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Page 59.

9. Station

A tightly folded newspaper twirled through a blue sky, passing between the crowns of two huge leafy elm trees.

The newspaper flew high in an expert arc and landed with a thwack against the slightly loose wood-framed screen door of Alex Kirk’s house. The newspaper girl rode past on her bicycle getting the next paper ready for the next house on the block. It was midmorning on a summer day, the kind of quiet midmorning unique to small towns in Middle America. Alex’s father had already driven to work in the office at the computer firm, and Alex’s mother and younger sister were at the dentist getting the girl’s braces adjusted. Alex’s older brother and sister were at Peasman Grammar School, and Alex, aged 8, was alone with Mrs. Butterman the babysitter. Also at the house was Maryan Shurey, whose parents both worked at the shoe manufacturing plant. Mrs. Butterman was the heavyset wife of Butterman, the mailman. The Kirks whispered at the dinner table that the Buttermans had debts owing to a son’s troubles, whatever those might be, but that the boy was doing better now in Rehab, whatever that was, and Mrs. Butterman welcomed the opportunity to make a little extra cash by watching children and doing light housework. At the moment, Mrs. Butterman was on her way down into the basement, poofing with sweat-rimed lips while the hair came loose from the dusty auburn bun atop her head. “You children mind now!” she said in a high flute-like voice, which meant she would be out of sight for a short while.

“Come on!” Alex said, taking 7 year old Maryan by the hand.

“I’m watching Popeye and Olive Oyl,” Maryan protested, offering her hand as he asked, while pouting and wriggling and using her other hand to scratch her underwear.

“This is our chance to escape!” Alex said, pulling away. “We can run from her clutches and be in Dodge City by nightfall. We’ll come back with a posse and rescue our parents. Are you in?”

“Okay,” Maryan said and ran after him. He was already out the door. The dark green screen door slammed softly as they bounded down the front steps onto the concrete walk that led down to the street.

“This way!” Alex said, grabbing the handle of his red wagon. Maryan got in and held on to the sides as he towed her down the sidewalk. They were going in a direction where he’d never been, and his heart beat wildly for the joy of discovering the world.

As the day grew hot, the air smelled of mown grass and melting tar and the expanding joints of ancient wood in painted Victorian houses. Birds twittered in the willow trees and a bumblebee raced a butterfly to the nearest yellow flower. He pulled her over uneven sidewalk squares raised by tree roots.

“Hey, go easy!” Maryan yelled as she bounced up and down in the wagon.

The air smelled more and more of car exhaust as they headed downtown, and further in the direction of Beacham University. The sidewalks were crowded with pedestrians downtown, and Alex had to wait for the little white man figure in the traffic light at each corner. Trucks roared by with huge wheels, and people called out in alarm. “Be careful!” someone called from a truck.

Maryan started crying.

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Alex said, pulling her into the little park downtown where the university began with its gray neo-classic and purple Victorian stone buildings. He put his arms around her and shook her by the shoulders. “Come on, Maryan. It’s not like we’re in another country.”

She continued sobbing.

He ran across the street to Ito’s News, bought a Malty Joy candy bar, and ran back. He unwrapped it and gave it to her. She sniffled once or twice more and accepted it, getting chocolate all around her lips.

They heard a man’s voice. “You kids lost?”

It was Charlie Dugway, the ice cream man. He was a very dark-skinned black man whose two children went to Peasman, and Alex liked Mr. Dugway. Alex waved. “We’re tired.”

“Want a lift home?”

“We’d really like to go home now,” Alex said. Maryan nodded, chewing a large bite off her Malty Joy bar. By now she had chocolate all over her cheeks.

Mr. Dugway parked the truck at the curb and walked over. He wore black trousers and a white shirt with an orange bowtie. He wore an apron, on which he wiped his hands. “How did you little kids get all the way downtown like this?” he said with concern. Mr. Dugway took Maryan by one hand and pulled the wagon with the other hand.

