Chapter 10
Whhppttt……..bump…bump…bump. As I tumbled onto what felt like concrete, I briefly looked up to see an object getting closer and closer. I had no time to react, and suddenly, whap! I had rolled right into a brick wall. Ouch! At first I felt a little dizzy but I got my wits together and began to stand up. As I, stood I felt something warm dribble down my forehead. I reached up and felt the area. As I withdrew my hand, I saw bright red blood dripping from my fingers and began to feel lightheaded again.
“Oh gross Emma!” I heard P exclaim. “You’re bleeding like in one of those horror movies.”
Zack hurried over to me. “Emma, are you all right? That’s a lot of blood. Here let me help you.” He pulled a crisp white handkerchief out of his pocket and placed it over my wound. “This will help the bleeding stop.” He pressed the cloth more firmly and the blood stopped running down to my nose. I felt his other hand on my back as he held me still during the procedure. I definitely felt better then.
“Thank you. I think it’s stopping. I’ll be all right.” I felt my face getting red and I knew I was blushing. I was embarrassed and quickly grabbed the handkerchief out of his hand and held it myself.
Somehow P caught on to my dilemma and quickly diverted Zack’s attention. “Hey, where do you guys think we are now? It looks like we’re in another back alley!”
We all looked around. We stood on a cement road that lied between two buildings and dead-ended into the wall of another. The open end of the road was barricaded by a wide metal gate. At the other end of the alley, in a corner, stood a large trash dumpster with a lid. I could see in my friend and sibling’s eyes that they had no desire to have to hide in another smelly container. On one building side, we saw a red metal door that sat about four feet above street level. In front of the door, stairs led up to a small concrete deck surrounded by a rod iron railing.
As we continued to scan our new environment, we heard a creak. The door swung open, and a lanky man in his twenties walked out onto the small deck. He bent down to place a small piece of wood between the door and the frame, to keep it from closing all of the way. He then stood up and leaned his elbows on the railing. He held a long white cigarette in his left hand and pulled a silver lighter out of his back pants pocket. Steadily he flipped the lighter on and the flame flickered in the night air. He lit the cigarette, drew it to his mouth and took a long puff.
We watched in silence from the shadows at the other end of the alley. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw P’s mouth drop open.
“Gross.” He snarled quietly.
“Shhh,” I whispered, “I think we’ll be in trouble if he sees us here. It looks like a pretty private area.”
P whispered, “Okay, Emma.” He remained quiet but I could still see the disgusted look on his face.
We waited quietly as the man smoked his cigarette. After a few minutes had passed, a muffled male voice came from the other side of the door.
“Sam, we need you in here now! The band is about to go on and we need you to put the drum set on stage.”
The young man turned around towards the door and yanked it open again. “Aww Johnny, I just started my smoke… okay, I’m coming.”
He threw the cigarette onto the cement and smashed it into the ground with his boot. As he began to pass through the doorway, Zack turned to me and spoke quickly, “We need to follow him. That may be our only way out of this alley.”
My eyes got wide. “Okay, you’re right, that door may lock when it closes. You run and catch it. We’ll be right behind you.”
Zack sprinted to the small platform and ran up the stairs. He was just in time to catch the door before it clicked in the latch, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He opened the door and quietly peaked into the hallway behind it. He turned his head toward us, “The coast is clear!”
P and I followed him up the stairs. As we neared the door, P looked down at the crumpled cigarette on the ground. He sneered. “Why do people do that? Don’t they know that it causes cancer?”
I patted his head. “You’re a smart kid P. I’d like to say we are in a time before they knew how dangerous it was, but people smoke in our time even though we do know.”
P frowned, “I know. I feel bad for the people who are addicted to smoking.”
“Are you guys coming?” Zack hissed from the doorway.
“Oh, sorry,” I replied, grabbed P’s hand and yanked him across the threshold.
After we passed through, the door closed tightly behind us and we faced our newest adventure. We looked to the right and then the left down the long empty corridor that stood in front of us.
“Which way should we go?” asked P as he tugged on Zack’s shirt.
“Ugh, I’m thinking.” retorted Zack sharply, but added quietly, “I’m sorry P, I didn’t mean to snap. I’m just not sure where we should go.” He smiled at P. “What do you think?”
“Hmmm,” P thought a moment. “Well, I’m left handed so I think we should go to the left!”
