by Amy Ignatow
The next day he set off as if to go to school but found his feet walking away from the campus. Down the sidewalks, over the footbridge, out to the cow path that twisted through the fields that surrounded Muellersville. He used to ride his bicycle down the cow path with his dad.
Don’t think about the bicycle, he told himself, you’ll just end up back in the basement. And don’t think about Dad, because there’s nothing left at the gravesite to clean up.
So what was he supposed to think about? Maybe Jay was onto something with the whole meditation thing. If Nick could clear his mind, he wouldn’t worry about accidentally teleporting somewhere, or start freaking out about what would happen if his power continued to grow, like Willis, the kid they’d saved from Auxano . . .
And there he was, back in Beanie and Rebecca’s apartment. Willis was sitting in a corner on the floor with his back to the room, surrounded by papers covered in haphazardly scribbled mathematic equations. Señor Fuzzybutt was on the floor, licking his . . . fuzzybutt. Rebecca was coming out of the kitchen, holding a plate of chicken nuggets.
“Mein gott!” she shrieked at the sight of Nick’s sudden appearance, and the plate of nuggets clattered to the floor. Willis had no reaction. Beanie rushed into the room and stopped short upon seeing Nick.
“Uh . . . hi,” Nick said after a tense moment. “I was just thinking about you guys, so . . . I’m here.”
Rebecca and Beanie shared a look. “Did anyone see you come in?” Rebecca asked.
“Oh, I’m pretty sure that didn’t happen,” Nick said.
“Come, come, sit down,” Beanie said, casting a worried look to Willis, who continued to scribble on his papers as if nothing had happened. Nick sat down on the sofa. Rebecca and Beanie looked at him. He cleared his throat.
“I think our powers are increasing,” Nick said, and told them about how he’d come to suddenly appear in their apartment. “I can’t seem to control it,” he said. “I’ll be thinking about a person or a place and all of a sudden I’m there.”
Rebecca nodded as if she understood. Beanie nodded, too. Willis grunted, although it wasn’t clear if that was in response to Nick’s story or just a general sort of grunt.
“How . . . how is he doing?” Nick asked, casting a side-long glance at Willis.
Rebecca sighed. “He’s the same.”
“Does any of . . . this”—Nick gestured to the papers that littered the floor—“make any sense to you?”
“Not at all,” Beanie said with a sigh, “but if we don’t give him more paper he just starts to write on the wall.” He pointed to a spot in the corner where several mathematical equations had been hastily scribbled. “Do you know anyone who might be able to figure it out?” he asked, gathering some of the papers and handing them to Nick.
The fact was that because Auxano was such a major part of Muellersville there probably were some math geniuses that Nick knew—Jay’s parents, for one. But even though Nick had assured Jay that they probably weren’t involved in the development of a formula to make kids better testers, he wasn’t totally certain. Maybe Farshad’s parents would understand? That is, if Farshad would even talk to him—
“WHAT THE HELL, MAN!” Farshad yelped. Nick found himself in the school bathroom directly between Farshad and Jay, who were both using urinals.
“Well hello, you old toilet intruder, good that you could finally make it,” Jay said, continuing to pee while Farshad scrambled to look presentable. “Now tell us, were you thinking about me or about this bathroom in particular?”
Nick quickly reached out to grab Jay’s shoulder, thought better of it, and grabbed Farshad’s arm to keep from teleporting again. His other hand was still holding on to Willis’s papers. “I was thinking of you,” he told Farshad, who was staring at him, wide-eyed but not moving away. “Do you think your parents would understand any of this?” He looked at the papers.
“Let me see, let me see,” Jay said, snatching the papers and peering at the equations. “Hmm. Interesting.”
“Can you understand them?” Nick asked, surprised.
“Not at all, it looks like crazy-person nonsense. Where did you get these?”
Nick explained his morning to Farshad and Jay, who listened without interruption.
“Astounding,” Jay breathed when Nick had finished.
