Zip (4 page)

But that was it: no broken bones, no smashed-up face. Her sneaker had absorbed most of the shock—it didn’t even feel like she’d hurt her ankle. Lyssa had managed a near-perfect landing. She considered her sparkly pink shoes with a newfound respect, then looked back over her shoulder at the cliff she’d just soared over. It rose high into the air—impossibly high. How had she landed without a scratch?

“The universe,” she whispered.

She remembered her mother’s stories about wind, and how the world sometimes spun too fast and crazy things—magical things—started to happen. Her breath catching in her throat, Lyssa stood perfectly still, listening. Was the world spinning too fast now?

But all she heard was the sound of paper rustling in the wind. Looking down, she noticed a piece of blue paper wedged beneath her sneaker. On the corner of the page, Lyssa saw the word
home
.

She slid the paper airplane out from underneath her shoe, holding it carefully in her hands so she wouldn’t smash it. Bold type covered the underside of the plane, along with pictures Lyssa couldn’t quite see. Curious, she slid a finger into the crease just behind the wing and pulled the plane apart.

It was a flyer. She recognized the people in the picture right away: Stumpy and Hank—performers from the Texas Talent Show—were front and center with the trapeze artists, flying monkeys, and strong woman all crowded in behind them. Lyssa flattened the flyer against her leg, rereading the headline:
Austin’s Own
Texas Talent Show Reunites!

A hollow space opened up in the pit of her stomach and she almost had to sit down right there in the middle of the sidewalk. The Texas Talent Show had disbanded after what happened to her mom. All the performers agreed it would be impossible to find a replacement—not that any of them wanted to replace Ana Lee.

But now they were performing without her—and without Lyssa too? Who was going to pull the curtain back for
the opening performance? Who was going to re-paint the set when it started to look worn? And—the thought made it difficult for her to breathe—were they going to
replace
her mom? Was someone else going to braid her hair and put on motorcycle boots and dance around stage with an accordion made out of paperback novels?

Lyssa looked up from the flyer. Who had thrown the paper airplane in the first place? How had it gotten here all the way from Texas? It’s like it had appeared out of thin air. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

The wind makes the world spin a little too fast,
she thought.

At the bottom of the page there was a short paragraph below the photo:

Join hands with the Texas Talent Show for one last concert protesting the destruction of beloved singer Ana Lee’s home. Show the Austin Real Estate Corporation that we’re not letting them knock down this community landmark without a fight!

Lyssa clutched the paper so tightly that it crumpled beneath her fingers. Her mom’s house—
her
house? Knocked down?

When her mom had first described her plan to donate the house to a charity, for use as community center, Lyssa hadn’t liked the idea of giving away their home at all.

“But don’t you see? That way we’ll always be there,” her mom had explained. Even sick, lying back on the pillows of the Austin General Medical Center, she had seemed to glow. “We may travel far away, but we’re leaving our roots behind.”

Whenever Lyssa remembered this, she imagined standing shoulder to shoulder with her mom in their backyard, toes dug into the earth and faces lifted toward the sun like they were flowers, like they’d been left behind in the garden even after everything had changed.

Now it felt like they were going to be ripped out of the soil, left to wither in the rain and shade. It made Lyssa’s stomach turn to think about it.

“Lyssa!”

Michael’s voice thundered down to her. He was standing at the top of the cliff, his face bright red. He was clutching his hair with both hands: it stuck out all over his head in awkward clumps.

Michael didn’t usually get upset—Lyssa had only seen him like this once before, when she’d tried to plant a flower garden in one of his new speakers (it looked like a planter!) and short-circuited a wire when she poured water over the seeds. The explosion that followed had made Lyssa’s braids stick straight out.

She knew she should wait for Michael to get down to
her, but the crumpled-up paper plane was making the hollow feeling in her stomach grow even bigger.

Something rumbled in the distance and a fat raindrop fell onto Lyssa’s nose. A storm was coming—just like the storm in her dream. And, just like in her dream, she knew her mother was trying to give her a message.

But this time, Lyssa thought she knew what it was: Go to Austin. Go back home. Stop this, somehow.

