The Gravity Keeper (6 page)

Simon drifted up and over the soda blobs, his arms and legs flailing wildly. For a moment, he was worried. Would this suddenly wear off and send him crashing to the floor? What if gravity never came back? What if the whole house was weightless? Or the whole world?

Then his back gently bumped the ceiling. Simon bobbed in the air and looked at his room below him. This was what he'd always dreamed about, but it wasn't his imagination. This was for real.

He let out a whoop, pushed his elbows against the ceiling, and somersaulted toward the floor. He laughed as he easily pushed off the wood floor with his hands, rebounding up like a giant basketball.

Simon streaked through the air and cheered, bouncing off the ceiling, the floor, and every wall. He spread his legs and arms differently with every leap to twist or spin in a new way. He counted how many flips he could do backward, forward, and sideways, loving every second. There was no fear of crashing or sense of falling because there was no up or down anymore. There wasn't even any dizziness. As far as Simon knew, there was no danger—just the joy of zero
g
.

“Now,” he said, “let's see what else I can do with this Book.” He aimed his bounces to take him back to the desk and grabbed at his chair to pull himself down. But the chair came off the ground and floated across the room; it was weightless, too. And that's when the trouble started.

See, while Simon knew the basics of gravity, he didn't know much more. For example, he didn't know the difference between mass and weight. Mass is the amount of solid, liquid, or gas that make up an object; the more mass something has, the more it weighs when gravity pulls on it. Size doesn't matter: a soccer ball and a bowling ball are about the same size, but the bowling ball is solid inside, weighs a lot more, and is
a lot
less fun to kick around.

Even when there's no gravity and no weight, things keep their mass. Remember that. It'll be important in a few seconds.

Another thing Simon should have learned before he started bouncing around his room was Isaac Newton's three laws of motion. But he was about to take a crash course. Literally.

The first is the law of inertia: a strange name for a simple idea. An unmoving object (like the chair) remains unmoving until an outside force (Simon pulling at it) affects it. Then it keeps moving (in this case, drifting across the room) until other forces (like gravity or air resistance or a collision with the wall) slow it down.

The second law builds on the first. It can be called the law of constant acceleration and says an object's speed depends on how much force is used on it. So the chair would only move as fast as Simon pulled it. The second law also says that because the chair has a lot of mass—more than the floating cup and cap—it takes more effort to move. Simon hadn't pulled it very hard, so the chair moved slowly.

The third law builds on the second and is sometimes called the law of conservation of momentum: a mouthful, I know. But that was the most important for Simon's zero-
g
adventures so far. It says every action has an equal and opposite reaction; it's why Simon floated into the air when he stood up. Each time he pushed against the ceiling, floor, or walls, he sent himself in the other direction. That was great for bounding around his room, yes, but it also meant that a light pull back on the chair equaled a light push forward on Simon.

Because Simon had more mass than the chair and he hadn't used much force on it, that light push forward didn't give him much speed. As Simon drifted near, he grabbed the window frame above his desk.

Unfortunately, Simon couldn't hold on to the frame; he floated back toward the center of the room. His missed grab had lost him a lot of momentum, and since he didn't push off the frame, Newton's second law made him slow down. A lot.

This was the zero-
g
equivalent of your car running out of gas or your legs getting too tired to push your skateboard, scooter, or unicycle (if you happen to like that type of ride). Simon drifted ever more slowly toward the center of his room, losing speed until he had practically stopped, bobbing several feet from anything: the walls, the ceiling, and the floor. Unlike anyone in a car or on a skateboard, scooter, or unicycle, Simon couldn't just walk away. He was stuck.

He tried swimming by scooping at the air with his arms and kicking with his legs. He pumped them hard, frantically trying to move. He switched from freestyle to breaststroke, sidestroke to backstroke, and even tried to dog-paddle. If he'd been underwater, he might have broken Olympic records. But because air was much thinner than water, he didn't move forward. Not an inch.

He wondered again, how long would this gravity-free thing last?

Then he heard something terrifying. “Simon?” His mom was home! “What was all that noise a minute ago?” She'd heard him bouncing around his room!

He looked at the plastic cup, the soda globules, the baseball cap, and several toys—knocked loose by his bouncing—all floating around the room. What if she came in and saw them? Worse, what if she came in and noticed her son hovering in midair? She'd freak out!

He fought his rising panic; he had to calm down and find a way to keep her from coming upstairs. “Sorry, Mom,” he yelled. “Dropped something.”

“What are you doing?” Her voice was closer.

“Nothing!” Simon yelled louder. “Doing homework. Too busy to talk now!”

