“Gone?” everyone gasped at once.
Tippy nodded. “The aliens must have gotten to her!”
“That does it,” growled Mike. “We’re goin’ after ’er.”
“Lemme eat something real fast,” Rose cried, dashing to the fridge.
“How can we do anything?” Nancy asked, bewildered.
“Well, y’see…”
“Commercial break,” Metty grumbled.
Alex looked up from studying the insides of the robot and the improbable list of tubes the girls had found before taking a break to watch more of the Screen Gems Monkee Marathon. “So you’re telling me this thing came from Zlotnik?” she asked incredulously.
“Yeah, and it exploded, which was supposed to send the rest of the group to the spaceship,” Tiff nodded. “Only the calculations were off, and they wound up in the TV dimension.”
“And the aliens followed them, and now they’ve got Desy again,” Connie continued.
“Hotzaringa [zot],” muttered the robot.
“And we’re trying to find the truth tube on the robot,” Linds added, “but we’re finding a lot of other stuff instead.”
“A movie database tube?” Alex read.
“Desy’s brain must be full of useless information,” the robot opined.
“Not that it’s a bad thing,” Metty shrugged. “It’s just making us work that much harder to find even the poetry tube.”
What have I gotten myself into? Alex asked herself.
Desy came to as the aliens spirited her off toward their spaceship, the male carrying her feet and the female taking her arms. But at first Desy didn’t recognize who was carrying her and thought it was Micky and Nancy.
“Pu’ me down! Pu’ me down, foo’!” she quoted Mr. T, slightly annoyed at the thought of her friends interrupting her nap.
“What?” asked the male alien, confused.
Desy really woke up then.
With a swift kick, she freed one leg; another kick sent the male alien to the ground. As her feet hit the ground, Desy grabbed hold of the female alien’s upper arms and flung her captor over her head; amazingly, her hat stayed in place. Without even stopping to think, she sprinted back toward the house.
“Ow,” gasped the female alien.
“Didn’t know humans were that strong,” wheezed the male.
The rest of the group was about halfway between the Pad and the ship when Peter’s sharp eyes spotted Desy heading toward them. Within thirty seconds they had reunited.
“Desy,” Mike cried, pulling his friend into a hug.
“Fought… free…” Desy gasped.
“Will they follow,” Davy asked.
“Probably.”
“Okay, let’s start heading back up the beach to get away from ’em. Micky, Peter, you two stay a few yards behind and keep a look-out, but not too far so we can hear you yell,” Mike ordered. “We’ll go slowly so Desy can catch her breath.”
“Roger,” Micky replied.
“We’ll stay, too,” Nancy volunteered.
“Right,” Tippy nodded.
“Get up,” the female alien moaned.
“I can’t,” wheezed the male. “I think she broke a rib.”
The female sighed, not feeling too well herself. Suddenly she remembered an old Zlotnik cure-all that she had in her tool kit. She pulled it out and sipped a small amount of it. Instantly she felt better.
“Here,” she said, holding the flask out to the male.
He took the proffered substance and drank it.
“Whoa,” he gasped. “Forgot how fast that stuff works.”
“Ready?”
“Yep.”
“They don’t seem to be moving very fast. I think we can catch them easily.”
“All of them?”
“All of them. They have thwarted our plans too often. This time we take them all.”
The male grinned wickedly. “Let’s do it.”
“Got your breath yet,” Rose asked, her voice loaded with concern.
Desy nodded. “I have never been so scared in my life.”
“Well, you’re not alone now,” Jean replied. “We’ll do everything we can to protect you.”
“Ditto,” said Rose and Davy.
“And we ain’t leavin’ you alone any more, either,” Mike added.
“And you didn’t even lose your hat,” Davy smiled in admiration.
Desy laughed in spite of herself.
“Mike,” Micky yelled.
“Yeah, Mick?”
“Here they come!”
Desy grabbed Mike’s hand and bolted. Rose grabbed Jean’s, and Jean grabbed Davy’s. Tippy and Peter caught each other’s hands, and Micky caught Nancy’s. Together the nine of them ran as fast as possible down the beach.
“There they go,” cried the female alien.
By the time the aliens started running, the humans had put at least 1000 yards of distance between themselves and their pursuers. However, the aliens chased their victims until the humans began to wear down.
Nancy cast a fleeting glance over her shoulder. “They’re gaining on us!”
“I can’t go any faster,” gasped Peter.
“C’mon, twins, run,” Davy, who was now pulling Rose and Jean along, encouraged breathlessly.
