Power Rangers - The Official Movie Novelization

by Alexander Irvine

  This new Kimberly distracted Jason for the rest of detention, and he was still watching her as they walked back outside. Her parents picked her up and freaked out at her haircut. Jason didn’t even notice the pencil-collecting nerd next to him until he spoke. “Thank you for that in there.”

  Jason barely glanced at him. “No worries. I hate guys like that.”

  “Yeah, for sure. So, we should hang out. Not that we have to, but tonight we should.”

  Jason wrestled with the nerd’s name for a bit. Ah. Billy Cranston. “Billy. I would, honestly, hang out with you, but I have a date every night.” Jason lifted his pant leg to show the ankle bracelet. Billy nodded, understanding.

  Then Jason started walking off, and Billy called after him. “Wait! Just wait. Come back.” Jason turned and took a step back. “I’m not really expecting to hang out with you. I’d like to get somewhere tonight and I need some help. It’s important.”

  “Okay, Billy,” Jason said. “I hear you, relax. But as I told you, I have . . .” He lifted his pant leg again.

  “I can fix that,” Billy said. “I know how to trick the SIM card. I have tools.”

  Well, Jason thought. That’s interesting. “I have to be in my house before seven.”

  “If you come to my house tonight before seven, I can fix it.” Billy saw Jason wasn’t convinced. “I also have a car . . . well, access to a car . . . so if you decide to help me, you could have the car for a few hours. Just gotta pick me up,” Billy said. He started to walk away. “Come anytime before seven.”

  Access to a car, Jason thought. That might even be worth dealing with Billy Cranston’s weirdness.

  CHAPTER THREE

  It was a fine day to go train surfing, and Zack wasn’t going to miss his chance.

  He hopped the freight train before it picked up too much speed and climbed up onto the roof of a boxcar. Snowboarding goggles covered most of his face, and he kept his hoodie pulled down tight, too. Once he was up on the train, he held out a selfie stick and turned a complete circle.

  “Greetings, followers!” he said, shouting over the noise of the train and the wind. “I’m copping a free ride on the rails today! If you dig it, subscribe to my channel. Click on the link below. Today’s quote comes from Confucius. He was an old Chinese dude who knew some stuff. He said, ‘Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall . . .’”

  He threw a peace sign at the camera, closed the selfie stick, and put it in his backpack. Then he took out his phone—but dropped it.

  It slid along the top of the car as Zack fumbled after it. Just as it came to a stop and he was about to get it, it buzzed with an incoming text message and bounced off the train!

  Zack lunged after it, barely hanging on—and then the train hooked a tight turn, and he went over the side.

  He caught a ladder with one hand, still holding his phone with the other. Who was the message from? He swiped to see. Then he grinned, raised the camera to take a selfie—

  And saw a telephone pole heading toward him as the train roared along the tracks at sixty miles an hour. Whoa!

  Zack jackknifed back up onto the top of the train, ruining the selfie but missing the telephone pole by inches. When he landed on the roof of the boxcar again, he was smiling. This was going to be a great day.

  He was almost to the old mine site where the train would slow down enough for him to hop off. Maybe the weird girl would be out there again today.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  When he got home from detention, Jason dug around in the fridge for leftovers. Pulling out a half-eaten sandwich, he sniffed it for freshness. Shutting the door, he saw a picture of himself. A newspaper clipping, with the headline ANGEL GROVE’S GOLDEN BOY.

  His dad walked into the kitchen and, without saying a word, started to wash his hands.

  The awkward silence built until Jason couldn’t take it anymore. He stormed out of the kitchen and headed to the safety of his bedroom.

  He flopped down onto his bed, trying very hard to control his anger. It was getting harder by the day. His dad didn’t understand him. All Sam Scott wanted was his football star. It was like Jason didn’t exist unless he was on the field.

  Coming from the kitchen, Jason could hear his parents’ muffled voices, fighting over him again.

