Odds & Ends

by Amy Ignatow

  There were three boys. Eric Mathes (or some madman who had taken over Eric’s face and body) and two others, and they froze for a moment as Cookie flashed her light at them. The three were panting like dogs, their bodies coiled as if ready to strike, and their eyes . . . the whites of their eyes had turned blood red.

  And for a moment, everything in the dark forest was still.

  Then they lunged.

  Several things happened at once. Cookie backed up, tripping over a small fallen tree and falling backward. Martina grabbed a fallen branch and began swinging it wildly at the three feral boys.

  Then the animals attacked.

  When she thought about it later Cookie realized that she would have guessed the bigger animals would have led the charge, but it all started with the chipmunks and the squirrels. They attached themselves to the legs of the mad boys, scampering up them until Eric and his friends were flailing and shrieking. Then came the beavers and the groundhogs, running themselves headlong into the boys’ shins, causing them to tumble to the ground, screaming all the while. Then the skunk shimmied up to them. Martina grabbed Cookie’s hand and yanked her to her feet.

  “WE RUN! NOW!” she screamed, pointing to a young deer that was hightailing it out of the forest. They followed.

  The deer seemed to be leading them on some sort of rough-hewn footpath, and Cookie and Martina ran as fast as they could with only the shaking light of the cell phone to keep them from hitting trees and tripping over rocks. Cookie could no longer hear any other thought besides Martina’s RUN! RUN! RUN!

  The deer stopped as the girls tumbled out of the woods onto a quiet cul-de-sac that was illuminated by a street lamp. Martina turned around and fixed her gray eyes on the deer. “Thank you,” she gasped, and the deer turned and ran back into the woods.

  “Where are we?” she asked Cookie.

  Cookie looked around, trying to get her bearings. “I think we’re near Nick’s aunts’ house, where Jay is.” She pointed down the street. “It’s around the corner.”

  Behind them the sounds of the Eric and Friends vs. Woodland Creatures battle got louder. “We need to get inside,” Martina said. Cookie nodded, and they ran down the block, still clasping hands.

  A minute later they were banging on Nick’s aunts’ front door. Jay answered, wearing an apron that read I’m Not a Lesbian but My Wife Is and a very surprised look on his face. Martina dragged Cookie in and they shut the door before Jay could answer any questions, locking the dead bolt and latching the chain lock before quickly shutting off all the lights in the front of the house and closing the curtains that faced the streets. Cookie collapsed on the living room sofa, too worn-out to help.

  The house was quiet and warm, and it smelled like cookies. For the first time in hours Cookie felt something close to safe. Martina joined her on the sofa. Neither of them spoke. Jay disappeared into the kitchen and a moment later came out with a plate of cookies.

  “I got bored, so I baked something,” he said, putting the plate in front of them.

  “I didn’t know you baked,” Martina said, leaning forward to take a cookie. She handed one to Cookie.

  “This was my first time. It’s surprisingly easy.”

  Cookie took a tentative bite. The cookie was still warm and sweet and the chocolate chips inside were gooey. Cookie started to cry. Martina put an arm around her.

  Jay sat down on the coffee table in front of them. “When you’re ready,” he said, “tell me everything.”

  One moment he was outside looking at the wreck of the van and the next Farshad was in a bright, warm kitchen. He stumbled and quickly grabbed hold of a counter to steady himself, accidentally shattering one of the countertop tiles with his right thumb.

  “Oh man,” Nick groaned, “Molly is going to kill me.”

  “What . . . where . . .”

  “I must have transported us to my aunts’ house.”

  “Did . . . did you mean to?”

  “I didn’t not mean to . . . ?”

  “Well, hey now, the gang’s all here!” Jay strode into the room, wearing a rainbow-colored apron. “Cookie and Martina are in the other room and they’re a little traumatized. How are you fellows holding up? Are you hungry? I made cookies.” He started rummaging through the kitchen cabinets. “Nicholas, be a good lad and tell me where your aunts keep their drinking glasses, I’m all turned around.”

  “You made cookies in my aunts’ kitchen?” Nick asked.

