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CLUE NUMBER FOURTEEN (from Liberty, Iowa):


For the Hidden Journey:

Hope and reality are two separate languages spoken in the same kingdom.


For the Puzzle:

Here is the fourteenth set of 5 letters of the puzzle/cryptogram:

x a p e u

To solve the puzzle, collect the other 13 parts and assemble them in order. This is part 14. The remaining five clues will help you solve the puzzle/cryptogram.

                                   


The Story:

The first thing I'm thinking after Alex drags me away from Leslie is, so this is love. But by the time we find Leon in Kansas City and get him to help us fix the Lancer, I'm thinking, let's face it, Jack, I'd fall in love with any girl who was nice to me, and by the time we hit North Carolina and I realize I have to go back and see her, I'm thinking, she's already forgotten me.

It's easy to talk yourself into this kind of cliff-dive, especially after you've been traveling for a while and you realize that everybody turns on their best light and tells you all the good things about themselves first, and it's only after you've hung around with them longer than a few days, like we did with Tracie, that you find out if they're okay or you start seeing the green monster oozing through the cracks.

So for all I knew, Leslie was a bitch on boosters most of the time and she'd just shown me her nice side because I was a new guy. It's also easy to nightmare up all the spliff guys she's been seeing since I saw her, especially when guys like Leon are telling you, "Forget it, Buckwheat. Some other guy is making her wet between the legs by now."

Leon isn't his real name; it's actually Morris. The first time we see him is when he's in the back of his old brick shop wiping the grease off some wrenches because it's about five and he's closing down. We're trying to find somebody to fix the Lancer for cheap and some guy at a towing yard tells us to look up Morris because he's good with old American cars.

His shop is in a rough part of Kansas City, all chain link gates with big padlocks and "This property patrolled by Ratface Security Company" signs on the warehouses. We snake through the half-assembled engines and the cars under dusty blue plastic tarps until we spot him back at a bench with an open can of de-greaser and some rags.

He lifts his old brown driftwood face when he hears us shuffle in, gives us a three-count stare and then says, "What's up, Leon?"

(continued in Chapter Seventeen of I-State Lines)


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