“At your command,” he said formally.
“Please bring Challenger Red to his room,” Veego said. “He’ll be joining us for the evening meal.”
“Very good,” Fourteen said, and motioned for me to walk to the stairs.
I looked at Veego, who said, “You’ve had a busy day. Take some time to rest. Fourteen will come get you before the meal.”
I didn’t know what to do. I had been kidnapped. There’s no other way to put it. They were being nice to me, but so what? I was kidnapped! They kept calling me Challenger Red, like one of those guys who battled to the death in that Tato match. And just to confuse things further, LaBerge said I was there to be treated like royalty. None of this added up. The only thing I had to keep in mind was that the real reason I was there, the only reason that mattered, was because Saint Dane sent me an invitation. There was no mistaking that. I was there to stop Saint Dane. If I was going to find him, I had to play along. At least for a little while.
“You’re going to love the meal this evening!” LaBerge said giddily.
I looked to him and said, “Just as long as there’s no tribbun.” I had no idea what tribbun was, other than a label on some food at the food store. I just wanted to mess with the guy. LaBerge’s eyes went wide.
“Tribbun!” he exclaimed. “Tribbun is delicious!”
“Yeah, well, I hate it,” I said.
“Well,” he said in a huff. “We’ll have to take it off the menu.” He turned and stormed off. I know, it was a dumb thing to do, but it made me feel as if I had a tiny bit of control.
“This way, please,” Fourteen said.
“Enjoy your rest,” said Veego.
“I will,” I replied, and went for the stairs. Before climbing, I glanced back to see that Veego hadn’t moved. She was watching me. It was a creepy feeling, like she was sizing me up.
“Take a right at the top of the stairs,” Fourteen said. He was following me closely.
“What’s your real name?” I asked. “Mine’s Bobby.”
“My name is Fourteen,” he replied.
“No, it’s not,” I shot back. “And my name isn’t Red. You don’t name people numbers or colors.”
“Whatever you say, sir,” Fourteen said.
“Who do you hang out with?” I asked jokingly. “Thirteen and Fifteen?”
I chuckled. He didn’t.
“Yes, I do” was his answer.
Oh.
The guy wasn’t about to joke with me. I’ll bet he was afraid of what Veego might do to him. I decided not to give him a hard time. Reaching the top of the stairs, he directed me down a long, wide corridor that had closed wooden doors every few feet.
“What’s behind those doors?” I asked.
“This is where some of the challengers live,” he replied.
I noticed that each door had a different colored rectangular plate on it. White, black, orange, blue. It was like the challenger dorm. We must have walked fifty yards down the long hallway before stopping at a door with a red rectangle. Fourteen opened the door and said, “This is where you will be staying.”
I stepped past him into the room that I described to you in my last journal. It was like something out of a little kid’s imagination. A twisted little kid. It was a big room, with plenty of area to walk around. The walls were purple and yellow striped, no big surprise. The ceiling was covered with balloons of all colors. The bed was in the very middle. It seemed to be floating in space. The blanket on it was yellow, the pillows purple. There was a desk that looked like a giant hand, palm up. As ridiculous as all that sounds, the worst part was the extra decorations. There were shelves everywhere that were loaded with dolls. Clown dolls. I hate clowns. Have I mentioned that? In my opinion there are two kinds of people: those who fear and hate clowns . . . and clowns.
“I’m not staying here,” I said to Fourteen.
“Is this room not to your liking?” he asked.
“Are you kidding?” I shot back. “It’s full of clowns! Who decorates a room with clowns?”
“That would be LaBerge,” he answered.
Figured.
“Well, I’m not staying here,” I said.
“I am sorry, sir,” he replied calmly. “There are no other rooms.”
I was going to argue, but decided that I wasn’t going to be staying very long anyway, so I’d deal with the clowns. At least I’d try to deal with the clowns. I hate clowns. I wasn’t so fond of Quillan, either.
This is where I’m going to end this journal and send it off. I’m lucky they left me alone long enough to write two whole journals and get you guys up to speed. Of course, now my hand is cramped from having written so much, but I’ll live.
I feel as if I’m getting close to Saint Dane, if only because I’ve met Veego and LaBerge. The invitation may have come from them, but it was delivered by Saint Dane. There’s a connection between them. It’s my job to find it. The first step is to figure out why Veego and LaBerge want me here. If they plan on treating me like royalty, well, that would be cool. But I’m no idiot. I’m afraid they’re going to want something from me and I’ve got a pretty good idea what it is. They think I’m a challenger, which has to mean they want me to compete. I can’t help but think Saint Dane has set this whole thing up, which means he wants me to compete. I can only hope that I’ll be able to duck that long enough to figure out what the demon has planned for Quillan. It’s going to be a dangerous tightrope. I need to be here to learn more, but if I stay, I may have to compete.
I wonder if the Traveler from Quillan followed the same steps I did. Did he get an invitation too? Did Saint Dane send an invitation to all the Travelers? Is this how it’s going to end? Will our battle with Saint Dane come down to a series of deadly games on this twisted territory? If Saint Dane summoned the Travelers here, I have no doubt that each and every one of us would come. For the first time I’m actually happy that Gunny and Spader are trapped on Eelong.
