by Amy Ignatow
“What’s weird,” Dr. Rajavi said, shooting a quick look to his wife, “is that these equations are done.”
“Done?” Farshad asked with a strange feeling in his gut.
“Finished,” Dr. Rajavi said, looking at the papers in her hands, which were shaking ever so slightly. “We’ve been working on these for a very, very long time without finding an answer. But this . . . this has the answers.”
“Farshad,” his father said in a low, almost frightened voice, “where did you get these? Who gave them to you?”
Farshad blinked. “Jay Carpenter,” he said.
“Well . . . it will have to do,” Cookie said, looking over her work. Martina looked nearly exactly like Martina always looked, only now she was wearing fake glasses that Cookie had found in a costume store. No one outside of their weird little group had seemed to notice her changing irises, but that was because no one ever paid much attention to Martina, and Cookie knew that was going to change now that Martina was hanging out with her. She was hoping the glasses would make the color changes a little less obvious.
“Do I look smarter?” Martina asked.
“Probably,” Cookie said. “People with glasses always look smarter.”
“That’s strange,” Martina noted. “I usually find that people with glasses just have poorer vision.”
“Well, stereotypes suck,” Cookie agreed, looking at her phone. It was almost time to go if they wanted to get there on time, which Cookie did not. Getting places on time was for people who did the waiting for people like her.
You have to find Jay. Farshad’s voice was suddenly echoing in Cookie’s mind as if he were standing right next to her. Or sitting inside of her brain. She froze.
What? No! RUDE. Get out of my brain.
“Cookie?” Martina asked.
Cookie, listen to me. You have to find Jay and tell him to meet us somewhere. Anywhere. But he has to get out of his house.
“Is it Farshad?” Martina asked.
What is wrong with you? Cookie thought, trying to get her brain to scream so that Farshad, wherever he was, would feel as uncomfortable as she was feeling with his voice in her head. Haven’t you ever heard of a phone?
I broke my phone. With my thumbs.
“Ugh,” Cookie said. Frigging use your computer to message me.
I kind of broke that, too.
Seriously?
Look, just call or text or think to Jay that he needs to get out of his house right now before his parents see him.
Why?
I’ll tell you when I see you. Meet me at the spot in the woods.
I can’t. Martina and I are going to the party at Izaak’s house.
This is more important. Just come, and tell Jay to come.
STOP TELLING ME WHAT TO DO. I AM NOT YOUR MESSAGING SERVICE.
Okay! I’m sorry. Please. Please find Jay. Please.
FINE.
This is hurting my head.
No kidding.
Then silence. “He has got to stop doing that,” Cookie growled. Martina looked at her. “Well, he broke his phone. And his computer. Anyway, he really wants us to find Jay before his parents do.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, we both wanted to stop thinking to each other, so we’ll find out when we see him in the spot in the woods.” Cookie rubbed her temples. “I don’t suppose Jay has a cell phone?”
Martina shrugged. “If he did I wouldn’t know the number. Can you think to him?”
Cookie bit her lip. The idea of projecting any more thoughts into Jay’s brain was more upsetting than she would admit to Martina. She had really hurt him, and as obnoxious as Jay could be, she didn’t want to do it again. Cookie closed her eyes, and felt Martina’s hand resting on top of hers.
“You’ll be fine,” Martina said. “Just stay calm.”
“Okay,” Cookie said.
Jay.
Jay, Farshad wants you to get out of your house right now. Leave before your parents come home, and meet us in the spot in the woods.
Cookie opened her eyes and let out a breath.
“He heard you?” Martina asked.
“I think so,” Cookie said, grabbing her purse. “I got out of there pretty fast.”
Martina nodded. “I think he heard you.”
Nick took the mug of hot coffee from Abe out of politeness and sat down at the Amish teenager’s family kitchen. It was pretty sparse, as kitchens went: a small wooden table and chairs, a wood-burning stove, and what looked like an old-fashioned icebox. Nick had heard that the Amish didn’t use electricity, but he hadn’t expected everything to be so quiet.
