That’s where I am. First Earth. Veelox was a misdirection. Spader and I flumed to Veelox, but found the action wasn’t there. It was here on First Earth. Where is First Earth? The better question is, whenis First Earth? I’m in New York City and it’s 1937. March of 1937 to be exact. To bereallyexact, it’s March 11 of 1937. I’m writing this on my birthday. Here’s a weird thought: If I’m in 1937 and it’s my birthday, did I still turn fifteen? Kind of freaky, no? I’ll begin this new journal by telling you I stumbled into the most bizarro, confusing, dangerous situation yet. But then again, haven’t I said that before? Let me give you a little taste of what happened in only the first few minutes since I got here… Spader and I were nearly killed. Three times. We were also robbed and witnessed a gruesome murder. Happy birthday to me! The way things are going, I know what I want for my fifteenth birthday…the chance to have a sixteenth. When Spader and I flumed in from Veelox, I had no idea of what “First Earth” meant. Since I’m from Second Earth, I could only guess that First Earth was sometime in the Earth’s past. But how far past? For all I knew we were fluming back to a time when quigs were dinosaurs and we’d be on the run from hungry, yellow-eyed raptors.

I was totally relieved to find that when we landed at the gate, it was the exact same rocky room that I had been through many times before. Yes, we had arrived at the gate ofthe subway tunnel in the Bronx, New York. Phew. At least there were no T-rexes or Neanderthals waiting for us. That was the good news.

Bad news was that we weren’t alone. As soon as the flume dropped us off, I saw two guys standing there, facing us. They wore old-fashioned gray suits, like Clark Kent wears in the oldSupermanshow on TV Land. Actually, a better analogy is that these guys were dressed like thebad guysfrom that old show, because that’s what they were. Bad guys. Verybad guys. They wore wide-brimmed hats that were pulled down low and had white handkerchiefs aroundtheir noses and mouths like banditos. There’s only one word to describe these dudes.