The Odds of Lightning (2 page)

Swish.
Will hung up. “Whattup?” he said to no one.

Will took a few more shots (
swish, swish, swish
), then opened a practice test book and chewed on his pencil eraser. It tasted salty and kind of satisfying. He didn't stop chewing right away.

His phone pinged again.

PARTY
was all Jon said this time.
YOUR PLACE.

Will chewed on the eraser some more. If he said no, the whole team would be mad at him.

JUST THE GUYS?
Will wrote back.

TOTALLY. AN INTIMATE PRE-STANDARDIZED-TEST AFFAIR.

OKAY, SCREW IT. LET'S HAVE A PARTY.

PARTY!!!!!!!

Will took a deep breath. He was doing this.

PARTY!

He wrote back.

Will chucked the phone back onto his bed and rubbed his face.

He changed out of his Daybrook Athletics sweats and tried not to think about how much he'd changed since he and Nathaniel had been friends. Real friends.

And how different he was now. Unrecognizable, even.

He barely knew who he was anymore.

  *  *  *  

Nathaniel hung up the phone and looked down at his bed. His practice books were all laid out the way he'd arranged them half an hour before, in an arc from hardest to easiest so he'd end the night on a note of confidence. His box of Cheez-Its was waiting for him on the desk.

But he hadn't looked at any of the books since he'd finished arranging them. Instead he kept folding and unfolding the Anders Almquist Earth Science Scholarship application.

For the past three years Nathaniel's dream in life was to follow in his brother's footsteps and win the Anders Almquist and get into MIT's EAPS program—Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences—to study geophysics. As far as Nathaniel was concerned, space got all the credit for being mysterious. Like, do wormholes exist? Are there other universes besides our own? What happens if you get sucked through a black hole? But if Tobias taught him anything, it was that there were enough mysteries within the Earth itself to occupy the rest of his life. The shifting of tectonic plates, electromagnetic currents crashing together in clouds, the kinetic energy of falling objects, the inescapable gravitational pull of the Earth's core. And how each of those mysterious forces conspired to control our lives. The spin of the Earth might cause a car to crash, for instance, or a bicycle to spin out of control on a humid late-summer night.

Tobias taught him that everything was connected.

The application for the Anders Almquist Earth Science Scholarship had been due on his adviser's desk no later than eight a.m. that morning.

Nathaniel had stayed up until three, working on it. His parents had warned him not to save it all for the last minute. But they were so used to Tobias, perfect Tobias, who never saved anything till the last minute. And, of course, Nathaniel had lied. Every time they checked in, he said he was fine. He was almost done. So they went to bed, and before he knew it, he stopped hearing cars on the street below and started hearing the clanking of predawn garbage trucks, and then the next thing he knew he was starting awake and it was 8:05 and the sun was streaming in through his window and there was a puddle of drool on his computer keyboard. On the screen, the cursor was blinking in the middle of an unfinished sentence.

He made it to school, disheveled and disoriented, the printed-out unfinished application clutched in his hand.

But he was too late.

Tobias would never have let something like that happen. He would have finished it early and he would have gone to bed early and not slept through his alarm and he would have made it to school in time to hand it in and he would have done it all without breaking a sweat.

Nathaniel had been sweating.

He unfolded the application again and smoothed it out on top of the first test book (the hardest one). It had four distinct lines creased into it, from being folded into quarters in his pocket all day.

Because he knew, deep down, that he would never be up there onstage presenting his paper like his brother once had. Not now and not ever. He would never be as good as Tobias. His brother was, like, a superhero. And Nathaniel was just so . . . not.

The creases were really ugly. He folded the application up again and stuffed it into his back pocket in disgust. That was one dream he could give up on. He shoved the books on his bed into his backpack, knocked his cell phone off the desk, and into the front pocket, and crashed out the door.

As he left, his backpack hit the desk chair, sending Cheez-Its cascading across the carpet.

