Night Sky (10 page)

“Cal,” I said, determined to make him believe me, at least just a little bit. “There's more. When I went running, I raced Garrett.”

Calvin looked up at me, and for a moment he looked kind of upset.

“And I won. I won by a
lot
.” I paused. “I'm not saying this because I'm trying to brag or be superior in any way. But I looked it up online, and I ran something called a sub-four-minute mile today.”

Calvin shook his head. “That's impossible. The last guy who did that was some Pakistani dude—”

“Moroccan,” I corrected him. “And I know. It sounds crazy. I didn't believe it either. But Garrett clocked it. And then I did too.”

“Sky, I love the hell out of you. I really do. But you're losing it.” Calvin pressed a button on his wheelchair, and his position went from reclined to straight. I watched the machine gently bend his knees.

“I know,” I said miserably. “I wish it were that simple. Then they could just send me to a padded room.” I shook my head. “I guess maybe it
is
that simple. I mean, crazy people probably don't know that they're crazy, right?”

“I wouldn't know,” Calvin said. “I mean, I don't think I do.” He grinned at me.

“It's just so much at once.” I paced around my room. “First Sasha, and then everyone started believing that Edmund would hurt her, and then the whole thing with the crazy gun lady at the Sav'A'Buck, and Motorcycle Girl, and…I'm just so tired. And sad.”

Calvin's eyes got big.

“I know, it's a shocker,” I continued. “Skylar Reid is officially talking about her feelings. Call Channel 540 News,” I said. “I just…I've been so
angry
lately too. And scared. There. I said it. This Greater-Than thing really freaks me out and I just want Sasha to come home, and I'm so, so scared that she's dead. Phew.” I blew air out of my mouth, suddenly filled with fatigue.

“Sky?” Cal said, and his eyes were even wider.

“I'm sorry if I'm overwhelming you. And I'm sorry I called you stupid.”

“Sky!” Cal said again.

I stopped pacing. “What?” I said.

Calvin smiled nervously at me. “Um…your radio…is on strike…against gravity,” he said slowly.

I looked in the corner of my room.

And, sure enough, my old pink satellite radio from grade school, the one that was in the shape of an antique boom box, was traveling back and forth along the wall—back and forth, swinging in the air—a good eight inches above the surface of my dresser.

I looked back at Calvin, who was staring at me. “Girl?” he said. “Whoa.”

—

“Skylar?” Mom called. I heard her close the front door, plastic bags swishing in her arms.

I stared at Calvin, my eyes wide.

He stared back, and mouthed
OMG
silently at me.

“You here, hon?” my mom asked, her voice singsong as it carried up the stairs.

“In my room! Be right there!” I called back, eyeing the radio as it now swung through the air like a pink paper airplane—except it was a little heavier than paper.

Calvin looked at me, his mouth in the shape of a Cheerio. Then his face broke into a smile. “I'm not gonna lie. That's pretty awesome,” he whispered.

I focused intently on the radio and willed it back to its place on my bureau. It remained in midair.

“I don't know how to get you down,” I said shakily. I waved my arms in the air a couple times, as if pretending to cast a spell. Um, yeah. That didn't work.

“You're speaking to your boom box like it's a person,” Calvin whispered gleefully. He kept his voice quiet, as if talking too loudly would somehow remind gravity that it was still an existing law of physics.

“Skylar?” Mom called, her voice louder as if she was coming upstairs.

I couldn't let her see this. “Wait here,” I ordered both Calvin and the pink radio.

“We're not going anywhere!” Calvin crooned, and I slipped out into the hallway.

Mom was coming up the stairs.

“Mom,” I said. “Hi.”

As I closed the bedroom door behind me, the possessed satellite radio turned on with a blast of mariachi music.

“Skylar!” she chided. “I've told you that I don't mind you inviting Calvin over when I'm not here, but I'd still appreciate it if you kept your bedroom door open.”

I rolled my eyes. As if Cal and I would actually hook up. Of course, Mom was just being Mom.

She frowned. “And what's with the music?”

