CHAPTER 14
WHERE IS KIT WALKER
The day dawned bright and cool and beautiful, perfect weather for the big event. People poured into the new stadium; the twelve high school marching bands; the athletes and singers, the senators and congressmen and mayors and assorted dignitaries, and the fifty thousand friends and relatives. "Kit Walker Day" banners were stretched across the main street. Similar banners were on dozens of chartered buses that had brought people from all parts of the state and were parked in rows outside the stadium. Aunt Bessie and Uncle Ephraim were there, waiting in the center box reserved for Kit himself. Diana was to come with him. But Diana didn't come. Neither did Kit Walker.
The bands and the entertainers waited. The senators and congressmen and mayors waited. The fifty thousand friends and fans and relatives waited. All eyes were on the center box. Aunt Bessie was worried. Uncle Ephraim became more impatient as time went on. "Has he run away again?" he muttered. Ephraim couldn't know he'd guessed correctly. Phone calls were made, then students went to his room. All his clothes and books were there, everything in order. Someone thought of trying Diana. She had a headache, it was reported and would see no one. No, she knew nothing about her date, Kit Walker.
Now impatience turned to alarm. What had happened to him? Hospitals were called; alarms went to the police; bulletins were telegraphed and broadcast. Where is Kit Walker? An accident? Had gangsters kidnapped him? Hundreds had seen him at the prom the night before. He'd been seen by many, walking Diana to the dorm. Friends had seen him enter his room that night. Kit Walker Day was a fiasco.
Bessie and Ephraim left, to find their nephew. The program committee decided to go ahead with the entertainment, to avoid disappointment to thousands of visitors. So the bands marched and played, and the gymnasts whirled. The chorus sang, and the politicians made speeches, and all were directed at the empty center box draped with flags and banners. But it all sounded hollow, as empty as the center box itself. For the hero was gone.
The investigation spread. A tight-lipped Diana was questioned, but had no answers. Train stations and airports were watched. Nearby lakes and rivers were dragged. Kit Walker's disappearance became a national seven-day wonder. One of the greatest athletes in the history of collegiate sport had simply vanished on the eve of his greatest honor. The mystery was discussed, probed, argued in every newspaper and home in America. Kit's past was looked into, in the hopes of finding a clue. That only deepened the mystery. Bangalla was remote, far away. Correspondents in that distant land had never heard of him, or any Walker family. It was a marvelous mystery. Half the girls in America were in love with this sports hero whose photo adorned their bedroom walls. To vanish, and at such a time! It was too much! It was as though the earth had swallowed him up.
Diana kept her promise to Kit and revealed nothing. Aunt Bessie and Uncle Ephraim's despair caused her to talk to them one night.
"If I tell you something about Kit, will you promise never to repeat it?" she asked them. They agreed anxiously. "Cross your heart and hope to die if you ever tell?" insisted Diana, using a formula from childhood. They solemnly obeyed her. "Kit is well. He went away. You can guess where," she said. Their smiles and tears of relief rewarded her. Kit wouldn't have minded that.
Where was Kit Walker? demanded a world press, intrigued by this disappearance of a national sports idol. But there was no answer. The widespread interest finally subsided, but it was a mystery that people would discuss for years to come, one of the celebrated disappearance cases. Now and then a magazine writer would rehash the story with photos of the famous athlete, asking the old question. "Had the earth swallowed up Kit Walker?"
The earth had swallowed up Kit Walker. For there would be no more Kit Walker. He had vanished into mystery.
