Sticks & Stones

by Emily Jenkins

  Saturday night, he and his mom watched a movie. Bax picked a funny one with lots of car chases. His mom was a Flicker and was good with light, so the movie she ordered online was projected huge on the white wall of her living room.

  On Sunday, Bax had a piano lesson and then turned into a rock again while she drove him home. He woke up in bed at his dad’s house, with the taste of Burtlebox coating his tongue.

  The next morning, Bax’s dad was quiet. He scrambled eggs for them both, but he didn’t listen to the radio news or ask about the upcoming week. Bax got his backpack ready and put on his jacket. “Bye,” he said, hovering at his dad’s side. He wanted to hug him, or talk to him, but he didn’t know how to start.

  “Bye,” said his dad glumly.

  Bax trudged out the front door. On the stoop sat a chipmunk, looking mopey. It sniffed at the front door, then looked at Bax with big chipmunk eyes.

  “You can’t go in there,” said Bax. “The house is not for chipmunks.”

  The chipmunk slumped.

  “Go play,” said Bax.

  The chipmunk lay down on its tummy on the welcome mat.

  “You can’t go in,” said Bax. “Sheesh.”

  The chipmunk heaved a sigh. It didn’t move from its place on the mat.

  “Fine,” Bax said, heading down the sidewalk. “Do whatever you want.”

  He looked back after several yards. The chipmunk was still there.

  At school that day, Nory, Pepper, and Marigold were behind Lacey Clench on the salad bar line. Lacey was back to normal size.

  She took a serving of carrots and spun around.

  So did Rune, and so did Zinnia.

  Nory, Pepper, and Marigold backed up.

  “Did you know I was at the hospital for five hours on Friday night?” Lacey said, putting her hands on her hips. “And I had to get ten shots, because that’s how old I am. They had to regrow me, which totally hurt, and I had to drink eighteen cups of coconut water over the course of the five hours, to flush out my system.”

  “I am really sorry,” said Marigold. “I know you think I did it on purpose, but I didn’t. I swear.”

  “Says you,” Lacey snapped.

  “Lacey’s started a petition,” Rune said. “She already has three signatures.”

  “A petition?” Pepper said.

  “I don’t sit around complaining,” said Lacey. “I like to get things done.”

  Pepper spread her hands. “But a petition for what?”

  “To get the UDM program removed from Dunwiddle,” said Lacey. “And the UDM students removed as well. I think we’ll get a lot of support.” Lacey smiled. “You’re a danger to the rest of us.”

  “You’re way more dangerous than we are,” Nory snapped. “You’re the one who did unauthorized flaring and burned Andres’s leash. He could have died.”

  Lacey sneered. “Last year, when the Flicker students wanted to get an invisible diving coach and start a team using the high school pool, they wrote a proposal and got fifty signatures. And you know what?”

  “What?”

  “This year there’s an invisible diving team, that’s what. Principal Gonzalez had to make one. Because the Flickers got the signatures. And when I reach fifty, I’m giving the petition to him, and your wonko program will be going, going, gone.” Lacey stamped her back-to-normal-size foot. “Forever.”

  * * *

  That afternoon, Nory went to after-school kittenball club. She was excited and curious. She tried not to think about Lacey Clench’s petition.

  Three other beginner Fluxers showed up. Nory didn’t know them. She didn’t know any of the Fluxers in her grade, besides Bax.

  Akari, Finn, and Paige didn’t know Nory, either, it seemed. At least, there was no finger-pointing or whispering.

  Coach started by having them all drink a glass of pomegranate juice and eat a bit of dried seaweed. “Good for muscle tone,” he said.

  Then he asked them to introduce themselves and flux briefly into the kitten shapes they’d be practicing with today. “The size of your kitten doesn’t matter,” he said, “but nimble paws and strong tails make for a good player.”

  The Fluxers all had reliable kitten shapes. Nory was impressed. Akari played as a tabby. Paige did a ginger cat with a lovely orange tail. Finn was black with white paws. Nory fluxed into her basic black kitten and kept the form nicely.

  “I can’t always hold it past fifteen minutes,” she told them when she popped back. “But Coach said I should try kittenball anyhow.”