“I’m not totally sure why you needed to include the detail about the cat,” Farshad grumbled.
Jay looked at his watch. “Gentlemen, sixth period is about to let out. We should relocate before this bathroom is teeming with young men needing to relieve their bursting bladders.”
“Wait, were you two cutting class?” Nick asked, suddenly aware of the oddness that was Jay hanging out with Farshad.
“You’re not the only one who’s had adventures, my dear left sock,” Jay said. “To the Understeps!”
Cookie had heard a lot of wild rumors over the years (and had started quite a few of them), but it seemed like absolutely everyone was talking about how Eric and Michael had gotten into a fight with Kaylee Schmitt, The Shrimp, and Terror Boy.
“I totally saw it,” Bethany Marino was telling anyone who would listen. “Terror Boy threw Mike Donovan across the hall, like, fifty feet or something.”
“Wait, I thought I saw The Shrimp bite him,” Nora Weir said.
“The Shrimp bit Terror Boy?” Claire asked.
“No, The Shrimp bit Mike. Before Terror Boy attacked him.”
“So, wait, are The Shrimp and Terror Boy, like, friends now?” Addison asked, giggling.
“Yes,” Martina said.
“Wait, what?” Claire asked. “How do you even know this?”
“Because they’re my friends, too,” Martina said. “And it’s mean that you call them Shrimp and Terror Boy. Those aren’t their names.”
Claire stared at Martina. Addison gave Cookie a look. Cookie quickly turned to Bethany and Nora, who were clearly very excited to be the center of attention. “So why were they fighting?”
“I think Kaylee started it,” Bethany said in a low voice. “You know how those Farm Kids are.” The group nodded. Everyone did know how those Farm Kids were: big, dumb, and usually in trouble.
“How are Farm Kids?” Martina asked.
SERIOUSLY, STOP TALKING, Cookie screamed at Martina in her mind.
“What?” Martina asked. “I don’t understand.”
Cookie forced herself to laugh. “She’s so funny,” she said, suddenly incredibly grateful for the ringing of the seventh-period bell. This school day could not end soon enough.
We’re at the Understeps. Cookie heard Farshad’s voice in her head and immediately became annoyed. Come to the Understeps.
And then a moment later, Please come to the Understeps.
“Gotta go,” Cookie said, grabbing Martina’s arm and steering her away from Bethany and Nora, who were describing Kaylee’s ugly outfit to Addison and Claire in great detail.
“Farshad wants to meet up with us,” she whispered to Martina as they ducked around a corner to avoid being caught without a hall pass by Principal Jacobs. They quietly made their way to the Understeps, where Jay was lifting up his shirt and Farshad and Nick were inspecting his bare chest.
“Did we really need to be here for this?” Cookie asked, irritated, until she saw what were the beginnings of a massive bruise forming just below Jay’s rib cage. He saw her looking and lowered his shirt.
“It’s just a bruise,” he said. “I am mostly intact.”
“Did Mike Donovan do that to you?” Martina asked.
“He kicked Jay in the stomach,” Farshad told her.
“Did you kill him?” Martina asked.
“No!”
“He did throw Mike down the hall,” Jay said with pride. “It was magnificent. I doubt they’ll be messing with us again.”
“What are you talking about?” Farshad snapped. “Eric immediately tried to kill me.”
“Except for that,” Jay admitted.
“What did
you do to make them come after you in the first place?” Cookie asked, before quickly reconsidering. “Oh, wait, never mind, you were probably just being you.”
“In fact, I was,” Jay said. “I saw a damsel in distress and I swooped in to save the day, as is my wont. The brutes were harassing Miss Kaylee Schmitt and I simply couldn’t stand for it.”
“Then why did they come after Farshad?” Martina asked, looking at Farshad, who quickly looked down in embarrassment.
“Because he is my brother-in-arms!” Jay declared, clapping Farshad on the back before wincing in pain from the effort. “He rushed forward to aid me in battle, and for this I shall forevermore be indebted.”
