Waves
Chapter 13 Trapped

My eyes bugged out of my head. I reached in and grabbed the red three ball and received that familiar energy exchange. It felt wonderful. I couldn’t believe it. How did this happen? I looked at her inquisitively and she looked back at me. But her expression was new. In some way she was not the same lady from the bus, no this Gwen looked intently at me, as if she knew everything.

I got it. Gwen was one of the good guys. She was looking out for me all along. Maybe she was Finnegan’s wife or something, or maybe his mother, I don’t know, but she pulled a fast one. It was the old magician’s switch-a-roo. No wonder that the three ball didn’t feel special, it wasn’t. I wanted to laugh, thinking how disappointed those bad guys would be soon. And I learned something about Gwen, and about life. Just because you’re old, that doesn’t mean you’re not significant. I live in a misguided notion that old people are only caretakers for nostalgia. I smiled at Gwen and was about to talk. She put her hand up.

“No time,” she said, “go now.”

I paused just for a second, then I took off. It was amazing how much better I felt. I’m sure I had the same pain as before but I didn’t care as much. And as far as the missing core sensation, that was gone. I was plugged in again. The ploncedite was me and I was it, and I felt firmly planted in reality. Off I went, down the street. Those men would replace out very soon, if they hadn’t already, that what they had was a fake. They couldn’t do anything with the ball they had but play pool.

I was given another chance. I also learned something else. I had wanted to say ‘look what I did’, perhaps it should have been ‘look what we did’.” I was certainly helped along the way, sometimes by people in the know and other times not. Nonetheless, I wouldn’t be here without them.

I ran for awhile, then slowed to a walk. My mind was swirling with thoughts of that unbelievable experience at my mock house. What was that all about? I felt so disconnected and broken without the my trusty three ball in my hand that perhaps what I experienced only played out in my mind. I suppose that was possible but I really didn’t think that was it. Yet it didn’t seem likely that I actually liquefied either. It seemed that there was some sort of forth dimension warfare going on, with me in the crossfire. Whatever it was, I just wanted to shake those events out of my head and move on.

I walked awhile more, eventually coming to a college or university to my right. There were buildings that looked like tall dorms. There were probably thousands of students, packed in like sardines. Some of my friends went away to college and posted pictures of their dorm rooms and their new friends. It’s weird, the environment sounded horrible to me yet I found myself jealous of them. So I looked at the dorm buildings for a minute or so, imagining what life would be like to live there. Then I moved on.

I feared I was veering a little too far away from the coast. It was hard to tell but since there was a street going left, I took it. Then another street, I found myself in an upscale residential neighborhood, this one even fancier than the one I walked through with Derek. The deeper I got, the more impressive the houses became. There were mature palm trees lining this quiet street. Beautiful homes with spanish tile roofs, all uniquely designed and perfectly manicured were widely spaced. There must be hundreds of gardeners taking care of these picture perfect lawns, fruit trees and shrubs.

I continued my northerly trek and as I did, these estates got even more impressive, as if that was possible. Eventually I couldn’t even see houses at all. All I saw were entry ways. The one right in front of me had a cobblestone driveway, leading up to two huge, ornate iron gates. It looked like there was a little guard hut to the left, just past the fence. On my side of the gates, on both sides of the driveway was landscaping right out of Jurassic Park. It was layered, starting with perfectly bloomed exotic flowers in the front, lining the cobblestones, behind that were slightly taller shrubs, then fruit trees then finally palm trees. Who lives here, the president? The driveway landscaping alone was probably worth more than my house back home. As a matter of fact, it’s probably worth more than my entire neighborhood back home. I’m sure there was a house back there somewhere, obscured by the trees, but I couldn’t see it. It was absolutely unbelievable, I just stared for a spell then moved on. I passed another estate, then another, all hidden by trees, fences and gates. At one point, on my left, looking between two estates, through the web of trees, I caught a glimpse of what I had been yearning to see - hang gliders. There they were, I was close!