As I sit here in this creepy room, I’m feeling very alone. There’s no one to bounce ideas off and challenge my thinking. Nobody I can trust. For whatever reason, I was made the lead Traveler, but that doesn’t mean I don’t need help. Or friendship. It doesn’t bother me when I’m running around, but when I’m alone like this, my mind wanders. It isn’t fun. At times like this the fight against Saint Dane seems so overwhelming, all I want to do is chuck it all and go home. But that makes me remember that I don’t have a home anymore. My past has been erased. I don’t belong on Second Earth. I’m not sure I ever did. So where do I belong?
Yikes, I’ve got to get a grip. Feeling sorry for myself doesn’t help anything. I want to get some sleep so I can stop worrying, but I’m worrying so much I can’t get to sleep. Don’t worry, I don’t feel this way all the time, only when things slow down. I need these breaks to recharge my batteries and write journals. But to be honest, I dread the downtime, because that’s when I realize how truly alone I am.
It’s okay. I’m fine. I just needed to get that off my chest.
I’ll add one more thing before I sign off. Before leaving my room, Fourteen said, “I’ll come for you when the meal is ready.”
“Whatever,” I said. He backed out as I took another look around the room, and saw all those creepy clown eyes staring back at me. “Hey,” I said, stopping him.
“Yes?”
“Are you sure there aren’t any other rooms?”
“Very sure,” he said. “But there will probably be another opening after the next tournament.”
At first I was encouraged. I wanted to be away from the clowns in the worst way. But then the weight of his words sank in.
“Who had this room before me?” I asked.
“That was Challenger Yellow,” he answered. “He won’t be returning. Enjoy your rest.”
He closed the door, leaving me feeling more alone than ever. Challenger Yellow was the Traveler from Quillan. He didn’t survive the fall. Challengers died.
I was a challenger.
/> I hadn’t even found Saint Dane yet.
And so we go.
I miss you guys.
END JOURNAL #24
SECOND EARTH
Courtney Chetwynde was coming home.
Spending nearly two months in a hospital had been torture for her. In more ways than one. But she knew she couldn’t rush things. Broken bones took time to heal. So did a broken spirit. She would never be able to shake the memories of what happened to her the night of the accident. That was good. She didn’t want to shake them. She wanted to remember every last detail. She had been riding her bike on a lonely country road when a car ran her off the side of a steep embankment. The fall was brutal. It broke four ribs, and her left arm in two places. Her left leg was broken so badly that they had to put four pins in to help it set properly. She even got a concussion. But as horrible as those injuries were, they weren’t life threatening. The real problem came with the internal injuries. She needed surgery to repair tears in so many places that Courtney would stop listening whenever a doctor discussed how bad off she was. She didn’t want to hear it. In the two months since the accident, not a day went by without some doctor saying, “You’re lucky to be alive.”
Courtney didn’t feel very lucky. If she were lucky, she wouldn’t have been nearly killed. If she were lucky, she never would have gone to summer school and met a guy named Whitney Wilcox. If she were lucky, she wouldn’t have thought he was cute and developed a major crush on him. If she were lucky, she wouldn’t have been riding her bike to meet him when she got run off the road. If she were lucky, she would have realized there really was no such person as Whitney Wilcox. He was an illusion. A lie. As she lay crumbled in the woods on the side of the road that horrible night, just before she lost consciousness, she saw that the person driving the car that hit her was none other than Whitney Wilcox. The guy she was growing to like. The guy she thought might become the boyfriend that Bobby Pendragon wasn’t able to be.
The guy who turned out to be Saint Dane.
The demon had tried to kill her. He had looked down on her broken body from the road above and said, “I give, and I take away. You people of Second Earth are so easily controlled. I was hoping this would be more of a challenge, but alas. It was not meant to be.” The demon had then transformed himself from the image of Whitney Wilcox into a huge black bird that flew away into the night, leaving her to die.
But Courtney didn’t cooperate. Thanks to Mark Dimond. Good old Mark. She managed to get a call out to him on her cell phone. All she was able to say before passing out was, “He’s here.” It was all she needed to say. Mark knew what she meant. He knew she was in trouble. Mark came screaming up to Massachusetts, where Courtney was going to summer school, and found her near death on the side of the road. Mark saved her life. It was the one thing that didn’t surprise Courtney about the whole nasty experience. She knew that if there was anyone she could always count on, it was Mark.
What did surprise her was that Mark was helped by a guy who had been his archenemy since they were little kids. Andy Mitchell. Mitchell gave Mark a ride from their home in Connecticut up to the Berkshires on a moment’s notice. (Mark didn’t have his driver’s license.) If not for Andy, Mark wouldn’t have made it in time. That was a strange and somewhat unsettling thought. Courtney knew that if not for Andy Mitchell’s help, she’d be dead.
