“Just try it once? Please?” she said. “Here.” Clap one. Clap two.
This was ridiculous. I had to do something, find the trolls or that other Hazel, like it’d even matter—
I squeezed my eyes shut to keep my tears contained.
“Just once. Hazel, I’ve been here. I promise. Let’s go. On three. One, two, three.”
I clapped my hands in front of my hips and choked out a sob.
“Great! Once more. Over your head. Like this.”
“I can’t, I can’t do this . . .” After what Neven had told us, Red was making me clap? This was embarrassing. I shouldn’t be wasting my time, but I shouldn’t be crying, either, and . . .
And then I listened, anyway. My arms mirrored Red’s. Over my head. Clap.
“Now here again,” Red said. Clap, low, in front of her hips. “See? You’ve got this.”
Clap high. Clap low. Tears streamed over my cheeks. I kept clapping along with Red. My breaths were still coming too fast.
“You know how your heart is racing? It’s because you’re hyperventilating. You’re not getting enough oxygen. It makes your body freak out. It’s scary, right? But we can work on it. Breathe in deep, through the mouth, with the low clap. Then high clap, breathe out through the nose. Like this.” She did exaggerated puffs in and out. I wanted to argue, but it was easier to simply keep going. Clapping, breathing, clapping, breathing.
“It’s OK to cry,” Red said. “Let it out. That sounds cheesy, but it’s true. There’s this theory about why people cry. Do you know it?”
I could only shake my head. (Clap.)
“Brain chemicals influence our emotions, like how serotonin makes you happy and adrenaline makes you alert. Apparently, when there’s too many chemicals to deal with, the brain might flush them out via your tears and bring in other, soothing chemicals instead. I swear I’m not making this up. Emotional tears are different from pain tears on, like, a cellular level. So crying could just be your brain deciding to relieve the pressure when you feel something too strongly.”
I tried to follow along, but only caught snippets. “Four is . . .,” I started, for something to say. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rainbow and Four clapping the same way we were.
“I think she’s having a panic attack, too.” Clap, breathe in, clap, breathe out. “Rainbow and I apparently had the same psychiatrist. We must’ve learned the same coping tricks.”
Clap, breathe in, clap, breathe out. Wind rushed past me. The sweat on my skin was drying. “Psychiatrist.”
“Yeah. I don’t know why Rainbow needed to go to one, but me . . . I kept missing school because of the endo. The endometriosis, I mean. I wasn’t diagnosed back then. I thought I just had really bad periods. It’s like that for a lot of people, and then it turns out our organs are gluing themselves together. Anyway, I missed a few days of school every month when the pain was too bad. I had to work extra hard to catch up.” Clap, breathe, clap, breathe. “I got, um, really stressed. It turns out I have an anxiety disorder. Like . . . being terrified something bad will happen, all the time. Or that it already did. Never stopping second-guessing yourself. Mind going in circles. A ball of nerves.”
I barked out a half laugh. “Sounds familiar.”
“Does your jaw ever lock up? So you can’t eat or brush your teeth awhile?” She saw in my face that the answer was yes. “You never saw a therapist?”
I shook my head. The words got stuck in my throat along with my breath. Clap, breathe, clap, breathe.
“Wow. In your situation, the MGA really should’ve arranged one. Then again, if even presidents don’t have in-house therapists . . .” Clap, clap. “I thought I saw signs of anxiety in you and the others, but I didn’t want to assume. Kind of funny, isn’t it? The four of us probably know each other better than anyone else, in any of our worlds. At the same time, we don’t know each other at all.”
Wry smile. Clap, breathe.
Red kept talking. “Dr. Hayston gave me tips on what to do when I had a panic attack. And I take medication.”
“So painkillers for the endo and, um, Prozac? Or something?” I was looking at the sky, like that’d help distract me from what I was doing. (Clap, breathe.)
