This is the continued story of Simon’s Journal.
I would highly recommend you read the first volume of this story, Thirteen Days before you begin this novel.

 

The following narrative is nearly a complete work of fiction.
Any similarity to actual individuals living or dead is completely unintentional.
If reading a coming of age story about boys wearing diapers and exploring their awakening sexuality is offensive or illegal in your area, then might I suggest you go read War and Peace or something equally stimulating.

 

 

Simon's Journal

Volume II

 

 

Thirteen Nights – After the Crusade

 

 

Written by

Danny
Author of Thirteen Days

 

 

 

Chapter – 4

PART 2 – Wednesday, March 03, 2004 – The Riddle Stone

 

Five minutes past, then ten.  As I waited, I started to get cold while still wrapped in my wet towel.  I stood back up slowly, went to my hamper, and deposited the towel into it before going to my closet and getting out my bathrobe and sliding it on.  It felt kind of funny to be moving around without my armor on, but at the same time, I was scared to move too fast or too much.

 

After I had my robe on and tied, I looked over at my alarm clock, which said it was 3:23 in the afternoon.  “Whoa!”  I said, because I had thought it was much later.  It also confirmed within my head, just how long I had actually been away from home this afternoon.

 

Then another thought occurred to me, “Why was Jasper home so early?  Didn’t he say he was going back to school today?”

 

That got me wondering about Jasper more.  There was something bugging me about him, but I couldn’t for the life of me, put my finger on it.  I mean, sure it was odd that the first backyard that I fell into and lost my pants in, just happened to be his back yard; what are the odds of that?  Nevertheless, I’d been running for all I was worth despite my ribs, and I could have very easily ended up in anyone’s backyard.  I only had one thought in my head at the time, and that was getting away from that creep in the van.

 

“The guy in the van?”  I thought aloud, as I walked carefully over to my desk, pulled out my chair, and sat myself in front of my computer.  I pressed the power button and continued thinking.

 

“Runt knew that guy.”  I was whispering to myself, “I should have asked him who that guy was.”

 

My computer dinged several times, which brought me out of my thoughts.  My elbow had been resting on the spacebar and the computer wasn’t too happy about it.  I logged onto the Internet and opened my email.  I was very surprised by the fact that I didn’t have a single new email.  Not even one from Lowell.  I’d hoped he’d of sent the next chapter of his story, recorded as he said he was going to do, but really I knew that it would probably be a day or two before I saw anything else from him.

 

Just then, Dad popped back into my room, “Your friend Lowell is here.”  He said.

 

Excited at this news, I turned in my chair too fast and my ribs gave me a jab to remind me that I wasn’t wearing my armor.

 

“Oh shit!”  The word had blazed past my lips before I realized I’d even thought it.

 

Dad had caught me because I nearly fell out of my chair from the pain.  He sat me back up in my chair, “Oh, that was dumb!”  I said, trying to make believe I’d not just cussed right in front of my Dad.

 

“Let’s get you put back together, then you can go see Lowell.  I told him you just got out of the tub so he’s waiting in the living room.”  Dad said, without commenting at all about my vile forked tongue.

 

He helped to my feet and helped to get my robe off so that I was once again standing before him totally naked, but it didn’t seem to bother either of us.  Heck, until just this second while writing about it, I’d not even given the idea any thought.  Nor the fact that one of my friends was only a few feet away in the living room, while I stood naked in my room with my door wide open.

 

Like he’d done before, he got my bottle of baby powder and coated the inside of my armor before putting it on me.  When he had all the Velcro straps in place, he said, “That better?”

 

“Yeah.”  I said, taking a strong breath as the pain faded away again.

 

“Lets go ahead and get you diapered and dressed, okay?” he asked.  I didn’t protest, mostly because I was still expecting him to say something about the cuss word.

 

I laid down on my bed, and Dad again went to my dresser and pulled out my cloth diapers.  I closed my eyes and let him get on with the task at hand.  So many things were swarming around in my head, The man with the van, Runt and his warning to me, Lowell and his story, Jasper, the strange old man and his books . . . “THE BOOK!”  I called out, nearly giving my Dad a heart attack.

 

“Simon!  Don’t shout like that!” Dad said while patting his heart and leaving a white handprint from the powder that was on his hand.

 

“Sorry, but I left a book in my coat!”  I said, fearing Dad had put my coat in the washer and started it.

 

“It’s hanging up in the laundry room, you can get it later!” Dad said, putting in the last safety pin before helping me to sit up again.  I looked down and saw that yet again, Dad had pinned me into a double layer of cloth diapers.

 

“Dad!  I can’t let Lowell see me like this!”  I protested, feeling my face get warm with embarrassment.  However, like I hadn’t even uttered a sound, he stood up went to my dresser, got out a pair of my plastic pants, and brought them over to me.

 

“Come on, let’s get these on, and then get you dressed.”  He said.

 

“Dad, please!”  I begged.

 

“Simon!” he said in his ‘Don’t mess with me’ Dad voice.

 

“It don’t matter anyway, ‘cause I done already seen.”  Lowell said.  My head snapped around so fast I’m surprised it didn’t pop right off my shoulders.

 

Dad too, had looked over at the door in surprise, and was about to say something to Lowell, but Lowell spoke again, “Sorry, but there is a policeman at the front door!”

 

Without saying another word, Dad stood up and walked out of my room, closing my door behind him, and talking Lowell away as well.  I don’t know why, but I thought I was going to start crying.  Instead, I stood up and went to my window to see if I recognized the officer, but I didn’t.  I’d never seen this one before, but then it was hard to see him clearly as the snow was really coming down hard now.

 

Something moving down by the road caught my eye.  It was Lowell’s father getting out of his car and walking up toward our house.  I guess he’d been sitting out there waiting for Lowell to return.  I’m sure he must be wondering what’s going on, and wanted to be sure Lowell was okay.

 

Desperate to know what was going on myself, I waddled over to my bed, picked up the plastic pants, and pulled them on.  I then went to my closet, found my sweat pants, and pulled them up over my bulging diaper.  Retrieving my robe, I wrapped it around myself and went out to the living room.

 

When I arrived, Lowell was standing in front of his Dad who had a hold of his shoulders with both hands and was talking with my Dad and the police officer who was covered in snow and looking cold.  I guessed he must have been one of the officers I’d seen down at the end of our street.

