Kim's alarm clock beeped insistently. Dragging herself from sleep, Kim draped an arm over the snooze button and shut it off, bringing back merciful silence. Peeking out from under her disheveled hair, Kim saw it was already 9:30 a.m. Good thing it was a Saturday.
A few minutes later, showered and dressed and at least semi-conscious, Kim descended to the kitchen where her mother was making pancakes. The thick maple smell brought her wide awake, and as with all food, she was immediately reminded of Ron.
Better call him after breakfast.
The tweebs rolled in, bringing their own portable chaos with them, as always. "Hey!" she called, brushing drops of syrup off her arm. "Take it into the living room. Or the next county, maybe." She watched with narrowed eyes as the twin terrors inhaled a stack of pancakes and fled with as much sound and fury as they'd entered with.
Rolling her eyes, Kim finished her own short stack and helped clear the table. As they put dishes into the washer, her mother asked, "I didn't see Ron drop you off last night like usual, wasn't he with you and the rest of your friends?"
"Sort of. He and I went for a moonlight stroll, but he wanted to do some thinking. Alone. So I came back early." Kim tried to keep the worry out of her voice, but her mother was perceptive.
"Is he OK?"
Kim sighed. "I think so. He's just been kind of strange the last week or so, like he thinks something's wrong with him. I keep catching him looking around like there's something weird happening, but it's all the same, there's nothing different or strange that I can tell." She leaned back on the counter, letting the light from both suns warm her bare shoulders. "I just hope he straightens himself out pretty soon."
Her mother put a comforting hand on her daughter's arm. "I'm sure he'll be just fine. Ron's a solid person." Kim smiled and squeezed her mom's hand.
Outside, a sputtering motor grew louder and then stopped suddenly. "Speak of the devil," Kim said, heading for the front door. Nothing else in Middleton sounded like Ron's scooter.
Ron hopped off the scooter just as Kim opened the door. Taking his helmet off, he bounded up the driveway to where Kim stood barefoot. She was concerned to see his face - his eyes were bloodshot, his hair more tousled than usual, and he looked like he hadn't slept last night. "KP!" he called. "Get your shoes, you've gotta see something. C'mon!"
Kim backed up to let him bounce inside, and turned to get her socks and shoes. "What is it, trouble?" She reached for her mission backpack, and noticed how dusty it had become in the back of the closet. It really had been a long time since their last mission.
"Not in so many words... not per se, trouble, I wouldn't say trouble, but maybe something that should concern you," he breathed, still catching his breath. "Do I smell maple syrup?"
Apparently whatever was motivating Ron wasn't urgent enough to bypass some of Mama Possible's Famous Homemade Pancakes. Kim watched Ron wolf down a huge stack of freshly-made pancakes, while Rufus nibbled his own small plate of silver-dollar sized hotcakes. Once full, though, Ron jumped up, dumped his dishes in the sink, grabbed Rufus and Kim's hand and hurried to the door. "Time's a-wasting!" he said, plunking the helmet back on his unruly hair. Kim followed suit, amused and concerned at the same time. Anything that boosted Ron out of post-meal relaxation was serious.
They were soon on the outskirts of town, taking a side street that paralleled the highway Ron had taken the previous night. "Why are we headed to Upperton?" Kim asked, puzzled. Anything really dire would've come over the Kimmunicator.
"You'll see," her boyfriend called over his shoulder as they sped down the blacktop at a blazing 25 miles an hour.
Ron stopped and did an illegal left turn onto an empty freeway entrance. Kim became immediately concerned. The scooter wasn't licensed or fast enough for freeways! What was Ron thinking? "Hey! We can't go there on this!" Ron paid no attention, and guided them onto the empty freeway. He stayed on the shoulder, however.
In a couple of minutes they reached the bridge over Middle Creek. Ron stopped the scooter and they piled off, shedding helmets. Kim rounded on her boyfriend. "What were you thinking getting on the freeway with this thing? We could've been killed! Or worse, you could've gotten a ticket!"
Ron patted the air, trying to calm her. "No worries, KP. Look around - is this the bustling metropolis you remember?" Blacktop stretched in front and behind them, remarkably vehicle-free. "Nobody leaves Middleton anymore."
