CHAPTER ten
FRIDAY BLEW BY in a whir—all anyone was
doing was counting the hours to meeting up for Wonderland’s last
night—and Jane found herself bolting out of school at day’s end so
she could go home and get ready. Not that there was even anything
to do to get ready, but everything felt urgent.
Since there was no way to make time go faster, Jane
had to find a way to fill it. Sitting in her room, surrounded by
that hideous green-and-pink wallpaper, she decided she needed to
look no further for something to do. She moved her bed away from
the longest wall in the room and then found a loose corner by the
bottom edge of the wall and grabbed and started to pull it up and
off. Two strips later, she was certain that she was uncovering
something significant. There was definitely something underneath, a
pattern of some kind. Whatever it was was covered in glue that made
it sort of hard to figure out at first, but eventually the mural’s
scene started to take shape. It was one big oversize doodle of
Coney Island as it must have been when her mother had lived in this
house.
The Parachute Jump was there, with a picture of a
key at its base. The Thunderbolt was there—all overgrown with vines
and plants and with a small house underneath—also with a key icon
by a gate. Looking for Wonderland, Jane found it—replete with Mad
Hatter, and this Mad Hatter had a key dangling from one of
his fingers.
So Leo had been right about the “Wonder” key after
all.
Which left “Bath.”
When she saw the key drawn next to the picture of
the round sea vessel sitting underneath the Cyclone’s tracks, she
sat and thought hard for a second, about The Beast from 20,000
Fathoms—didn’t the scientist who went down to find the sea
creature get eaten up in one of these little vessels?—and of the
postcard her mother had sent Beth—with the mermaid smoking a
cigarette on a little round sub. She closed her eyes and let her
mind go. In the movie they’d called it a “bell,” but there was
another word, and she could hear her mother’s voice say . . .
There has to be a submarine or a shipwreck or a
bathysphere around here somewhere.
Bathysphere.
And here was the map of where to find it.
She got changed for Wonderland and walked out onto
Steeplechase Pier and inhaled.
So that was that.
She exhaled and took another drag of salty air and
closed her eyes as her hair whipped across her face in the wind.
She pushed some strands away and thought about screaming into the
wind again. It had felt good that one time. It had been cathartic
and almost fun. But what would she even say this time?
What am I doing here?
She was actually starting to think she knew.
Why did you leave?
Was it so that Jane would have to come back? To
find Leo? To find the bathysphere?
It was there, right where her mother had drawn it;
she just knew it. The journal, too. All of her questions would be
answered.
“This is your captain!” she finally screamed, and
the words seemed to catch the wind and fly. “We are passing through
a storm!”
She needed to stop to take another deep breath
before she could yell, “We are quite safe!”
A smile had crept into her features, she could feel
it. She couldn’t shake it the whole way to Wonderland.