 

Dad saw me too, but didn’t say anything.  He looked more serious than I’d ever seen him.  I stood motionless and listened as the officer told Dad that they’d captured the man that they think had kidnapped all those children on the news and that he’d killed himself before the police could stop him.

 

All the while I was listening, I kept wondering why he came here, why he was telling us, and not out looking for those children that had been taken.  Then he handed something to Dad who then showed it to Lowell’s father.  I looked at Lowell who was looking directly up at his dad and appeared to be really scared.

 

The Police Officer pulled a plastic page from inside his coat, holding it for both Lowell’s dad, and my own, to look at.  Dad looked over at me.  The seriousness had left his face and was replaced with horror.  He was white as the snow falling outside, and Lowell’s dad, Mr. Vandoan, was starting to swoon like he was about to pass out.

 

I wanted so desperately to see what was in the plastic bag that would make two grown men react like that.  However, the Officer returned the bag to his coat.  He said something that I didn’t understand before shaking my Dad’s hand, then Mr. Vandoan’s hand, and finally patting Lowell on the head and waving at me with a odd kind of smile.  I lifted my hand up about chest high and gave a single wave as he turned and left.

 

Lowell once again tilted his head back so that he was again looking up at his father.  He said something, and then came over to me and handed me a CD jewel case.

 

In a whisper only I could hear, which wasn’t necessary as Mr. Vandoan and Dad had gone out on the front porch, Lowell said, “This is all of the first three chapters.  I stayed up nearly all night reading them into my computer for you.  I saved each of the first three chapters as separate mp3’s, mostly ‘cause one file would have been too big for my computer to handle.”

 

“Wow!  All three?”  I said, holding the CD case with both hands.  I could see through the clear plastic that on the front of the CD in a sort of nervous chicken scratch was, ‘MP3’s for Simon’.

 

“I told my Mom and Dad that you are helping me learn to read better and they think it’s great.  I just didn’t tell them what I been reading!”  The corners of Lowell’s mouth curled ominously.

 

“Thank you so much!”  I said, still looking at the CD and case.

 

“You are welcome!”  Lowell said  He added in an even softer whisper, “Can I ask you something?”

 

“Yeah sure, what?”  I answered.

 

“Is it okay for us to be best friends?”  Lowell asked.

 

Totally missing the mood of the moment I looked at him and said, “But you hardly know me.”

 

“I know you well enough!” he said quickly.

 

“Well, Yeah, that’s cool with me!”  I said.

 

Lowell then changed the subject, “Can you believe they caught that kidnapper?”

 

“I, uh, Yeah, that’s cool!” I stammered, not wanting to share with him what had happened earlier.  Mostly because I didn’t want to scare him, or have him telling anyone else just yet.

 

Lowell looked down at the carpet and said, “I hope they find those kids now too and that they are alright, I mean not hurt.”

 

‘Yeah, me too!”  I said back.  Lowell looked to the front storm door to be sure neither of our dad’s were looking, then quickly leaned forward and kissed me on my left cheek.

 

“Thanks for being so very cool!” he said.  Before I could reply or react, he had turned and was out the door.

 

I started to walk to the door, but stopped when Dad opened the storm door and stepped back into the house.  He had his arms wrapped around himself and was stuffing his hands into his armpits.

 

“Wow!  It’s really getting nasty out there!” he said, and then sat down on the arm of the couch.  “Come here!”  He

 

Without hesitation, I moved my feet until I was standing directly in front of him.  He wrapped his arms around me and hugged me, but not too tightly.

 

“Dad?  What was it the policeman showed you?”  I asked.

 

Releasing me from his embrace, he said, “It was just a list.”  I could tell he was holding something back.

 

“What kind of list?”  I continued to probe.

 

“Oh, just a list.”  He said, kind of flippantly.  Quick as he could, before I had a chance to ask another question, he said, “Say, I better call your mother and find out when she’s coming home.”

 

He stood up and started for the kitchen and continued to say, “If she doesn’t start home now, I don’t think she’s going to get here tonight!”

 

He picked up the phone and started dialing.  I went over to the front door to close it and saw Aunt Catherine’s car pulling into the driveway.  “Dad there she is now!”  I’d said.

 

“Oh, sorry Catherine.  She just got home!  Yes, I sure will!  Okay, and take care of yourself!  Alright, you too!” He hung up the phone and went to the back sliding door to open it for Mom.

 

I closed and locked the front door before waddling into the kitchen and sitting myself down at the table.  Mom came in the door covered in snow, carrying several grocery bags.  She hadn’t made it two steps inside the house before she started vomiting words very much the way a volcano does molten lava.

 

“That woman is infuriating!  How someone could be so horrible is beyond me!” She nearly threw the bags onto the counter.  “How dare she try to tell me how to do anything!”

 

“Who?” Dad tried to ask, but all he got out was “W” before Mom cut him off.

 

“That self righteous Millicent Bulstrode, that’s who!  What on earth was I thinking?  Do you know she had the gall to tell me that I don’t deserve to have children?”

 

Dad and I were the unfortunate victims caught in the path as Mom continued to erupt for over twenty minutes.  If one of us would try to say something, she’d round on us and vent her frustrations as if she was trying to keep us from attempted to escape her wrath.

 

She’d have probably continued spouting off had she not accidentally dropped a small jar of jam onto the kitchen floor.  Now normally Mom would have started cleaning up the mess right away, but instead she just stood there and looked at it.  Dad and I snuck glances at one another.  It was obvious we were both scared to say anything for fear of setting her off again, but then Mom started to weep, then sob.  She broke down and was full-out crying.  Dad stepped right over the mess of jam on the floor and wrapped his arms around her.  She just sort of fell apart in his arms.  Every couple of minutes, she’d eject a couple more vile words as if spitting on the name Millicent Bulstrode.

 

I didn’t move from the chair I sat in.  I didn’t so much as make a peep.  I’d seen Mom have a total freak out like this before, and I knew there was a really good chance that she wasn’t done.

 

After a few minutes of being held, she said through her tears and sobs, “I have to clean this mess up!”  She tried to get away from Dad, but he only held her tighter.

 

“Don’t worry about it!  I’ll take care of it!  Why don’t you just go back and lay down for a while?” Dad said to her.  The two of them stepped over the broken glass and jam.

