Lost in Cyberspace

by Richard Peck

  If Aaron will just get his tail back here, I’ll never doubt him again, I was screaming inside. Did he have his laptop with him? Could he program himself back from wherever? Will I be held responsible for this? I looked at both screens. They were blank.

  Time passed. I don’t know how long. Something had gone wrong with time. The door opened behind me. If it had been Buster Brewster with a gun, I’d have had it coming. It was Mrs. Newbery.

  “Oh, Josh,” she said. “I thought it was Aaron in here. It usually is. Brushing up on your computer literacy?”

  But then she looked over my shoulder at the terminals. Across both blank screens words were spelling themselves out:HARD DRIVE FAILURE

  9

  Aaron Zimmer Is Missing

  I had to leave. Mrs. Newbery was closing up for the night, and what could I tell her? Then I was drifting down Fifth Avenue in a fog all my own. I even walked right past my mugging site without flinching.

  What was I supposed to do, call the police to put out an all-points for Aaron? They’d drag the rivers, and I was almost a hundred percent sure he wasn’t there. Was I supposed to put up laser printouts on lampposts?

  AARON ZIMMER IS MISSING

  Undersized crazed redhead in Huckley dress code

  swallowed by two hostile computers

  Please.

  Then I was home, fighting my way out of my backpack. Then I went into action. In my room I punched up the Zimmer penthouse on my phone. Nobody knows the native language of the Zimmers’ housekeeper. But she speaks four words of English: “hello,” “say what?” and “okay.”

  “Hello,” she said.

  “This is Josh down on twelve. Aaron is ... here. He wants to spend the night. We’re ... going to put up a tent and camp out in the living room.”

  Nobody older than third grade would do that. But it was all I could think of. “Can Aaron sleep over?”

  “Say what?”

  I repeated the message. “This is Josh down on twelve. Aaron is ...” etc.

  The housekeeper said, “Okay,” and hung up.

  This bought me some time. But so what? Maybe Aaron wouldn’t be back. Maybe he wasn’t ... bidirectional. I didn’t even want to think about going to school tomorrow. But then, I mainly think about what’s happening now. I’d jump that fence when I got to it.

  I was just collapsing my phone aerial when my bedroom door burst open.

  Heather.

  She shrieked and clutched her head. “Get off that phone!”

  “Why should I? It’s mine. Use your own phone.”

  “But I give out your number.” She snatched the phone out of my hand.

  “Give out your own number,” I said.

  “I do. I give out both. I might be getting two calls.”

  “We have call waiting.”

  “I know that. But giving out two numbers makes our apartment sound bigger.”

  “Why didn’t I know you were giving out my number?”

  “You weren’t supposed to. It’s my business.” She was patting my phone like a Barbie doll. Now she was in my face, whispering. “You’ll never guess who’s here.”

  “Feona?”

  “Of course Feona’s here. Guess who else.”

  But I was out of guesses.

  “Camilla Van Allen.” Heather can squeal and whisper at the same time.

  “Great,” I said. “So you’re in the peer group finally?”

  Heather did a dance with my phone as her partner. “It’s like a miracle.”

  “So if Camilla Van Allen is here—”

  “She is. She’s right in this apartment. As we speak.

  In the living room with Feona. We’re having English tea. With cucumber sandwiches. Camilla loves it. Her grandmother is English.”

  “Great. So if Camilla’s here, why do I have to keep off my phone?”

  “Josh, you are so immature. Think. Now that I’m in with Camilla, everybody will be calling.” Heather did six more dance steps toward the door and left, taking my phone.

  Then she was back, handing me my phone.

  “Listen, if I get a call, take a message. Stay in your room. You don’t need to meet Camilla. I don’t want anything to go wrong. Are there any questions?”

