“She is a tough lady, Kia, and you know how stubborn she is. If anyone can get through an injury like this, she can. Now I don’t want you to worry about her. The doctors are watching her very closely, and Dad and I will still be there for the Opening Ceremony tonight. Malin and Ryne will be too.”
Why can’t they just wake her up?
“I want to talk to her.”
“You know she would talk to you if she could.”
I blink back my tears. “But I wanted her to come here. It’s the Global Championships. I wanted to show her our tree suite and the Creativity Pool and our new invention.”
“She wanted to see all of that too—so much.”
The tears sting my eyes. “Can I see her when I get home at least?”
“Of course, Honey. She would like that. Now tell me about the competition. Are you ready for it? Are you excited for the Opening Ceremony?”
“I was.”
“Grandma Kitty would want you to be excited and enjoy every second of your Piedmont experience, so you can tell her about it when she wakes up. Promise me you’ll still do that.”
I don’t want to promise. I just want Grandma Kitty to be okay.
“Kia?”
“I’ll try.”
“I love you, Kia, and so does Grandma Kitty. You know that. And I’ll see you tonight, okay?”
“Okay.”
I end the call, but I don’t get up. I picture Grandma Kitty lying in a hospital bed with no sparkles in her hair. This is all my fault. I told her to practice riding on her scooter while I was gone. I wanted her to ride it here, but I never should have asked her to do that. She’s a grandma. She’s old. She supposed to ride in a car—an aero-car, not an aero-scooter. And now she’s hurt—all because of me.
The door to the tree suite opens, and Ander climbs down the rock wall. He scrambles across the wiggly bridge and jumps down next to me. “Hey, KK. What are you doing out here? I’ve been looking all over for you.”
I don’t say anything.
“What’s wrong?” His blue eyes open wide. “Are you okay?”
I bite my lip to keep from crying. “My grandma was in an accident.”
“What kind of accident?”
“An aero-scooter accident.”
“Is she going to be okay?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is she in the hospital?”
I nod.
“Then she’ll be okay.”
“I hope so.”
He takes a marble out of his pocket and looks at it. “She will.”
“But now she can’t come tonight.”
He turns the marble over and stares at it. “That stinks.”
“Ander, it’s my fault. I was the one who told her to ride it here.”
“But you didn’t mean for her to get into an accident.”
“But she did, and now everything is wrecked.”
He puts the marble back into his pocket, and we sit in silence.
“Ander?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t think I want to go on the Swirl and Spark Tour anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t leave my grandma for that long. It’s a whole year, and she needs me. She needs me right now, and I can’t even help her because I’m here!”
“But, KK, the doctors are taking care of her.”
“But they don’t know how important she is. She’s not a normal grandma. She’s really important, and if anything happens to her it will be all my fault. So can you just tell our team that if they don’t want to go on the tour anymore, I don’t mind, because we can still go to PIPS, and that’s really what I wanted anyway.”
“No, I’m not telling them that. You really do want to go on the tour. We all do!”
“Well, just tell them I can’t. I can’t leave my grandma for that long.”
I jump up.
“Where are you going?”
I take off and run. I hear Ander call after me, but I yell for him to leave me alone. I run past the other American tree suites. I run past the Canadian tree suite. I run while the morning sun blinds me, but I don’t even care. I don’t care about any of this anymore.
THE BEACH TOWEL
I run to the end of the brick path, past two kids from Mexico and a boy from Switzerland. I run until I can’t breathe anymore and stop on a bench near the Creativity Pool. The pool and the grassy square are empty and quiet. It’s just me and the shimmering pool.
I try not to cry. I try to breathe normally and to be brave. I try to tell myself that Grandma Kitty is going to be okay and that it’s no big deal that she isn’t coming tonight. No big deal. It’s just a ceremony, probably like the one at Camp Piedmont.
But this is the Opening Ceremony for the Piedmont Global Championships. And she won’t be here. She won’t see us march in. She won’t see me before the competition. She won’t grab my hand. Her bracelets won’t jingle next to my wristband while she tells me that I can do this. She won’t tell me that our team is amazing and together we can do anything. She won’t tell me that we can place in the top three and get picked to go on the Swirl and Spark Tour. She won’t say any of that. She won’t say, “Mark my words.”
The tears stream down my face faster than I can wipe them away. I try to use my sleeve, but it’s too short. Oh, what difference does it make, anyway? I bury my head in my knees. I just want to go home.
A colorful beach towel lands on my head.
Startled, I pull it off and shield my eyes from the sun. Martina is staring at me. “Do you want to use my towel?”
If I could crawl under the bench, I would.
“It’s okay. Take it. I was just going to swing on the Idea Swings before breakfast, but I have to sit down here for a minute anyway, you know, to take off my shoes.”
