by Corey Tate
Scott was still lost in thought as Jared slipped past and disappeared around the corner into the living room. Christine appeared in the kitchen with her bags.
“You ready to go?” she asked cheerfully.
“Yep. I just gotta brush my teeth and get my bags,” Scott said, taking the fear out of his head by putting excitement back into his voice.
“Jared and I will be in the car then. Hurry, Scott. The McEntlys are already on their way to the airport.”
Christine left the room, and having heard the conversation, Jared took his cue and followed his mother out of the house with his bags. As his mom started to put their suitcases in the rental car in the driveway, Scott ran upstairs and a moment later ran back down with his bags. The engine was running. He hopped in the car, and they were off, just like that.
“I have to go to the bathroom!” Jared cried from the backseat.
“You can’t hold it?!” Scott turned around in the front seat and looked at his little brother.
“No.”
“You should have gone before we left, Jared,” Christine told him as she swung the car around.
Three to four minutes later, they were ready to go with Jared back in the car again.
As they backed out of the driveway—again—Scott remembered the feeling of his bones moving and his ears popping, and laid his head back onto the leather headrest. They drove out of town and then got onto the highway, and the GPS said they had an hour drive ahead of them. Scott looked out of the window and happily watched Arizona slowly fade into the distance. He closed his eyes for a second and went right back to thinking about the events that happened in his dream, and what was to come. He wasn’t going to go to Armadron, so that was settled. But something else Artam said kept nagging at him.
I’m a Mediator, he thought dully as tiredness quickly overtook him. I’m a Mediator.
* * *
“We’re here!” Christine cheered from the driver’s seat, lightly shaking Scott awake.
Scott whipped open his eyes and felt a surge of excitement hit him at the same time that his eyes began shifting.
No no no no! he thought, feeling something powerful rise to the surface.
Come on, relax, he told himself, keeping the power at bay. Relaaaaax.
Once his heart rate slowed down enough, he realized his eyes were squeezed shut again. He opened them and looked outside the window.
They were already at the airport. It was huge. To Scott, it seemed larger than life.
He’d never actually been in an airport before. He’d only seen them in movies. This one looked to him like it could house all the residents of Canada.
They all stepped out of the car, got their bags, and entered the building. An employee from Mrs. Faranger’s company came and took their rental car for them. The three passed through the bag drop-off and quickly made their way through security.
They found the McEntlys waiting for them at the Subway restaurant near their gate, just as Christine had arranged.
“Hello, Tim, Barbara, Charlie.” Christine dipped her head like a foreign diplomat with each name that she spoke. “Are you ready?”
“I’m always ready for a vacation,” Tim, Charlie’s father, said with a smile.
Scott pulled Charlie to the side as the grown-ups started talking about trip logistics and grown-up stuff. They found a couple seats by the gate entrance near Jared, who was already immersed in his Game Boy.
“You’re gonna think I’m crazy, but I have to tell you something,” Scott said, looking Charlie in the eye.
Charlie raised an eyebrow. “Okaay. Crazier than usual? This oughta be good.”
He had decided this morning that he would tell Charlie about what was happening to him. Charlie would understand. Maybe. Or he’d laugh at him.
Still, Charlie was clearly not getting the gravity of the situation.
“Charlie, focus,” Scott told him impatiently. “I’m serious right now. This is important.”
Charlie promptly shut his mouth and raised both eyebrows this time.
“Charlie, something happened last night. I don’t know exactly what, but something happened.”
“What happened?” Charlie asked, already beyond interested.
“I . . . changed,” Scott explained, awkwardly avoiding eye contact.
“What do you mean?” Charlie asked. “If you’re fooling with me, I’ll get you back. This is a lame joke anyway, dude.”
“I already told you. I’m not kidding.”
“Okay,” Charlie nodded and waited for his best friend to get his thoughts in order.
“I . . . changed into something else. I . . .”
Scott looked at Charlie.
