On Thin Ice

by Michael Northrop

  Praise for Michael Northrop

  Praise for Polaris

  “An exciting blend of nautical adventure and monstrous horror.” —Kirkus Reviews

  “Middle-grade readers looking for an adventure on the high seas without leaving the comfort of their homes will love this swashbuckling, spine-tingling tale.” —School Library Journal

  “This fast-moving adventure-survival novel with a science-fiction focus will appeal to reluctant readers who like thrills and chills.” —Booklist

  Praise for TombQuest

  “Pure adventure from start to finish.” —School Library Connection

  “The plot moves quickly and will appeal to reluctant readers looking for adventure [and] danger.” —School Library Journal

  Praise for Surrounded by Sharks

  “This story strikes a balance of suspense and action … For reluctant readers and fans of survival stories.” —School Library Journal

  Praise for Trapped

  “Northrop gets at the core of human nature through masterful pacing … Gripping.” —Kirkus Reviews

  “The pages turn like wildfire.” —Booklist

  Contents

  Title Page

  Praise for Michael Northrop

  1: Table for One

  2: Spider-Man, the Hulk

  3: The Lake

  4: Downhill Fast

  5: Cold Spaghetti

  6: Thin Ice Days

  7: The Library

  8: All of It, or You’re Gone

  9: Short

  10: Classified

  11: Making the Call

  12: The Edge of Town

  13: Garbage Truck

  14: Internal Combustion

  15: Enemy Territory

  16: Bumper Bowling

  17: No Such Thing as Free Pizza

  18: Boxed Out

  19: After Hours

  20: Spy Mission

  21: A Big But

  22: Progress

  23: The Late Shift

  24: Hard Truths, Cold Facts

  25: It’s Official

  26: Paint It Black (and Red)

  27: Getting the Message

  28: Reconnecting

  29: Rev It Up, Ked!

  30: Like Friends Do

  31: It’s a Start

  32: Cracked Up to Be

  33: Boxes

  34: Thin Ice

  35: Taking the Plunge

  36: Uber Cool

  37: Open Up

  38: What Else Is There?

  39: Like Mookie Betts

  40: And the Winners Are …

  41: One Week Later

  Author’s Note

  Preview of Polaris

  About the Author

  Also by Michael Northrop

  Copyright

  I HATE THIS CAFETERIA. It feels like the scene of a crime. It’s a slow crime that has taken years—a theft, I guess. I’m not sure anyone else has noticed, and why would they? The only thing that’s been stolen is my whole life, piece by piece.

  It’s Monday and I’m navigating my tray through the maze of kids, tables, and noise. I figure I’ll sit with Danny, like usual. We’re in seventh grade now, Danny and me and pretty much everyone else I know.

  Sixth-through-eighth-grade classes are in a separate building, down the hill. Technically, that’s Norton Middle School and this upper building is Norton Elementary, but the schools are kind of jumbled together. We still hike back up to “the kids’ building” for the cafeteria, gym, library, and a few other things. And the little kids stampede down to our building for art and music and anything in the auditorium.

  The point is, I’ve been making this slow walk between these same tables for most of my life. Ever since October, when Nephi started sitting with the other guys who are big into the maker space, it’s just been Danny and me at lunch. We usually sit at the table in the back corner.

  But when I get to the table in the corner, Danny isn’t there. That’s weird, I think, I could’ve sworn I saw him ahead of me in the line for this so-called pizza. I whip my head around. My shirt is stretched tight across my shoulders. (For reasons I’ll explain in a minute.) I can feel the fabric start to ride up in the back as I give it a good neck tug from side to side. My eyes are suddenly wide open, alert, maybe a little panicky.

  When I spot Danny, he’s looking at me too. But he looks away fast. He’s at a table full of people. I know that table. We tried to join it back in the fall, after Neff made his move. They didn’t let us. “Nah, guys. Sorry. No space.”

  Now I understand: I was the problem.

