“Head cone!”
“—and bungee cords and bricks …” She ripped her napkin in half, then in half again. “It’s a nice idea, all of us sticking together, but something’s going to go wrong.”
“Come on,” Nory said. “We’ll be showing school spirit, which will help prove we’re no different than anyone else at Dunwiddle.”
“Except we are different,” said Marigold. Her gaze flicked to Sebastian, and then to Andres. She stared at her napkin. “Everyone can see it, and we might do some damage. What if I shrink someone?”
“Marigold’s right,” Elliott said. “It’s too risky.”
Nory turned a pleading gaze on Pepper, then remembered that Pepper had already said she wouldn’t be attending the game—and for good reason. She would fierce the kittenball players.
Were the others’ reasons just as good?
No.
Maybe.
“Coach says a team is only as strong as its weakest player,” Nory said, hating the wobble in her voice.
“Well, I’m the weakest, then,” said Andres, loosening his cord and sliding carefully out of the booth, holding on to the table as his feet floated a couple of inches off the floor. “And I’m sorry, but I’m going home.”
Elliott slapped money on the table. He squirmed past Nory and out of the booth, then took hold of Andres’s leash.
Marigold put money down, too. “Mr. Vitomin is your coach, not mine,” she told Nory. “And I don’t think I’m being weak. I think I’m being smart.”
* * *
In the end, only Bax, Nory, Sebastian, and Willa went to the game. The kittenball arena was only a couple of blocks from school and the pizzeria. The high school used it, too. It was bigger than Bax had imagined, given that the actual kittenball field was only the size of a living room. Lots of people brought binoculars.
Older Flyers zoomed and zipped across the top of the arena, trailing school banners. “Milk! Tuna!” Fuzzies yelled, holding out cat treats at the edge of the field. Part of kittenball tradition was that Fuzzies clustered on the sidelines, trying to distract the players of the opposing teams. Laser pointers had been banned. So far today, the players had kept their human minds and hadn’t been tempted by the Fuzzy magic.
“Oh, zum-zum,” Nory muttered, nudging Bax with her elbow. She jerked her head.
Ugh. The Sparkies were sitting down next to them. Bax saw Lacey, Rune, and Zinnia, plus their recruits from the tree house. Lacey had her petition with her.
“You’d think she’d give it a rest,” Nory whispered into Bax’s ear.
“She’ll never give anything a rest,” said Bax. “She is not a restful girl.”
“They must be plotting something. They wouldn’t sit by us if they weren’t,” said Sebastian. He was wearing his head cone and had to turn his whole body every time he wanted to see anything.
Nory clenched her hands into fists and leaned forward. “How come you’re here?” she asked Lacey directly.
“To cheer on our kittenball team,” Lacey said sweetly. “Why else?”
“Right,” said Willa. “I highly doubt that.”
No grown-ups were around, but Lacey lowered her voice anyway. “We’re going to flush you out. Won’t that be fun?”
“Sit back,” Bax said to Nory under his breath. “Don’t let her get to you. That’s exactly what she wants.”
“Everyone is here at the kittenball game,” said Lacey, as falsely pleasant as ever. “The fluxing teachers from all the grades. The principal, the vice principal. Ooh, I can even see the guidance counselor, two Flare teachers, a Flyer teacher, and two lunch-duty ladies. There are some high schoolers here, too, and loads of parents. I sure hope nothing wonky happens at this kittenball game! Because if it does, every single person will see who’s to blame.”
Bax thought about the spying day, on Andres’s birthday. He should have realized the Sparkies would try something like this. Here, where parents and school administration would all see. Marigold was right.
“Nory,” Bax said. “Let’s move to a different part of the arena.”
“No way,” Nory said. “These are really good seats. If we move we’ll be way in the back. We can’t let them scare us.”
Lacey waved her petition. “We’ll get more signatures than we need, and Principal Gonzalez will have to listen to us. You’ll see.”
Below on the field, the referee spoke into a microphone. She wore a leopard-print shirt. “Welcome to the Twinkle Tidbits versus the Dunwiddle Catnips! Let the middle school kittenball season officially BEGIN!”
