Mrs. Romanek looked as proud as if she’d come up with the invention herself.
Mr. Hudson gave a nod of approval, and said, “Aaren, you did a great job of … what, class?”
We all yelled in unison, just like we did when he was our inventions teacher in Tens & Elevens, “Working with your strengths!” And then we all cheered.
“Hope Toriella,” Mrs. Romanek called out. “Come show us yours.”
This was the beginning of inventions going well for me. Everyone quieted and sat at attention because they were excited to see my new invention, not like in years past where they watched to see how I’d fail. I walked over to my desk and picked up my knotted potato and cleared my throat. “My mom cooks potatoes almost every night, and it’s my job to peel them. I hate it, so I made an invention to do it for me.”
My hands trembled as I picked up my potato with one hand and a stick with the other. I had sharpened one end of the stick and attached a handle to the opposite end. After a slow, calming breath, I steadied my hand and pushed the stick all the way through the potato until the sharp part poked out the other end. I carefully laid the potato between two forked pieces of wood I had nailed to either end of the flat base, both ends of the stick lying cradled on the forked parts. The potato came remarkably close to resting against the knife I’d lashed to a stick on the side, and I smiled. My theory was, as I turned the handle of the sharp stick, it would turn the potato, and as it rubbed against the knife, the knife would cut the potato skin off.
The thing about theories, though, is that real life doesn’t always follow them. Sometimes you lose your perfect potato on the way to school.
I’d spent two weeks trying to make the knife move so it would work with different-sized potatoes, but I wasn’t good at making things with my hands. If I’d used all the fancy machinery our inventions teachers had taught us to use over the years, my project wouldn’t look any better—I would probably just have fewer than ten fingers now.
It’ll still work. I took a deep breath and turned the handle as I pushed the potato forward. One twist of my wrist, and the potato didn’t touch the knife at all. The second twist of my wrist actually worked well. I relaxed my shoulders and smiled.
I pushed the potato in a bit farther and gave the handle another twist. One of the knobby parts of the potato that rivaled my dad’s thumbs for size and sturdiness twisted from underneath and knocked the knife upward. I didn’t even have time to react, so I was still pushing when the knob cleared the knife. With the force of my push, the potato part went forward too far, the forked sticks splintered, and the handle flew out of my hand. It, along with the potato, skidded across the cement floor and came to rest right in front of Ellie.
I couldn’t move—I could only stare at the potato, and then down at where a sharp splinter of wood had lodged itself in my palm. My vision blurred as I stared at the bead of blood that slowly oozed out of my wound.
Silence crowded the room. Awkward silence. Unnerving silence. Eventually I pulled my eyes to what was even more painful than my hand—my broken potato peeler.
Mrs. Romanek looked from my invention to me, then glanced at Mr. Hudson like she was embarrassed he was in the room to witness such a spectacular failure of one of her students.
“Sometimes inventions don’t work out like you planned.” Mr. Hudson smiled his kind smile, like he understood I’d tried my best. I blinked back tears and tried to swallow the emotion pushing its way up. Not only had Mr. Hudson been my inventions teacher for two years, but he’d come to every Inventions Day since I was four. He knew my history with inventing. And at that moment, it felt like a history that was impossible to change.
“Hope,” Mrs. Romanek said.
I looked away from Mr. Hudson and tried to focus on my teacher. “Yes?”
“We’ve talked about Harvest Festival projects for months! The concept drawings I approved were better than this. And you had four weeks to work on it during Harvest Break! Did you just blow it off and throw something together at the last minute?”
Actually, it had been longer than the two months we’d worked on the project in class. I’d been planning my invention triumph since last year, when my weed-pulling invention turned disastrous. Every pair of eyes in the room focused on me, and my face burned. Was it worse to tell her I’d worked on it for so long, or would I look less stupid if I said I did it last night? In the end, honesty won out and I blurted, “I tried really hard!”
