Lost in Cyberspace (6 page)

Then, whenever I did run into him, he'd say, “I'm still diddling my data.” And he'd be off to the Black Hole again like he didn't have time for me.

At first I thought he might be mad. He knew I didn't believe he'd time-warped himself up a tree for my mugging. I try to be skeptical, but this time it might have hurt his feelings.

Then one day in the school lunchroom I was down at the end of a table eating a lonely burrito. Aaron comes in, scanning around to see where I am.

Huckley School is built in a row of four old houses put together. They flattened one roof and fenced it in for the lower-school playground. Otherwise they've tried to keep the houses pretty much the way they were. They even named them for the families who lived in them years ago. The lunchroom is the old dining room of Havemeyer House. It's decorated with hockey sticks and pictures of past lacrosse teams and old Havemeyers.

Aaron spotted me. He worked his way through the crowd, carrying a lunch off the salad bar. He dropped down beside me.

“Getting there,” he said like the old Aaron. So maybe he wasn't mad at me. He probably wasn't. “Like I said, I was off on my numbers. Also, I can do better work on the terminals here at school. How far did I think I was going to get on a one-chip laptop? And at school I can work on two computers. This could be the evolutionary reason why we have two hands. With two on-line databases, you can practically conduct a symphony.”

So it was definitely the old Aaron.

“I'm making progress,” he said, “but it's not all a matter of direct data entry.”

“Wouldn't be,” I said.

“There's the Emotional Component.”

“After all, the human brain is the ultimate computer,” I reminded him.

“But if it means scaring myself into some other time,” Aaron said, “I'm up for it. I'll jump that fence when I come to it.”

Jumping fences reminded me of horses. Horses reminded me of you know who.

“We've got another O Pear,” I said.

But Aaron wasn't listening. For once he didn't have his one-chip laptop with him. But the fingers of his left hand were punching up something on the bare wood of the lunch table. Once in a while his fork would come up, and he'd stuff lettuce in his mouth. But his eyes were unfocused, and his mind was way off somewhere. There was a blob of Thousand Island dressing on his nose.

This began to make me mad. It happens a lot. Right after you think your best friend is mad at you, and then you find he isn't, you get mad at him. Aaron was taking himself too seriously. He was getting weirder. He was beginning to buy his own theories. I thought about turning him in to the counseling office. He wouldn't even notice if I got up and walked away.

Then he got up and walked away. He wandered through the lunchroom crowd, returned his empty salad bowl, and left in the direction of the media center.

I had a little bit of burrito left but didn't even feel like eating it.

After school I was getting on the bus with the rest of the backpackers. I was going with the flow. Then I turned around and went back into school. Having to find a new best friend at my age is just too big a deal.

 

The media center is in Vanderwhitney House, a couple of buildings over from Havemeyer House. It was probably the personal library of the Vanderwhitney family in the olden days. Some of the shelves are real wood built into the walls.

The front part of it still has some books. Mrs. Newbery, the media specialist, was giving a story hour there to a bunch of preschoolers in miniature dress code. The back part is walled off with a door in it, and that's the Black Hole where the computer workstations are.

Aaron was in there, positioned between two terminals. He was keeping them busy with both hands. All the compartments of his brain were fully engaged.

I just stood there. What are you going to do with a kid like that? I couldn't see his face, but I knew his lips were moving. Then I got this idea. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing. If Aaron's so sure he can be scared into another time frame, let's find out.

I closed the door behind me to keep Mrs. Newbery from being involved. Then I made a dead run for Aaron. I came pounding up on his blind side.

Aaron froze. Then he yelled, “Yikes!” His hands flew up. He was surrendering or something. Then his hands dropped down on both keyboards. His fingers flew. The entire Black Hole seemed to give out a glow. It was like a power surge.

Then the scariest thing that ever happened, happened.

Something was happening to Aaron. He was beginning to ... dim. He was like somebody fading into the distance, except he was right here—a reach away. I didn't know whether to touch him or not, but I put one hand out on his bony shoulder. It was changing under my hand. It felt like a Baggie full of bees. This could have been his cells reorganizing themselves. I think I even heard buzzing, but that could have been the terminals.

Then my hand was just there, hanging in space. I was standing behind an empty chair. Aaron was lost in cyberspace.

I panicked. Who wouldn't? I checked under the terminals, in the corners, even. But I was alone in the Black Hole. Through the wall I could hear the drone of Mrs. Newbery's voice, summing up a story.

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:

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.

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.”