第2章 Sunday

CHAPTER 1

LYING ON THE WARM TEAK DECK, GLANCING UP PAST the gleaming brass struts and rails and fittings adroop with bright-orange life preservers and the tall, tapering mahogany mast from which the jib and mainsail flapped gently in the breeze, Timothy Murphy thought that the balmy summer sky might as well be counted as one more blessing in his nearly perfect life. Timothy spent a lot of time counting blessings.

Then he reached out for the book he'd set on the deck beside him and inadvertently touched flesh-female flesh-and jerked his hand back to rest safely on his stomach. The sky above was perfect; the boat below was perfect. Only one thing was wrong.

Better return to the blessings, he thought. To start with, there was his loving father. Make that his loving but likely to be absent father, Tom, who tried to compensate for lack of face time with a sequence of expensive presents. Timothy was the first on his block to get every technological gizmo from an Xbox to an iPhone, though sometimes he had to wrestle them from his dad's grip. Tom liked to think of himself as a kid at heart, in touch with the needs and desires of young people. To some extent that was correct since Tom's Tees, the business that kept him working late five or six or seven nights a week-allegedly so that he could afford to purchase whatever Timothy wanted-relied upon a mystical connection with his ten-to twenty-year-old customers.

Expensive leisure wear provided a comfortable lifestyle for the duo that Tom liked to refer to as the Murphy Men, as if he and Timothy had chosen to embark on a grand adventure after Timothy's mother died. That hadn't been much of a blessing.

Yet there were other things in life besides death. Timothy reminded himself of this as a cloud in the shape of a cauliflower drifted across the spar from which the sail hung.

To start with, there was school. Timothy was a good student, perhaps too good for his own benefit. He wasn't smart enough to frighten anyone, but he was smart enough to irritate. Thus the atmosphere at Montclair Junior High was for him a toxic mix of social and physical torture. Often, Timothy spent class silently debating whom he'd most enjoy throwing into a pit full of starving hyenas: moronic, dictatorial history teacher Mr. Tasman or handsome, loathsome, popular Brian Pfeiffer, who'd mastered the art of twisting his gym towel into a lethal locker room weapon frequently aimed at Timothy's butt. Only one thing Timothy had to admit about school: It wasn't as bad as cancer.

Lots of things were better than cancer. Sunshine was, and so was rain. Actually, Timothy rather preferred damp, soggy days-at least until the X-tra Large arrived. During precipitation he wasn't expected to join a neighborhood version of whatever professional sport was in season at the moment. Nor was he expected to bike aimlessly, seeking adventures on the dull suburban streets of northern New Jersey. Whenever it was raining, he could lie back on the wicker couch on the sunporch with a black-and-white milkshake-another thing that was better than cancer-and lose himself in a book, which was not only better than cancer but better than a milkshake. Reading on a sunporch in the rain might very well have been Timothy Murphy's favorite activity in the world.

At least until the X-tra Large arrived. Since then, reading on the deck as the boat rolled over the currents by the Jersey Shore was his absolutely favorite activity. Still gazing at the clouds that had shifted from vegetable to animal, now resembling a whale, a weasel, a camel with one-no, two-humps, or Brian Pfeiffer in a guillotine, he groped blindly on the deck for the novel he'd been immersed in over the last few days. It was Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, infinitely superior to the Hollywood movie.

Sometimes Timothy would lose himself so completely in a book that he'd miss the dinner prepared by Loreen, the Murphy Men's housekeeper, and wake up on the couch the next morning unsure whether he was in Montclair or Orbis Tertius. Fortunately, his favorite author was Isaac Asimov, who had written over five hundred books, so he wasn't afraid of running out of titles. Even if he read every one of the millions of words Asimov had written, he suspected that he could start over again without it spoiling any of the plots.

Another blessing was money. Well, not money itself-Timothy considered himself a socialist, or maybe an anarchist, if someone could explain the difference-but the goods and services that it brought into his life. Timothy knew that he was fortunate to have enough money to purchase however many books Asimov or the other science fiction gods he worshipped wrote. Vaguely, he remembered a time before the family had real money, enough to purchase all the nifty stuff a half-orphan could want, except for a mother or time with his dad.

After his mom noticed a strange mole on her shoulder, the nightmare, as ferocious as it was rapid, began. Doctors diagnosed the mole as a symptom of stage 3 breast cancer and "gave" her three months to live, and, sure enough, she sickened and died sixty-two days later. That was two years ago, and Timothy hated that verb ever since; life was more than what doctors "gave" their patients. He couldn't help but think that if his mother had never gone to the doctor, she never would have gotten sick.

"No," his dad insisted. "It's not anyone's fault." Which helped exactly nothing. Having someone to blame might have been a blessing, but all Timothy could do was retreat.

Gradually the Murphy Men grew further apart, until late one Wednesday night when Timothy, having fallen asleep on the sunporch couch, a hardcover tome splayed out on his chest, was shaken awake.

"What are you reading?" It was a question his dad had never asked before.

Timothy held up the volume he'd borrowed from the school library. The book wasn't his usual science fiction fare. The title was Two Years Before the Mast.

"Hey," the shirtmaker said, struck by inspiration, "you want to go to the shore?"

"When?"

"How about now? The roads'll be empty, so there won't be any traffic. We'll find a motel, get some sleep, and then have a whole day together tomorrow."

"But it's a school day."

"I dunno. Looks like a shore day to me."

"Play hooky?"

Tom shook his head. "Not play. This is serious." He grinned.

"You mean it?"

"Last one packed is a broken egg."

What the heck did that mean? How could a person be a broken egg? Another one of the worst things about being Timothy Murphy was that there was so much to ponder. But he hustled to avoid broken-eggness-or was it eggitude?-and fell asleep in the car before they reached the shore. All he remembered of their arrival at the oddly named Snowcrest Motel was his father practically carrying him to their room.

The next day, however, after a leisurely breakfast of waffles with enough syrup to drown Britney Spears, he had blessing after blessing. Father and son started on the boardwalk, but all they could see out in the ocean beyond the roller coasters and skee-ball booths and candy apple stands were two paunchy cabin cruisers and a few distant container ships bound for Port Elizabeth. Not much quaint sailing on the Atlantic that day. Refusing to give up, they gravitated to the bay side of the spit of land that separated a score of resort communities from the Jersey mainland. There, in the protected enclosure, half a dozen small sailboats glided across the surface of the water.

"Look." Timothy pointed to a tall two-master.

"Nice." Tom nodded, then said, "But, hey, what about that one, by the bridge."

"Yikes. And, hey, is that a boat or an iceberg…"

"What about her?"

"Too big. Ostentatious."

"A little broad in the beam, I think."

"Yeah, but…Oh."

"Oh."

Eventually, they found the marina that housed these boats when they weren't out on the bay. They walked onto the gently bobbing docks, getting right up close to the boats. Each one was an object of beauty in its own way. The day was close to heaven.

Not every weekend, but any weekend that his dad could slip away from his business, they drove out to explore another marina in the region. They checked out Stamford in Connecticut and City Island in the Bronx and Amagansett on Long Island and half a dozen spots on the Jersey Shore, gradually becoming more expert in their appreciation during the only pleasant hours they'd had since the evil diagnosis. While other fathers and sons bonded over the Yankees' infield or the Rolling Stones, the Murphy Men compared the merits of a fiberglass Pearson ketch to an all-wood Catalina sloop.

They agreed that size was not the measure of value. It was hard to define, but certain boats simply had good lines.

"Like women," Tom said.

"Mom?"

"The best."

In general, it was best to forget what you could, the good more so than the bad, because it hurt more to dwell on what was missing than to deal with life sucking. That went for a mother who would never return, as well as a father who was suddenly invisible. As swiftly as Tom had gotten interested in sailboats, he abandoned ship. For several weeks, he seemed to disappear into his computer, doing some sort of obscure research, too busy to pay attention. "What? Hmm. Let me get back to you."

Yet when Tom suggested another trip, this time to Newport, Rhode Island, for a boat show, Timothy hopped. Maybe, probably, he'd get hurt again, but he couldn't resist.

In the car, he squirmed and enthused, "I've heard that Newport is the best harbor in the country."

"Yep, and this show is supposed to be the best for sailboats."

"Better than the New York convention center?"

"Too many motors there."

"Yep."

They spent the first day getting the lay of the land. A gigantic hangar on the edge of the harbor contained dozens of boats displayed by Chris-Craft and the other big manufacturers, while hundreds of boats on sale by individual owners were moored in the harbor a mile from the convention center. Tom and Timothy wandered appreciatively, licking at ice cream cones, until they arrived at the farthest, most remote dock in the marina, and there sat the most beautiful boat that Timothy had ever seen.

It wasn't the biggest; in fact, it may have been smaller than anything besides the most functional dinghy, but it was small like a diamond bobbing on the lapping waves in the shadow of several crude behemoths.

Tom explained, "It's a Herreshoff 12?. Built in 1926, it's one of only three hundred and sixty-four of this dimension from the original manufacturer. Rebuilt in 1953-that's when they added the brass trim and an engine to make it easy to get in and out of the harbor. Overhauled again in the 1980s, with the latest radio and radar communications. As far as I can tell, it's the finest sailboat ever made. I mean, on an inch-by-inch basis."

He was right. It was perfect. Well, almost. Strangely, the boat had no name. A wash of fresh white paint covered a rectangular plate mounted on the stern.

"So?" asked Tom.

Timothy didn't understand what his father was asking. "So what?"

"So, what do you think?"

"I…I think it's great. A real jewel."

"You want to try her out? C'mon." Without asking permission, Timothy's dad stepped off the pier and onto the deck of the unnamed sailboat. He reached out a hand, and Timothy, fearful but giddy with excitement, took it. The boat wobbled a bit initially but regained its balance after a second. That proved that it not only looked beautiful but was excellently built. They paced back and forth, then stepped up on top of the raised platform that contained the instruments, where Tom encouraged his son to pretend to man the wheel.

Timothy was sure they were going to get arrested, especially when his father suggested they explore the cabin via a three-rung ladder bolted into a hatchway behind the wheel. Flanking the ladder was a tiny bathroom and tinier kitchenette with a below-counter refrigerator and a grandfather clock-shaped pantry. Beyond the facilities were two slim teak-sided berths on either side of a narrow aisle. "Try it out," Tom insisted.

Stiffly, Timothy lay on the snug bedding.

"Nice, huh?" Tom asked.

"Sure, Dad."

Then, even more brazenly, Tom rummaged inside the pantry and said, "Look at what we have here."

It was a paper bag containing a white sailor's cap with the words Captain Timothy stitched across the brow.

"I don't get it," said the boy, half humored and entirely baffled.

"Actually, you've already got it. Happy birthday."

"But my birthday isn't until the winter."

"So it's a surprise."

For a second, Timothy kept trying to find some logic to the situation, but then a light flashed, like the aurora borealis from over the horizon. "What? You didn't…You did? Are you kidding? Really? You mean it? We got it. We got it!"

A Herreshoff 12? was miles better than cancer. All week after bringing their prize back from Rhode Island, Timothy and his father discussed what to name it. Dana was a good possibility, and so was Queenie. Over a dinner of take-out Indian food, they'd nearly settled on the H.M.S. Vindaloo, but that seemed too cute come morning.

While they were discussing other names, an emergency call arrived from Tom's factory. He lifted a "Wait a second" finger to Timothy, and was soon yelling into the receiver. "No, no, no! Take that load and get rid of it. Store it somewhere. Burn it, for all I care. If our shipping agent wants x-tra large, we're going to make x-tra large if we have to run shifts around the clock."

By the time he returned to the table, his son was grinning.

"What's so funny?" Tom asked.

"Not funny, exactly, but if it's x-tra large T-shirts that allowed us to get this teeny-tiny boat, then maybe the teeny-tiny boat should be called…"

Tom jumped in: "The X-tra Large."

Timothy laid his palms flat on the deck on either side of his legs and felt the wood, so warm that it seemed to be emitting heat rather than absorbing it from the sun. He couldn't do more than squint upward because of the sun, but he refused to glance sideward because someone else lay next to him, intruding, invading, intolerable.

The X-tra Large was the single best thing in his life now, better than any video game. She was more than a boat, more like a creature that he'd learned to ride-not to tame-over the course of the previous summer. Tom helped and so did a few marina bums, who affectionately referred to her as a minnow and welcomed the father-son team with the theme song from Gilligan's Island. Mostly, however, it was the boat that let Timothy know what she wanted, be it an extra coat of oil for the mast, an hour's worth of polishing brass, a run-through of emergency procedures on the radio should a squall arise when they were out to sea (though in fact they never left sight of land), or, of course, the actual sailing.

Generally, the X-tra Large lived in Matalon, New Jersey, in the Albanese Brothers Marina, but along with the boat Tom had purchased a kind of elongated metal cradle on wheels. This contraption allowed the Murphy Men to tow their vessel to any other harbor they pleased.

Still, Matalon was home. It was in the calm bay that Timothy took lessons to master the rudiments of sailing. Circling or figure-eighting around three concrete pillars that supported a drawbridge, he learned how to manipulate the X-tra Large in the tightest situation. Races never particularly appealed to him, sheer speed being a crude measure of nautical skill, but tests of instinct and dexterity brought out his inner sportsman.