There was silence; had she stopped? Turned back? Or was she about to open the door? He looked up at the ceiling and let out a nervous breath. Then he gasped; had he drifted downward a tiny bit?

“Those didn't sound like homework noises!” his mom yelled. Simon heard a familiar creak; it was the loose step halfway up the stairs. She was coming; there was no time to lose!

Simon exhaled again, and as the air left his lips, he sank down a little farther. Yes! He was sure of it now: blowing air up sent him moving down. He blew as hard as he could, sinking a bit more.

He was still several feet from the ground so he kept at it, puffing so hard that his lungs started to hurt and his mouth went completely dry, but he was soon able to extend his fingers and just brush against the floor. He made himself wait until he could put both his palms against the floor. He knew he needed a hard push.

Finally, he was close enough; this was his chance! He shoved the floor, launching himself back up to the ceiling. He pushed off the ceiling with his legs, aiming for his desk. This time he grabbed the desk itself, pulling on the edge to keep from slipping away again. Fortunately for Simon, the desk had too much mass for him to move it like he had the chair.

Carefully, oh, so carefully, he pulled himself down until he was face-to-Book with the open
Teacher's Edition
. His whole body was stretched out up and behind him, dangling as if held up by invisible wires. He scanned the pages for the way to undo the gravity problem.

“Simon? Open this door!” There was a loud knocking; she was right outside!

“How do I bring the stupid gravity back?” he muttered. The symbols he read before glowed in reverse order, from the last one to the first. Was the Book telling him how to make things normal again?

Seeing no other choice, he read the symbols in reverse and instantly came crashing down to the floor. So did the chair, the hat, the toys, the cup, and the soda, which splashed all over.

With that, his mom burst through the door. “What was that noise?” She stared at the sight of her son sprawled on the floor in front of his desk, his hands gripping the edge of it. His desk chair was near the door.

Simon groaned and grabbed his baseball cap. He popped it back on his head to cover the bump and then tugged himself to his feet.

“Sorry, Mom. I, uh, was doing some homework and spilled some soda; then I slipped and fell.” He coughed nervously. “And knocked the chair over.”

Sylvia glanced at the mess and then raised an eyebrow at the huge Book. “What is that enormous thing on your desk?”

Simon struggled to remain calm. “That? Just a science book.”

Sylvia brightened instantly. “Wonderful! Pizza okay for dinner?” Without waiting for an answer, she said, “It'll be here in thirty minutes or less. Clean this mess up, then come on down.” She left and shut the door.

Simon sighed with relief. Then he glanced upward and groaned. Now he had to find a way to get his footprints off the ceiling.

The next morning, Simon ran down the stairs for breakfast. He was exhausted from practicing the gravity formula late into the night, but he was too excited to care. He had powers that no other eleven-year-old did, and he didn't have to come from another planet, get bitten by a spider, or be bombarded by radiation to get them.

Plus, he wasn't too worried about his weariness. The Book warned him, through the printed blue messages, that heavy use of the formulas would tire him for at least the first week or two. It also told him that sleep and food would help him recover.

He got to the table and, as usual, found his parents looking over paperwork as they ate. Simon looked at his mom, polished and professional in her business attire. Then he looked at his dad, shirt misbuttoned and hair frizzy like a mad scientist who'd been electrocuted.

Sylvia and Steven Bloom were utterly wrapped up in their worlds, but last night proved that there was a small danger of them finding out about his Book. He knew his mother wouldn't be able to handle the news, and his father would probably drag him into the lab for testing. Simon frowned; he'd have to be very careful with his secret.

Neither parent looked up as Simon sat down. “Did you finish your schoolwork?” Sylvia asked, making a notation on a memo.

“Yes,” Simon said, suddenly nervous that she'd ask him about it.

“That's my go-getter,” Sylvia said at the same time that Steven said, “Good job, pal.” They glanced up at him, smiled, and went back to their papers.

So Simon ate his breakfast (actually, he ate two breakfasts' worth in order to get his strength back) and said good-bye. He stepped outside, with the Book tucked away at the bottom of his backpack, and he thought about using the gravity formula to get to school. If he was careful, he could probably do it without being seen.

Then something caught his eye in the maple tree on his front lawn.

There, on one long, bare branch jutting past the leaves, sat a tiny bird—a sparrow—with gray-brown plumage and a horizontal white stripe across its belly.

Most kids would have paid no mind to the bird, but Simon was not most kids. He watched it carefully; something wasn't right. Sure, it looked ordinary enough. But it wasn't chirping, it wasn't hanging around with other birds, and it wasn't moving. At all. It was staring. Yes, the more Simon thought about it, this sparrow was
definitely
checking him out.

