Dreamland Social Club(84)

Her father squeezed her shoulder. “You good?”

The van was backing out of the driveway.

Yes, its a driveway.

“Yeah,” Jane said. “I’m good.”

“Any word yet?” she asked him after a moment. They had no idea when the verdict about the new Loki plan would come down.

“Nope,” he said. “Not yet.”

After the van pulled away, she got a black marker out of her bag and went down to the sign on the driveway and added the missing apostrophe.





Upstairs, she sat down to do some reading for Mr. Simmons’s class and found the postcard she’d taken from the Anchor on her desk. After studying the photo on it—a black-and-white shot of the bar’s exterior—she turned it over and started to write.

Dear Mr. Simmons: There’s a writer whose name I can barely remember how to spell who wrote something rather lovely about how everyone has a holy place on earth where their heart is pure and their mind open, where they feel close to truth or God or whatever it is they worship. [Trust me, he said it better.]

I think Coney Island might be my holy place, but I can’t be sure yet. I just know that I feel closer to a lot of things here. Closer to my mom. Closer to myself. Maybe even closer to fun.

Best wishes, Luna Jane Dryden



She stepped out into the hall and called out, “Dad!”

His “Yeah?” came from far away.

“Do you have a stamp?”





CHAPTER ten


FRIDAY BLEW BY in a whir—all anyone was doing was counting the hours to meeting up for Wonderland’s last night—and Jane found herself bolting out of school at day’s end so she could go home and get ready. Not that there was even anything to do to get ready, but everything felt urgent.

Since there was no way to make time go faster, Jane had to find a way to fill it. Sitting in her room, surrounded by that hideous green-and-pink wallpaper, she decided she needed to look no further for something to do. She moved her bed away from the longest wall in the room and then found a loose corner by the bottom edge of the wall and grabbed and started to pull it up and off. Two strips later, she was certain that she was uncovering something significant. There was definitely something underneath, a pattern of some kind. Whatever it was was covered in glue that made it sort of hard to figure out at first, but eventually the mural’s scene started to take shape. It was one big oversize doodle of Coney Island as it must have been when her mother had lived in this house.

The Parachute Jump was there, with a picture of a key at its base. The Thunderbolt was there—all overgrown with vines and plants and with a small house underneath—also with a key icon by a gate. Looking for Wonderland, Jane found it—replete with Mad Hatter, and this Mad Hatter had a key dangling from one of his fingers.

So Leo had been right about the “Wonder” key after all.

Which left “Bath.”

When she saw the key drawn next to the picture of the round sea vessel sitting underneath the Cyclone’s tracks, she sat and thought hard for a second, about The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms—didn’t the scientist who went down to find the sea creature get eaten up in one of these little vessels?—and of the postcard her mother had sent Beth—with the mermaid smoking a cigarette on a little round sub. She closed her eyes and let her mind go. In the movie they’d called it a “bell,” but there was another word, and she could hear her mother’s voice say . . .

There has to be a submarine or a shipwreck or a bathysphere around here somewhere.

Bathysphere.

And here was the map of where to find it.




She got changed for Wonderland and walked out onto Steeplechase Pier and inhaled.

So that was that.

She exhaled and took another drag of salty air and closed her eyes as her hair whipped across her face in the wind. She pushed some strands away and thought about screaming into the wind again. It had felt good that one time. It had been cathartic and almost fun. But what would she even say this time?

What am I doing here?

She was actually starting to think she knew.

Why did you leave?

Was it so that Jane would have to come back? To find Leo? To find the bathysphere?

It was there, right where her mother had drawn it; she just knew it. The journal, too. All of her questions would be answered.

“This is your captain!” she finally screamed, and the words seemed to catch the wind and fly. “We are passing through a storm!”

She needed to stop to take another deep breath before she could yell, “We are quite safe!”

A smile had crept into her features, she could feel it. She couldn’t shake it the whole way to Wonderland.





CHAPTER eleven


THE GOAL WAS TO GO ON EVERY RIDE and to play every game before closing time. Or at least that was Babette’s goal—and that included all the kiddie rides. So Jane played the part of proud parent as Babette went on silly rides with names like the Frog Hop and Hippo Hat, scaring wailing toddlers and their parents alike with her head-to-toe black clothes and dark eyeliner.

“You don’t know what you’re missing,” Babette said, upon exiting a miniature flying elephant ride.

Jane finally had the nerve to say, “What’s up with the goth thing anyway?”