“Not Prozac, but yeah, antianxiety medication. And painkillers for about two weeks out of every month, and birth control pills, which also help with the endo. I have a permanent pharmacy in my bag. Heh. It feels ridiculous sometimes. Like I’m fake or weak. Dr. Hayston says I shouldn’t think that way. Maybe she’s right. She usually is. I don’t know whether it’s her therapy or the medication, but it’s helping, it really is. I was a mess before. It’s not like I’m suddenly OK, but at least when I freak out now, I know what’s happening and what to do. I feel like I have more control.”
“I’d like control,” I rasped.
“How do you feel?” Red asked.
“Silly.” My cheeks felt hot. Tears pricked my eyes. But the rest of me, my heart, my breathing, my skin . . . “Better. I think.”
“You want to keep clapping?”
“For a little bit.” Silly. But Red didn’t seem to mind, and I didn’t want the world to come crashing down again.
“Me too. Do you know what you just did?” Clap. “I think you helped distract me from a panic attack of my own.”
“Go me.” I tried to work up a smile.
“Hazel . . .,” Red said after a moment. “I don’t know how, but we’re getting through this. OK? We are.”
Clap. Breathe. Clap.
“Yeah,” I said. “Maybe.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
My coat felt heavy when I picked it up from the grass after coming down from the hill. I tried not to look up. The other Hazels were probably staring after my display just now.
“Are you OK?” Rainbow asked.
I couldn’t answer. I avoided meeting their eyes, Four’s especially. She looked pale, red-eyed, and utterly wiped out. A small, embarrassed heap. Precisely like how I felt.
With the sweat drying on my skin, I finally noticed the December cold. I wrapped the coat around me. Something thunked into my side. I dug around in the pocket. My fingers brushed past a phone that I realized wasn’t mine even before I plucked it out. I blinked at the device. “It’s that girl’s phone. Well, she borrowed it. She gave it to me to text her dad for help. I must’ve slipped it in my pocket.”
“Is Tara OK?” Rainbow stepped closer to me.
“Tara,” Red repeated. “Is that the girl’s name?”
Rainbow didn’t answer, her eyes fixed on me, waiting for a reply.
“She’s fine. Her dad got her out.” I peered at Rainbow. “You know her in your world, don’t you? You knew how to get to the house. And about the spare key in the fake rock.”
Rainbow blew out a sigh. “Tara’s my girlfriend.”
I have a girlfriend?
No: Not me. Rainbow. There was a big difference.
I shook the thought out of my head.
I needed to put these puzzle pieces together. How did the trolls, Hazel Five, and Rainbow’s girlfriend-in-another-dimension all end up in this tiny town?
“When Red first mentioned Damford, I was worried,” Rainbow explained. “Tara lives here in my world, too. I looked up local reports and social media in case I could find anything about her. I saw her house in a photo, took a closer look, and, well, saw that Hazel in the window.”
Five ending up in Tara’s house had to mean—
“Five must know a Tara in her world, as well,” Red said. I could practically see the lightbulb over her head. “Our worlds are similar. Two of us could have the same girlfriend. So last night, after Five arrived, she managed to run without us noticing or the MGA finding her.”
“She fled to the next safest place she knew,” Rainbow said.
“But Tara was already gone by then. She didn’t know anyone was even inside the house.” I pursed my lips. Five had come all the way to Damford, found Tara’s house, then entered without anyone notici
ng and without even talking to Tara? And how had Five made it safely inside, if there were already enough trolls that Tara had needed to flee so abruptly she couldn’t even take her phone—?
“Idea!” I held up the phone. “Like I said, this isn’t actually Tara’s phone. She borrowed it from a neighbor after she left her phone charging in her room. So if Five is still inside the house . . .” I offered the phone to Rainbow. “Do you know Tara’s cell number?”
Before we could discuss strategy, Rainbow had dialed and was holding the phone to her ear. For a few moments, we waited, standing in a circle in the grass. It was quiet enough that I could hear the phone ring.
It went to voicemail.
Rainbow hung up. “That went too fast. Five must’ve declined the call. Which means she’s there.”
“Or someone else is,” Red said. “Or this world’s Tara has a different phone number.”
Everyone seemed on board with contacting Hazel Five. Neven had left the decision to fight the trolls up to us, but we hadn’t even discussed it.