Lyssa wiped her nose with the back of her hand and turned away from Michael. Hunching up her shoulders against the chill, she hopped onto her scooter and pushed off, rolling faster and faster, until the evergreens that lined the sidewalk were just a blur of green.

By the time she reached the house, her tank top and jean shorts were soaked all the way through. They clung to her back and shoulders in lumps, making the skin beneath cold and clammy. She pressed her icy blue lips together—trying to keep her teeth from chattering—but her jaw jumped up and down on its own.

All Lyssa could think about was the crumpled-up flyer in her pocket and the horrible words printed across it:
destruction, knocked down.
When she arrived at the house, she leaned Zip against the porch steps and fished the key out of her pocket.

Michael’s house was nothing like Lyssa and her mom’s place back in Austin. The furniture here was sleek and modern, and Lyssa knew none of it had any stories to tell at all.

The only place Michael’s creativity showed was in his love of technology. One or two paper-thin flat-screen monitors hung on every wall. As soon as Lyssa walked into the living room, a frothy wave covered the far wall and came crashing toward her. The sound of water roared in her ears and she jumped, biting back a scream. When she lived with her mom, Lyssa hadn’t owned a TV. Sometimes it was hard to remember that the pictures were just images on a screen. They looked so
real
.

Slipping off her sneakers, she raced up the stairs. As soon as she was in her own room, she pulled off her wet clothes and changed into a fresh tank top and new pair of shorts. Her bedroom was the only place in Michael’s house that still felt a little like home. She’d programmed her giant computer screen to flash pictures of her old room: there was her painted garage-sale furniture and the flowery silk scarves she hung from her windows, fluttering in a breeze she couldn’t actually feel. There was even a mason jar full of sunflowers from their garden sitting on a nightstand.

Usually the images calmed her, but today they just made her feel worse. She dug the wet, crumpled paper airplane
out of her jeans pocket and placed it on one of the plain white dressers she and Michael had picked out for her new bedroom. If what was written on the flyer was true—if her house back in Austin really
was
going to be destroyed—then the pictures would be all that she had left of her life Before.

A door slammed open and closed downstairs.

“Lyssa!” Michael yelled.

The sound of his voice made goose bumps spread up and down her arms. With one last look at the blue flyer, Lyssa pushed her bedroom door open and stepped into the hallway.

“I’m right here.”

She ran her fingers over the ropy lengths of her braids, trying to keep herself from sticking her hair in her mouth. Michael appeared at the foot of the stairs. Water clung to his black-framed glasses and caused his T-shirt to stick to his skin.

“How could you
do
that?” he burst out. His voice sounded more scared than angry, but Lyssa still wrapped her arms around her chest, wishing she could turn around and flee into her room. She forced herself to stand still.

“You scared me, Lyssa.” Michael lowered his voice, shaking his head. “Do you know what could have happened to you?”

“Wait,” Lyssa interrupted. She needed to explain. This was about her mom’s house—her
home
. “You don’t understand…”

Michael didn’t let her finish.

“I don’t want to hear it. You’re
never
allowed to go off on your own like that again. Do you understand that? Never.”

All of the anger and frustration of the day bubbled up in Lyssa’s chest.

“You can’t tell me what to do,” she fired back, before she had time to think about what she was saying.

“Yes, I can,” Michael said. “Your mom left me in charge. It’s my job to make sure nothing happens to you—”

“Nothing
happens
?” Lyssa shook her head, her wet hair leaking water onto her tank top. The bubble of anger inside her grew so big that she thought she might pop. “You’re making me go to school! You’re forcing me to wear shoes—my mom wouldn’t have
wanted
those things to happen to me.”

Lyssa paused, surprised by her own outburst. She’d been excited about going to school—and the shoes weren’t really that bad. But she knew that she couldn’t take her words back. She stuck the ends of her braid in her mouth, forgetting that she was trying not to chew on her hair anymore.

“
Those things
are for your own good,” Michael said.

