Night Sky (9 page)

It was true that the view was spectacular. I'd give him that.

White, immaculate hills of sugary sand coated an empty beach. Ahead, the glistening jewel-toned ocean expanded for miles. Behind us was that towering hulk of a mansion, its stone turrets jutting into the air like a castle. Vacation “cottage,” my ass. Clearly, being pretentious ran in the family.

“So three and three makes six miles.” Garrett was apparently unaware of my ability to do basic math. “Which is a decent distance for a run.”

I didn't wait for him to lead the way. I plunged on ahead, down a set of wooden stairs. Garrett followed as I moved briskly toward the shore, our footsteps awkward in the unpacked sand.

“Now, since you're a novice runner,” he continued, “you won't be able to go that far, or even keep up with me. So if I get way ahead of you, don't take it personally.”

Seriously? Calvin was going to love hearing about this. “A douche, indeed,” I said, and then realized I'd spoken aloud. “That's, um, Botsmanian for
great
.”

There was no such place as Botsmania, but Garrett nodded. “Ah,” he said. “Well, then…
A-douche-in-dee
.”

I coughed. “That's actually the feminine version. It's more accurate for a guy to say,
Ama-douche
.”

“
Ama-douche
,” he repeated obediently.

I had another coughing fit. Somewhere, Calvin was already laughing his ass off.

“You ready?” Garrett asked.

I had never tracked my runs before, so I had no idea if six miles would feel long or short to me. Still, I nodded. “Whenever you are.”

“
Ama-douche!
” Garrett took off, his feet pounding the sand as he ran.

I started running as well, slowed down a bit by another bout of coughing but warming up as I breathed in the beach air. It was salty and damp, and it actually refreshed me. I quickly caught up and set my pace with Garrett, staying at his side.

I had never tried running with a partner before. It was different. Garrett's pace was slower than I'd expected, and I really wanted to speed up. For the first few minutes, though, I felt obligated to stay with him, but then I remembered what he'd said…
If
I
get
way
ahead
of
you, don't take it personally
. Heart pumping, I began to feel really good for the first time in days.

So, I decided that if it was okay for Garrett to get way ahead of me, it was equally cool for me to run ahead of him.

Which is exactly what I did.

The breeze embraced me as I moved my legs across the solid sand and tilted my face up to the sunlight. Forgetting everything bad, I just ran. My arms pumped by my sides, and I found myself repeating a mantra as my steps multiplied.

Everything-will-be-okay, everything-will-be-okay
…

And then I looked up, and the wall that Garrett had talked about was right in front of me. I slammed my hand against it and turned around to start back toward where Garrett and I had begun our jog.

But when I turned, Garrett was nowhere to be found.

In fact, now that I thought about it, I hadn't seen him since I'd decided to speed up.

I couldn't even see a dot of an outline of him on the beach. And his dad's
vacation
cottage
? Well, that was far enough away to look about as huge as my pinky.

Where
was
Garrett?

I felt energized. I wasn't tired at all. I touched the back of my neck and found that the very beginnings of sweat had popped through right around my hairline. Otherwise, I was completely cool and dry.

“Hey!” someone called from far away, up beyond the rolling hills of the sand dunes.

I turned to look, and…it was Garrett! He waved at me, one arm slung across the open door of his convertible, pulled to the side of the gravel beach road.

The road and the dunes were separated by a chain-link fence that had seen better days. I jogged up the hill and then stepped through a hole in the fence to get to Garrett and his car.

“Where did you go?” I asked, wiping sand off my hands.

“Where did
you
go?” Garrett said, and he sounded irritated.

“I was just running,” I said. Now that I was standing right in front of Garrett, I could see how sweaty he was. His hair, usually spiked in the front, was stuck to his forehead. He had taken his sunglasses off and was wiping the perspiration from his chin.

Garrett shook his head. “Very funny.”

“I'm not trying to be funny,” I replied. “Why did you get in your car?”

“Because,” he said snippily, “I looked down at the sand for a second, and when I looked up, you were gone.” He shook his head. “There's no way you ran that.”

“I totally did.”

Garrett frowned. “You're seriously trying to tell me you ran three miles in…” He checked his watch. “…ten minutes?”

