every situation. "Okay, but let's stop and turn this into
cash," Max said, patting the pocket that held the gold.
"And how are we going to do that in this town?" Kyle
said.
"We're going to have to if we want to get the van fixed
and get out of here," Max said.
"There you go, Maxwell," Michael said, pointing out a
storefront that said simply, PAWN.
Max nodded. "We won't get the best price here, but it
doesn't look like the town has a jewelry store."
Actually a pawnshop was the perfect place to sell their
gold. From what he understood, pawnshops operated on
* * *
just this side of the law—often dealing in stolen merchan-
dise. There would likely be fewer questions here than any-
where else.
Of course, everything he knew about pawnshops came
from television and the movies, he realized as the three
boys headed for the door. Taped to the outside was a
homemade flyer that said MISSING and had a photocopied
picture of an adult woman.
Max didn't stop to read the flyer. He pushed the door
open and stepped inside. To his surprise, the shop looked
just like what he had imagined. Stereo equipment and
musical instruments sat on shelves on the walls, and jew-
elry sat in a glass case near the counter.
A white-haired older man with at least four days' worth
.of whiskers on his face sat behind the counter smoking a
cigar. He had looked up from his paper when the boys
walked in, and was eyeing them with the same suspicious
glance they had now seen three times from people in
Stonewall.
The man didn't say anything as the boys stepped for-
ward.
Max wasn't sure how to begin.
Kyle broke the silence. "We were just a few miles down
the road and our van broke down," he said. "And we
were—"
"You're in the wrong place," the man said, finally speaking.
"The wrong place?" Max said.
"Johnny's Garage is down the street," the man said. "I
can't help you with your van."
Max shook his head and held out the gold. "We'd like
to sell these, to pay the garage for the repairs," he said,
* * *
putting the two bars down on the counter.
The gold got the man's attention. He was looking at
them with interest. "Where did you get these?" he asked.
"My father got them overseas," Max said, determined to
keep his story short.
The man nodded and seemed satisfied. He picked up
the bars, testing their weight. "I can't give you market
value, you know. This is a pawnshop. You'll have to go to
Pueblo if you want anywhere near market price," he said.
"What can you give us?" Max said.
The man sized the three boys up and said, "Let see
what you've got here. He reached under the counter and
came up with a bottle and a small glass jar. "Do you know
the karat count?" he asked.
"I don't know," Max said honestly. He knew that gold's
purity was measured in karats, but he wasn't sure how his
homemade gold would measure. "It's pure, as far as I
know," he said.
The man dipped the brush into the bottle and ran it
across the surface of one of the bars. "Well, it's pure all
right. Pure garbage," he said as he sneered and passed the
bars back to Max.
"What do you mean?" Max asked.
"I mean, whatever they are, they are not gold," the man
said.
"There must be a mistake," Max said.
"Yeah, and you made it, coming in here and trying to
pass off your phony crap on me," the man replied.
The man stood up and gave the three boys a menacing
look. "Now, we can do this two ways: You can either get the
hell out of my store, or we can let the police handle this."
* * *
"No need to get nasty," Michael said from behind Max.
Looking into the man's eyes, Max realized that the older
man was scared. It made sense. Three teenagers in a town
that didn't normally get visitors. Backing away, he said,
"No need for that. I'm sorry. This was a mistake."
"If I see you again, I'll call the police," the man said.
Turning to Michael and Kyle, he saw the look on
Michael's face and thought the man might be right to be
scared. Michael didn't respond well to threats. On the
other hand, Max knew that his best friend was too smart
to do something that would get them into trouble. Shak-
ing his head, he said to his friends, "Come on, let's go."
A moment later, they were on the sidewalk outside.
Max felt like he had just had the wind knocked out of
him. They had narrowly avoided a run-in with the police,
but they were far from okay
Michael started pacing back and forth on the sidewalk,
while Kyle wore the same stunned expression that Max
knew was on his own face.
What was he going to tell Liz and the others? And how
were they going to get out of Stonewall with just a few dol-
lars to their name?
We're in trouble, he thought. It took him a moment to
realize that he had spoken out loud.
* * *
6
“C
utie's looking over here again," Maria said, pointing to
the bus boy. Liz nodded; he had been looking at them
since shortly after the girls sat down. In between clearing
the tables of dishes he had stolen glances at the girls for
more than an hour and a half now.
"He looks . . . impaired," Maria said.
"He has Down's syndrome," Isabel said.
The other two girls looked at Isabel questioningly.
