The Book of Dares for Lost Friends (11 page)

At least she thought she did.

 

Eighteen

As Val came back from lunch, there was a commotion outside the school. A kid Val didn't know very well was telling everybody a story. His red baseball cap was on crooked. His hands were high in the air, as if he were holding on to an imaginary stick.

“The old lady is holding a broom like this. She chases Lanora down the sidewalk and smacks Lanora on the head.”

The kids groaned. “Whoa.”

Val pushed closer so she could hear. She found herself standing next to the A Team. They were all sipping drinks through green straws.

“
Wham, wham, wham!
The old lady hits Lanora with the broom until she drops what she lifted.”

“What was it this time? Another toy?”

“Nope. A key.”

The kids all laughed. “Lanora the lame lifter.”

The A Team smiled as they turned away.

Val stepped in front of them. “Don't you care that she's in trouble? Wasn't she your friend?”

Alicia raised an eyebrow. “The woman with the broom?”

Ariel tossed her cup toward a trash can that was overflowing with uneaten lunches. The cup missed, of course. The girls kept walking. Like they hadn't done anything. Like they were not responsible. Like even the laws of gravity didn't apply to them.

So Val picked up the cup and tapped Ariel on the shoulder. “You dropped this.”

Ariel raised one eyebrow.

April smiled.

Anna tossed back her hair. “She picks up trash.”

“Like Lanora.” Their lips curled in something that wasn't really a smile.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Val said.

The girls tilted their heads. They never explained. Why should they? They understood themselves perfectly.

The bell rang. They went inside. Val stood there, still holding the cup. It was sticky. She threw it at the trash can. The cup bounced to the sidewalk. Then she had to pick it up again. Then she had to cross the street to throw it in a can that wasn't overflowing with garbage.

By then, she was so angry that she kept going.

*   *   *

The iron gate was locked. Val rattled the bars so fiercely that the wooden sign started to swing. She rapped on the window. Mau was sleeping next to the statue of the man without a nose. She looked up at Val in surprise and then stretched and jumped off the display shelf.

After a few moments, Tasman came to unlock the gate. “What are you doing here? I'm of course glad to see you. But isn't this a school day?”

“They threw a cup on the ground and they didn't pick it up.” Val's anger had only increased. She pushed past Tasman and walked through the maze of boxes. “Where's the Captain?”

“He's communing with spirits.” Tasman followed after her. “Of the alcoholic variety. He can't be interrupted.”

“Good. Then he won't stop us.” Val stood on her tiptoes to peer into a crate.

“From doing what?”

“Finding
The Book of Dares
and the incantation bowl.”

“Shhh,” Tasman said.

It was too late. Those words could not be unsaid. They were too powerful. Too dangerous. Or too loud.

“What's this ruckus?” the Captain shouted.

Tasman grabbed Val's arm and tried to drag her into an alcove. She shrugged off his hand and waited for the Captain to come.

The Captain had a large, white cloth tied around his neck. He held a chicken leg in one hand and a glass of red wine in the other. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to get
The Book of Dares
and the incantation bowl,” Val said.

The Captain waved his chicken leg dismissively. “Bah. No such thing.”

“Of course there is. Tasman told me about it.”

The Captain glared at Tasman. Tasman looked at his boots.

“I just need to borrow them for my friend,” Val said.

“You can't borrow things like that,” the Captain said.

“Why not?” Val said.

“Because you don't know what you're doing. Those kind of powers are too easy to abuse.” The Captain shook his finger at Tasman. “You of all people should know that some medicine is also a poison.”

Tasman shut his eyes.

“Then you should help us use it properly,” Val said.

The Captain snorted and took a sip from his wine. “Where did this girl come from again?”

“Mau brought her,” Tasman said.

“That good-for-nothing mangy beast.”

As if in response, Mau trotted over and sat at the Captain's feet. She stared at the chicken leg.