Was that fast, or was he just punking me? He seemed so serious. “I don't know. I didn't keep track. I just ran.”

Garrett's frown deepened. “Fine. If you really ran that, then show me again. Race me. And this time, no cheating.”

He
was
serious. “I didn't cheat.”

Garrett made it obvious that he didn't believe me. He slammed his car door, leaving it parked beside the road, and followed me back through the hole in the fence. When we made it down to the packed sand by the water, he shook his head again and said, “You know the fastest mile ever run was in three minutes and forty three seconds?”

“Really?” I said. I didn't know that. I'd never really paid attention to things like the Olympics and world records.

“Yeah. Some dude from Morocco did it. But you just crushed his record.”

“Maybe you miscalculated the time,” I offered. I seriously doubted I had broken any world records today, considering I was still a bit crampy. I checked my watch instinctively, but it didn't provide any answers. I had no idea when I'd started running, or when I had finished.

“Maybe you're playing a joke on me. Did you have that gimp kid follow us and drive you out here to the wall?”

I narrowed my eyes at Garrett. “Gimp kid?” I repeated. “You mean Calvin? My best friend?”

Garrett shrugged. “I guess so,” he said. “I've never really talked to him, so I wouldn't know if he was your best friend or not.”

I'd seen Garrett talking to Calvin in band practice all the time. So with that, Garrett suddenly had officially become both douche-tastic
and
a bald-faced liar.

“Let's just do this,” I said, angrier than ever. The faster we finished the race, the faster I could get away from Garrett. “How far are we racing?”

“We'll do a quarter mile. To that pile of seaweed.” He pointed to a large mass of dark green mush, way down the beach.

“
A-douche-in-dee
,” I said, wanting him to say it again.

He did. “
Ama-douche
.”

Garrett and I lined up against the wall. I looked over at him, and he looked at me. “Wait a second,” he said, and unpeeled his black tank top from his torso. His abs were six solid indentations—a total work of art that glistened in the sun. Too bad he was a douche.

I waited impatiently while he carefully rolled up his shirt, left it on the stone wall, and took a moment to stretch. Then he looked down at his watch.

“Okay. We start in three, two…”

And before Garrett said one, he sprinted forward, swinging his arms and legs wildly by his sides.

Double
douche!

Rolling my eyes, I pressed my stopwatch button and took off after him, quickly catching up. As I passed Garrett, I saw the expression of disbelief on his face. And then I was ahead and looking only at the beauty of the ocean and the sky.

It wasn't long before I hit the pile of seaweed mush with one foot, hit my stopwatch button, and stopped running. Stretching my arms overhead, I yawned a little bit. The cool breeze felt nice. A single bead of sweat slid down my temple, and I caught it with one finger.

I turned around.

Garrett had only made it halfway. He'd stopped and was leaning forward, bending almost in half as he placed his hands on his knees.

“Garrett?” I called, even though I knew he was too far away to hear me.

It looked like he was starting to kneel down, right there in the sand.

“You okay?” I called out, and began to jog back toward him.

When I got closer, I saw that he was, in fact, kneeling. He then leaned over, bracing himself with his hands in the sand.

“Garrett?” I said again.

And that's when I watched the Coconut Key Academy star quarterback puke his guts out all over the sand.

“Oh, man,” I said, running over to him. “Do you want me to get you some water?”

Garrett heaved a little more and then stood up, not looking at me. “Let's go,” he said, wiping off his chin. “I'm taking you home.”

I followed along beside him as Garrett trudged back to the car. Curious, I looked down at my watch. I'd run a quarter mile in forty-five seconds. Was that good? It seemed about right to me.

“Do you want me to run and grab your shirt?” I asked, pointing back down the beach. “You left it by the wall.”

“Screw my shirt.” Garrett coughed a little into the crook of his elbow. “You know,” he said, “I was out partying pretty hard last night. Too much tequila—you know what
that's
like. That plus the heat… And I'm pretty sure I
did
miscalculate. This watch I use sometimes acts funny in the humidity. No way did you run a four-minute mile.”

Garrett pressed a button on his keys, and the car beeped its acknowledgment. I glanced up at the otherwise empty road…and that's when I spotted her.