Before she could fire off another indignant objection, Ron grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the railing. Below, two sets of tracks were visible in the soft wet clay bordering the creek. One set led upstream, another came back, and both were apparently made by the same person. Judging by Ron's muddy shoes, he had been that person. Without waiting at the rail, he hopped the low fence and landed back down by the creek. Looking up, he held up his arms. "C'mon. You've got to see this."
Hesitantly, Kim lowered herself down... not scared of what she might see, but worried that Ron may really have sprung a leak in his brainpan. After all, it wasn't as if this place were dangerous, it was just the old creek where she and Ron used to go to find some privacy. Kim hadn't thought about that in a while, but it was all familiar and decidedly unthreatening. Hand in hand, the two began following the creek.
Once tree limbs became visible around a bend, Ron hurried them forward and stood next to the largest downed tree, even on its side taller than either Kim or Ron. He pointed up to what was inscribed in the bark. "Bring back any memories, KP?" he asked eagerly.
It did. The heart shape was outlined with "Kim + Ron 4-ever" that had been gouged into the bark. Kim remembered helping Ron sign the tree, and remembered feeling guilty about defacing a part of nature. "Sure, I remember. What's the big?"
Ron lifted an eyebrow. "How big was the tree when we did this?"
Puzzled, Kim thought for a moment, then held her hands out to form a circle about a foot in diameter. "I don't know, maybe this big around?" She shrugged. "So?"
Ron was clearly becoming impatient. "So how long does it take a tree to go from this big," he pointed to Kim's cupped hands, "to this big?" He pointed to the tree trunk that was a good eight feet thick. "And just how long ago did we perform our little arboreal grafitti?" Kim was willing to bet he'd looked that phrase up somewhere.
Now Kim was puzzled and intrigued. It certainly didn't seem that long ago, not at all. But the inscription was definitely made by her hand. And Ron's hand, of course. The tree was huge, clearly much more than a century old. It didn't make sense.
"OK, that's hinky, I grant you," Kim said slowly, watching a satisfied grin play across Ron's face. "Is this what you dragged me out here to see?"
Ron grabbed her hand and began walking upstream again. "Partly. But the best part is up here. Remember when we used to come down here?"
Blushing, Kim remembered. But there were more convenient spots to smooch, closer to town.
"And you remember why we came here, right?" Ron asked.
Kim laughed. "Yeah, Bonnie would always spy on us and laugh when we got affectionate. It got real old real fast."
"Bonnie who?"
"Rockwaller. My high school nemesis. Doy." Kim gave Ron a funny look. What was he getting at?
Ron stopped and looked at Kim, all humor gone from his face. "We're in high school, right?" Kim nodded, and Ron continued, "And where's Bonnie now?"
Kim sobered too. "She's dead, of course. That's not a nice thing to bring up."
Not backing down, Ron asked one more question that stopped Kim cold. "What did she die of?"
The answer didn't fit, not at all. But it was the only one she had. "Extreme old age," she whispered. The pieces didn't want to come together in Kim's head.
Grimly satisfied, Ron led her further upstream. They soon splashed through the creek to the concrete pad Ron had run across last night. Before he let her see it, Ron covered his girlfriend's eyes and carefully walked her to just in front of the door. "Tell me what this is," he said, dropping his hands.
"That's easy. It's our mission memorabilia bunker." The words came out before Kim had time to even think. But once uttered, her eyes grew wide. "Now that is just too weird. How did I know that? Why would I have forgotten?" Kim looked at the flat metal door. She couldn't remember for the life of her what was on the other side. But she knew that she used to know. She knew she had built it.
Ron put his hands up, touched the opening spots on either side of the doorway. The noiseless door receeded, and dim lights barely visible in the light of double suns led deep down into the hillside. Ron gestured. "I came here last night. It's time to see some things that we haven't seen for a long, long time. And I think it's time we started remembering things."
Kim stood rooted. "Some kind of chemical memory weapon that may have been used on us, or something?"
"I dunno, Kim. But I feel like I'm starting to wake up. I don't know the answers yet, but at least I'm seeing that there are questions that need asking."
A small splashing behind them surprised both of them. They twirled around quickly to see a newcomer who had apparently just come out of nowhere.
"Well it's about time," Bonnie Rockwaller said.