  “Don’t be so hard on him!” his mom said. “How do you think he feels walking around town now?”

  “Well, how do you think I feel walking around town now?” his dad replied. “What’s the plan, huh? What’s he gonna do with his life? He could have been so much more.”

  Jason couldn’t listen to this conversation again. He sat up and a grabbed a small baseball trophy from his dresser. Any joy or pride it once made him feel was gone. He snapped it in half, then jumped up.

  The clock in his room read 6:22 p.m. Jason had to get out of there. Anywhere else would be better. But how? His truck was either still in the impound lot or at the junkyard by now. And he wasn’t going to be walking anywhere. He needed wheels.

  Billy Cranston had wheels.

  Weird situation, Jason thought. He’d never spoken to Billy before that day. Now Billy was offering him freedom from the bracelet, and a car . . . in return for what?

  Only one way to find out.

  Three minutes later he was in the garage pumping up the back tire of his old bike. One minute after that he was pedaling hard on the way to Billy Cranston’s house, trying to ignore the ache in his knee. He was going to be free again if it killed him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Jason made it all the way across town to Billy Cranston’s house in twenty-five minutes flat. Pretty good, considering his knee was killing him the whole way. Billy’s mom opened the door and freaked out. “Oh . . . my . . . God. Jason Scott.” She turned to yell up the stairs. “Billy! Jason Scott is here!”

  Over her shoulder, Jason saw a clock with a cat face. It was nearly 7:00 p.m. “Billy’s room upstairs?” he asked. When Mrs. Cranston nodded, he limped up the stairs as fast as he could and barged through the nearest closed door. Sure enough, it was Billy’s room. Jason slammed the door and pulled up his pant leg. A light on the bracelet was flashing. If it was still flashing at 7:00 p.m., Jason would be in big trouble. “Dude,” he said.

  “Six fifty-six,” Billy said. “I know. Four minutes to go. Grab that chair!” Jason slid a chair over to a table where Billy was rooting around in a heap of weird electronics and stuff. He dug a tube of wire mesh, closed at one end, out of the junk in the closet. “Here! Put your foot in this.”

  “What is it?”

  “A Faraday cage. Sort of. It will block the cell signal. I hope . . .”

  Jason put his foot in as the bracelet started beeping. “That’s the three-minute warning,” he said.

  Billy was distracted. “My dad’s dead now. He’s been dead seven years, four months, and two days.”

  “Uh-huh.” The beeping was faster now. “Billy, it’s almost—”

  Billy pried the SIM card out of the ankle bracelet. “He worked at the mine. We found objects together. It was awesome.” He slotted the SIM card into his computer and tapped away. “You still live at forty-four fifty-five Old Wharf? My dad and I both liked old stuff, history . . . Do you watch—?”

  “Dude, the signal’s gonna go off!” Jason said, nearly shouting.

  Billy slipped the SIM card back into the bracelet and pulled away the mesh. The red light turned green. The beeping stopped. Jason realized he’d been holding his breath. “Yes?”

  Billy nodded. “Yes!”

  Jason couldn’t help it. He gave weird Billy Cranston a big hug and said, “Thank you.” Billy tensed up and wouldn’t look him in the eye. He just nodded and then replied quietly, “Can you stop touching me now?”

  Jason nodded to Billy’s mother on his way back out the door. In the driveway were a sporty little
car and a boring minivan. Jason waited next to the sports coupe. He could already hear its engine rumbling to life, feel the way its suspension would stiffen up on tight curves . . . Jason loved to drive, and this was the kind of car that made driving fun.

  But when Billy came outside, he said, “We’re taking the van.” Before Jason could protest, Billy pointed to a footlocker near the garage door. “Can you help me?”

  They got the footlocker into the van, and Billy handed Jason the keys. “You can drive.” At least I’ve got that going for me, Jason thought.