And then, finally, the ultimate test: He steered the X-tra Large between two curving jetties that extended into the Atlantic like a pair of crab claws. It was in the ocean that other sailors feared that he discovered the beauty of the tack, a maneuver that allowed him to move the boat into the teeth of the salt wind.

Above all, sailing was a way for Timothy and his father to escape their workaday, school-a-day, day-to-day worlds, together. Part of the vessel's appeal was that no one would have suspected either of the Murphy Men to be a natural born sailing man.

As for Timothy, well, he had been happiest alone on the sunporch, until the X-tra Large brought the Murphy Men out of their shells. The vessel was like a private club with a membership of two, until Tom apparently peeked out of his shell and ruined everything.

How could his father have done such a thing? Bringing strangers on board shattered the privacy they'd shared on the waves. It was a violation of the very essence of the boat. Again, he gazed up the mast to avoid the awful reality beside him on the deck.

Timothy had been dreading this day of infamy from the moment his father had approached him three days earlier.

As usual, before introducing a delicate subject to Timothy, his dad ventured slowly. "I've met a woman."

Silence was Timothy's usual reaction when faced with an unusual condition.

"I think you'd like her."

Maybe, if he concentrated hard enough, Timothy thought, the buzzing in his ears would obliterate all other sounds.

"I think that your mom would have liked her."

The buzzing ceased. Timothy couldn't ignore his father anymore. "You mean, like, they would have been friends, saying, 'Your turn.'"

"Don't be crude. I mean that your mom would have wanted me to meet someone new, eventually."

Timothy was furious. "And that sounds exactly like the kind of self-justifying junk that people say when they do what they want."

"Easy there, pal."

"What? You want me to just forget my mom, like a penny that slips out of my pocket to fall between the cracks? Oops, she's gone! Sorry, but moms don't disappear just like that. Not so easy…pal."

"Whoa, Timmy, I-"

"You know that I hate being called Timmy."

"Sorry, but it's not simple for me, either. Remember, I've been going to the bereaved spouses group every Tuesday for two years."

"Oh, so you go to this club and eventually they tell you that it's, like, totally OK to do whatever you want. Besides, where'd you meet…Ohhh, I get it."

Yes, he did.

Tom hung his head, not that there was anything to be ashamed of. As if it would make any difference, he felt obligated to explain. "Her husband died in a car accident."

A bell was ringing somewhere, but Timothy didn't heed it. Instead, he continued to pour salt in his own and his father's wounds. "I hear that the Tuesday bereaved spouses group is the best place to find a date this side of the bowling alley."

"That's unfair."

"Life is unfair. Suck it up."

"No, Timothy, this time I won't. I like Miranda a lot."

It was the first time Timothy had heard the woman's name. He didn't like the sound of it.

"I'm not saying there's a big future, but this is the first time I've thought there might be something. And that's good. I've invited her to come sailing with us."

"What?"

"And…"

"And what?" What could be worse than sailing with someone named Miranda?

"And best of all…"

Worst of all was what his dad thought was best of all: Miranda had a daughter. "Maybe you know her," Tom said, and that's when he mentioned the second horrible name of the day-Jessamyn.

There was only one Jessamyn that Timothy knew of at Montclair Junior High School. Only one Jessamyn whose father had died in a car accident. As far as he knew, there was only one Jessamyn in the whole world, but he prayed that he was wrong.

Tom put an end to his prayer. "Jessamyn Hazard."

The last name was appropriate. She was as dangerous as blind sailing in a hurricane, and nine feet tall. Well, almost. Seven or six, or at least a head taller than any boy in their grade. She certainly made Timothy feel like a runt. Then, she was smart, really smart. Not a focusing-to-get-an-A student like Timothy but some sort of creepy genius. She was the last human being on the continent that he'd want to be seen with.

"They're coming over this weekend."

Three days. Timothy had three days to commit hari-kari, but he didn't. Nor did Jessamyn, whom he surreptitiously observed in their school cafeteria the next day. She was so cagey that he couldn't tell if she, too, was aware of their repugnant double date.

D-day arrived. About ten in the morning, Sunday, the mom and daughter drove up to the Murphy house in a cheerful, silver convertible. Ugh. How, Timothy wondered, could either of them step foot in a car after Mr. Hazard's gruesome end? It was a sign of their heedlessness.

Timothy considered hiding under the couch. Or imitating one of those street performers who strike a pose and remain so immobile that no one can detect them breathing. Or he could actually stop breathing. That would take care of things.

"This must be Timmy," gushed the attractive middle-aged woman. She was wearing flip-flops, a silky blue skirt, and an inappropriately tight Tom's Tee.

Under his breath, "Timmy" muttered, "Timothy."

"What?"

"I prefer Timothy," he said.

"Oh. I feel like we already know each other because your dad has told me so much about you. I'm Miranda."

Timothy smiled weakly.

"And," Tom said, welcoming the girl beside the woman, a redheaded giraffe wearing a regular T-shirt under a Hawaiian shirt tied at the waist of a pair of orange shorts, "you must be Jessamyn."

Her lip curled.

"And," the two grown-ups chimed together as if they had rehearsed their lines, "you two must know each other?"

To which both Timothy and Jessamyn did credible imitations of deaf-mutes.

"Hey," Miranda chirped, "where's this fantastic boat I've heard about?"

"C'mon," Tom said, "around back."

Timothy noticed that Miranda Hazard knew her way through his house, as if she'd been there before. Must have been when he had visited his grandfather in a retirement community in the Poconos. Gross!

Nevertheless, he was proud of the X-tra Large, parked at the side of the house in its wheeled cradle, hitched to the back of a Chevy pickup that Tom had bought for just that purpose. He noticed Jessamyn's eyebrows rise a quarter of an inch-more reaction than she'd shown when Michael Standring sliced off the tip of his finger in art class and it landed on the table in front of her like a tiny pink eraser. While everyone else stared, she picked it up and said to Michael, "Is this yours?"

But now she was impressed. Timothy could tell. How could anyone fail to be impressed? The X-tra Large was a beauty when at home in the water, but sitting up on the metal cradle, her mast rising high enough to pierce the clouds, her keel and rudder striking down from the curved hull like fins, her exposed flank like a frozen wave, she was stunning.

"Let's pack and get started," Tom declared.

"I've brought food," Miranda Hazard said. Indeed she had, enough for a lunch for twelve: two chickens cut into pieces, containers of coleslaw and potato salad, bags of chips, several bottles of soda, and a blueberry pie for dessert. Timothy and Jessamyn climbed up the short ladder attached to the boat and hauled her mother's food over the side like fishermen bringing in the catch.

"Remember, Tim," Tom said. "Everything…"

Timothy finished the sentence: "in its place." It was one of Tom's sea mantras. Fifteen minutes later, with everything stowed inside the X-tra Large's pantry or in an ice-filled cooler, they were off. Tom and Miranda shared the truck's cab while Timothy and Jessamyn remained on the deck of the boat itself, which faced backward for easy release into some distant body of water.

"Ready astern?" Tom shouted cheerfully from the driver's window.

Timothy sighed. "Ready as we'll ever be."

At first, the two teenagers stood at the rail at the rear-and the scene from Titanic occurred to Timothy-but neither said a word. He always liked riding in the boat to the shore, playing it cool when people in other cars stared at the small beauty cruising down the Jersey Turnpike at a steady fifty miles per hour.

Getting to City Island, however, meant that they'd have to cross the George Washington Bridge and, Timothy feared, take a side trip down memory lane. Whenever Tom was anywhere near New York, he couldn't resist showing off the tough neighborhood where he'd grown up. He felt it proved how far he'd gotten in life.

Resolved to enduring the worst-well, one of the worst-days of his life, Timothy lay down and, without saying a word, Jessamyn lay down, too, separated from him by the shadow of the boom that bisected the narrow deck. They were silent for a good twenty minutes as the truck wound down from the ridge where the Murphys lived, entered onto Route 46, and started in toward the city. That was when Timothy reached out for his book and inadvertently touched his unwanted companion. "Sorry," he blurted, and withdrew his hand as swiftly as if he'd inserted it into an electric socket.

She answered unexpectedly. "You think they really like each other?"

Timothy turned to make sure that the giraffe beside him had actually spoken. She was lying on her side, staring at him, her T-shirt gaping slightly at the neck. He replied, "Um, I guess so. I mean, why not?"

She shrugged. "They could be pretending, you know, just to drive us crazy."

"Hmm." He considered the proposition. "Yes, that's a common parental motivation."

"Deflects attention from their own inadequacies."

"Which are many and varied."

An eighteen-wheeler as long as the pickup's cab and cradle combined blew past them in a rush of hot air that made Jessamyn's reply hard to discern. "Abundant beyond eeee-lief."

"What did you say?" he asked.

"Abundant."

"After that?"

"Beyond belief."

"Oh."

"What?"

"Nothing."

Well, nothing creates curiosity like nothing, so she insisted, "You've got something on your mind."

"No…it's just that I thought you said something else."

"What did you think I said?"

He knew, absolutely, in the pit of his belly that his bad hearing was going to get him into trouble, but he couldn't think of anything but the truth. "I thought you said 'abundant beyond bereaf.'"

Snickering, Jessamyn, who obviously knew as well as Timothy about their parents' shabby history, replied, "I bereave I did."

So Timothy confessed. "The way the two of them met. It's so yucky. I need something to bereave in."

Quoting, or deliberately misquoting, a book they'd both been assigned to read in school, Jessamyn got a sly look and said, with ostensible sincerity dripping with sarcasm, "In spite of everything, I still bereave that people are truly good at heart."

He nodded, serious. "You must bereave in miracles."

One bad pun led to another. They pushed each other further into outrageousness as they moved from plain language to literature and then, finally, to song.

Cruising along Route 46, passing mall after Jersey mall, she crooned, "I beee…reeeeave in yesterday."

Besides the Beatles, they did Cher and the Angoras and Potluck Explosion.

He sang, "I'm a bereaver. I couldn't leave her if I tried."

She, and then they, sang, "Daydream bereaver…homecoming que-e-e-en."

By then they were running low on the belief/bereave motif, but one tiny moment of inspiration led them to "Good Mourning Starshine" and "I Heard It Through the Graveyard."

It was the fastest trip Timothy Murphy had ever made from Montclair into Manhattan, on or off the Herreshoff 12?.

Bent over in hysterics and pounding on the deck-partially to keep rhythm with the song, partially to let loose the pain that had been stoppered inside themselves for as long as they could remember-the teenagers hardly noticed when the vessel and the vehicle that towed it came to a halt. Then Timothy and Jessamyn glanced over the side, where, instead of a gentle or strong sloshing tide, they saw the tops of hundreds of automobiles. Ahead loomed the interlacing steel towers of the George Washington Bridge.

On the bridge, Timothy and Jessamyn sat with their knees up and hands flat behind them, the best position to anchor oneself on a bumpy passage over either water or tar. They paused to behold the great city stretched out as far as they could see. There were the bulky structures of Columbia University's New York-Presbyterian Hospital just south of the bridge and then the ranks of apartment buildings marching down Riverside Drive to a gothic church, and midtown office buildings, and a few downtown towers visible from ten miles away.

Minutes later they were in Upper Manhattan, where the streets were not nearly as smooth as those in the suburbs and where it was harder to pretend that the jolts and bumps were waves and swells.

"Why did we get off the highway?" Jessamyn asked.

"Egg creams."

"Anyone ever tell you that you don't know how to give a straight answer, Timothy Murphy?"

"That's how my mom and dad met. She was this girl from the suburbs who got lost in the city and asked for directions at Katznelson's Luncheonette. He was there sipping an egg cream. It's sort of the founding myth of the family. So whenever we're within fifty miles-OK, fifty blocks-of Katznelson's, we pay homage."

"Um?" Jessamyn raised one finger.

"Yes?"

"What's an egg cream?"

"Well, to start with, it has no egg and no cream. It's a drink made of seltzer and chocolate syrup, preferably Fox's U-bet, and a little milk. Never mind. Just give thanks that you're not in the front seat or my dad would start bending your ear about the day the Polo Grounds closed. Mrs. Katznelson must be at least ninety-five. She's the only non-Dominican left in the Heights. But I will tell you one thing…"

"Yeah?"

"The egg creams are the best."

As soon as they drove a block east of Broadway the atmosphere changed entirely. Spanish names appeared on storefronts. Groceries became bodegas sporting orange and yellow awnings. There were hair-braiding salons, and discount furniture shops advertising their installment plans, and salsa music blasting out of windows and from rusty iron fire escapes.

Jessamyn took in the exotic landscape and said, "It looks like a set from West Side Story."

And just as they gazed at the city from their fine vessel, so were Timothy and Jessamyn gawked at by people along the street. It wasn't every day that a sailboat cruised the Heights.

"Ahoy there," shouted a pedestrian waiting for the bizarre apparition to sail across Saint Nicholas Avenue.

Jessamyn saluted and the man grinned and saluted back.

Traffic clogged where an enormous pit had been dug to facilitate a construction site-electrical repairs, a new subway entrance, it was hard to tell what was going on-at 184th Street. Scores of cables and hoses snaked in and out of the pit, which was surrounded by orange traffic cones and concrete pylons. Several trucks filled with rubble blocked traffic.

At last, the pickup towing the X-tra Large passed the construction site and pulled up beside a fire hydrant halfway down the block from Katznelson's.

On a stoop, three teens looked at the boat as if it was a UFO.