“You don’t know what’s good for me,” Lyssa said. The cat that was really her grandmother popped into her mind, and the next few words burst out of her mouth before Lyssa could think about them. “My mom will understand. When I find her, you’ll see—”

“Find her?” Michael interrupted. He rubbed his eyes. The red patches on his cheeks had disappeared, and now he looked just like Lyssa felt: cold, wet, and miserable. “But Lyssa, your mom is—”

“No!”
Lyssa screamed. She didn’t want to hear Michael say the next word. “I don’t have to listen to you!
You aren’t my dad
.”

Before he could react, Lyssa spun around and ran into her room, slamming the door behind her. It cracked inside its frame, sending a loud, booming noise down the hall.

Lyssa paused for a second, taking a deep breath and forcing herself to hum a few bars of her favorite Athena song. But her old trick wasn’t working this time. Maybe, Lyssa thought, that’s because the time for staying calm had passed.

Now it was time for action.

Suddenly, Lyssa realized what her nightmares were about. Her mom had been trying to send her a message in her dreams. And then, this paper airplane—just like the
ones she and Ana had learned to make on her fifth birthday—showed up telling her to go to Austin. It was Ana’s special brand of magic. Lyssa knew it in her bones.

Right now, the Texas Talent Show needed her. As for Michael…well, there was just so much that Michael couldn’t understand. Like how summers should be
exciting
, or that flower planters were more important than fancy speakers, and that shoes and backpacks should be yellow—like the sun—not pink like unicorns. And he wouldn’t even let her explain about the flyer, which proved he didn’t get her.

Maybe going back to Austin now would bring back some of her mother’s magic. Michael might not understand that, but there was still one person who would.

She went to her computer, found Penn’s name on her contact list, and hit
Connect
.

S
econds later, Penn flickered onto the screen. She was upside down: her brown curls brushed against the floor while the rest of her body disappeared near the top of Lyssa’s screen. Lyssa squinted at the image of Penn’s room, realizing that Penn was hanging upside down from her mini-trapeze. She kept it in her bedroom and it was kind of like an old stuffed animal or a security blanket. Penn only used it when she was really upset, because she had a much bigger, professional trapeze in her backyard.

Lyssa’s computer screen was so big that the image of Penn was nearly life size. It was almost like Penn was in the room with her, except Lyssa couldn’t smell the strawberry
shampoo she used or the faint scent of smoke that always lingered in her bedroom because she practiced her fire breathing in the corner.

“Penn!” Lyssa grabbed the sides of the computer monitor. “What’s going on? Did you hear what’s happening with my mom’s house?”

“Lyssa, I’m so sorry.” Penn’s voice was shaky. “My parents found out last night. A development company bought your mom’s land—her house, the garden,
everything
. Lyssa, they’re going to knock the house down.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Lyssa thudded down into her desk chair. She couldn’t believe it. Penn always told her everything.

Penn’s eyes were ringed with red, as though she had been crying. “I—I thought you knew! I thought Michael would tell you.”

“He didn’t,” Lyssa said bitterly. She closed her eyes and opened them again. She needed to focus. “What about the community center?”

“They’re saying you can’t build a community center in a residential area. It’s against some stupid law. Wait—hold on a second.”

Penn’s head disappeared. There was a whooshing sound and her screen trembled a little. Lyssa had seen Penn dismount from her trapeze a million times and she
could picture the perfect flip she’d just performed in her room.

“Okay, are you still there?” Penn swiveled her computer around so Lyssa could finally get a good look at her best friend’s face.

Penn’s curls looked more like a lion’s mane than like hair—they were so big they nearly took up the entire computer screen. Whenever Penn was really upset, she fluffed up her curls.

Lyssa pushed back her desk chair and started to pace. Whenever there was this much nervous energy running through her body, she couldn’t sit still. It was as though her body moved without waiting for her brain to tell it what to do. Her mom used to say that’s why Lyssa walked into so many tables.

“Still here,” she said to Penn. She went to her closet and wrestled down her new backpack from one of the shelves. Michael’s sister had given her the backpack as a “congratulations” present since she’d be starting school soon. It even had a blue patch on the front from the University of Washington, where Nora had gone to law school. “But not for long.”