  “I pop back to human sometimes, too,” said Paige. She was pale and tall, with cute freckles. She wore her long brown hair in a fancy Dutch braid. “Cats aren’t easy for me. Honestly, I do better with things in the rodent family. But I’m working on it. Practice makes perfect, right?” She smiled hopefully.

  Paige assumes I’m a typical Fluxer, Nory thought. She must think I’m a sixth grader. She doesn’t seem to know my magic is upside down. It felt good to have her not know. But it also felt a bit like a lie.

  Coach went off to get the yarnballs from the shed, and Finn threw himself onto the grass in human form. “Where did they put all those rocks after they cleaned up?” he wondered. “Does anyone know?”

  “It wasn’t worth trying to turn them back, I heard, so they carted them to the ordinary school and used them for gravel in the garden,” Paige said.

  “Those UDM kids better stop messing around,” said Akari. “They’re getting people scared.”

  Nory tensed.

  “I’d like to know which one of them did it,” Finn said thoughtfully. “But even more, I’d like to know how.”

  “They might have all done it together,” Akari said.

  “The real problem is that one of them shrank that Flare girl to three inches high.”

  “Was she okay?” asked Akari.

  “She was fine,” said Nory. “She’s back to normal size.”

  “Yeah,” said Finn. “But did you hear that the girl who got shrunk is going around with a petition now? She wants the upside-down program moved out of Dunwiddle.”

  “Did you sign it?” Akari asked.

  “Not yet, but I’m thinking about it,” said Finn. “Because of the shrinking and the rocks. Those kids might be dangerous.”

  “And remember when there was that weird animal in the cafeteria? It was, like, part skunk and part elephant. Nothing like that ever happened in ordinary school,” said Akari.

  Nory felt ill. And embarrassed. And a little angry.

  Paige turned. “Nory, you should see your face. What’s wrong?”

  “Me? Nothing.”

  “Seriously,” Paige pressed. “What are you thinking?”

  Nory gathered her courage. “I hear what you’re saying. Because the rocks were weird, and when Lacey shrank, that was scary. But—”

  “Kittenballers! Hup!” Coach was striding across the field with a bag of yarnballs. It was time to practice. Nory stopped talking.

  Coach explained the techniques of offense and defense. A kitten should use its tail to whack the yarnball to a teammate, but the quickest way to unspool the other team’s yarn was to pin the yarn with one front paw and roll the ball away with the other.

  Akari and Finn fluxed into their kittens. Coach put a purple yarnball in between them and ordered them to whack it back and forth. He tossed an orange ball for Paige and Nory to work with. They, too, fluxed into their kitten shapes.

  “Remember,” Coach said. “When you’re passing your own team’s ball, you don’t want to unwind it.”

  Paige leapt at the yarnball and whacked it toward Nory with her tail.

  Nory batted it back with a satisfying smack. Practice was fun! She could do this!

  The ball returned to her a few seconds later, and this time she whacked it with her tail. Boom!

  Some of the orange yarn had unspooled around her feet. She lifted her paws high, trying to escape the tangle, but before she could, Paige slammed what was left of the yarnball her wa
y.

  Nory swatted at it, but her front legs were tied up in yarn.

  As was her tail.

  Oh, and one of her hind feet.

  She was trapped! Ahh!

  Panic!

  Pop! Pop! Pop!

  Before she could stop it, her body started to flux. Nory was shrinking—smaller than she’d ever shrunk before. And as she shrank, she grew wings. Not the dragon wings she was used to, and not the bluebird wings she’d done now and then. These were filmy, delicate wings—followed by a long, tubular nose on her kitten face.

  Her legs grew thin and spindly, coming out of her furry kitten torso.

  Was she a mosquito?

  Yes! She was!

  Well, part mosquito, part kitten.

  Mitten?

  She was so tiny she flew right out of the yarn.

  Paige snapped back to human form in shock. “Nory! What’s happening?”

  Mmm, that girl smells delicious, Mitten-Nory thought. Mmm. After-school snack.

  No! Girl-Nory told herself sternly. Your new kittenball friend is a not a snack. No, no, no!

