Zip (5 page)

“What do you mean?” Penn crouched closer to her webcam, until Lyssa could see the little flecks of gold in the middle of her brown eyes.

“When is the performance?” Lyssa asked, purposely avoiding Penn’s question. The fewer who knew about her plan, the fewer people who would try to talk her out of it.

“Less than a week,” Penn said. She narrowed her eyes. “But, Lyssa, how did you know…”

“I’ll explain later. Less than a week, huh? That should give me enough time.”

“Time to do what?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Lyssa pulled open the bottom drawer of her nightstand. There were still a few sandwich bags of homemade granola bars hidden there. She’d made them last week but kept them in her bedroom because if she left them in the kitchen, Michael ended up eating them all. The granola bars were made from her mom’s secret recipe. She and Ana used to bake together all the time. Sometimes, when Michael was up in his room working, Lyssa would pull out her mom’s old cookbooks and make one of her favorites—black bean brownies or pumpkin soy cheesecake. Then it was almost like her mom was in the kitchen with her.

She grabbed the bags and shoved them into her backpack.

“Lyssa.” Penn scooted closer to the screen. Unlike Lyssa’s giant computer screen, Penn had only a tiny laptop. She was probably trying to see what Lyssa was doing. “What’s going on?”

Penn’s tone of voice made Lyssa pause. It was her lion tamer voice—the same voice she used when Lyssa wanted to go scuba diving in the water tower, or put cooking oil on her scooter’s wheels to make them go faster, or cut off the sleeves of all of her winter coats because they were too itchy. It was Penn’s way of telling Lyssa that she was going a little crazy. Usually, Lyssa listened to her.

But not this time. It wasn’t just the dream and the paper airplane that made Lyssa want to get back home. She and her mom left their roots in Austin—roots that were about to be dug up. She couldn’t let that happen. Her mother had
wanted
the community center. It was supposed to be a reminder of the beautiful life she had created with Lyssa. This wish expanded inside Lyssa’s chest like a balloon. But then she glanced back down at the flyer she was still holding and the balloon popped.

The word
performance
stared back up at her. The Texas Talent Show performers were going to sing and dance and do tricks. Lyssa
couldn’t
help out with the protest—not if it meant getting up on stage in front of a bunch of people. After that last night at the Texas Talent Show, Lyssa hadn’t even been able to
look
at a stage without getting clammy palms and feeling a little dizzy.

She sank down onto the edge of her bed, feeling deflated. Even if she
could
perform, would it be enough to save her
home? Protests had always been her mom’s specialty. One time, Ana took Lyssa to protest the destruction of their favorite park. As soon as Ana sat down on the grass in front of the park, a bulldozer accidentally rolled over a rock and broke down. By the very next day a geologist from the community college showed up at the park to examine the rock and declared it to be a rare Morton Gneiss—one of the oldest rocks in the world. The park never was bulldozed after all—it was turned into a city landmark. Another example of Ana’s rare magic.

Then, just like that, two little puzzle pieces inside Lyssa’s head clicked together. It was so simple that she almost laughed out loud. Maybe she couldn’t sing onstage, and maybe a bunch of Talent Show performers wouldn’t be enough to save her home—but a little of her mother’s magic
would
be. Lyssa just had to find it.

She had to find her mom.

“Penn,” Lyssa said, spinning back toward the computer screen. “Do you remember the stories my mom used to tell us? About the wind?”

Penn nodded, slowly. “But Lyssa,” she said. “Those were just stories.”

Lyssa took a deep breath. “I’m starting to think the stories were real. Something happened today. It felt like the winds of change. It felt like…”

Lyssa let the end of her sentence trail off before she could say the word
magic
. But wasn’t that what had happened when she sailed off the cliff? Her mom’s magic had found and protected her.

Lyssa knew what she had to do. She’d go to Austin, and everything would be okay. Her mom would make sure of it. She would be waiting in Austin, too—as a bird, maybe, or a cat.

Lyssa gazed at her screen. For a second it looked like Penn was going to say something. Instead, she just nodded, and Lyssa wondered if Penn had guessed that her plan was to come home. Sometimes she and Penn thought the same thoughts at the same time. Maybe Penn was thinking about protests and Morton Gneiss and her mom’s magic, too.