Timothy and Jessamyn leaned over the railing. In one direction was the busy excavation, and in the other was the dusty, once and surely never again to be illuminated neon sign for Katznelson's.

Tom Murphy and Miranda Hazard exited from opposite sides of the cab and circled around to the cradle. Timothy could tell that his father's eyes were scanning the street for signs of his T-shirts, which were rare in these environs. Tom suggested, "How about you guys stay here while we bring back some refreshments?"

Timothy nodded. Actually, Jessamyn wasn't bad company. That didn't mean that he liked her or anything, just that he could tolerate her presence on the deck overlooking the urban sea.

"Hon?" Miranda asked her daughter.

Jessamyn grunted affirmation.

The two teenagers watched the adults saunter down the street, uncertain whether their hips were touching. That would have been too gross.

"They'll be a while," Timothy said.

"How do you know?"

"The second he gets inside he's gonna start telling stories. Take my word for it. Been there."

"So what do you wanna do?"

Interesting question. He wasn't sure. Usually he accompanied his father inside while the truck was illegally double-parked outside the luncheonette. "What's the worst thing they can do," Tom would say, "give me a ticket?"

This was the first time Timothy had been left alone, though he wasn't really alone. In any case, he was tempted to explore, but the neighborhood looked sort of dangerous. And if he left the X-tra Large, someone might steal its brass railings or the radio or even the steering wheel. No doubt, a boat was safer in the water.

"I've got it," Jessamyn declared. "Let's play Pick the Scariest Person on the Block. I'll go first." She peered left and right and then said, "OK, guess who I chose."

"Easy," Timothy said, "the guy with the machine gun."

"Very funny."

"That lady there. Her ankles are like tree stumps."

"Guess again."

"Moi?"

"Sorry, dear, but you are the least-scary person between here and Afghanistan. Last chance."

Dear?

"Um…" He watched Jessamyn's eyes, which glanced briefly to the west side of the street. He immediately saw a man wearing shorts, and a vest over a bare, hairy chest. The man was clutching a large book that you knew, just knew, had to be a Bible. "King James?"

Jessamyn nodded. "Two points. Your turn."

They played a couple of rounds, and then discussed the difference between Washington Heights and Montclair.

"I mean," Timothy said, "who would I be if I was born here? If my dad never moved to the burbs."

"You wouldn't be," Jessamyn answered.

"I know that. But what if? What if everything else was the same except for the place I grew up."

"You'd probably be the same jerk you are now."

Timothy twitched.

Jessamyn noticed. "I'm sorry. What I meant was-"

"Never mind."

"-that I think that character is something inside you that comes before circumstances."

"Never mind."

"You want to be a sullen baby, have it your way. Besides, I'm tired."

"If you want to take a rest, there's a cabin down below."

"Not that kind of tired. I'm tired of talking. Let's play a trick on the rents."

He could tell that she was trying to make up for her insult. "What?"

"How about we unattach the boat from the truck. That way they'll leave us behind."

"You mean the X-tra Large?"

"I don't see any other boat around here."

Timothy knew that he'd asked a stupid question, but he was still reluctant. "That doesn't sound like a great idea to me."

"C'mon. How far will they get before they notice? Twenty feet. A block at most."

Deep down, this felt like a mistake. He was about to heed his intuition when Jessamyn made the one argument he couldn't refute. "C'mon. It'll be funny. Bereave me."

He melted and bereaved, and thought for a quarter of a second of his mother, so distant and so beautiful, on this deck, preparing to embark on a mysterious voyage.

A nod from Timothy was all it took for Jessamyn to jump from behind the wheel to the stern of the boat, beyond the tip of the boom. She leaned over to examine the gizmo that yoked the cab and the cradle together. It was simple, like a hook and eye that might lock an old-fashioned bathroom door, except sturdy enough to withstand highway driving.

She leaned over and reached down, pressing a thick steel button while tugging at the single round peg set into the single round hole until it finally jolted free with an odd uncorking sound, and what happened at first was…nothing.

Just as planned. Tom and Miranda wouldn't notice; they'd drive off; there'd be a moment of parental panic; they'd return, reattach the peg. Everyone would laugh. Then they would go sailing.

The cab stood still. The boat stood still. The apartment buildings and the great gray bridge spanning the Hudson River stood still. The only things that seemed to move were people, some coming, some going, some jaywalking across the middle of the block. Both Timothy and Jessamyn paid special attention to the two people coming out of a storefront about a hundred feet away, beneath a defunct neon sign. The man was gesturing broadly, the woman smiling and gazing up at him. Timothy was stunned to realize that they were happy.

If that wasn't strange enough, as Tom Murphy and Miranda Hazard continued walking forward, they appeared to Timothy to be receding. And so did Katznelson's and Guayabera Bodega, and the teenagers on the stoop, who had been parallel to the X-tra Large, were now sliding backward, laughing and pointing at the boat.

Timothy and Jessamyn did not have to wait long for their parents to notice that something was amiss. At first, a quizzical expression crossed Tom Murphy's face, as if he was confronted with a "What is wrong with this picture?" puzzle. Then enlightenment came. It took less than a second for him to thrust the bag with egg creams into Miranda's hands and break into a run.

One by one, the rest of the people on the block noticed. Like the teens on the stoop, some gaped and gestured. Others just stared, while, at first, Tom gained on the gradually moving X-tra Large.

But the pitch of the street, which neither Timothy nor Jessamyn had taken into account, was inexorable and the runaway cradle holding the vessel began to pick up speed, heading eastward on 184th Street.

"Stop!" screamed Tom, arms pumping, racing after them.

"Stop!" shrieked Miranda, also running now, tossing the brown paper bag of egg creams to the curb.

"How?" shouted Timothy.

The boat clipped the edge of a cart selling flavored ices, which spilled several gallons of crushed ice and thin streams of cherry, chocolate, and coconut syrups into the street. "Ayyy," screamed the man who owned the cart.

Faster and faster the boat went, as if driven over the surface of the sea by a gale. Maybe if the sails had been taut, Timothy could have tacked, brought the boat about, executed some nautical maneuver he'd learned the previous summer. Unfortunately, he hadn't trained for steering a boat on a wheeled flatbed tearing downhill.

Nor did any of the pedestrians who crossed its path expect a speeding boat in Washington Heights. A drug dealer's black SUV cornering over a post box at midnight ahead of a screaming police car, sure. Motorcycles with howling hooligans, yes. A thirty-year-old station wagon kept together with duct tape and a bent-wire antenna, look on any block. But a vessel that was inch for inch the finest in its class with teak decking and brass trim, no way.

At the excavation at the end of the block the construction workers saw the danger and leapt out of the path of the speeding sailboat, which snapped a chain surrounding the area and crushed the traffic cones until the cradle slammed into one of the concrete pylons protecting the site. The steel folded in upon itself like an accordion.

For maybe a quarter of a second, both Timothy at the helm and his father in rough pursuit thought that the runaway vessel had been halted. For that moment, each could begin to imagine the repercussions of the accident: Screaming. Yelling. Insurance.

What a luxury.

In the next quarter second-or less, or an eternity, since time was both shrunken and expanded from Timothy's and Jessamyn's perspectives-the boat illustrated the first law of physics. Bodies in motion tend to remain in motion. Thus the vessel intended solely for water use slid off its base, over the top of the stubby concrete, en route to an inclined ramp into the excavation. Most of the floor area of the ramp was covered with eight-foot steel squares, like gigantic rusted tiles, set in place by a backhoe to facilitate the workers' entry and exit from the site.

For the next stunning quarter of a second, it seemed as if the X-tra Large might skate on the edge of its keel across the crude steel rink to land safely on the far shore, but one brutally realistic moment later, both the keel and most of the rudder broke off the boat's curved bottom as cleanly as chicken bones. Yet before separating from the rest of the boat they had absorbed the brunt of the impact, so the hull remained intact even as it ground down the steeply inclined plane, where an underground workforce was busy in the city's basement.

For the last quarter of a second, Timothy imagined the maiden voyage of some grand, new ocean liner or aircraft carrier, more like an edifice than a vehicle in dry dock until a ritual bottle of champagne is smacked across its prow by a queen or politician or giggling starlet and the stately vessel gradually drifts into the sea, where it will live for the rest of its life.

Only, the X-tra Large wasn't drifting. More like a Jet Ski than an ocean liner, it scraped down the incline with fantastic velocity as workers leapt out of the way and their tools bounced off the walls, and electric sparks jumped from severed wires.

And instead of a great placid ocean looming beyond an enclosed dry dock, the open air of West 184th Street gave way to a dank tunnel, which if Timothy wasn't mistaken was considerably shorter than the height of…

The mast.

Fourteen feet of lathed hardwood hit the underside of the street and snapped in the middle, the bottom portion of a now jagged spike remaining upright and the rest collapsing to the deck like a tree cut down by a lumberjack, landing directly between Timothy and Jessamyn. A foot in either direction and one of them would have surely been crushed.

The X-tra Large was near the end of its journey, or so thought its two stunned passengers and their parents huffing and puffing along the street. A horn blared. At them?

A police whistle.

Jessamyn had the leisure to find that amusing. Like the Herreshoff 12? would pull over to the side of the pit and Timothy, abashed, would confess that maybe he was going a little over the speed limit, without a license to cruise. What would the policeman do, give him a ticket?

But she couldn't follow any train of thought amid the cacophony nor distinguish its specific notes what with the rasp of the hull and the slam of the mast still echoing in her ears as the boat plowed relentlessly toward the wall at the end of the tunnel.

Timothy and Jessamyn braced themselves for impact, but the wall had been shaved to the width of a single brick by the city workers and the X-tra Large rammed straight on through. Chunks of mortar hit the deck about the broken mast, battering the prow, denting the brass railings, and scratching and tearing at nearly every inch of the boat's surface.

Already ten feet below street level due to the incline, Timothy thought they ought to be on sheer bedrock, but at that moment came a final surprise greater than their initial release, greater than their race to the pit, greater than their entry into the pit. For what had to be the ultimate millisecond of their adventure, the X-tra Large was…

Flying?

Airborne. The whole world was upside down. Planes don't float; boats don't fly.

Just before everything went dark, Timothy caught a glimpse of Jessamyn's face: eyes wide, mouth open. Was she crying? A screaming filled his ears. It was his own.

They weren't flying underground. They were falling.

Dropping deeper, having pierced the thin roof of some cavern that may have existed as a geological formation for millions of years.

But God didn't make barrel ceilings. He didn't build His caves with rusty steel beams and columns, one of which grabbed at the jib, ripping it down the middle, the tearing sound taking the place of the scraping and screaming until they all came to a splash landing.

The fall seemed endless, but it probably wasn't more than another ten feet, yet Timothy and Jessamyn collapsed into the wreckage until gouts of water from somewhere below rose up and rained back down upon their heads. Now everything was still, and they were bobbing upright on what appeared to be a body of water.

Lying on the boat's deck, as they had at the beginning of the outing, but surrounded by the toppled mast, the shards and remnants of a brick wall, the torn sail, soaked to their skins, Timothy and Jessamyn listened to the sound of themselves breathing.

Far above, where there had once been an endless sky, a pinhole of light from the opening in the earth was shrinking by the second. After the speed and roar of the accident it was difficult to perceive that they were still moving, floating with a current on a black river.

"You OK?" Timothy asked.

Jessamyn breathed deeply. "Yeah. Only…"

"Only what?"

"I don't think we're in Manhattan anymore."

"No, we're under Manhattan."

CHAPTER 2

THE RIVER, OR CHANNEL, OR CANAL, OR WHATEVER IT was, wasn't black but dark, faintly illuminated by several rectangles of light hovering above the boat. Already the hole the kids had plunged through was distant, and the face of a single workman staring at them over the edge disappeared. Just as Timothy Murphy and Jessamyn Hazard had watched one cloud recede and another advance during their progress through suburban New Jersey, just as they had watched the western tower of the George Washington Bridge recede and the eastern tower advance while they crossed the Hudson River, so now they charted this new journey from one glowing rectangle to another.

"Where are we?" Jessamyn whispered.

Of course there was no need to whisper, but the strangeness of the environment made her cautious.

Timothy lay back on the deck where the top half of the broken mast lay like a felled tree. He listened to his and Jessamyn's breathing gradually settle. How curious, he thought, to be able to distinguish individual breaths after the clamor of the city and the insanity of their accident. He couldn't remember hearing his or his father's breaths during previous trips on the X-tra Large, but the ocean was a noisy beast.

"If I had to guess, I'd say 183rd Street, between Broadway and Saint Nicholas."

"I meant-"

"I believe that we're in the sewer."

"The sewer!" she yelped.

"Not the sanitary sewer with house waste, but the storm sewer. Although it probably has its share of dog poop." He pointed to the nearest rectangle, forgetting that there was no way that Jessamyn could see his arm in the dark. "That's probably the catch basin on the corner of 182nd."

"Catch what?"

"Basin. The drains at street corners that collect runoff."

At that moment, the X-tra Large brushed against something. A harsh, rasping sound filled the space and the teenagers immediately hushed. But a second later, they were moving smoothly again, carried by a faint breeze or a pitch in the system.

Jessamyn said, "I hope that wasn't an iceberg."

Timothy smiled in the dark. Something about their horrible accident wasn't very horrible at all.

Jessamyn observed, "It doesn't smell bad."

"No reason it should. I mean, aside from the dirt that washes off the street, it's all rainwater."

