by Sarah Cross
How did you do it? How did it feel?
I told them I wanted the kid to be safe. And that adrenaline is an amazing thing. And that I was proud to be an American—because how can you dissect someone who says that?
As stunned as I was, I knew something was wrong with me. That I’d stopped being normal the second I lifted that car.
When my mom arrived, she wrapped me up in a huge hug and kept telling me how proud she was. I asked if we could turn on the air conditioning at home, and she laughed, and managed to get me through the crowd and into the car, and we went home, and you better believe she turned on the air for me. She even stopped yelling at me about my messy room and about leaving my socks everywhere—for a few weeks, anyway.
We fielded interview requests; I got one of the keys to our city; we even appeared on some nationwide morning shows via satellite: me, my mom, my dad, the supergrateful Pearson parents and their happy, healthy toddler.
It was amazing, it was the best feeling I’d felt in my whole life.
It was too good to last.
Are you crazy? Are you CRAZY?! Why do I even ask these questions?”
It’s 11 P.M. We just got back from the police station. My mom’s pacing like a caged tiger, practically tearing her hair out.
I’m sitting on the countertop, drinking some tomato soup that I microwaved. I have a blanket around my shoulders, like I’m the victim instead of the screwup—like somebody pulled my half-drowned body out of a lake.
If only.
“Why would you try to thwart a robbery, Avery? Were the nine and the one buttons on your cell not working? Why wouldn’t you just call the police?!”
“I don’t know,” I say. “My cell died; I couldn’t call. I felt like I should do something.”
I wish I could tell them I saw a woman in danger, and that’s why I risked it—but none of the info is fit to confess. The old woman I tried to save was a shape-shifter, for crying out loud. The whole thing was a setup.
What was I supposed to tell the police? I’m not hurt, other than the frostburn on my cheek. Nothing was stolen. The safe was ripped out of the ground—which is the one thing that points to a robbery and saves my ass, since no one thinks I was responsible for that.
“It wasn’t smart, Avery.” My dad kneads his forehead—I think he aged twenty years tonight. “We know that you were trying to be helpful, but you could’ve been hurt.”
“If he wants to be ‘helpful,’ he could load the dishwasher like he’s supposed to,” my mom says. “Breaking into antique stores and racking up thousands of dollars’ worth of damages while almost getting himself killed is not ‘helpful.’”
“I didn’t break in,” I mumble. “The door was already open.”
My mom shakes her head, pours herself another cup of coffee.
Dad sighs. He’s got his checkbook out. Heart-attack time.
“Look: aside from the financial burden, things are going to be fine. The owner’s agreed not to press charges. We’re going to get through this and learn from it. Your mother and I are just grateful that nothing worse happened.”
“But there are going to be some changes around here. Take a look at these.” My mom fans out some brochures on the counter next to me. The covers show clean-cut teens frolicking on a grassy lawn, smiling and holding hands like they’re at Girl Scout camp. On one, a cartoon bird tows a banner that reads: CLEAN AND SOBER JUST IN TIME FOR COLLEGE! On another: FROM DELINQUENT TO DELIGHTFUL!
I spit my soup back into the mug. “You’re not serious.”
“It’s an alternative school,” my dad says. “One of the officers recommended it. They’ve had a lot of success with the troubled youths they’ve placed there: kids who need more supervision, but who don’t really belong in the system.”
“I don’t need to go to a school like that! I’m not ‘troubled’!”
“Avery . . .” My dad flips through his checkbook. “The numbers don’t lie.”
I flop over on my bed, restless, staring into the dark. My parents are still up and talking downstairs. Occasionally my mom’s voice gets strained. Right now she’s complaining that she’s “tried everything,” that maybe there’s nothing left to do but ship me off somewhere else.
Maybe there isn’t.
I feel like I’m in a vise, being squeezed from two directions, and if I don’t do something about it, I’ll be crushed by the pressure. I slip the card Cherchette gave me out of my pocket.
