Mark and Courtney took seats next to each other at the table. D'Angelo stood by the door. Hirsch sat down and looked at the kids. The kids looked back at Hirsch. Hirsch nervously pulled at his eyebrow. It seemed as if he didn't know where to begin, so Courtney being Courtney, decided to kick things off herself.

"So how come you suddenly believe us about the Pendragons?" she asked Hirsch.

"Mr. and Mrs. Pendragon are good friends of mine," he said.

"My son Jimmy plays basketball with Bobby."

"Jimmy Hirsch!" shouted Mark. "I know him. Strong forward."

Captain Hirsch nodded. This was good. Now they had an adult on their side. And he was a cop. A captain, no less. Now things were going to start happening.

"When was the last time you saw Bobby?" he asked them.

Mark knew the answer, but it was up to Courtney to give it.

"Last night at his house," she answered. "About an hour before the game."

"Did he say anything that would make you think he was going away?" came the next question.

Courtney and Mark looked at each other. They knew exactly where Bobby had gone. If the story on the parchment were true, then they knew how Uncle Press had taken him on the back of his motorcycle and left for a place on the far side of the universe called Denduron. But neither of them were sure if the outlandish story was really true, and they didn't want to sound totally insane. Besides, the pages didn't explain what had happened to the Pendragons' house. Mark and Courtney had decided before going to the police that they'd stick to the facts that could be proved. And it was pretty easy to prove that the house was gone. So without discussing it again, they both decided to stick with the original plan.

"I was talking to Bobby at his house," answered Courtney. "His uncle Press came in and I left. That's the last I saw him."

Captain Hirsch looked down at a piece of paper where he had written some notes.

"Right. Uncle Press," he said out loud, though it seemed like he was thinking it more than saying it. Hirsch looked like he wanted to say something, but wasn't sure if it was a good idea or not. He looked to Sergeant D'Angelo for guidance.

"I think you should tell them, Captain," said the sergeant.

"T-Tell us what?" asked Mark.

Obviously these policemen had some disturbing information. Captain Hirsch stood up and paced nervously.

"After you spoke with Sergeant D'Angelo, he told me about your visit," began Hirsch. "Frankly, he didn't believe you because he couldn't find any information on the Pendragons."

"But you know them," interjected Courtney.

"Yes, I know them," said Hirsch. "I've been to their house many times."

"And the house is gone!" added Mark.

Hirsch didn't continue right away. He looked at the two kids, then to Sergeant D'Angelo. Finally he said, "Yeah. The house is gone. This may be a small police department in a small town, but we have access to pretty much any piece of information that's part of the public record," he said. "After you came in here, we did a computer search for the Pendragons...and found nothing."

"What do you mean 'nothing'?" asked Courtney. "No police record?"

"No, I mean absolutely nothing," said Hirsch. A hint of frustration was creeping into his voice. "No birth certificates, no driver's licenses, no social security numbers, no bank accounts, no deeds, no electric bills, no school records, no credit cards, no nothing! The Pendragons didn't just disappear-it's like they never even existed!"

Hirsch paced faster. He was getting upset because what he was saying didn't make sense, yet it was true.

Finally Mark said, "B-But they do exist, don't they? I mean, we know them."

"I know!" snapped Hirsch. "I've had dinner at their house. I've driven Bobby to Boy Scouts. Here's another one for you: We scanned back copies of the newspaper where Mr. Pendragon works and couldn't find a single article he had written. But I remember reading them. I've discussed some of those articles with him."

This was getting stranger by the second. Disappearing is one thing. But having someone's whole history vanish seemed downright impossible.

"W-What about Uncle Press?" asked Mark nervously.

"Again, nothing," answered Hirsch. "There is nothing we can find to prove that any of these people ever existed...."

"Except in our memories," added Courtney.

That was a chilling thought. If what the captain said were true, the only thing left of Bobby and his family were the memories they all held...and the parchment papers in Mark's bag. Captain Hirsch sat back down at the table and looked to the kids with pleading eyes. This had turned his orderly policeman's mind inside out.

"Kids," he said with a touch of desperation. "Help me out here. If there is anything you can add, anything that might help us figure out what happened to the Pendragons, please tell us."

Mark and Courtney had plenty to add. It was all sitting in Mark's backpack on the table in front of them. All they had to do was slide it over to Captain Hirsch. He would read the pages and take over. That's what adults did. They took over and fixed things. It wasn't Courtney's call-the letters were to Mark. If they were going to tell the police about the pages, it would have to be Mark's decision.

Courtney saw that he was staring at the pack. She knew exactly what was going through his mind. He was debating whether or not to give over the pages. He then looked to her and they made eye contact. Courtney wished that she had some way of helping him make the decision, but she honestly didn't know the right thing to do. So she gave him a slight, helpless shrug that said, "You're on your own."