“We can’t,” wheezed Rose.
“Run or die, girls,” Mike remarked.
Jean couldn’t help chuckling at the A-Team-- quote.
Just as it seemed that the aliens were about to overtake them, an amazing thing happened.
The ground under Nancy, Micky, Peter, and Tippy sank, lowering the four of them quickly but gently into a large black box with overhead lighting. Something similar happened to the five in front, except that they found themselves falling rapidly down what appeared at first to be a hole. Then their surroundings grew lighter, and the group landed feet first on the sidewalk in the shadow of a brownstone.
On the beach, the aliens skidded to a halt. “What in the world or out of it…” gasped the male.
“Let’s see if we can find those holes,” growled the female.
So the pair started frantically digging up the beach. But try as they might, the only thing their excavations uncovered was more sand. Finally, tired and warm, the female alien leaned against the wall of the pit and swore bitterly.
“I don’t get it,” moaned the male, slumping down into a sitting position. “They can’t have just disappeared!”
As the group in Tippy’s living room watched their friends and heroes fall headlong into the California sand and disappear, the station went to yet another commercial break. The girls’ moaning was cut short by an ominous pop from the back of the TV set. A split second later, the screen went blank.
“Oh, no,” Tiff wailed. “We’ve lost our lifeline again!”
“This is sooooooooo not good,” Connie groaned.
“Hotzaringa,” said the robot.
“Shut up!” yelled Alex.
“Everyone remain calm,” Linds advised.
“Okay, look,” Metty sighed. “There’s only two possibilities. Either we’re not supposed to know what happens next…”
“They’re not dead, they can’t be dead,” Tiff muttered to herself.
“Or else the Monkees are no longer in that dimension.”
“Either way,” Linds added, “we have a major plot twist on our hands.”
“Wha… wha… what happened?” Nancy gasped, leaning against the wall of the box. “How’d we get here?”
“I don’t know,” Tippy wheezed.
Micky babbled something incoherent.
Peter looked up, listening carefully. “Sounds like they’re trying to find it… and can’t.”
“Why were those aliens after Desy, anyway?” Micky asked.
“The first robot was her double,” Nancy explained.
“So they were gonna use her as a way to infiltrate our group and from there take over the world?”
“Something like that.”
Micky sat down hard. “And people say I have a fertile imagination…”
“Well, we’re safe from them now,” Tippy sighed. “Which leaves us with only one problem.”
“What’s that?” Peter frowned.
“How do we get out of here?”
Jean and Rose clung to each other and to Davy, gasping for air and trying not to cry.
“’Ere, now,” Davy reassured them breathlessly. “Jean, luv, I won’t let anything ’urt you. You, either, Rosie, ol’ gehl.”
Rose smiled at the reference to The African Queen. “Thanks, bro,” she said, relaxing her grip.
“I love you, Davy!” Jean grinned, doing her best Ellie Mae Chubber impression.
Davy chuckled.
“Oh, my ankle,” Desy moaned, leaning against Mike for support.
“Here, sit down, hon,” Mike advised, giving her a quick hug and guiding her to a nearby stack of boxes. Looking around as he knelt to massage her ankle, he asked, “Anybody have any idea where we are?”
The others took in their surroundings in an effort to answer Mike’s question. Wherever they were, it appeared to be a large town, and they seemed to be in the tenement district. Tall brick and brownstone buildings rose in every direction as far as the eye could see. The sky (or what they could see of it) was relatively blue, and the sun appeared to be shining.
Then they looked at themselves.
Jean and Rose wore nearly identical skirts and blouses; the short-sleeved Victorian blouses were cream-colored cotton, and Jean’s skirt was a dark dusty blue fabric while Rose’s was a deep burgundy. Davy’s eight-button shirt had turned into a grey henley, and his pants had gone from boot-cut to a more classic style. On his head was a hat very similar to the one Mike had bought for Desy. Mike’s clothes were more like what one would see in a John Wayne movie, and Woolie had been transformed into a straw-colored Stetson. Desy’s outfit didn’t match quite as well; although she had on the same basic outfit as the other girls with a dark emerald green skirt, her hat had made the trip unchanged. Rose couldn’t help thinking she would look better with a more feminine hat, but she knew Desy well enough to know that her friend needed the security of the familiar more than a consistent costume. Besides, it was more in character.
“Well, just going by clothes, I’d say we’re in some city around the turn of the century,” Jean said at last.
“Which means we’ve changed dimensions again,” Rose sighed.
