Today was a good day. Scratch that. It was the best day.
Nana is gone. Kids are disappearing by the minute. The Riverman is … a total prick. But you know what? Today was the best day.
I came to Aquavania this morning and I started over.
I rebuilt Thessaly from the ground up. The neighborhood, the school, the downtown, everything. Even my old tape player, the one I gave to Alistair. Yes, I didn’t forget you, Kilgore. Only difference is, this is my Thessaly. With only the people and things I want here.
Funny. It’s the first time I’ve ever created people, but I know my inspiration so well that it wasn’t too hard. It’s amazing the stuff that’s hidden away in the back of your brain and only comes out when you’re creating. Voices, smells, the entire skeleton of a friend. I guess we notice more than we realize.
I created Chua, Boaz, Rodrigo, and the rest of the kids from Aquavania I knew stories about. I introduced them to kids from Thessaly, like Fay-Renee, Kendra, and Alistair. They all seem to get along. Aquavania kids and Solid World kids, living in harmony. Pretty cool.
Alistair was being a bit of a downer. “We’re like the real thing, but we’re not the real thing,” he said. “You created us. You know that this could never really happen?”
Exactly like Alistair in the Solid World. A cynic. He pretends like he’s listening really hard and trying to understand, but he’s scheming in his head. Trying to find the logic. He means well, but he overthinks things.
Maybe that’s the problem. Overthinking. Creating people who are self-aware is a risky kind of magic, isn’t it?
* * *
I cleared their heads. Yesterday was amazing, but if I’m really starting over, then I should let them start over too. They should have some memories. Good memories, or at least the good ones I’m able to give them. A few bad ones too, so they can recognize the good ones, but I won’t overdo it. They should know who their family is and all that stuff. But they won’t know who they’re supposed to be, where they’re supposed to be from. They’ll just think they’ve lived lives like everyone else. They definitely won’t know about the Riverman. Beyond that, I won’t meddle. I’ll let them be whoever they want to be, without fear.
Should it really happen any other way?
I guess I should go to school. Crazy, I know, but that was my life before, so it’s my life now. Maybe I’ll get rid of Earth Science. And Social Studies. We’ll make our own history.
Mom and Dad are … fine so far. Dad made breakfast, which he sometimes did in the Solid World, but not often. Scrambled eggs. I prefer cereal, but I ate the eggs and said that I loved them and he smiled, so that was good.
The sun is shining again. There’s no wind. I know it always rains or snows or whatever in the real Thessaly. But today, it’s sunny and calm, and I’ll let the weather do whatever the weather wants to do.
I’ll go for a bike ride and see who’s out and about.
* * *
A week’s gone by and everything is amazing. No one calls Kendra the Wart Woman here, even though she still has her warts. “Love ’em, warts and all” is a saying in the Solid World. It fits here too. I’ve told everyone that only the smartest people have warts, and everyone believes me. Who knows? Maybe it’s true. Kendra is smart in the Solid World. Smart here too.
Chua has become the hit of school, which is no surprise. She’s friendly and funny and how could you not like her? Of course, Werner is madly in love with her, just like before. And she’s madly in love with him, which is the cutest thing. Alistair has been hanging out with Rodrigo and Boaz a little bit, but I’m not sure if they’re going to be close friends. That’s okay. Not everyone has to be best buddies. They just have to be here.
Nana is dead in the Solid World and I guess I could bring her back, but it seems weird to do that. It’s different with Chua, Rodrigo, and Boaz. First off, I’m not sure that they’re dead in the Solid World. Though it seems likely. But mostly, it’s because they were kids. They didn’t get a chance to live a full life. Nana did, so I let her rest. Uncle Dorian is sad, but he’s got a good outlook. It’s his words that made me decide once and for all not to bring her back.
“She lived a perfect life,” he said when I joined him at the cemetery yesterday.
“How so?” I asked.
“She tried not to hurt people,” he said. “And if she did hurt people, without realizing it at first, then she tried to make up for it.”
“That’s not perfect,” I told him. “Perfect is perfect. It’s never making a mistake.”