We hadn’t needed to.
“Let’s text her. Dear Hazel,” Rainbow said aloud as she typed up the text, “holy shit the world is ending, wtf, apparently we’re supposed to do something about it??? Please message back. Love, Hazel, Hazel, Hazel, and Hazel.”
Red laughed, and so did I, though it felt forced. (They could probably tell.) “Close,” I said. “But we haven’t even met. ‘Love’ seems a bit much. Maybe end with ‘Best.’”
“Good point,” Rainbow said. “Well, let’s take another approach. Like: Hazel—are you OK in there? Can you leave safely? We could evacuate you from a window. Let us know what you need. -x-Friends.”
“Perfect,” Red said. After we all nodded, Rainbow hit send.
We stood there staring at the phone, which remained frustratingly silent.
“So . . .,” Red said eventually. “Tara, huh?”
Rainbow smiled reflexively. “Yeah. She’s my first girlfriend. It’s been a few months.”
I tensed at the topic change, both nervous and eager to hear more. Last time, I’d barely opened my mouth. If that happened again, they’d suspect. If I could trust anyone in this world, it had to be the three of them, but the thought still made me shaky. I didn’t even know for sure yet what I’d be trusting them with.
“She’s really pretty,” Four offered. “From what I saw during the fight. Which I guess wasn’t much.”
It was so noncommittal I wished I’d been the one to say it.
“What about you?” Rainbow asked us. “Ever have a girlfriend?”
“No.” Red shrugged one shoulder, as if wasn’t a big deal and she didn’t care, but every part of her said it was, and she did. “Still, at least you’re not the token lesbian?”
“At this rate, Four might be the token straight girl.” Rainbow glanced at me, the only one to have stayed silent.
I almost said it then.
Almost.
“I never said I was straight,” Four said quietly. “I think I like girls, but then I notice boys like Marcus . . . Maybe I’m bi. Or nothing at all. I don’t know. Can’t—I can’t believe I’m talking about this.” She laughed a high-pitched laugh, and looked so uncomfortable I felt both pity and relief. Because at least it wasn’t me in her place.
Red jumped in to rescue her. “What about braces? Since we’re talking about our differences. None of you have braces. Am I the only one . . .?”
Four looked quietly relieved.
“I had them when I was thirteen,” Rainbow said.
“Fourteen,” Four and I said in unison.
“And endo?” Red asked. “Does anyone else have endometriosis?”
“What’s that?” Rainbow asked.
“A medical condition.” No one responded. “Tissue from your, um, uterus, starts growing in other places. The pain can get really bad. Bad enough so I can’t even walk or sit.”
“Huh,” Rainbow said. “I didn’t even know that was a thing.”
“It’s mostly under control. Treatment and painkillers helped. It’s actually really common. A lot of people don’t even know they have it, ’cause they just think it’s period pain, but . . .” She shrugged. “I guess it’s just me, then.”
“Neven’s back.” Four pointed at the sky. The late-afternoon sun outlined Neven’s shape. The grass rippled from her wing beats as she approached. Moments later, she landed.
“We’re texting Hazel Five,” I told Neven, before she could get the wrong impression about all of us gathered around a phone. She looked normal—neutral. Like nothing had happened.
I didn’t know whether to be angry that she’d waited so long to tell us the truth, or glad that she’d told us at all. Defying the Powers That Be couldn’t be easy.
I cleared my throat. “No response yet. Maybe she thinks we’re MGA. I would.”
“Let’s try again,” Red said. She took the phone from Rainbow. A minute later, we passed around the next message for everyone’s approval:
Hazel—we’re not with government. We can answer your questions, and we have some of our own. We tried to approach Tara’s house to talk to you. Didn’t go well. You might’ve heard the fight on the street. Can we call? -x-Friends.
“Should I add that we have a dragon?” Rainbow wondered.
“You don’t have me.” Neven settled into a sitting position, her tail curved around her paws. “We are temporary associates. I could eat you, you know.”
