mind-string toward where the Bad Thing used to be-and it was back. He
felt it right away, knew it was him, too, and he remembered the green
toad eating the beautiful yellow flutterby, and he pulled back into his
room faster than a toad tongue could snap out and catch him.
He didn’t know if he should be happy or scared that it was back. When
it was gone away, Thomas was happy, because maybe it was going to be
gone away a long time, but he didn’t know exactly where it was.
He was also a little scared because when it was gone away, he was ok.
But it was back.
He waited in the doorway a while.
Then he went to eat food. There was roast chicken. There was frenched
fries. There was carrots and peas. There was cold slaw. There was
Homemade bread, and people said there was going to be some chocolate
cake and ice cream for dessert though the people that said it was dumb
people, so he couldn’t be sure. It all looked good, and it smelled
good, it even tasted good. But Thomas kept thinking about how flutterby
might’ve tasted to the toad, and he couldn’t eat much of anything.
BOUNCING like two balls in tandem, they traveled to an empty lot in Las
Vegas, where a cool desert wind spun a tumbleweed past them and where
Frank said he had once lived in a house that was now demolished; moving
to that cabin at the top of a snowy mountain meadow, where they had
first teleported after leaving the office; to the graveyard in Santa
Barbara; to the top of an Aztec ziggurat in the lush Mexican jungles,
where the humid night air was full of buzzing mosquitoes and the cries
of unknown beasts, and where Bobby almost fell down the terraced side of
the pyramidal structure before he realized how high they were and how
precariously perched; to the offices of Dakota & Dakota They were
popping around so quickly, remaining in each place such a brief time-in
fact, briefer with each stop-that for a moment he stood in a corner of
his own office, blinking stupidly, before he realized where he was and
what he had to do. He tore his hand away from Frank, and he said,
“Stop it now, stop here.” But Frank vanished even as Bobby spoke.
Julie was all over him an instant later, hugging him so tightly that she
hurt his ribs. He hugged her, too, and kissed her a long time before
coming up for air. Her hair smelled clean, and her skin smelled sweeter
than he remembered. Her eyes were brighter than memory allowed, and
more beautiful.
Though by nature he was not much of a toucher, Clint put a hand on
Bobby’s shoulder.
“God, it’s good to see you, good to have you back.” There was even a
catch in his voice.
“Had us worried there for a while.” Lee Chen handed him a glass of
Scotch on the rocks.
“Don’t do that again, okay?”
“Don’t plan to,” Bobby said.
No longer the smooth and self-assured performer, Jackie Jaxx had had
enough for one night.
“Listen, Bobby, I’m sure that whatever you have to tell us is
fascinating, and you’re bound to come back with a lot of wonderful
anecdotes, wherever you went, but I for one don’t want to hear about
it.”
“wonderful anecdotes?” Bobby said.
Jackie shook his head.
“Don’t want to hear ”em. Sorry.
my fault, not yours. I like show biz ’cause it’s a narrow you know? A
thing little slice of the real world, but exciting ’cause it’s all
bright colors and loud music. You don’t have to think in show biz, you
can just be. I just want to be, you know Perform, hang out, have fun. I
got opinions, sure, colorful loud opinions about everything, showbiz
opinions, but I don’t know a damn thing, and I don’t want to know a damn
thing. I sure as hell don’t want to know about what happened here
tonight, ’cause it’s the kind of thing that turns your upside down,
makes you curious, makes you think, and pretty soon you’re no longer