Through the closed door, I heard a
thunk
and an “Aw, shee-it.”

“Is he okay?” Mom asked, her brow furrowing with concern.

“I'm sure he's fine,” I replied, trying hard to sound casual. “I just wanted to let you know we're here, we're studying, and…that's it.”

Mom's expression was quizzical. “Oh…kay. Studying…opera?”

The music had switched to a bellowing baritone voice, the exaggerated vibrato executed jovially in Italian.

“Um, Cal likes listening to that stuff when he studies—something about his brain cells being stimulated.” I shrugged.

“Settle down!” Calvin screamed from the bedroom, his words followed by another loud crash.

“Sometimes when he's trying to concentrate, he just yells at his brain to
settle
down
!” I explained. “It's one of his…special studying techniques.”

“
Ow!
” Calvin yelped.

“Along with vocalizations,” I added.

Mom stared quizzically at my door. I waited, leaning my hand casually against the wall in an attempt to keep her from venturing any closer to my bedroom.

“Well…all right,” Mom said. “I'm just going to put some groceries away, and then I thought we could order out for pizza. Whaddaya say?”

I hated it when Mom tried to get all buddy-buddy with me, almost as much as I hated it when she acted clingy and overprotective. But I wanted her out of the hallway A-SAP, so I could fix this radio situation before she heard—or saw—anything else. “Sounds good!” I exclaimed, feigning enthusiasm. The opera singer's voice cascaded through the hallway, interspersed with Calvin's
ow'
s.

“Great! I'll meet you down in the kitchen in ten!”

“Awesome!”

“And open that door, please. I mean it.” Mom waved a finger, all cutesy, smiling at me as she sauntered down the stairs.

“Will do,” I said, laughing nervously.

I waited until Mom was all the way downstairs before I went back into my room. When I opened the door, the radio shut off and fell to the ground with a thud.

Calvin was in the corner, holding his hands over his head as if he were fending off an explosion.

I shut my bedroom door behind me and ran over to him. “Are you okay?”

“Girl!” Calvin hissed. “Your satellite radio just assaulted me!”

“I'm sorry,” I said helplessly. “I didn't mean to—it wasn't like I was trying to do any of that.”

But Calvin wasn't really that upset. He lifted his hands off his head and grinned at me. “Dude!” he said excitedly. “We should go on tour! Like that magic guy who was around when my parents were kids. What was his name…David Blaine!”

“I guess you believe me now.” I eyed the radio, making sure it was really going to stay put.

“I believe something just happened here,” Cal said. “Does this mean you're some mythical superhuman called a Greater-Than? If I were you, I'd wait for a little more information before I monogrammed everything I owned with a
G
-dash-
T
.”

“It scares me,” I admitted. “I hate the idea of going crazy. Or even just being mean and compassionless.”

“So don't go crazy or be mean or compassionless.” For Calvin everything was always so simple. “You know, I'm serious about that tour thing,” he said. “We'd be set for life!”

“You
are
set for life! Your parents have plenty of money.”

Cal shrugged. “You're right. But being famous would decrease my chances of dying a virgin.”

I laughed my amazement. “You're not going to die a virgin,” I told him.

Calvin sighed. “I don't really know many girls who think the whole wheelchair thing is sexy.”

“You'll find someone,” I promised him, and I knew it was true.

“Hah!” Calvin said. “See? You have such a sweet and gooey inner center, it's impossible for you to
not
be compassionate. Even if this Greater-Than shite is real, you're gonna be fine.” But then, because too much solemnity was a strain on his system, he again cracked a huge smile. “Girl, seriously? That shit was awesome!”

“Skylar?” Mom called from the bottom of the stairs. “Bedroom door stays open, please!”

I rolled my eyes. “All right, Mom,” I called as sweetly as Cal imagined me to be, but then gave the finger to my closed bedroom door.

—

I promised Cal I'd call him as soon as my pizza fest with Momzilla was finished. After telling him my secret—that I might be a Greater-Than—I could finally breathe again.