  I don’t know why that surprises me. I don’t know why any of this does. I’m always the problem these days. I guess I just expected a little more from Danny—a little more loyalty, a little more time. We’ve been eating together since that meant scarfing down Goldfish crackers on little rugs on the kindergarten floor. We were neighbors back then too. We went to opening day of fishing season together every year. One year he caught a trout as big as his forearm, and I was the one who netted it for him.

  I get a sick, cold feeling. Danny knows I’m still here, but he’s not acknowledging me. The other kids at his new table aren’t even that popular, I tell myself—but it’s a full table, so how unpopular could they be?

  And me? I’m standing here with my tray of chocolate milk, an apple, and a square pizza with the bite I took out of it back in line. I look down at the empty table in front of me. I can feel my heart beating faster. I’ve been coming to this cafeteria since I was in first grade, since it was just our heads and shoulders above the tabletops. Since I was one of the kids at the full tables.

  The next table over has space, but just seeing me glance over, they close ranks, scooting their butts a little closer together on the curved benches attached to the flying saucer–shaped table. My hair is long in the front, almost to my eyes. I reach up with one hand and push it back.

  I know that the longer I stand, the more I stand out. It feels like people are starting to stare. At me, at my back. I stand up as straight as I can, but it’s pushing up and out against my shirts. I usually wear two: a T-shirt and an unbuttoned button-up. The button-up is a size too big for most of me, but that still makes it a size too small for my back. Every year, my back bulges out a little farther, pushing out against the fabric. That’s what I imagine my classmates staring at now, stealing looks from behind me or off to the side. I hear laughter and my heart starts hammering.

  Who’s laughing? Why? It could just be some dumb joke or someone dropping their pizza cheese-side down. But when I look over at the table, I know it’s not. The guys sitting there are like the kings of my grade. They’re popular, athletic, and even smart. I make eye contact with their leader, the human mountain Landrover Jones. He doesn’t even bother to hide his smirk.

  I drop my tray on the round, empty table in front of me. It clatters loudly. It doesn’t matter. The volume in the cafeteria is at jet-engine level. Everyone is talking, everyone is joking. And anyone who was going to stare at me is already doing it.

  I sit down alone. Everyone says we’re never going to use most of what we learn in school. But some of it’s important. Right now I’m thinking about math. I’m thinking about addition and subtraction all at once. I’m thinking about how everything you subtract adds up.

  When Maps left our table last year, there were still three of us: Nephi, Danny, and me. We didn’t even take it that personally. We all knew Maps was different. He was an instant star on the middle school teams. He had teammates to talk to and games to plan. And even when Nephi made his move to the makers’ table, there was still Danny. There was still someone left. They were never leaving me alone. It was easier for me and, honestly, I think it was easier for them too.

  They�
�re not bad guys. At least I never used to think so. We all knew the deal: Things change. New classes, new teams, new schedules, and so yeah, sometimes that’s going to add up to new friends and new tables. It was almost like a game of musical chairs: one less player each time. You just start up again with whoever is left.

  But now Danny is gone. Subtract one, like every time before. But this time it leaves me with zero. Game over: not enough players.

  Danny didn’t do anything different than the others. He just did it last. He was my last friend from before, but now he has slipped away like a fish with no one to net it. I’m alone. It happened piece by piece and then all at once. Now, it’s down to me and what’s left of this sad, soggy piece of pizza. The table is big and round and white, like the beam of a spotlight. Like the number zero.

  Welcome to the rest of my life, I think.

  I hate this cafeteria.

  And it hates me back.

  MY NAME IS KED EAKINS, and I live in Norton, Maine. I think maybe I forgot to mention that up front. Anyway, everyone used to call me Ked. It’s an unusual enough name that it was basically its own nickname. Now people have started to call me “Freakins”—or sometimes just “Freak.”

  For the record, I prefer Ked.