There’s a phone number printed in silvery ink. All I have to do is call.
I keep taking these big breaths, breathing in and not letting go until it feels like my lungs are going to burst. But it doesn’t help. I’m going crazy in here; I have to get out.
Normally I would wait for my parents to go to bed before I leave, but there’s nothing “normal” about tonight. I met a woman who makes ice move like it’s alive, and who confirmed that there are other people with powers in the world. Now that I know that, lying in bed and flipping through the same Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue while I wait for my parents to nod off seems more insane than flying. So screw it, I’m going now.
I throw on a black hooded sweatshirt and shove open my window, then slip my legs out and drop down, landing on—and crushing—the same pathetic bush I always crush. I’m lucky my parents aren’t more attentive gardeners, because I’ve been doing this routine since October. As far as I know, they’ve never noticed.
I trek through the yard until I get to the woods behind my house—then go deeper, just to be safe. It’s damp tonight. My cheek feels raw where Cherchette kissed me, like I did a face plant onto concrete. The moisture in the air cuts through to my bones.
When I get to the clearing I use as my taking-off point, I take a long look at the sky. The one place where I can leave all this other crap behind, where no one can touch me, scream at me, blame me, laugh.
I own the sky.
I can barely remember not owning it. It’s like my memories of flying are so intense, they block out huge chunks of time when I was normal, plodding along on the ground like everyone else, getting pumped about running a race or something—like that was freedom. Wow.
The wind in my face. Nothing solid holding me down.
Learning about flying wasn’t like learning about my strength—it’s not like I jumped off the top of my house and didn’t hit the ground one day. I do a lot of idiotic things (uh, juggling the washer and dryer? Bad idea.), but that definitely wasn’t one of them.
Flight was more of a gradual discovery. A restlessness that wouldn’t go away, a sense of untapped potential that gnawed at me until I pushed myself off the ground.
I never had one of those wake-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night, oh-snap-I’m-floating-above-my-bed moments. Flying is something I do, not something that just happens. I don’t feel like a balloon; it’s not like I’m floating, aloft but stripped of my sense of gravity, or power.
When I fly, I focus. I’m aware of every muscle, every turn of my torso; the way I shift my shoulders, the way I adapt to the air. It’s like I move through it because the air knows to resist me, and I know to resist it back. Like we have an understanding, and I’m on a different plane of existence—swimming through the air.
I soar, with my head thrust back and my arms stretched out at my sides. I spin sometimes—I show off—even though there’s no one to impress. I deafen myself in the wind, fly until my skin is cold and my heart is beating harder than ever. I suck in the deepest breaths I’ve ever breathed.
There’s nothing more thrilling, more invigorating, than the challenge of keeping your body aloft, with the possibility that, at any second, you’ll lose control and crash to the earth. That freedom and then that finality—they’re linked. And not to be morbid, but it’s like how youth is so treasured because it only lasts so long, or flowers are beautiful because they bloom and then they wilt. It’s like I want it even more because I know it shouldn’t be happening—because I feel like it could be taken away. I mean, even pro athlete
s only have so many good years—and there’s no precedent for superpowers. What if there’s an expiration date?
I can’t bear the thought of losing this. My flight is the one thing I have that’s totally my own—no one’s ever witnessed it; it’s never hurt anyone and it never will. Without it, I don’t know if I’d be fully myself. I’d be dead, lifeless, dull. When I’m flying, I’m more than normal, more than most people will ever know—but it’s undeniably who I am. And there’s peace in that—in being here, now, myself.
Tonight, when I launch myself into the damp, cool air, up past the treetops, into that massive, starlit sky . . . everything’s left below me. Any anxiety, any confusion, remains on the ground where it belongs.
I’ll get through this—I have to.
Because somewhere—maybe worked up by the same feelings, facing the same dangers—there are other kids like me.
And I’m going to find them.
5
UN-FREAKING-BELIEVABLE. Sitting across from me, in the guidance office of my new high school for troubled losers, is the worst excuse for a jaded misanthrope badass I have ever seen.