  “Look, Heather, I’ve got a lot on my mind,” I said. “Maybe you could just tell me why Camilla Van Allen is here and what it has to do with Feona. Keep it short. I thought you didn’t like Feona. You said she smelled like horse—”

  “But I remembered that Camilla Van Allen’s family has a horse farm in Far Hills. Feona’s on Camilla’s social level, but English. She rides. She’s going to teach me to ride. I’m going to get a good seat. Camilla will invite me to Far Hills. What am I going to wear? I happened to mention Feona in school where Camilla could hear. I didn’t say Feona was an O Pear, for heaven’s sake. I said she was like related to us. Do you know what her last name is?”

  “Didn’t catch it.”

  “Foxworthy,” Heather breathed.

  Feona Foxworthy?

  “The Foxworthys are practically royalty. Their name rang a bell with Camilla. Feona’s family lives in two places: London and their country estate.”

  “Our mom and dad live in two places. New York and Chi—”

  “Not like that.”

  “I thought Feona wasn’t staying. She thought we had stables and horses. She thought we stalk and shoot.”

  “But we’ve got Central Park. Camilla’s telling her how you can rent horses from a stable over on West Eighty-ninth Street.”

  “Great,” I said. “Brill.” But Heather was out the door.

  When I was sure she was gone, I punched the Zimmer penthouse number again, just to be on the safe side. I told their housekeeper that Aaron and I would leave from here for school tomorrow. I’d loan him a clean shirt and underwear.

  “Say what?” she said. I repeated myself. She said okay.

  When I signed off, the phone rang. “Hello,” said this voice. “This is Muffie MacInteer. Is Camilla Van Allen there?”

  I took a message. The next day I had to go back to school. And Aaron wasn’t going to be on the bus.

  10

  To Horse and Away

  Feona was an early riser. I had a quick breakfast with her. She wore her velvet riding hard hat at the table and was reading a magazine called Horse and Hound. She sort of fed and watered herself.

  I was at school by seven-thirty. The media center in Vanderwhitney House wasn’t officially open yet, but it was unlocked. I crept past the books back to the Black Hole. That door was locked.

  The situation looked hopeless. My head hurt from worrying. I rested it against the door.

  A voice spoke from the other side. “Mrs. Newbery?” A familiar voice.

  “Aaron?”

  “Josh?”

  Now I was annoyed. I practically hadn’t slept all night. Now this.

  “Get the key,” the small voice said. “It’s in Mrs. Newbery’s top left-hand desk drawer. Under her bottle of Maalox.”

  I went for it and got lucky. Mrs. Newbery didn’t come in to find me rifling through her desk. She was due any minute.

  When I opened the door, Aaron was standing there in yesterday’s clothes. Red rims circled his eyes. He was eating an apple. He looked around me.

  “You were just kidding about Buster Brewster and a gun, right?”

  I sighed. “Aaron—”

  He put up a small hand. “Josh, it’s too late for skeptical. You were there. And then I wasn’t. Right? You can’t deny it.”

  “But I didn’t see anything. You were gone. And where did you get that apple anyway?”

  “It was in a big silver bowl of fruit over there on a table.”

  “Aaron, I don’t see a big silver bowl of fruit. I don’t see a table.”

  “Not now,” he said. “Then.”

  He strolled over to the terminals. He’d shut them down. They were blank-screened and cold. “Let me show you how I did it. Two keyboards helped. I entered
half the formula on this one, half on that one. It set up a real matrix.”

  “So what is this formula anyway?” I said.

  His red eyes peered up at me. “It’s a forty-eight-character combination of numbers and letters, clustered. With some visuals.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Right.”

  “Josh, why tell it to you? It took you till third grade to remember your zip code.”

  “Rub it in,” I said.

  “And I’m not writing it down,” he said. “This could be dangerous information in the wrong hands. I’m keeping it up here.” He tapped his temple. “The human brain—”

  “Is the ultimate computer,” I said. “Aaron, I’m doing my best, but I still can’t buy in. Numbers on a screen, clustered. Visuals. The whole forty-eight-character ball of wax. But how does it get you ... there?”

  Aaron looked a little worn, like a teacher after seventh period.

  “Let me give you a metaphor, Josh. It’s the best I can do. You can fax a letter, right? You can fax a document, right? You can fax a photo, right?” He dropped his voice even lower. “Josh, you can fax yourself.”