  Billy smiled and tapped a seashell hanging from the rearview mirror. “Gotta swing the shell. Always gotta swing the shell for luck. Let’s roll.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Twenty minutes later, they were easing the minivan over a railroad crossing. A sign at the crossing said CASCADIA GOLD MINE—AUTHORIZED VEHICLES ONLY. “Keep driving,” Billy said. The sun was going down when they got to the end of an abandoned road, high in the hills. Billy jumped out and pulled a map from his pocket. “This is it. Me and my dad’s secret spot to find stuff. We’re going around back. I’m gonna need your help.”

  Jason was nervous. They could get in trouble out here, and if anyone found out about the bracelet . . . “Listen, man, the deal was I drop you somewhere and I get the van for a few hours. You didn’t say we were breaking into the mine. I can’t get arrested again.”

  Billy didn’t look up from the map. “You stole a cow and evaded police.”

  “I borrowed that cow,” Jason corrected him. “He was unharmed.”

  Billy had seen something on the map. “Grab the locker,” he said.

  They hauled the footlocker along the side of the mountain as the sun set. Then they paused to look out over the huge quarry near the older mine shafts that cut deep into the mountain. “They’re gonna blow this whole thing, y’know?” Billy said. “It’ll be gone in a week. Makes me sad.”

  “Billy,” Jason said. “Can I be honest? This is weird. We don’t know each other at all, I don’t know what we’re doing, and you seem kinda—”

  “I need to let you know something,” Billy said. “I’m on the spectrum.”

  No kidding, Jason thought. He didn’t want Billy to be nervous, so he tried to lighten things up. “Is that a workout program? Like Tae Bo?”

  “It’s a diagnosis,” Billy said seriously.

  So much for lightening things up. “I know. It was a joke. I was kidding.”

  “I didn’t get the joke,” Billy said. He was very earnest. “That’s the thing. My brain doesn’t work the same way yours does.”

  “Consider that a good thing,” Jason said.

  “See, I’m not so good at sarcasm, or humor—but I can remember things. Anything. Everything. But I communicate strangely and—”

  “Billy, let me stop you,” Jason said. The conversation was weirding him out, and he could tell Billy was talking about it because he felt like he had to. But he didn’t have to. Jason didn’t care. “We’re cool.”

  “People get frustrated with me,” Billy said. “Don’t get frustrated with me. If you get frustrated with me . . . let me know. Just say—”

  “You’re frustrating me,” Jason said.

  That brought Billy up short. “I am right now?”

  “No. I was finishing your sentence,” Jason said. He reminded himself to be calm and literal—two things that weren’t always easy for Jason Scott. “If you frustrate me, I will let you know. We’re cool.”

  “We’re cool?”

  “Yes. Let’s not have a frustrating conversation about frustration.”

  Billy nodded. He squatted in front of the footlocker and got out a flashlight. “It will be dark when you come back,” he said, holding it out toward Jason. “We can find each other—”

  “Bye, Billy,” Jason said, cutting him off.

  Billy just looked up, replied, “Okay!” and went back to work.

  Jason had just gotten to the van when he heard some music in the distance. Who else would be out here? He went to find out and got a big surprise.

  Kimberly Hart stood on a stone ledge off the trail, just stepping out of her jeans. Whoa, Jason thought. Before he could figure out what she was doing, she dove backward off the ledge.

  The spring was a good distance below. Jason heard the splash before he got to the ledge.

  “Hey!” he shouted. She didn’t come up.

  “Kim! Kimberly!” His voice echoed off the rocks.

  She still didn’t come up. He had to do something.

  Jason kicked off his shoes and looked for a good place to dive in after her. Then he heard her say, “Strange to hear you say my name.”

  He spun around to see her climbing up onto the ledge from another direction. When she got all the way up, she wrapped herself in a towel.

  “What?” Jason said. It was turning out to be a very weird day.

  “I said, it was strange to hear you say my name. Like we knew each other.”

  “We know each other,” Jason said.