The corners of Zack’s mouth slowly curled into a smile and he laughed. “Honestly, that’s probably our best bet now. What do we have to lose?” He turned and started to walk down the hallway to the left.
We continued down the hall until we heard voices. We neared an open door and slowed down to peek inside. In one corner of the room, people were busy preparing for some kind of musical number. Toot-toot-to-toot came from a trumpet raised high in the air. The man holding it puffed his cheeks out every time the instrument made music. Low moaning notes came from the clarinet next to him. The young woman sitting beside him stopped to take a breath, then replaced her lips on the reed to continue the hum. Doo-doo-doowoo.
On the opposite side of the room, two ballet dancers were warming up. A thin man with muscular arms was doing a plié while his petite partner stretched to touch her right toe with her fingertips. As she did this, she lifted her left leg up directly behind her and pointed her toes to the ceiling. I was impressed. After all the ballet classes I had taken as a child it was all I could do to not lose my balance on a pas de bourrée to the side and a releve up on my toes. I watched the girl bring her foot down to the floor and reposition her footing. The man had stopped his stretching and moved closer to the wall. He held his arms down and out in front of him and beckoned her forward. She ran briskly and jumped into his arms. Then he lifted her body upward until her abdomen was even with his head.
As I stood there sucked into the scene, Zack tapped me on the shoulder and brought me back to reality. “Hey, look at that man over there. He has stacks of plates. I wonder what he’s going to do with them.”
As we watched, we heard clicking heels coming around the corner. We were approached on our left by an older woman with graying hair twisted into a bun at the back of her head. She wore a slim fitting pink pencil skirt and a matching pink short sleeved twill jacket. She breezed past us and leaned through the doorway.
“Eric, you’re on in five minutes! Get your plates to the stage now!”
As we all looked at each other wondering what the plates would be doing on stage, the gray haired women turned around, as quickly as she had walked by, and stared at us. She raised her voice. “What are you kids doing back here? You are not allowed to be near these rooms. Ugh! I’ll be happy when this band is gone. Sam…Sam… get these kids where they are supposed to be!” She looked around for Sam, made a tsking sound under her breath, turned on her heels and clicked off.
Sam came around the corner. It was the young man we had seen outside. “Aww man, you crazy kids are gonna get me in trouble. You need to follow me back to the theater!” He dragged his hand through is thick shaggy hair and looked distressed. “How am I going to break into the music business if I keep messing up? Ugh, this way!” He nodded his head in the direction of another hallway.
We followed him around the corner, down the hallway to a closed door with a blinking red light hovering above it.
Sam breathed a sigh of relief, “We’re just
in time.” He yanked open the door and we followed him into the wings of a large stage, down a small set of steps and through another door. “Here we are.” He eyed an open set of seats. “Go sit! Your group will be out shortly. Be patient!”
He motioned to the seats. We were standing in a medium sized theater filled with people. Some were older adults but most were teenagers. We piled into the seats just as the lights went down in the theater. A middle aged man with slightly receding black hair walked to the center of the stage.
“Welcome to our show. We have a great selection of talent for you tonight. We will start with Eric and his creative plates.”
Applause filled the theater and the spotlight lit up the middle of the stage. We could see a thin man dressed in a gray suit with the ruffles of his white shirt emerging at the collar. He set up a long rod in front of himself and started it spinning. Quickly, he threw a ceramic dinner plate on top of the rod and it continued to spin. As the plate continued to rotate, he set another plate in motion, and then he suddenly had six plates up in the air. The audience clapped and laughed. P loved it. He laughed and laughed as his eyes twinkled.
As the plate spinning performance came to an end, the audience quieted. The middle-aged man walked onto the stage again. “Thank you Eric, that was very entertaining. Now for our second act, what you have all been waiting for…” The emcee waved his outstretched hand toward the stage as he walked away. “The Beatles!”
The spotlight moved slowly from the announcer to the center of the stage. It highlighted a group of four young men dressed in dark gray suits with black collars. Black socks peaked out beneath ankle length pants and ended in shiny black patent leather shoes. All of them had shaggy dark hair that looked like someone had cut it around a bowl. Three of the young men stood holding guitars, in front of microphones that looked like giant lollipops. The fourth man sat on a platform behind a set of drums, his hands poised in the air gripping his drum sticks, ready to tap out the beat. They were all smiling.