"1 used to volunteer at school," Isabel said.
Maria looked at Isabel with surprise. Liz knew how she
felt. Isabel didn't seem on the surface to be the type to vol-
unteer to work with handicapped kids. Then again, she
didn't seem like the kind of person to embrace Christmas
like Mrs. Claus on a triple latte but she did that, too.
"Down what?" Maria asked.
"He has an extra chromosome," Liz said. She knew that
much.
Isabel nodded. "And that causes some impairment," she
said. "But people with the condition can function very well."
* * *
Liz watched the boy work.
"He's probably lonely," Liz said.
Isabel and Maria nodded.
Liz smiled absently at him and turned back to her
friends. Isabel was checking her watch. "The boys should
have been here already," she said.
"Let's give them a few more minutes before we go look-
ing for them," Maria said.
"Okay," Liz agreed. They couldn't stay in the diner for-
ever. And though it wasn't exactly full, they couldn't take
up the table all day. The dinner rush—whatever passed for
a dinner rush in Stonewall—would be starting soon.
"Excuse me," a voice said from next to Liz. She turned
to see the boy who had been looking at them.
"Excuse me," he repeated in a slow, deliberate tone.
Then the boy thrust a piece of p
aper toward the girls.
"Have you seen my sister?" he asked.
Looking down, Liz could see that the paper was similar
to the flyer that was posted on the door. It had the same
picture of a teenage girl and read, HAVE YOU SEEN MY SISTER?
with a phone number on the bottom.
"Have you seen her?" he asked again. His voice was
friendly, but there was a worried edge to it.
"No, I'm sorry, we haven't," Isabel said.
"Jimmy stop bothering the customers," the woman
who had served them shouted from behind the counter.
"It's okay," Liz said. "He's not bothering us."
The woman shrugged and said, "Come on, Jimmy, I
need you to take out the garbage."
Before he turned away, Liz reached out her hand, touched
him gently on the arm, and said, "Has she been gone long?"
* * *
"She's miss . . . missing," he said.
Then he looked a Liz with surprise and said very
clearly, "You saw her."
Liz shook her head gently. "No, I saw her picture on the
door, but I haven't seen her."
Shaking his head, Jimmy looked confused, the clarity
that was on his face a moment ago now gone. "I remem-
bered you," he said uncertainly.
"I'm sorry," Liz said.
"Okay," Jimmy said as he walked away.
"We'll call you if we see her," Isabel said as Jimmy
headed into the kitchen.
A few minutes later, Liz saw Max, Michael, and Kyle
approach on the sidewalk. She caught just a glimpse of
them before they reached the door. "There's something
wrong," she said.
"Another flash, Parker?" Maria asked.
"No, I just saw Max," she said.
Then the boys were inside, and Liz saw three long
faces. She could also see that the boys were tired after
spending an hour and a half walking from the car.
Max reached the table first. "We have a problem," he
said.
"Sit down, Max. We'll get you something to eat and fig-
ure it out," Liz said.
"We can't eat," Max said. Michael and Kyle frowned
when he said that. "Let's just talk about this outside."
After the boys had told their story, Maria asked, "So
how much money do we have?"
Liz didn't have to check to answer that. They had spent
almost twenty dollars at the diner. "Forty-two forty," she said.
* * *
Then she watched Maria give Michael a smack on the
shoulder. "Why didn't your stupid alien-powers work?"
"Who knows," Michael replied.
"Something must be wrong," Max said with a grave
expression on his face.
"No," Liz said. "Nothing's wrong."
All eyes turned to her, and she said. "I should have
thought of this."
"What?" Max asked.
"There's no way you can use your powers to make
gold," she said. The others continued to look at her with
confused expressions.
"Look," she continued. "You can use your powers to
change the molecular structure of things. You actually
move molecules around, right?" she said.
"Yes," Max said, realization dawning on his face. "Mole-
cules ..."
Liz nodded, and Michael jumped in. "What? What
about them? Would Mr. and Mrs. Wizard mind explaining
this to the audience at home?" he said.
"Gold is not gold because of its molecular structure,"
she said. "Gold is gold because of its atomic weight."
"And we can make something look like gold, but it
won't actually be gold," Max said.
"But Max made you that diamond," Maria said.
Liz nodded. It was beautiful and still in her pocket. She
and Max had meant to get a setting for it, but had run out
of time. "He made it out of charcoal. Both coal and dia-
monds are different forms of carbon. They're identical on
the atomic level," she said.