“Bah.” The Captain tossed the leg into a corner. Mau pounced on it. The Captain ripped the cloth from his neck and wiped his hands on it. “I'm a fool to let you talk me into this.”

“We can borrow the bowl?” Val said.

Tasman's eyes got wide.

“Not the bowl.
The Book of Dares
.” The Captain threw the cloth in the corner and lurched along the aisle toward a glass cabinet.

“But we need the bowl, too,” Val said.

“There is no bowl. You hear me? I do not have the incantation bowl.” The Captain jabbed his finger at Tasman with each syllable.

There was no sound except the crunch of Mau's teeth as she ate the chicken bone.

Finally Tasman muttered, “I hear you.”

The Captain took a key from his pocket and unlocked a glass cabinet. He put on a pair of grimy white gloves. He picked up a thick volume with deckled edges bound in faded red leather. He carefully placed the book on a reading stand.

“I'll give you ten minutes to look at it. But no touching the pages.”

“How can we look at it without touching the pages?” Val said.

The Captain gave Tasman a thin brass stick. At one end, a miniature hand pointed its index finger.

Val leaned closer to the book. She couldn't read what was written on the cover. Some of the gold lettering had worn away. The scribbles could have meant anything. What if this old book wasn't what she hoped? And even if it was, could it really help Lanora?

The Captain carefully lifted the thick cover.

Tasman didn't move.

“Come on, then. You're wasting time,” the Captain said.

Tasman looked at Val. He took a deep breath. He walked over to the book and flipped the first page with the brass finger.

Standing there, in the shop, surrounded by so many relics, Val thought of how many other people had sought answers from that book. For a thousand years, people had opened it. But how many had found the kind of wisdom that they needed? And how many had found something entirely different?

The pages whispered as Tasman turned them.
Shush, shush, shush,
as if the words imprisoned there rose up from the paper as puffs of smoke. Tasman kept turning pages. Somewhere in the shop, a clock ticked loudly. Val had never noticed it before. She felt her heartbeat bump against the tick, trying to hold back the march of time. Why didn't Tasman hurry?

“What are you looking for? It's all the same gobbledygook, isn't it?” the Captain said.

Tasman frowned and flipped three more pages. The brass hand trembled. Then it dropped decisively onto the book. He stopped.

Val glanced at the page. There were no letters or words that she could see. The marks were beautiful, but they didn't look like writing. They reminded her of paths marked on a map. Where they led, she had no idea.

“How are we supposed to read that?” she whispered.

“He reads Latin and Greek,” the Captain said.

“It's Aramaic,” Tasman said to the Captain. Then Tasman turned to Val. “I will translate. Take some parchment from the table. Write down what I say.”

Val picked up a piece of heavy paper and a pen.

Tasman shut his eyes and held his hands a few inches above the pages. He bowed his head. Then he opened his eyes and started to read.

“‘Be gracious to me, Providence and Psyche, as I dare to call upon these mysteries to save one of your children.'”

The words rolled off his tongue in an unfamiliar voice. He read as the ancients might have done, standing in a temple, trying to be heard by the moon.

“‘First, I restore to you a gift from the gods, that my message to you may travel with all possible speed.'”

Val wrote as quickly as she could. She wished she dared to ask him to slow down, but she didn't think he could control what he was doing. The words came unbidden.

“‘Second, I bring to you a gift from the Star Tamer, who from his great heights has given proof of his devotion to our cause.'”

Gradually her writing began to flow. Transforming sounds to symbols became part of the ceremony, too.

“‘Finally, I bring from my own heart, the origin of the ministering wind. Gather these things with fire and spirit. Then when the spirit has been restored, when
Archandara,
Photaza,
Zabythix,
let the doors be thrown open. Let your child come out from the depths and take her place among those who are whole.'”

A breeze that couldn't have come from anywhere lifted the page. It stood straight up for a moment and then fell back onto the book. Then all the other pages followed in succession until the red leather cover slowly closed.