"But there hasn't been any rain lately. So why is it full?"

"That's because…um…That's a very good question."

Frequently, Jessamyn stumped their teachers by asking an obvious question to which there was no obvious answer. Timothy therefore ought not to have been embarrassed because he couldn't explain their situation, yet he felt that he should be in charge while they were on his boat. He aimed to concentrate on their surroundings.

To begin with, the sewer was hardly silent. Besides the current lapping against the sides of the channel, street sounds drifted down from the catch basins. Once, there was a prolonged beep-an angry driver warning another vehicle, maybe. But the sewer-or at least the underground-had its own sounds, too. A distant rumbling emanated from elsewhere beneath the surface. Timothy wondered if it was a pump that kept the water flowing.

The light from the catch basins was so thin and diffuse that it might have been a tease. He made out as much as he could of the tunnel as they glided under each fixture but still sensed rather than saw that they were in a tight space. The air was thick. Once, extrapolating from a breeze or the way his voice carried, he believed they had entered into a more generous space, a cavern perhaps, but then, when the familiar constriction returned after a minute, he realized that they must have crossed an intersection. Of course, the sewers followed the pattern of the streets above.

Jessamyn said, "It's peaceful here."

"Hmm."

"A bit like a burial. Or the way that I imagine a burial. Only conscious."

"That's morbid."

"Look who's talking, Mr. Bereaver. Besides, aren't there certain cultures that imagine dead people setting sail on an ocean voyage?"

"Or the River Styx that runs through Hades."

"Right."

He felt pleased that he was able to match mythological references with the most intimidating girl in Montclair Junior High, and repeated her initial comment, "It is peaceful here. I could stay for…well, not forever, but for a while."

"How long do you think we have?"

Again, a very good question. Moreover, a complicated one that implied more than its ostensible meaning. Upon crashing through a concrete barrier and plunging into a sewer beneath a city street, most people would wonder how swiftly they might be rescued. Yet neither Timothy nor Jessamyn had been hurt in their fall. Nor was either of them dramatically upset about floating along on a subterranean stream with no particular source or destination.

Just the opposite. In fact, the sewer was oddly beautiful. It was as if they'd been given a special, secret opportunity and the time underground was to be treasured. How much time did they have? How much time do any of us have?

"I don't know," he replied. "But my guess is there's going to be all sorts of folks after us pretty quickly."

"Ya think?"

He laughed. "Of course, we might not be so easy to find if we encouraged this motion, put ourselves out of range."

"How would we do that?"

"The X-tra Large is a sailboat. I'd sail."

"Can it still do that?"

Again their conversation was replete with double meanings. By asking how they'd escape their parents and presumed rescuers, Jessamyn was not explicitly suggesting that escape was desirable. Likewise, by explaining how they'd enact such a flight, Timothy wasn't implying the wisdom of flight. Neither knew the other well enough to be so daring, so reckless. His answer had to be as hypothetical as her question. Was the X-tra Large up to the task? Was the boat literally shipshape?

He groped around the dark deck, feeling the scratches and dents, and crawled over the toppled mast, under the intact boom. Significantly, there was no damage to the great wheel used for steering nor, as far as he could tell by touch, to a stub of the rudder that hadn't snapped off in the initial fall.

"Been better, but she seems to have taken the abuse. But let me check a bit further." He stood carefully, for without the bottom of its keel and the top of its mast, without its metal cradle, the X-tra Large was extra tippy. He held a hand out in either direction like a tightrope walker and reached as far up the broken mast as he could. He couldn't feel the top, which meant that they still had at least seven feet.

Otherwise, the boat felt solid beneath him, a testimonial to old-fashioned construction. A modern fiberglass hull would have shattered into a thousand pieces. You could always count on a Herreshoff. "Yep," he declared. "We have enough to work with."

"Which is?"

"Let's take inventory. It's important to determine what our assets are. Then we can tell what our potential is."

"But how can we see?"

"Because asset number one is a lantern."

"You've got a lantern?" Jessamyn practically squealed with excitement.

"Standard operating equipment. You never know when you're going to lose electricity. It might be exactly what you need for the Coast Guard to save you if your boat is struck by lightning or disabled by a crazed tiger shark."

"Just for example."

"Yeah."

He'd heard all of this from the old salts at the marina who'd given him and his father lessons, but he hadn't believed a word of it. Now, however, he was speaking as if he was on intimate terms with nautical emergencies that sent lesser men to Davy Jones's locker. "Just wait a few minutes and I'll find it."

He kept to the center of the vessel and tiptoed forward. Once he found the narrow ladder bolted to the inside of the hatch, however, things were easier because there wasn't anyplace for something to go wrong. He climbed down the ladder and turned to orient himself in the absolute pitch.

Right away there was good news. For a few heartbeats as he descended, he realized that, despite his bravado and despite the surprisingly good condition of the rest of the vessel, he was fearful that he'd step into a pool of water. But the floor was dry; indeed, the hull had taken the brunt of the shock and held strong.

There was barely enough room to squeeze between the beds built into the side walls of the cabin. He paced three steps to the end of the sleeping area and opened a cabinet tucked under the stern.

Everything that had been neatly stowed had tumbled during the boat's fall, but it was easy to feel around for the heavy cardboard box in which the lantern was packed. Aside from one night out on Barnegat Bay, he and his father had never used it. They were day-trippers.

Holding on to the top rung of the ladder with his left hand, he balanced the box on his right palm like a waiter carrying a tray from Poseidon's realm. "Here."

Jessamyn's hands reached out, touched his.

Instinctively, he let go of the rung and fell backward, but the hatchway was so small that his spine smacked against the opposite side and he remained upright. "Oh, um, sorry, I was surprised."

"My bad. I was waiting for you."

"OK. But we'd better take this stuff to the stern because of the mast and boom."

The two intrepid travelers crawled toward the rear of the boat, where they sat cross-legged with the box containing the lantern open between them. There were only a few pieces, but fitting them together in the dark was not so simple; the contraption had a round metal base and a glass tube that screwed neatly into it, and a few smaller but presumably vital parts. There was also a jug of some sort of liquid that they set aside.

Jessamyn said, "Hold on to everything."

Timothy replied, "Especially the instructions."

"Yeah, because then after we get this thing lit we can see if we did it the right way."

For a moment, a shaft of light from the next catch basin, set too low into or sunk too wide from the aboveground curb, did indeed pierce the darkness, illuminating Jessamyn's red hair as if the lantern had already been lit. Reflexively, Timothy glanced away.

She reached out and helped him attach the base to another piece of metal that she had fished out of the box. Then she observed, "There's a hole in the side."

"That's where you insert the wick."

"Yes, here in the envelope, a long stretchy thing like a shoelace."

"There should also be a key to adjust the flame."

"Got it."

Working together was a maritime necessity. Timothy's father had always insisted on it when the Murphy Men set sail. It was, perhaps, a little like surgery, this operation. How long it took, neither teenager could say, but every action was crucial. At last, most of the pieces fit snugly, but there was one remaining object that didn't seem to belong anywhere. It was a narrow oval about six inches long. Most of the oval was made of smooth metal, but it ended in a tiny surface that measured about a quarter of an inch by three quarters of an inch and was rough to the skin.

"What is it?" Jessamyn asked.

"I don't know, but it feels like, um, a nutcracker," he answered. "It's flexible. I can squeeze it."

"Then you know what you should do, Timothy?"

"Squeeze it?"

"Yeah, the worst that can happen will be that the planet explodes."

He did squeeze, and-it wasn't exactly an exploding planet, but both of them jerked back when the thing sparked.

He laughed. "It's a lighter."

"This bottle…" Jessamyn lifted up the jug, about the size of a carton of orange juice, stored in the box with the lantern. Timothy could sense her exertion as she twisted off the top. There was a sloshing sound, and a biting alcoholic odor wafted into the air. "Fuel," she announced. "But I don't know where to fill it."

He felt around the base of the lantern where the wick poked through the hole. A miniature sliding door opened. The design was ingenious because it allowed the wick to absorb as much fuel as it required to stay wet while keeping the rest of the flammable liquid in an independent compartment safe against spillage. If the lantern toppled over on a wave-pitched boat, the light would shutter, but the fire would not spread. "Here."

She poured several ounces into the cavity while he held the mechanical flint to the tip of the wick. "This better work."

"It's gonna work or…"

"Explode the planet."

And then there was light.

Timothy's sense of enclosure had been accurate. The sewer was barely wider than the boat. The walls consisted of great rough-hewn gray stones that gradually curved upward to meet in a barrel ceiling. Because of this, it was vital to balance the X-tra Large extra carefully. Tilt too far left or right and the boat could lose the rest of its mast.

At the next intersection, a pair of catch basins on opposite sides of the tunnel showed the perpendicular barrels meeting in a groin vault from which a stream of water trickled in and splashed the deck. Perhaps a hydrant above was spraying a street full of happy children in wet shorts and T-shirts. Or maybe there was a fire and the water came from a leaky hose.

"Say," Jessamyn said, no longer whispering.

"What?"

"I was just wondering…"

"Yes?"

"What do you do for light when you're not being attacked by sharks or hit by lightning?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you said the lantern is for a nighttime emergency. So what about when it isn't an emergency?"

"There's a battery. It's charged at the marina and…"

"How do you turn it on?"

"With a key…that I, um, have right…here." He fished a ring of keys out of his pocket.

"And…"

He saw the logic. With the key, he could have turned on the engine. With the engine, he could have turned on the regular lighting system. Their labor spent putting the lantern together was unnecessary. "It didn't occur to me."

In the dark, it didn't occur to him to flip a switch to turn on the light? He changed the subject to something that could be seen by the emergency lantern, a narrow ledge that ran above the water line beside the channel for a block or more. "Look at that."

"What's it for?"

Timothy hazarded a guess. "Um…promenading. You know, for people who are allergic to the sun."

"Very funny. What do you really think?"

"I'm not sure, but I'd guess repairs." The lantern cast a flickering light, and Timothy reached out to let his fingers stroke the wall as they passed a tight spot in the channel. "It's wet," he said.

Jessamyn nodded and then looked down at the water and repeated the question she had asked earlier in the dark. "Where's it coming from? I mean, there's no rain today."

Timothy shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe there's always some seepage. Or maybe they keep a certain amount in the system to keep it-"

"Moist?"

He ignored the wit and tried to focus on his surroundings. The wall seemed mossy and cold even though the temperature had to be 85 degrees. The channel smelled fresh despite stray cigarette butts and Styrofoam cups and other urban detritus washed down from the streets. Again he listened to the rumble in the tunnel. Part of the hum definitely came from the surface, yet some vibrated through the walls on a regular but discontinuous basis, every few minutes. Perhaps a dentist was working in a basement office on the far side of the wall. No, there would have to be a team of dentists busily drilling their patients' teeth for block after block.

And then there was one other small sound that Timothy or Jessamyn might have called a rustling if they'd been in the forest, because it wasn't mechanical or industrial; it was biological. Neither mentioned it.

"We've got work to do," Timothy announced.

"Aye, aye, sir." Jessamyn saluted.

He couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic, but he didn't mind. For Jessamyn Hazard, sarcasm was a form of salutation.

He explained that it would be a good idea to use their light to take inventory of the rest of the community's assets. To begin with, there was rope. Sailboats are basically made out of rope loosely held together by planks of wood and stretches of cloth. Some of the rope lay in neat coils at the bottom of the utility cabinet in which Timothy found the lantern, but more was strewn across the battered deck, hopelessly tangled when the mast broke.

"What are we supposed to do with rope?" Jessamyn scoffed. "Lasso some wild horses?"

Patiently, he explained, "We don't know what's going to come in handy. Remember, this is uncharted territory."

"Yippee-i-o-ki-ay."

Ignoring her, he propped the lantern at the top of the ladder so that it illuminated both the deck and the cabin below. Then he descended again into the newly lit interior and opened the door to the pantry next to the bathroom and started calling out the items of the inventory before passing some upward and stowing others. "One pair of bright-orange inflatable life vests."

"Is that a fashion statement?"

"No, it's for an emergency."

"Like the lantern? What are we going to do, drown in two feet of water?"

"You never know. Gas. One medium-size propane tank."

She sat at the top of the hatchway, legs swinging, casting shadows, just watching the underworld go by. "Pro-pain, you say. In my neck of the woods, most folks are anti-pain."

"That is really bad."

"Not as bad as forgetting that you had the key to the boat."

"OK, are we even, then?"

"Even Steven. But about the propane…is that for barbecues?"

Perennially the best student in her class, Jessamyn happened to be correct. "How else do you think you cook on a boat? So yeah, here, add one glorified hibachi."

"Speaking of which…"

He knew what she had in mind. "Yes, indeed, food is a priority. To start with, there's the stuff we packed today. You and your mom brought most of it, so why don't you tell me what treats we have to look forward to."

"Two chickens, marinated, cut into pieces…potato salad…coleslaw…chips…a blueberry pie."

"No partridge in a pear tree?"

"Couldn't fit it on the forklift."

"But wow, good for your mom for cooking all that."

"I didn't say that she cooked any of it. Underpaid ethnic minorities who work at Whole Foods did. My mom hasn't cooked since…"

She allowed the pause to linger a second. That was how long it took for Timothy to figure out how long it had been since Jessamyn's mother had cooked anything. Then he filled up the airspace. "We also carry staples in the pantry: ramen noodles, canned vegetables, ketchup, mustard. Maybe some other stuff. We should check. And there's a brand-new five-gallon container of fresh water. All in all, I'd say this could last us a few days if we're careful."