 

When they both disappeared around the corner, I finally took a sighing breath.  I didn’t know for sure, but I figured that while he was back there, he’d tell her about the police catching the kidnapper, and that the kidnapper had killed himself.  I kind of hoped Dad would tell her while I wasn’t around.  That way I wouldn’t have to risk saying something that would get me into trouble.

 

I slid off my chair, went to the kitchen sink, got the trashcan out from under it, and started carefully picking up the fragments of broken glass, dropping them into the trash.  When I was sure I had all the glass, I put the trashcan back under the sink and took the sponge from the sink, wet it, and started to clean the floor.  I nearly had the mess cleaned up when Dad came back into the kitchen.

 

“Wow Simon!  Thank you so much!” he said when he saw the mess was almost gone.  “I’m going to get the mop and a bucket just to be sure we get all the sticky stuff off the tile.”  Dad said

 

“Is Mom okay?”  I asked, kind of apprehensively.

 

He stopped, put one hand on the back of one of the chairs and said, “I wanted to say, I told you so, but sometimes people have to see for themselves just how bad some people really are.”  Then he went to retrieve the mop.

 

By the time he returned, I was back at the sink again, rinsing out the sponge.  “Why don’t you go ahead and toss that in the trash.  Get a new one to put on the sink.”  Dad said.

 

I knew Mom kept a good supply of sponges under the sink, so I tossed the one I’d been using away and got out a fresh one.  When I turned around, Dad said, “Uh-oh, you got jam on your robe!”

 

I looked down.  Sure enough, there was jam on the cuffs of my sleeves and around the bottom where it had been touching the floor when I’d been down on my hands and knees.

 

Instead of risking getting jam all over the house, I took my robe off right there in the kitchen and wadded it into a ball.  That left me once again wearing only my double layered cloth diaper, plastic pants, and my armor.

 

I waddled past Dad who was bellying up to the sink to fill the mop bucket, went to the laundry room, and dropped my robe on the floor in front of the washer.

 

Back in the kitchen, Dad was mopping the floor and muttering something under his breath.  “So, you going to tell me what that policeman was here for then?”  I asked.

 

Dad looked up at me and said, “I thought you heard him say they caught the man that had been kidnapping the children?”  The tone of his voice made me feel like I was in trouble for asking.

 

“Uh, Yeah I heard that part.  But why’d he come here to tell us?  Why isn’t he out looking for the missing kids?”  I asked cautiously.

 

There was a pause and I could tell by the way he was scrubbing the floor so hard that he was irritated and having trouble coming up with the right thing to say.

 

“You want me to drop it?”  I asked.

 

“Would you, please?” he said, sounding relieved.

 

There was another awkward pause and I again spoke up, “Well, uh, should I go to my room?”

 

Dad leaned on the mop, looked me in the eyes, and softly said, “I’ll be in to help you get into your pj’s in a moment, okay?”

 

“That’s okay, I can do it myself.”  I said, starting for my room.

 

As I was about to enter my bedroom, I stopped and listened at the door to Mom and Dad’s room, but couldn’t hear anything at all.

 

Just as I was closing my own door, I remembered the CD which I’d slipped into the pocket of my robe, and the book that I’d left in my coat.  I went back down the hall and made my way to the laundry room.  Thankfully, both were just fine and I made it back to my room without anyone seeing me again, but I did notice that Dad was starting to make supper.

 

Back in my room with my door shut and locked, I took the book the crazy old man had given me and hid it behind some other books, up on one of the shelves over my desk.  I popped the CD into my computer (best place to hide it), found the pajamas I wanted to wear, and pulled them on.  Due to the bulk of my diaper, I had to stretch my pajama bottoms to get them to fit over my diaper, but I managed.  When I looked in the mirror I nearly laughed at the sight I made.

 

After I was dressed, I was going to sit at my desk with my earphones on and listen to all three chapters, but I heard Dad just outside my door say to Mom, “Honey, I’ve got dinner ready if you want to come eat?”

 

Mom said something back to him that sounded like, “Wattal doughter” which I knew wasn’t right.  I went over, unlocked and opened my door.

 

“Dinner’s ready.”  Dad said to me.

 

“What we having?”  I asked, rather curiously since he’d not really had time to cook anything major.

 

“Vegetable soup.”  He answered.

 

“Uhh!”  I said making a face.  He and Mom both knew I didn’t care for vegetable soup, but no sooner had I said it than I wished I could take it back again.  “Sorry!”  I said when Dad frowned at me.

 

Mom had come to the table to eat with us, but very little was said at the table.  Her eyes were swollen and red, her makeup was gone, and I figured she’d taken it off while Dad and I had cleaned the kitchen.  I also ate the vegetable soup and didn’t complain once about how much I disliked it, but I’m sure they both knew because I couldn’t totally hide the reaction my face was making.

 

After dinner, Dad asked if I would clear the table and take care of the dishes, which I did, while he and Mom went to the living room to talk.  I could hear them in there talking to one another, but I could only make out a few words now and then.  I was taking my time, straining to listen, and every so often I’d hear one of them start to raise his or her voice, but the other would make the shushing sound and they’d get all quiet again.

 

I actually had the table cleared and the dishes washed and put away long before I finally left the kitchen.  When I walked through the living room, Mom eyed me curiously, probably because of the double cloth diaper Dad had pinned me into earlier.

 

I went on to my room and closed my door, being sure to make enough nose so they knew it was closed.  I then locked myself in and stepped out of my pajamas.  I wanted to listen to Lowell’s story while wearing only my diaper.  I almost decided to attempt to take off my armor too, but I thought better about it and left it on.  If I hurt myself, and Mom and Dad found out I had taken it off, they’d be really mad.  The fact that I’ve pushed my luck just about as far as I could push it today played in my decision to keep it on as well.

 

Looking very babyish in just my diaper and plastic pants, I started for my desk when I remembered the pacifier Lowell had given me as a gift.

 

“Now were the heck did I put that?”  I asked myself.

 

Standing in the middle of my room, my feet spread apart because I couldn’t put my legs together with all the cloth that was pulled up between them, I tried to think where I had left it.  Then it hit me that I’d slipped it into my pocket when Lowell was over and it was still there.  I went to my hamper and was so glad Mom had not done laundry yet.  I had to scrounge through the dirty clothes a bit, but I eventually found it and popped it into my mouth.