“What are you looking at?” Simon asked aloud.

The bird suddenly turned its head away and didn't look at Simon again. It looked everywhere else but at him, which made it all the more obvious to Simon that it
had
been watching him. That bird was a spy.

I may be crazy or just overtired,
Simon thought,
but if that bird is spying on me, I don't want to use my gravity control.
There could be other spies, maybe wearing a clever disguise. A tree that's really hiding a teacher. A mailbox with a policeman peeking out. A large dog that's really a government official looking to quarantine him for study and use as the next superweapon. There were too many risks, so Simon just walked to school.

From time to time, he peeked over his shoulder while pretending to tie his shoe, check his watch, or just stretch and yawn. Each time, he spotted that same sparrow (the stripe on its belly was a dead giveaway). Every time Simon looked, the bird started that moving-its-head-around routine again, trying to look innocent.

Once at school, Simon was safe; no birds allowed. He didn't even sit near a window in any of his classes. He spent the entire day trying to avoid everyone even more than usual; he even stayed inside at lunchtime.

By his last class, Simon wondered if he'd just been paranoid about the bird. The only strange thing at school was Alysha at the lockers that morning. “You look different,” she said with a puzzled glance. “Taller, maybe.”

(In fact, Simon
had
grown an eighth of an inch overnight, but Alysha was actually noticing the residue left by the energies of Dunkerhook Woods. They were known to give visitors an invisible glow and an untouchable warmth that made their teeth brighter, hair shinier, and earwax less gooshy.)

Before Simon could think of a response, Marcus stopped by. Simon used the distraction to slip away.

Mostly, Simon just waited and waited, eager for the day to end. The bells had never been more grating or the hallway chatter more jarring…even the click of the classroom clock pained him. At last school let out, and Simon and Owen met up by the playground exit of the school. Owen asked where Simon had been during lunch, but Simon, deciding his bird-spy fear was too weird to bring up, just shrugged.

As they walked away from school together, Simon listened to Owen talk about the day in his normal, superfast style. Simon listened as best as he could; he was still fighting his tiredness and looking around for the bird.

Finally, as they stepped onto Jerome Street, Simon couldn't hold back any longer. He interrupted Owen (who was describing the dangers of plastic forks at lunchtime). “Owen, you are not going to believe this. I barely believe it and I lived it. But that Book that fell on my head is magical! Supermagical! But real! I can't wait to show you; you're going to love it!”

Owen, already anxious about the forks, sputtered, “What do you mean, ‘magical'?”

“You'll see,” Simon said. They turned down Van Silas, and the Breeze blew over Simon, making him feel recharged.

As on the day before, Owen claimed he couldn't see the woods until they were stepping up onto the trail. Once inside, though, he smiled at the Breeze's revitalizing touch and marveled at the woods. “Come on, Simon, tell me what you found out about the Book. Do you know where it came from or what it does?”

Simon pulled the Book out of his backpack and showed it to Owen. “Check it out.” He opened it and showed his friend his name beneath Ralfagon's.

“Oh. Cool,” Owen said.

Simon could tell he wasn't impressed, so he told Owen about his activities the night before. He was disappointed by Owen's reaction: he just shrugged. “I guess that's cool,” he said.

“Are you crazy? Did you hear me? I can control gravity, Owen! What, you don't believe me?”

Owen didn't say a word, but he looked away guiltily.

“Okay,” Simon said. “Just watch.” He held the Book in his hands, wanting to hang on to it just in case things got tricky again. Then he looked up and noticed a problem: there was no ceiling. The last thing he wanted to do was to keep floating up into space; that would be dangerous with or without the Book.

Instead, he studied the Book again, deciding exactly which symbols would do what he wanted. All he had to do was arrange them into the right formula. “Okay, here we go. Something a little different from what I did last night.” He gestured from their bodies to the ground. “This is known as one
g
: normal Earth gravity. Jump up in the air as high as you can.”

Owen gave Simon a doubtful look and jumped; his short legs gave him maybe four inches of lift.

Simon whistled. “Wow. Impressive. Now, watch me.” He spoke the formula in that indecipherable Book language. Owen stared at him as if he'd come from another planet.

“This is one-fiftieth
g
,” Simon said. “You might want to stand back.” Then Simon tucked the Book under his arm and jumped as hard as he could.

Owen gaped as Simon launched up into the air, yelling, “Yeeeee-haa!” His hair blew back and his windbreaker flapped around him as he hurtled almost fifty feet into the air. It was easy; he now weighed one-fiftieth of his normal weight, but his leg muscles still delivered the normal amount of force.