“We’ll skip the dragon part,” Rainbow decided. “All right. Going once, going twice, sent.”
Silence.
This is pointless, a nagging thought said. And Neven’s right there, watching you waste time with panic attacks and texts . . .
If four Hazels couldn’t save the world, what could a fifth offer? Instead of going after Five, we should be figuring out how to defeat those damn trolls and complete this fake destiny—no: this assignment. I didn’t know where to start, though. I’d screw it up. I’d fail, like Neven’s first charge had. I felt the same panic every time I thought of it, like I was falling and falling, clawing all around me for something to hold on to only to find nothingness.
(I was just. Some. Girl.)
I inhaled a shuddery breath. Five had been inside that house for hours, trapped or barricaded or injured or who knew what. We couldn’t abandon her.
The phone buzzed. As one, we looked at Red, who squinted at the newly arrived text. “Prove it,” she read aloud. “That’s all. Two words.”
I ought to have been frustrated at the extra hurdle, but—Five had texted back. She was OK. It was like someone snapped their fingers by my face, yanking me from my spiraling thoughts, and I was grateful for the reprieve.
“Man,” Rainbow said, “how are we supposed to prove we’re not MGA when she won’t call and when approaching that house means getting mauled by trolls?”
“I think . . .,” I started.
It felt wrong to make suggestions after we’d all heard in vivid detail how unqualified I was. They were looking at me now, though. I gathered my breath and turned to Neven.
“Yes?” she said, the very picture of patience.
“Can you hold a phone?”
She tilted her head. It might’ve been the first time I’d caught her by surprise.
“Let’s find out,” I said.
“Are you saying . . .?” Rainbow started. “No way.” Was that excitement or incredulity?
“I think it could work.” Four smiled encouragingly.
Red offered me the phone.
Neven studied me as I poked around the camera settings. Front-facing camera, check. Timer, check. Burst mode, check. After a look upward—the sun was edging toward the horizon, casting the sky in shades of muted pink-gray—I turned on the flash.
“OK,” I told Neven. “We’ll gather around you, and then you hold the phone like this, aimed at us. Careful. You might block the lens or touch the screen by accident.” Did that sound didactic? I added, “Though maybe the touc
hscreen doesn’t respond to scales. Or claws.”
Neven took the phone between thick, clumsy toes. Her scales rubbed my hand.
“And I couldn’t simply photograph you from a distance?” Neven asked.
“It’s more convincing if you’re in the photo with us.” The more of our story we could prove to Five, the better. Seeing a combination of a dragon and four identical copies had to pique her interest.
“Very well. This is not typically one of my duties, you know.”
I cracked a smile. “What, do your heroes normally use tripods for their group selfies? OK, um, I’m hitting the button. Fifteen-second timer. Go.”
We all huddled around Neven’s neck as she awkwardly lifted her front paw.
“Tilt it more to the left?” Red said.
“Not that far!” Rainbow said. Neven wiggled to get the phone into position.
Flash. First photo.
I blinked away stars.
“Aim it downward? You’ve got the sky now—” Flash. Second photo. It caught Rainbow with her mouth open and her hand out.
The third one caught Four and Red laughing.
I couldn’t help it.
By the fifth, I was laughing, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Within minutes of sending Hazel Five the photo, the phone rang.
“You wanna take it?” Rainbow held out the phone.
Not really.
I breathed deep and accepted the call. “This is Hazel,” I said automatically.
“What the hell?”
There was no mistaking my own voice, even if I never heard it this angry. “We can explain,” I said, then reconsidered. “Sort of. We’re from other dimensions. It’s complicated.”
Five must’ve guessed as much. There were few uncomplicated explanations for landing in a different dimension, being chased by trolls and mysterious government agencies, and receiving a photo of four alternate selves and a dragon.
The other Hazels had hunched in to listen to the call while Neven sat farther away. Occasionally, she pushed herself off the ground to look over the field, her front legs dangling by her sides while her hind legs and propped-up tail helped her keep her balance. If there were trolls around, they kept their distance.
The Art of Saving the World Page 14
