Chapter Thirty-Three: Radio Codes:

It didn’t look like she was joking. Nancy pressed her lips together.

“I mean… If you want to,” she said. I stared at her blankly. It was like I forgot how to speak. Nancy shook her head.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “It was stupid. I didn’t mean to say that. Forget it. Just forget it.”

“No…” I said. Nancy stared at me.

“No?” she asked.

“No… it’s fine,” I said. “It’s fine.”

“I mean… You don’t have to decide right away. Just think about it,” she said. I didn’t know what the hell was going on.

“Did you need something?” I asked. Nancy took a moment to think.

“Oh, I wanted to show you something,” she said. She reached into her pocket as she was talking. This was turning into a weird conversation. I didn’t understand where anything was going. Did I fall into some weird alternative universe or something?

Nancy pulled out what looked like a piece of paper with things written on it.

“I’ve written down some acronyms involved with the radio,” she said. She walked over with the paper out in her hand. I took a look down.

“What is this for?” I asked.

“So that you can know how to work with it,” Nancy said. What? I looked up at her.

“Are you serious?” I asked. Was she really going to let me touch her beloved radio? I stared at her like I was trying to work together a puzzle with so many pieces.

“Why?” I asked. “Why would you do that?” Nancy put her hand on my head.

“Because I’m going to need you to man the radio when I can’t,” she said. “You’re the only person here who can be able to do it. Ava doesn’t even know what a radio is yet. And Marshmallow doesn’t have thumbs.” What was happening here? First, she wanted me to come with them and now she trusted me with her radio. This had to be a dream or something.

“Okay…” I said. Nancy drew back her hand from my head.

“Thank you,” she said. I looked down at the paper in her hand. She had the handwriting of a teenage girl. At first glance, it just looked like a bunch of random letters.

“What do all of these things mean?” I asked. I pointed to random three letters.

“Megahertz,” she said.

“Huh?” I asked.

“I’ll walk you through everything,” Nancy said. I sat there staring at her. I reached up and pinched myself on the cheek. Nope, this was real.

“What are you doing?” Nancy asked. I stared at her for a moment.

“Uh… nothing,” I said. I slowly lowered my hand to my side. For a second, it looked like Nancy was starting to have second thoughts about her idea. It looked like I was going to have to prove that she could trust me.

I didn’t know why I cared, but I felt like that I had to.