No noise coming from a humming fridge, no lights coming from digital displays—Nick could think of at least three digital clocks in his aunts’ kitchen (one on the microwave, one on the stove, another on the radio, and they were never in sync), and it was strange to not see anything. There wasn’t even a wall clock.
Abe seemed agitated, which made sense, as he’d just witnessed Nick appear out of thin air. Nick had tried to calm him down by explaining how his own powers had expanded, but then he’d mentioned how he couldn’t control them and Abe seemed ready for him to disappear at any second. Nick couldn’t blame him. He half expected himself to disappear at any second. He took a sip of the coffee, and found that Abe had put so much sugar and heavy cream in it that it tasted like coffee ice cream.
“I keep wondering why you are suddenly here,” Abe said, sitting down across from Nick with his own full mug.
“I’m telling you, I can’t control it,” Nick explained.
“Yah I know, but when you thought of the bike, you were in the basement, and then you thought of your strange little friend, and you were with him. So, were you thinking of me?” Abe looked at Nick.
“I don’t know,” Nick admitted. “Maybe? I’ve been thinking about everything. I can’t stop thinking about everything that’s happened since the bus accident. Can you?”
“No, for certain I cannot,” Abe said. “But when I think about things I do not go flying around from place to place. It is a shame you cannot take people with you when you go.”
“I don’t know,” Nick said, “before I couldn’t go farther than four inches, and now I’m showing up all over the county. Maybe in a little while I’ll be able to take other people.”
“Perhaps you should practice,” Abe said. Nick looked worried. “Let’s go to the neighbor’s barn and get a chicken for you to practice with.”
“A chicken?”
“Yah, sure.”
“Wait, I don’t feel right about stealing a chicken.”
“You will not steal! The chickens are ours. The neighbor is just holding them until we get a new barn that has not been burned down by a madman with fire-starting powers. Come.”
“You look like you have never held a chicken before,” Abe noted a few minutes later as Nick and the chicken Abe had shoved into his hands engaged in a tense staring contest.
“You are correct, I have not,” Nick admitted. “What’s this one’s name?”
“She does not have a name. She is a chicken.”
“Well, did you ask?” Nick said, nervous that the nameless chicken was going to start flapping and possibly pecking at his eyes. He was suddenly grateful for the poor eyesight that required him to wear glasses. “You can talk to animals. Ask her what her name is.”
Abe sighed. “Fine.” He looked at the chicken. “She thinks that’s a stupid question.”
“Really?”
“No, she is a chicken, she is thinking, ‘Put me down.’ But do not. Let’s see if we can make you disappear with the chicken. Maybe think about a place you would like to be?”
Okay. Okay okay okay you can do this. Nick squeezed his eyes shut and thought about being back in the Zook family kitchen. He thought about the wood-burning stove and the mug that was still mostly full of sweet coffee, and the wooden table and the icebox. He gingerly opened one eye to find that he was still standing in a strange bar
n holding on to a nameless chicken.
“I didn’t go anywhere.”
“No, you are still here, holding a chicken.”
“I’m going to name her. Maybe we’ll have a successful journey together if we know each other a little better.”
“Don’t name her.”
“Why not?”
“If you name her it will feel wrong to eat her.”
“Rihanna! There. I’ve named her.” Nick looked at Rihanna the chicken. “Now I’ve named you, so that dude can’t eat you, and you owe me your life.”
“Bok,” Rihanna said.
“I do not think she likes her weird name. Perhaps she would rather be eaten,” Abe said. “Try again.”
For the next half hour Nick tried and failed to teleport to Abe’s kitchen while holding Rihanna. Then he gave the chicken back to Abe and tried to teleport to the kitchen without her for another half hour, to no avail, and it was starting to look like he was going to have to ask Abe and his deranged horse for another ride back into town.
“Maybe the problem isn’t Rihanna,” Abe wondered aloud. “Maybe you just don’t want to go to my family’s kitchen.”