Mrs. Romanek shook her head and looked down. I couldn’t tell if she was more disappointed in me or in herself for not producing better results from a student. After what seemed like an eternity, she looked up and met my eyes. “I’m sorry, Hope, but I can’t allow this”—she gestured toward my pile of sticks—“at the inventions show. You won’t be able to enter an invention this year.”
It felt like the ceiling collapsed on me, and all I could hear was the shocked gasps from my classmates. I stumbled toward the others, dropped to the floor, and told myself it didn’t matter. But I didn’t believe myself. Of course it mattered! And not just to Mrs. Romanek and Mr. Hudson, or to my dad, or for my grade—it mattered more than anything else to everyone. And I couldn’t do it.
“Carina Toriella,” Mrs. Romanek called out, her voice sounding a world away.
The pulsing of the blood in my brain was so strong and my insides were so hot, I couldn’t hear anything going on around me. I stared out the high window at the Shovel—a rock formation at the very top of the mountain that looked like a shovel without its handle—which marked the direction we went to sky jump. I wanted to go there, above the Bomb’s Breath, where I could escape everything. Where goals I spent months working on didn’t fall apart with one wrong twist of my wrist.
When Carina finished showing her invention, she sat next to me and put her hand on my knee. “It’s okay, Hope. I’m sure you’re not the only one bad at inventing.”
Maybe I wasn’t. But it definitely felt like I was the worst. Like everyone else was at least good enough.
For the rest of the day, even when I pretended the crushing weight wasn’t there, it was. Dragging me down. Keeping me from eating lunch and from seeing the other half of the class’s inventions after lunch. For probably the first time ever, I wished my last class—math and English—wouldn’t end. I wished Mrs. Vanlue would talk for hours.
Because then I wouldn’t have to go to the council meeting and see my dad, and tell him that I failed.
Again.
The crowds of people at the council meeting distracted me from my gigantic case of poor me. Council meetings started as soon as school let out, and tons of people came—usually several hundred packed themselves into the school’s gym. But today even more people than usual were in attendance. Mr. Hudson planned to present an invention idea to the council, and he only did that when an invention was life-changing. Rumors had spread all week about what it might be.
Aaren and I didn’t sit with most of the kids on the floor at the front—we stood halfway back and leaned against the wall on the right side of the gym, with Brenna on Aaren’s shoulders. It was easier to watch everyone’s reactions and still see my dad, who was sitting on the raised platform.
Mr. Hudson stood up to address the council, opened his black case on the council table, and took out a pointer. I wasn’t the only one who looked up to him. In a city like ours, Mr. Hudson was royalty. Because of him, we had a steam plow, ammonia refrigeration systems at the livestock farms, a telegraph system powered by electrolyte batteries, and a lot of things people used every day.
He’d been only twelve years old when the bombs hit. Even at that age—my age—he loved science. Before the bombs, his parents built a bunker that happened to be deep enough and far enough from a bomb to protect them, and he’d filled it with every science and math book he could get his hands on. A lot of the books in the town library and all the ones our inventions teachers used came from Mr. Hudson’s stash.
Through the crowd I saw my mom sitting n
ext to Aaren’s mom on the front row of benches. A couple dozen aunts, uncles, and cousins sat scattered throughout the hundreds of people who filled the gym. And one dog. Sandy sat next to Mr. Williams on a bench, like she was a person.
I scanned the crowd, watching body language and facial expressions. Sometimes when the council talked about a change, everyone reacted the same. Other times it was half and half. Today was a great day to watch—crowd reactions were exactly in unison. Mr. Hudson announced he had found a way for every home to have refrigeration. Since refrigerators were pretty much at the top of everyone’s wish list, his announcement caused a wave of excited whispers through the crowd.
He pointed at a complicated drawing on an easel, cleared his throat, then said, “The air in the Bomb’s Breath is a resource, and it can be tapped for our advantage. The cross-linking of its molecules creates pressure. When we bring air down from the Bomb’s Breath through pipes, the pressure of it going through a small orifice and then expanding again will power the refrigeration. Pipes at the other end of the unit right here will then vent the air back into the Bomb’s Breath.”