"Well?" asked Hirsch. "Can you guys think of anything else?"

Mark took a deep breath, turned to Hirsch and said, "No. We're just as confused as you are."

Decision made. Courtney picked up on Mark's lead and added, "Yeah. We're pretty freaked out."

Hirsch took a deep, tired sigh and stood up saying, "Okay, we're going to start an investigation. Tell your parents, tell your friends, tell anybody who'll listen. If they hear anything about the Pendragons, have them call me. Okay?"

Courtney and Mark nodded. Hirsch then gave each of them a business card with his phone number on it. Mark grabbed his pack and they headed out.

Once they were out of the building, they walked silently for a long while. The police station was right near Stony Brook Avenue, which was the main business street in town. Most of the shops and restaurants were there. Since there was no mall in Stony Brook, the "Ave" as they called it was where everybody hung out. But Courtney and Mark weren't interested in any of the temptations that the Ave held that day. They walked by the CD Silo without even a glance into the window; they weren't tempted by the smell of the best french fries in the world coming from Garden Poultry Deli; they had no interest in ice cream from The Scoop; and they didn't even think of going to the library. The front steps of the library was where everyone stopped first on a trip to the Ave because you were sure to find someone you knew there.

But not today. Not for Courtney and Mark. Somehow these familiar haunts didn't seem so familiar anymore. Everything looked the same, but the last few hours had opened their eyes to the possibility that the world didn't work exactly the way they thought it did. Between Bobby's adventure and the strange disappearance of the Pendragons, everything they'd ever believed was thrown into question. With thoughts like this running through their heads, somehow grabbing a box of fries at Garden Poultry Deli didn't seem all that appetizing. So the two walked past the usual places where their friends hung out and went into a small, quiet pocket park that was sandwiched between two buildings. They sat down on a park bench and stared at the ground.

Finally Mark looked to Courtney and asked softly, "Should I have told them about Bobby's letter?"

"I don't know," was Courtney's reply. "I don't know what to think anymore."

Mark tried to put his feelings into words. "I have a feeling," he began, "that there's an important reason Bobby is sending me his story."

"Why? We haven't even read what he wants yet," said Courtney.

"Yeah, I know. But I think it's more than that. I've got a feeling that something big is going on and Bobby's only one part of it. There's some serious stuff going on here. I mean like, cosmic stuff. Am I being weird?"

"Weird?" chuckled Courtney. "How could anything sound weird now?"

"Exactly! The idea of Travelers who understand languages, and territories, and flumes that send you across space and time...that stuff changes everything we know about how things work."

This made Courtney fall silent. Mark was right. Up until now she was only thinking about Bobby and the Pendragons. But the implications of what they were reading were totally huge. Too huge to comprehend.

Mark continued, "As we were sitting with the police, I thought about what might happen if I gave them Bobby's story. I came up with two possibilities. One was that they'd announce it to the world, there'd be a huge furor and we'd be smack in the center of it. Remember, I might still get more pages. I don't think Bobby would want that kind of uproar, especially if he wants me to help him. If he did, he would have started right off by telling me to take his story to the newspapers."

"What's the other possibility?" asked Courtney.

"The exact opposite might happen. The stuff Bobby wrote about might be so disturbing to the world that they'd bury the whole thing and pretend it never happened...kind of like the aliens from Roswell, or the Kennedy assassination. People don't like to hear that their nice, orderly world isn't what they thought it was. I wouldn't blame them; I'm not so thrilled about it myself."

"There's a third possibility," added Courtney. "People may think we're responsible. Everyone always wants easy answers and the easiest answer is that we made the whole thing up. It would be easier for people to think it's all a hoax than to believe there are people who jump through wormholes and travel through the universe."

It was hard to believe that only a few hours ago their biggest concern was that Bobby Pendragon had missed a basketball game.

Courtney looked to Mark and asked, "What do you think we should do?"

Before he could answer, someone reached in from behind, grabbed his backpack and yanked it out of his hands! Courtney and Mark looked up in surprise.

"What'cha got, Dimond? More magazines?" It was Andy Mitchell, the kid who caught Mark in the boys' room reading Bobby's first journal. He fumbled with the clasps on Mark's pack, trying to open it.

Mark jumped to his feet, shouting, "M-Mitchell. G-give it back!"

Mark lunged at him, but Mitchell danced away.

"Aw, c'mon," laughed Mitchell. "Don't you want to share?"

He held the pack out toward Mark. Mark swiped at it, but Mitchell pulled it away and laughed.

"How bad you want it back?" Mitchell taunted. "Bad enough to swim with the rats for it?" He backed toward a storm drain in the curb. It was plenty big enough for the pack to fit through.

"Don't!" Mark shouted desperately.

Mitchell dangled the pack over the drain. "What'll you give me for it?"

"What do you want?" asked Mark nervously.