And the worst part is I think I sort of know her.
“So what are you in for?”
The anarchy buttons, the black eyeliner, the coffin T-shirt, and the weird striped tights are gone. She’s completely transformed since I last saw her.
“What am I ‘in for’?” I blink at her, trying to mask my confusion but probably failing. “Nothing. My parents enrolled me. Why are you here?”
She’s still wearing glasses, but now they’re paired with glittery eye shadow and big gold hoop earrings. Her jeans are like ten sizes too big and belted around her hips so that her boxers puff out like a deflated hot-air balloon.
“My probation officer recommended it,” she says, propping her pink Timberlands on a table that’s covered with the school’s glossy brochures. “No one wanted to mess with me in juvie ’cause I was psycho.”
I’m sure.
Darla unzips her giant parka and blows a bubble-gum bubble, then pops it. Underneath her jacket she’s wearing one of those R.I.P. T-shirts, the kind that are supposed to commemorate the glorious life of your dead homie. Only it looks like she made it herself, with the help of Photo-shop and some iron-on transfers, since I doubt there are a lot of gangsters mourning Marie Curie.
This girl is so damaged.
“You know you’re totally giving yourself away, right?”
“Are you hollering at me, dog?” She slouches even lower in her chair, like that’ll be the magic trick that negates her posing.
I don’t even know how to respond to that. “Um . . . okay. You know dead scientists aren’t really ‘gangsta,’ right?”
She flushes. “You know Marie Curie?”
“Not by sight, but her name’s right there on your shirt, and I’m not a moron. I don’t belong in this school. And I’m not staying here . . . if I can help it.”
“Oh. You’re not? Huh.” Now when she sinks in her seat she looks like she’s hiding, face ducked behind the huge collar of her parka. “Crap,” she mumbles.
“Something wrong?” Man, this girl is weird. I still can’t figure out what she could have done to get sent here, unless she shoplifted those huge pants and then wrote the judge one of her crappy poems.
I haven’t forgotten that whole coffee-spewing incident either, and the fact that she’s starting at this school on the very same day I’m starting . . . well, it’s suspicious. But I mean, it’s possible this is a coincidence—she might just be deranged.
“Kind of. I, um . . . at the risk of sounding completely insane—”
The secretary interrupts before Darla can finish, hands us our schedules, and tells us to hurry on to class, assuring us that we don’t want to get detention here. I check my schedule: “Remedial English—sounds promising. You going there, too?”
“No, I have . . .” Darla scans her printout. “Intro to Rehab.” Her eyes grow wide, like a person on a sinking ship who just saw the last lifeboat leave without her. “All right, well—we need to talk later! Okay? At lunch?”
“Sure,” I say. I need someone to sit with anyway, assuming no one will have stabbed me by then. “See you later. Hope your first class is, uh, helpful.”
“Um, yeah. Thanks!” She sways back and forth, and her eyes start to roll back in her head.
“Whoa!” I catch her before she clonks her head on the table. “Are you all right?”
“F-fine,” she says. “I just need a little . . . reassurance.”
Darla’s breathing really hard, almost hyperventilating. She starts digging around in her huge parka, and I steady her until she finds her purple inhaler.
“Asthma?” I say. “That must be rough.”
“I’m fine now. You can go. Really.” She waves me away and I leave her to take care of her medical business in private. But I’m not a hundred percent convinced that she’s okay, so I stop at the doorway, peek back to make sure she’s breathing properly.
She doesn’t have her inhaler anywhere near her mouth. She’s holding it away from her body, about as far away as you would hold a leash if you were walking your dog.
Darla presses a button on the inhaler, and blue electricity crackles between two outstretched metal nodes. Then she sighs and starts to calm down, like she can breathe again.
I haul A to my first class.
By third period I have exactly one friend (Darla Carmine), 280 potential enemies, and a boot print on my pants from getting kicked in the ass on my way down the hall. (And no, I didn’t retaliate—I just gritted my teeth and kept walking.) Thank you, anonymous donor.