Charlie looked at Scott, waiting.
Scott realized Charlie would never believe him unless he had some proof.
“I’m serious. Here. Watch my hands,” Scott ordered.
He pulled his right pointer finger and the bone popped. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, though. It didn’t grow this time. The bone just clicked.
“You’re going to show me the world’s most serious fart?” Charlie asked.
“No!” Scott exclaimed, confused. “It grows!”
“I hope it does,” Charlie sighed, mockingly patting him on the back. “Because some of the guys in the locker room the other day were saying that you’ve got a small—”
“Charlie, please,” Scott stared at him, unwavering. “This is big. Like . . . ‘different planets in the universe’ big.”
Something in Charlie’s eyes shifted. He looked like he might know something.
“Okay, bud. I think I know what’s going on,” Charlie smiled.
“You do?!” Scott was relieved.
“Yeah. You’ve waited so long to go out with Molly, and now that you can’t see her, it’s obviously screwing with your head,” Charlie explained. “Plus, you never got her number. ’Cause you’re half idiot and other half weenie.”
“No!” Scott argued, “It’s like, when I get nervous or something, I change!”
“Into what?” Charlie mocked. “One of those Teen Wolf dudes?”
“No! I—”
“Dude,” Charlie cut in, “stop yellin’ so loud. People can hear you over the freaking planes.”
“Yeah,” Jared agreed without looking up from his Game Boy.
“Okay.” Scott lowered his voice and took a deep breath, coming to a realization.
He looked at Charlie in his Rolling Stones T-shirt, his orange spiky hair, and his slouched appearance. He knew Charlie better than anyone else, and he knew that Charlie wouldn’t entertain this.
“I’m just gonna stop it here.” Scott pretended to be embarrassed and suddenly threw up his hands. “I don’t even know where I was going with this joke anymore. I just wanted to mess with you.”
“Well, thanks for wasting five minutes of my life, dude. Now I’ve gotta figure out a way to get you back when we’re on the plane.”
“Yeah,” Scott agreed, then gave a wicked grin, “unless your narcolepsy kicks in and you fall asleep on me after two minutes, Gramps.”
“You little bastard,” Charlie replied, shaking his head. “If I had a—”
“Crutch?”
“If I had a brother like you, I’d go nuts. I honestly don’t know how Jared does it.”
“Please don’t bother me,” Jared called from three seats away, waving them off at the mention of his name. “I’m on the last lap of the Zelda map in Mario Kart.”
They both laughed at that, and Jared repositioned himself in the seat and tried to block out their annoyance.
Scott wiped tears out of his eyes and Charlie held his own stomach as they kept laughing. Jared was the kind of little brother who would often do funny things at his own expense without even realizing it.
“This trip is gonna be awesome,” Scott said.
“Yeah,” Charlie agreed, still chuckling. “You ready to wreak some havoc on the ship?”
“I think they have a game room,” Scott
announced as a form of approval, grinning from ear to ear.
“They do. I went on the website. They also have two pools, hot tubs, a wave machine, and a slip ’n slide.”
“A wave machine?! Holy crap, that’s awesome.”
“Holy crap, I know.”
They both relaxed back in their seats, listening to the sound of Jared losing on the final lap and laughing hysterically at his reaction.
Eventually, the parents ended their own discussion and bought them all five-dollar footlongs from Subway, which Charlie called twenty-dollar foot longs because he was Gramps and complained more than the average person.
As soon as they all finished their meals, their flight to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, was called. The group of six picked up their carry-on luggage and headed toward their first-class flight.
Sure enough, when they got on the plane, Gramps fell asleep in less than two minutes, and Scott took a video of him snoring to use as ammunition in future arguments.
After landing, they got off the plane, took their bags, and rode in a limousine to the cruise ship that would sail them to Bermuda and back. As they stepped out of the limo, Scott took in the bright gold letters on the side of the ocean liner. They read Bermuda Delta.