She was in the shade of a palm tree, her legs straddling her motorcycle, and she was far enough away so that I couldn't see more than the pale smudge of her face.

Motorcycle Girl.

I knew that
she
knew I'd seen her, because she shook her head at me, as if in warning.

“Hey!” I said to Garrett, who was busy making sure he hadn't thrown up on the front of his shorts. “Do you know that girl?”

Garrett gave himself one final brush-down before turning to face me. “What girl?” he asked, still breathless. He was drenched in sweat.

“That…” But when I looked up again, I found myself pointing to an empty expanse of road. The bike, and the girl, were gone.

I did the math—several times—and I had definitely run sub-four-minute miles.

And Garrett was definitely a douche.

As we drove home from the beach, I looked at my phone and realized that service was back, and that Calvin had been calling me off the hook. My mom, however, had not, which was both surprising and awesome.

“See ya,” Garrett said, still not smiling as he pulled into my driveway.

“Thanks,” I replied, Mom's years of training to be polite kicking in as I slammed his car door shut before jogging up my steps.

Garrett had promised we'd look for Sasha while we were out. And that hadn't happened. After the puking incident, I figured I wouldn't even bring it up and just wait until I got home to do some investigating myself.

Now it was almost four o'clock, and I needed to get my butt in gear.

As if on cue, my phone rang again. Calvin.

“Where the Jesus have you been?” Cal said before I could even spit out a
hello
. Garrett, meanwhile, pulled away with a squeal of tires.

“I slept late, then went to the beach for a run with Garrett,” I told my friend.

“Excuse me, who?” Calvin said, even though I knew he'd heard me clearly. This connection was pretty good.

“He dropped by and said he wanted to help look for
Tasha
, but we went for a run instead,” I reported. “For the record, you were right.”

“Right about what?” Cal sounded annoyed.

“Garrett,” I replied. “He's a douche.”

There was a pause, and I heard Calvin sighing into the phone. “Man, Sky, I don't mean to be a drag, but could you please just shoot me an
I'm ok
on days like this? Maybe you've forgotten, but we almost got our asses
shot
last night.”

Cal had a point. And I
had
almost forgotten. Until Motorcycle Girl appeared at the beach. Assuming, of course, that she wasn't a hallucination conjured up by my Greater-Than brain, God help us all.

“Sorry,” I apologized as I opened the door with my house key. My mom wasn't back yet from shopping, which was good. That meant I could talk freely without fear of her overhearing. I quickly filled Calvin in on the GPS debacle and warned him to keep his texts vague.

I locked the door behind me after I went inside, remembering that awful sewage smell and the sense of evil it had carried with it.

Calvin had been appropriately silent for a moment, but now said, “Tasha?” as if what I'd told him about Garrett had just penetrated.

“That was the first douche-y thing he did.” I laughed. “It wasn't the last.”

“Garrett's douche-y-ness knows no bounds,” Calvin agreed.

“Get over here,” I commanded him as I went into the kitchen. “I just walked in. And I need to tell you about a trillion different things. I need to show you something too. Are you hungry? I could make some pasta.”

I could hear Calvin as he shut the creaky door that connected his mudroom to his garage. “I am, but your mom's treating you to pizza in about forty minutes, so you should wait to eat.”

I had already stuck my hand into a bag of corn chips. I removed it and licked salt off my fingers. “Wait. And how do you know this?”

“Saw her just a little while ago. I'll 'splain when I get there.”

A few minutes later—time I spent online googling racing records—Calvin texted me:
im here.

My house, unfortunately, was only partially wheelchair accessible with those steps leading up to the front door. When Calvin came over, he had to text or call when he arrived, so I could let up the garage door. At the back of the garage was a ramp leading to the main floor of the house.

I now hit the button on the inside of the garage, and there was Calvin waiting patiently. He pressed the little joystick on the right arm of his chair and moved himself forward and up into my house.

“Okay, lady, I know the topic is
how
I
spent
my
day
, and you've got a lot to tell me, but I'm going first. And I need you to sit down for this,” Cal said.

“Good news or bad news?” I asked, thinking immediately of Sasha.