It turns out that Darla and I have science together third period, and when we arrive the teacher is all smiles. “Aren’t you lucky—we’re doing a dissection lab today!” She assigns us seats at different tables, then reminds us that “the scalpels are not to be used as weapons.”
Great. As if cutting up a cow eyeball isn’t bad enough—it also means arming the resident psychopaths. That’ll do wonders for my concentration.
Darla and I exchange looks. Her telltale geek pallor goes a shade or two lighter.
“Scalpels?”
I shrug and try to look reassuring. “Maybe everyone’ll be too grossed out to get violent.”
The classroom fills up with every variety of thug and delinquent imaginable. It’s not as big of a shock as it was at first, when I walked into Remedial English and saw two thugs stabbing each other’s hands with pencils until they bled, while a huge guy with a ten-o’clock shadow squished a smaller kid’s head into his armpit, and the teacher calmly diagrammed sentences with her back to the class—but I wouldn’t say I’m used to it.
Overall you’ve got: the Thugs 4 Life, busy giving each other ink-pen tattoos (Gothic letters and knives stabbing into skulls), who’ve been in and out of juvenile detention centers since they were eight; the low-maintenance Burnouts, who break into the janitor’s closet at least once a day and huff cleaning fluid and bug spray; the high-maintenance Burnouts, who chug Robitussin and snort Ritalin on their way to a full-out coke habit; the Bonecrushers, who beat people up and send them to the hospital, but whose parents have enough money to keep them out of juvie; and the Mary Janes, who dress like they’re in preschool but threaten to “cut you” if you look at them the wrong way.
And then Darla, the gangsta-impaired electroshocker, who seems to be even more out of place here than I am.
While the teacher’s explaining the lesson, Darla whips out the most complicated cell phone I’ve ever seen (it’s purple, and looks like the illegitimate techno child of a satellite and a Swiss Army knife) and starts texting up a fury. I start doing this subtle-yet-crazed put-it-away gesture that gets increasingly frantic as every crook in the room turns to watch her. Like moths to a flame.
The thing is, half these kids could afford to buy the hottest cell on the market. But beating someone down and stealing their property must be more satisfying—judging by t
he gleam in every fiendish eye.
This could get ugly.
Just as I’m making a mental note to cut my next few classes so I can tail this girl all over school and make sure nothing bad happens to her, there’s a knock at the door. Darla finally notices me waving at her. She stashes her cell phone and we all turn our attention to the door.
“Just a moment,” the teacher says, setting a tray of rancid worm corpses on her desk. A uniformed police officer escorts a slouching, black-clad girl into the room.
I almost choke on my next breath. It’s Catherine—the floor-sweeping girl from Roast.
Is this like a twisted reunion or something? What’s going on?
She looks really irritated, halfway to snarling, and she’s clutching a package of Wonder Bread by the plastic tuft at one end. There’s something pathetic about the clash of the bright red, yellow, and blue packaging against her black clothes. Her hair hangs in flat, soggy tendrils, like she just took a shower or got caught in the rain. She scowls and shakes it out of her face.
“Found another truant,” the officer says, patting his belt.
I know he thinks he’s doing something good, but that smug expression rubs me the wrong way. I’ve had enough authority figures look at me like that to know there’s always more to the story. I mean, it’s not like he brought her in carrying a crack pipe—she’s holding a loaf of white bread. Get off your frigging high horse.
“Catherine,” the teacher says. “So glad you could finally join us. What’s your story this week? The flu? An exotic vacation?”
“I’m not truant—I had to stop at the store,” Catherine snaps.
“Take your seat.” The teacher gets all no-nonsense and points to the back of the room—to the table where I’m sitting. Catherine swings her Wonder Bread and grumbles all the way back. She raises her eyebrows when she sees me.
“What are you doing here?” she says under her breath. “Did Pikachu tell you to kill someone?”