The smell of the ocean was in the air, and there were people everywhere. People were on the cruise ship on the upper decks waving to them and cheering. Families were hooting and hollering and letting the world know that they were finally going on vacation.
Scott tried to hear what this one man on the upper deck was yelling, and he rotated his head so that his right ear was pointed toward the man.
His vision flashed, and the sonar waves all came at him. As usual, there were thousands of them. This time, Scott quickly got over his initial shock and tried to concentrate on one thread, like when someone tunes an FM radio to the right frequency.
“You’re gonna love it here!” the man cheered at the top of his lungs.
Why, yes I am. Scott smiled to himself. I get eight days to practice—
“Beautiful, isn’t it, boys?” Mr. McEntly’s voice made Scott jump.
“I just hope it doesn’t go Titanic on us,” Mrs. McEntly joked.
Oh lord, Scott thought in mock prayer as he shared a look with Charlie, please kill me before super-Gramps and super-Grandma do with their corniness. Please. Not today.
Everyone else but Jared laughed awkwardly, and Mr. McEntly spoke again, welcoming the attention.
“Oh, come on. There aren’t any icebergs near Florida. We’re more likely to hit a giant floating tree.”
They all chuckled awkwardly again, and Mr. McEntly went on, pointing at the ship. “There, you see, boys. This old ship is named Bermuda Delta. ‘Delta’ is obviously another word for triangle. I kinda like the name.”
Scott gave a goofy smile and a wink to Charlie, pointing his thumb covertly at Charlie’s dad. Charlie rolled his eyes dramatically. Everyone above the age of five already knew that delta meant triangle. Mr. McEntly just liked to talk. And talk.
And talk.
He also was the nerdiest human being on the planet Earth.
“Thanks, Dad. Can we get on the ship now?” Charlie responded in a deadpan voice.
“Yes”—Mr. McEntly frowned at his son—“and you can lose the attitude, mister.”
“Yessir,” Charlie told him, faking seriousness to his father. “I’m leaving it on dry land, and I’ll have a new one on the ship.”
“Alright then, have it your way,” Mr. McEntly said, slipping back into his cheerful demeanor.
“Burger King,” Jared mumbled to himself, tapping his fingers over his Game Boy faster than Bill Gates programming a computer.
They got their luggage out of the limo, and Christine and Mrs. McEntly both tipped the driver, who drove off without a backward glance.
The cruise ship employees gave them all a warm welcome. That is, if you count a warm welcome as going through an X-ray machine, taking your shoes off, and having to watch your bag being searched.
“Just keeping everyone safe, folks,” one of the security guards told them as he ruffled through Mr. McEntly’s bag.
After that they were shown to their cabins, which were right next to each other.
Scott unpacked his bags while Christine left to meet with someone from her company.
Company meetings would begin tomorrow. This afternoon, however, she’d be tied up overseeing a commercial they were shooting on board the ship.
That meant that Jared and Scott were alone for most of the late afternoon, and Scott was tasked with playing babysitter once again. Christine had agreed to give each of her boys sixty dollars to spend each day, so Scott and Jared went to get Charlie. Charlie always had “good ideas” when it came to spending money.
The Arcade
An hour later the ship set sail. Scott, Charlie, and Jared were swimming in the pool, and at first there were no lines and very few people to stand in their way for anything. However, their fun shrunk when people started coming out of their cabins and into the pool area. By the time they left, the pool had more people in it than water. They were all old people too.
The boys dried themselves with the ship’s complimentary towels and walked to the arcade. When they got there, there were about ten or twelve kids playing various games. Scott, Charlie, and Jared started doing the thing that comes naturally to all boys: raging against the machine.
Jared was particularly good at Dance Mania 2 (well, pretty much any video game ever), and Scott and Charlie were playing Buck Hunt over and over again until they were interrupted.
“Hey, can I get a turn in?”