“Be careful, Lyssa,” Penn said.

“I’ll call you soon, okay?” Lyssa closed the browser window without waiting for Penn to reply.

Opening up the top drawer of her nightstand, Lyssa pulled out an old peanut jar. Rolled up inside was all the money she’d made that summer from mowing Mrs. Patel’s lawn. It wasn’t a fortune, but it should buy her a few meals and a bus ticket.

Lyssa started to push the drawer closed—then hesitated. Underneath the peanut jar was the scrapbook of her dad’s old concert posters, the one Lyssa had rescued from the trash. She paused, running a hand along the edge of the book.
Part of her wanted to take the scrapbook with her—but it was big and heavy. Frowning, she pushed the drawer closed and shoved the jar into her backpack, atop the odds and ends that she kept there—from dental floss to her favorite ladybug hair clips. She pulled two pairs of jean shorts off a shelf and stuffed them into the backpack along with a few T-shirts, some extra socks and underwear, and a sweatshirt she didn’t like much because of the itchy long sleeves. She looked around the room for anything else she might need and settled on her mom’s seed packet maracas, the only instrument of Ana’s she’d kept. She grabbed the maracas and stuck them into her bag, too.

Last, she packed her purple water bottle, which she’d covered in band stickers. The Texas Talent Show’s sticker was front and center. Lyssa smiled down at it, rubbing her thumb over her mom’s grinning face. For the first time in a while, her mom’s picture filled her with hope and determination instead of with sadness. Ana would be in Austin waiting to help her. Lyssa was sure of it.

She turned to her computer and clicked on her Athena playlist, blasting it at top volume so Michael would think she was still in her room.

“You’re a black cat! You’re a lost key! You’re a million different things that are bad for me…”

Lyssa let the music wash over her as she made a final
survey of her room. Athena’s voice always had the power to inspire her, to help her see exactly what she needed to do and do it. Watching Athena dance across stage at that final concert made Lyssa want to perform in a way nothing else had. There was just something about the spotlights glimmering down on her, flashing blue and green and yellow, and the way the entire audience cheered whenever Athena hit a high note. It was an energy that Lyssa craved—it made her realize exactly why she wanted to be a singer.

Maybe Athena was out there on the road too, looking for something she’d lost. Through the thrumming chords, she could hear Athena sending her a message:
Go for it.

Throwing her backpack over one shoulder, Lyssa pushed her bedroom door open and peeked into the hallway. The house was dark. The only light came from beneath Michael’s door at the end of the hall—the bright, blue-white glow of a computer screen seeping out onto the carpet. Lyssa could hear the rapid clicking of his fingers against the keyboard.

A tiny twinge of guilt made its way into her stomach, like an insect tightrope walking along her gut.

Maybe she was wrong. If she told Michael where she was going, maybe he’d help her. She
liked
Michael. When he and her mom first started dating, it’d been like having a new, different kind of adventure. Michael was the one
who talked Ana into letting Lyssa have a taste of non-organic, sugar-packed soda (the bubbles kept getting up her nose) and he took her to the movies for the very first time (though Lyssa had a hard time sitting through the whole thing). And the three of them used to take picnics together in the strangest places—backstage at the talent show, in the middle of a shopping mall, in Michael’s living room. He would understand…wouldn’t he?

But then Lyssa remembered his face earlier: cheeks bright red, eyes bulging behind thick glasses. His words echoed in her mind.
“You’re never allowed to go off on your own again!”

It wasn’t just their fight. Michael didn’t believe that the world could suddenly spin faster or that wind could sweep into your life and set everything out of order. He wouldn’t understand that Lyssa needed to be back in Austin to find her mother’s magic. He didn’t know how it felt when every cell and hair in your body worked together, pointing you home.

If Michael found out about her plan, that was the end: Lyssa wouldn’t get to Austin, and any chance that she’d have to save their home would be lost. The thought made Lyssa’s throat close right up. This was too important to risk Michael’s interference. She’d never forgive herself if the house got knocked down when she wasn’t there to stop it or if her mom had come back as a bird or a dog or a cat,
like her grandmother had, and Lyssa wasn’t there to find her. She’d have to go it alone.