He shrugged and said maybe, and we walked home together and he told me stories about when he and my dad were kids and how they tried to build a human slingshot out of two trees, a hammock, and some inner tubes, and even though it’s a story I’ve heard a million times, I laughed again.
* * *
Mom came to my room tonight and I could tell she’d had too much to drink already. She sat on the foot of my bed and said that she was sorry for being … well, not so much a mom.
“I spent all my momness on Maria and Derek,” she explained. “Spent it all up like tickets at a carnival. I didn’t mean to. One moment I had lots of tickets … but then my pockets were empty. I wish I hadn’t been so … lazy.”
In some ways, it was nice to hear, but mostly it sounded fake. It was like we were in a play.
“You don’t have to say that,” I told her.
“But I’m … I’m supposed to say it,” she slurred.
“You’re not supposed to say anything,” I replied. “You’re supposed to live your life. And say what comes to your mind.”
She looked around my room, and her face twisted like she was sniffing something gross, and she said, “Okay, then I’d like to go downstairs and sit for a while.”
Later, I went downstairs and she was sitting in the kitchen with the lights off and she was doing nothing. Sitting there, hands on her lap. A wine glass was nearby, but she wasn’t drinking. Very creepy.
My dad was in the living room watching TV, but when I went in there, the TV was playing rainbow bars. He got up from the sofa and he hugged me, but it was like his arms and chest were made of paper bags, crumpled up inside him like stuffing.
I think I might have to start over with my parents. New versions. Tweaked. Slightly. More for their own good than for mine. I know I said I wasn’t going to use my power to interfere with lives, but I’ll make this one exception. One do-over. Only for them.
* * *
A month now that I’ve been here, and life is settling into more of a routine. School is as good as school can be. The teachers focus on the things we all enjoy, and it’s a lot of reviewing stuff I already know, but that can be fun. Sometimes after school a bunch of kids meet in the park, and they all ask me questions. They have no idea that I created them, but they can sense that I’m different, that I know things they don’t.
Alistair comes by every time and he’s often quiet, but when he asks questions, it’s things like What lives out in the void beyond town? I told him that nothing lives out there, that this is the only world there is. Well, except for maybe other planets, far, far away beyond the stars. This seems to calm his nerves. He’s nervous a lot.
Compared to the first try, my new parents are … better. They’re more lively, more engaged. Dad sings now, in the shower or when he’s out mowing the lawn. And Mom dances and plays air guitar when the radio is on. So weird, but that’s fine. Better than sitting there like bumps on a log. Like school, my parents are now fun.
* * *
Four months have gone by since I started this, and it isn’t that I don’t love you, Kilgore. It’s that I don’t have much time to talk to you anymore. Between school and friends and family, life is full in ways it never was before.
It’s not always amazing. My friends aren’t exactly the same as they were. They look at me cautiously. They speak to me like I’m an adult. The quirky parts of their personalities are amplified, I guess. Which is cool. Except when it isn’t. Maybe it’s because I didn’t know everything I needed to know about them. Maybe they weren’t complete when I created them, and the empty spots in their personalities had to be filled in with something. Beats me. I’m in control, but it doesn’t mean I understand everything.
Alistair follows me around like a puppy dog, and it’s flattering and sweet, but I worry about him. It’s like all he cares about is me. I didn’t create Charlie Dwyer, or the entire Dwyer family for that matter, because I figured who needs a world with annoying people like the Dwyers in it. Maybe Alistair does. He needs friends, at least. I know that. Trevor Weeks and Mike Cooney are here, and he sits with them at lunch sometimes, but they don’t really hang out. And guys like Boaz and Rodrigo don’t seem that interested in Alistair anymore. I could make everyone like him, but that’s not how friendship should be.
He still asks questions at our after-school get-togethers, which Boaz has dubbed “happenings.” The toughest question was one about his memories.
“They don’t seem real,” he said. “I mean, I have images all crammed in my head of being seven, eight, nine years old. But I don’t feel them, if you know what I mean.”
