The Star Group Read online

  I hyperventilated for five minutes and said a few prayers to the Virgin Mary and a couple of lesser known deities before I walked up to her. She shielded her eyes from the sun as I approached. I liked that, I had my yearbook in hand, an excuse in case all else failed. She had on baggy white shorts and a red top. Her legs were lightly tanned, totally acceptable. My yearbook had developed a case of the jitters; I had to hold it down with both hands.

  “I'm sorry, I can't see who you are,” she said in her sweet Gale voice.

  “It's Mel Gibson. Daniel, I mean, it's me.”

  She patted the grass beside her. “Sit down and get out of the glare. It's giving me a headache.”

  I sat beside her; the ground felt firm and unshakable. I forced a casual smile that felt like a painful grimace. She was chewing on an orange and looking at me as if I were a nice guy, a nice, friendly guy, but not someone she'd want to take her clothes off with and make passionate love to. It wasn't a smart idea to think of her naked being so close to her. The image did nothing to loosen my tongue. I kept right on smiling as if I had tiny nails drilled into the corners of my brain. Thankfully she was enjoying her orange. She nodded at my yearbook.

  “I haven't picked mine up yet,” she said.

  “That's terrible,” I said. Perhaps I said it with too much passion, because she raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  “I m going to get it in a few minutes,” she said.

  “OK.”

  “Did you go to class today?”

  “History, yeah.”

  “What did we do?” she asked.

  “Nothing.”

  “I didn't miss anything?”

  “No.”

  “That's good,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  She was almost done with her orange, the pressure was intense now. I knew I had to say something witty soon or else risk a lifetime of loneliness. Ordinarily I'm a pretty funny guy, but just looking at her shorted the left hemisphere of my brain. I wasn't sure if I was relieved or not when she smiled – she may have been laughing at me.

  “What are you doing, Daniel?” she asked, when I didn't say anything.

  I blinked. “Nothing. I'm just tired.”

  She nodded. “I heard you were up early surfing.”

  Gale had heard something about me and remembered the fact? Had stored the details away in her adorable little head? I was stunned, really, it was almost as if she had told me she loved me. I'm an easy-to-please kind of guy, and her comment gave me a mountain of confidence.

  “Sal and Jimmy and I went to Huntington Beach early,” I said. “The surf was up.”

  She gave me a serious look. “I heard about your heroics.”

  “Who told you?”

  “A dozen people.” She paused. “You must have been out of your mind.”

  Over you. I shrugged. “Sometimes I feel a little wild.”

  She liked that. “How come you never talked to me all year?”

  Shrugs are safe. “I don't know, I guess I didn't want to bother you.”

  She finished the last of her orange and wiped her hands on the grass.

  “I thought you didn't like me,” she said. “I thought you thought I was stuck up.”

  I shook my head violently. “Not at all, you're not the least bit stuck up. You're – you're nice.”

  “You don't even know me.”

  “Well, I heard you're nice, from kids who do know you.”

  “Have you been asking about me?”

  “No.” I felt brave, the tube was opening, the sun was visible. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I just – well, I just was wondering is all. What you were like.”

  She mocked me, for fun. “You never talked to me in four years. How do I know you're not stuck up?”

  I managed a smile that didn't look like something stitched on.

  “Except for you, everyone in our class thinks I'm totally cool. If not for my lousy grades, I would be giving the valedictorian speech today.”

  “Your lousy clothes are also a problem,” she said bluntly.

  That took me aback. “What's wrong with my clothes?”

  “They look secondhand.”

  The ones I was wearing were—my family didn't have a lot of money. “I'm not interested in such superficial stuff.”

  “Bullshit. You need a new haircut as well. You look like your father cuts your hair.”

  I looked her in the eye; it was make it or break it time. “My father does cut my hair. But if you don't like it, you're more than welcome to cut it next time.”

  Gale considered, her green eyes large. Her skin was flushed with blood. She looked so alive right then, as if she had just been born.

  “I could get into that,” she said, and reached over and ran her hand through my hair. “Where do you live, Danny?”

  She could call me Danny if she wanted, there was nothing wrong with the name. My mother's bingo partners called me Danny. Her fingers seemed to caress every erogenous zone in my body with that one quick pass.

  “On Lucinda,” I said, “You know where It is?”

  “Yeah.” A pause, she took her hand back. “Do you know where I live?”

  I did, as a matter of fact, nice place to drive by late at night and dream about.

  “No,” I said.

  “I live on Birch, near the fire station.”

  “Oh. I know where that is. Nice street.”

  She dug a sandwich out of her bag. “Do you like tuna fish?”

  “Yeah.” I hated it.

  “I hate it.” She offered me her sandwich, “Do you want it?”

  “I just ate.”

  “Lunch just started. When did you eat?”

  “In history class. If you had been there, instead of ditching, you would have seen.”

  She was amused. “You know what I like about you, Danny?”

  “What?” Revelation time, the sky could open.

  “You are so full of it.”