As grateful as she was, it was an odd feeling, because Andy Mitchell had been nothing more than an obnoxious bully for as long as she could remember. He took particular pains to harass Mark. Poor nerdy Mark. Bully bait. But it had recently come out that as idiotic as Andy Mitchell was, he was very gifted at math. So gifted that he was asked to join Mark’s elite science club at school. Sci-Clops. Courtney knew that Mark hated the idea of his beloved club being invaded by the un-beloved Andy Mitchell. But even Mark had to admit that Mitchell was special. Better still, after he joined Sci-Clops, Mitchell stopped harassing Mark. The two seemed to have found common ground and made peace.
But that didn’t make it any less strange for Courtney to see the two of them standing, together, at the foot of her bed in the intensive care unit after she came out of surgery. After that horrible day, Courtney often asked Mark how they could suddenly be so tight.
“You know he’s a turd,” Courtney would say.
Mark would always laugh and say something like, “He used to be, but I’m really getting to know the guy and he’s okay. And he’s, like, a genius, too!”
“Andy Mitchell? Genius?” Courtney would reply. “That’s like saying you found a cockroach that can do algebra.”
But Mark didn’t back down. If there was anyone who deserved to hate Andy Mitchell, it was Mark. Bullies always went after the insecure, brainy types. Mark was the perfect target. Andy had harassed him for years. So Courtney figured that if Mark could forgive him, who was she to hold a grudge? Especially since he helped save her life. Courtney decided to be less judgmental, no matter how big a slug Mitchell was. Or used to be.
After the accident Mark would often take the train from their home in Connecticut up to Massachusetts to visit Courtney in the hospital and keep her company while she went through therapy. Courtney looked forward to those visits. Being stuck in a hospital three hours from home was not a fun way to pass the time. The doctors didn’t want her to travel until she had completely healed, so she spent week after boring week sitting in her room watching daytime TV. She started getting hooked on soap operas, which embarrassed her. Courtney didn’t think of herself as someone who would be interested in such goofy TV. But it wasn’t like she had a whole lot of choices. Talk shows were boring and she was too old for cartoons. So she got wrapped up in the make-believe lives of some fakey TV characters. When it got to the point where the nurses would come in and ask her, “What happened to so and so?” or “Who’s cheating on who?” and Courtney actually knew the answers, she decided it was time to stop watching. She didn’t want to be working so hard to heal her body, while letting her brain turn to pudding.
Eventually they moved her out of the regular hospital and into a wing that was all about rehabilitation. It was a welcome relief, but a grueling experience. When the cast came off her leg, Courtney had to learn how to walk again. The pain was incredible, but the physical therapists didn’t cut her any slack. She didn’t want them to either. She told them to push her. She’d remind them, “If I complain, push harder.”
That was Courtney. She had always been driven, but the recent turn of events in her life had given her new purpose. It was hard for her to think back on the chain of circumstances that led to her being in the hospital, but she forced herself to. She wanted to remember it all, if only to learn from the ordeal. It was a difficult journey that had begun long before the accident.
Months before, she discovered that she and Mark had made the ultimate mistake by traveling through the flume to Eelong. As much as they had done an amazing job and helped Bobby save a territory, she later learned that by using the flumes, she and Mark had caused the death of a Traveler. Only Travelers were supposed to use the flumes, and by using it themselves they had weakened the tunnels through time and space so badly that the flume on Eelong had collapsed. When it crumbled, it trapped Spader and Gunny, and killed Kasha. The horrible truth was that by trying to help Bobby, they actually had helped Saint Dane in his quest to control Halla. What she thought was her greatest victory turned out to be a tragic failure.
The realization crushed Courtney, who was already going through a tough time at home and at school. Growing up, Courtney had always been the best at everything. Especially at sports. But when she hit high school, she found that others were as good as she was. Some better. Courtney was not used to losing. She wasn’t even used to trying that hard. She didn’t handle the pressure well, which felt like yet another failure. She always defined herself by her abilities on the field. Losing that made her feel worthless and depressed. She barely spoke with her parents. It was becoming unbearable to be Courtney, or to be around her. The
many weeks lying in a hospital bed gave her time to think back on that difficult period and try to figure out why things had gone so wrong. She was disappointed in her inability to compete, of course, but she realized that what bothered her even more was the fact that she handled it so badly. Being good at sports was one thing. Having the strength to deal with life challenges was a whole nother ballgame, so to speak. A more important one. Courtney realized she didn’t have the strength to deal with either, and it depressed her.
The months of healing and introspection finally allowed her to admit that the reason she was so quick to jump to Eelong was because she wanted to prove something to herself. Of course she wanted to help Bobby, but she also desperately needed to restore her self-confidence. She wanted to win at something in the worst way. It almost worked, too. That is, until she realized how much damage she and Mark had done by traveling. When the truth came out, she fell into a total depression. It was so bad she couldn’t get out of bed. Her schoolwork was sent home or she would have flunked tenth grade. As it was, she was barely able to concentrate long enough to do the absolute minimum, and she barely squeaked into the eleventh grade.
It was a difficult time, but beneath it all Courtney was still a fighter, and committed herself to a new challenge. She wanted to put her life back together. She knew that to face the world again, she was first going to have to face herself. To that end she convinced her parents to send her away to summer school. She figured that six weeks on her own, with people who didn’t know her and who had no expectations, would be the perfect way to get back on her feet. She was right. Courtney slowly began to feel like herself again.