ten-year-old brother.
They were sitting across from each other in a train, heading towards their grandmother’s house in the country.
“I leveled up in my new game Xtreme Motorcycle Meat Grinder II. I was riding a Busa Ninja X1000. If I had captured the nitrous, I could have injected it into my engine. It would have given me an instant power boost to clear the bridge.”
Amani peeked behind her, not sure where the three boys had gone. They had been causing trouble on the train ever since Baltimore. All she wanted to do was to read and write in her journal. But instead she was worrying about flying paper airplanes, tossed peanuts and spitballs.
“Do you see them anywhere?” Amani asked, but Hude did not answer.
“Hude, Hude, Hude!” Amani said loudly. “Will you stop playing that thing for a minute and listen to me?”
“What did you say?” Hude said without looking up.
“I asked you if you knew where those boys went. I don’t see them. It makes me more nervous not knowing where they are than having them around. I just know they’re up to no good.”
Hude looked up from his game and scanned the train compartment with his eyes.
“Maybe they got off at the last stop. Just ignore them if they come back. We’ll be at Grandma’s soon anyway. You’ll never have to see them again.”
Amani looked around. Maybe Hude was right. The troublesome boys were nowhere to be seen. She opened her book and resumed reading.
Amani wasn’t your typical nine-year-old girl. She wasn’t into fashion or celebrities or the latest school gossip. She liked books, especially adventure stories that took her to exciting places and put her in the middle of tricky situations. Everyone knew she was a bookworm. She even looked like a bookworm. She had short bangs that fell straight on her forehead. The rest of her hair was always in two braids that hung above her shoulders. She wore small, round, wirerimmed glasses that appeared even more round against her heart-shaped face. She dressed in four colors only: tan, green, blue and orange. Colors that she imagined her adventure heroes would wear—sensible with a little flash, as she described it. And she never went anywhere without her small backpack that she got at the zoo. Inside it was everything an aspiring author would need—books, journal, sharpened pencils, assorted color pens and, of course, a muse, something that inspired her writing. No respectable author would be caught without one. Her latest muse was a stuffed animal panda bear that she named Mr. Panda. Her mother had given it to her at the 30th Street Train Station in Philadelphia before they left.
Hude, on the other hand, was a typical tweenaged boy. He loved any and all things electronic. If it were up to him, he would spend most of his time playing on his Wii, behind his computer, or with his Sony PSP. But it wasn’t up to him, as his parents would often remind him. Fortunately, he liked to play sports as well. Ice hockey had always been his favorite sport and living in Philadelphia, he was a big Flyers fan. But now he spent a lot of time shooting arrows. His grandfather had first taught him to shoot with toy arrows that had a rubber suction cup as a tip. Now he was regularly participating in competitions. Hanging on his wall was his grandfather’s recurve composite bow, waiting for him to grow into.
While Amani was thrilled to be visiting their grandmother in the country for a few weeks, Hude would have preferred that his grandmother visit them in Philadelphia. He had everything that he needed in the city. The slow pace of country life bored him. And his parents had told him no video games at his grandmother’s house. He didn’t know how he was going to survive. At least he had entered a target archery competition at the County Fair. The top two winners took home prize money, and there were some new video games that he really wanted to buy.
“They’re back,” Amani whispered to her brother.
Hude didn’t hear her. Amani looked at the boys out of the corner of her eye. The three boys sat down two seats behind them and across the aisle. They had never sat so close before and they were looking at something in a white Styrofoam cup.
“Hey, Bobby. Give me that!” a boy said as he tried to grab the cup.
“Just wait a second,” Bobby told him.
Then the unthinkable happened. Bobby got up and passed by Amani. Before she knew what was happening, he dumped something from the Styrofoam cup on top of her open book.
“AHHHHHH!” Amani screamed.
She jumped up. She threw the book towards Hude and ran away down the aisle.
“What is that?” Hude said to no one in particular.
A huge black beetle-like bug with two enormous beady red eyes sat on the seat next to him. Orange veins ran through its clear wings. He had never seen anything like it before. He then noticed the boys laughing hysterically. He looked around. No sign of Amani. It wasn’t hard for him to put the pieces together.
“Next stop, Fairfax County,” a voice announced over the intercom.
It was their stop. As the enormous beady eyes stared at him, Hude thought it was probably a good time to get up anyway. He collected their belongings, including Amani’s backpack which she had left on the seat. He found her book on the floor and laughed when he read the title, Lost in the Amazon: The Daring Adventures of Tad Walker.
Must be a lot of bugs like this one down there, he thought.
The boys were now sitting quietly in their seats. It wasn’t until he walked past them that he realized why. Across from them sat a man with a stern look on his face. He was wearing a dark blue uniform with red stitching and a gold patch. On top of his head was a matching blue cap with a black, shiny, stiff bill and gold trim. He was the man who had collected their tickets in Philadelphia.
I guess those boys are his problem now, Hude thought, as he walked into the next train compartment.
Before leaving, though, he noticed that one of the boys was wearing a white T-shirt with a picture of a blue bow strung with a blue arrow with red fletching. The word JOAD was written in big red letters across it. Hude knew that JOAD (pronounced JOE-ADD) stood for Junior Olympic Archery Development. Only serious archers belonged to that group. Although Hude didn’t know it, the boy noticed him too. Bobby McPherson noticed the bow case that Hude was carrying.
The train slowed down to stop. Hude found Amani standing by the door in the next compartment. He handed her backpack and book to her.
“I can’t wait to get some peace and quiet in the country,” she said.
Hude thought Amani might cry when they stepped outside onto the train platform. Millions of those large black beetle-like bugs darted jerkily in the air. They hovered together near the trees, looking like small black clouds. People in the parking lot dashed to their cars for cover.
“What is happening here?” Amani asked in a panicked tone.
“Don’t you worry about those little things, honey. They won’t hurt you,” a familiar voice said from behind them.
Amani and Hude turned around. “Grandma!”
They both hugged her at the same time.
“I