Aside from their first double-meaning-laden conversation, neither had mentioned a word about how long they were likely to go unfound underground. Or, perhaps more pertinently, how long they might hypothetically prefer to go unfound. In either case, food was a limiting factor unless they discovered more. That was highly unlikely. Maybe they could go fishing.

Timothy pulled out two flexible titanium rods that his father had purchased in a moment of enthusiasm but seldom used. Timothy loved the process of the cast: arm extended backward, and then a flick of the wrist that sends the line, with an oblong rubber bob attached, whizzing into the distance. Sometimes it flew so far that he couldn't see the tiny splash. Then he'd hit the autospool, which retracted the line like a zipper through the waves. But the one time they tried to actually fish for blues, the lines got totally tangled and they ended up going out for a lobster dinner.

On the recreational side, the closet contained an extra set of swim trunks, male, and some snorkeling gear. More practical was a toolbox and a first-aid kit that came with the boat. Also various pulleys and tackles and sail attachments. Domestically, there was bedding and several striped towels, and a plastic container with soap, toothpaste, and shampoo.

The goods lay spread out on the deck as the vessel continued to float gently along the tunnel.

"Um…," Jessamyn hemmed, "about that barbecue?"

For one second she looked like an eager little kid rather than the brittle wiseacre she'd been until now. "Fine concept," he enthused. "But we still have work to do."

"Like?"

"First the checklist."

"I thought we just did that."

"That was stuff in storage. This will be of what we really need in order to get moving."

"Gotcha."

"Better say 'ready as they go.'"

"What does that mean?"

"I have no idea. But it's a nautical tradition."

"Is it a nautical tradition to go for a sail in the sewer?"

Timothy was growing impatient. "Look, are you going to cooperate or not?"

Jessamyn rolled her eyes. "Ready as they go."

"Mast?"

"Broken."

"Well, then, half-mast?"

"More like three-quarters."

Exasperated, he conceded, "Three-quarters mast?"

"Present and accounted for, sir."

"'Check' will do fine."

"Check."

"Engine?"

She peered over the stern of the boat, where an outboard motor had been mounted for putting around a harbor. "No."

"No?"

"We must have lost it in the fall."

"Hmm. Spar?"

"Is that the crosspiece that used to be on top of the mast?"

"Yes."

"No."

"OK, we're going to have to work on that. Boom?"

"Ummm…Bah?"

"What?"

"You know, sis-boom-bah."

He smiled. "Not exactly. This"-he patted the thick horizontal pole that extended along the spine of the deck, making two sides of a triangle with the mast-"is the boom. It's used to change direction."

Jessamyn paused for half a second, just long enough to convey how silly the exercise was but not long enough to complain. "Check."

"Wheel?"

"Do you have a driver's license?"

"Wheel, mate?"

"And why is the second-in-command a mate? I thought mates were equal rather than-"

"Wheel?"

"Check."

"Sail?"

"Check."

"Controls?"

"Where are they?"

"Here." He tapped the panel.

She tried every available button, dial, and switch, and all that came up was a harsh crackling noise. "Radio's berserkers."

"How about the light?" He folded his arms smugly and waited for the answer.

She nodded. "You got lucky."

"My father always said that a sailor makes his own luck."

"Or her own luck."

"Fine. So except for the controls and the engine and the spar, all things necessary are accounted for. Let's rig this baby."

Immediately, Jessamyn stood up. "Just tell me what to do."

"Start with the rope there. Untangle it and coil it up nicely."

Jessamyn paused. If this was make-work or, worse, woman's work, she was ready to quit on the spot. But Timothy himself was tidying the deck, separating torn bits of sail from chunks of broken wood. In a small boat-in any boat-organization was vital. As Timothy said Tom said, "Everything in its place."

Unfortunately, neatness wasn't going to set the X-tra Large straight after the damage from the fall, but his dad also said that a real sailor had to be prepared for anything.

"What's this?" Jessamyn had found an object that looked like a thick metal clamp under some of the torn sail and knotted rope.

"That," Timothy said, grinning, "is exactly what we're going to need to hang a new sail. Please give it to me." He threaded a stretch of rope through a device on the side of the object and stood on his tiptoes but couldn't reach the splintered peak of the mast. He climbed onto the boom but was still a few inches shy of his goal. That was good news and bad news. The former because it meant that a large portion of the sail would be available to catch the underground wind, the latter because the sail wouldn't make a difference if he couldn't attach the thing. "Um…"

Jessamyn reached up and easily collared the mast. She didn't get any thanks for making her companion feel like a munchkin.

He tightened the rope that rode upward, doubled it for good measure, and let out some slack. Then he attached the other end to a pulley at the base of the mast and handed it to Jessamyn to stretch out along the boom. Eventually, they'd bring that end back to the mast, thus creating a hemp triangle. But due to the new and lesser height of the mast, several feet of sail flapped over the boom.

"We're going to have to reef it. That means adjust the bottom of the sail, like a pant cuff." He handed her a knife from the toolbox.

"Do I look like a seamstress?"

"No, a mathematician. First, you've got to figure out the dimensions."

An hour later, they were ready, maybe. The damaged mast had to hold, and so did the damaged sail.

"Now, on the count of three, we hoist."

The second the surprisingly heavy fabric creaked up the mast to the block, the breeze in the chamber picked up. At least it seemed that way because the sail puffed boldly outward. In reality, they were going only a wee bit faster than before because the exposed canvas was a quarter of its previous square footage. Nevertheless, they were moving, without a care in the world. Sailing.

CHAPTER 3

IF IT WAS DARK AND FASCINA TING BELOW THE STREETS, there was plenty of light above but little worth seeing. Miranda Hazard and Tom Murphy stood, out of breath from their mad dash after the unstoppable vessel, at the ragged edge of the hole in the earth through which their children had disappeared. For perhaps five seconds, Miranda was like a three-year-old who's fallen and needs to figure out the correct response to her pain. Then she screamed.

The only reason Tom didn't join her was that Murphy Men didn't show that sort of weakness, but he leaned over the gash in the ground and called out his son's name. "Timothy! Timmmothy! Can you hear me? Timothy!"

The younger of the Murphy Men may or may not have heard his father, but beat patrolman Johnny "Angel" Bosco did. He'd been collaring a teenage shoplifter at a drugstore around the corner when mayhem broke out in the street. He looked at the young offender, said, "Don't do this again," and was first on the scene.

Bosco scanned the smashed cradle and the Con Ed workers fleeing their excavation, checked to make sure that no one was injured, and then radioed to the precinct house for backup. By then, however, several 911 calls had preceded him, and a squad car was already sirening down Broadway, followed moments later by an ambulance.

"My daughter!" Miranda wailed.

Bosco looked at Tom Murphy beside her. "Are you with this woman?" he asked.

Quietly, Tom gasped, "My son."

More police arrived every second, yet before any of them could discover more about what was fast developing into the SDJ-situation du jour, in cop lingo-a dinged-up, unmarked Chevy with a portable light and siren attached to the roof roared the wrong way up 184th. From the reckless driving, Bosco knew who was in the car: brass.

A barrel-shaped man wearing a brown suit and a bad toupee, the kind that dares people to notice it, climbed out of the passenger seat. Bosco immediately acknowledged the occupant. "Captain Mullane."

The head of the 34th Precinct didn't bother to return the greeting. He looked at the hole in the ground, at the increasing number of police officers circling it for no ostensible purpose, at the gathering crowd, at the distraught couple, and only then at his subordinates. "Everything under control?"

"Yes, sir."

Mullane spat into the gutter. "What do we have?"

Johnny Angel briefed him as best he could. "From what I can figure, a boat with a couple of kids on it fell into the hole."

For a second Mullane thought Bosco had said "a goat" and wondered what the heck two kids in Washington Heights were doing riding a goat, but once the story had been confirmed, the goat made more sense than the actual truth. He scratched his toupee, which shifted slightly to the left, exposing a line of gray stubble over his right ear. "What are we talkin', the Queen Mary?"

"It was apparently attached to that pickup over there." Bosco pointed to the truck with New Jersey plates.

"The driver?"

"One of them." He pointed to Miranda and Tom, who stood frozen like statues amid the rapidly increasing chaos.

"Parents?"

"Yep."

"And…" The major question. "Where are the kids?"

Bosco shrugged and gazed into the crevasse like a tourist at the Grand Canyon. "We haven't made our way down there yet, but we don't think there are any fatalities. It seems as if the boat got away."

At that moment another caravan of cars and vans arrived to block traffic, which was just as well since the street had taken on the atmosphere of a carnival. A crowd of locals amassed on the edge of the pit.

The second group of vehicles belonged to the representatives of the utilities whose work had been damaged. Con Ed sent a crew; so did the telephone company. Then the fire department set up a pair of floodlights to illuminate bits of wood floating below. The only agency that did not appear was the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, a.k.a. sewer and water.

And then there was the press. Every daily tabloid and local TV station monitored police reports. Traffic accident? Didn't rate a stringer. Construction accident? Ho-hum. Two children on a boat disappearing into the sewer? The next day's front page had just been written!

Once the captain had absorbed the minor data his officers had gathered, he interrupted. "All right. Done. First, I want several men down there. Stat. Now…" More carefully he eyed the two parents. Mothers and fathers of lost or hurt kids were a police officer's worst nightmare. Grotesque if guilty, pathetic if innocent. They wrecked you.

Calmly, he introduced himself. "Excuse me, folks. Seems like we have a little problem."

Tom Murphy turned on him, eyes blazing. "A little problem? You call your street swallowing my boy a little problem and-"

"Sir! Sir! I apologize if I spoke wrongly. Now, let's start at the beginning. Are you sure that your boat was attached to the truck up the street?"

"Yes," Tom snapped. "How do you think it got here from New Jersey?"

Miranda interrupted. "When we came out of that luncheonette the boat was already rolling downhill. We tried to catch up with them, but we couldn't."

"Yes, ma'am."

"We were going to City Island. We stopped for an ice cream."

"Egg cream," Tom corrected her.

To calm down the parents, Mullane needed to shift them away from the gruesomely compelling wound in the earth. "Why don't we step out of the sun over…there." He led them to the trailer parked on the far side of the hole to oversee its excavation. At the door, the captain flashed his badge at several shaken Con Ed workers. "Out," he declared. "This trailer is temporarily impounded by the NYPD. Thank you," he said before anyone could object.

Mullane returned to the business at hand. "We've already determined that there have been no injuries, and we're going to find your daughter. And your son, sir. But we need to find out exactly what occurred."

"No." Tom Murphy was still unhelpful. "What you need is to get down there."

Patrolman Bosco knocked on the door of the trailer. Glad for the break, Mullane said, "Excuse me, please. I'll be back in a moment," and stepped outside.

Bosco reported that he had done a preliminary forensic examination of the site. He'd also walked uphill to the pickup truck, which was duly registered, though it had a three-month-old unpaid parking ticket from this block. Most important, he noticed that the six-inch solid-steel hook meant to fit snugly into the trestle's eye was hanging loose next to a stiff button that had to be pressed before the hook could be removed. Though simple, it was a fail-safe mechanism that couldn't bump or shake loose. Tension on the connection made it impossible to budge while in motion and difficult at rest. "In other words…"

Mullane concluded, "This was no accident."

Yet attributing cause to the SDJ was irrelevant at the moment. They'd have plenty of time to sort out the mess. For now, the father was correct. It was imperative to find those kids. Preferably rescue those kids, though it remained a theoretical possibility that their parents had committed about the weirdest crime the captain had ever seen.

He looked at the trailer's smeary window, then up the block to the truck and nearby stoops. They'd have a hundred witnesses to interview. Someone surely noticed. Someone surely would talk. He was just thinking that they'd get a clear picture when a tall man entered the restricted area clutching a tan briefcase as if it contained diamonds.

"Excuse me, excuse me," the man demanded. "Who's in charge here?"

Tom and Miranda stepped outside to see what was going on.

"That's me," Mullane said.

"Seth Rothbart, troubleshooter for Time Warner. Now, we have over five thousand customers who are currently without service. So here's what I expect you to do…" He pulled a sheaf of official-looking papers out of the briefcase.

For one slight, light moment, the policeman's eyes met those of the father of the lost boy. Then the captain picked up the papers as if to examine them. He strolled over to the edge of the pit, now blocked by yellow tape, and dropped the batch over the edge.

"What are you doing?" yelped Rothbart. "I have customers, Captain, and…"

"And I've got two kids down there while you're worried about whether your precious customers can see Dancing with the Stars? I'll tell you what, Mr. Cable Man. I'm going to count to ten to give you a sporting chance to get out of here before I throw you into that pit with your forms."

"If you think-"

"One…Two…"

The man from Time Warner fled the scene as fast as anyone can move without running.

"Thanks," said Tom Murphy.

"It's nothing. I should have fed him to the crocodiles." And then, seeing the sudden alarm on the mother's face, Mullane corrected himself. "Not that there's any crocodiles down there."

In fact, he was glad for the bureaucrat's interruption. It had given him the opportunity to earn the parents' trust. "Tell me more about your kids."