Mitchell thought for a moment, then spotted something on Mark's hand. "I'll trade the pack...for that big old ring"

Mark couldn't give up the ring, no way. But he didn't want to lose the pages, either. He hadn't read what Bobby wanted him to do yet.

"Think fast, Dimond," snickered Mitchell as he dangled the pack over the storm drain. "The pack or the ring...pack or the ring."

Mark didn't know what to do. Suddenly, a steely-strong hand clamped down on Mitchell's wrist. He looked up and came face to face with Courtney. She had been calmly watching the scene from the bench. She might not have known how to deal with the mysterious disappearance of Bobby and the Pendragons, or the fact that the world had just turned upside down, but the one thing she knew how to handle was a bully like Andy Mitchell. She squeezed his wrist and stuck her nose in his face.

"Drop that in the sewer," she said through clenched teeth, "and you're going in after it...headfirst."

They stood that way for a long moment. Finally, after what seemed like a lifetime, Mitchell smiled.

"Jeez. I was just kidding around," he said.

Courtney reached over with her other hand and grabbed the pack. Once she had it, she let Mitchell go. He pulled away quickly, while rubbing his wrist to get the circulation flowing again.

"It was just a goof," he said, trying to save face. "Where'd you get that butt-ugly ring anyway?"

Mark and Courtney stared at the guy until he felt so uncomfortable that the only thing he could do was leave.

"Jeez, lighten up," he said as he turned and jogged away. Courtney tossed the pack to Mark.

"Thanks," said Mark with a bit of embarrassment. Now that the crisis was over, he knew he hadn't handled it well.

"I hate that weenie," she said.

"We've got to go somewhere and finish reading this," Mark said seriously. "I'm nervous about having these out in public. Let's go back to my house."

"Uh-uh," Courtney said uncomfortably. "No offense, but your room is like...rank."

Mark looked down, embarrassed.

"Hey, don't sweat it," she said with a smile. "All guys' rooms are rank. It's just the way it is. Let's go to my house."

It was a short walk to Courtney's house, and neither of them said much along the way. Both had their minds on the pages. There were a lot of questions to be answered, but one stood out above all others: What was the dangerous favor that Bobby wanted Mark to do for him? Courtney was dying to know. So was Mark, but he wasn't all that sure he liked the idea of having to do something dangerous, no matter how important it was. Up until now, Mark's idea of doing something dangerous was to ring somebody's doorbell on Mischief Night and run away. Given what Bobby was going through, the stakes here were a wee bit higher than that.

They arrived at Courtney's house, which was very much like Mark's. They both lived in a quiet, suburban neighborhood. But rather than go to Courtney's room, Courtney took Mark down to the basement where her father had a workshop. Mark had a fleeting moment of disappointment that he wouldn't get to see the inner sanctum of the glorious Courtney Chetwynde, but there were larger problems to deal with.

The two sat down on an old, dusty couch and Mark opened his pack. He laid the precious pages out on a coffee table in front of them. The two hesitated a moment. As much as they were dying with curiosity about what happened next to Bobby, they were also a little bit frightened about what the pages contained and what new and disturbing wonders they would reveal. They each took a breath.

Then Courtney looked to Mark and said, "You ready?"

"Yeah."

They looked down at the pages and picked up where they had left off.

I was going to get myself out of here and kiss this place good-bye-with or without Uncle Press.

Journal #2.

(continued).

Denduron.

My plan was to climb back to the top of the mountain, get past those cannibal quig beasts, find the gate that leads to the flume, and get the hell out of here. Simple, right? Yeah, sure. I'm not even sure I couldfind that stupid cave again, let alone survive the climb through the snow and the quigs. Still, my mind was made up. It was better than staying here.

But it wasn't going to happen today. The suns were going down and it was getting dark. Yeah, that's right. Suns. Plural. Remember I told you there were three suns? Well, they all set at the same time, but in opposite parts of the sky. North, south and east...or whatever they use for directions around here. I figured I had to spend the night and sneak away once it got light. Besides, I was hungry. I hadn't eaten anything since I had a banana and some raspberry Pop-Tarts before the basketball game I never made it to.

Loor brought me to a hut that was like the one I woke up in, only smaller. In one corner was a pile of furry animal skins.

Loor pointed to them and gave me a simple command. "Sit."

I did. It was smelly, but comfortable. There was a small stone fireplace where Loor quickly and expertly made a fire that gave us light and took the chill off. Osa arrived soon after with a cloth sack that I quickly found out was full of food. Yes! We all sat around the fire and shared loaves of crunchy bread; some weird fruit that looked like an orange but you ate like an apple; and some soft nutlike things that tasted like licorice. Maybe it was because I was so hungry, but this odd meal was delicious. I would have preferred some fries from Garden Poultry Deli on the Ave, but this did just fine. While we ate, Osa gave me some strange instructions.