Flying (6 page)

“What the hell?” He grabs my hands in his. I like how his fingers feel.

“I know, right?”

“Holy … Wow, that's hot,” he blurts.

“I know, right? Wait. Really? You think it's hot?” I blurt right back.

Just then, the locker-room door opens and Mrs. Bray, our cheering coach, barges inside. Her face is all twisted up with rage. Her pudgy hands go to her waist. “The game is back on. You should both be out there right now. And what in heaven's name are you doing in the girls' locker room, Lyle? Oh! The lockers! Oh, heavens! Are those holes in the ceiling?”

Lyle backs away from me and holds up his bloody hands, trying to calm Mrs. Bray down. “Mana got hurt.”

Mrs. Bray gasps and turns white. She and blood do not get along. One time I came down funky from a twist and knocked Seppie's nose with my shin, and it started bleeding all over the mat. Mrs. Bray passed out.

“Oh, don't pass out, Mrs. Bray,” I say, rushing toward her.

But of course she doesn't listen. No way. Because that would be what would happen on a good day, and today is definitely not that.

 

CHAPTER 3

It takes almost an entire quarter to revive Mrs. Bray, find Deputy Bagley—who tells me we need to make an appointment to talk—and for things to straighten out again. The game continues on, with Thomas being his superstar-point- guard self and making Seppie swoon silently. We crush Central. All is good.

But it's not, because I keep remembering what I saw and what I did.

“It's time to start…”

How can someone spit acid?

“A new tradition…”

Or vanish?

“The Knights are back…”

I mean, Dakota and that guy vanished—just—poof!—gone. And I leaped around like I was in Cirque du Soleil.

“And we're on a mission.”

Lyle peeks over at me, even though we are supposed to be staring straight ahead like good little cheerleaders.

“The time has come. What more can we say?”

I wink at him to show I am not concussed.

“West High. Falcons. We'll blow…”

We all blow a kiss. I blow mine at him. His face actually flushes.

“… you away!”

Right at the buzzer, Thomas sinks a three-pointer from way outside the curving red line. The moment we're all done yelling and applauding for the boys and their collective glory, we head to the locker rooms to change. Seppie jerks me aside, bringing me over by the rows of sinks, and gets all demanding. She yanks her braids out of the elastic that was holding them all into one thick ponytail and grunts at me. “What is going on?”

I shrug. I do not want to get into it with Seppie, because Seppie is the sort of person who never believed in Santa, not even when she was two. She's the sort of person who doesn't believe in true love. She believes in endorphin rushes and hormonal surges. She is not the type of person who is going to believe in disappearing men, or boys with acid-tongue spitting abilities.

So I answer her the only way I can. “Nothing.”

“Okay, right.” She starts anger-bopping her head at me. Her nails scratch lightly into my upper arm. “You
don't
have a big gash in your leg. You and Lyle
weren't
hanging out alone together in the locker room. And Mrs. Bray did
not
pass out.”

“Random stuff.” I pull my arm away and check out my reflection in the mirror. I'm pale, way too pale, and there are ugly splotches under my eyes.

“Don't you ignore me, Mana.” She shoves her face right above mine. Her jaw rests on the top of my head, and when she talks, it moves against my hair. “You were off in the cheers, like, a beat behind, and so was Lyle.”

“That has to be one of the seven deadly sins, right there. Pure evidence of brain trauma,” I quip.

“Shut up. For a cheerleader it is. You're never off.”

“Lyle thinks I have a concussion,” I admit, because sometimes it's better to give a nugget of truth instead of just denying everything.

“Do you?”

It would be better to pretend I did, better than trying to explain, so I sigh and say, “Okay, maybe.”

She steers me to the bench and sits me down.

“Do not change your clothes,” she orders. “I'm getting Lyle and we're getting out of here.”

My hand touches my too-fast heart. “Out of here sounds good.”

She thumbs-ups at me, all in-charge doctor's daughter. She scoots past the fund-raising food table, where the leftover moms of freshmen who don't have cars are tidying up and waiting for their kids. Our chocolate-covered pretzels are still there; most of them sold, of course. Who can resist a chocolate-covered pretzel? Not my mom. Usually she eats any that don't sell. There are a few pretzels slanted and leaning against the rim of the container. They seem abandoned, unwanted, and yummy.