  I had hoped for better. “You know what I like about you?”

  “Yeah.” She was quick.

  I frowned. “What?”

  “My ass.”

  I struggled. “Why do you say that?”

  She was cocky. “I caught you looking at it once.”

  I was the apple she had yet to take from her bag. I don't know how I spoke.

  “Well, you do have a nice ass.”

  She was interested. “Do you like anything else about me?”

  I managed to stay cool. “Your breasts.”

  Sly smile from Goddess Gale. “You can only imagine.”

  From terror to boldness. “I have, believe me.”

  She hit me; I loved being beaten by her. “Don't give me that crap that you've been dreaming about me for four years. I won't believe you.”

  It was going pretty well, I realized. I tried to sound sincere.

  “That's true, you're not an obsession or anything like that. But I have wanted to get to know you better.”

  “Then why didn't you just talk to me?”

  I shrugged. “Because you're pretty and popular and I'm just a nerd with a large brain and small muscles.”

  She stared at me, all innocence. “I thought you were going to say that you had a large something else. That you would try to impress me, you know.”

  She was a smooth operator, she was one step ahead of me.

  “I am trying to impress you,” I said.

  She seemed genuinely puzzled. “Why?”

  I don't know where the words came from. God or the devil.

  “Because I like your ass,” I said.

  She laughed. “I am not my ass, at least I hope not. Don't you like me as a person?”

  So cool, way. “No.”

  She threw her orange peels at me. “Then I'm not going to cut your hair, Danny Boy.”

  I absorbed her punishment. I spoke quietly.

  “Would you go out with me?” I asked.

  She softened. She was surprise
d. “You want to go out with me?”

  “Yes.”

  Very soft. “Why?”

  “Because I like you. A lot, actually.”

  She considered. “I like you.”

  I swallowed. “Really?”

  “Yeah. I was going to write my phone number in your yearbook. I was hoping you might call me this summer.”

  These were truly amazing sentences. “No.”

  She nodded solemnly. “Yeah. You want to go to Disneyland together tonight?”

  I had to lower my head, I was overcome.

  “Yeah, sure, Gale. I think that would be fun.”

  Her words were a kiss. “I think so, too, Daniel.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  AFTER MY LAST CLASS, I FLOATED HOME. I didn't need a ride. Really, I walked home a foot off the ground, all two miles. I needed the time to be alone, to savor the moment. I had never felt so happy, nothing in my life had even come close to the high I was experiencing. Before saying goodbye to me, Gale had asked if she could sit next to me during the graduation ceremony, which was strictly against the rules. We were supposed to sit in alphabetical order. But I told her no problem, I could receive someone else's diploma, they were all the same to me. Life was an amazing and miraculous creation of God's love. I mean, I was having a great day. Gale Schrater liked me!

  And on the way home I passed a used bookstore.

  Touched Books – I had been in the place many times. I read as much as I wrote, and used books were cheaper than those at Barnes & Noble or library fines. Sometimes I was able to buy a box of assorted titles for ten bucks. Lately I had been reading a lot of fantasy and murder mysteries. I was a big J.R.R. Tolkien and Elmore Leonard fan. I had also developed a fascination with the occult and New Age books. Still thinking of Gale—her face not her ass—I wandered into the store.

  The owner was Mr. Barnes, sixty going on ninety. He drank a bottle of Maalox for an after-lunch snack. He had lines on his face as deep as trenches. His glasses were magnifying reading glasses. Each time he greeted me I felt like a fish in a bowl inside his brain. He nodded at me as I came in before going back to his crossword puzzle. He had a dictionary for a head, but I liked him just the same.

  I went straight to the New Age section and without looking picked up a book entitled The Magnetic Reality. There was a magnet on the cover, streams of colored force lines radiated from pole to pole, red and black etchings of unseen powers. There was also a huge glass eye, poorly drawn, which appeared to be on the verge of shattering. I had never seen the book before. I bought it without glancing at the inside, gave Mr. Barnes a wrinkled dollar, and left the store.

  I had never done that before.

  My house was empty. Both my parents worked full title, my mother as a nanny for rich snobs, my father at a local warehouse. We didn't have a lot, but my mom and dad were fine people, honest and unpretentious. They both planned to attend my graduation ceremony, which was scheduled for six sharp. My mother was very proud of me. My dad never said anything, but I think he thought I was OK. I hoped they hadn't bothered to get me a present; I hated it when they spent money on me that they didn't have. I really did wear secondhand clothes.

  Inside my bedroom, under a poster of Hemingway and a blowup of the cover of Fahrenheit 451, I plopped down on my bed and opened my new book. The first chapter explained how a magnet could be used to obtain readings on practically any subject. All one had to do was tie it to the end of a string and ask yes or no questions. If the answer was yes, it would swing one way, either clockwise, counterclockwise, or from side to side. If the answer was no it would do the opposite of whatever the yes response was. To establish what was the right direction, it was necessary to ask questions one definitely knew to have yes answers. It all sound pretty simple and totally unbelievable.