  *  *  *  

Tiny slid to the floor, leaning her head back against the cool tile.

She opened the box. Did the tube in her hand have life-changing properties? Would she look cool? Would she look stupid? Would anyone notice? Was it worth the risk to find out?

She twisted off the cap. Some of the hair dye dripped into a puddle of water on the tiled floor, making crazy patterns before turning the entire puddle a muddied brown. Tiny stared at it. She wished she could be a drop of dye swirling in water, twisting and unfurling in clouds and billows and patterns like there was no stopping her.

  *  *  *  

Lu sat at her computer, repeating Hermia's lines over and over, resolved that it didn't matter one zillionth of an ounce what she got on the SATs if she wasn't going to college. In the middle of shouting “What, can you do me greater harm than hate?” Will Kingfield popped up in her news feed.

STORMPOCALYPSE PARTY! COME OVER IF YOU DARE.

Lu suddenly got quiet.

Josh Herrera would be at that party.

She and Tiny didn't go out a lot together these days. Tiny would want to play it safe and stay home. Lu would need a great reason to convince her to leave the apartment during a storm like this, especially with the SATs the next day. And now she had one. Kissing Josh.

That, and Lu
always
accepted a dare.

  *  *  *  

The party wasn't Will's fault, really. Or that's what he was telling himself.

It wasn't his fault that he had trouble concentrating. It wasn't his fault that he could never say no to his teammates. It wasn't his fault that Nathaniel took his sweet time getting there. It wasn't his fault that Jon Heller, standing over his shoulder while Will typed, pushed
post
and made the most epic status update ever official.

By the time Nathaniel got there, the guys were already in the den playing Golf on the Playstation, drinking Will's dad's Bud Lights, and texting the girls to come over.

“SATs!” they shouted every time they swung.

Nathaniel stood in the doorway and looked from the TV to the guys to Will.

Will didn't want to be taken on a guilt trip.

“Dude.” He smiled, knowing Nathaniel wouldn't argue. “Early study break?”

  *  *  *  

There were so many things Nathaniel should have been doing instead. He should have been studying. He should have been sleeping. He should have been relaxing and letting his brain rest the night before the biggest test of his life, as his parents had advised him to do. The voice in his head was telling him to go home. But he couldn't go home. Now that he was no longer working toward the Anders Almquist Earth Science Scholarship, Nathaniel didn't know where he was supposed to go anymore.

  *  *  *  

The first flash of lightning lit up the sky outside Tiny's window. Her mind filled with images she couldn't control and couldn't stop: the churning black water of the East River, the shimmer of heat lightning above the skyline, the sound of crunching metal and shattering glass.

The memory of her first kiss and everything that came after.

All she wanted was to forget. But lightning would always make her remember.

  *  *  *  

Come over if you dare.
Lu picked up her cell phone and speed-dialed Tiny's number. Whatever—there was no one home to stop her.

  *  *  *  

Will took the six-pack and cracked open a beer. He tossed one across the room to Nathaniel.

  *  *  *  

Nathaniel looked at the blue can in his hand and then back at Will. He thought about the books in his backpack on the floor by the foot of the stairs.

  *  *  *  

Tiny's phone rang in the bedroom. Without another thought, she pulled the curtain closed and went to get it.

  *  *  *  

It's not like my mom would even notice if I tanked,
Lu thought.

  *  *  *  

“Here's to tonight!” Will boomed, raising his can. “Carpe fucking diem!”

  *  *  *  

“Here, here!” Nathaniel heard himself shout.

  *  *  *  

There comes a time in your life,
Tiny realized as she answered the phone,
when you just have to say—

  *  *  *  

At a certain point,
Lu thought as she heard Tiny pick up—

  *  *  *  

“Because sometimes,” Will said to the group, “everyone knows you gotta just—”

  *  *  *  

“What the hell?” Nathaniel said, taking a sip.