“Hey!” I yell after Seppie. “Did you see my mom anywhere?”

She thinks for a second and says, “No. Weird.”

If she only knew the things I could tell her about weird.

*   *   *

People are always trying to protect me. I think it's because I am the flyer. I get thrown around, flipped in twisting tosses, held up in the air, grasped and cradled when I dismount. Seppie and Lyle are my bases, my foundation; they catch me, refuse to let me crash to the mat. They keep me safe when we stunt, and they sometimes get carried away and do it with our lives, which is usually annoying, but tonight … tonight I just let it happen.

Seppie feeds me Advil in the car. Lyle checks my leg gash and my pupils. He takes my pulse.

“It's a bit high, but I think she's good to go.” He makes this funny motion with his hand. “Of course, I'm a cheerleader, Jim. Not a doctor.”

“
Star Trek
references now … nice,” I mutter. “Next, you'll just have a little plaque on your forehead with a constantly running red digital readout that says
GEEK ALERT
.”

“Hey. I wouldn't talk,” Lyle says, eyes flashing with happiness. “You
got
the reference.”

I groan. “Too true, but only because you insisted on that marathon this summer before you would let me watch the movie versions with all the hot actors.”

“
Star Trek: The Original Series,
or TOS, as we call it. Good times … good times…” Lyle adjusts his coat and yanks up one of the laces on his shoe. His fingers move so quickly. I blink to force myself not to stare. “Always better than the J. J. Abrams versions.”

“So much less hot.”

“Excuse me,” he counters. “Nimoy versus Quinto. Old Spock wins and you know it.”

“Yes, but Shatner versus Pine. Pine is so-o-o much hotter.”

“Shatner was hot in his day.” Lyle blinks hard.

“You are so wrong.”

Seppie clears her throat. “You two are tangenting again.”

“I prefer the word
digressing,
personally,” Lyle says.

“Whatever.” Seppie starts the engine. Heat blasts out of the vents, for which I am grateful, and we drive home. “Mana. No parties for you tonight.”

“But it's party night! Teacher in-service day tomorrow. No school. Those are the best parties.”

“She's whining. Mana, you're whining,” Lyle says. He pulls me over so that I can lean on his shoulder. Car headlights flash into the cab of the truck, illuminating his face, which seems a little funny from my angle. I'm kind of beneath his chin, and it's so nice there that I might never move, at least not of my own free will.

“I am not whining,” I mumble, but I am, and it's because I'm completely freaked and I don't want to be alone, thinking about what just happened. About Dakota and his tongue. The cranky man named China. How I could jump like that, like some sort of frog.

“Delayed response.” Seppie turns on her high beams and zips down the road.

“Very delayed response, indicative of her head trauma,” Lyle mocks.

“I have no head trauma,” I say, and sit up straight, remembering. “Seppie, you're supposed to be at Anna's tonight, because tonight is—”

“My fantastic hookup night with the fantastic Tyler Carter, and if not him, then the equally fantastic point guard, Thomas,” she finishes. “Yes, I know.”

A car approaches. She turns on the low beams. Lyle rubs at my arms, trying to warm me up, I guess. Seppie sighs hard.

“Seppie is still going,” Lyle explains. “She's just dropping us off first.”

“Us?”

“You and me,” he says. “Damn, Seppie, your heater sucks.”

“I know.” She turns onto Hardy Road, which is almost to our subdivision.

I sit up straighter and put my hands in front of the heater vent. Then I say, pretty reluctantly, because I'm just trying to be polite, “You don't have to come home with me.”

Lyle taps my thigh with his fingers. “No big. I live, what, three houses away?”

“But you probably want to go hook up, too.”

Seppie snorts. “When does Lyle not want to hook up? The key word here is
want;
notice that the word
want
is not the same as
does
.”

He reaches behind my back and punches her in the arm. She swerves. “Jerk. Way to win over the ladies, assaulting them.”