The crowd cheered.
Sebastian grimaced. “Oh, ow, the visible sound waves. My head cone is not going to be enough if everyone is cheering and shouting into that microphone.” He took his head cone off, unlatching a clip at his neck and setting it on the floor by his feet. “I’m going to have to switch to the blindfold. Wait. Wait. Where’s my blindfold?” he asked, patting his pockets.
The crowd started yelling.
Who’s gonna pounce? CatNIPs CatNIPs
And who’s gonna rule? CatNIPs CatNIPs
We swat so sweet, admit defeat!
You cannot beat
our Catnip!
“Have you seen my blindfold?” Sebastian asked his friends. “It was in my back pocket but now I can’t find it. My eyes are really hurting with this cheer.” Nory and Willa started looking around on the floor of the bleachers. No luck.
Oh!
Bax spotted the blindfold in Rune’s hands. Rune must have pickpocketed Sebastian! Now he was shoving the blindfold into his backpack. When he pulled his hand back out, he held a pair of maracas.
“Have a look at these sound waves, wonko!” Rune cried, switching one of the maracas to his other hand and banging them together. Sebastian hunched down, overwhelmed. Zinnia got out a triangle and jangled it around. Lacey shook a set of jingle bells. Sebastian covered his eyes and let out a low moan. He needed his cone or his blindfold, but he wasn’t wearing either.
People started to stare.
Then a whistle blew, and everyone turned their attention to the kittenball field. The kittens faced off. Their spines arched. Their tails quivered. The Dunwiddle Catnips wore bright red collars. The Twinkle Tidbits wore yellow.
“Here, kitty, kitty!” the referee cried. She tossed the red yarnball high.
Fur flew. The kittens pounced and rolled, darted and dodged. They swatted the ball and tail-whacked. One of the Dunwiddle kittens pounced on a Twinkle calico, and the calico fluxed into a dazed twelve-year-old girl.
“Out!” the referee yelled, pointing at the girl. She pointed next at the Dunwiddle kitten. “And you, watch those claws! One foot of yarn penalty!”
A new kitten went in for Twinkle, too—it was the six-toed wonder. Wow, that kitty could swat the ball. Bax got a kick out of watching Nory, who leaned forward with bright eyes. There was an amazing whack! And a pounce! Now the yellow yarnball was in play and Dunwiddle was fighting back with a paw kick that sent the yarn unrolling across the playing field. Go, Catnips! Go, Catnips!
Bax got caught up in the game, too. Until he heard the singing.
“Rain, rain, go away, come again another day!”
It was the Sparkies. They had surrounded Willa and Sebastian. They were singing and singing, banging their instruments. They splashed Willa with water from a water bottle. “Rain, rain, go away!”
Willa blinked rapidly. Her cheeks grew pink. She tried to scoot away, but the Sparkies leaned in closer. Sebastian was still rocking with his eyes shut.
“Stop it!” Bax yelled. “Leave them alone!”
“Rain, rain, go away! Come again another day!” the Sparkies sang.
“Don’t rain, Willa!” Nory interrupted. “Don’t give them the satisfaction.”
But the Sparkies kept singing.
And Sebastian kept rocking.
Willa covered her ears.
Bax’s chest tightened. Then the skin of his face tightened. Then his bones tingled in
a way he recognized, and he went from helpless to terrified.
No, he told himself. Do not flux.
He flattened his hands on the bench. Deep breath. Hold the flame, just in case, but do. Not. Flux.
Oh, no. Oh, wow. He hadn’t fluxed, but the stadium bench, on which he was pressing down, changed from ridged plastic to hard gray limestone.
Bax jerked his hands away, but the shift of bench into stone continued, moving out from where Bax’s hands had been.
It turned to stone under Willa. And Sebastian. And everyone beyond.
The floor beneath their feet changed, too! The wood became granite, and everything on the floor turned into rock. Backpacks, jackets, drink cups. Nothing changed that was connected to people, but belongings that weren’t—cameras, phones, purses—all turned to stone. The transformation rippled through the arena.
It was as clear as sunlight to Bax that he was responsible.