“First I have a weird dream about Grease, then we’re chased till we’re beat by aliens who were gonna kidnap me, and now we’re in yet another dimension. We are never going to get home,” Desy moaned.
“We have to go home,” Mike shrugged. “Can’t have half the Monkees bein’ 80 by the time the group’s formed!”
Davy and Jean looked at each other. “He’s right,” they chorused.
“And the rest of us can’t very well die before we’re born,” Rose added.
“She’s right,” nodded Davy and Jean.
“And somebody’s gotta keep an eye on Nancy and Micky,” Mike continued.
Exchanging an impish look with her cyber-twin, Rose joined Davy and Jean as they said, “He’s right, but he’s got a big mouth!”
“Hey!”
Desy nearly fell off the boxes laughing hysterically.
Once the two guys and three girls had regained their composure, Desy sighed, “I guess we really ought to ask around and find out where we are. Then we can figure out where to go from here.”
“Well, don’t go to Brooklyn if you know what’s good for ya,” replied a nasal voice the girls knew very well.
A tall, thin boy with a crutch and a handful of newspapers hobbled around the corner toward the group. “And you’re in New York,” he added. “What happened, you guys get lost or somethin’?”
“Or somethin’,” Mike nodded, disregarding the girls’ shocked faces. “We’re… kinda new around here. Matter of fact, we just arrived. So we’d appreciate some help trying to find our way around.”
“Well, hey, I’m Crutchy,” the boy introduced himself, stepping forward to shake hands with Mike.
We know, the girls thought but didn’t say.
“I’m a newsie for the World, so I know the streets in this part of town pretty well,” Crutchy continued. “I’d be glad to help you out.”
Mike stood. “Mike Nesmith. This here’s Desy Hand, Rose Bexar, Davy Jones, and Jean Schlafmann.”
“’Ello,” Davy nodded, one arm firmly around Jean’s waist.
“Hey,” Jean and Rose squeaked.
Crutchy took in their similar appearance. “Hey, you two could be twins!”
It took Davy several minutes to explain why the pair suddenly burst out laughing. After some other desultory conversation, Crutchy led the five travelers to the lobby of the Newsboys Lodging House. The first person they met inside the door was Racetrack.
“’Ey, Crutchy, whe’d you pick up this lot?” Race asked.
“They followed me home. Can I keep ’em?” Crutchy joked.
“Ah, I dunno. Dey don’t allow girls in he’e,” Race chuckled. “I’m Race, by de way. And who are you, my lovely young lady?” he continued, bowing over Rose’s hand in a show of gallantry.
“Rose Bexar,” she replied.
“’Ey, Race, leave de lady alone,” Mush called as he walked past.
“Ah, can it, Mush!” Race hollered after him.
“Race and Rosie, sittin’ in a tree,” chanted Kid Blink and Specs from the stairwell.
“Hey!”
“That Mush guy kinda looks like Micky,” Davy remarked softly to Mike.
“A little,” Mike agreed.
Desy snorted, trying to keep back the laughter.
“I take it you’ve seen this, too,” Mike noted.
“Oh, yeah,” Jean responded.
“Remember in the hat shop when I told Micky not to ask me why I was laughing?” Desy asked.
“Yeah…”
“Part of the reason was that the guy who plays Mush in this—it’s a movie called Newsies, by the way—anyway, it’s because he looks like Micky. And I refuse to elaborate on that.”
Rose looked at the boy holding her hand and asked with a twinkle, “Win anything at the track today, Race?”
Race stepped back, astonished. “Now how in the world…”
“I make it my business to know things about people,” Rose winked. “Is Jack around?”
Much later that night, Tippy shifted uneasily, vaguely aware that the box was moving. She didn’t really like having to sleep on the floor between Micky and Peter, but Nancy had insisted that this was the only way any of them would be comfortable. Now Nancy was snuggled close to a snoring Micky for security, and Peter lay on the other side of Tippy, sighing every now and again.
Tippy sat up carefully and inched her way over to a wall. She couldn’t help thinking about the discussion they’d had about the box once they discovered that there was no apparent way out. Peter had launched immediately into his speech from Head. Micky had countered with a similarly philosophical speech, also one the girls recognized from Head. Tippy had given a completely different take based on a sermon Rose had once told her about.
Nancy’s opinion was unusually short; “I just think it’s weird,” she said. “It’s not normal for black boxes to appear out of nowhere just in time to keep people from getting caught by aliens and not have any sort of exit.”