They both stopped and turned around to see a teenage girl with short white shorts, a white tank top, and sandy-blonde hair staring back at them. Her legs were tan and toned, and she looked like she was a little older than they were. Maybe sixteen or seventeen. She had a fist-sized scar on her left shoulder that looked like she may have lost a fight to Wolverine a while ago, but besides that she looked amazing. She was staring at Scott with a playful smile on her face, and her bright blue eyes were looking hopefully at him.
Holy mother of God, Scott thought, gulping.
The boys were both still wearing just their swimming trunks and standing there awkwardly.
“Sure,” Scott smiled as he stepped back from the machine and handed the girl his plastic rifle.
“Thanks.” The girl smiled back at him.
Their hands touched, and Scott instantly felt a familiar tingling sensation in the back of his skull somewhere, but the feeling went away in less than a second. He looked at the girl’s face to see if she had felt something too. Her face showed that she hadn’t—or she was a good actor.
Now where have I had that feeling before? Scott pondered.
He looked over at Charlie to see how he was taking all this.
Charlie kept looking at the girl, barely paying attention to the game screen. He was staring at her, not even trying to be subtle.
Geez, Gramps, Scott thought, at least blink.
She started the game again and played against Charlie, beating him on every level.
When they finished, Scott engaged the girl in conversation. Charlie sat down in a game chair quietly and basically just watched the two talk. That wasn’t like him at all.
“So. You like to play video games?” Scott asked.
“They’re all right. Real life’s more fun, though.” The girl gave him a dazzling smile.
“So I’ve heard. Hey, what’s your name?” Scott asked.
“Sam.”
“Last name?”
“Not important.” Sam smiled.
“Well, I’m Scott Faranger and this is Charlie McEntly,” he said, gesturing to Charlie.
“Sup,” Charlie greeted from his chair.
“Charlie?” Sam playfully chewed her finger, then pointed at him. “You look more like a Seth to me.”
“I can’t look like a name,” Charlie replied dryly, looking away from her.
&n
bsp; Is he mad at something? Scott thought. What in the hell is going on? Is he that much of a sore loser?
“Oh, well, you’re probably right.” Sam smiled like a movie star. “Hey, I’m sorry you had to lose, Charlie.”
Scott started to get the feeling that she was one of those kinds of people who could mess with someone right to their face and never crack a smile because she was so confident. Damn.
“I’m sorry too,” Charlie said, not sounding bothered in the slightest. “I’ll get ya next time.”
“Keep tellin’ yourself that,” Sam replied. Scott didn’t expect her to be that cocky.
“So . . . do you guys feel like going to the wave machine?” Scott interjected, trying to cut the tension.
“Yeah,” Sam agreed.
“Sure,” Charlie answered after a moment’s hesitation.
“Alright!” Scott excitedly exclaimed, clapping his hands in finality.
They all did a slow walk, heading to the other side of the Bermuda Delta. Scott couldn’t help looking at Sam’s curves on the way and the way that her long blonde hair moved. She was so confident, and she held herself very high. Really high. She was almost his height, and she had long legs that connected to a perfect—
Suddenly his heart dropped.
How can I think of that when I like Molly?
When they were nearly at the wave machine, Charlie’s cell phone rang.
The three stopped walking and stood in place while he took his phone out of his pocket.
“It’s my dad,” he told them quickly as he answered the phone.
Sam looked really confused for a second, but she wiped the look off her face. Scott saw it, though.
What is going on with them? They’re both so weird! Scott couldn’t even think straight.
“Hello?” Charlie said into the phone.
There was a long pause.
“Wow,” he said, taking the phone away from his ear and looking at the screen, “I didn’t even realize the time, Dad. Sorry. It is almost seven.”
There was more talking coming from the other end of the line.
“Yeah, Dad, I’ll be right there,” Charlie concluded. “Sorry.”
He ended the call and slid his smartphone back into his pocket. He looked at them, shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand.