the Ice Age hall. That new dinosaur’s got skin and everything. It looks alive.”

  “D,” Petey said quietly by his shoulder. “We’re not supposed to leave our class. We’ll get in huge trouble if we’re caught, and our parents will kill us.”

  “Well, then, we won’t get caught,” Diego said, shrugging. “Come on, Petey, where’s your sense of adventure?” He grinned at the girls.

  Lucy and Paige shared a glance.

  “We’re not going to let these North-side runts show us up, are we?” Paige said.

  Diego was surprised to see uncertainty on Lucy’s face.

  Paige leaned toward Lucy. “It’s not gonna bite.”

  “It’s really cool,” Diego added. “Besides, you’ve got me and Petey to protect you.”

  “Please,” Lucy said. “I don’t need a boy to take care of me.” She nodded and glanced at Paige. “Let’s humor them.” She took a deep breath as she said it.

  Diego glanced back at their classes. “We should stay with our groups until we’re down the hall a little farther. Then watch for my signal.”

  After what seemed like a never-ending lecture by Mr. Nelson, the classes split into four-person groups and were allowed to take in the rest of the exhibit on their own. Each student was given a small chalkboard to gather at least three interesting facts from the displays. The boys scribbled down as much as they could at the first exhibit about mammoths and then announced that they were headed for the restrooms, and set off to find Lucy and Paige.

  They spotted Lucy with her school group over by an exhibit about glaciers. Paige was with hers by the mastodons. Diego nodded to each of them, then waited over by a diorama featuring Neanderthal hunters confronting a saber-toothed tiger.

  “Those would be good friends for you two,” Paige said as she and Lucy arrived.

  “Actually,” Petey said, waving his hand dismissively at the exhibit, “that’s not even close to what a real Neanderthal looks like.”

  “Like you would know that, North-sider,” Paige said, one eyebrow raised.

  “Actually, Petey and I have been out to the wild lands,” Diego said. “We’ve seen the Neanderthals firsthand.”

  “Oh, really?” Lucy asked.

  “Yeah,” Diego said. He didn’t add that technically they only thought they’d seen a Neanderthal tribe, from a far distance. At the time, they’d been running from that dimetrodon.

  “You’ve actually been out to the wild lands?” Lucy asked.

  “Yeah, right,” Paige said. “These two couldn’t even survive a walk in Cicero. There’s no way they’ve been out in the wild lands.”

  “We’ve been there a few times,” Diego said. “And I’m not sure you could handle it.”

  “Oh, I’m about to show you what I can handle,” Paige said, putting her hands on her hips.

  “Hold on,” Lucy said, grabbing Paige’s arm. Diego noticed that her eyes had widened. “But aren’t there . . . dinosaurs out there? Like, real ones?”

  “Oh yeah,” Petey said, “lots of different kinds. Man-eaters, giant herbivores that could squash you with a single step.”

  “It’s not that bad,” Diego said, watching Lucy’s face as Petey went on. “They usually keep to themselves. It’s actually more dangerous if you cross into Algonquin lands without permission, or run into one of those Neanderthal hunting parties.”

  “Yeah, right,” Paige said. “You two talk big. I bet you’ve never really been out there.”

  “We have, too,” Diego said. “My dad leads salvage expeditions, and he takes us along to help.”

  Paige opened her mouth to add more when snickering distracted them.

  A group of boys lurked across the hall, with Joe Fish standing in the middle.

  “Ugh, I thought I smelled Believers,” Petey said, but he kept his voice quiet enough that the gang wouldn’t hear.

  “True Believers?” Lucy asked.

  Just then, Fish blew her a kiss. His gang cracked up.

  “They’re a lot of filthy hooligans,” Lucy said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Come on, y’
all, we don’t need to waste time with them,” Paige said.

  “You heard the ladies,” Petey said, catching up.

  Diego started after them but paused and turned back to Fish.

  Fish’s buddies laughed at this, too. Fish scowled at Diego and made a circular motion, with his finger pointing at the ground. Turn around and walk away. He then raised his thumb to his throat and made a long, slow, cutting motion.

  It was all Diego could do to keep his cool. Not even two years ago, they’d been friends, and Fish had even come by the workshop sometimes. Now he was well on his way to being a Time-separatist thug.

  “D,” Petey said from a few steps behind him. “Come on.”

  Diego tried to swallow his anger. But before he turned away, he held up a hand to his ear, then with the other hand pretended to be turning up the volume dial on a radio. He moved his hand away from his ear and slowly raised his middle finger in time to the dial spinning.

  Fish shoved his hands in his pockets, his face so red it looked like he might boil over.

  “Why would you do that?” Petey asked as they hurried to catch the girls. “I really don’t want a busted jaw, or worse. You know those guys have roughed kids up, bad.”

  “He needs to know that not everyone is afraid of him,” Diego said.

  “But I am afraid of him,” Petey said. “I’m sore at him for turning on us as much as you are, but we can’t do anything about it.”

  “They shouldn’t act like that toward a girl,” Diego said.

  “You two speak for yourselves,” Paige said as they caught up. “Them hoods wouldn’t dare mess with me, or they know what they’d get.”

  “Yes,” Lucy said, “we don’t need seventh-grade bodyguards, if you please. We can handle ourselves.”

  “Fine,” Diego said.

  Petey said, “There’s the service entrance.” He pointed to a door with a keypad lock. “Right, D?”

  “Yeah.” Diego led them to the door. He punched in the code.

  The door didn’t move.

  “I thought you said you had this?” Paige asked. “Or is this just more of your bull?”