As we waited patiently with the rest of the audience, the young man on the left began to count, “a 1,2,3,4….,” then music began to pour out from the drums and guitars on stage. The beat got our attention and the melody drew us in. The men began to sing and the crowd went wild. Some young girls were screaming with their hands in the air, while others began to sob uncontrollably. The young men in the audience clapped along with the music and cheered. As I looked around, I could see a few middle aged men and women with scowls on their faces as they watched this young hip band.
It was all I could do to discern the lyrics of the song through the roar of the crowd. I finally recognized the refrain, “I wanna hold your ha-a-and, I wanna hold your hand!” I found myself singing along with the words and rocking back and forth to the music. I glanced over at P and Zack, and they were clapping and bouncing along with the music, too.
I yelled over the pandemonium to Zack, “I can’t believe we are seeing the Beatles in person!”
He replied, “I know, this is awesome! My mom and dad would be so jealous.”
“So would ours,” P chimed in. “They love the Beatles.”
We continued to watch and enjoy the music. We were excited that we recognized most of the songs. What a fun change from the other places the book took us. No guns, no war, no guillotine. We began to relax and just have fun.
I continued to watch, mesmerized as the group sang their famous songs, when out of the blue, I felt an urge to make sure the book was safely secured in the bag on my back. I reached up to touch my shoulder and feel for the bag’s strap. I felt my sweater but nothing else. I panicked and spun around in my seat to see if the bag had fallen. No bag…no book!
I frantically grabbed Zack but the shoulder. “I…I’ve lost the book!”
He returned my excitement with a calm, “Don’t worry. We’ll find it. It seems to always find its way back to us.”
We all searched around, in and under the seats behind us, but to no avail. P leaned over to me, “I bet you dropped it in the alley where we first landed.”
“No.” I shook my head. I was sure I had it when I got up. I remember making sure the book was in the bag, and the bag was securely over my shoulder, after my head stopped hurting.
Zack turned to me, “What about when we ran for the door to get inside? It all happened so fast.”
“Ugh!” I replied. I could have dropped it by the stairs.”
“We need to retrace our steps!” P chimed in. “Just like in those old detective movies! I’m sure we’ll find it then!”
“You’re right,” I said, a little disappointed that we couldn’t continue to watch the Beatles sing. “But how are we going to get back behind the stage again so we can get back to the alley?”
We all looked towards the door we had walked through to get from backstage to the theater where are seats were. Sam, the young man that showed us to our seats was still standing guard by the door.
“Maybe if we plead with him, he’ll let us go backstage again.” I suggested.
“I don’t think he’s happy with any of this.” argued Zack. “I don’t think it would work.”
We all looked at the man with his shaggy hair down to his eyes and a scowl on his face. “I know!” P said excitedly. “We can have Emma flirt with him to get his attention while you and I run past him to get backstage.”
“Uh…NO!” Zack replied quickly. I think we put her in too much danger last time.” He then moved closer to P and leaned over to whisper in his ear, “Plus, I don’t like to see her flirting with other guys, and I definitely don’t like seeing those other guys flirting with her!”
I felt my cheeks get hot and was sure they were bright pink, but I don’t think Zack thought that I had heard him. Phewww.
Zack raised his eyebrows and continued talking in a louder voice, “I may have an idea.” He nodded toward the man by the door, “Look, he still has that scowl on his face, but he’s tapping his right foot in time with the music. He may be a musician himself. I may be able to win him over.”
He ran off before P and I could stop him. He approached Sam, “Hey man…” and he nodded his head quickly the way young men acknowledge each other nowadays.
Sam continued to scowl as he opened his mouth to demand that Zack go back to his seat.
Zack started talking hurriedly but tried to sound calm at the same time. “Hey, please let me stand over here away from those crazy groupies. My girlfriend and her little brother begged me to take them to see this group. I like more soulful bluesy music myself.”
“Exactly!” Sam spoke enthusiastically. “Now, don’t get me wrong, this band is good. They definitely have a good beat with catchy tunes, but they have too many teeny-boppers following them. To me, their songs are too happy. They need a little bit more emotion and maybe even some misery. My band sings about real life and broken hearts, but those young kids don’t come to see us perform. Look at the girls out there screaming and crying when they hear this band sing.”
