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turned to Walker and shook his hand. “Good-bye, young man. Until we meet again, which I hope will be soon.”
    Walker said good-bye to the king and to the Lightkeepers as he and Eddie made their way out of the palace. They walked along the wide avenue that led to the gates of the Kingdom. Eddie suddenly took Walker’s hand and started running. Then everything went black and the next thing he knew the two of them tumbled to a halt in the meadow behind the barn. Walker was facedown in the long grass, and he looked up to see Eddie rolling over and over, his Boston Red Sox jacket covered in burrs. He finally stopped with a thump against an apple tree.
    â€œOooph,” was all he could say.
    He picked up his battered fedora and brushed the leaves and dirt off it.
    â€œI really have to work on my reentry skills,” he said.
    â€œWhen will you go back to the Kingdom?” Walker asked.
    â€œWell,” Eddie replied, “I thought I might stick around here for a while. I don’t want you forgetting about us.”
    â€œThat would be pretty hard,” Walker said.
    â€œUnless I make you forget,” Eddie retorted with a grin.
    â€œYeah,” said Walker. “You never did show me how to do that!”
    â€œWe can’t let you into all of our secrets all at once,” Eddie replied. “If we did you’d never come back.”
    Walker felt a pang of conscience when Eddie said that, because, in his heart of hearts, he knew he never would.
    â€œIt’d be fun to have you around,” he told him, and surprisingly he meant it.
    â€œWell, say hi to your mom for me,” said Eddie, “and tell her to save a slice of that cherry pie she’s making.”
    And with that he disappeared.
    How does he know my mom’s making a cherry pie? Walker wondered to himself.
    When he got back to the house, his mother was still in the kitchen. Walker’s nose detected the comforting smell of a pie baking in the oven. He went up to her, kissed her on the cheek, and then sat down on one of the kitchen chairs.
    â€œDid you miss me?” he asked.
    â€œNo,” she replied. “Why would I miss you? You must’ve been gone all of two minutes. Much as I love you I can bear to be apart from you for that amount of time.”
    So , he thought, it really does work like the king said it would. There is a difference between time here and in the Kingdom.
    â€œYou look pretty perky today,” his mother said. “You’ve got a sort of glow about you.”
    When she said that Walker froze. Could it be that the effects of being in the Kingdom didn’t wear off immediately? He stole a furtive glance at his hands, but they looked just like they always did when he was home.
    â€œSince you told me you don’t have any plans for the rest of this lovely day I’ve arranged a surprise for you,” his mother said.
    For the second time in as many minutes Walker froze.
    â€œWhat kind of a surprise?” he asked nervously.
    â€œYou know that old cottage on the Trumbell farm?” his mother asked him. “It seems that old Jeremiah Trumbell sold it to some folks from Boston. Anyway, they’ve been doing it up, and now they’ve moved in, and they have a daughter. So I invited her to come and play with you. She should be here soon.”
    â€œOh, Mom!” cried Walker. “You know how I hate meeting kids.”
    â€œSweetie, you’ve got to get over it,” his mother insisted. “You can’t spend the rest of your life in isolation. You have to learn to get along with other people.”
    â€œBut those Outerworld kids always treat me like a freak,” Walker complained.
    â€œWhat kind of kids?” asked his mother.
    â€œOh, it’s just a word I use to describe people who aren’t from around here,” Walker hurriedly said.
    â€œWell, you’re not a freak,” his mother assured him. “You just have a slight