For readers tuning in late, this novella is about three adult travel companions who, after a life-threatening experience, transform into eight year-olds—and commence a surreal odyssey of discovery and healing.
So we taxied to Pier 51 and hopped the nine o’clock ferry to Bainbridge.
Just before boarding, Mularski finally saw what he wanted to eat more than anything in the whole world: An Italian hoagie from Subway: capricola, salami, provolone, lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles, hot peppers, sweet peppers, mustard, salt and pepper, oil and vinegar.
The other passengers were mostly commuters who preferred a bucolic island lifestyle to the hustle-and-bustle of a city; the middle-aged married-with-kids who didn’t mind a 20-minute commute across Puget Sound for better schools and no crazies.
After he finished his feast sitting with us at a table on the main deck, Mularski burped loudly and glanced around mischievously. “This is the perfect setting for a game of Ditch. I’ll close my eyes and count to 50. You two run off. I have to tag you. As soon as you’re tagged, you’re on my side to catch the other.”
It actually sounded like fun.
So Mularski closed his eyes and Nebraska and I took off, together at first, up a flight of stairs to the open air before separating.
I positioned myself at the front of the boat, fighting a ferocious wind but able to watch both port and starboard.
A couple minutes later when Mularski came up one side, I bolted down the other, back downstairs, and the chase was on.
I tore into the snack concession and tried to hide behind a rack of chips.
Mularski pretended not to see me, eased in a roundabout way toward me, and I tore out, leaving Mularski in hot pursuit.
Surprising myself, I leaped up another flight of stairs, four at a time, and left Mularski in the dust. I’d always been good at Ditch. A belly full of muck slowed him down.
He must have switched to an easier target and caught Nebraska, because next thing I knew I had both on them on me.
That’s when officialdom cut in. “Whoa! Whoa!” called a man wearing a uniform.
We stopped in our tracks.
“You’re running around like school children!” he admonished.
We responded with convulsed laughter.
“What wrong with that?” cracked Mularski.
This, and our childish giggles, stumped him. “Why, it is highly irregular.”
Said Nebraska, “Isn’t that the definition of constipation.”
A new round of laughs.
The official shook his head, smiling. “Well, be careful—someone could get hurt.”
The boat braked, slowed and turned into an inlet that was Bainbridge.
We gleefully got off and walked to Winslow Way—the shops all closed at this hour—and back to the ferry for its 9:45 return voyage.
On the return voyage to Seattle we were more subdued, listening to a young male troubadour with guitar, mesmerizing us with a magical rendition of Stairway to Heaven.
It stirred something in my soul and I got up, dropped a 20-dollar bill in his guitar case.
His eyes bugged when he saw it. “Thank you,” he mouthed.
“No, thank you,” I said.
When I returned, Nebraska had paled, as if she’d seen a ghost.
“Something wrong?” I asked.
She nodded, looking like she was holding back an urge to cry.
“That song means something to you too?”
“I guess.”
“So, you going to tell me or what?”
“That song made me remember something.”
“What?”
“When I was a little girl I went to Sunday School. I was never much interested in the Bible, but there are a few passages I remember, because I liked the teacher.”
“Okay.”
“And I suddenly remembered a passage in the Bible that my teacher read us to conclude every class.”
“Go on.”
“It comes from Matthew, and it’s Jesus talking. ‘Truly I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.’”
“Say that again.”
Nebraska started to repeat it, but paused halfway through, her chin aquiver. “Did we die?”
Nebraska was still disconsolate when we arrived at our connecting rooms in the Edgewater, built on stilts over the water.
Mularski went into his room and accessed computer games on the TV set.
I waited for Nebraska to finish in the bathroom before taking my turn to brush teeth and get ready for bed. And I suddenly realized that I’d bitten all my fingernails—just like the old days.
Nebraska lay curled in her bed when I climbed into mine. It had been a long day—and I was finally tired.
“Are you awake?” Nebraska murmured a couple minutes after I’d settled in.
“Yes.”
“I’m scared.”
“Don’t be. We had fun today, didn’t we?’
“Yes.” Nebraska paused. “But what if…?”
“Shhh. We’ll probably find everything is back to normal when we wake up.”
“You really believe that?”
I thought about it a moment. “I don’t know.”
“What if we never wake up?”
Such a thought had not occurred to me. “Thanks for that.”
A few seconds later, Nebraska asked, “Can I sleep next to you?”
I considered this a moment. “I s’pose.”
She climbed out of her bed and got undercover with me. “I used to have a stuffed owl when I was eight. It was my version of a teddy bear and I held it close when I went to sleep at night. I miss it.”
“I’ll be your owl,” I said. I put my arm around Nebraska, and held her trembling body close to mine. “Nighty-night.”
“Don’t let the bed bugs bite.”