The second he mentioned the Bomb’s Breath, the crowd fell silent. A moment later, they started whispering again. The volume in the room grew louder and louder as Mr. Hudson spoke. Council member Mr. Newberry’s face actually got redder than his hair, and he squeezed his pencil like he was trying to choke it. To his credit, he did wait until Mr. Hudson finished before he exploded.
“I cannot believe you are proposing we bring air from the Bomb’s Breath down here,” Mr. Newberry yelled. “And into our homes! Do you want us all to die? Do you want your kids to die? Your wife? How about your dad?”
That last one gave me chills. Mr. Newberry’s dad was the person who found out the Bomb’s Breath was deadly almost forty years ago. The hard way. While cataloging plants that grew in the mountains, he walked right into the Bomb’s Breath, not knowing it even existed, and it killed him. It happened only a couple of months before Mr. Newberry was born. I understood why he was mad, but we all knew Mr. Hudson would never suggest something unsafe.
“No one will die.” Mr. Hudson pointed to his chart. “See? The air will stay contained.”
Mr. Newberry shook his head. “And if it doesn’t?” He looked to the other members of the council. “It’s too risky! Especially when we already have refrigeration.”
The noise level in the gym rose even higher, but Mr. Hudson kept his voice impressively calm. “The refrigeration we have isn’t adequate. We have enough for the livestock farms, true, but we’ve already decided it requires too much fuel to put one in every home.” He pointed to his chart. “This invention runs itself, and it taps into a self-renewing resource. The Bomb’s Breath.”
Mrs. Beckinwood, the council head and one of the oldest original citizens of White Rock, pursed her lips, wrote something on a piece of paper, then passed it down the table to my dad.
Mrs. Williams, who always wore her hair in a bun on council days, cleared her throat. “There’s another problem. The Bomb’s Breath is dangerous to outsiders as well as us. It’s not just a curse; it’s a blessing. It’s one of the reasons we continue to live here. Scouts report more and more groups of bandits attacking towns. Bergen and Hayes to our south and Arris to our north have all been hit in the past month. And not just smaller towns that are less protected like Hayes and Arris, or towns farther away like Bergen. Browning has had its farms looted several times this year alone, and a large group of bandits even attacked their people last week during the harvest.
“These bandits cannot come over the mountain and attack us because of the Bomb’s Breath. We don’t want to do anything that might jeopardize that. Right now, there’s only one easily guarded way in and out of our city. The Bomb’s Breath is, essentially, the rest of our guard. We become vulnerable without it.”
People didn’t bother to whisper anymore. The fear in the room was thick, like we all breathed it in.
“Quiet down,” Mrs. Beckinwood ordered. Her voice had gotten more shaky and feeble lately, so not many people heard her until she pounded her gavel on the table. She waited for the room to quiet. “David. You have something to add?”
My dad stood up, completely at ease in front of the town. Mrs. Beckinwood made a good choice in asking him to speak. I’ve heard that people followed my dad around, ready to do whatever he said, from the time he was in Fours & Fives. My dad’s split was running the lumber mill, and he was good with his hands and liked to make inventions with wood. But most of his inventions for the Harvest Festival had to do with leading the town—like processes on how to run things more effectively.
I’d seen my dad calm an overreacting crowd before. He stood up and strode around the table to Mr. Hudson’s chart. He might have been Mr. Hudson’s height, but the width of his shoulders made him look intimidating. Or they would have if he didn’t always wear a smile and look like he was seconds away from wrapping you in a bear hug. It could just be the way I saw him, but I think everyone noticed my dad’s never-ending supply of kindness.
He laughed, a deep, throaty chuckle that caught everyone off guard. The tension in the room was cut in half as my dad’s laughing filled it all the way to the corners. He clapped his hand on Mr. Hudson’s shoulder twice. “Tom, you can always find a way to excite the room. And we all completely trust you and your inventions. You’ve not steered us wrong in forty years.”
