Free The Hero of Varay by Rick Shelley Page A

the time I still had to check to make sure that people weren’t staring at me because my fly was open. A path opened in the crowd. People backed off to make room for us.
    And I got my first glimpse of Aaron.
    He was eating, but someone tapped him on the shoulder, then pointed when he looked up. Aaron looked our way, then stood up.
    Aaron was black, extremely dark-skinned. I had known only one black guy that dark before, and he used to brag about it. “Ain’t no honky skeletons in my family closet.” He never sounded convincing when he tried to talk like that. An honors student at Northwestern, from a well-to-do family. Barry had never had much contact with what one of our English professors called Standard Black American English.
    Aaron was thin, with close-cropped hair, dressed in blue jeans, print shirt, and Adidas sneakers. All of his clothing looked new. The jeans were rolled up into exaggerated cuffs.
    Parthet moved a little ahead of Joy and me.
    “Aaron, this is Gil Tyner,” Parthet said.
    Aaron looked up at me without blinking. “You the Man?” he asked. Aaron didn’t sound comfortable talking like that either.
    I smiled. “I studied computer science at Northwestern University, Aaron,” I said. “And this is Joy Bennett. She just graduated from Northwestern.”
    “I know where that is,” Aaron said. “I’m from Joliet.”
    “How old are you, Aaron?” I asked.
    “Eight, almost nine.”
    “What’s your full name?”
    “Aaron Wesley Carpenter. I’m supposed to start fourth grade this year.”
    It was easy to see that Aaron was scared, but he was trying to hide it. At least he didn’t seem to be as panic-stricken as Joy had been. Maybe being a kid has some real advantages.
    “You get enough to eat?” I asked.
    “I never get enough to eat,” Aaron said, very earnestly. It got a laugh. Apparently, his appetite had drawn comment back home.
    “Well, why don’t you sit back down and keep eating. We can talk while you eat, if you don’t mind.”
    “You gonna tell me how to get home? My gramma’s gonna be worried.”
    Aaron and I sat down. Joy stood right behind me, her hands on my back—although she almost got tangled up in my swords first. Aaron looked at the sword hilts sticking up over my shoulders.
    “Are those real?” he asked, pointing with a chunk of bread.
    “The swords?” I asked. He nodded, then I did. “They’re real.”
    Aaron looked around at all the people who were still staring at him. Now that he was at least a little less hungry than before, the crowd was beginning to bother him. I could understand that. I’m not at all that fond of crowds myself.
    “Uncle, can you …” I gestured around. Parthet caught my meaning and, with Baron Kardeen’s help, shooed off most of the gawkers.
    “You want to tell me what happened to you, Aaron?” I asked after we had some clear space around us. Joy sat at my other side after the guards who had been there slid down the bench with their mugs of beer.
    “Don’t know what happened,” Aaron said.
    “Just tell me what you remember.”
    “He-Man was on TV. Gramma lets me watch that.”
    “Don’t your parents let you watch it?”
    He shrugged. “They both work.”
    “Okay, go on, Aaron,” I urged. “What happened? You were watching He-Man.”
    “News came on, right in the middle. The man said a ship got blowed up. Gramma screamed and started crying. I got scared and something went poof , and I wasn’t there no more.”
    “Why did your grandmother scream?” I asked, even though I could make a decent guess at the answer without much trouble.
    “Mom and Dad went on the boat.” He stopped eating then and started crying. Tears ran down his face. He didn’t sob or make any noise. The tears just flowed.
    “He appeared in the town,” Parthet said softly, behind Joy and me. “I mean that just the way it sounds. He just popped up suddenly, out in front of the Bald Rock. There were several witnesses. The boy was scared and the