“It works for all the neanderthals,” he deadpans, and we both groan and hit him. Seppie calls him a sexist, even though we both know he doesn't mean it, and he pulls me back against him. “How is our little concussed one? Still seeing people disappear?”

“No,” I say. “Why is there no music?”

“Loud music sucks for concussions.” Seppie turns again. “You saw people disappear?”

I shrug. She's reacting like this is a big deal, and we haven't even told her about what I can do. What I did.

“We should probably take her to the hospital,” Seppie says.

“I'll ask her mom. We'll need insurance cards and all that,” Lyle says.

“Hey, I'm right here.” I unbuckle my seat belt as Seppie swerves into our driveway. I stare up at the house. The lights aren't on. “She's not home?”

“Probably not back from the game yet,” Seppie says.

Some hard thing nests inside my gut, a giant ball of dread. “My mom always zips out of there. She hates talking to the other moms.”

“Maybe she met someone,” Lyle says, shrugging off his seat belt and opening the door. We are no longer touching; this sucks.

“And they are having a romantic rendezvous at his place.” Seppie singsongs it out like a soap opera character.

“Right. My mom…”

Lyle laughs. “Maybe Deputy Bagley.”

“Do not make me puke. I really don't want to have to talk to him.” I pull myself out of the truck. The impact of landing on the driveway sends little shock waves around the gash in my leg. Seppie argues and frets that she should stay with me and Lyle till Mom gets home, but we convince her that leaving me does not equal being a bad friend.

I finally order her, “Go be a total flirt, okay, Seppie?”

“Obviously.” She laughs.

I slam the door shut and she backs out of the driveway, honking as she goes.

“Poor Tyler,” Lyle says. “He stands no chance.”

“It'll be good for him.”

Above us, the night sky stretches and stretches across everything, black and deep and full of unknowns.

Lyle sneaks his arm around my waist and carries both our bags over one arm. “Just to make sure you don't fall down.”

“Lyle, you are being super sweet and awesome, but you did see me do a quadruple twist, right? You did see me when I cheered a whole quarter. I am not concussed. I am okay,” I say, but I don't move away. I know I'm hyperfixated on all this touching, which is not how you are supposed to be when someone is just your best friend, but for some reason Lyle's arm makes me feel better, like it always does when I'm coming out of a stunt and plummeting toward the ground. I know he will catch me. I know the moment I feel his arm that I will be safe.

He mocks Mrs. Bray's voice. “Yes, you were a good little cheerleader, all sticking in there for the squad.”

“Better than Mrs. Bray.”

“A hell of a lot better,” he says as we walk across the porch. “I can't believe she went home in an ambulance.”

“She is pretty melodramatic. I mean for a—”

“Cheerleading coach?”

“No, for an old person.”

“They did a good job stitching your leg up, though,” he says as I search for my keys. He pulls them out of the front pocket of my bag. “You always put them there.”

“Thanks.” I smile at him.

“We should probably talk about how you did the twist. That was beyond amazing. I had no idea you could do that.” He smiles back down at me and it feels funny, different between us, all of a sudden. It feels like the air vibrates or pulses. Maybe I really did hit my head. I glance away first and move to put my key in the doorknob, but the moment I do, the entire door swings open. It's already unlocked! I jump back. Lyle's fingers tighten their hold on my arm.

“What is it?”

“It's
always
locked.” I pull away from him, flick on the lights, and yell, “Mom?”

The lights blind me for a second, but just a second. Then I see it. The entire living room is demolished. The couch is upside down. The cushions are spilled across the floor, ripped apart. Mr. Penguinman, my ancient stuffed animal that I named when I was three, who should be in my bedroom, sits all the way up in the ceiling fan. Television wires and cables lie tangled on the floor, and the sliding glass door to the porch is …

“Holy…” Lyle mutters, but he doesn't move.

“Lyle!” I scream. “Get down!”

And just as I scream, something smashes toward us, flashes fast above my right shoulder, and crashes through the double windows. Glass shatters. I race after it, bashing past the still-frozen Lyle and onto the porch. Dakota freaking Dunham flies down the driveway and then gains altitude, zipping up above the trees.