He nodded his head in the direction of the crowd just as a blonde teenager screamed at the four men on stage then fainted and fell towards the floor. Sam rolled his eyes and shook his head. “We’ve got a swooner! Come on kid, you want to help? Let’s go to work.”
Sam ran toward the girl and began to scoop her up off the floor. Zack ran after him to help control the small crowd that had formed around the girl. When he arrived at the commotion he turned over his shoulder and mouthed, “Go, I’ll catch up.” Then he waved us on.
I grabbed P’s hand and dragged him through the unguarded door to backstage. Luckily the area just behind the door was empty of people. We maneuvered around props and clothing hanging on mobile rods, around to the last secure door. This was the door with the blinking red light on the other side. Outside, the hallway should be empty, now that the show had started. It would be easy to get to the exit door to the alley now.
As we neared the door, I turned to look behind me. I saw a man at the edge of the stage
, just behind one of the gold draping curtains that had been pulled back to open the stage. He was moving his hands through the air frantically, in response to similar movements from a man on the other side of the stage. He turned to run to the wall near us that was full of small multicolored blinking lights and switches. The man suddenly threw his hands up in the air with an exasperated sigh and turned toward us. He caught sight of us as he ran towards the wall. He paused briefly and his mouth opened as if he was going to yell at us, but then rolled his eyes and shook his head as if to say “I don’t have time for this.” He then completed his jog to the wall of switches and busily began flipping switches and turning knobs.
I nudged P with my elbow. “Go, NOW!” I whispered harshly.
P pushed open the door and we both emerged into the hallway. Thank goodness it was empty. We retraced out steps from one hallway to another, careful not to be seen. We passed the open door that we had peered through before, and saw some of the groups still warming up. I saw the dancers stretching in the corner of the room. I felt sorry for them. They were so beautiful, but the crowd would not appreciate them now, after they had seen the Beatles.
As I was shaking my head in disappointment, I heard footsteps coming down one of the nearby corridors. I grabbed P and we ran. The footsteps got closer and we ran faster. We finally saw the large door to the alley ahead of us. I really hoped the book was where I thought it was, and that Zack would catch up to us soon. The two of us finally came to the door and simultaneously pushed on the horizontal bar at the center of the door. It flew open and we were standing on the platform overlooking the alleyway. To our surprise, the lane was no longer empty. It was filled with a large black limousine with its motor running. The driver glanced at us but didn’t budge.
P and I peered over the edge of the railing and scanned the area for the bag and book. “I don’t see it!” I fussed.
We began to walk down the stairs. At that moment we heard a click. The limo door opened and the driver stepped out. He was a thin older man with white hair that was combed over a balding spot at the center of his head.
He spoke with a faint British accent. “Hey kids! What are you doing? You’re not supposed to be out here. The band will be coming any minute!”
P gave me a very troubled look. I held his hand. “It will be okay sweetie.”
The driver approached us. I spoke up, “Umm… I …I’m sorry sir, but we are looking for some property that we left out here by accident.”
He raised his eyebrows in response, as if he didn’t believe us.e wH
P responded trying to hide the tears in his eyes, and choked through his reply, “Please sir, we have to find Emma’s bag or we’ll never get home! Please let us find it!”
The driver seemed to soften and smiled. “All right son, I’ll help you look.”
Just then, the theater door swung open. I breathed a sigh of relief as I was sure it was Zack catching up with us. But no. Four young men dressed in gray suits emerged from the portal, talking and laughing as they walked. They saw us as they were walking down the steps. They appeared calm and not as agitated as the driver was to find us out there.
The driver acknowledged them, then apologized for not being ready with the car. “I am sorry that I am not ready sirs. I stopped to help these kids find a bag they had lost. I think it has their car keys or house keys or something in it. They need it to get home. I’m sorry it won’t happen again.”
The young man at the center answered him with a little thicker British accent. “That’s all right Nigel. No worries. Can we help?” and he turned to P and me. “Hallo, I’m John.”
He held out his hand to shake mine and I returned the gesture. Then P shook his hand, too.
John continued, “This here is George.” He pointed to the thin man to his left who in turn nodded toward us. “This is Paul over here.”
Paul held out his hand to shake both of ours. “How do you do?”
John continued, “And this crazy man here is Ringo.”
The shortest of the four men stepped forward. “Hallo, what can we do to help?”