It was done.

 

Nineteen

The silence was so complete that even the clock stopped ticking. Tasman took a step back from the book. His head hung down. His shoulders raised and lowered as he tried to breathe his way back into his body. Finally he raised his head and blinked. He glanced sheepishly at Val like he was hoping to be praised. Or at least thanked.

The Captain stood up. He carefully carried the book to the cabinet. The door banged shut. He locked it with the key.

Tasman and Val just stood there, not knowing what to do next.

“Tarnation,” the Captain shouted. “I let you look, didn't I? Get out of here before I cast a spell on you!”

Val left the shop. She stood by the wedjat and looked at the piece of paper in her hand. Her writing looked strange, especially in the light of day. She could read the words, but they didn't seem like any she would ever write.

Tasman came out and looked over her shoulder. “Did you get it all?”

“I guess. But I don't know what any of it means.”

“Wasn't I speaking English? Was it sufficiently Americanized?”

She pointed to the words
Archandara,
Photaza,
and
Zabythix.

“There is no translation for them,” Tasman said.

She felt foolish. They'd gone to all this trouble, but she still had no idea what she was supposed to do to help Lanora. She sighed.

“What's the matter?” Tasman said.

“Where am I supposed to find a ‘gift from the gods'? Which gods? I don't think we've got the same gods anymore.”

“That's what you're supposed to figure out.”

“How?”

“You want an instruction manual? A recipe? A scientific formula?”

“Yes.”

“That shows a great lack of imagination.”

“Since you're imagining this whole thing, why can't you imagine something more specific?”

“Believe me, if I were, I would imagine it differently.”

He rolled up the piece of paper and handed it to her. He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out a rock, a feather, and three baby teeth. “Alas, I possess no means of securing the scroll. Nothing worthy of this momentous moment, which, for some reason, you have decided to dismiss.”

She tightened the tube. “I don't dismiss it. I just worry that it won't help.”

“I could share my imagination with you. We could have a meeting of the minds and cause storms with our brains. We could return to the rock and the hard place.”

“I guess. But I have to get home now.” Val waved.

“Wait.” He pulled a thread from a ripped place in his jeans and tied the scroll with that. “It'll be your fault if I become unraveled.”

“I think you already are.”

Tasman frowned and quickly walked back into the shop.

“Your jeans, I mean,” Val called after him.

He didn't answer. She didn't know why he was so sensitive. She stared for a moment at the scroll. Then she went home.

*   *   *

Drew was waiting for her in the hallway outside the apartment door.

“You're in big trouble. Don't even go in there. Run. Run away. Take this so you won't be hungry. At least not for the first few days.” He handed her a large bag of uncooked pasta.

“What's this for?”

“It's all I could reach. I grabbed it when Mom was in the bathroom. Now, go.”

He looked so serious that she wanted to laugh and cry.

“They're not
that
mad, are they?”

“Mom said you were something awful. I never heard the word before. It started with a T. She got a phone message. She said you were marked.”

“Marked? How?”

“Go!” He pushed her toward the elevator. “Don't take the stairs. They can throw a net down over the railing and catch you.”

Val hugged him and opened the front door. “I'm hungry. Can I run away after dinner?”

“But Val, I think they might yell at you.”

He was correct.

Mom's face was nothing but straight lines. The pot on the stove was rattling like crazy, on the verge of boiling over.

“Hi, Mom,” Val said.

“Mom, I need Val to help me in my room with my homework. Okay? Come on, Val.” Drew grabbed Val around the waist.

Mom silently separated Drew from Val, turned down the stove, and pointed to a kitchen chair.

Val sat.

“Your school called,” Mom said.

Then Val knew. She had forgotten that they take attendance after lunch. When she hadn't returned, she had been marked truant. “I'm sorry, Mom.”

“She's sorry, Mom!” Drew shouted from the safety of the living room.