 

I’m not sure I could have been any more content as I went to my computer to start listening to the CD Lowell had made for me.  He was right, there were three files on the CD.  Before I double clicked the one titled, ‘3.mp3’, I put on my headphones and plugged them into my computer.  Unlike the test file Lowell had sent last night, this file started playing right away, with no background static or noises.

 

 

 

Hamunaptra
City of the Dead

 

By B.L.

~ Chapter Three ~

Out of the Mouths of Babes

 

During the night, I dreamt about sailing across the Black Sea with my father when a storm came up and thunder crashed.  Man, I was scared to death, but then I awoke to find that the thunder was the servant knocking on the door to my room, thinking I might want my morning cup of tea.

 

I pulled back my sheets to reveal a large wet spot where I had wet during the night.  I wasn’t surprised.  This happened every night.  Actually, I would have been surprised if I had waked and the bed had been dry.  No, I wasn’t moved at all.  I pulled myself out of bed and shouted to the servant to come back later.  I heard him go on down the hall and knock on another door.

 

As I sat there, looking down at my wet underwear that was plastered to my skin, I questioned my reasons for not putting myself into one of the diapers that I had in my pack.  Last night, as I was getting ready for bed, I decided that I was too grown-up for diapers.  I was on a man’s mission, continuing my father’s life work.  Surely, that meant I wouldn’t wet my bed anymore!  Waking up wet didn’t surprise me, but remembering how I had tried to convince myself that I wouldn’t wet in my sleep did, I guess.  At least a little.

 

I sighed, thinking about the dream I had been having, and about my father.  I missed him so much. I was still being ripped apart inside over the fact that I had been the one holding the gun that killed him.  I managed to choke back my tears, pulled myself out of bed, and walked into the bathroom.  I filled the tub nearly to the top with hot water while I made use of the toilet.  Stepping into the tub still wearing my pee-soaked underwear, I found that the water wasn’t very hot at all; it was really just barely warm and smelled a bit like boiled eggs, but it felt good none-the-less.

 

I soaked in the tub for several minutes until I heard Miss Lillian Hassley knocking at the door to my room.

 

“Jonas, wake up!”  She knocked again, “It’s Lillian Hassley, come on, wake up!”

 

I shouted through the open bathroom door, “I am up, I am taking a bath!”

 

“Okay, hurry up and meet me downstairs in the front lobby.” she shouted through the door again.

 

Even though I wanted to stay in the water longer, I knew I had to get moving.  I lifted myself from the water, dried off, and slipped my pants on over my drenched underwear.  I finished getting dressed, gathered my things, raced out the door, and down the steps.

 

Miss Lillian Hassley and I got into a Jeep that was waiting for us and we rode out to the excavation site.  It was quite a distance from the hotel in Cairo to the campsite.  Just never mind just where it is, because that is my business, and the University that funded the dig on my father’s recommendations.

 

About forty-five minutes into our journey, the right, rear tire went flat and there was no air in the spare.  So we lost a lot of time trying to get it pumped up.  It was late in the afternoon when we finally arrived.  I knew this because my stomach was growling.  We had skipped breakfast to get a faster start on the day.  Now I was wishing we had taken the time.

 

Miss Lillian Hassley and I stood overlooking the excavation.  It was huge; larger than any dig I had ever been on with my father.  This was the one place I had never been with him as well.  He had always told me that it was not safe for me here.  If he were still alive…  I mean if I had not shot him, he would probably be furious with me for being here.

 

Miss Lillian Hassley started to explain to me, “You see, these places are built one on top of the other, almost every village in the east is.”  She talked like I had never seen a dig site before.

 

I just said, “Yeah, I know.”

 

She looked down at me, pulled off her hat, and ran her hand through her sweaty hair.  “Yeah I guessed you would,” she said.

 

“Does anyone know how many city ruins we have here?”  I asked.

 

“Well there may be any number of cities built on top of the ruins of another,” she said.

 

“The reason this dig has been going on for the last five years is because we keep finding new cities.  The last city ruins that we excavated and pulled all the artifacts from, was the seventh city built right on this spot.”  She sounded a bit astonished, as was I.

 

“So this is… well you believe this is the lost city, huh?”  I said, wiping my face on my sleeve.

 

“Oh, don’t sound so skeptical Jonas.  We have found proof that this is indeed, the lost City of the Dead.”  Miss Lillian Hassley said matter-of-fact like.

 

“What evidence?”  My curiosity was peaking.

 

 

TAP, TAP, TAP

 

I nearly fell out of my chair when someone tapped on my bedroom window.  I jumped in my chair and banged my knees on the bottom of my desk, which I’ll add hurt something awful!

 

My pain sensors were quickly overpowered by embarrassment at being seen wearing nothing but a very large diaper.  I looked toward my window and saw Jasper looking into my window, with the biggest and craziest  grin on his face.  He was waving for me to come over to the window.  Once I managed to stop blushing, I slid out of my chair and went over to the window.  I knelt down.  Not so that I was low enough, but because I wanted to hide my diaper from view.

 

After unlocking the sash, I slid it up a few inches.  The cold billowed in and hit me right in the face.

 

“OH!”  I gasped.

 

“Cold huh?”  Jasper asked.

 

“Holy crap, Jasper!  What are you doing out there?”  I asked.

 

“Gee-whiz, haven’t you heard?  They already closed down the school for tomorrow and the snow’s still coming down!  It’s been on the news!”  Jasper said.

 

“They closed school?”  I asked, and quickly followed up with, “Yeah, but you shouldn’t be out in this stuff!”

 

It wasn’t just snowing; it was coming down almost like a curtain of white.  I couldn’t even see where my yard met the sidewalk, or where the street was supposed to be.

 

“Hey!  How come you didn’t leave no foot prints in the snow?”  I asked after noticing that our front yard was completely smooth and unblemished.

 

“I did!”  Jasper said pointing down beside the house.

 

I lifted the sash up far enough that I could stick my head outside.  Sure enough, there were footprints along the side of the house were the snow wasn’t as deep due to the direction the snow was falling, and the slight overhang of the roof.

 

When I retracted my head back into the room, I had snow in my hair and the hairs in my nose seemed to have frozen together.

 

“Don’t your Mom and Dad know you are outside in this?”  I asked.