I stood in front of the men speechless, but P was more relaxed now that they had offered to help. “Well, you see, we have this bag, that um… has this book...er…” He paused and changed his story. “It has our mother’s car keys in it and we accidentally dropped it out here and we need it to get home!”
John replied, “Well chap, let’s start looking. We don’t want you to be stranded here.”
The seven of us began to search the entire alley. P and I started near the dumpsters at the back and the others searched closer to the door.
After a few minutes we heard, “Got it!” Ringo was standing on the side of the platform close to the brick wall of the theater holding the bag above his head. “It was lying here under a bunch of crumpled old newspapers and trash. Boy, it’s heavy. What else is in here?”
He reached done to hand me the bag and I took it from his hand. “Oh…nothing, just some odds and ends.” I tried to change to subject. “Thank you so much for your help. Now we’ll be able to get home.”
We heard four “your welcomes” in melodic unison. What more would you expect from a group of singers. Then from the driver, “Okay boys, we really have to go now!” The four men waved as they climbed into the limousine, and they were off.
P and I stood there in awe as the car drove off. I couldn’t believe we had just met the Beatles. Just then the door banged open. It was Zack. “Hurry, they’re coming after me. I hope you have the book. We have to leave now!”
He was out of breath but managed to run down the stairs to us. I yanked the book out of the bag and placed it on the cement in front of us.
“It’s got to be the right time.” Zack panted. “Oh, come on book!”
We watched in anxious silence. Seconds felt like minutes, and minutes felt like hours. Finally the word began to form on the front cover. “HARMONY”. Then the pages fluttered open to the center of the book.
Black dots began to form in rows across the page. One by one they filled the page. Splot….splot…splot. Slowly, thin black lines began to rise from the dots. Some lines ended in little narrow flags, and some of the flags connected to other lines. The page became filled with musical notes. Whole notes, quarter notes, eighth notes. Just as my brain figured out what I was seeing, the notes began to transform again, morphing into letters, then words. “Enjoy the harmony in the world around you. Let that perfect balance into your life and sing its song out loud for all to hear. The music will bring you closer to your goal.”
We waited for the misty circle to form, but the book lied still, open to the page covered with words. I jumped as I heard commotion behind the door. Men were yelling as they tried to open the door - but it wouldn’t budge. I looked at the floor of the platform. Zack had wedged a piece of wood that he found near the dumpsters against the door. This bought us a little more time.
Zack winked at me. “I was trying to think ahead. Now I’m thinking that the book wants us to sing!”
“No way.” I replied. “I’m pretty sure this book does not want to hear me sing.”
“Oh, but Emma,” P spoke up, “You have a pretty voice. I hear you in your room all the time singing with you headphones on. It sounds good and I can’t even hear the music.”
“Ugh!” I exclaimed embarrassed. “Well, if the book wants us to sing, what should we sing? A Beatles song?”
“Um, Em, I don’t know the words to any Beatles songs.” Chimed in P. “Sorry.”
“Well little man, what songs do you know?” said Zack encouragingly.
“I know Row, Row, Row Your Boat!” P smiled. “We sing it in music class all the time.”
The noise from behind the door was getting louder and the piece of wood was beginning to crack. “Okay,” I yelled. Row, Row, Row Your Boat it is!” and we all began to sing.
“Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dre
am……”
The air began to feel cold and a slight breeze started. The old wadded up newspapers began to swirl around in circles. Pieces of trash flew up into the air. A sudden gust of wind almost knocked me over and I grabbed onto Zack for support. The mist began to form in front of us, and we stopped singing in relief as we readied for the leap into the abyss. Then the mist disappeared just as quickly as it had formed.
We stood there stunned. This had never happened before.
P thought a second as he twisted his lips to the side.” I think we need to keep on singing.” And he began to wave his arms like a conductor.
We started again. “Row, row, row your boat…..”
The wind and mist swirled again and we finally saw the familiar circle in front of us. We kept singing at the top of our lungs as the opening grew bigger and bigger. “Merrily, merrily, merrily…” The hole enlarged to person size and it was time.
“Here we go!” yelled Zack.
He grabbed my hand, then P’s, and rejoined the singing as we jumped into the darkness. As we floated, I relived the Beatles moment in my mind, and, as we drifted farther, the picture in my mind began to transform into the four band members singing Row, Row, Row Your Boat.