  I wasn’t always like this. I used to be just another kid. I don’t know if you’d say popular, but I had friends, and we had fun. We did normal stuff. But things started to change a few years ago. I started to change. I remember the first time I noticed something unusual about my back. I’d just taken a bath. And, okay, fine: It was a bubble bath. I was still into Mr. Bubble back then.

  Anyway, I was drying off and I felt something on my back. You know how your spine is basically a line of little bumps under your skin? Well, it kind of felt like one of my bumps had a brother, and that brother had started to wander up my back and press out against the skin a little more. And as weird as that sounds, I wasn’t too worried about it at first. It just felt a little swollen or tight or something. But I’d just gotten out of the bath, my whole body was warm and relaxed—and I was just standing there naked anyway. I reached back over my shoulder and really got in there, and when I did: Ouch! It was kind of tender.

  I wiped the last of the steam off the mirror with my Star Wars towel. What was going on back there? I twisted my neck all the way around to look at myself. I still remember that moment so well. Me standing there looking super scrawny with my butt so much paler than the rest of me. But I still couldn’t decide if it was a real, visible lump on my back.

  I remember thinking that maybe it was a spider bite. Or not a spider bite exactly. What I am about to say is deeply stupid, but remember, I was younger then. And dumber. So what I really thought was that maybe a spider had injected its eggs into me and pretty soon they would hatch and all these little baby spiders would erupt from my skin. I’d heard a story at sleepaway camp where that happened. It was just a dumb story the counselors told to scare us, but it’s the first thing I thought. I was scared. And the amazing thing about it is that, looking back now, I wish it had been spider eggs. Heck, tarantulas would be okay with me. At least it would all be over by now. I’d have a cool scar and a great story for camp!

  It’s almost funny, but the other thing I remember isn’t funny at all. When I looked back as much as I could, when I really hoot-owled my head around, the skin on my upper back felt tight. It just refused to stretch anymore, like it was stuck.

  That was the first time I felt that, and it just got worse from there. Now I can’t even really look back over my shoulder on the left side. Which is just as well. I wouldn’t like what I saw.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself. Back then I pulled on my underwear—goodbye, pale butt!—and my pants too. That was in case I had to be rushed to the hospital, or maybe to the veterinarian because of the spiders. I wasn’t sure. I left my shirt off. Then I took a big, deep breath. The air was warm and still smelled like Mr. Bubble. Without bothering to open the door, I yelled, “MOM!”

  She came in fast. She always paid extra attention when I was in the bath, even though I wasn’t a baby anymore. I showed her the suspected bump and explained to her, as calmly as I could manage, that she was about to be a grandmother to five hundred or possibly a thousand spiders.

  She assured me that she was not. That made me feel better and I was ready to forget the whole thing. But then she started poking the little tight spot too. I was like: “Ow!” Then she took her hand and began running it up and down my spine, from below my shoulders all the way up to my neck. She’d already been on me about my posture for a while by then, always telling me to “stop slouching,” so I did my best to stand up straight. Her palm felt soft and warm.

  “What?” I said.

  “Nothing,” she said. “Everyone’s spine curves a little.”

  Yeah, I told myself. Totally normal.

  But she decided that I should go to the doctor after all. There was no insect-eruption urgency. She just wanted to get it checked out. She made an appointment for later in the week.

  We did things like that back then: Trips to the doctor just to check things out, regular checkups at the dentist. My mom had a good job, which meant good insurance and decent money too—at least when my dad wasn’t blowing it all.

  We went to the hospital on Friday afternoon. I wasn’t worried at all. I was psyched—like, Maybe we’ll get ice cream after? At that point, I had never had anything wrong with me that required more than some Pepto-Bismol or a Band-Aid. But once I got to the hospital, things started to change. The doctor made me get X-rays of my back. I pretended the radiation was going to turn me into the Incredible Hulk.