“Fuck it.”

There were some things you just couldn't put into words.

“Tell me again how you got your nickname,” Luella said through a mouthful of Lego candy.

It was the last day of summer, and Tiny and Luella were sitting outside the Guggenheim Museum, contemplating their futures. They wore shorts and flip-flops and tank tops, and still felt overdressed. It was the hottest day of the year by far, and the entire city was engulfed in a sticky, thick, edible humidity. The heat was a tangible, visible, moving thing, rising up off the sidewalk as if it were alive.

Tiny just hoped they could get everything on their Last Day of Summer Itinerary done before the skies opened up on them. It was eight in the morning. They had the whole day in front of them, and there was a lot they still had to accomplish. Traditions were important. They gave your life purpose and structure and meaning. When the world got crazy and nothing felt permanent anymore, they helped tether you to the ground. They helped you remember who you were.

Tiny felt like she'd hardly seen Luella at all this summer, which is why today's traditions were extra important.

Tiny and Luella—Tlu, as they called themselves often, or Talulah when they didn't feel like abbreviating, or Tine or Tine-O or Loozles when they referred to each other individually—met at eight in the morning on the first and last day of every summer. They walked through Central Park to the Guggenheim, by far the coolest building in New York, and sat on the wall out front, watching the tourists. Luella would eat candy. Tiny would eat normal breakfast foods. It was always the same. It was comforting. Some things between you and your best friend should never have to change.

Other traditions on the last day of summer were:

Meeting Will and Nathaniel for a picnic lunch at the Alice in Wonderland statue by the boat basin.

Getting gelato that night, and everyone had to pick the weirdest flavor possible.

Doing one thing you've never done before.

The last one was Tiny's favorite. She looked forward to it every summer. She made lists throughout the year, saved up all of her firsts for that one special day, to keep the tradition intact.

“Tell me again how you can eat candy for breakfast?”

“It's just one of my many lovable quirks.” Luella grinned. Her teeth were pink with melted candy. “Now tell me.”

“You know how I got my nickname,” Tiny said.

“Yes, but it's hot and I'm bored and I want you to
tell
me.”

Tiny put her notebook down.

“Once upon a time, there was a girl named Emma. She lived in New York City, the biggest, craziest, best city in the world. She wanted nothing more than to grow up into a strong, well-respected cultural icon. But one day, she angered a vengeful troll. And so he cursed her. With tininess. In perpetuity.” She picked her pen up and started writing again.

“Hm,” said Luella. “That's not how I remember it.”

“I took some storytelling liberties.”

“Good job, Sister Grimm.” Luella squirmed, trying to see over her shoulder. “What are you writing?”

“A poem.”

“What's it about?”

Tiny flipped the notebook closed. “I can't tell you.” It was a love poem, kind of. Luella would make so much fun of her if she found out.

  *  *  *  

As always, the real story of how Tiny got her nickname was less epic than the fairy tale she'd made up about it.

It all started when Tiny was little, in nursery school, or maybe kindergarten. Nathaniel had made up a game called Science Club. The four of them—Tiny, Nathaniel, Lu, and Will—used to huddle over Nathaniel's kitchen table after school, pouring different ingredients into glass jars and documenting the results.

Salt + Water = Salty Water

Vinegar + Baking Soda = Frothy Bubbles

That was back when Tiny went by the name Emma. Because that was the name her parents had given her, and no one had ever called her anything different. Even at five, Luella was always the dramatic one, and Nathaniel was the smart one, and Will was the funny one. Emma was just . . . Emma. The quiet one.

Until the day everything changed.

It was the day Tobias walked into the kitchen, carrying a robotic hand made of balsa wood. Four years older, Tobias was the real scientist. He won the science fair every year and always had the coolest project in the class. He had curly dark-brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses, and was wearing a T-shirt with Han Solo and Chewbacca drawn in the style of Calvin and Hobbes.