  “Coach!” Paige yelled. She tugged at the sleeves of her shirt, trying to cover her skin. “Come quick! Something’s wrong with Nory! I think she fluxed into an insect!”

  Coach hurried over.

  Akari and Finn switched back to human form. Mmm. Now they smelled delicious, too.

  “Nory!” Coach said. “Can you hear me? Come here! Now!”

  Girl-Nory heard the command. She flew over to Coach.

  He didn’t smell good. Too much herbal tea in his bloodstream, probably. Also kind of sweaty.

  Coach held out his hand. Nory landed on it. He peered at her. He stroked his chin. “Look at you!” he said. “Fascinating. Three-quarters mosquito and only one-quarter kitten. Have you ever done an insect before? I had a girlfriend in college who could do mosquito and centipede. Separately, of course.”

  Akari came closer, and Mitten-Nory stopped paying attention to Coach. Oh, what a plump and juicy arm that Akari had! Mitten-Nory flew into the air to buzz closer. Bloooooooooood!

  Akari backed away.

  Blooooooood!

  “Nory!” Coach yelled. “Turn back now. You’re losing your human mind!”

  Pop! Nory’s shame made her switch back.

  Oh, drat.

  So embarrassing.

  Being a mitten was really, really wonky.

  Nory patted her body to make sure she was all in proper girl shape.

  “That was—I never saw anything like it,” Paige said. “You were a kitten. And then …” She took a step back. “Are you one of those upside-down kids?”

  Nory looked at her. “Well, yes. But you’re wrong about us. We’re not dangerous.”

  “Her mosquito wanted to bite me!” Akari cried.

  Coach shrugged. “Relax, Akari. Nory was less than an inch long. The worst she could have done was make you itch.”

  “I should have told you all earlier,” said Nory, her cheeks on fire. “Coach knows. But I should have spoken up. I’m sorry.”

  Paige’s expression softened. “You know what? We were the rude ones. We kept going on about the UDM kids, and we didn’t even think you might be one of them. I’m sorry.”

  Nory felt a huge wave of relief. “That’s okay,” she said. “I’m sorry I turned into a mitten during practice.”

  Paige nodded, as if she’d made up her mind about something. “Look, I’m glad to have another girl at kittenball. And you seem cool. Just don’t bite me, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Paige tossed a yarnball into the air and caught it neatly. “In that case, want to get back to tail-whacking?”

  Nory grinned, then fluxed into a black kitten. “Meow.”

  Bax hated Dunwiddle School’s tuna noodle casserole. He stood in line, but only took potato chips, canned peaches, and then some raw broccoli from the salad bar. He carried his tray over to sit with the other UDM kids at one big table. Nory had called a meeting.

  Nory looked around, as if making sure all eight of them were there. Andres had a bag lunch and floated above. The other seven were all seated. “What are we going to do about Lacey’s petition?” she asked.

  “It’s my fault for shrinking her,” said Marigold. She poked her casserole with her fork instead of eating it.

  Bax felt bad for Marigold. He knew what it was like to have out-of-control magic.

  “Do you think you can make it up to Lacey somehow?” Willa wondered. “Get her to forget about the petition?”

  “I doubt it,” Elliott said. And he would know—he and Lacey had been friends in ordinary school, until she and the other Sparkies shunned him because of his freezing magic.

  “I talked to Principal Gonzalez,” said Marigold. “I told him I’d take whatever consequence I deserved.”

  “What did he say?” Pepper asked.

  “He said not to worry about it and that he would talk to Lacey’s family. He said he knew it was an accident.”

  “Hey, people, I’m having a birthday party!” called Andres from the ceiling. “It’s this Saturday at two, and all of you are invited!”

  Andres hardly ever heard much of what went on during cafeteria conversations. He was eating a sandwich, dropping crumbs on people and occasionally calling down random remarks.

  Nory looked up. “Sounds fun, Andres! I’ll come!”

  “Me too,” Bax said. He’d be at his mom’s, but Bax knew she’d drive him to Andres’s.

  The other kids said they’d be at the party as well. Nory brought the conversation back to Lacey.

  “The shrinking isn’t the big problem,” she said. “The real issue is the rocks, because they affected so many people. The kids from kittenball think we did it.”