Plus, I wasn't crazy. At least not yet. Knowing
that
was cool too.

My anxiety level about Sasha was still pinned pretty high, though. And I was twice as antsy since I hadn't had time yet today to continue looking for her.

And then, of course, there was the conversation with Mom that I was dreading. How, I wonder, would she bring it up. “So! Skylar! I've been boinking your band teacher!”

Mom was making a salad, cutting up cucumbers, as she greeted me with a cheery, “The pizza should be here soon. I paid a little extra for express delivery. And extra cheese!” She sang those last words like she was the one who was excited by that announcement.

In truth, I knew she'd eat only half a slice at best—with a knife and fork, no less. But whatever. If her guilt over having a secret boyfriend meant I got extra cheese, I'd take it.

I took a tomato off the windowsill, washed it, and got out another cutting board—all without Mom having to ask. She made a little happy clucking sound, and I rolled my eyes. I could feel her glancing over at me, but I kept my focus on the tomato as if my life depended on cutting it into equal pieces.

“So!” she said, and I braced myself, because here it came. “How's school going?”

“Fine,” I said.

“Cool. Classes all right?”

I hated when my mom used words like
cool
or
sweet
. She was just embarrassing us both. “Yeah,” I said. “Everything's fine.”

I thought about band and how Mr. Jenkins insisted I play percussion, even though I could play the clarinet better than anyone in the entire school. I thought about the way that Mr. J didn't seem to know much about music. I remembered telling Mom that I couldn't figure out why the school had hired such an idiot.

I tried to remember how she'd reacted, but all I knew was that, at the time, she
hadn't
leaped to her feet and shouted, “That's my boyfriend you're disparaging! How
dare
you!”

Boyfriend
was a weird word to use to describe a man who was at least forty.

Mom hummed a little bit, as if the silence I'd fallen into was too much for her.

“So,” she said. “What about everything else? Things going smoothly?”

I thought about the last few days.
Smooth
wasn't the word I would have chosen to use.

“Everything's all right.” I dumped the tomato pieces into the salad bowl. “Hey,” I said, “I wanted to let you know something.”

“Sure!” Mom's eyes lit up.

“Well, I just wanted to give you a heads-up that I'm going to be joining track. I went for a run today, and it made me feel really good.”

Mom coughed a little, then of course washed her hands in the sink.

“It shouldn't be an issue,” I continued, “'cause there's a bus that runs about an hour and a half later, after practice is out.” I, of course, would get Calvin to give me a ride home, but Mom didn't need to know that.

“Actually,” Mom replied as she dried her hands, “I was just thinking about after-school stuff too, and I found out that Maggie Jennings is offering a cooking class. She lives just two blocks down from us.”

I laughed. “That's funny, Ma.”

My mom didn't smile.

“You're
serious
?”

“It should be a lot of fun,” Mom replied. “Look at how well you just cut up that tomato.”

Seriously? “Okay,” I said. “I'd rather stick needles into my eyes.”

“Oh, Skylar, don't say such terrible things,” Mom said, aghast.

“Well, it's true. I hate cooking. Plus I suck at it. I was just trying to be nice with the tomato—”

“All the more reason to take a class—so that you can improve.”

I crossed my arms and leaned back against the counter. “But I don't have a reason to improve. I'm fine with frozen dinners. Or sandwiches. Cooking's not my thing. I'm gonna do track.”

Mom shook her head. “Skylar, track is… Well, it's dangerous.”

“Dangerous.” I laughed. “Running is healthy. It's not dangerous.”

“Well, haven't you heard the stories of long-distance runners dropping dead during a race?” she asked.

She was serious. “Mom,” I countered, “I don't think we'll run marathons at school. I mean, they're twenty-six miles—”

“Even sprinters have died of heart failure,” Mom said.

“But what are the statistics of that?” I asked. “Is it one in a million or one in a billion? I mean, people die of heart failure sitting on the john!”

She wasn't listening. “And then there's the damage to your ankles and knees. All those former track stars getting knee replacements at age twenty-five—”