  “We know who each other are,” she corrected him. “But we don’t know each other.”

  “I know you used to date Ty Fleming.”

  “Then you know I punched his tooth out.”

  Jason grinned at her. “I know they put it back.”

  She tried not to return his smile.

  They headed back through the trees together toward the minivan. Jason had decided he wouldn’t take off on Billy. Especially not if Kimberly was out here.

  “What are you doing up here?” she asked as they walked. “Did you follow me?”

  “I came with Billy.”

  “Cranston? Weird. But I’ve seen him here before. My house is on the other side of the mountain. I hike these trails sometimes. Clear my head.” They reached an overlook where they could see all the way to the ocean. “And I stare down at Angel Grove and wonder how such a small town could cause me such misery.”

  Jason couldn’t help it. He laughed.

  “That’s funny?” Kimberly had a dangerous look in her eyes.

  “I feel the same way,” Jason said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “Jason Scott, star quarterback, crashes and burns. Destroys his career and destroys our season. Go, Tigers!”

  Jason decided to believe she was on his side. “Now I walk around town and everyone is looking at me like I ran over their dog.”

  “I could leave here,” Kimberly mused. “You know? Just go.”

  Now they were very close. “So let’s go,” Jason said.

  “What?” She took a step back. “You’d never do it.”

  “Try me.”

  “You and me? You got a car?”

  “I have a van,” Jason said. Well, access to a van, he thought.

  “Seriously? A van? Be creepier.”

  “It’s not that kind of van.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Every van is that kind of van.”

  “Let’s go,” Jason said. He nodded back down the trail, where the minivan was parked.

  “Are you daring me? Because I’ll go.” They stared at each other for a long moment, feeling something start to crackle between them. “This isn’t—I don’t know what you’re thinking,” she added.

  Kimberly had never expected Jason Scott to be charming. Sometimes people were full of surprises. She was just starting to crack a smile when something exploded over near the mine.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Zack was sitting on an abandoned boxcar chowing down on a pizza and looking through binoculars at one of the other kids who came out to the Cascadia property to hide out from the world. He’d seen her around school but he didn’t know her name. Lots of black, hard stares. Tough girl. She was doing some kind of yoga thing on the edge of a cliff. When he heard the explosion he swung the binoculars around and spotted the source. Then he
took off running.

  Billy staggered to his feet just as Jason came running up . . . with Kimberly Hart. What was she doing here? He hadn’t meant for the explosion to be that big. He’d made the battery-powered detonator himself and counted the steps back down the old mine passage. It should have been far enough. But when he touched the wires to the battery terminals, the explosion was, wow, a lot bigger than he had expected.

  “Oh, man!” he shouted. “That really rung my bell! Wow!”

  Jason was glad to see Billy was okay. Another kid came running from down the road and grabbed Billy by the jacket. “What are you doin’, dude?”

  “I’ve been digging up here for many years!” Billy yelled.

  Jason got the other kid’s hands off Billy’s coat. His name was Zack, wasn’t it? Jason was pretty sure that was it. “Easy, guy,” he said. “Let’s sort this out.”

  Zack shoved him away. “I’ve seen him up here before, diggin’ around, whatever. Some of us camp out up here on the downlow, and this dude cannot be blasting stuff!”

  “I just wanted to go a little deeper!” Billy yelled. “Maybe I went too deep!”

  Jason got his attention. “Billy, you don’t have to yell. We can hear you, okay?”

  “Okay!” Billy yelled.

  “Hey!” Someone else was yelling now, too. A girl none of them knew appeared from the same direction Zack had come from. “You guys looking to get busted? This is a restricted area!”

  “Really, Einstein? Restricted?” Zack shot back. “As in, we shouldn’t be standing on crazy rocks doing Karate Kid moves?” He did a mocking version of the crane pose from the movie. “I see you.”

  Billy had already moved away; he’d become distracted by something else. “Um, guys,” he said, quieter now.