Calvin paused, and I could tell he was trying to decide. “Neutral?” he said uncertainly. “But weird. Let's go to your room.”

My bedroom was on the second floor. It was a relative pain in the ass for Cal to get up there, but he knew that it was my sanctuary from my otherwise mom-charged house. I got behind the wheelchair and readied myself for the journey.

Calvin's chair was one of the best on the market, and it came with all of the newest technology—like the retractable ramp in his car.

When he'd first started hanging out with me, his parents not only installed the permanent ramp in the garage, but they also requested that I have the stairs up to the second floor measured so that they could install a special banister. Cal's chair had a retractable clip that attached it to the banister and slid him up and down, kind of like a makeshift escalator.

When we reached the top of the stairs, Cal pressed a button, and the clip disappeared beneath the arm of his wheelchair. “Take a seat,” he said when we'd made it into my room.

I wondered what news could possibly be weirder than the things I was planning on telling and showing him. I hopped onto my bed and sat tailor-style next to my massive heap of pillows.

“So, I'm pretty sure your mom's bangin' Mr. Jenkins.”

I nearly fell off my bed. “
What?
”

Calvin nodded somberly. “I'm sorry, Sky. I know that's really creepy, but I went to the CoffeeBoy this afternoon—the nice one near the mall? That's where I ran into them.”

I seriously wanted to throw up. Mom…and my
band
teacher
? “Wait,” I said, “so they were in CoffeeBoy at the same time? That doesn't mean my mom is…” I shook my head in disgust, unwilling to complete the sentence.

Cal was insistent. “When I walked in, they were sitting in a corner together, huddled over a table. At first I just thought it was some random guy, which would be weird anyway, but then I spotted the comb-over.”

“Oh my God, that is so gross.” I bit a nail. “Seriously, there has to be some kind of explanation.”

Calvin didn't look so sure. “I said hi to them, 'cause otherwise it would have been really awkward, and it was obvious they saw
me
. It's not like there are too many black kids in wheelchairs rolling through Coconut Key.” He pressed the recline button on his chair, and the device tipped him back slightly. He crossed his hands comfortably behind his head. “Anyway, when I went over to their table, they both looked like they were hiding something.”

I couldn't believe it. Even if they
weren't
doing…it, the notion that my mom would grab a coffee with the dorky band instructor was mind-boggling.

“Anyway, your mom played it off real smooth, like she hung with Jenkins on a regular basis and
so
what, blah, blah, blah
. Jenkins turned red and said something like
Good
afternoon, Calvin
. Before I left, your mom told me about the pizza, and would I like to join you.” Cal laughed. “I'll pass, by the way.”

“Thanks a lot,” I replied. But I didn't blame him. My mind was racing. Was it possible that
this
was the reason we'd moved to Florida? Because Mom had a secret boyfriend? But Mr. J was new at Coconut Key Academy this year. I'd started school here last spring, and the old band instructor, Ms. Mackillop, had been awesome. But she'd really been old, and she'd retired at the end of the school year.

Leaving the position open for Mr. Jenkins to come in, move me to percussion from first chair clarinet, where I'd excelled, and then rub salt in my wounds by dating my mom.

Calvin shrugged. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. But I didn't want to keep it from you.”

“No, it's good you told me,” I said. “Can we change the subject?”

Calvin nodded.

I took a deep breath. “You're probably not going to believe this,” I started.

“After the last couple days?” Calvin asked. “Try me.”

“Okay. Well, first of all, I want you to look at my wall and tell me if you see anything different.”

Cal glanced over to where I was looking and laughed. “Girl, really?”

“Tell me what's different,” I insisted.

“There's no cat poster.”

“There's no cat poster. That's right. I just thought I'd let you witness that yourself, in case you thought I'd been blowing smoke.”

“Nah,” Cal said, “I believed you when you told me. I just don't think the bogeyman is responsible.”

“Neither do I,” I said, agreeing with him. “And that's where it gets intense.” I stood up and walked away from my bed. “Okay. Brace yourself.” I paused. “
I
moved it.”

Cal looked at me. “Okay…”

“But I didn't simply move it,” I continued. “I moved it”—I paused dramatically—“with my mind.”