I walked some more, realizing that I was just about to my destination. Then up ahead a car pulled up and parked. Three men got out. Oh no, it was the three men from the bus. I quickly jumped behind a tree, next to one of the estates. I don’t think they saw me, but I was quite certain they were looking for me. I wonder how they fingered me for this street. They split up and started scouring this area. One came my way. I heard him on his phone, he was talking about me, I could tell. He came closer and closer. I stood as still as I could behind the tree trunk. It’s hard to really know what it looked like from the other side. Was my elbow sticking out? I tried to be as skinny as possible, but who knows? It’s funny, all those years I was self-conscience about my stick-like physique, now I was thrilled to have it.

Then he stopped, about five feet from me, just on the other side of my tree shield. He talked more about me. Apparently they really thought that I was near, he just didn’t know how near. After a minute, which seemed like an hour, he kept going. I was glad he moved on but I was trapped now. There were goons on both ends of this street. Then I heard another car pull up, I think there were more now. I couldn’t just stand here against this tree. I had to get out of here, somewhere, anywhere.

Next to the tree were shrubs, shorter than me, so I got down on all fours and crawled forward, staying between the shrubs and the iron fence. There were plants and trees on the other side of the fence too, so I couldn’t see the estate. They must be rich, important people to have such a barrier. I heard the men scouring the neighborhood as I crawled from shrub to shrub next to the fence. I didn’t know where I was going other than away from here.

I came to a driveway, which I needed to traverse to get to the next set of plants and trees to hide behind. I peered out, it looked safe. I darted across the driveway, past the locked iron gates and dove behind another green shield. There wasn’t much room to move. I kept getting poked and stuck by branches but I kept crawling. Just then, one of the goons walked on the sidewalk, just a couple of feet from me, right past my shrub. I was silent. He kept walking. It reminded me of being in the dark shack, hidden yet mere feet from my pursuers. After he passed and created some distance from me, I crawled some more. I came to another driveway and another set of iron gates, but guess what, these gates were slightly ajar. I couldn’t believe it, there was a little gap between the gates. Again I waited for safety then zipped onto the driveway, between the gates and into the front yard of this incredible compound.

I quickly walked away from the gates, to not be seen, then I allowed myself a few seconds to look around. Wow, what a place. It was hard to believe that this is someone’s home. I could see the house, off in the distance. In front of me was a long driveway, carving through a landscaped paradise of greenery, fountains and quaint paths. I didn’t want to go to the house, per se, but I walked toward it thinking that perhaps there was a shortcut to thegliderport. I wasn’t sure how far or close I was but at least I was on the ocean side of the street.

I continued my walk, eventually the driveway broke into two pieces, forming a circle right in front of the house. In the middle of the circle was another fountain, more ornate than any of the others. I wandered about, trying to create a strategy when I saw a woman standing on the front porch, motioning to me. At first I thought that she saw me as an intruder, which I was, and her motions were designed to shew me off. I was hoping to explain to her the danger I was in, but then I looked closer, she was motioning me to come toward her. Then she walked toward me, still motioning but making no sounds.

So I moved closer to her and she to me. We met, just past the fountain. She spoke to me in hurried whispers.

“Come quickly, inside, it’s the only safe place,” she said while turning back toward her house.

It looked like someone else was looking out for me, first Gwen then this nice woman. I followed her to her house then inside. She closed the door behind us. It was a wonderful gesture but if these guys were as powerful and thorough as I think they were, they would be knocking on doors soon. Perhaps there was a place to hide inside this titanic house. So I walked through the entry room, past a grand piano and into a huge living room. There sitting on the couch, much to my horror, was the green hat man. She tricked me.

My heart exploded out of my chest in fright. He gave me a half smile half glare as if he had had enough of my unpredictable escapes and was very satisfied that he was about to win. I tried to run the other way but the front door opened, bringing in a small army of villains. I ran through the house, none of these men seemed in a great hurry to catch me. They probably knew that I was trapped. That didn’t stop me from trying though. I ran past thousand dollar vases and original oil paintings. I burst through French doors into the back yard.