“So,” Nick said carefully to Farshad, “you used your power for good, after all.”
“Of course he did, he’s my brother-in-arms,” Jay scoffed, and Cookie had a sudden understanding that half of the goofy nonsense that Jay spewed was carefully calculated to deflect attention away from an embarrassed person. It was sort of brilliant.
(The other half of the goofy nonsense that Jay spewed was still pure goofy nonsense.)
“Mike and Eric were acting very weird in class,” Cookie interjected. “Did you hear about how they threatened to kill Neil deGrasse Hamster?”
“Cookie saved him by using her power to tell Eric to put down the hamster cage,” Martina added. “Her power is getting stronger.”
“So is mine,” Nick said in a low voice, holding out a handful of papers that were covered in what looked like mathematical equations. “Willis made these. I just teleported from Rebecca and Beanie’s apartment with them.”
Cookie stared at Nick, who was resting his hand on Jay’s narrow shoulder. “Can you control where you go?” she asked. Nick shook his head.
“It’s okay,” Martina said, “I don’t think Eric Mathes and Michael Donovan can control their powers, either.”
“What do you mean?” Farshad asked.
“I mean, they’re not the nicest boys, but they’ve never tried to kill a hamster before. Or tried to beat up three people in the middle of the hall.”
Martina was right. As long as Cookie had known Eric and Mike they’d always been just . . . there, usually hanging out with Izaak. The worst thing they’d ever done was to give some nerds swirlies, but as far as she knew they’d never hit anyone hard enough to make a nasty bruise like the one they’d given Jay.
Cookie looked at Farshad. “Do you think they’re stronger? Like you?”
Farshad thought a moment. “Eric was strong, but I don’t think he’s as strong as . . . my thumbs. He’s a different kind of strong.”
“What do you mean?” Nick asked.
“He’s the sort of strong that you get when you don’t care at all about what happens to the other guy.”
“My brother Farshad is right,” Jay said, making a move to clap Farshad on the back again and then thinking better of it (or he was just being restrained by Nick, who was still holding on to his shoulder). “I truly believe that Michael did not care about my well-being in the slightest when he rammed his foot into my solar plexus.”
“Since when do guys care about how much they hurt each other in a fight?” Cookie asked.
“Well, no one wants to kill anyone else,” Nick said. “Guys just want to show each other who is stronger without committing murder or looking like a psycho or getting suspended from school.”
“All of that could be accomplished without fighting at all,” Martina noted. She was sitting on the floor with her sketchbook out, again, and Cookie could see her sketching out the fight as if she had been there.
“Of course it could, but the males of the species have male hormones and that makes them do very stupid things,” Jay said dismissively. “But do we think that these particular hormonal males are acting out more because of exposure to the Auxano formulas that they may or may not have been exposed to by their overachieving parents?”
Martina looked up. “Cookie and I can find out at the party tomorrow night.”
“Party?” Jay perked up.
“It’s a party for the high test scorers at Izaak Marcus’s house,” Cookie explained.
“Huh.” Farshad glowered. “My invitation must have been lost in the mail.”
“I don’t think there were paper invitations,” Martina said. “You probably weren’t invited because Izaak doesn’t like you.”
“I think you’re onto something there.” Farshad took Willis’s papers out of Nick’s hand and stuck them in his backpack. “I have to go to class. I’ll take these home and come up with some sort of excuse to show them to my parents to see if they mean anything or if they’re just crazy-person garbage. You guys enjoy your party.”
“Oh, I don’t think we will,” Cookie said weakly as he sauntered off. She turned to look at Nick only to find him gone.
“Oh dear, it’s happened again,” Jay said, looking worried.
“Where did he go?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.” Jay looked up at Cookie. “Listen . . .”
“It’s okay,” she said.
“I just wanted to say . . .”
“Please, don’t. It’s fine. We’re cool.”
