I sighed as I fixed the collar on my dress. Today was Will's "funeral", and the whole time I got ready I was bitterly thinking about how he wouldn't want me to wear something so scratchy. Boys wear collars. That's one thing us girls are supposed to be free of. I brushed through my hair and took a deep breath. I put on the smallest amount of makeup possible, and walked out of the bathroom in Mike's basement. Ellie looked at me and smiled.

"Pretty." She said softly. I smiled at her and sat next to her on the couch, sighing.

"Thanks.."

"Are you..ok?"

"It's weird. He's not really gone, and I know he isn't but...I still feel so...sad..." Ellie put her arm around me.

"It's ok." I nodded, and said goodbye to her, walking upstairs to avoid any suspicion from the Wheelers. I saw Nancy first, and she gave me a small sympathetic smile. I returned it. Gosh, she always looks so pretty.

"Woah." I heard mike whisper from the stairs. I turned his way, and immediately had to stop myself from laughing at him in a suit. It looked very unnatural for him. He cleared his throat, stumbling over his words, "you, uh...wow, um...you look great! Pretty! Very pretty!" I smiled softly, still pushing down a laugh.

"Thanks, Bachelor Wheeler." I said, making him smile. We got into the car and drove to the service. I rushed to meet my mom and Jonathan when we arrived, also hugging my father, though his being there had little to no affect on me. I stood next to Jonathan, holding his hand through all the depressing and hopeful speeches Pastor Charles was spouting.

I was snapped out of my lack of attention by the sound of sniffles from near me. I looked up and saw Jennifer Hayes, a girl who never showed any care for Will, crying. I pushed back a smile when I heard Dustin chuckle.

"Wait till we tell Will that Jennifer Hayes was crying at his funeral." He said.

After the service ended, I responded to all of the "I'm so sorry"'s and "If there's anything we can do"'s the same way: nodding, and "thank you." I wasn't paying attention to who said what, and, frankly, it didn't matter, since everyone said the same thing. Jonathan was running his hand up and down my back the whole time, which made me feel the smallest, slightest amount better. When the sun started to set, him and Nancy broke off and walked away, which let me finally go meet up with Mike, Dustin, and Lucas.

We all sat at a table inside, me eating a few cookies and drinking a sugar-loaded coffee, since it was the one day that I'd ever be able to before I was 18.

"We're gonna ask Mr. Clarke about the Upside Down, wanna tag along?" Mike asked. I nodded, swallowing a marble cookie.

"I'd love to. Anything to keep my mind off my poor mom." I mumbled, casting a look over at her and her hunched over form.

"He's over there." Lucas pointed to Mr. Clarke, who was standing at the table, and we all stood, making our way (downtown) over.

"Mr. Clarke?" I asked. We all had decided prior that I'd be the designated talker, you know, since my brother died, everyone had a soft spot for me. Mr. Clarke turned around and smiled softly.

"Oh, hey, there. How you all doing?" He asked kindly. I smiled a little.

"As good as possible, I think.." Dustin crunched on something loudly beside me.

"Man, these aren't real Nilla Wafers." He mumbled through a full mouth, forcing me to resist the urge to smack him silly.

"We were wondering if you had time to talk?" Mike asked. I nodded along.

"We have a few, well, a lot, of questions." I said. We led Mr. Clarke over to a table and sat down. I sat between Mike and Dustin, who had got a plate of food and was obnoxiously eating right in my ear.

"Do you know how Carl Sagan talks about other dimensions in Cosmos?" Mike asked.

"Sure, theoretically." Clarke replied.

"Right.."

"So, theoretically, how would we travel there?" Lucas asked.

"You guys have been thinking about Many-Worlds Interpretation by Hugh Everett, haven't you?" I smiled cheesily.

"You caught us!" I said. He smiled a little.

"Well, basically, there are parallel universes. Just like our world, but infinite variations of it." He looked at me, "which means there's a world out there where none of this tragic stuff ever happened." He finished. I smiled softly, looking into my coffee cup.

"I sure hope the Maggie over there is having a grand old time." I mumbled, making Mr. Clarke laugh.

"But, uh, that's not what we were talking about." Lucas said.

"We were thinking of more of an evil dimension, like the Vale Of Shadows." Dustin said. I looked up.

"That's just them. I was thinking about what you were thinking about." I said quickly, trying to save my sanity.

"Yeah, uh, we were wondering if a place like that-the Vale Of Shadows- did exist, how would we travel there?" Mike asked.

"Theoretically." Lucas added.

"Well...." Mr. Clarke looked around, grabbing the paper plate next to him and pulling it in front of him, grabbing a pen from his coat pocket. "Picture an acrobat..." he drew two lines on top of each other, with a stick person balancing on top of them, "standing on a tightrope." He pointed his pen at the "tightrope.", "Our dimension is the tightrope. And the tightrope has rules. You can move forwards or backwards." He drew two arrows to further explain his point, "But what if there's a flea right next to our acrobat? The flea can travel the same ways as the acrobat. Right?"

"Right." I responded.

"Now here's where things get interesting." Mr. Clarke drew an arrow in the middle of the two lines that made the tightrope, "the flea can also travel along the side of the rope. He can even go underneath the rope."

"Upside Down." We all said.

"Exactly."

"But we're the acrobat, not the flea." Mike said.

"Right."

"So we cant go Upside Down?" Lucas asked.

"No." Said Mr. Clarke.

"Is there any way for the acrobat to get to the Upside Down?" Dustin asked.

"Well..you'd have to create a massive amount of energy. More than humans are currently capable of creating. That would open up some kind of tear in time and space. And then..." he folded the plate in half, and then shoved the pen through the plate, making us all jump. "You create a doorway."

"Like a gate?" Asked Dustin.

"Sure, like a gate."

"But what if this gate already existed?" I asked.

"Well, we would know. It would mess with gravity, the magnetic field, our environment. Heck, it might even swallow us whole." Clarke said. I gulped, and Dustin covered his face with his hands, Mike's eyes going wide. "Science is neat." Clarke continued, "But I'm afraid it's not very forgiving."

"You can say that again."