 

Looking kind of miffed, he said, “They ain’t even home right now, so I can do anything I want!”  Forcing a smile across his face, he commanded, “Hey, get dressed and come out, okay?”

 

“No way!  It’s cold and getting too dark and my parents would kill me!”  I said, backing away from the windowsill a few inches, rubbing the front of my chest armor.  The plastic was getting very cold against my skin and it sort of felt like it was nibbling at me.

 

“Ah, come on Simon!  We can go to my secret fort!  It’s not as cold in there!” he tried again.

 

“If they will let me, maybe tomorrow!”  I said, then countered with, “Hey, I thought you were going to be online tonight and we were going to chat or IM or something.”

 

“Why should I be inside when I can be outside?”  Jasper said, wiping the snow from off the top of his head.

 

“Jasper!  You are going to get covered with snow and they won’t find you until it melts!”  I said.

 

“Ah well, stay in there and play your baby games!  I’m going to my fort!”  Jasper said, and tromped back down beside the house,  disappearing in the storm of white.

 

Sliding my window shut again, I thought about going and telling Mom about him.  I mean, just so they would get him in and out of the snowstorm.  Then I thought about the fact that they’d then know that I was still in contact with him.  They might figure out that I was also in contact with his brother, and with Tater too.

 

“He’s an idiot!  He’s going to freeze to death out there!”  I said, standing up and relocking my window.  I pulled my curtain completely closed this time, before returning to Lowell’s story.

 

I sat down at my computer, put my headphones back on, and looked at my closed curtains.  “He’s got a lot of nerve saying anything about me playing baby games!”  I started to get agree with myself the more I thought about what he’d said.  I tried to think of a way to spin it so that it didn’t sound the way he said it, but I kept coming back to the same point.

 

“That sorry so-and-so!” Except I didn’t say ‘so-and-so’.

 

Instead of restarting Lowell’s story, I clicked open my messenger program hoping Lowell might be online, but he wasn’t.  Instead, I found BJ was on, but I didn’t message him right away.  I clicked on my email that was still open from earlier and there was still no new email, not even any spam.

 

“Dang!  Got to be something wrong!”  I said to my computer, closed my email completely, and then clicked to reopen it.  This time I did have new mail, several bits of junk mail that I deleted right away, and then I reexamined the contents of my INBOX.  I had two emails from BJ, both of which turned out to be forwarded jokes that I read, didn’t laugh at, and deleted.  I also had one from Lowell that said he was sorry he couldn’t stay longer today and he wanted to know if I had started listening to the CD yet.  I wrote him back and told him I had, but didn’t take the time to say much more than that.  There were three emails from Tater that were short and just him complaining that he’s already sick of being stuck in the house and that he had to go talk to a therapist today.  I figured that must have been why his house looked so empty earlier.

 

Tater’s emails did make me wonder if, or when, Mom and Dad were going to make me talk with a therapist; I mean Dad did say I had too.

 

I wrote a kind of long letter back to Tater and told him all about my day and about seeing Runt and basically everything that had happened since I got up, but I never sent it.  It was done, but something in me told me that I shouldn’t send it.  I did however, save it in my DRAFTS folder, just for safekeeping.  I went on to read the seven emails Mike had sent me.

 

Most of what Mike had to say was how he can’t wait until I get back to school and how he hates it where he and his little sister are staying now.  He also said, several times, that he hates his brother and wants him to die.  However, I think that’s just anger talking.  I think he’s just mad because he didn’t do nothing wrong, yet he still basically got kicked out of his own home while Tater, the guilty one, gets to continue living there.

 

In his last email there was a bit of good news.  Seems Mike and Tater’s Dad might be coming back from the Middle East sooner than expected.  Mike didn’t go into details, only that he might get to come home early.

 

After replying to Mike, I cleaned up my INBOX again and saw that I still had one unread email, and it was from Bull.  It was kind of short and went something like this . . .

 

 

Simon,

I saw you coming over our fence earlier today.  What were you running from?  You looked absolutely terror stricken.  Man, I have never seen anything as funny as you falling out of your pants!  Sorry little man, but it was just too funny!  Anyway, I hope you are okay and didn’t get hurt too much.  Since I’m not allowed out of the house without one or both of my parents, I sent Jasper out to find you and take you your pants and shoes.  He said he caught up with you near Tater’s place.  Did you see Tater?  How’s he doing?

Well, have to go!  Thanks for the laugh - Bull

 

 

I wanted to send Bull the same email I’d wrote and not sent to Tater, but didn’t.  Instead, I chose to only send a generic email response that I was good and that I might tell him about it another time.

 

Done with my emails, I closed out of it and found several Instant Messages from BJ that had been hiding underneath my email window.  I looked up at my buddy window and didn’t see his name.

 

“Dang!  Why didn’t I hear him messaging me, or go off-line?”  I said aloud.

 

Figuring I probably made him mad, I closed all the messages and logged off the Internet.  I pulled back on my pajamas, having the same difficulty getting the bottoms up over my thick diapers,  then headed out of my room to see if I could call BJ at home.

 

Mom and Dad were not in the living room anymore, but had moved to the kitchen where they were not talking anymore but arguing, only quietly.  I stood around behind the wall where they couldn’t see me and listened, but they were talking so soft that I couldn’t understand them.  Peeking around the corner, I saw that they both looked about as angry as I’ve ever seen them.  I’d never seen them so mad and yet not screaming at the top of their lungs.  It honestly scared me, so I slinked back to my room and closed myself in again.

 

I was going to dive into the bottom of my closet again, try to force myself not to think about them in there arguing, nor try to figure out what I’d done this time to set them off like this, but I stopped and reconsidered.  I was standing in front of my open closet door with my pillow, flashlight, and electronic journal in my hands when something inside me made me say aloud, “No!  I’m not going to hide!”

 

Why?  I still have no idea why I said it or what made me put my things back away and sit down at my computer again.  Maybe putting on my headphones and listening to the rest of Lowell’s story, or as much as he’d given me so far, was still a form of hiding from reality, but at least I wasn’t cowering in my closet!

 

Before clicking on the play button on my screen again, I took a minute; maybe two, to calm myself down before allowing myself to time travel back to Jonas and the City of the Dead.

 

 

“Well, you see this spot we are standing on?  It was the metropolis of the great city,” she said.

 

“Huh?  It looks like a pile of dirt to me,” I said, not seeing any signs of civilization.