As Tippy reflected on that statement, Peter sighed and sat up.
“Can’t sleep either?” Tippy asked softly.
“Nope. I keep thinking about what you said about the box.”
“What I said?”
“Yeah. About it being an analogy for people’s mindsets. What did you mean by that?”
“Well, a lot of people never get out of the idea that the world’s definition of success is the only one that matters. Lots of money, a big house, a high-power job, and so on. Not that having those things is bad, but…”
“That’s not the most important thing in life.”
“Right.”
“So?”
“So it takes faith to realize that there’s more to life than that. Even more than what a lot of religions say there is. There’s only one way out. And the only way anyone knows anything about the outside of the box is that they hear Someone calling, ‘There’s more. It’s better outside.’”
“How do you mean? What more is there? I kinda hear that voice myself.”
Tippy looked at him. “You do?”
“Yeah. When I’m with you. I see something more in your life. I mean, I know how you felt when you had to tell me we couldn’t go out, but there’s still something about you that tells me there’s something special happening in your life. I can see it in Desy and Rose and Jean, too. I even see it in Davy now. It’s like you’ve found the way out of the box and I haven’t, no matter how hard I search.”
Very softly, “Jesus Doesn’t Care” by Point of Grace began playing in the background.
Tippy took a deep breath and began. “It’s Jesus.”
“Really? That’s the difference?”
“Yeah. See, most religions are all about rules. Do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the signs?”
“Christianity has rules, too.”
“But the difference is that you don’t get to God by just following the rules. You follow the rules because you love God. And you love God because He loved you first. He proved that by sending Jesus, his one and only Son, to live on earth and die the worst death imaginable to atone for our sins. He did that 2000 years ago. And He would have done that even if you were the only person in the world. Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans that ‘God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.’”
“Why would He take such great lengths to purchase salvation for us humans? I mean, I’ve always heard that God knows us better than we know ourselves. Why would He do such a thing?”
“Because He loves us anyway, Peter! Because He wants to have a deep personal relationship with us! That’s what lies outside the box: a one-on-one friendship with the Creator of the universe, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done before. God made you, He loves you, He has a wonderful plan for your life, and He wants you to know Him and love Him.”
Peter fell silent, digesting this information.
Tippy shifted again, dismissing the sensation of the wall texture changing as a product of her imagination.
“I can’t quite figure it out still,” Peter said at last. “I guess I’m not quite ready to accept it yet. Too many unanswered questions, y’know.”
“Still stuck in the box,” Tippy sighed, her disappointment showing plainly in her voice.
“I’m sorry, Tippy. Really I am. And I want to understand. It just doesn’t make sense to me yet. Maybe if I sleep on it something’ll click.”
“Okay.”
“You gonna stay up?”
“I can sleep sitting up. Don’t worry about me.”
“Okay. And Tippy?”
“Yeah, Pete?”
“Thanks for explaining.”
Tippy smiled. “You’re welcome.”
“G’night.”
“G’night.”
Peter slid back down to the floor. Tippy pulled her knees up to her chest, rested her chin on them, and started praying.
“Oh, these city lights and these city ways, drivin’ me insane…” The mellow sound of the Riders in the Sky song “Back on Those Texas Plains” filled the small room.
Rose woke again at the unfamiliar noises of 1899 New York. She sighed and crossed to the writing desk on the other side of the room in which Medda Larkson had agreed to let the girls stay. Jack Kelly had talked with the five travelers, convinced them that the paper would never hire the girls as newsies, and suggested that they form a street band to earn their bread. Desy suggested that they ask Medda if they could borrow or rent the instruments they needed; Rose and Jean thought through the opening guitar lick to “Down on the Corner” before they could catch themselves, but no one seemed to notice. Jack took them to Irving Hall to meet the Swedish entertainer, who not only loaned them the instruments but also offered to let them stay in the back rooms of her theater. The girls had a room on the second floor, and the guys had a room near the stage door.
Rose switched on the low-voltage lamp on the desk and found a pen and some writing paper. For the first time in this adventure, she felt truly homesick and knew her parents were probably quite worried about not hearing from her. Positioning the paper under the lamp, she started writing a letter she believed would never leave her hands.
Dear Mama and Daddy,
I know you probably won’t believe what I’m about to tell you, but I know you’re wondering why you haven’t heard from me the whole time I’ve been gone. So I wanted to let you know the extraordinary things that have happened in this last week.
