Trapped!: The 2031 Journal of Otis Fitzmorgan (3 page)

TEDDY ATTACKED MS. JENKINS'S SHOE!

Blushing slightly, I scooped up Teddy, who clicked and squirmed in my hands, trying to break free so he could resume his attack
on her shoes. I tucked him back into my jacket pocket.

“Passports, please,” Ms. Jenkins said to the man and the girl. With retina scans and other biometrics, there was really no
reason for old-fashioned passports. But passengers felt better about having them. “And what was the purpose of your visit?”
Ms. Jenkins asked them as she inspected their documents.

The girl gave the man a nudge. “I write travel guides. I'm Robert Noonan, and this is my daughter, Charlotte.”

“Uh-huh. Why are you so nervous, sir?”

“This has been our first trip into space,” his daughter Charlotte broke in. “I think it's natural to be a little shaky, don't
you?”

Ms. Jenkins nodded and removed her security wand from her belt loop. She waved it over them and gave me a look that said,
Why did you waste my time? Her search had come up empty.

Just as I knew it would. Her wand wasn't programmed to pick up what I had detected. Embarrassed, I mumbled something to her.

“I can't understand you,” Jenkins said.

I took a breath and said loudly, “Mr. Noonan has a piece of fruit!”

Everyone looked from me to Mr. Noonan. Realization dawned on his face. He reached into his coat pocket and removed a kiwi.
The guard took it from him.

“Dad!” the girl cried, and then in almost the same breath, asked me, “How did you ever know that was there?”

But even Ms. Jenkins didn't know about my “secret weapon.” So I kept my mouth shut.

“Are you aware that it is illegal to transport foods grown on the Elevator Terminal back to Earth?” Ms. Jenkins asked coolly.

Charlotte's face went red. “How would we know that? This is the first time we're taking the Elevator down to Earth!” While
her dad cowered behind her, Charlotte continued, “Where is that law about food written down? Is it on the wall?” She pointed
to the blank wall. “No! Is it on our ticket?” She waved the ticket in our faces. “No! Is it in this journal?” She flipped
through my journal and scanned a page. “No—”

CHARLOTTE AND MR. NOONAN

She broke off, and her eyes widened, slightly in surprise. She looked up at me and opened her mouth as if to speak. I knew
she must have spotted something on the page about my training to be a private detective.

Questions whirled through my mind. Was she going to reveal my training to Ms. Jenkins? Would she use the information against
me to get herself out of trouble?

And then Charlotte closed the journal and shoved it into my hands. Without a word, she looked at me. She raised one eyebrow,
as if to say, The ball's in your court.

Meanwhile, Mr. Noonan was nervously clutching his daughter. His beady eyes shot from Ms. Jenkins back to me. “Are you going
to arrest us?”

“No, of course not,” Ms. Jenkins said. “Just please be more careful next time you travel with us. And thank you for using
the Space Elevator.”

I think I was more relieved than Charlotte and her father. Mr. Noonan threw one end of his scarf over his shoulder dramatically.
“Come along, Charlotte,” he said. “We have a Climber to catch!”

I watched the two of them heading into the Elevator. The same one I would be boarding in a moment.

This is going to be a long ride, I thought.

MY ROOM LOOKED LIKE IT WAS STRAIGHT OUT OF THE OLD WEST!

MY ROOM LOOKED LIKE IT WAS STRAIGHT OUT OF THE OLD WEST!

Day 2 of 6
  
  
12:35
PM

Teddy woke me up this morning by
yanking on my ear with his rubbery mouth.

“Enough!” I told him, but he knew better. He continued to bounce around my pillow like a metal flea that's had too much coffee.
I'm not a morning person, so I've programmed Teddy not to stop bugging me until I'm up and moving.

“Okay, okay;” I said. “Good boy.” I sat up in bed and rubbed my eyes. Satisfied that he had done his job, Teddy turned in
my lap and lay down.

“Lights up slowly, please,” I said to the computer, and the lamp around the room began to glow and grow in strength.

My room on the Elevator was pretty big—plenty of space to fit a bed, a desk, and a dresser. I even had my own bathroom. Fake
wood was used for everything, just like in the Terminal. So it looked like a small hotel room—in the Old West.

But the real attraction was the window. A small mirror had been placed on the outside near the top. It was angled to give
passengers a view of Earth without their having to get out of bed. And the view was spectacular.

We were orbiting Earth. But because we were tied to the planet's surface by the long ribbon, our position didn't change. I
could see the western half of the United States and part of Asia.

With its swirling cloud patterns, gorgeous blue oceans, and rich green and brown continents, the planet was beautiful. It
floated in black space like a welcoming light at the end of a tunnel. But I didn't have that happy feeling of returning home
that I had expected I would.

Why should I be excited about going back to a place that wanted to destroy my dreams?

Ever since I could remember, private investigation had been outlawed. And lately there had been a growing movement to deal
much more harshly with those who brae the law. Soon I wouldn't be able to risk even my simple training exercises—like helping
one of my teachers track down her stolen painting. I just couldn't put my family in that kind of danger.

Yesterday's brush with discovery had made me realize that even more. If Charlotte tells anyone what she read in my journal,
I'll be finished. But my family has been keeping journals for generations, and I don't want to be the first one to stop.

Not for the first time, I wondered what Judge Pinkerton would make of this whole mess. Of course, I'd never met her. The famous
federal judge and creator of the Private Detective Academy had lived to be over a hundred years old, but she'd died before
I was even born. Still, I felt like I knew her. She was a presence in all of my family's journals.

And I've become kind of the keeper or librarian of all these journals. The actual journals themselves are safely hidden back
in our home in New Hampshire. But I've downloaded all their content, including the sketches and attached items, into my personal
hard drive, which I keep in a pendant shaped like a shark tooth that I wear around my neck. To keep my hard drive from being
broken into, I've never connected it to the Net. And even though I download my old journals onto my hard drive, I use old—fashioned
paper and pen instead of a handheld computer to keep the current one. Like my hard drive, this means my journal isn't connected
to the Net—so no one can hack into it.

MY HARD DRIVE

After a few more minutes of sitting there, my grumbling stomach finally finished what Teddy had started. It got me completely
out of bed. I went to the small closet and pulled out my dark green intelli-cloth shirt, plaid jacket, and brown pants. It
wasn't the most stylish outfit in the world, but at least it wasn't the FSA uniform I'd had to wear in the Terminal. Plus
the clothing had self-cleaned the night before and had that fresh, piney smell I liked.

I held out my journal, and Teddy clamped his jaws around the side that opened. He would keep his mouth closed around the book,
keeping it locked and safe from prying eyes.

“Okay?” I asked him. He blinked twice, the signal for yes. I tucked Teddy and my journal into my jacket pocket and walked
to the door.