Suburban kids. Good grades. Each had some friends, but neither was going to be voted Most Popular. Actually, NYPD Captain Walter Mullane had been voted Most Likely to Do Time by the senior class of Bensonhurst High School.

Mullane asked both of the parents a lot of questions about their children until he began to feel like he knew Timothy and Jessamyn. Geeks, both. No special trouble that the parents knew about. Or, to be precise, no special trouble the parents were willing to mention. He also learned about the boat: age, origins, dimensions. It was described like the getaway car in a bank robbery. No, it was described like the accomplice in the getaway car. It had a personality, like another child with its own desires.

There was one more element in the equation that had to be taken into account. A force perhaps more similar to the X-tra Large than to its passengers. Inanimate, but with a character, a nature that needed to be understood. Hopelessly, Mullane looked at the polic and firefighters milling around the site and asked, "Anyone here know anything about the sewer?"

"I can help you." Another man, tall and thin with ridiculously large black plastic glasses, had slipped underneath the ring of yellow tape that now separated official New York from the excited crowd of gawkers.

"And who are you?" Mullane snapped. If there were any crocodiles, they'd be well fed.

"Cass Wainwright. From the civil engineer's office," the intruder said, identifying himself. "And I have here…" Fast as a magician, he whipped an enormous roll of papers that Captain Mullane hadn't noticed from behind his back onto the hood of Mullane's Chevy. "Plans."

"Hope yours are better than Time Warner's."

"Much." He pulled loose a ribbon, and the roll unfurled like an Oriental rug at a bazaar. The top page was a map of Manhattan, entirely different from any street map that most police would have any reason to use, a topographical map with contoured hills and meandering streams and a small portion of familiar urban grid down at the bottom. Semi-familiar, because the map's proportions were wrong. Downtown appeared skinnier than it should. There was no Battery Park City, and the Village didn't seem to extend as far west as it ought. Mullane tried to make sense of the top half of the map, where a dozen irregular lines curled across the big page like snakes. He raised his chin to the CE.

Wainwright explained, "This is the Viele Map. 1865. Viele was the chief engineer of Central Park, the last man to chart the city's original topography. If you're going underground, you're going to need to know what's there."

At last, some real help had arrived at the SDJ, and yet Mullane was sure that none of his officers had been bright enough to invite the engineer to the party. "How did you get here?"

"Subway."

"No, I mean who asked you to come here?"

To Wainwright, the answer was apparent. "No one. I heard on the radio. Sorry it took me so long, but the archives are closed on weekends. Getting the guard to let me in was like pulling teeth. Then the uptown train was delayed for…" He looked at the pit. "Obvious reasons."

Unlike the jerk from Time Warner, this man had simply come because he had something to offer. Incredible.

"Basically, the island of Manhattan is pitched from north to south," said Wainwright, beginning his tutorial. "There are still some hills and outcroppings like the one we're on, Washington Heights, but also Murray Hill and Morningside Heights, and then there were those that were leveled a century ago to make way for development. Still, if you think of the Staten Island Ferry Terminal downtown, you basically step onto the island about ten feet above the waterline. Up here-well, if not for the buildings-you've got a view."

"Are you saying we put a net at the Battery and we'll catch our fishies?"

"Unfortunately not. Besides, that could take a long time. Who knows where they could get stuck between here and there? After all, the island is nearly seventeen miles long and we're pretty close to the northern tip. Approximately…here." The engineer pointed to a large empty space where streets hadn't yet been built. A series of squiggly lines rendered streams.

Mullane made the obvious point. "But they're gone."

"Of course they're not. Just because some guy wants to put up a building doesn't mean the stream that runs across his property is going to disappear."

"Couldn't he just plug it?"

"No. The water's going to come out and it's going to go someplace. However, if you can't stop it, you can divert it, change the path-basically, shove it out of your way. You wouldn't believe how many culverts are under these buildings. Now, take a look at this." He unfolded a slightly more familiar second page over the first. In this map, the hills and streams were gone, and something geometrical-not streets-filled much of the island. "This is a map of the sewer that dates back to about 1910. Unfortunately, it's incomplete and doesn't have the entire system."

"So let's get a newer one."

"That's not possible."

"Why not? The sewer had to be built according to a plan."

"True, but a lot of the charts were drowned in the Municipal Building Fire of 1965."

"Pardon?"

"In many cases, there was only one set, and when a garbage can fire got a little rambunctious, the fire department decided to soak us down a tad more than necessary. The result was that several million one-of-a-kind documents became…"

"None-of-a-kind."

"But we can reconstruct the most obvious decisions that were made-or should have been made-and draw conclusions."

"Like water flows downhill?"

"Not always," Civil Engineer Wainwright explained. "Sometimes pressure from elsewhere in the system can push it uphill. Think of a trap under a sink. Also, underground topography is not obvious from the surface. In some places the storm sewer is only a few feet beneath street level; in others, where there are hills, it may be more than a hundred feet deep. Also, some grades are so minimal, less than one percent, that the slightest impetus would carry a vessel uphill."

"In other words, a motor?"

"A motor, a sail, it could be a team of oxen. Think of the sewer as a canal. Whatever can impel a vessel through Panama can do the same here."

"So we should look for those kids in the Pacific Ocean?"

The captain was pleased with his wit until he glanced up and saw the stricken expression on Miranda Hazard's face. "Sorry about that, ma'am. We will find your daughter and her friend."

He was sure. That's why he'd allowed himself a moment of inappropriate levity. A hundred people had seen the kids disappear. No bodies had been found. It was therefore clear that they had landed safely. And there were limits to where they could have gone. Thus, they were bound to be found. How the trestle bearing the boat had been released from the cab remained a mystery. That was the next problem he had to solve.

CHAPTER 4

HAVING TAKEN INVENTORY AND STRUNG AND hoisted the sail, the teenagers suddenly had nothing to do but float downstream as if they were on a raft in the sunlight. Timothy and Jessamyn sat on the deck of the X-tra Large, considering their present situation. Timothy stated the obvious. "They're going to be coming in exactly where we entered."

Jessamyn, however, mulled over another, unmentionable truth. Quite simply, this was a major adventure. To quit would be to forgo the saga of their young lives. They might not have chosen to risk those lives or scare the heck out of their parents, or have chosen each other as partners in this day's wild exploit, but none of those options were left up to them. Well, maybe that item about scaring the rents. She could make her peace with that. Miranda would survive. "So the best thing we can do is put some serious distance between us and them."

"Yes, but we have to do more than that."

"What do you mean?"

"We've got to think the way they're going to think. Anticipate their next move and avoid it in advance."

"Like chess."

"Um, sure." Timothy played chess. And he was good. Had come in third in an elementary school tournament. But he was pretty sure that he wouldn't stand a chance against Jessamyn. The extra-large girl probably knew every move from the DeCristoforo Opening to the Curran Gambit.

Indeed, she began to spool out the logic of the situation. "So they'll enter the tunnel, discover the stuff we left behind, like the motor. But the boat will have done what boats do. Traveled on the water."

"Right," Timothy concurred. "After all, they know we couldn't have sunk."

"Why not?"

"To begin with, the water's no more than a few feet deep."

She peered into the dark channel. "How can you tell?"

"The keel broke off, but it also broke our fall. We weren't swamped. So the bottom can't be too far below the hull."

Jessamyn nodded. "OK. So what will they think?"

"They should be able to figure out our maximum cruising speed and then enter the sewer ahead of us. They might put up a blockade. But we have several advantages."

"The first is that you're so smart."

"What?" Absurdly disconcerted, he asked, "Do you really mean that?"

"No, but I figure I've got to flatter you."

Instantly deflated, he sighed. "Really?"

"Whatever I say now wouldn't make a difference because I've already established the principle that I can assert two diametrically opposite propositions. Thus, you couldn't be sure if I was telling the truth, so there's no point in your asking and less point in my answering."

He looked at the enormous girl in her Hawaiian shirt and orange pleated shorts sopped from the splashed-up water of the sewer. Trying to count his blessings, he smiled. "Did anyone ever tell you that you're a sociopath?"

"You mean a psychopath."

Once again, she had him. "What's the difference?"

"Actually, I don't think there is one. Or maybe it just depends on who's making the determination."

"Then why are there two separate words?"

"Because psychologists and sociologists can't agree on anything. They each had to make up their own word."

"Which basically means someone who doesn't play well with others?"

"I thought that was the definition of success. Speaking of which, what are our advantages?"

"Well, the first is that I'm so smart."

She put the tip of her finger to the tip of her tongue and made an imaginary score mark in the air.

"And the second is that this sewer system is pretty labyrinthine." He felt pleased at using the fancy word.

"And the third?"

"Well, they're going to assume that we want to be rescued and that we're going to do everything we can to stay as close to the place we went into the ground as possible. And even if we were hurt or unconscious or something else made it impossible to maneuver the boat, they'd still assume that we'd be carried in the direction of the current. So if we put a little energy into putting some distance between us, and if we go off at an angle, they won't be able to catch us until we're good and ready to be caught."

With the boat moving swiftly now, Timothy and Jessamyn both noticed that what initially seemed like a single, uniformly designed sewer system actually varied enormously from block to block. In some places, like intersections, the space widened. In others it narrowed. The ledge they'd seen came to an abrupt end and then recommenced farther on. Pipes and conduits hung from rusty brackets here but not there, fortunately above the height of the partial mast.

A series of metal rungs set into the stone wall climbed out of sight. An ancient louver door, rusted into rigidity, protected what must have been the tunnel's pumping, mechanical, or storage space. Or, for all they knew, it was an abandoned gift shop that once sold posters and snow globe souvenirs of the sewer.

Nor was this an entirely man-made world. Vegetation grew in the sewer. Moss furred some of the stonework while here and there a twiggy tree sprouted from the cracks.

Jessamyn's thoughts returned to mortality and she wondered again, "You think this is what burial is like?"

Timothy took the question seriously. "The enclosure. The quiet. Could be."

"My mom says that it's unfair that rock stars die."

"My dad says that's how you tell that the world is fair."

"What do they see in each other?"

"What does anyone see in anyone else?"

"Or," she continued, "what do we see in ourselves? I mean, do you think of yourself as having one parent or not having one parent?"

"Like, is the glass half empty or half full?" Timothy asked.

"Sort of."

"Well, I'm not sure it's possible to be a half-orphan."

"And if two half-orphans meet, do they become a whole orphan?" she asked.

As they spoke, the X-tra Large sailed into another open space, like a cavern or an aquatic public square. It couldn't have reflected an intersection up top, because they had just passed one. In fact, they were beneath a traffic triangle where two avenues scissored at an angle. Down below, this created the kind of interlacing architectural pattern that Timothy had once seen in a black-and-white poster at a friend's house. More important, it meant that the X-tra Large had plenty of room to tack. "How about we turn off here?" Timothy suggested.

"Good as any, I suppose," Jessamyn agreed.

"Ready and about?"

"Yes, sir."

Timothy slackened the sail while Jessamyn pushed the boom a few degrees leeward to take advantage of a slight shift in the wind. Obliging as always, despite its recent shock, the X-tra Large responded beautifully, but the moment it rounded the corner onto what they assumed was a street in the 170s, the sailors were met by a wall blazing with color.

The sight practically knocked Timothy off his feet. "Yow!"

Even in the dank and once again cramped tunnel, the wall could have been a massive stained-glass window. It glowed. It shone. Automatically, the pair leaned backward, as if to protect themselves from its splendor and also to better perceive its message. Vivid red at the waterline shaded upward to orange to bright yellow, clearly the image of a flame spelling out a single three-letter word in nine-foot-tall capital letters that began under the surface of the water and extended up to the curve of the vault: DUO.

At a loss for her test-prep vocabulary, Jessamyn said with a sigh, "Awesome."

Timothy remained silent, staring at the huge letters. In a way, he and Jessamyn might have been like European explorers hacking through a tropical jungle to suddenly come across Mayan pyramids or Angkor Wat. Or, thinking of the science fiction he loved, like Captain Xakerax in Briana Morton's intergalactic, epistolary, feminist trilogy, Sarah Lawrence of Pedagogia. Behold, the remnants of a civilization that flourished and perished eons ago.

Then again, maybe DUO was just a couple of kids, rather like themselves, who snuck into the sewer. Well, maybe not so like themselves.

"How did they get in here?" Jessamyn wondered aloud.

Timothy thought for a moment and then posed another question. "And who is it for?"

Jessamyn shrugged. "Graffiti for graffiti's sake."

"Like art?" he asked.

"Still, how many people do you think get down here?"

"At least four."

She looked at him. "You and me and DUO."

"And…"

Ahead of the boat, another wall of graffiti loomed, and then another, each in a different style, each bearing a different name. There was the hard, almost glassy edginess of Lazer and the ornate curlicues of Terf 161.

"Look at that." Timothy pointed to an elaborate cityscape by Mango.

"And here!" Jessamyn reached out to touch the muzzle of a gun that seemed to pop out of the wall as if it was three-dimensional.

And then, in the largest open space they'd yet come to, at what must have been another traffic triangle above, appeared a graffiti gallery, with a dozen or more painted surfaces. Each was more extraordinary than its predecessor, but this latter work still seemed crude in comparison to the grace and precision evident in DUO.

Timothy imagined a party, the graffitists' ball, strictly BYOP: Bring your own paint. At some point in the evening, Terf may have been inspired to start on one wall. Then Lazer and Reef and Themboyz took to the opposite side of the tunnel. At last, DUO set up their studio around the corner and the flames started licking at the walls until the visual arsonists had ignited their three immense letter-shaped candles. Awesome.