Alex walked along with his hands in his pockets. “We were running from the law,” Alex said.

“The law?” Mr. Dugway said. “Must have been an awful crime you did to be on the lam this early in the day.”

“We didn’t put our wet towels in the wash basket,” Maryan said.

“We left a mess on the table,” Alex said. “Chocolate syrup. Mrs. Butterman said we would be the death of her, so we figured we’d better run before she died.”

“Sounds like Murder Three,” Mr. Dugway said, loading Maryan and the wagon through the back door of the ice cream truck, and hauling Alex up the step by one wrist. “That’ll get you five to 15, with time off for good behavior, and bonus points for eating your vegetables. In you go, young fella!” Mr. Dugway pulled the door shut. Inside, he had a radio softly playing jazz vocals. “You kids want to hear Poppy the Clown?”

“Yeah!” Alex and Maryan said jumping up and down clapping their hands.

To the tune of Pop Goes The Weasel—played on a xylophone by the famed television clown, recorded, and now broadcast from the loudspeaker on top of Mr. Dugway’s truck—they cruised slowly down the streets in the direction of the Kirk house (and the Shurey house a block further down). Maryan stood on a stool and leaned out of the truck, telling each kid who came close: “Hey, what flavor would you like? Chocolate? Vanilla? Or Strawberry?” She’d fold her hands together, incline her head to one side so her locks bounced, cute as a button, and she’d say: “Personally, I prefer strawberry. That’s because it’s my favorite color. Don’t you think?”

Watching Maryan, Alex unexpectedly found himself being pulled backward, and he almost stumbled. What had happened to Mr. Dugway? In Mr. Dugway’s place, wearing his clothing including his apron and paper hat, was a dark-haired and green-eyed woman. She was pretty, Chinese or something, pale, and she looked kind of anxious. “Alex!”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Dot. You won’t remember me, but I have some insert-codons for you.”

“What are those?” Alex said, holding his hands behind his back. He felt more curious than mistrustful, so he let her get near.

“Metaphors. Don’t be afraid,” she said. “You will be in a lot of danger soon. Watch out for the ectors. They took over the primary command center of the station after the meteorite hit wiped out the gene stock. There can be no future for humans anyway, but with the ectors loose there is no future for you and Maryan either. Trust me. I tried to save the world and failed.”

She made him a vanilla cone. As she packed ice cream around the sides with a flat scoop, she said: “These are strong intraphors and extraphors that will straddle the ector routines.” She put rainbow sprinkles on it. “These will make you very smart when you grow up. That will be sooner than you think.” She held the cone out to him and winked. “This won’t be the last you see of me. But we have to be very, very careful, okay?” She placed a finger over her lips and winked her eyes shut, which made it as though Alex’s eyes had momentarily blinked shut. When he opened his eyes, the lady was gone.

He eagerly licked the cone. The vanilla was very rich, and the sprinkles were crunchy between his teeth. It almost seemed as if they crackled and glowed as he chewed on them, like those wintergreen candy poppers Rudy Chatfield had brought to class one day and they all chewed under the stairwell, watching the miniature lightning in one another’s mouths.

Maryan smiled and waved to the kids around the truck, which rolled to a stop. She was preoccupied and didn’t notice a thing.

Mr. Dugway stood there whistling to himself in his apron and paper hat. He was just then preparing a double scooper of rainbow sherbet for a kid waving a dollar over the counter.

Alex began to think about other things and forgot the...the...the what? It didn’t matter just now, though he knew it would be important later.

Mrs. Butterman stood on the sidewalk crying when the ice cream truck pulled up, and she raised her hands to heaven saying hallelujah. That was when Maryan put her hands on the counter and leaned out of the window smiling. She was missing her upper front teeth, her curls hung down over her ears, and Mr. Dugway had put his white paper hat on her head.

“You want chocolate, strawberry, or vanilla?” Maryan asked Mrs. Butterman, who came running up on rubbery legs and looked ready to faint. “Personally, I prefer strawberry.”