He had started this. He hadn’t meant to do it—but he, Bax, was guilty.
“Nory!” Bax called out. “Nory, I have to get out of here!”
His words were swallowed by the rising tide of confusion. Toddlers wailed when their stuffed animals went from soft to hard. People’s drinks turned to concrete. A flurry of voices rang out.
“What’s happening?”
“My purse!”
“My coat!”
“The car keys are in there.”
“My money is in there.”
Bax jumped to his feet. He tugged on Nory. She turned to him.
“It’s me!” Bax said.
“What?”
He had to yell. “It’s me! I started it, and it’s rippling out. I’m the one turning things to rocks!”
Nory’s face looked so shocked that Bax stopped breathing.
Then he made himself inhale. He pushed through the crowd. He reached the parking lot and started to run.
Nory took off after Bax.
She ran across the stone floor of the bleachers, down the stone steps, and pushed through the heavy stone doors. She saw Bax ahead of her, running down the sidewalk. She called his name, but he didn’t stop.
It was ten blocks to Bax’s dad’s home. Nory followed him all the way there, running.
She caught up with him outside the house. He had stopped, finally, and was sitting on the porch with his head bowed. Next to him was a mournful-looking basset hound. Next to the basset hound were two lethargic squirrels. Nory also spotted two goats, several mutts, a German shepherd, some bluebirds, a ton of pigeons, and a teacup pig, all lying on the lawn. There were clusters of chipmunks leaning against the front windowsills. From the backyard came a low, grumbling, snorting moan, and a thread of fear snaked up Nory’s spine.
Something very large was making that moan. Something very large and very unhappy.
“It’s a rhino,” Bax said without lifting his head. “It arrived this morning.”
Nory sat down next to him. “Why? How? Where did it come from?”
“I have no idea,” Bax said. “Just like I have no idea how I … you know. Turned everything into stone at the kittenball game.” His voice caught. “I didn’t mean to, Nory, I swear I didn’t. I didn’t even know I was doing it until I looked down. It was all spreading from me!”
Nory was shocked. “Did you do the pennies, too?”
Bax shrugged miserably. “I guess I must have. But not on purpose, and I didn’t even know. I brought a pocketful of coins in for the Pennies for Potions jar that morning, and that must have been the start of it. It spreads out from something I touch, I guess? It doesn’t happen all at once.”
“And the stuff inside the lockers?”
“I must have done that, too. I came to school early that day. I had—I had had an argument with my mom about my dad. I was pretty upset. Maybe that had something to do with it. It must have started from something I touched in my locker, and spread from there.”
“Has it happened before?” Nory asked.
“Before what?”
“Before the pennies. Were there other times when you turned something other than yourself to stone?”
“I don’t think so. But I don’t know,” Bax moaned.
They needed a grown-up. “We should tell your dad,” Nory said. “Let’s go inside.”
“I’m not sure,” said Bax. “My dad has enough to worry about.”
“We have to,” said Nory. “Come on.” She got to her feet and opened the front door. “Hello! Mr. Kapoor?”
“He’s probably watching TV,” Bax said. “Watch out for ladybugs. They’re kind of everywhere.” They went into the living room. In the corner stood a piano. There was dust on the frame, but not the keys. In the middle of the room was a TV, also dusty, with a couch in front of it. On the couch sat a man with slumped shoulders.
“Hey, Dad,” Bax said. “This is my friend Nory. Nory, this is my dad.”
Mr. Kapoor switched off the TV and turned to face them. Nory took him in.
He looked like Bax, with high cheekbones and warm brown skin, but his eyes had bags beneath them. Kind, sad eyes. “Bax,” he said. “I thought the game wasn’t over till six. How come you’re home early?”
“Mr. Kapoor?” Nory said. “Nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you, too.”
“Bax hasn’t been feeling well,” said Nory. “Something’s new with his magic and it’s pretty scary.”
Mr. Kapoor squinted. “What do you mean? The Burtlebox always works. It’s still working for you, right, Bax?”
