Page 36 of Buck Baxter and the Mysteries of Love

“No!” Howard shouted. “Take them to the car. We’re leaving now, before anyone can stop us.The Millennium Expressis about to make an early departure.”

Before the Nazis dragged him out of the room, Harry slid a quick, discreet glance sideways at the bookcase, and for a split second—even though he couldn’t see me—Harry was looking straight at me.

And I wondered if I was ever going to see his handsome face again.

I sprinted down the tunnel, clutching the scrunched-up papers to my chest.

I reached the door that led out into the moonlit maze, then tried desperately to remember how to find my way out.

“Left, right, right,” I muttered, turning one way then the other. “No, left, left… no, right, left… fuck!”

I ran through the maze.

I took a left and came to a dead end.

I backtracked and turned right, then again, then left.

“Fuck!” Another dead end.

I turned around, perhaps too quickly, and staggered into the hedge on one side, snapping twigs and branches. The blow from the explosions earlier that evening, along with all the panic and fear and the desperate need to rescue Harry before it was too late, was obviously making my head spin and my feet unsteady.

I turned back, made a left and then another, then came to another dead end.

I saw broken twigs and branches in the hedge to my right, and realized I’d just gone around in a circle.

“Fuck!”

The curse was met with laughter.

Uneasily I realized it was the laughter of a child.

What the hell was a child doing in the maze in the dead of night?

I peered through the milky blue light of the moon, seeing nothing but hedges in every direction. “Who’s there?”

The laughter came again, this time clearer.

I knew that laugh.

From a passage to the left, a young boy suddenly appeared.

For a moment I stared in disbelief, wiping my eyes before whispering, “Harry?Is that you?”

“You’re lost, aren’t you?” the boy replied, still giggling. “Did you forget?”

“Forget what?”

“The way out.”

I nodded, staring at the boy, still rattled with shock. Was I hallucinating? Was I dreaming? Had the bomb blasts tilted my brain on its axis? I had no idea, but it was Harry alright. There was no mistaking that scruffy blond hair, those bright blue eyes, that smile that made you wanna follow him anywhere.

“It’s right, right, left, right, left. Come with me, I’ll show you.”

With that he vanished.

“Wait! Kid… Harry… wait!”

I raced to catch up with him, clutching the papers still, desperate not to lose any.

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