I couldn’t run left because of the swimming pool and waterfall. I also saw a gazebo, terraces, decks, barbecues, this was quite a place. I ran right, thinking I could go around the house, but here came a few of his men so I went the other way but was cut off by more of these killers. Then some more, including the kingpin, my arch nemesis with that irritating green hat came through the back door. They were on all sides of me. I ran to the edge of the back yard. I didn’t notice this a moment ago but there was the ocean, in all it’s glory. This must be one of those houses that I saw up on the cliff when I was running to the spaceship house hours earlier, because that’s where I was, on the edge of the cliff.

These evil men were slowly moving in on me from all sides.

“I’ll throw it off the edge if you don’t get back! I will!” I yelled.

They just smiled and kept walking toward me. I looked over the side of the cliff and discovered why that wasn’t much of a threat. There were more of them way down below on the sand. They would love for me to throw it down to them.

I thought of the wolf and those punks that Derek was freed from. Maybe I could try something similar here. So I reached to my right and touched the ball to a palm tree. Absolutely nothing happened. So I waved the ball around - still nothing. I wish I knew how this thing worked. The men started laughing at my ridiculous antics. Their laughing actually slowed them a little. I must have looked really stupid to them, trapped on the edge of a cliff, waiving this ball around like I was conducting an orchestra. They laughed some more but moved in closer. I had no strategy, no escape plan. They were just about at me. I had nothing left.

Just then a hang glider swooped down across the back yard and right at me. I reached up with my left hand, grabbed an ankle and off we went, over the cliff and up into the sky, higher and higher. I glanced down and rather enjoyed the furious looks, then it struck me - I was flying! I was really flying. It was the most unbelievable feeling I ever had. I was up here where birds fly, floating on air. I hung on tight to that slender ankle of my rescuer. I wonder who she was.

It’s amazing how quickly my mind can switch gears. I suddenly wasn’t even thinking about those villains anymore, I was flying through the sky. It was glorious. She steered her glider parallel with the cliff, toward the gliderport. I glanced right as I dangled with one arm and saw buildings, streets and cars. They looked so cute from up here. To my left was the Pacific Ocean, as far as my eye could see. And way down below was sand, with a speckling of beach goers. My mind drifted back a few hours to when I watched these gliders land and take off. Maybe I had watched this very one. I thought of how I yearned to be up here flying and here I was. Then, to make this flight even more magical, two seagulls flew by. I was in the sky, flying with birds. Did you ever have dreams about flying? I have. Oh not too often but occasionally. And here I was, high over the beach, the cool ocean breeze blowing over me, gently gliding up and down, walking on air.

Unfortunately, as much as I loved this flight, my left hand started to cramp. I was holding on as tightly as I could but that’s a lot to ask of one measly wrist. Even though my right hand was busy carrying the three ball, I thought that perhaps I could extend a finger or two to grab onto her other ankle. But as luck would have it, my left hand was holding her right ankle. There was nothing I could do but just hang on. Then the cramping got worse, I feared that soon I would lose my grip. I squeezed and squeezed but my grip was weakening.

I could see the gliderport runway in the distance but I didn’t think I was going to make it. My cramp was rendering my hand almost unusable. Did I come this far only to fall to me death? Is that my plight? I started thinking about my parents and how much they loved me and how much I loved them. I thought about my sister and all the hijinks that we pulled growing up. Those were some really fun times. And I thought about Derek, the wolf was gone, his future was bright. At least I helped in accomplishing that, even if my given task would be left undone.

We were closer to our target but in some way farther than ever because I think I only had a second or two left to hang on. My rescuer may have sensed the same thing as she changed directions toward the land. Even though we weren’t at the runway yet, she made her way toward the dirt parking lot. She got lower and closer to the cliff edge. Would we make it? My hand was now cramped solid. I started to slip. She lowered her air machine and got just past the cliff edge when I lost my grip.

I was probably ten feet from the ground as I fell awkwardly backwards and sideways onto the hard dirt. I landed in stages, first my foot then my butt then my back. Wham bam kerplunk, my ankle was twisted and the air knocked out of me, but I was alive. I had made it.

As I laid there on the ground, I realized something amazing and shocking. I realized that as I was falling backwards, I had looked up at the face my rescuer as she looked down and smiled. It was Hannah.