She wrote and wrote, detailing everything that had happened, holding back nothing from the two people she loved most. Several pages later, she signed the closing, then, on a whim, addressed an envelope and placed the letter inside. She turned it over and sealed it, set it down under the lamp, and looked at it for a moment.
Until it disappeared.
As the astonished teen stared at the empty blotting paper in front of her, these words appeared from the inkblots:
Message delivered. Mama is praying. Daddy sends his love.
And her favorite teddy bear landed in her lap.
Jean woke at her twin’s startled gasp. “Rose?”
Rose turned, bittersweet tears welling up in her eyes. “Jean,” she mouthed. “Look…”
Jean got up. “Where’d…” Her question died in her throat as she saw the message on the blotter.
“He…” Rose squeaked.
Jean understood the reference perfectly and hugged her cyber-twin.
Micky squirmed as sunlight hit him in the face.
What in the world… he thought, waking up.
He opened his eyes and flinched at the bright light. Then, as he sat up carefully so as not to wake Nancy and looked around, he discovered that the four of them were no longer in a black box. They were, in fact, in what appeared to be someone’s basement. Tippy was huddled up in a corner by the stairs, and Peter lay stretched out next to a bicycle.
“Peter? Pete, wake up, man,” Micky prodded.
“What is it, Micky?” Peter moaned, rolling over—and nearly knocking over the bike. His eyes popped open, and he stared at the wheel in front of him.
“That.”
“What in the world…” Peter asked, sitting up and backing away from the bike.
“I dunno, man! We go to sleep in a box and wake up in a basement!”
Tippy’s head snapped up. “Say what?”
“A basement?” Peter stood and looked around. “Yeah, you may be right, Mick!”
“It happened last night,” Tippy gasped. “Peter, remember when we were talking?”
“Yeah…”
“Did you feel like the box was moving?”
Peter thought for a moment. “Now that you mention it…”
“Holy mackerel,” Nancy exclaimed, waking up.
“Well, we’re out of the box, at least,” Tippy grinned.
Suddenly they heard footsteps on the stairs. The girls jumped up and stood next to the Monkees.
“Ja, Mutti,” a female voice said as the basement door opened. “Ich brauche nur ein paar Sachen für mein Projektarbeit. Ich hole sie aus dem Keller und—du meine Gute…” The girl stopped on the third step. Her T-shirt declared her a member of the Dreaded German Chickie Corps and featured a large British flag and a picture of Peter—the 57-year-old Peter.
“Don’t faint,” said all of the Americans at once.
“I wasn’t going to,” said the girl with a thick German accent. “It’s just that… well, the Monkees never come to Germany, and then to come downstairs and find two Monkees in your basement… and the ‘60s models at that…”
“Understood,” Nancy nodded.
The girl shook her head as if to clear it and pulled herself together. “Also, herzlich Willkommen zum Deutschland!” she declared. “My name is Nicole, but my Internet name is Fuzzy.”
“I’m Nancy,” said Nancy. “That’s Tippy, and I think you already know these two.”
“I wish Rose were here,” Tippy confided to Peter. “She knows German.”
“You know Rose?” Fuzzy gasped, catching only the name.
“Yeah, she’s a good friend of ours.”
“Cool! She’s translated some stories that Wolle and I wrote into English for us.”
Tippy and Nancy exchanged glances.
“Does that mean…” Micky asked.
“We’re home!” Tippy cried.
“Or nearly,” Nancy nodded. “We just have to get the plane ticket back to the States.”
“Fuzzy, can I use your phone?” Tippy asked.
“Uh, sure,” Fuzzy answered, bewildered. “But I don’t…”
“We’ll explain on the way up!”
At 3 a.m., the phone in Tippy’s apartment rang. Metty, who was closest to it, fumbled for the receiver. “Hello?”
“Metty,” came a familiar voice on the other end.
Metty was instantly wide awake. “Tippy! Oh, my word! You have no idea how worried we’ve been!”
“And you have no idea what kind of adventures we’ve been having!”
“Well, where are you?”
“Kempen, Germany.”
“Where in the world is that?”
“It’s near Düsseldorf. We wound up in a fan’s basement, and we’re staying with her for the time being. We’re gonna try to get a flight home as soon as possible. I’ll call you back when we have the information.”
“Okay. Can you give me your number?”
Tippy complied.
“So is everyone with you? We saw the chase down the beach.”
“Um… well… Nancy’s with me… and…”
“What?”
“You’re not gonna believe this…”
“Micky and Peter?”
“Yep.”
“Oh, my word…”
On to Part Thirteen!
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