  I stared.

  “You helped,” he said. “You scared me about Buster. You gave me the boost. Adrenaline is a definite factor. I just lined up my numbers with my need and ... went.”

  “But you didn’t have your laptop with you. How did you get back without entering your formula or whatever?”

  “Good point,” Aaron said. “Important point. I didn’t have to. I hadn’t needed it the other day up that tree in Central Park. Cellular reorganization is a temporary condition. In layman’s terms, when your time’s up, you’re back. It’s fairly painful both ways.”

  “So you’re—”

  “That’s right,” Aaron said. “I’m bidirectional.”

  I stood there, trying to stare him down, trying to see into his quirky brain. Skeptical dies hard.

  “How long were you gone?”

  “Not long,” he said. “Minutes. Then I was back. But I was locked in here for the night. I had to sleep on the floor.”

  “I covered for you,” I said. “I told your housekeeper you were sleeping over. I told her we were putting up a tent in my living room.”

  “Nobody older than third grade does that,” he said. “Couldn’t you think of anything better?”

  Which was the thanks I got.

  “Okay, Aaron. Let’s get down to basics. Where did you go?”

  His eyes shifted away from mine. He’d nibbled his apple down to the core. Also, he probably had to go to the bathroom. “Zero distance,” he muttered.

  “Meaning you weren’t up a tree again?”

  “I was right here in this room. But it was then, not now. Way back then.”

  “Aaron. When?”

  “Put it this way,” he said. “I’ve just eaten an apple that I estimate to be about seventy-five years old.” He showed me the core.

  A shadow fell over us. A voice spoke. “Are you boys losing track of time?”

  It was Mrs. Newbery in the doorway. We jumped. “You’ve practically missed Mr. Headbloom’s homeroom,” she said. “If you don’t cut along, you’ll be late for Linear Decoding.” We started to cut along.

  “I’ll take my key if you don’t mind.” Mrs. Newbery put her hand out. Then she said to Aaron, “Better tidy up before you go to class. You look like you’ve slept in those clothes.”

  In Linear Decoding, Aaron was sitting across the room from me. We were reading The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, a dead English writer. I didn’t see Aaron in Science or Gym. I didn’t see him at lunch. He’d be diddling his data again.

  This gave me time to get skeptical again. True, he’d vanished before my eyes. But it could have been an ... optical illusion. He could have been messing with my mind.

  After school he turned up and said, “Let’s walk home.”

  “What about muggers?”

  “Muggers, shmuggers,” Aaron said. “I haven’t been outdoors since yesterday morning. I could use some air.”

  As we turned down Fifth Avenue, I decided not to ask him anything. If this whole thing was a scam, I didn’t want to fall for it. Then I couldn’t think of anything to talk about. We trudged along for a few blocks. Aaron sticks his feet out funny when he walks.

  At the Eighty-sixth Street light I said, “We’ve got another O Pear.”

  “Tell me about it, Josh.” But he was listening with only half an ear.

  “She’s different from Fenella. Way different. Her name’s Feona Foxworthy. She’s okay, I guess. The funny thing is, Heather likes her.”

  Aaron froze. “Heather?” He doesn’t have that much of a relationship with Heather. And she calls him Pencil-Neck.

  “Feona got Heather into Camilla Van Allen’s peer group, so Heather likes her. Feona’s horsey.”

  Aaron quivered. He pulled on his chin in a thoughtful, weird way. “Tall girl? Long face? Plenty of teeth? Ponytail? Riding hat?”

  “That’s her. You see her on the elevator or someplace?”

  “Someplace,” he said. “Where are they now?” His hand was closing over my arm.

  “Heather and Feona?” I said. “Who knows?”

  “Yikes,” Aaron said. “This could be the day.” He was so hyper, he was almost doing a dance.

  He started running down Fifth, dragging me along. I didn’t know he could move that fast. He should go out for track instead of always signing himself out of Gym.

  “Where are we going?” I gasped. But he was saving his breath. We almost vaulted the hood of a cab at Eighty-second.

