Lincoln
Magellan
Napoleon
Orpheus
Polo
Quixote
Robin Hood
Sinbad
Theseus
Ulysses
da Vinci
Washington
Xenos
You
Zorro
—They’re in alphabetical order, said Billy.
After a moment, Emmett turned back to the endpapers to compare the heroes’ names with the letters attached to the various dotted lines. Yes, he thought, there was Magellan sailing from Spain to the East Indies, and Napoleon marching into Russia, and Daniel Boone exploring the wilds of Kentucky.
Having glanced briefly at the introduction, Emmett began turning through the book’s twenty-six chapters, each of which was eight pages long. While each offered a glimpse of the hero’s boyhood, the primary focus was on his exploits, achievements, and legacy. Emmett could understand why his brother could return to this book again and again, because each chapter had an array of maps and illustrations designed to fascinate: like the blueprint of da Vinci’s flying machine and the plan of the labyrinth in which Theseus fought the Minotaur.
As he neared the end of the book, Emmett came to a stop on two pages that were blank.
—Looks like they forgot to print a chapter.
—You missed a page.
Reaching over, Billy turned the page back. Here again the leaves were blank except that at the top of the left-hand page was the chapter title: You.
Billy touched the empty page with a hint of reverence.
—This is where Professor Abernathe invites you to set down the story of your own adventure.
—I guess you haven’t had your adventure yet, said Emmett with a smile.
—I think we’re on it now, said Billy.
—Maybe you can make a start of setting it down while we’re waiting for the train.
Billy shook his head. Then he turned all the way back to the very first chapter and read the opening sentence: —It is fitting that we begin our adventures with the story of Swift-Footed Achilles, whose ancient exploits were forever immortalized by Homer in his epic poem The Iliad.
Billy looked up from his book to explain.
—The causes of the Trojan War began with the Judgment of Paris. Angered that she was not invited to a banquet on Olympus, the goddess of discord threw a golden apple on the table with the inscription For the Fairest. When Athena, Hera, and Aphrodite each claimed the apple as their own, Zeus sent them to earth, where Paris, a Trojan prince, was chosen to resolve the dispute.
Billy pointed to an illustration of three loosely clad women gathered around a young man sitting under a tree.
—To influence Paris, Athena offered him wisdom, Hera offered him power, and Aphrodite offered him the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen of Sparta, the wife of King Menelaus. When Paris chose Aphrodite, she helped him spirit Helen away, resulting in Menelaus’s outrage and the declaration of war. But Homer didn’t begin his story at the beginning.
Billy moved his finger to the third paragraph and pointed to a three-word phrase in Latin.
—Homer began his story in medias res, which means in the middle of the thing. He began in the ninth year of the war with the hero, Achilles, nursing his anger in his tent. And ever since then, this is the way that many of the greatest adventure stories have been told.
Billy looked up at his brother.
—I am pretty sure that we are on our adventure, Emmett. But I won’t be able to make a start of setting it down until I know where the middle of it is.
Duchess
Woolly and I were lying on our beds in a HoJo’s about fifty miles west of Chicago. When we had passed the first one, right after crossing the Mississippi into Illinois, Woolly had admired the orange roof and blue steeple. When we passed the second one, he did a double take—like he was worried that he was seeing things, or that I had somehow lost my bearings.
—No need to fret, I said. It’s just a Howard Johnson’s.
—A Howard Who’s?
—It’s a restaurant and motor lodge, Woolly. They’re everywhere you go, and they always look like that.
—All of them?
—All of them.
By the time Woolly was sixteen, he had been to Europe at least five times. He’d been to London and Paris and Vienna, where he’d wandered the halls of museums and attended the opera and climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower. But while on his native soil, Woolly had spent most of his time shuttling between an apartment on Park Avenue, the house in the Adirondacks, and the campuses of three New England prep schools. What Woolly didn’t know about America would fill the Grand Canyon.
Woolly looked back over his shoulder as we passed the entrance to the restaurant.