I look at her shoes. They’re flip flops. It doesn’t take much to take them off. She’s looking right at me, waiting, so I slide over and put the towel on my lap. “Thanks.”
She presses her lips together. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine, no offense.”
I wipe my eyes and hand the towel back to her.
“Are you upset about the competition?”
Why can’t she just go away? She made me doubt our team and think that we didn’t win fair and square. I don’t want to talk to her about the competition, or about anything.
“Like, did something happen to your solution or something?”
“No.”
“Did you get in a fight with your teammates?”
“No.”
“Why are you crying then?”
“What do you care?”
“I care.”
I stare at her for a second. “If you really want to know, it’s about my grandma. She’s in the hospital and can’t come here to watch us compete. But why would you even care? You tried to tell us that we cheated, that the competition was fixed. But guess what? It wasn’t, so you don’t have to keep trying to hang around us and act like you want to talk to us, because you don’t. I know you just want to intimidate us.”
She looks at the ground. “So your grandma isn’t coming?”
She acts like she didn’t even hear what I said.
“No.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“I don’t know exactly. I just know she crashed her aero-scooter, and I know she’s really upset that she can’t come because she would do anything to be here.”
Martina nods like she cares, but I’m not letting her fool me.
“Are you close to your grandma?
“Why?”
“I was just wondering because I was close with my grandma too, but she died, and my grandpa moved away after that. We used to be close, b
ut we’re not anymore.”
My stomach drops. I’m such an idiot. I never even pictured Martina with a family—with grandparents and everything. She might be a jerk to me, but she still has feelings. She probably misses them both a lot. “I’m sorry your grandma died.”
“It’s okay. I’m sorry your grandma’s in the hospital.”
“Thanks. I’m sorry you’re not close with your grandpa anymore, either.”
“It’s probably because he moved away.”
I shift my weight on the bench. “Where did he go?”
“New York.”
“New York City?”
“No.” She turns away and says quietly, “He lives in Crimson Heights.”
“Did you say Crimson Heights?”
“Yes.”
“That’s where I live.”
She slides her foot in and out of her flip flop. “I know. He’s a principal there.”
It takes me a second to realize what that could mean. “Hold on a second. He’s a principal?”
“Yes.” She gets up from the bench. “I have to go.”
“Wait a second. What’s his name?”
She walks away and doesn’t answer.
I catch up to her. “Martina, what’s his name?”
She finally blurts out, “Blake Bermuda.”
“Your grandfather is Principal Bermuda?” How is Principal Bermuda her grandfather?
She tries to outrun me, but I chase her through the grassy square. “Martina, wait!”
I catch her and grab onto her arm. She tries to pull away, but I hang on, and we stumble to the ground.
“What did you do that for?” she shouts, brushing the grass from her knee.
“I’m sorry, but you wouldn’t stop. What do you mean, our principal is your grandfather?”
“What’s to know? He is, that’s all.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
“What difference does it make? He’s your principal. He cares more about your team than me. I’m just Martina, the only girl in Michigan to win the Piedmont Challenge—no big deal. Not like the five fabulous kids from Crimson—from his school—who won the Piedmont Challenge in New York.”
I stare at her for a second, and I don’t know what to say.
“Can I go now? My teammates are probably waiting for me to go to breakfast.”
I look at the Michigan tree suite in front of me. I think of the four boys that she’s been working with and living with all this time. I realize she probably has her own side of the tree suite, with the boys all bunked together on the other.
“Martina, wait.”
But she doesn’t wait. She walks inside her metal treehouse, the one that looks identical to ours on the outside. But the metal on hers doesn’t seem to sparkle like ours. It just looks cold.
I stand up, dust the grass from my knees, and race back to my tree suite. Mare and Jillian are probably wondering where I am, or maybe they’re just hogging the bathroom like usual. I stop to send them a message from my watch and see that they are looking for me—that Ander did talk to them. I tell them I’ll be back soon and walk the rest of the way along the brick path.
I get it now. That’s why Martina hates our team so much. Even at Camp Piedmont she hated us—from the very first day in line at Piedmont Chamber. She said we were that team from New York.
Our team must seem like it has everything. We’ve been getting all this attention from her grandpa, and she hasn’t gotten any from him at all. He’s been doing media blasts and putting us all over the news. I wonder how much of it she’s been seeing. All this time, I wonder if she’s been watching, wondering why he’s making such a big deal about us and never once even talking about her. She’s his own granddaughter, and he never told us—or anyone—that she won the Piedmont Challenge too.
No wonder she hates us so much.
I think about Grandma Kitty, how proud she’s always been of me. I’ve always known that. I wonder how it would feel if she left me and went on to cheer for some other kids, acted like she wasn’t my grandma anymore. But Grandma Kitty would never do that. She’s always been there for me, and now I need to be there for her too. I have to tell my teammates about Martina. They are never going to believe it.