“Well and good, then,” Jay said. He let out a sigh and winced again. “Now if anyone would care to accompany me, I’m not too manly to admit that I might need Nurse Biggs to take a look-see to make sure I don’t have any broken ribs.”
“You don’t,” Martina said, putting her sketchbook into her bag and standing up. “But you should put some ice on it.”
“Thank you, Dr. Saltis.”
“Wait,” Cookie said. “How do you know?”
“I just do.”
Cookie looked at Martina. Farshad was getting stronger. Nick was teleporting farther. Her own talent for reading thought directions was becoming an ability to give thought directions. But as far as Cookie could see, Martina was the same; just a normal, weird girl with randomly changing eye color. Or was there something more?
Farshad’s mother had made Khorake Goosht for dinner, which usually put everyone in a good mood; Farshad’s father liked to tell people that he married his wife for her brains but stayed for her cooking. Farshad had heard that joke repeated to nearly every dinner guest they’d ever had. He liked his mother’s cooking just fine, although he secretly looked forward to the times when she’d be away at a conference, because that meant his dad would make macaroni and cheese from a box and put chunks of fried hot dogs in it. Farshad understood intellectually that his father’s cooking was completely gross, but it was also really tasty. He suspected this was why his mother chose not to attend too many conferences.
“So,” Farshad’s mother said as she ladled the Persian beef stew over a bed of steaming basmati rice, “anything new at school?”
Keep calm, and act like everything that you’re saying is totally true, because of course it is. “Actually, someone gave me some impossible math work as a joke.”
“Ha! That’s a good joke,” Farshad’s father said, shaking his head and smiling.
“Yes . . . it’s hilarious. But I was thinking, wouldn’t it be funny if you could actually help me to figure it out? It isn’t for an assignment or anything, just for a laugh.”
“I never understand what American teenagers find funny,” Farshad’s mother said.
“What are you talking about?” his father said. “It’s very funny. We can go over it after dinner.”
“Thanks, Baba.”
“Of course, this is why I went and got those advanced degrees. So we can turn the tables on math jokesters.” Farshad’s dad rubbed his hands together gleefully as his mom shook her head in mock irritation.
When dinner was over Farshad handed the papers to his father with as much nonchalance as he could muster (sure, here’s some crazy stuff written by an Amish teenager who is definitely not playing with a full deck of cards, no big deal) and then went to help his mother clear the table.
He was looking for dishwashing soap when he realize
d that his mother had abandoned him to finish the cleaning by himself. Farshad poked his head into the living room and saw his parents sitting next to each other on the sofa. Willis’s papers were spread over the coffee table in front of them, and they were murmuring to each other in Farsi. Farshad’s father was absentmindedly tugging at his beard and his mother was twisting her rings, things they usually only did when they were agitated. And they were definitely agitated.
“Farshad,” his father said, looking up at him and speaking in a low voice, “where did you get these?”
“Oh, you know,” Farshad said lightly, “like I said, a friend at school gave them to me. As a joke.”
Farshad’s parents looked at each other, and then back at him.
“Which friend, Farshad?” his mother asked quietly.
“Why, what’s wrong with it?” he asked, trying to avoid having to name anyone. Something about those equations had definitely disturbed his parents and Farshad was suddenly filled with visions of them asking more questions than he cared to answer. He felt his thumbs twitch.
“Nothing,” his mother said quickly, which was clearly a lie, as something was definitely wrong with the equations. “It’s just that this is very advanced math, Farshad. Highly advanced.”
“Oh, so you can’t understand it? That’s fine, you don’t need to bother, it’s a dumb joke anyway,” Farshad said, forcing a chuckle.
“This is . . . sensitive information,” his father said. “And we’d like to know where you got it.”
“What do you mean?” Farshad asked.
“These equations,” his mother said with hesitation, “these equations look very similar to some things that we’ve been working on at Auxano.”
“Really?” Farshad said. “How weird.”