Michael nodded and said, in a reasonable tone, "Wait,
* * *
then, what you're saying is that because of the way our
powers work . . . we're completely screwed and broke!"
"Well, yeah," Liz said.
"Why not make some more diamonds, Max?" Maria
asked.
"The only place to sell them in this town would be the
pawnshop, and the owner will call the police if we step
inside again. And with no transportation, we can't get to
the next town," Max said.
"So what now? We're hundreds of miles from home. We
can't use a cell phone—or, God forbid, an ATM. The van is
busted, and we'll be lucky if we have enough money for a
motel room for the night."
"If we don't spend anything else," Max said.
"Wait a minute, what about food? Buddha's Middle
Way requires that I avoid extremes of self-denial," Kyle
said.
That's right, the boys haven't eaten, Liz thought. Sud-
denly, Liz felt guilty about the food she, Isabel, and Maria
had eaten, and the money they had spent.
"There has to be something we can do to make some
money," Maria said.
"We could use our powers to rob a bank," Michael said.
All the others shot him a look, and he put his hands up
and said, "Kidding."
"Max?" Liz said.
He shrugged. "I don't have any answers here," he said.
Kyle stepped forward and said, "It's obvious, then."
"What?" Maria asked.
"We'll have to get jobs to make enough money to fix the
* * *
"In the meantime, we'll have to pay for food and a place
to sleep," Liz added.
"Looks like we don't have a choice," Max said.
"You guys have to eat," Liz said. "We have to figure
something out."
Max nodded and said, "After we have a room for the
night, we'll see how much we have left."
Michael and Kyle seemed relieved to hear that. "But
first, we need to stop by the garage and make sure they've
started on the van."
Liz nodded and pointed down the street in the direc-
tion of the garage. "Gomer said it's Johnny's Garage and is
down the street," she said.
"We'll split up. Michael, Kyle, and I will see about the
van and see if we can find a room and any work," Max said.
"We can start job hunting in the meantime," Liz said.
"We'd better hurry. It's getting close to five. People are
going to start closing up. I don't think this town has much
in the way of nightlife," Maria said.
As they approached the garage, Kyle said, "Let me do the
talking."
Max twitched in surprise, but didn't say anything. It
took an effort for him not to take charge, Kyle realized.
"Garage-mechanic powers, boys," he said.
"Of course," Max said.
"Yeah, we're just mere human-alien hybrids with the
ability to transform matter and control incredible ener-
gies," Michael said.
Johnny's Garage was at least a hundred yards past the
last store on Main Street, an ancient Laundromat. The
* * *
garage looked just as ancient. It was basically a large barn
with sheds jutting haphazardly from the sides. A pair of
gas pumps sat in front, and a number of equally old cars
were scattered around the place.
The small office was empty, so Kyle led the way into the
barn itself. There were four repair bays, three of which
were currently occupied by cars that were nearly his age
and looked it.
The first bay contained a car over thirty years old. It
was a 1968 Thunderbird in mint condition. The hood was
down, and Kyle was certain it was the owner's car and had
obviously been cared for very well.
Kyle racked his brain for information on that car. It
might come in handy.
The shop itself was surprisingly well kept—at least
compared with the outside. He had been expecting the
place to be littered with junk, but tools and car parts were
all pretty much in their place.
And though Johnnys Garage lacked some of the com-
puterized diagnostic equipment that Kyle had taken for
granted back in Roswell, he doubted that equipment
would be necessary in this town, considering the age of
the cars he had seen here.
The other remarkable thing about the shop was that it
seemed to be empty of people.
"Hello," Kyle called out as they walked toward the back
of the barn.
After he repeated himself two more times, someone
appeared from under the car in the last bay.
Kyle immediately saw that he was older than Kyle's
own father, perhaps by ten years or more. Tall and wiry,
* * *
the man had hair so gray, it was almost white. It was also
long and tied back in a ponytail.
Like virtually everyone they had seen so far in
Stonewall, the man eyed them suspiciously.
"Hi," Kyle said.
The man nodded.
"Is this your place?" Kyle asked.
"Yep," the man said.
"So you're Johnny," Kyle said, giving the man a friendly
smile.
He shook his head and said simply, "Nope," offering no
further explanation. Kyle didn't press the issue.
"That your T-Bird?" Kyle said.
"Yep," the man said.
. "It's nice—you don't see a lot of them on the road," Kyle
said, keeping his voice friendly even as he felt the tension
from Michael behind him. Buddha taught patience, but