 

“The cemetery, it is right under us.  Here, look over the edge, down there.”  She moved over and bent down, pointing the way for me to look.

 

I edged in slowly, as I am not too fond of heights.  Yeah, I know, an up-and-coming archeologist that is scared of heights.  My father was scared of spiders, so go figure.  I looked over the edge and saw literally hundreds of little cubbyholes in the side of the earth.

 

“Wow it must be 50 feet down!”  I exclaimed.

 

“Try 83 feet from where we are standing,” she said amusingly.  I took several steps back away from the edge again.

 

“You all right?” she asked me.

 

“Um, Yeah, I just don’t care for heights, um… excuse me for a minute.”  I ran over behind the jeep and proceeded to relieve my bladder.  When I was finished, I walked back over to where Miss Lillian Hassley was standing.

 

“You okay now?” she asked again.

 

I knew what she was asking about, “Yeah, everything is fine.”  Moreover, she knew what I meant too.

 

I scanned across the massive site again, “So, did you find any gold or treasures yet?”  I asked.

 

She scratched her head as she spoke, “No, not yet.  That is something we have not been able to figure out yet.  Normally, there is something, even minor valuable artifacts, but so far, this city seems to have been picked clean of everything.  Even the mummies we’ve found had nothing at all of value buried with them.”

 

“Okay, so you have a number of little tombs in the side of a hill.  Where is the evidence that this is the lost city my father spent his whole life looking for?”  I sounded a bit impatient.

 

“Alright mister skeptical, follow me.”  She started down a very narrow path that snaked its way down into the bottom of the excavation.  The paths were barely wide enough for one person, yet the workers here would move up and down them, passing one another like it was nothing.  I, on the other hand, kept my back to the dirt wall and watched where I put my feet all the way down.

 

Below where we had been standing, looking down into the pit, Miss Lillian Hassley pointed to a large Egyptian inscription of hieroglyphics.

 

“Ah, can you read it?”  I asked her.

 

“Me?  Oh no, it’s all just pictures and shapes to me,” she said.

 

“Mind if I give it a try?”  I replied smugly.

 

I looked it over, “Huh, here on this slab it says:

 

“Here was I, Hotep prepared” no wait, “invested with the working tools of those who build.  In my hand, I Hotep did take…” uh, “took the tools of the second” um…  “grade of workmen in stone… the” um, “sum, the square and the…”

 

“The level, huh?”  Miss Lillian Hassley interrupted.

 

“How did you know?”  I asked surprised.

 

“You mean there were masons in those days?” she said with astonishment.

 

I gave her an odd look, not believing she’d just said that, “Well sure, how do you think they built all this stone stuff?”

 

“Hey, look at that, what’s that there?”  She pointed up over one of the open tombs.

 

“Um…well it’s the name, Shaman… well probably Solomon.”  I wasn’t sure ‘cause it was not as well preserved.

 

I was enthralled with the moment as I normally got when I was this close to so much history.  At least I was, right up to the point where my stomach growled quite loudly.

 

Miss Lillian Hassley heard it, turned away from me, and shouted something that I didn’t quite understand.

 

“What language was that you just spoke?”  I asked puzzled.

 

“Oh the locals here speak a sort of sloppy version of the prominent languages of the area.  It took me several months just to be able to ask where the toilet was.  Which by the way, is not a very pretty place to go, so I would advise you to wait until we get back to the hotel if you need to go, or find a big rock to duck behind.”  She smiled and looked back up to where I had been reading.

 

I was just about to start reading again when a small boy, no more than eight or nine, came sprinting up to us with a basket under one arm and a pitcher under the other.  The boy was covered head to toe in the pale dirt that covered everything here in the excavation.  He smiled as he handed Miss Lillian Hassley the basket and the pitcher, said something that I again did not understand, and bounded off again like a deer on a mountainside.

 

Miss Lillian Hassley opened the basket to reveal fresh baked bread, obviously made by the locals, and what looked like large roots of some kind.  We both sat down on the ruins and ate our lunch, which I was so very grateful to have.  Just as I was taking another drink from the pitcher, my eyes again fell to the area I had been reading from, and just to the left of it was a painting.

 

“Hey, look at that!”  I said spilling some of the water down the front of my shirt.  The water, though warm, still felt good as it soaked through to my chest and stomach.

 

“I was wondering when you were going to notice that.”  Miss Lillian Hassley said with a know-it-all attitude.

 

“You see it then?” she asked.

 

Do you know what I saw?  Do you know whose portrait I saw painted on the ruined outer wall of all those tombs?  That painting was older than King Tutankhamen himself, yet coincidence or not, here was the face of the girl I had seen outside my room, back in Jerusalem.  I have always found it amazing how racial characteristics persist through centuries in Egypt.  I have seen Egyptian men that could have easily been Tutankhamen’s brother.  I have seen women that … well you will forgive me, but the resemblance of this painting and the girl that disappeared is so uncanny.  I also noticed that I again smelled myrrh, spikenard, and cinnamon, but I didn’t have time to think about that then.

 

At that moment, Max Wheeler, the man who was in charge of the actual excavation, came up behind us.

 

“Well I’m glad you’re back, Lillian!”  Max turned to me, “Oh and hello there Jonas… err I mean Mr. Browning.”

 

I shot him a confused look.  I had known Max since I was six-years-old.  He was always like an uncle to me, when he was around that is; heck, I even called him Uncle Max.  He obviously realized my puzzlement at the formal greeting.

 

“Well with your father passing on, that makes you the head cheese around here now, doesn’t it?”  He offered without me having to ask.

 

He didn’t know how I felt about my father’s death, and he couldn’t know how much it hurt me to have him talk of it so lightly, but I didn’t let on.

 

“Uncle Max, could you please just call me Jonas still?” my voice cracked a bit under the strain of choking back my emotions.

 

He got the message, “Okay kiddo, you got it kiddo!”

 

He was now trying to goad me on, knowing that I would rather be called Mr. Browning then be called kiddo.

 

“I suppose you are getting too big for a hug now, huh?” he shot me a half smile, then I faked a jab at his gut before grabbing him around the waist and hugging him tightly.

 

“You know, I think you might have grown another inch or two since I last saw you?” he tussled my hair, then patted the top of my head.  “Another year, and you won’t fit in my pocket!” he joked.  It was a joke he loved to torment me with every chance he could.  Uncle Max was a big man.  Whenever I was around him ,people would say I looked like a small doll.