  He studied the X-rays for a long time without saying anything. So did my mom. They were right up on the wall, and I could’ve looked too if I wanted. But I didn’t. I told myself it was because they were gross—Those are my bones! But that wasn’t really it. I sat there looking at my feet and remembering how it felt when my mom ran her hand over my back.

  Then the doctor did the same thing! His hand felt rough and cold. After that, he had me do a bunch of stretching and reaching, like I was trying out for a gymnastics team or something. Some of it hurt a little. Then I got to put my shirt back on and they sent me home with a “We’ll be in touch.” It sounded serious. I had to lean forward away from the car seat as Mom drove us home. I can’t even remember if we got ice cream.

  The verdict came in the next week. I remember my mom sitting there and explaining it all to me. My dad was there too, so I knew it was serious. I saw my dad less than my mom back then, and I was a lot less close to him. He was “the enforcer,” because he’s big and quiet most of the time, so it’s scary when he yells. Mom was always like: “Don’t make me tell your father!” It was a weird thing to say, though, because most of the time he was in more trouble than me. He was always losing money on stupid bets. It was like he couldn’t help himself.

  But he’s the one who stuck around, so I guess you never know. Now the guy who couldn’t help himself has to help us both. Mom moved to Portland, and not Portland, Maine, either. She lives in the other one, the fun one they set TV shows in. Sometimes I like to think she’s having a great time out there in Oregon. Sometimes I like to think she’s not.

  She did all the talking that day. I remember words like “spinal abnormality” and “adjacent vertebrae.” My spine was starting to curve forward—“excessive rounding”—like a bend in a river.

  It’s called kyphosis. (There’s another name for it, but I don’t use that word.) It mostly happens to old people, when their spine is breaking down, but it can happen to kids too, when their spine is growing. The vertebrae just start growing unevenly. They should be rectangles, but some of them become more like wedges, and the whole spinal tower starts to lean.

  Then Mom said something important. She said I’d have to wait until I stopped growing before we could “even think about operating,” which, I mean, I hadn’t been. Not till then.

  I just sat there and listened. I th
ought of the little pains I felt sometimes, reaching up to the cupboard for the cereal or rolling over in bed at night. That’s when I realized: That wasn’t normal. That wasn’t something everyone felt. My head was buzzing from all the new information. When Mom stopped talking she looked down at the papers in front of her and we were all quiet for a little while. Finally I said, “But then they can fix it, right? After I stop growing?”

  Dad and I looked at her.

  “They think there’s a good chance,” she said. She reached up and wiped the corner of one eye. Was she crying? Then she took a deep breath, forced a smile for like a second, and kept going. She talked about “surgical options” or “fusing the spine.” I wasn’t too excited about any of that, obviously.

  She said my condition was developing early and fast, and they’d just have to wait and see. In the meantime, they thought a back brace might help. I groaned. “It all depends on how things develop,” she said for like the third time. And she didn’t say it, but it would depend on something else too. It would depend on keeping that good insurance.

  It was one of those days when your whole life changes in an instant, like the day Bruce Wayne’s parents are killed. The difference is, I didn’t know it yet. My mom was saying they would have to wait until “after adolescence” at least. And I was sitting there thinking, What’s the big deal? Why do you two look so sad?

  Because I was thinking, It’s so small. I was thinking, I didn’t even notice it until I took that bath. I knew it would keep bending and bulging out—maybe all the way through adolescence. I just didn’t realize it would get so serious. It had taken my whole life just to get to the point where I noticed it. I thought it would keep going at that same pace. Even if I was twice as old when it stopped, that was just double. I was imagining another few degrees around the river bend, a lump like half a lemon.

  I wasn’t being stupid, exactly. I just had the time frame wrong. My body was just starting to think about adolescence, but my condition was already off and running.

  And no one told me either. Maybe Mom was hoping it wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe she didn’t want to get ahead of herself. Maybe she was researching possibilities online. I still don’t know. But I do know that she left, and I know that she took that good insurance with her.