“Yes,” Bax said. “This is something different. I’m turning things to stone, Dad. Other things. That aren’t me. I can’t control it. “
Mr. Kapoor shook his head, then exhaled deeply and sank back into the couch. “Wow,” he said. “I never heard of anything like that.”
“We need help,” said Nory.
“I’m not sure what to do,” Mr. Kapoor said. He didn’t get up. “Maybe you should take some more medicine, Bax?”
Bax sighed. “I don’t think that’s going to help. The whole kittenball arena turned to stone. Taking more Burtlebox isn’t going to turn it back.”
Poor Bax. He had to take that Burtlebox all the time. Every day.
Oh. Zamboozle! Nory had an idea. She clutched Bax’s arm. “Do you remember what Nurse Riley said?”
Bax shook his head.
“He said, With these individual potions, you don’t always know how a person’s body will react with long-term use.”
“So?”
“So maybe you’re taking too much potion and it’s messing up your fluxing!” cried Nory.
“But the potion helps me,” said Bax.
“It changes you back, yes, but maybe it has side effects!”
“The potion is making me turn things to stone?”
“Maybe. Maybe you take so much of it you get a side effect. I don’t know. We have to talk to a doctor.”
“The animals around the house—could that be because of my medicine, too?” Bax wondered.
Nory thought for a minute. “I don’t see how. But hey! What if I fluxed into a kitten? Maybe I could get a sense of what’s going on with the animals!”
“Would you try?”
Nory concentrated hard and fluxed. Pop! Pop! The colors around her grew muted, as they always did when she was Kitten-Nory. Far-off objects grew fuzzy, since cats had poor long-distance vision. Smells grew stronger. She tried to keep control of her human mind, but suddenly—she wanted to lie down.
She felt sad.
She didn’t know why.
She padded toward the living room, and to Bax’s dad on the couch.
There was something about Mr. Kapoor. It was like he was pulling her toward him with his unhappiness.
Stop! Danger! Nory’s human mind said.
But Kitten-Nory’s mind sank into sadness. Nothing mattered. Everything was gray. Moving was a struggle, so she dropped where she was, at Mr. Kapoor’s feet.
“Get out!” Girl-Nory said to herself. “F
lux back!”
Why bother? Kitten-Nory thought. Then Kitten-Nory stopped thinking. Stopped thinking, stopped caring. Nothing mattered. The world was bleak, had always been bleak, would always be bleak. Why fight it?
Hands lifted her up. Boy eyes met her kitten eyes.
“Nory!” the boy barked.
Bax? her human mind thought.
“Nory. Flux back. You have to flux back, now!”
And with a huge effort, Nory did.
“Whoa,” she said, a girl again.
She ran over to Bax’s dad. “Mr. Kapoor?”
“Oh … ah, yes?”
“Something kind of weird just happened, and I was wondering …” She swallowed. “Do you have upside-down magic?”
Mr. Kapoor looked scared. His gaze flicked to Bax, then to Nory. Then he stared at his laptop and nodded.
“And when animals get near you, they get sad,” said Nory. “That’s what happened to me, just now, when I fluxed into a kitten. That’s why all these animals are around your house. You’re pulling them in and making them unhappy.”
“I wondered if that was the case,” Bax’s dad murmured.
“You’re an Upside-Down Fuzzy?” Bax said to his dad. “I thought you were an allergic Fuzzy.”
“I’m so sorry, Bax. I should have told you. I was ashamed of my magic, and then when I learned about you and your magic, and you started going to this new program, I got ashamed of being ashamed.”
* * *
Bax’s dad had known about his magic since he was ten, he told them. He explained that animals took on his emotions, whether good or bad. Sometimes he made them happy, and that was nice. Sometimes he made them nervous, or jealous, or sad. But back when Bax’s dad was young, people didn’t call wonky magic “upside down” and they didn’t have educational programs to help with it. All his friends thought his upside-down magic was scary and weird, so he had hated it, too. When he moved to a new town, he had started telling people he was allergic to animals, and resolved never to talk about his magic.
“I should have told you, Bax,” he said again. “I should have told your mother. I was just ashamed of being upside-down. And then I heard about the new class at Dunwiddle and I was so glad there was a chance for you to have a different experience.”
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