I walk past the Canadian tree suite. I need to tell my teammates everything else too. I need to tell them that I don’t want to go on the Swirl and Spark Tour. I shouldn’t have asked Ander to do it for me. Seraphina always tells us to be courageous, and I’m just being a coward by having him tell them. So I’ll go back and explain it all myself. But my brain is swirling in a million directions, and now all I can think about is Martina, Principal Bermuda, and those four teammates of hers. Change of plan! I’m not going back to my tree suite, not yet.
I turn around and sprint back in the direction I came from. This time I just need to reach Martina.
I’m not sure what I’ll do when I get to her tree suite. I haven’t figured that part out yet. But I know I have to talk to her, or, at least, I have to try. When I get there, she’s sitting on the front step, playing on her watch. She sees me and folds her arms across her chest. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m not sure,” I say.
She looks at me and wrinkles her forehead.
“Can I sit here for a second?”
She shrugs.
We don’t say anything for a long minute. Finally, I ask, “What’s it like being on a team with four boys?”
She looks at me like I said something horrible. “It’s awesome. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah, I don’t have to share my room or the bathroom with anyone. It’s perfect.”
“Yeah, Mare and Jillian definitely take over our bathroom.” But I don’t mind. I would hate being in my room alone.
“Where are all the boys now?”
“They went to breakfast.”
“Why didn’t you go with them?”
“I wasn’t hungry.”
We sit there quietly for another long minute. Finally, I say, “I’m sorry that Principal Bermuda—I mean your grandpa—has been making such a big deal about all of us. I don’t know why he is. And I don’t know why he wouldn’t have made a big deal about you too. I mean, he’s related to you.”
“I don’t care anymore. I’m used to it.”
“If it helps a little, we don’t like him making such a big deal about us.”
She shrugs. “It does.”
“We’re no different from any other team here. We just happen to be from the same school. But who cares about that anyway? All the schools in the whole state are exactly the same. We all study the exact same things. We all get numbers. We all dress the same. I don’t really know why they give our schools names anyway. They may as well just number them too.”
“I never thought about that before. It’s the same for us in Michigan.”
“So I don’t know why Principal Bermuda acts like it’s his doing that got us here. Because it’s really not.”
Martina looks at me. “I’m sorry I was such a jerk to your team. I’m sorry I made up that rumor about the results being fixed. No one was saying that. It was just me.”
I know I should still be mad at her, but I’m not. “It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not. I was jealous of all of you. First, I get stuck on a team with all those stupid boys who never include me in anything, and then I find out that five kids from my grandpa’s school all win. And then he never even calls to say, ‘Good job,’ or ‘I’m proud of you,’ or anything. And then I see all of you getting along and laughing and having fun. I guess I just wanted to be on your team instead of mine.”
My stomach twists. “But you said you liked your team.”
“I lied.”
“Oh. So what’s wrong with them? Are
they mean, or are they just annoying? Because Mare can be really hard to get along with, but she’s not actually mean. Like when we all wanted to do a play to show our task solution and she didn’t. At first we thought she was just being a brat to get her way. But then we talked to her and realized that she was really scared to perform in front of people.”
“Seriously? I watched you guys at the Showcase Festival. She was really good. You all were.”
“Thanks.”
“I don’t think the boys on my team are afraid of anything—except maybe Simpson. He acts like he’s afraid of everyone.”
“Are you nice to the boys?” I ask, and as soon as I do, I know I shouldn’t have. Martina glares as me. But then she smiles a little.
“Not as nice as I could be, I guess.”
I laugh. “It’s hard for me to be nice to Mare sometimes too.”
“Your team just seems so perfect.”
“Well we aren’t. It took us forever to even solve the Human Pretzel.”
“You did that too?”
“Yes! And we were horrible at it the first time.”
“We still can’t solve that one.”
“Try it again. Maybe you’ll be better at it now.”
“I don’t know if the boys would want to.”
“Maybe they’ll do it just because they want to hang out with you.”
“With me?”
“Well, yeah, you’re a team, remember?”
“Yeah, we’re supposed to be.”
“Remember what Master Freeman said? ‘The teams who form the greatest bonds have the greatest success,’ or something like that.”
“I don’t remember him saying that. I guess I’ve been so mad at everything I’ve tuned most people out.”
“I say try the Human Pretzel again. It’s really fun.”
“Okay, I will. Isn’t your team looking for you?”
“Yeah, I should go back. I have to talk to them anyway.”
“About what?”
“I’m going to tell them that even if we win, I don’t want to go on the Swirl and Spark Tour.”
“Why not?”
“Because my grandma’s sick. I can’t leave her for that long.”
“You could still talk to her through air screens though, or on the phone.”
Flip the Silver Switch Page 18