The other kids nodded, because they definitely knew what he meant, and I said, “What came before is less important than what you do with your lives now.”
Those kinds of answers used to get oohs and ahs, but these days they only satisfy for a short amount of time, and then people are asking again.
* * *
Nearly a year in and I don’t worry about the Riverman much anymore. At first I was trying to push him out of my brain, but that never works. Tell someone to not think about unicorns and—you guessed it—they’ll think about nothing but unicorns.
I know he’s still out there. I know he’s probably hunting other kids. But it’s up to them to figure out how to do what I did. Right? If you don’t get greedy in Aquavania, then you’re fine. If you don’t wish for the impossible, if you learn to be satisfied, then you’re fine.
He can’t touch me. He can’t do a damn thing to this place. Which means that I won.
* * *
I invited Alistair up to my room today. He’s so, so lonely, and that absolutely kills me. I thought maybe that my friendship was enough for him, but I can tell that he wants more than that. At school, he’s always showing up where I show up. He’s always lingering around the bike racks after last bell. So I humor him.
Today, in my room, I shared a secret with him. I showed him a hollowed-out book full of cigarettes.
“Only on special occasions,” I whispered. “My one true vice.”
I could tell it worried him, and I don’t know why I did it, but I leaned over and gave him the littlest kiss. It was a lousy kiss.
Actually, that’s a lie. The knowing part, at least. I do know why I did it. Same reason I showed him the cigarettes. To make him feel special for a moment. You’re in on a secret, Alistair! Then to make him realize that the secrets are stupid. Stupid cigarettes. Not much excitement there. Stupid kiss. Lips touching lips. Nothing more. No meaning. No feeling. Nothing.
But I’m pretty sure it backfired. I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m his girlfriend now. If only he were the original. If only he had that spark.
* * *
I started dating Rodrigo about two weeks after I kissed Alistair, and in the four months since I’ve seen less and less of Alistair. He doesn’t show up. Doesn’t pop in. He stays inside at home and creeps through school with his head down.
I feel bad. I do. But I can’t force things here. I have to let life be life. The inevitable is happening, though. It’s been over a year and everyone is growing, but I’m staying the same. Rodrigo doesn’t seem to notice, but Kendra sure has. She’s got boobs now and I’m still as flat as a board.
“When are you coming to sit at the big girls’ table?” she joked the other day at lunch. She and Fay-Renee and Chua were all hanging out, laughing at their own private jokes while I was walking by with Rodrigo. I would have sat with them, but Rodrigo likes to have “romantic lunches,” which is sweet, but really it’s just the two of us sitting alone and sharing chicken nuggets.
My parents love Rodrigo. They think he’s the smoothest guy in the world. “He can stay the night if you want,” my dad said once. “Or move in. We’d love to have him.”
Mom did a little happy dance in agreement.
What? No thank you. God, what a weird thing for him to say. As much as it kills me, I might have to start over with them again. Last time I started over, I told myself no more do-overs, but there have to be exceptions to the rule.
* * *
Rodrigo and I are through. It lasted nearly a year, which is pretty good for a first boyfriend. Our differences were more than a few, and as tempted as I was to change him the easy way, I tried the hard way. The hard way is hard.
Dorian hasn’t been getting along with Mom and Dad, and that’s a problem. Since Derek and Maria decided to leave last year, all we have is the four of us. We have to be a family, and while families can have their differences, there shouldn’t be this much shouting. It makes me want to stay outside all the time, which is fine when it’s nice, but the winter has found its way in here too.
Not many kids come to the “happenings” anymore. Alistair returned, now that Rodrigo is out of the picture, and I try not to treat him any differently. But while everyone else looks at me with suspicion, he looks at me with such longing that I want to shout, “It’s not going to happen! I care about you, but it will never happen.”
The sequel is never better than the original. That’s what they always say. Is it always true? I don’t think so. But in Alistair’s case, I know it is.
I know the Alistair in Aquavania. I can sense what he will do. He’s predictable.
I don’t really know the original. And that’s what’s great about him.