Time Sniffers (A Sample)

This is too much for Ryan's mind to wrap around. To be honest, I'm thoroughly befuddled as well. This will take some mental adjusting.

I need a root beer float.

My thoughts are intruded by Debby's yelling, this time from the kitchen. "I can't find him."

"Try the closet. In his bedroom."

Dylan has taken to sitting in the closet for hours at a time. Yesterday, I peeked in there and joined him in the dark. We sat for a while, perhaps an hour or so. I made small talk, like I do with him when he's quiet. Not because I'm uneasy or anything. I often imagine Dylan hears me, wherever he's gone to, and like to think my voice is comforting somehow. Sometimes I make up stories; other times I talk about school and my friends. Most of the time he doesn't react at all, but every so often he'll say a word or two.

Yesterday, I remember what he said when I told him I would take him to the public swimming pool at three o'clock. He took my hand, there in the dark as we sat side by side, and said, "I hear him sniffing."

"Who, Dyl? Who is sniffing?" I listened hard but heard nothing but Dylan's nasal breathing.

He didn't say. Just squeezed my hand with his small soft fingers and stood. We exited the closet and that was that.

I hear footsteps tromping on the stairs. "Bye," Debby yells, with the door slamming after her. I listen to the sound of her car rattle down the driveway, then turn to Ryan as the room grows ominously quiet.

Ryan whistles and looks at his watch. He's about six feet tall, towering over my five-foot-five-inch height. He's all muscle and bronzed and probably pays a high-class stylist to have his hair cut each month. A stylist, not a barber. His parents bought him a Hydro-BMW-new-on his sixteenth birthday. A chick magnet, baby blue. I remind myself he's only out to impress-and conquer. I will not be conquered . . . I remind myself, although not very convincingly.

"I gotta go," he says. "If you're late, they make you do ten laps around the field." I have a hard time switching my attention away from the holo-image to the mundane affairs of daily routine.

I nod, and for a brief moment we share an unspoken thought. A rip in time.

He takes a quick glance at the screen. I have it on Pause, and my mother's face reflects the amazement and denial we both clearly feel in that room at that moment.

He lowers his voice, as if afraid to speak the unspeakable-mysteries and magic and forbidden dark knowledge. "I'm coming back later this afternoon. I'll call a few of the other Chem Club gang and maybe we can figure this out."