Alas, the graffitists must have run at last out of paint or space because one final panel of tunnel spelled out the end of the group show in jade green outlined in cobalt blue: "Adios Amigos," by someone named Latin Sam.

At least Timothy and Jessamyn thought the show was over, until they drifted a few blocks farther. There, stretching from one catch basin to the next-Timothy's best estimate of its extent and location being the entire span from 172nd to 173rd Streets-was the true coda to the exhibit, a final masterpiece by DUO.

It consisted of a subway train of a dozen cars with DUO's tag sprayed across its doors and windows. However, there were other tags, too, some by the contemporary masters they recognized from the gallery and some that they couldn't know referred to graffiti legends of the past, like Zephyr and Dondi. It was a mural that contained the whole history of graffiti, as if some modern artist had re-created The Last Supper with Jesus in the style of Picasso and Judas as portrayed by Dalí.

More extraordinary yet was the context, for the subway itself was entirely realistic, and so were the southbound passengers partially visible between the letters of the spray-painted graffiti. There was a black-hatted Hasidic man reading a Yiddish newspaper in Zephyr's e and an Asian woman with a baby in a backpack on her shoulder in Lazer's a, a uniformed transit cop glancing at his watch in the dot over Dondi's i and, in the center of DUO's very own O, a young black boy peering out at the world.

The train was so authentic that Timothy thought he could hear its rumbling, and then he realized: He did hear a train rumbling. It was the sound that had previously reminded him of a dozen dentists' drills, and it grew louder, then quieter. There must have been a subway track on the other side of the wall, just another part of the active subterranean life. Perhaps the graffitists had gained access to the tunnel by means of a door between the transit and sewer systems.

Timothy and Jessamyn found themselves speculating about that, as well as nearly every subject in the world. "I mean," she suggested, perhaps provocatively, "what's the difference between DUO and Michelangelo? They both decorated great public spaces. Actually, they both worked on arches and had to take into account perspective and the curvature of ceilings like the Vatican."

"Yeah, but DUO doesn't do naked people," Timothy said, more daring than he'd ever imagined himself.

She took his reply seriously. "Maybe. But maybe this is only their uptown gallery. Maybe they got sexier when they went downtown."

"And how do you know that they started here? Maybe they live on the Upper East Side and go to some Catholic boys school."

"Hmm." She considered his point seriously but took one issue. "Why do you assume they're boys? Maybe DUO is a pair of twin girls from Park Avenue."

"Or Montclair?"

"Don't be silly. No one from Montclair could ever find their way into the-What's that?" Jessamyn heard a familiar sound that couldn't have been a…cough.

"Nothing."

Together they worked in silent communion as the vessel continued forward as if of its own volition. They didn't question whether to try and steer it to take a turn or avoid a turn and could no longer be quite sure how far they'd traveled. Nor could they be certain what time it was, though the glow from above had weakened. It was afternoon and Jessamyn had forgotten her hunger-until now.

"Hey," she said. "Didn't you promise me a picnic?"

"Excellent idea. Let me show you how to work this thing."

They unfolded the hibachi, screwed the propane tank into a nozzle on the side, and used the squeezy igniter from the lantern to spark the gas into a deep-blue flame.

They grilled one of the marinated chickens and set the fixings on a couple of paper plates. Instead of eating blueberry pie for dessert, however, they broke out a box of Twinkies from the pantry. It was all as delicious as it was supposed to be out on the open waters of the Long Island Sound with their parents.

And yet something was missing from the picture.

Oh: the parents. Also the sky, the ocean, seagulls, maybe a few other boats out on what had promised to be a beautiful day that both Timothy and Jessamyn had originally dreaded.

Instead of anxiety, however, they both felt a sense of profound calm. Indeed, to look around after a frightful accident and be able to count one's limbs and digits might give anyone that "but for the grace" chill, and yet both of them knew-not to speak it, but deep down they knew-that they had escaped a far worse fate.

If not for the "accident," they would have arrived at City Island a bit after noon, gotten the X-tra Large into the water by one o'clock, puttered around on the Long Island Sound for a few hours, and returned to the same dull life they'd always led. That was truly humbling.

"Um…" Jessamyn, who seemed willing to make any brash statement at any given moment, hemmed awkwardly.

"What?"

"Does the bathroom work?"

"I didn't check. Let's go down."

Together, they descended into the hatch, and Timothy held up the lantern with its wick turned low to conserve oil. He peered into the tiny room he called a "head" and announced, "Looks good." Then he climbed back on deck and sat on the prow, feet dangling into the water, and thought how funny it would be if he lost a flip-flop. A minute later, Jessamyn returned and glanced around the deck with a quizzical expression.

"Um, Timothy?"

"Yes."

"Did you clean up?"

"No, but I will."

"Were you hungry?"

"No thanks. I just ate."

"I mean it. If you didn't clean up, you must have been really, really hungry."

"Not so much."

"Well, you must have been if you ate every bite of the chicken, including the bones."

Timothy turned. The half-filled plates they'd left were empty. Only the Twinkies remained. He lifted the lantern and a foot-long tail slipped into a hole between the bricks.

"Ewww," Jessamyn said.

"It must have been drawn by the food."

"As long as it's not drawn by the company."

"OK, it means that from now on everything, every single edible bite, goes in the refrigerator, whether it works or not."

She nodded, but once the paper plates were disposed of and the rest of the food was stowed, all they had to do was make tiny adjustments to the sail, lie back, and appreciate the scenery. Indeed, the tunnel began to seem like a grotto with moldy papier-maché stalagmites growing on the ledge in heaps of sodden garbage bags, and newsmagazines studded with shiny cellophane and glittery foil cigarette wrappings ornamenting ancient headlines.

Timothy said, "Talk about yellow journalism."

The tunnel was its own busy ecosystem, but what else was in it besides rats and graffitists and them? "You think there are reptiles here?"

"How'd you get that idea?"

"Some book."

"No."

"I always heard there were alligators."

"No, but there are bugs the size of rats."

"You know, that isn't what bothers me, but…"

"But what?"

"If the bugs are the size of rats, then how big are the rats?"

"Maybe we really should get out of here."

They lay back, less easily than they had earlier, pondering where circumstance might take them before the end of the day.

"How far do you think we've gone?" she asked.

"I don't know. Say that it takes about ten minutes to get from one catch basin to the next, and that's a block. We've been down here maybe an hour, an hour and a half, so we may have gone six or nine blocks. I'd say we're approaching New York-Presbyterian."

"What's that?"

He looked at her as if he'd said they were under the White House and she'd failed to recognize the reference. "It's the big hospital you can see when you're crossing the GW Bridge. A real campus with a bunch of buildings connected by skyways and…Oh, of course, you'd have no reason to know. It's…let me put it this way…My mom never cooked dinner after she went to New York-Presbyterian."

Aboveground was the site of Columbia's Business and Technology Center, formerly the Audubon Ballroom. Originally a film and vaudeville theater, it later became a Jewish synagogue that rented out space to the OAAU, the Organization of Afro-American Unity, for its weekly meetings. There, on February 21, 1965, Malcolm X was lecturing when two men with pistols emerged from the wings and shot him dead. Currently, the old facade is all that remains of the original structure.

CHAPTER 5

KLIEG LIGHTS WERE MOUNTED AROUND THE perimeter of the excavation. It wasn't yet dusk, when they would glow and hum with eerie beauty, but someone-not Walter Mullane-had decided to go for the gala Hollywood-premiere look.

The captain surveyed his world: tense parents, insatiable press, and immense crowd. Even though it had become obvious that no bodies were going to be raised from the pit, word had spread through the Heights that 184th Street was hotter than any old street fair. Several couples were salsa dancing to the beats from multiple boom boxes, while every kebab vendor within ten blocks had rolled his cart over to feed the dancers, as well as the police and the utility workers and the media. Vast quantities of useless equipment were being unloaded from a truck that belonged to Lord knew who.

At least he did have some tidbits to feed the ravenous journalists. Rope finally obtained, two police officers were being prepared for their expedition, equipped with lights and walkie-talkies that Cass Wainwright believed would maintain better underground reception than cell phones. If necessary, more officers would follow, but it was most likely that the missing kids were around the corner.

"Men!" Mullane addressed them.

"Yes, sir," they both said.

"When you get down there, I want you to separate. Keep in contact with us and with each other, but separate. Cover as much ground as possible."

One of the officers couldn't help himself. "Ground, sir?"

"Whatever." Mullane sighed and sidled up the block, aiming to get lost in the crowd, grab a bite to eat, and find someone who wasn't present for the show but had been present all along-a witness.

Mullane went over the SDJ. It was difficult to avoid the assumption that this case was like that of some toddler who was holding his mother's hand in FAO Schwarz one second and gone the next…taking a nap with the stuffed bears. Most lost children were found in ten minutes, most of the rest within an hour. A few, however…

That's why the first principle in a search was speed; the odds of finding a kid to whom something genuinely scary had occurred decreased dramatically with the passage of time. Obviously, kidnapping didn't seem a consideration for Jessamyn and Timothy, but finding their bodies washed up in a cul-de-sac was a possibility mentioned quietly among the searchers. Not to the parents.

He checked Katznelson's, which had sold out of doughnuts but confirmed Tom and Miranda's story, and then looked across the street to La Iglesia de la Casa Sagrada, a bit redundant if you asked the captain. Could some young padre have been gazing out the window while counting his rosary beads? No such luck.

Still, there had to be at least one observer Mullane's predecessors had missed. Every neighborhood had its own unofficial concierge who maintained a 24/7 watch on the streets. Then he heard snickering from the adjacent stoop. Three teenagers in jeans and expensive sneakers sprawled over half a dozen steps each. Two of them sipped beer, theoretically illegal in public, but they didn't care. It tasted better that way, a tiny dare to the man. You got your rules. I got my street laws. Let's see who wins.

"Hey," Mullane said.

They didn't respond.

"You guys comfortable?…You look comfortable."

One of them scratched his belly, either an itch or body language declaring himself the leader of the pack.

"Some big to-do at the corner." Mullane spoke as if they were buddies, been gabbing all afternoon, and that they didn't know damn well what he was doing there.

The scratcher finished his beer, smacked his lips, stood, and, in a practiced basketball move, pushed the can off his fingers in the direction of an overflowing garbage can next to the nosy stranger whose badly fitting gray suit screamed "cop" as loudly as a blue uniform.

But before the can had a chance to score an imaginary two points, the captain snatched it out of the air and whipped it back so fast it bounced off the kid's chest.

The boy collapsed back onto the steps. "Man, what'd you do that for? I wasn't doing nuthin."

"You weren't saying nuthin, either. Now, I'm going to be polite and you're going to answer politely. Did you see anything happening on that boat before it rolled down the street?"

"Just this white kid and his girl."

"What were they doing?" Mullane glared at the boy's two companions, who were leaning backward out of reach.

"Nuthin, I don't know."

"What's your name?"

"Carlos."

"Were they on top of the boat the whole time, Carlos?"

"Er…," said the second wiseacre on the steps, the one next to the leader.

Mullane raised his chin at Carlos, who nodded, permitting the other kid to speak. "Don't you guys remember? For about a minute, the girl jumped off the boat."

"Is that true?" Mullane still addressed Carlos, allowing him to recover his memory and pretend that it was his decision to come forth with the information. Sources had to maintain face on the street.

"Yeah, yeah, she did," he said. "I thought that maybe she dropped an earring, because she was bending over near the ground by the front of the boat."

Mullane asked if any of the boys could tell what Jessamyn was doing, but her back had been to them. Still, that hardly made a difference. He didn't have proof, but he knew what had happened. The girl had unattached the boat. It was some sort of practical joke on the parents, who probably deserved it. There'd be hell to pay once the truth came out. Still, he had to find them first.

By the time he got back to the trailer, one of the spelunkers had already returned. Bosco was helping the shivering officer strip off his sodden uniform.

Mullane snapped, "What's going on?"

The man shook his head. "It's nasty down there, sir."

"What did you see?"

"Nothing."

"What do you mean, nothing?"

"Junk, debris from the boat right below. No trace of the boat itself or the kids."

"How far did you get?"

"We each went as far as we could, sir." He looked frightened.

"Did you hear anything?"

"Like what?"

"Voices. A splash maybe."

"It's a world of water, Captain. I couldn't hear anything but splashes and…"

"And what?"

The officer thought of the odd scratching sounds in the tunnel. And squeaking sounds, too. Not the squeaking of a boat's timbers, but something organic, something enormous. "Nothing. Nothing helpful, sir."

"OK." Mullane addressed the men in the trailer while the parents stared out the window, as if in a trance. "If it was uncertain until now, it isn't any longer. Those kids have a boat. And if they have one, I want two. Someone call the Coast Guard."

In fact, the NYPD was in possession of a number of vessels, which were mostly used to chase boats like the X-tra Large away from fireworks barges in the Hudson on the Fourth of July, though they occasionally came in handy when dredging a floater out of the river. Hopefully it wouldn't come down to that in the underground river, but still.

"Wait." Mullane addressed no one in particular. "Maybe we can cut off the kids before they get too far." He looked at the civil engineer, who'd remained on-site, poring over his maps. "Right?"