She slipped on her shoes and crept down the stairs, grabbing an apple and half a peanut butter sandwich from the kitchen. Michael would be in his bedroom working for the rest of the night. He probably wouldn’t even know she was gone until the morning.

And then…well, who’s to say he’d even be mad? He was the one who wanted to send her to school, after all. This might be the change they
both
needed.

“He’ll be happy,” Lyssa whispered to herself.

She crept down the hall into Michael’s empty office. She wasn’t going to tell him where she was headed, but she would leave him a note to let him know she was okay.

Computer screens glowed at her from every direction, each one flashing the same photo of Michael and Lyssa’s mom holding hands at their hospital wedding. They’d turned the hospital room into a chapel and made a couple old hospital gowns into a wedding dress by sewing them together and stitching paper roses to the skirt.

The picture made Lyssa’s heart lurch painfully. She remembered the moment, a week before the wedding, when Michael had taken her aside in the waiting room. He told Lyssa that he’d wanted to ask her mom to marry him for a long time, and he even showed Lyssa the ring he’d
bought (a giant aquamarine—Ana’s birthstone). Before he gave the ring to her mom, Michael said, he wanted Lyssa’s approval. He explained that she was an important part of their three-person family, and she needed to be okay with the marriage if it was going to work. At the time it had been easy for Lyssa to give her blessing.

But now Lyssa didn’t know what to think. They were no longer a family anymore—not really. It was just her and Michael. She sat down at Michael’s desk, facing the largest computer in the room, and thought about what she should write. Finally she opened a Word document and pulled the keyboard toward her.

She reread the message to herself in a whisper.
The winds of change are coming
—what Ana had always said. And now the winds of change were going to blow Lyssa back home.

When she glanced back down at Michael’s desk, she saw the paper airplane sitting next to the keyboard. Weird. She didn’t remember folding it back up into an airplane or carrying it down from her room. She decided it should probably come with her anyway. For good luck.

Beneath the airplane was the journal Lyssa was supposed to write in for her first day of school. She bit down on her bottom lip, considering the journal. If her plan worked, she wouldn’t be going to school in two weeks. She’d be in Austin, where she wouldn’t have to do that stupid assignment at all. Still, she scooped the journal up and shoved it into her now-full backpack. It could come in handy.

Taking one last look at the place that was had been her home for the summer, Lyssa took a deep breath and headed to the garage. There was one final thing she needed.

T
he garage was cold and musty smelling. After stubbing her toe on one of Michael’s skis, then nearly tripping over a pair of running shoes, Lyssa took her cell phone from her pocket and held it out in front of her to help light her way. Even though she had left Zip on the covered porch, she found it propped next to Michael’s bike. Michael always brought it in from the rain. He said it would rust if she didn’t bring it inside. Lyssa ignored the feeling of being watched as the gadgets attached to Michael’s bike winked at her in the half dark, like eyes. She rolled her scooter forward.

“Ready to go, Zip?” she whispered. She patted Zip’s handlebars and pushed the door open

A gust of wind blew into the garage, forcing Lyssa to take a quick step back. The rain was driving hard, stinging drops that cut like cool glass. A flash of lightning tore across the sky. She hadn’t realized the storm had gotten so bad. She took a deep breath, then shoved her scooter into the rain and down the driveway

Clouds obscured the moon and stars. Even the streetlamps seemed dimmer than usual. Silver raindrops shot sideways through yellow pools of light, and when thunder rumbled in the distance, one of the lamps flickered and went out entirely. Water gushed down the street next to her, making it look more like a river than a road

Lyssa had never seen so much rain in her life. One dry summer, she and her mom had tried out this rain dance they read about in a book, but it hadn’t worked—in fact, that night in Austin seemed even hotter than usual. Secretly, Lyssa preferred it that way. She loved when the ground was so warm it burned the bottoms of her feet.

She climbed onto her scooter and kicked off. Riding was more difficult than she expected. Water logged her wheels, causing them to skid, and the rain made her handlebars almost too slick to hold on to. She gritted her teeth. She’d never had so much trouble riding her scooter before. She was the Scooting Star! She’d ridden her scooter over the fire breather’s bed of coals. She could handle a little rain