D. MacHale - The Merchant of Death

Denduron

I hope youre reading this, Mark.

Heck, I hope anybodys reading this because the only thing thats keeping me from going totally off my nut right now is getting this all down on paper so that someday, when its all over, itll help prove that Im not a total whack job. You see, two things happened yesterday that changed my life forever.

The first was that I finally kissed Courtney Chetwynde. Yes,the Courtney Chetwynde of the bites-her-lower-lip-when-shes-thinking, stares-right-into-your-heart-with-her-deep-gray-eyes, looks-unbelievable-in-her-volleyball-uniform, and always-smells-a-little-like-roses fame. Yeah, I kissed her. It was a long time coming and it finally happened. Woo-hoo!

The second thing was that I was launched through a wormhole called a flume and got jacked across the universe to a medieval planet called Denduron thats in the middle of a violent civil war.

But back to Courtney.

This wasnt your average nice to see you peck on the cheek. Oh no. This was a full-on, eyes closed, starting with tight lips but eventually morphing into a mutual open-mouth probe thing that lasted for a good thirty-second lifetime. And we were close, too. Likereal close. I was holding her so tight I could feel her heart beating against my chest. Or maybe it was my heart. Or maybe our hearts were bouncing off each other. I have no idea. All I know is that it was pretty cool. I hope I get the chance to do it again, but right now its not looking so good.

I guess its kind of dumb to be fixating on the glorious Courtney Chetwynde when the real problem is that Im afraid Im going to die. Maybe thats why I cant get her out of my head. The memory of that kiss is the only thing that feels real to me right now. Im afraid that if I lose that memory Im going to lose everything, and if that happens thenwell, I dont know what will happen then because I dont understandanything thats been happening to me. Maybe by writing it all down, itll start to make some sense.

Let me try to piece together the events that led to my writing this. Up until yesterday I was living large. At least as large as any normal fourteen-year-old guy can live. School came pretty easy; I kicked ass in sports; my parents were way cool; I didnt hate my little sister, Shannon, usually. I had excellent friends, with you sitting right on top of the list, Mark. I lived in this major house where I had my own private space to play music or whatever and nobody bugged me. My dog, Marley, was the coolest golden retriever there ever was; and I had recently macked with Courtney Chetwynde. (Did I mention that?) How much more goin on can you get?

The thing is, I also had an Uncle Press.

You remember him? He was the guy who always showed up at my birthday parties with some special surprise. He wouldnt just bring a pony, hed bring atruckload of ponies for a minirodeo. Hes the guy who turned my house into that laser-maze game. Was that great or what? Hes the one who was throwing the pizzas at my party last year. Remember that guy? Every once in a while hed show up, out of the blue, and do something amazing like take me flying in a private plane. Yeah, he was a pilot. Another time he gave me this computer that was so advanced, it wasnt even in stores yet. You know the calculator I have that you input numbers by talking to it? That was from Uncle Press. I gotta tell you, he was the coolio uncle everybody wished they had.

But there was always something a little mysterious about Uncle Press. He was my moms brother, but she didnt say much about him. It was almost like she felt weird talking about him. Whenever I asked, shed shrug and say something like, Oh, you know him, hes his own man. How was school today? Basically, shed dodge the question.

I dont know what he did for a living, but he always had boatloads of money. I figured he probably had some top-level government job, like doing research for NASA or something and it was all hush-hush. So I didnt ask too many questions. He wasnt married, but sometimes hed show up at the house with some odd character. One time he brought this lady over who never said a word. He said she was his friend, but I got the feeling she was more like his girlfriend. I think she was African or something because she was real dark-skinned. And beautiful. But it was strange because shed just stare at me and smile. I wasnt scared or anything because she had soft eyes. And maybe she didnt talk because she didnt know English, but still it was kind of creepy.

Id have to say that my Uncle Press was the coolest guy Id ever met. That is, until yesterday.

The county semifinal basketball game was last night. You know how important I am to that team. Im the highest scoring point guard in Stony Brook Junior High history. Im not bragging; thats just the way it is. So for me to miss that game would have been like Kobe Bryant missing a Lakers playoff game. Okay, maybe Im notthat important, but it would not have been cool for me to bail on that game. Mom and Dad had already left for the gym with Shannon. I had a ton of homework and I knew Id be fried afterward, so I had to get it done before leaving. I had just enough time to scarf down a banana and some Pop-Tarts, feed Marley, jump on my bike, and blast over to school. At least that was the plan. I cant help but think that if I had done my homework just a little bit faster, or decided not to throw the tennis ball with Marley, or even waited till I got to school to take a leak, none of this would have happened. But it did.

I grabbed my pack, headed for the front door, threw it open and came face to face withCourtney Chetwynde.

I froze. She froze. It was like somebody hit the pause button on two lives. Except there was nothing static about what was racing through my brain. The crush I had on her dated back to when we were in grade school. She was always soperfect. But not in that unattainable shes too good for everybody way. She was beautiful and smart and great at sports and she laughed and told jokes. I think that was the key. The fact that she told jokes. Maybe that sounds stupid, but if you tell jokes it shows youre willing to look stupid. And if youve got the whole package going on and still willing to let people laugh at you then, man, whatelse do you want?

Of course I wasnt the only one who felt this way about Courtney. I was one in a long line of admirers. But she was standing atmy front door. Instantly, every synapse in my brain started firing to try and find the perfect, spontaneous thing to say. The first words out of your mouth in a time of crisis can color someones opinion of you forever. It either shows that youre totally in charge and ready to handle any situation with composure and wit, or that youre a blundering idiot whose mind will freeze at the first sign of pressure. This all flashed through my brain in the few nanoseconds while we were on pause. Now it was my move. She came to the house, it was my turn to respond. So I hitched my pack up on my shoulder, leaned casually against the doorjamb, gave her a little smile and said: Yo.

Yo??? Thats not even a real word! Nobody says Yo unless theyre impersonating Sylvester Stallone, which I was definitelynot doing. I was all set for the smile to drop off her face in crushing disappointment as she turned and left without saying a word. Instead, she bit her lower lip (which meant she was thinking) and said:

Hi.

That was good. Hi isnt much higher up on the cool scale than Yo. I was back in the game. It was time to start playing.

Whats up? I said.

Okay, maybe I wasnt ready to play just yet. It was easier to lob the ball back into her court. It was then that I noticed something weird. Courtney looked nervous. Not out of her mind scared or anything, but a little bit uncomfortable. My confidence soared. She was just as tense as I was. That was good.