  “What do you mean, ‘we’?” Sebastian said. “Like, all of us?” He glanced from face to face. “Listen. Was it any of you guys? It wasn’t me, I swear.”

  “Or me,” said Marigold.

  “Or me,” said Willa.

  “Or me,” said Elliott.

  The other kids proclaimed their innocence one by one, until Bax was the only person left.

  “It wasn’t me, either!” he said. But his friends were looking at him funny. His stomach flipped over. “What? It wasn’t!”

  “Bax, you’re the one with rock magic. Have you ever turned anything else to stone?” Elliott asked carefully. “Anything other than your own body?”

  “Never!” Bax said. His voice cracked.

  Elliott said, “Right. Okay. Just checking.”

  “Never,” Bax insisted. A lump formed in his throat, and he dug his fingernails into his palms. He hadn’t turned other things to stone. His magic didn’t work that way.

  “What if it was a prank?” Willa asked. “Principal Gonzalez said something about the eighth graders, how they prank the school every year. They said they didn’t do the stones, but would they admit it if they did?”

  “When my sister was in eighth grade,” Sebastian commented, “the eighth-grade Flickers made all the toilets disappear. I mean, they were still there, but nobody could see them. Then people stopped flushing after they used them, because that was the only way they could see where the toilets were. Everything got really disgusting.”

  Andres called down from the ceiling. “The rocks weren’t an eighth-grade prank. My sister, Carmen, is in eighth now and she swears it wasn’t.”

  “Is she trustworthy?” Elliott called up.

  Andres huffed. “She’s in the honor society!”

  “So we’re right back where we started,” Nory said. “It wasn’t us, but it looks like us, because no one else has wonky magic.”

  “Don’t say wonky,” Willa said automatically. “Say unusual.”

  Bax felt itchy.

  It seemed like Elliott secretly thought it was him. It seemed like everyone secretly thought it was him.

  But it wasn’t.

  * * *

  At tutoring, Coach wanted to talk to Nory. And only N
ory.

  Bax was not surprised.

  “The mitten was exciting, and I’m happy to know you can do it, but let’s face it,” said Coach, “you could get squashed. And most people don’t master insect forms until college, if they do them at all. There are a lot of complications. So let’s see that dritten of yours again.”

  Nory bit her lip. “I think I should work on just plain kitten some more. So I can learn to stop other animals from popping out.”

  “No, no. Do dritten,” Coach said.

  “I don’t want to fire-breathe on you. If you want something upside-down, I guess I could do the squippy again.”

  “Dritten!” barked Coach.

  “He wants you to practice it for kittenball,” Bax muttered. “He wants a winning team.”

  Nory shrugged. Then, with a popping noise and a whoomp, she fluxed. Her black kitten body was glossy, and her whiskers were perky. It wasn’t long, though, before the wings sprouted from her back and filled the room with a rushing sound as they flapped and lifted her up. Her claws popped out. Her teeth looked dangerous.

  Bax sucked in his breath. Dritten-Nory wasn’t that big, but she was scary.

  “Go, Nory!” Coach cheered.

  Dritten-Nory did not seem to have control of her human mind. She knocked over a case of kittenball trophies with the tip of her powerful wing. She flared her kitten nostrils, opened her mouth full of dragon teeth, and breathed fire at Coach’s shoes.

  “Wow!” Coach said. He hopped from foot to foot, and the smell of burnt leather filled the room. “You see that, Bax? Fire!”

  Bax walked glumly over to the fire extinguisher and sprayed the carpet.

  At the sound of the extinguisher, Dritten-Nory scrambled her kitten paws in the air as if trying to swim. Then with a thump, she fell hard to the floor.

  She was in girl form again.

  “Fantastic!” Coach said.

  “I wasn’t in control,” Nory cried. “I almost hurt you.”

  “The kitten body was fully recognizable as kitten,” said Coach. “No one could argue. I’ll have to double-check the regulations, but the Twinkle Tidbits have a six-toed kitten on their team, so I don’t see that wings are any different.”

  “I set your shoe on fire!” yelled Nory. “It is not safe to be a dritten!”