I must not cry.

Another stop: Ocean Parkway.

Carolyn's vision cleared and she followed the yellow line of the Q train with her finger. According to the map, she wasn't in Manhattan anymore. She was in Brooklyn. The train was slowing down.

West Eight Street and Surf Avenue. Eighth Street? But not the Eighth Street she needed. She looked out the window. A roller coaster came into view. And the biggest Ferris wheel she'd ever seen. And beyond these rides, she saw water that went on as far as she could see. And waves.

The train screeched to a stop.

The man stood and was coming toward her. He was huge. "Get off," he growled. "This is the end of the line." He stared down at her. "You lost or something?"

"No," she managed to say. "This is where I'm going."

She rushed off the train and moved quickly through the crowd down the long, noisy tunnel. What if the man followed her?

She was on the street.

To her right, there were rides and sideshows and a road leading to the water. To the left, a street of shops and food stalls.

Keep walking - fast.

She passed open-air shops spewing clingy smells of fried food and loud music and lots of people on the move.

Is he following me?

She snuck a look over her shoulder and didn't see him.

Her cell phone rang.

My father. What will I tell him?

A tear-choking lump rose up in her throat as she opened the phone.

"Hello," she croaked.

"Look, Carolyn, I'm sorry I forgot to get you this morning. I missed the stop and went back for you. You should have waited." It wasn't her father. It was Maya. "I'm sorry you missed class and everything. I suppose your father is furious at me."

"I'm lost," Carolyn whispered into the phone. "I - I don't know where I am. I don't know how to get home."

"What do you mean?" asked Maya. "What happened?"

A man with a zillion tattoos walked by arm in arm with a woman with even more. A guy with a big boom box on his shoulder, rap music blaring, pushed past her.

She couldn't hear what Maya said over the music. She saw the man from the subway coming up the block toward her. She ducked into a restaurant and looked for a sign for the rest room.

At the other end of the phone connection, Maya and Joy were in the rest room at the media center.

"What's happening?" Joy asked Maya.

"I think she's in Coney Island. All I can hear now is a lot of noise." She handed to phone to Joy.

"Hello? Hello? Carolyn, it's Joy," she said.

"There's this man," Carolyn whispered into the phone. "He was on the train. I just saw him again. I don't know what to do."

"We'll come get you."

"It'll take you a long time," Carolyn sobbed. "Besides, I don't even know where I am."

In an emergency the first rule is to stay calm, Joy reminded herself. "Maya said you could see rides and the ocean. Did you see a big roller coaster?"

"Yes," answered Carolyn. "I saw it from the train, too."

"Is the roller coaster called the Cyclone?" asked Joy.

"That's what the sign said," Carolyn said, remembering.

"I know where that is," Joy assured her.

"Wait for us at the roller coaster. We'll leave right now," Joy looked at Maya, who nodded in agreement. "Try to stay calm," Joy continued. "We're on our way. Okay?"

"Okay," said Carolyn in a small, frightened voice.

Joy closed her phone.

"Should we tell Beth?" Maya wondered out loud.

Joy shook her head. "She might tell Carolyn's father. Let's just go. So what if we cut the rest of the class? We have to get Carolyn."

The left the rest room, the building and the neighborhood and headed out to Coney Island.