“I don’t know about this,” Nick said, flopping onto a bale of hay in frustration. “I’ve never been able to teleport with any other living thing before. In fact, touching a person or maybe a chicken is the only thing that keeps me grounded. It’s probably better that I’m not able to bring anyone else with me.”
“Bok,” said Rihanna.
“See, Rihanna agrees with me.”
“But what do you mean, you have never been able to teleport with anyone else before?” Abe said, irritated. “A few weeks ago you could not teleport at all. And then you could not teleport more than a few inches. Now you can go very far distances. You are getting more powerful, so it is not so crazy to think that you would be able to take someone with you.”
“Well, it isn’t happening tonight,” Nick said. “Why are you pushing me?”
Abe threw up his hands. “Because, dumkupp, if you can teleport with other people you can get people into places. And out of them.”
Nick stared at Abe with a sudden understanding. “You want to break Mr. Friend out of Auxano.”
“Of course I do!” Abe said, practically shouting (which for him still wasn’t that loud). “Don’t you? We just left him there!”
“So you want me to somehow teleport into Auxano, grab hold of a dude who blows stuff up with his mind and has no control over that, and then somehow teleport out of there without being blown up myself?” Nick asked, incredulous.
“We have to do something!” Abe said. “We just left him there!”
“Bok!” Rihanna said.
“What do you mean, we just left him there?” Nick asked.
“I mean that Farshad and I saw him at Auxano and did not know what to do, so we left him there. We said we would come back for him, but we were not able to.”
Nick’s head was spinning. “Why didn’t you tell us this before?”
“Before, I didn’t see a way to get him.” Abe gave Nick a hard look. Sometimes he seemed much older than fifteen.
“Okay,” Nick said, picking up Rihanna. “Let’s keep trying.”
“Bok,” she said.
Farshad was already in the woods when Cookie and Martina arrived. “Is Jay with you?” he asked.
“Does he look like he’s here?” Cookie snapped.
“No, no, I’m sorry,” Farshad said, running his hands through his thick black hair. For a moment Cookie found herself wondering what his hair would feel like and then immediately felt weird about wondering such a thing. Whatever. He didn’t have bad hair. “So is he coming?” Farshad asked.
“I don’t know,” Cookie said. “I tried. What’s this all about?”
“I think I screwed up,” Farshad said. He seemed agitated. “Look, I showed those papers Nick got to my parents.”
“Willis’s mathematical equations,” Martina said.
“Right,” Farshad said, “those papers. And I made it sound like Ha ha, some nerd gave these to me figuring I wouldn’t be able to understand them and wouldn’t it be funny if I could, and then they looked over the papers and it was like I’d shown them the plans for a nuclear bomb or something.” He reached up and absentmindedly grabbed a low branch, accidentally snapping it in two with his thumb before letting out a curse.
“Whoa. Put those things away,” Cookie said lightly as Farshad looked helplessly at his hands. “So what was in the papers?”
“I don’t know,” Farshad said. “All they told me was that it was something that they’d been working on for a long time, and the answers that they’d not been able to come up with themselves were in the papers. They were really freaked out, and then demanded to know who’d given me the equations.” He fell silent.
“So what did you tell them?” Cookie asked. Farshad looked down at his shoes.
“He told them that Jay was the nerd who had given him the papers to figure out,” Martina said.
“Seriously? SERIOUSLY?” Cookie stared at Farshad. “Why would you do that? What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing, nothing,” Jay said nonchalantly, emerging from behind a tree. Cookie felt a surge of relief to see him. Her emotions were really all over the place today. “Young sir Rajavi merely had to do some quick thinking and came to the obvious conclusion that I would be the sort of person to give him a math problem for fun. Plus, he probably knew that I’d be able to handle any situation thrown at me.”
“Did your parents say anything?” Cookie asked.