"No," Wainwright replied. "Our boats can't get in anyplace else. We could open a manhole or rip out a catch basin. There are even a couple of staircases for individual workers to enter, but the only place large enough for a boat to enter is at the start or end of the system. Queens, the Bronx, the river, or here. But I don't believe we're going to find them this way."

"Why not?"

"I'm not sure. What do you call it, a hinch?"

Mullane looked at the engineer in his cartoon glasses. "A hunch." Sadly, he had the same hunch, but he still had to try every option. "C'mon, give us some expectations. How far could they get?"

Wainwright shook his head. "There's more than sixty-six hundred miles in the system. I think that they may have gotten out of range. Maybe they got turned around."

"But how fast could they go?"

Wainwright shrugged. "Not my field."

Mullane looked at the group of police officers. "Anyone know the speed of a sailboat?"

At last, one of the cops in the background, an occasional Sunday sailor himself, said, "A good vessel might ride the current, catch the breeze, go maybe ten, maximum twelve knots."

Captain Mullane was frustrated. "We're not on the briny main, man. We're in the sewer main. Speak English."

"Five miles an hour."

The speed was insignificant, yet it made the predicament worse. Mullane did the math. The kids had several hours' head start. Three times five was fifteen. Manhattan was seventeen miles long. "You're saying they could be anywhere on the island."

Wainwright answered, "Theoretically. It depends on the circumstances."

The captain was confused. "What circumstances could there be?"

"To start with, rain."

"So, they're waterproof." It was one of Mullane's favorite lines. Whenever his detectives complained about the weather, he'd say, "Don't worry, you're waterproof." They hated it.

Wainwright, however, explained, "Every drop that lands up here finds its way into the system. As the volume and level rise, the water moves faster because it's confined to traveling through a limited circumference. It can reach seventy-five miles per hour in some tunnels."

The captain looked at the sky. It was clear, but to be on the safe side he turned to Patrolman Bosco and said, "Get me a forecast for the next few days."

"Days?" Miranda yelped.

Every police officer in the room turned as one. They'd forgotten the parents.

Mullane hastened to calm her. "Worst-case scenario, ma'am. We'll have them out in hours. Now get me that forecast, Bosco. So what else could affect speed or direction?"

Wainwright gestured to the gigantic hole outside the trailer. "Stuff like that. It's possible that some stones or mortar were loosened elsewhere in the system before the collapse. But the biggest variable is the people themselves. They can facilitate the natural speed and direction of the boat. They can also work against it."

"Er…" Tom Murphy made a sound.

"Yes, sir?"

"Timothy is a good sailor. Unless he was incapacitated, he'd halt the X-tra Large on a dime."

Unfortunately, the captain already knew why the boy didn't stop the boat. Why Timothy Murphy and Jessamyn Hazard were using their head start to sail as far from Washington Heights as possible. Because it was fun. Because it was there. Because they were stupid, privileged suburban brats just like their parents. Because they were the architects of their own catastrophe and were afraid of being caught and punished.

Nonetheless, it was the NYPD's job to find them, and pronto. "Well then," he asked the engineer, "once we get our own boats down there, where should we go?"

"Basically south." Wainwright flipped through his plans until he came to a page the captain could recognize. It was of contemporary Manhattan. Wainright took a pencil from his breast pocket and chewed on it for a while. Then he licked the tip and drew an arc on the regular map. He drew the line to about 125th Street and said, "It's hard for me to imagine them drifting any farther south than this. Also, we've got to hope they don't, because the system gets really hinky under Central Park what with the ponds and the reservoir. Also, you should keep an eye out here." He tapped the pencil near the edge of the map, at 145th Street.

"Why?"

"North River sewage plant. It's the destination for all of the waste in the sanitary sewer of Upper Manhattan, but it's a major outlet for the storm sewer, too. If these kids are going really fast and the natural flow is carrying them, that's where they'll leave the system."

"Meaning?"

"Just pop right into the Hudson. Except there's a cast-iron grate over the opening to keep kids from trespassing. It would also lock kids in. Can you remove it?"

Mullane was already on the phone, ordering a police cutter to the Hudson River at 145th Street. He turned back to the engineer. "And then?"

"Well, it depends."

"On what?"

"See, none of these maps tell me exactly how wide the tunnels are. If the boat gets stuck, but they continue without it, they'll be exposed."

"And."

"Whether they do well or not also depends."

"On what?"

"If they can swim."

Another police officer was sent out for Chinese food.

Everyone settled in for a long haul.

CHAPTER 6

COULD BE A WHILE TILL WE'RE FOUND," TIMOTHY said as they finally cruised out from under the crushing weight of the hospital.

Oddly, Jessamyn replied, "Do you read the New Yorker?"

"Huh?" He knew about the magazine from his ophthalmologist's office: the pastel covers, endless articles, incomprehensible reviews of avant-garde performers, stark black-and-white photographs; it was the epitome of sophistication for a suburbanite. He didn't understand why she was asking but replied, "Sure."

"My favorite cartoon ever is from there."

Yes, the magazine had cartoons, too. He didn't admit that they were all he looked at while waiting for Dr. Koestler to adjust the prescription on his ever-worsening eyes.

"You wanna know what it is?"

"Sure."

"There's three fish in a row. A little fish is about to be eaten by a medium fish about to be eaten by a big fish. Three thought bubbles are over their heads." She peered into the murky sewer waters as if to discern any bubbles. "The little fish is thinking, There is no justice. The medium fish is thinking, There is some justice. And the big fish is thinking, The world is just."

"What does that mean?"

"What does anything mean? That's what I mean. In fact-"

A slim, gray figure glided along the narrow ledge of the channel beside the X-tra-Large. At first Timothy thought it was a shadow of the mast cast by the lantern, but why hadn't he noticed it until now? For a moment he considered cranking up the engine, but then he remembered that he no longer had an engine. In order to better confront their observer-and also because he was curious-the captain turned the lantern key to expose more wick to the flickering flame.

Caught in the light, an old man with a beard immediately cried, "Don't hurt!" and turned away, as if attempting to hide in a crevice in the wall.

Timothy shifted the boom and slacked the sail so that the boat halted next to the man. He was difficult to make out, huddled against the stone wall, but he wore a tattered overcoat with holes in both elbows. A belt around his waist was so long, or the waist itself so slim, that the tongue dangled halfway down his thigh. Glancing over his shoulder, he blinked continuously and held his hand against his forehead to protect his eyes from the lantern and repeated, "Don't hurt!" and pulled a shapeless felt hat tight to his scalp.

"We won't hurt you," Jessamyn said softly.

"Really?" He allowed his eyes to linger for a second on the girl.

"Why should we?"

"People hurt."

"Not us."

For a second Timothy thought the creature was not a man at all but a mouse, because his face, except for a tiny upturned nose, seemed to be covered in a thin coating of gray fur. In fact, the skin between his beard and hairline was of an ashen pallor. It was obvious that he lived here. The teenagers were the intruders.

Jessamyn repeated slowly, "We're not going to hurt you."

"Hunting?"

"No, we're just…visiting," she said, and immediately wondered why anyone might believe that someone was hunting in this subterranean environment. "What's your name?" she asked.

"Name?" He looked nervous, confused.

"What are you called?"

He puzzled over this question as if asked for the square root of pi. Names were for the sun-blessed who lived up top. How long had it been since a mother, a friend, anyone had spoken his name? He replied, "You."

For a second, Jessamyn thought he didn't understand the question, but then she recalled that her two-year-old nephew called himself "You" until he went to preschool. Everyone thought it was incredibly cute, but it was actually quite obvious. After all, people were always asking him, "Are you tired?" or "Are you hungry?"

Could this graybeard be thinking like a two-year-old? She tried an experiment, "Hello, You."

He peered out from under his brow, clearly a major risk, though his eyes also darted left and right, and he started sidling along the stone wall toward a corner about fifteen feet away.

Timothy rummaged through the leftovers saved from the rats and found the Twinkies. Just the thing. Snack of universal friendship.

The man cringed at the angry sound of crinkling plastic but immediately took notice of the aroma that entered the sewer.

Timothy proffered a Twinkie over the damaged rail of the X-tra Large.

The man's eyes lit up, but he was clearly afraid of a trap.

"Go on." Timothy nodded. "It's OK. It's for You."

Tentatively, the man reached out. Careful to avoid touching his benefactor, he grabbed the offering of bright yellow cake and white cream and stuffed it into his mouth, devouring it in one gulp. His eyes brightened, and he moaned with pleasure. "You like."

"I like, too," Jessamyn said, and then, maybe a mistake, she brought up her worry of moments earlier. "Who's hunting?"

He shrank into his collar, only a dab of white cream showing where the Twinkie was smeared on his nose.

"Please, tell me who's hunting…You."

"Everyone in Undertown."

"What?"

"Undertown, here. The cremblers and the crawlers and the civvies and DUO. And, and, and now there's…" He jabbed a finger at the sailors on the X-tra Large. The gesture seemed accusatory, but Jessamyn instantly realized that it took the place of language since he couldn't logically call them "you."

"I'm Jessamyn and this is Timothy," she said, hoping to sound friendly.

"J-J-Jessathy," he said, conflating the two. And, strangely, once he had a name for them, he seemed to lose his fear. "Th-th-thanks for the cookie," he blurted, and dashed around the corner. By the time Timothy was able to angle the ship away from the wall and raise the sail enough to catch the faint breeze in the tunnel, You was gone.

"Cremblers and crawlers and civvies," Jessamyn said. "Who could they be?"

Timothy speculated. "Civvies could be municipal workers. And crawlers…" He didn't want to mention the rats that infested the tunnel.

"How about cremblers?"

"I don't know."

"And DUO. Maybe they'll paint us."

"You was really afraid," Timothy said.

"No I wasn't."

"I didn't mean you. I meant…"

"You?" Jessamyn laughed. "I think it's possible that You is afraid most of the time. That doesn't mean that we should be. We've got the biggest ship in the sea. It even has a name."

"Everyone does." Such a simple thing. "Except for You."

"Yeah." Jessamyn sighed, oddly thoughtful. "But I don't like mine."

"Really?"

"Truly."

"Why?"

"It sounds like the name of an English spinster. It should be served with scones and marmalade. I feel that I should be wearing a dirndl or something."

"How do you spell that?"

"D-i-r-n…" She had won a spelling bee the year before with that word, which she automatically recited until she realized that her companion had just asked the question to make her feel better. "Useless talent still doesn't make up for J-e-s-s-a-m-y-n."

"What would you prefer?"

Without missing a beat, she said, "Kat…with a K," and swiped at him as if she had claws.

Timothy jumped back, and then confessed, "You know, I'm not so crazy about my name, either."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, it sounds like 'timid,' and even worse is…" He didn't dare utter the diminutive.

"Timmy."

He cringed.

"Sorry. So how'd you get the name?"

"I don't know. It's some sort of grain. My mom was a bit of a hippie, and my dad thought it had a foine Oyrish rrring. Like I have anything to do with the auld sod!"

"What would you rather be called?"

Unlike Jessamyn, he'd never imagined a different name for himself. "I don't know."

"Well, I do," she declared. "You seem like more of a Jake to me."

Jake. What a radical concept.

Jakes were the kind of guys who were, well, they were guys, not boys. Jakes wore hats instead of baseball caps. They drank amber liquids and probably smoked, even if it was bad for their health. They had a fatalistic attitude toward life, because they knew the dangers. Tobacco was too slow to get them when there were guns, or gats, in the world. Other men looked up to Jakes. And as for women, Jakes knew women who had sultry, enticing names like…Kat.

Just for example.

"Yeah," he said. "I'd like that."

Upward-they couldn't say "upstairs" because there weren't any stairs-may have been a balmy summer evening, the kind in which they might once have gone out for ice cream or taken a late swim at a friend's pool, but down below was a whole other world as the light from the catch basins continued to dim. The walls seemed to emit drafts of cold air captured during the previous winter, and their clothes were wet.

Jessamyn gazed longingly at the ceiling.

Timothy followed her gaze and quietly suggested, "I think it's better if we let the current take us a bit farther along by morning." Still, he detached the sail so the X-tra Large couldn't travel too fast. If there was an obstruction, he didn't want a collision. For the same reason, they decided to remain on deck rather than rest down below. Each sat, back against the rail, alone with their own thoughts.

In Jessamyn's case the thoughts led, natch, to food. "Hey, how about dessert?"

"Good idea." Timothy brought up the blueberry pie, which they ate directly from the tin.

Then Jessamyn heard a scratching, and she saw what looked like a good-size dog dip its snout into the water farther down the ledge and grab something and run away.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a dog.

Jessamyn shivered. Without thinking, she reached out to hug Timothy. He reciprocated, but their seated embrace felt awkward. Maybe five sleepless minutes later, arms holding each other stiffly, Timothy couldn't help but say, "Um, Jessamyn?"

"Yes."

"You know…"

"I know," she said. "When I was a scout we learned that if we were ever lost in the woods-"

"Lost together with someone else."

"Of course. Then the most important thing to do was to keep warm…"

"If it's cold outside."

"Right, because…"

"Because," he continued, "there's a danger of hypothermia. That's what they told me and my dad when we took boating lessons."

"Well, since you know so much, just huddle and go to sleep."

"I'm just saying that it's good to be warm."

"Warm," she repeated sleepily.

They turned down the lantern's light and let the current take them wherever it would.