November 2

In his bedroom, Gabe sighed and tossed the ruined diorama in the general direction of the garbage can. He hadn’t mind the teasing as much as he’d minded not having the assignment to turn in. Mr. Bexton was a very nice teacher, but he had given Gabe after school detention when Gabe didn’t have his book report complete to turn in. Gabe wasn’t about to give Alex the satisfaction of having the Sprite soaked scene on the window ledge in class.

“If only Derek were still here,” Gabe said to himself, looking at a photo of the two boys from last Halloween pinned on his bulletin board. Derek had been his true friend. They’d known each other since kindergarten. A big second grader had stolen Gabe’s hat on the playground and was holding it just out of his reach. Derek had come running up and kicked the second grader in the shin and returned the hat. Gabe gave Derek half his cherry fruit roll up at snack time and the two boys had been fast friends ever since.

They made an unusual pair – Gabe had always been small for his age, and very pale even in the middle of summer. His thick, dishwater blonde hair was constantly falling in his eyes, and he always had a look of bewilderment on his face. In contrast, Derek was the tallest boy in class, with dark brown hair and glasses. Somehow, even in kindergarten, he’d had an air of something special around him. He was friend to everyone, and the teachers all loved him. As the boys had aged, Derek had proven himself to be the smartest boy in class, as well as the most interesting to be around. Gabe had always felt very special being Derek’s best friend.

Alex had moved to town when the boys were in fourth grade. He had tried to bully Gabe and Derek at first, but Derek had just ignored him and encouraged Gabe to do the same. The three boys eventually bonded over a class field trip to the zoo when they’d all discovered they had a special fondness for snakes. Alex invited Derek and Gabe over to meet his pet boa constrictor, Link, and they had managed to maintain a friendship despite Alex’s tendency towards meanness. Derek was always coming up with new adventures and games to keep them entertained.

Gabe had been absolutely devastated when, on the last day of fifth grade, their teacher announced that Derek’s family had left town suddenly for a family emergency, and that they were not expecting to come back to town. Alex and Gabe had made half-hearted efforts to maintain their friendship during the summer between fifth and sixth grades, but without Derek around, the two discovered that they had nothing to talk about.

Despite the loss of his best friend, Gabe had started sixth grade at Green Meadows Middle School with high hopes, thinking that he’d make new friends. There were two other elementary schools that fed into the middle school and Gabe was sure he couldn’t be the smallest boy in all three schools.

Unfortunately, he had been wrong. And even now, in late October, Gabe had not met anyone that he thought could take Derek’s place.

Shaking his head, Gabe pulled himself out of his reveries. He knew that thinking about his old friend wouldn’t help his current situation. Besides, Derek had never bothered getting in touch with Gabe since he had disappeared. Gabe was still trying to decide whether he was hurt or angry about this.

Instead of making up his mind about that, Gabe pulled out his math homework, curled up on his bed, and buried himself in a world that made more sense to him than the real world. He had always felt at home with numbers, and math was the one subject he’d always excelled in, beating even Derek in the yearly math competition. In sixth grade, he was already studying high school level algebra. It was another thing that made him stand out as a subject for ridicule, but Gabe cared more about learning than he did the teasing.

Before long, he was so deeply entrenched in his math assignment that he was barely aware of his surroundings. Anastasia’s rat, Eustace ran across the room towards a hole in the wall near the door, but Gabe didn’t even look up from his paper.

Eventually, his left arm started to tingle as it fell asleep from being pinned under him. Gabe sat up and rubbed his left hand. He noticed that it had gotten dark outside while he’d worked, and a big full moon was shining brightly in the sky. He also noticed that he was starving.

He glanced at the clock, and wondered what was taking dinner so long. Maybe his punishment for the door slamming was no dinner, but it wasn’t like Anastasia to let that go without rubbing it in his face. He folded up his homework and tucked it inside his text book and decided to go see what was going on.

Gabe walked over to his door, opened it up, and found a solid brick wall blocking his way.

“Wha--?” he said, reaching out his hand to feel the rough brick, “What is this doing here?”

“Hello, Gabriel,” said a voice from the direction of Gabe’s bed. Gabe turned around to find out who had snuck into his room, only to find out that his bedroom had entirely disappeared.