Calvin's eyes got wide for a second. He was still looking at me. Several seconds of silence passed, and then Cal started to laugh.

“It's not funny,” I said.

Calvin wasn't just laughing now. He was officially hysterical. “Oh,” he said, holding his stomach. “Oh, Sky, you're killin' me!” He wiped tears from his eyes.

“Cal, it's not funny,” I said again.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” he said, throwing his hands up in the air as if surrendering. “It's just…what? You're some kinda whatchamacallit? A Greater-Than?” His comment sent him back into hysterics.

“Yes,” I said. “I think maybe I am.”

That only made him laugh harder.

I'd expected this, and I even forgave him, because he had no idea how absolutely the idea freaked me out. I just sat down at my desk and waited for him to stop.

When he finally came up for air, I said, “Remember April? Not month-April, but girl-April. Crazy-girl April.”

Cal nodded, looking at me with his
of
course
heavy in his eyes.

He and I had met and become friends after a really scary incident where a girl named April brought a pair of handguns to school, with the intention of committing suicide-by-cop.

“She focused on me,” I reminded him. “She kept saying
You're one of us
. Maybe she was a Greater-Than too.”

But Cal was shaking his head. “Sky, she was messed up. Mentally ill.”

“Yeah, but maybe that was because she was a Greater-Than.” The online articles I'd read had said G-Ts were often driven crazy. That scared me.

Cal was not convinced. “So what was her power?” he asked. “She wasn't super-strong or super-smart.”

“Maybe she was behind all those broken windows.” Right when the police had arrived at the school, the cafeteria windows had shattered. One theory was that they'd been shot out by a trigger-happy cop, another was that some brave anonymous student had broken them as a diversion to distract crazy April.

“Yeah, because that's an awesome superpower,” Cal scoffed, “if your superhero name is Vandal Girl.”

“I'm pretty sure G-Ts don't have superhero names,” I said.

“They absolutely don't,” Cal agreed. “Because, sorry, G-Ts are
not
real.”

“Sorry, you're wrong.”

“Prove it,” he shot back at me. “If you're a Greater-Than, wow me with your amazing powers.”

“Okay.” I got up, walked over to my bedside table, and picked up my hairbrush.

Cal's face grew solemn. “Sky, you actually believe this craziness,” he said, and it was less a question and more of an observation.

“I do,” I said with conviction. “It'll take me a second, though. So please just be patient and quiet.”

I closed my eyes and repeated last night's litany of people, places, and things that really incensed me. My face began to heat up. That was good.

I opened my eyes and Calvin had the tiniest smirk on his face. It made me angrier. That was good too.

I stared at the hairbrush and focused all of my potentially Greater-Than brain cells on any unpleasant, anger-inducing image I could muster.

“What are you trying to do?” Calvin whispered.

I shushed him, focusing more, furrowing my brows together in concentration. I thought about my mom and Mr. Jenkins, and my face heated up even more.

But the hairbrush didn't move.

I thought about Mr. Jenkins coming over for family dinners, buying my mom flowers, and trying to offer me fatherly advice.

But the hairbrush still didn't move.

And then I thought about what it would mean if I really was a Greater-Than, like I'd googled and read about last night. The words I'd said to Calvin echoed inside my head:
Apparently, having these weird superpowers can turn Greater-Thans kind of crazy too. Mean-crazy.
I didn't want to become a compassionless, superior freak who was mean-crazy. And I wondered if the change would happen quickly, or more slowly and gradually. Either way, the idea made me
sick
. It
pissed
me
off
!

Calvin's wheelchair rocketed forward to the wall and then abruptly spun around three times in rapid succession before stopping.

The hairbrush, however, had not moved.

“Damn!” Calvin said, clearly ruffled. “I must have bumped the joystick.”

“How could you have bumped the joystick,” I exclaimed, “with your hands behind your head? That's just
stupid
.” Uh-oh, I'd just called my best friend stupid. Was I already becoming compassionless and superior?

Calvin didn't seem bothered by it. “You're stupid,” he said, but I could see something in his eyes that wasn't there before. “Sky, hello. You didn't move me with telekinesis. Really. I probably bumped the joystick coming up the stairs. A wire's probably loose. I'll take the chair in for a tune-up—”