Coming down was scarier: he was fifty feet above the ground, after all. Fortunately for Simon, less gravity also meant a slower fall. Rather than plummet down, he gracefully descended and landed on his feet a little farther down the path.

Owen stared for a second before running to Simon. “How did you do that?”

Simon laughed. “With this Book, I think I can do anything!”

Owen looked horrified. “What do you mean, ‘anything'?”

Simon thought about the symbols for gravity. Now that he understood this language, he could command gravity and actually observe how he'd changed things. He looked around him, focusing not on what he saw with his eyes but on what he could feel.

It was like he'd gained a sixth sense. Gravity was more complicated than he ever thought: it connected everything around him like an enormous, intricate web. Every twist, curve, and pocket in the web affected the way the universe worked. And he could change those twists, curves, and pockets.

“With this Book,” Simon said, “I can control all of physics. Gravity is just the beginning.” He struggled not to laugh at the look Owen gave him. It was probably the face a rabbit made before it dug a hole to hide in.

“Are-you-crazy-did-you-see-how-high-you-went-you-could-get-yourself-killed!” Owen shouted.

“Owen, it's completely safe. I swear. C'mon, you try.”

Owen backed away, his hands up, as if to ward off all the tacos and shredded lettuce in the world. (His was a strange phobia, but a phobia nonetheless.)

Simon sighed. He'd have to prove to Owen just how much fun this was. He made a new formula, changing his gravity to one-five-hundredth
g
.

“Just watch me again and you'll see how easy it is,” Simon said. Once again, he jumped up as hard as he could; this time, his jump sent him hurtling about five hundred feet in the air!

Just think about it: the biggest, redwood-size trees in Dunkerhook Woods are about two hundred feet tall. The Statue of Liberty is about three hundred feet tall. The Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt is four hundred and eighty-one feet high. And Simon jumped higher than all of those.

His leap carried him far above the trees, and for a few seconds, he was able to see the tops of houses, the top of his school, the top of the huge town water tower. He could see all of Lawnville—in fact, several neighboring towns—spread out around him. He didn't have much time to enjoy it, though.

Simon yelped as a gust of wind hit him. This wasn't the gentle, energizing Breeze; he was too far above Dunkerhook Woods for that. No, this was real wind, the kind of gust that sends kites soaring hopelessly out of control and balloons far beyond their owners' grasp.

At one-five-hundredth
g
, Simon weighed about the same as two candy bars—fortunately, more than a balloon or a kite. Also, his mass hadn't changed, so he wouldn't be blown away too swiftly. Still, the wind was strong enough to move him; instead of gently descending back down to where Owen waited, he drifted away.

Simon's first reaction was panic. What if he landed in the middle of a highway and got smashed by a car? Or what if he got hit by a passing airplane? Or, worst of all, what if the wind blew him so hard that he never landed at all?

“Keep calm!” he hissed to himself. “What'd I do last night?” After dinner, he'd practiced increasing his weight gradually so he could sink gently to the ground. This would work now, too. But he had to be careful. Too much gravity would send him crashing down to the ground in a messy, painful way.

Simon worked cautiously, using the formula words like a gravity-controlling dimmer switch. He was able to add ounces instead of pounds, and soon the wind wasn't moving him anymore; he was making his way down.

The damage had been done, though. He was no longer heading toward the dirt path. As he dropped lower and lower, he saw he was going to land on a thin branch near the top of one of the tallest trees in Dunkerhook Woods.

Simon clutched the Book in one hand and wrapped his arms around the branch with the other. He felt the branch creak dangerously; he quickly adjusted his gravity formula, making him lighter again. Too much weight and he'd go crashing through all the branches, two hundred feet straight down. Ouch.

What next? He couldn't hop down from branch to branch—what if a branch broke? Or what if he hit his head and knocked himself out?

Simon thought back to the night before. Direction hadn't mattered when he was bouncing around his room, so it shouldn't matter here either. The path and the forest floor didn't have to be down; for him, down was wherever he commanded it to be. He changed the words of his formula and watched gravity around him twist in response. For everything else in the forest, all was normal, but for Simon, gravity now pulled him toward the tree trunk instead of the ground. Now the tree trunk
was
his ground!

Simon stood up straight and started walking down the tree, as if it were a narrow walkway. He steadied himself with the branches as he went, using them to cut down on how much he bounced; just like the astronauts on the moon, his reduced gravity could have sent him flying off with a misstep. He increased his weight little by little as the trunk got thicker and sturdier.

At last, Simon got close to the bottom of the tree; the forest floor was a huge dirt wall to him. Now he had to find a way to switch gravity back without smacking face-first into the dirt.