“Ah, no, I crept out before there was any sort of confrontation, thanks to your warning. Thank you for that. It really was best for all involved; my parents are not particularly fond of confrontations. Now. What are we going to do?”
“I’m really sorry about this,” Farshad started, but Jay waved him off.
“Phhffftt, think nothing of it. If they ask me anything I’ll just tell them I got the equations from Ms. Zelle. The question is, what are they? And how do they pertain to your particular situation? And how much do your parents know about what’s going on at Auxano? And has anyone seen or heard from Nick lately?”
“He’s fine,” Martina said.
“Oh, good,” Jay replied. “Where is he?”
“I have no idea,” Martina said.
“Very well, then.”
“So this was super fun, and now I have a new thing to add to my ever-growing list of stuff to worry about, but Martina and I need to head out.” Cookie brushed a dead leaf off of her skirt.
“Ah, yes, the party!” Jay said. “I’ll escort you.”
“Uh, excuse me?” Cookie asked with a raised eyebrow.
“The party. I’m coming with you.”
“Jay, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” Farshad said.
“Why ever not? I scored very high on the exam. So did you! We should both go. You’d need to change, though, you look sweaty.”
“Has it occurred to you that we might not be welcome? Because, oh, I don’t know, Mike and Eric will be there?”
“And they tried to murder both of you yesterday,” Martina pointed out.
“And also you goons are not invited,” Cookie said. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we’ll be heading out.”
“But you need us!” Jay said. “How are you going to gather intel while you’re at Izaak’s house?”
“By being smart and looking dumb,” Cookie said. “Not the other way around.”
“I . . . I think I’m insulted,” Jay said, smiling. Cookie could feel herself gaining some grudging respect for the way that he handled being put down. A guy like Izaak (or his dumb friends) would lash out, or act like they didn’t care when it was obvious that they were hurt, but with Jay it was all either mock outrage or water off a duck’s back. Nothing seemed to really affect him.
(Well, nothing apart from invading his brain with her anger.)
“You need us there,” Jay continued. “Ei
ght eyes are better than four.”
“No,” Cookie said. “We’re not going to watch as you two get into another fight with Mike and Eric. So either you stay here or go . . . wherever to figure out what you’re going to do about this whole situation with your parents, and Martina and I will go use our eyes at a party.”
Martina’s eyes switched quickly from hazel to an almost unnatural shade of violet. “Glasses, girl,” Cookie said. Martina pulled the fake glasses out of her bag and put them on, and they headed out.
Izaak’s house wasn’t that close to the woods, and Cookie and Martina were already running late. By the time they got there the party was in full swing.
It seemed as though every Company Kid at Deborah Read Middle School had been stuffed into Izaak Marcus’s house, as well as some of the parents, who were clustered around the kitchen island. Cookie spied Mike and Eric in a corner, surrounded by other boys and laughing very loud. A few weeks ago, Cookie could have walked straight up to them and pretended to join the fun without missing a beat, but now she felt a shiver of fear run up her spine. For some reason they seemed bigger than before, and meaner.
“We don’t have to talk to them,” Martina said quietly.
“We should probably listen to what they’re talking about, though,” Cookie said without moving a muscle to get closer.
Something felt . . . wrong, and Cookie knew without asking that Martina was feeling it as well. The atmosphere was weirdly aggressive, like the time Cookie and her mother had gone with George to his cousin’s barbecue. Cookie had noticed her teenage stepsiblings hovering near her mother and her, chatting with forced cheer and offering to walk with them to the bathroom. It had seemed strange at the time, but not as strange as the stares that she’d received from some of George’s cousins. They’d left early after George had a tense-seeming talk with one woman, and went straight to the ice cream parlor in Muellersville, because they’d never had the chance to eat anything, and that’s when Cookie’s stepsister London had given her a taste of pistachio ice cream for the first time. George hadn’t spoken to that side of the family since.
It was becoming more and more difficult for Cookie to shut out the thoughts of everyone at the party. She couldn’t even make them out clearly; it was just a loud jumble of . . . angry.