 

We also had another sort of tradition.  Whenever he would come to see Dad and I, he would bring me a present.  Usually it would be some worthless artifact that he picked up from some dig, but there were times that he brought me things like gold coins, and other stuff like that.

 

I stretched out my small hand and held it up to him.  “What?” he growled while trying to look offended.

 

“Come on!  Cough it up!”  I grinned.

 

“Well I don’t know what you are talking about!” he teased which was also part of the game.

 

“You mean you don’t have anything for me?”  I said with big, pouty eyes.  Miss Lillian Hassley’s expression was priceless.

 

“Oh, brother!  Give him something so he’ll shut up already!” she said, giving Uncle Max a swat on his bulging arm.

 

“Oh, wait!  I think I might have a little something . . .” he said reaching into the pocket of his vest.  “Oh, wait, uh-ah there it is!” He pulled from his pocket an average sized . . .

 

“You got me a rock?”  I asked, “You haven’t seen me in ages and ages, and all you got for me was a rock?”  I complained.

 

“Are you so sure it’s a rock?” he said, holding it up to the sun and examining it.  “Well, if you don’t want it?”  He acted as if he were going to put it back into his pocket.

 

“I didn’t say that!”  I complained, jumping up and grabbing it out of his hand.

 

I examined it, turned it in my fingers, and just as he’d done, held it up to the sun.  “It is a rock!”  I exclaimed and stomped my foot.

 

            “Break it in half!” he said smugly.

 

            “I can’t break a rock!”  I said kicking dirt on his boot.

 

            “You little twerp!”  Uncle Max took a swing at my head, but as always he aimed to miss, “Just break the rock, or I’ll break your head!”

 

            So I took the stone in both hands and with all my might I tried to break the rock in two.  To my complete amazement, the rock broke apart into several little pieces that glimmered in my hands.  A strange odder hit my nostrils and caused me to turn away.

 

            “Uh!  Is that sulfur?”  I asked.

 

            “Yeah, Yeah it is!  And that’s not iron pyrite in there either!”  Uncle Max was almost ecstatic with excitement.

 

            “Woah!  That’s real gold?”  Mrs. Lillian Hassley nearly shouted.

 

            “Holy crud!”  I said peering into my hands, “Then this is?”

 

            “Fewmets” Uncle Max said.

 

            Miss Lillian Hassley trying not to show her ignorance stood with one hand on her hip, “Are one of you going to fill me in on the little joke?”

 

            “Joke?”  I scoffed.

 

            “Oh, I assure you, it’s very much the real thing.”  Uncle Max said, taking off his hat to wipe his brow.  “How do you think we kept this dig open?  Paying all these people after...” he looked at me, but I didn’t have to pretend I didn’t know what he was about to say.  I was fascinated by what I held in my hands.  When he stopped talking, I looked up at the two of them.

 

            “So, Father’s backers pulled out after they heard he had died?”  I asked.

 

            Uncle Max nodded, “So we’ve been keeping this discovery very hush-hush, as I’m sure you can understand.”

 

            “Alright, one of you tell me what the hell Few-whatever is, or I’m going to get very upset!”  Miss Lillian Hassley said with the stomp of her foot.

 

            I sat down on one of the boulders to examine the specimen and let Uncle Max tell her what he’d found.  “I am really glad you both are here.”  Uncle Max said to Miss Lillian Hassley.  “Shortly after the Professors passing, I found the first of those.  At first I didn’t know what it was, but it’s shape caught my interest.  A day or so later, I found more by uh, stepping on them.  When the light from my torch caused the gold to sparkle, I knew right away what it was, and that we were on the right track.

 

            “Wait!  You mean?  No!”  Miss Lillian Hassley began dancing around with her hands in the air, whooping and singing.

 

            “Ah, please, no singing.  You will scare the workers!”  Uncle Max joked with her, but there was no stopping her from rejoicing.  Uncle Max continued talking anyway, “Everything we’ve found is very old.”

 

            Finally stopping her little dance, she looked at him, “How old?”

 

            “Very!  We have not found any sign of anything more resent than thirty-five-thousand years.”  Uncle Max put his hat back on his head.  “So then the day before yesterday, we broke through a place that goes down to what we think might just be another city under this one,” Uncle Max looked too serious.

 

I jumped to my feet, “Another city?” Both Miss Lillian Hassley and I said it at the same time.

 

“That’s impossible!  How can there be another city under this one?  This is supposed to be it!”  There was no hiding how upsetting this was to Miss Lillian Hassley.

 

Uncle Max continued, “Well, one of the workman found a big sandstone slab and we cleared off all the dirt and rubble completely.  We have the big cranes rigged over it now and I thought we would wait until you two got here before we lifted it off.  Uh, you want to do it tonight, or what?”

 

I turned to Miss Lillian Hassley and was about to speak, but then I turned from them both and took a few steps away.

 

Uncle Max started to speak when I turned back around and interrupted him with a fearful growling in my voice, “Seven orbs, and seven nights.  Seraph defends the entombment bleak.  Contravene their seven clasps and issue forth mankind’s end.”

 

They both stood, speechless staring down at me.

 

“Don’t you get it?”  I shouted.

 

Neither said anything.  They just stared at me as if I had just grown a third eye.  I ran both hands through my hair, puckering my lips as I sucked air.

 

“Uncle Max, are there any inscriptions on the sandstone slab?”  My excitement was obvious.

 

“Well, yes Jonas,” He looked at Miss Lillian Hassley with puzzlement, “There are inscriptions all over it, but they are not hieroglyphics.  They are not any form of writing I have ever seen.”  He answered back.

 

“Please take me to it.  Now!”  I ordered.

 

Miss Lillian Hassley didn’t object, she didn’t offer any words at all.  The three of us raced across the excavation, past workers, up an embankment, and down several ancient steps that led us right to the sandstone slab.  I kept reciting just under my breath, “Seven orbs, and seven nights.  Seraph defends the entombment bleak.  Contravene their seven clasps and issue forth mankind’s end.”

The air was filled with such a strong aroma of myrrh, spikenard and cinnamon that is was intoxicating.

 

Once we finally reached the sandstone slab, I fell to my knees and stared at the writings, “Uncle Max, Miss Lillian Hassley, this is it, it is here!”