The frustration on Mr. Hudson’s face eased.
My dad gestured toward the council members. “Debra and Ken brought up some valid concerns. Are there experiments you can do to make sure that both the air we breathe and the stability of the Bomb’s Breath aren’t compromised?”
It was a weird question for my dad to ask. My dad and I knew Mr. Hudson would never have brought his invention to the council without doing those experiments first. Mr. Hudson turned to the council. “With the council’s permission, I’ll rerun the necessary tests.”
I leaned against the wall and smiled. My dad had complimented Mr. Hudson so he wouldn’t be defensive. He’d reminded the audience that Mr. Hudson always looked out for us. He’d made the council members feel their concerns were addressed. He’d caused a delay by requesting the tests, so people could either get used to the idea of using the Bomb’s Breath as a power source or forget about it. But I knew what my dad thought of the Bomb’s Breath, and I knew what everyone else thought of it. None of them would ever get used to the idea.
Watching my dad at work was one of the reasons I liked council meetings. Everyone always said he should run for council head, that he’d have no problem getting elected. My dad loved this town—I knew it was his dream.
But my dad wouldn’t run.
I never knew why, until Amy Beckinwood from Fourteens & Fifteens cornered me in the hall a year ago on the morning of Inventions Day. She told me that she hoped my invention didn’t stink as bad as every one of my past inventions did, because her grandma was old and tired and wanted to step down as council head. “She would, too,” Amy had said, “but only if your dad runs for council head, because she doesn’t want Mr. Newberry to win. She knows your dad wants to run, but he can’t. Because of you.”
The realization had knocked the breath out of me. She was right—how could my dad be the leader of a town that valued inventing so much, when his daughter was such an embarrassment?
The memory of last year’s invention, which not only didn’t work but broke the leg of the nearest desk, came back and combined with the fresh hurt of today’s inventions class disaster. My nerves were raw, and suddenly I couldn’t watch my dad in his element, knowing my failure not only made my dream impossible, it made his dream impossible.
I grabbed Aaren’s arm and panted, “I have to leave.”
He looked at me in alarm. “Um. Okay.”
He lifted Brenna off his shoulders and put her on the floor, then glanced across the room and to the back, toward the exits. People were everywhere—there was no way we could get through the
m. Aaren nodded toward the loose paneling we’d found last year, a dozen feet behind where we stood. We weren’t going to tell anyone about it, ever.
Yet here we were in a room full of people, and all I wanted to do was escape through it.
Mr. Hudson sat down and Brock’s grandpa, Mr. Sances, a white-haired council member with black eyebrows, stood up to introduce the next item of business. Everyone’s attention turned to Harvest Festival preparations. It was possible they wouldn’t even notice us moving the paneling. I nodded to Aaren.
Aaren, Brenna, and I pushed our way through the crowd and said “Excuse us” to Sam Beckinwood’s dad, who was leaning against the wall. He stood up straight without taking his eyes off Mr. Sances, so we grabbed hold of the wood paneling that covered the bottom three feet of the wall and half slid, half pulled, until it opened enough for us to crawl through. We slipped into the opening with our schoolbags and shut the panel behind us.
When I took a deep breath of the dank and dusty air, I sneezed. The hole behind the paneling led into the hallway they’d built along with the gym ten years ago—the hallway would eventually lead to classrooms when the city grew enough to build them along this side, but it was completely closed off now. I was sure we were the only ones to walk down it during all that time, since the footprints in the dust were the ones we’d left during the months we’d known about it.
Aaren must have had a match in his pocket, because I heard a scrape against the cement floor, then the space filled with a dim, wavering yellow glow. At that moment, I was actually glad we didn’t have lights in the ceiling like they did before the bombs, because I didn’t want Aaren and Brenna to see my face any better than the match showed them.
“You okay?” Aaren whispered.
Brenna grabbed my hand with both of hers.
I nodded yes. Then no. Then yes again. “I …”
Sky Jumpers Series, Book 1 Page 4
