Free Lost in Cyberspace by Richard Peck Page A

on that wall. Two vases of flowers were up on the mantel. I went for one and could just reach it. I dumped the flowers and ran over to the window. The curtains were gone, but the flames had jumped to the bookcase. When the fire hit shellac, it went wild and spread over the books. I let fly with a vase full of water. Aaron came up with another. We were both breathing hard. I wasn’t sure the bookcase was doused, but we were out of vases. Flowers were everywhere.
    â€œWho do you think you are?” came Cuthbert’s voice behind us.
    â€œUntie me at once!” Lysander howled in a higher voice. But he was all tied up and too busy screaming to notice us.
    Aaron and I stood there panting. Then we heard foot-steps running down a hall that isn’t there now. A big double door began to open. We whirled around, but I was having shooting pains all over like you can’t believe. I reached out for Aaron, and his shoulder felt like a Baggie full of bees. We heard buzzing and a voice, but I blacked out for a moment. Hard fluorescent light hit us.
    â€œWhat in the world!” Mrs. Newbery was standing there with her hands on her hips. “I didn’t see you two at first. Have you been in this room all along?”
    â€œYep,” Aaron said, lightning-quick.
    â€œWell, cut along home,” Mrs. Newbery said, “and let me lock up. And shut down the computers.”
    I was ready to pull their plugs permanently.
    We filed out. My head felt like a melon. You can get jet lag from this kind of behavior. We were walking out over the crummy tile floors of the Vanderwhitney part of school. Outside, raw winter weather hit us. There was some snow in the air, and the last buses had gone. We turned toward Fifth Avenue, trudging, silent.
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    â€œAnyway, now we know who extinguished the blaze before the hook and ladder company got there,” Aaron said.
    â€œUs,” I said, totally psyched.
    â€œHow you got to go along, Josh, I can’t figure at all,” he said. “You were standing too close or something.”
    â€œAaron, please,” I said. “I’ve got a headache the size of Lincoln Center.”
    â€œNo pain, no gain,” he said. “Josh, we both did it. We cellular-reorganized back like seventy-five years. We’re not talking information superhighway here. We’re talking a toll-free ten-lane expressway. And we’re on it—in both directions. Talk about interactive.”
    I let him rattle on. What choice did I have? He tried to walk out into traffic at the Eighty-sixth Street intersection. Part of me was still back in the Vanderwhitneys’ library all those thousands and thousands of afternoons ago. I thought I could smell smoke in my dress code, under the Bulls warm-up jacket.
    â€œKids.” Aaron shook his head. “If that was Cuthbert’s idea of playing, thank heaven for Wolfenstein and Sim City 2000. When you get right down to it, there’s nothing safer and more user-friendly than a video game.”
    But I couldn’t get my mind away from where we’d been. “If we hadn’t put out that fire, the room would have gone up like a torch. Curtains, rugs, polish on everything—that room was totally ...”
    â€œCombustible,” Aaron said.
    The whole idea that we saved Cuthbert and Lysander Vanderwhitney’s lives, especially Lysander’s, all those years before we were even born was still a hard concept for me. Now Aaron was quiet.
    â€œThere’s more to this process than I thought,” he said after a while.
    â€œMeaning?”
    â€œWell, I’ve made three trips, right? The first time I saw Heather practically wiped out on a horse in traffic. The second time, when I went backward, I saw that girl and that guy doing all that worried kissing. They were like really furtive. This time it was a kid trying to barbecue his brother. Think about it.”
    â€œLike they’re all