It is one thing to make the decision to go on the Hugest A-venture Ever in order to find your favorite toy. It is quite another to actually do it.
Billy had gotten as far as the front porch. He stood staring out at the dark. He knew he must walk down the steps and then walk down the sidewalk—that part would be easy. He’d done that a million times. But he wasn’t quite sure what to do afterward.
Had they turned right or left when his dad had driven to the Wedding? Billy closed his eyes. First, he had to make sure he remembered which was left and which was right. Okay. I draw with my . . . right hand, he reminded himself. He held his right hand up at the elbow, which made him look like he was sort of waving.
Ollie didn’t agree with the terms “right” and “left.” He always said “patchpaw” and “the other way.” His right hand (or paw) had a small patch on its underside. He and Billy had gotten caught in a sticker bush one day, and they both came out a bit worse for it. Ollie had ripped the stitching on his right paw, so Billy’s mom added a yellow patch to close it up. Bill had needed Band-Aids on his chin, his elbow, and coincidentally, the palm of his right hand. Ollie was fascinated by the Band-Aids, which he called “patches,” and he had taken great pleasure in the fact that he and Billy had matching “patchpaws,” even though Billy’s had a dinosaur on it and Ollie’s matched the color of his paw.
So, Billy stood there with his right hand in the air, and he found himself feeling kind of brave, because thinking of rescuing Ollie made him that way. He also realized that his dad’s car had gone right when they backed out of the driveway. Patchpaw it is, Billy decided, and turned left. Oh wait, thought Billy. That’s the other way. So he turned patchpaw. Why was keeping that straight so hard? Anyway. The park was on the right, and he could walk all the way to the park, no problem. He’d been doing that on his own for a whole year now. No big deal.
Except . . . he had never walked to the park in the dark before. Who knew that the dark could be . . . well . . . so dark?
Things got better when he reached a street lamp. The street lamp created a whole big circle of light, and it was the perfect place to rest between the darkness. That’s exactly how Billy thought of it: resting inside a nice, round, warm circle of light before plunging into the dark again.
Billy did a quick count. There were eight more street lamps till the park. And then there was a big light at the entrance. Billy rested for a while. No one else was out. The whole neighborhood seemed totally empty. It was so strange and quiet and alone feeling. He knew that people were inside all of the houses. But it didn’t feel like they were. Then a slight breeze sent leaves tumbling and tapping down the sidewalks like zillions of tiny skeletons sneaking all around him. Billy decided he should stop resting and start walking, and fast. He wasn’t scared, NOT AT ALL, but he did feel really relieved each time he reached a streetlight. He felt relief until he reached the park. Because then he remembered: the park was across the street.
Which meant Billy would have to cross a street. Alone. Without Mr. B. Without a grown-up.
Billy heaved a huge, long, worried “this is impossible” sigh. He had come so far on his own! But he couldn’t cross a street alone. It was against the law. For a moment he wondered if an alarm would go off or something, and the cops would swoop down and scoop him up and put him in jail, and then he’d never find Ollie. But he realized that he had never ever heard any alarm go off when any other kid had crossed the street alone. So . . .
He took a deep breath.
He looked right (or patchpaw) and then left, and then patchpaw again as he had been taught. He did it three more times. No cars, no people—just spooky leaves sounding all Halloweeny. Then he put one foot onto the street, and then the other.
And nothing happened!
Wow.
Billy hustled across the street, just in case the alarm was slow or something. And boy, did it take a long time to get across. It was just a regular street, but being by himself made it seem twenty times wider than usual. It seemed to take forever to get across. But finally he was on the other side. He waited. No alarms. No police. All clear. Just the wind and the leaves.
And the spookiness.
Wow. Wait till Ollie hears about this, Billy thought, but his moment of victory quickly vanished. He had no idea which way to go next. This was a big problem. Who was he kidding, anyway? He was just a kid. How could he ever make it all the way to the Wedding place on his own in the dark, and rescue Ollie?
He pulled out his light saber. Because from here on, there was a lot of dark.
And . . . and . . . what if he never found Ollie—not on this night, or any other? What if he never got the chance to tell him about this huge A-venture? But he remembered a movie he’d seen on his parents’ movie channel. It was in bright, bright color. And it was scary but wonderful. There was a girl with red shoes who wanted to go home, and all she had to do was find a man named Oz. To find this magic Oz man, these little bitty people who sang a lot told the girl to follow a yellow brick road. Billy wished the roads around him were some kind of color, as THAT WOULD BE HELPFUL, but they were all dark gray.
Billy stood there at the edge of the park, starting to feel scared. How many streetlights were there till he got to the Wedding place? He didn’t remember his dad’s car making many turns. He looked past the park’s entrance to the next row of streetlights, and that’s when he noticed a glow, a strange glow, just ahead of him. It was different from the glow of a street lamp—more like a cloud. A cloud made up of lots of tiny sparkling lights.
Fireflies! That’s what they were. Hundreds of them. Hovering just above Billy’s head.
The sight was so . . . ghostly but beautiful, and strangely unscary. Plus, he loved fireflies. Why, he and Ollie used to catch them in jars. . . . But wait! Something peculiar was happening. The fireflies were starting to move as one. The cloud of fireflies began to drift through the gate of the park. And Billy knew he was meant to follow them. They would be his yellow brick road.