 

They moved in closer and I started to read aloud, pointing out each word as I went, “Seven orbs and seven nights.”  You see it is there and there and there.  I pointed out all seven orbs and all seven Seraph nights.

 

“My god!”  Uncle Max exclaimed.

 

“Are you telling me that we actually have found ‘Him’?”  Miss Lillian Hassley asked.

 

I pointed again, “Seraph defends the entombment bleak.”

 

I continued, “Contravene their seven clasps and issue forth mankind’s . . .”

 

            Then I went quiet.  I’d just seen something, something that made my blood run cold.

 

            “What is it Jonas?”  Uncle Max asked, while kneeling down beside me.

 

            “It’s cracked,” I said, and then pointing, “here.  The corner is gone, along with the last word of the inscription.”

 

            “Okay, that sounds bad.”  Miss Lillian Hassley said, kneeling beside the two of us.

 

“Bad isn’t the word for it!”  I said, more as a thought than a statement.

 

“I don’t understand.” she said.

 

I stood up, fists clenched, teeth grinding together, and hissed out, “It’s almost all here, but the last word!”

 

“Now wait a minute,” Uncle Max demanded.  “How are you able to read that?”

 

I looked up at him, “Uncle Max, didn’t you ever wonder how my father knew this city was here when no one else in the world even believed the city was a real place?”

 

“Yeah, how did he manage that one?” asked Miss Lillian Hassley.

 

I squatted back down beside them, brushed some of the dirt away, and said, “Because he found the equivalent of the Egyptian Rosetta stone when he was in his twenties.  No one knew what it was.  It just got stored away on a shelf at the university where he was teaching at the time.  But, father couldn’t just let the mystery of that stone sit there unexplained.  He spent three years of his free time at school studying it until one day, it finally became clear to him and he understood what was written on the stone,” I tried to explain to them.

 

“Well, what was on it?” asked Uncle Max.

 

I stood up and turned away from them as I scanned the area around us, “Seven orbs, and seven nights.  Seraph defends the entombment bleak.  Contravene their seven clasps and issue forth mankind’s end.”

 

“But that wouldn’t tell him where the city was,” Uncle Max said.

 

“But that was the key!  Everyone was looking at this stone as if it were a piece of a wall of a tomb, or temple or something.  However, it wasn’t; it was a fragment… a fragment of a coin!”  I turned back to them.  They were standing now too, and both looked is if I had their complete and undivided attention.  “It was a 10 pound stone coin fragment and what does every coin have?”  I was beaming now.

 

Miss Lillian Hassley’s face lit up like the sun itself.  “Two sides!”

 

“Right!  On the other side, what nobody saw because it was not visible to the naked eye, was the secret,” I said.

 

“How did your father discover it?”  Uncle Max asked.

 

“Coffee,” I said quickly.

 

That did it, I lost them both with that one, and together they said, “Coffee?”

 

“Yes, Father spilled his coffee on the stone and in his panic to clean it up, fearing he had stained the stone, he found that letters where faintly visible.  The coffee was soaking into the stone where the letters had been.  My father could make out the inscription of the location of a city.  A sort of map!”

 

Miss Lillian Hassley gasped and then clapped her hands, “Oh my word, now I get it!  He always use to say…”

 

Uncle Max and I joined him, “You got to look at every side of everything to find the truth!”

 

“All right boy!”  Uncle Max was stern sounding, “Why didn’t you tell me about all of this before??

 

“I couldn’t Uncle Max.  Father taught me how to read the writing, but he never told me what was so special about this city, and what the inscriptions meant.  I memorized, ‘Seven orbs and seven nights.  Seraph defends the entombment bleak.  Contravene their seven clasps and issue forth mankind’s end.’  Nevertheless, until recently, I never knew what it all meant.  Well, except...”  I paused.

 

“Except what?”  Miss Lillian Hassley asked.

 

“I…  I don’t know what Seven orbs and seven nights.  Seraph defends the entombment bleak.  Contravene their seven clasps and issue forth mankind’s end means.  I mean, I knew it would be the inscription that would lead to whatever or whoever it was Father was looking for, but I never knew what or who it was.”  I was staring at Miss Lillian Hassley as I spoke.  “I am sorry for lying to you Miss Lillian Hassley, I don’t know who ‘He’ is, only what ‘He’ is.  Furthermore, I only know about ‘Him’ because I overheard you and father talking about it the night...” my voice trailed off for a moment.  Regaining my bearings, I added, “I am sorry, but I had to tell you that I knew because I didn’t think you would let me come otherwise.”

 

I paused for another moment, waiting for her reactions.  She just looked at me.  “You know, don’t you Lillian, I know you do.  Who is it that my father believes is buried here?”  I asked, and for the first time, I didn’t call her Miss Lillian Hassley, rather just Lillian.

 

Uncle Max looked at her knowingly.  I looked at Uncle Max, “You know too?”  I asked.

 

“Yes, we both do.  We are the only two people that your father ever told.”  Uncle Max said.

 

“Oh, come on Max!  You know as well as I do that ‘the greatest being Earth has ever known’ is no answer,” Miss Lillian Hassley said.

 

“What the heck is that supposed to mean?”  I shouted.

 

“That’s just it Jonas, we don’t know.”  Uncle Max said.

 

I grabbed a fist full of my own hair in frustration and pulled.  I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs.

 

 

There was nothing else at the end of the recording.  I kind of would have liked it if Lowell would have said something instead of just cutting it off like that.  Then I remembered he’d been up most of the night reading the first three chapters into the microphone of his computer.  He was probably very tired by the time he finished the third chapter.

 

After shutting down my computer, I slide out of my chair, went to my bed, and climbed under the covers.  I don’t remember falling asleep, but I do remember dreaming about Lowell’s story, about Jonas, and oddly enough, about Runt.

 

 

Next Installment:

Chapter 5 – Part 1 – Thursday, March 04, 2004 – Hazzards in a Winter Wonderland

 

 

** For the latest news on how each installment is coming along as well as answers to questions asked by other readers and so much more, visit me at www.talkhard.5u.com.  As always, your thoughts matter to me very, very much, so please send any comments, questions, suggestions, or criticism to me at:  [email protected] and I promise that I will reply personally to everyone that takes the time to write to me!  **