  “Whoa,” I said at the light on Seventy-ninth, which has traffic both ways. But he was jogging in place and breathing hard. He was stretching his neck to see down Fifth Avenue.

  He wouldn’t wait for the light to change. He made an end run around a crosstown bus, stopping a van in its tracks. Then we were streaking down the sidewalk again, coming up on my mugging site. Yellow cabs flowed south, and we almost kept up with them.

  Then it was like the world stopped. All the cabs screeched to a halt. So did Aaron. So did I. Cabbies leaned on their horns. Metal crunched from a couple of fender-benders behind us. The cabbies were rolling down their windows and yelling in every language but English.

  “Too late,” Aaron said. “And we were this close.”

  The cabs weren’t going anywhere now. He darted out and sprinted between them down Fifth Avenue. Then we got there.

  Two horses—big ones—were in the middle of the street. One was reared up with its hooves fighting the air. Our 0 Pear, Feona Foxworthy, was on it. One of her boots was out of the stirrup. Her riding hat was slipping off. She’d lost the reins and had the horse’s neck in a death grip. “Daddy!” Feona shrieked. “Mummy!”

  The other horse was stamping on Fifth Avenue pavement, and its eyes were rolling. Connected to it by a rein was Heather. She was stretched out in the middle of the street in a new top-of-the-line riding outfit: velvet hard hat, tweed coat, riding pants, and boots. Some gray snow was sticking to her, so she must have been thrown off in the park and dragged here into traffic. You could tell the horse didn’t like her.

  A cop and a couple of cabbies were trying to talk Feona’s horse down. And they were getting between Heather and her horse to keep it from kicking her in the head.

  Heather was gazing glassy-eyed into the winter sky with one arm up because of the rein. The cop and the cabbies were trying to untangle her. But she must have been stunned because she yelled, “ ‘Ere, stand aside, you miserable gits.” Then just as Aaron and I got up to her, she fainted, or seemed to.

  “Too late,” Aaron said again. “This is the future I saw from my tree the other day when my numbers were a little off. This was the accident.”

  “Whoa, Aaron,” I said. Heather’s horse looked at me.

  “But I guess we couldn’t have headed off the accident anyway.” Aaron gave a helpless shrug. “I couldn’t even believe it was Heather at the time. That riding outfit’
s new, right? She’d never been on a horse before, right?”

  “This looks like her first lesson,” I said.

  “This was the future I cellular-reorganized into, Josh. I saw all this happen more than a week ago. I was up that tree.” He pointed into bare branches.

  “You’re not up there.”

  “Not now. I left before we got here. I left while Heather’s horse was just dragging her over the curb into traffic. I didn’t know who the other girl was.”

  “Mummy!” Feona was still shrieking as she slid down the side of her horse, or its flank or whatever. “Daddy!”

  “Aaron—”

  “I’m not going into the future anymore,” he said. “Like I said, it’s too big a responsibility. I’m going to stick with going back into the past.”

  11

  A Tasteful Private Residence

  Mom said, “Feona goes,” and she went, that night.

  The last we saw of her, she was lugging her saddle onto a British Air flight. She looked back and gave us a big toothy smile from under her velvet hard hat. “Do write!” she called out. Then she galloped onto the plane.

  In the cab back to the city Mom sat with her eyes closed for a while.

  “I am getting very near the end of my rope,” she said.

  I knew we were going to have to go over it again, even though we’d been over everything already. Heather stared out the window.

  “Fenella tried to smuggle you into that crack house club where you might have been drugged for life or arrested. Or both. And the two of you followed along like a pair of geese. And Feona was worse. She was practically homicidal. Heather, what was your first mistake?” Mom waited.

  “The riding clothes,” Heather said in a sulky, mouselike voice. “On your credit card.”

  “I haven’t even had my first paycheck from Barnes Ogleby,” Mom said. “And you can’t take them back to the store, not after that wild horse—that mustang—dragged you over half of Manhattan Island. And you cut school.”

  “Feona said it was the same as school,” Heather mumbled. “At her school, riding lessons are part of the curriculum.”