  Still, I had a small magnet in my desk drawer. I took it out and tied a short string to one end – as stipulated, the south pole. Then I held it above a blank piece of paper on my desk and tried to steady my hand.

  “Am I a male?” I asked.

  There was a long pause. But slowly, very slowly, it began to swing in a clockwise direction—from my perspective directly above it. For a moment I was sure I must be making it swing, but it seemed to have a lift of its own.

  “Am I female?” I asked.

  It swung counterclockwise.

  “Wow,” I mumbled.

  Of course I knew about the subconscious, how I could be moving it without realizing it. In fact, that was the only explanation. Certainly the magnet itself didn't understand my questions. I set my new toy down and read more of the book. The author talked about how the magnet allowed one to tap into layers of the mind ordinarily blocked. But then he took it a step further and spoke of unlocking the mystery of Universal Consciousness. I didn't understand what that was, except it sounded cool. Gale was going out with me, and now I was able to talk to the universe, all in the same day.

  I grabbed the magnet again.

  “Do I love Gale?” I asked.

  Yes. It swung clockwise. Smart magnet.

  “Does Gale love me?”

  Sort of. It went clockwise but without enthusiasm. I was annoyed.

  “Is someone answering these questions besides me?”

  Yes and no. It swung clockwise, then counterclockwise. I didn't understand the response. It seemed it should be one way or the other.

  “Are you a human being?” I asked.

  Yes and no. The no was stronger.

  “Are you more than my subconscious?”

  Yes.

  “Are you more than me but connected to me?”

  Yes. Very strong.

  “Are you a spirit?”

  Sort of.

  “Are you from this planet?”

  No.

  “Do you like talking to me?”

  Yes.

  “Are you friendly to me?”

  Yes.

  “Are you extraterrestrial?”

  Yes. Very strong.

  “Cool,” I whispered.

  Yes.

  “Do you like this method of communication?”

  No.

  “Is it too limiting?”

  Yes.

  “Can we communicate another way?”

  Yes.

  “Can you tell me how?”

  Yes.

  “How? I mean, I have to make suggestions?”

  Yes.

  “Can I talk to you on an Ouija board?”

  Yes and no.

  “Can I use the magnet in another way to communicate with you?”

  Yes.

  I couldn't think of another way.

  “Is it important we communicate?”

  Yes.

  “Are you real?”

  Yes.

  “Could I be deluding myself?”

  Yes.

  That last answer made me pause. Once again, it seemed contradictory. But it did give me an idea of another method of communication, which was related to the Ouija board, but also different.

  “Can I use the magnet to seek out letters rather than your just responding yes or no?”

  Yes.

  “If I get a large piece of paper, and print out each letter of the alphabet, can I use the magnet to seek out each letter you want?”

  Sort of.

  My question had been fuzzy.

  “Will you seek out the appropriate letters you need to spell certain words?”

  Yes. Very strong.

  “The magnet will only react when it comes to the correct letter?”

  Yes.

  “Should I do this now?”

  Yes.

  I set the magnet down and went to my father's den, where he was fond of painting and drawing in the evening. He was a fan of fine paper, and collected it, his only indulgence. He wouldn't mind if I stole a piece, he was always trying to teach me to draw. But I had the hand-mind coordination of a surfer bum; I could only manage happy faces with halos.

  I used a black marker pen to carefully pri
nt out the letters of the alphabet and arrange them in three neat rows. I also put in periods and commas. By now I was getting excited, and not just because the magnet was swinging. There was a strange energy prickling at the back of my head and the base of my spine. I could have been imagining, it but I didn't think so. The charge was the same as that generated by a coming storm only much stronger and obviously much more localized.

  It felt as if someone were really there.

  Something. An energy being.

  I returned to my bedroom and picked up my magnet. The sheet I placed directly in front of my crossed legs. Dangling the magnet by the string, I hung it over the alphabet, moving slowly through the letters, staring from A. It reacted sharply when it came to H, spinning clockwise.

  “You want an H?” I asked.

  Yes.

  I wrote down H and started again from A. When I reached I it reacted.

  “Hi?” I asked.

  Yes.

  “You are saying hi to me?”

  Yes.

  “Hi there,” I said. “Should I continue?”

  Yes.

  “Should I ask questions first?”

  Yes.

  “Who are you?”

  The answer was long and slow in coming. But finally I had it and my heart was pounding. I capitalized what words I thought appropriate. The magnet did make use of my comma and period.

  You may call me Mentor. I am you and I am not you. I am a higher aspect of you. I reside in what you would call a subtle body on a world six hundred and forty-two light-years from you. This world is called Ortee. We are advanced beyond the inhabitants of your planet, both materially and spiritually. Eighteen of your years ago, a portion of my consciousness left here and incarnated on your planet. That portion you call the soul.

  “You've got to be kidding me,” I blurted out.

  I had to work the magnet to get the answer.

  I am serious, Daniel. I contact you at this time to make you and your friends aware of your mission.