  “I was bored. But things are getting interesting now. Look, I found juice boxes in the fridge, your aunts live like they’re eight. Bless them. Come, I’m sure the girls will be happy to see you. Or, at least, not totally miserable.”

  Farshad followed Jay and Nick into the living room, where Cookie and Martina were sitting on the sofa. Both had dirt on their faces and clothes, and it was pretty clear that Cookie had been recently crying. Martina’s hands were scratched up and Cookie had leaves in her hair. They looked exhausted.

  “You guys look terrible,” Nick said, plopping down next to them on the sofa. Farshad was still feeling discombobulated from the trip over and didn’t quite know where to put himself.

  “Now, now, Nick, while it may be true that the ladies have had harrowing experiences it doesn’t mean they’re not still very beautiful.” Cookie rolled her eyes and Farshad found himself relieved to see her acting like her old Cookie self; seeing her so frail was unnerving. He sat down next to her on the floor and Jay shoved a warm cookie into his hand. It was surprisingly delicious. Farshad could feel his frayed nerves settling down, if ever so slightly.

  “Where’s Rihanna?” Martina asked Nick.

  Nick glowered.

  “He’d rather not talk about that,” Farshad offered.

  “Oh my god, did you guys kill the chicken?” Cookie asked.

  “No!” Nick said. “But we kind of had to leave her at an accident scene that we ran away from.”

  “You were in another accident?” Jay asked, concerned. “With a chicken?”

  “No, no, we weren’t in the accident . . .”

  The stories began to unfold. Nick’s teleportation practice with Abe, the Rajavis’ reaction to Willis’s calculations, the party, Rihanna, the mob, the dumpster, those jerks at the ice cream parlor, The Hammer, the Auxano vans, the accident, Dr. Deery and Ms. Zelle, the mad dash through the woods, Eric’s attack, the small army of protective animals, and Jay’s newfound baking skills. Farshad, Nick, and Cookie did most of the talking while Martina took out her sketchbook, kicked off her shoes, and tucked her feet under her as she calmly sketched out scenes from the night.

  “So are Eric and the others still out there in the woods?” Nick asked.

  “Who knows?” Cookie said. “I mean, I don’t think the squirrels and chipmunks were trying to kill them. They were just trying to stop them.”

  “I don’t think squirrels eat people,” Martina agreed.

  “Who cares if they get eaten by squirrels?” Farshad snapped, and immediately regretted it. Eric and his friends might be jerks but they were clearly not okay and getting eaten by squirrels was not the answer. “Sorry,” he muttered.

  “What’s going to happen to all the other Company Kids who didn’t get out?” Cookie asked. “The ones that were in the six other vans?”

  “Who cares?” Farshad asked bitterly. They had just tried to kill him.

  “I care. They’re my friends.”

  “Some friends.”

  “It’s not their fault that they’ve gone . . . feral.”

  “You seem to be forgetting that they weren’t particularly swell before they became a violent mob.”

  “Look, I know you don’t like them and they’ve been really mean to you—I was really mean to you—but they’re just kids and they’re in trouble and we can’t just let them get trapped in that lab without doing anything about it. We have to help them.”

  “They probably are helping them!” Farshad exploded. “That’s why they probably grabbed them in the fi
rst place, so they couldn’t hurt themselves or each other!”

  “Just like they helped Mr. Friend?” Martina asked.

  Everyone fell silent.

  Farshad threw his hands in the air. “So, what are we supposed to do?” He looked around the group. Jay started to lean forward. “Oh no no no”—Farshad stopped him—“the last time I followed one of your suggestions I ended up getting hunted by a bloodthirsty mob and got stuck in a minivan with a shrieking weirdo who knew nothing and was no help at all. No more Jay Plans!”

  “Wait, wait,” Jay said. “I don’t have any Jay Plans. Is that a thing now? Because I LOVE IT.” Farshad glared at Jay, who raised his palms up. “Wait! I don’t have a plan. But I have a thought. You know what we haven’t talked about yet?”

  “How our parents are probably frantically worried about us?” Farshad snarled.

  “Perhaps, but no, I was thinking about Willis’s calculations,” Jay said. “You said that your parents were very disturbed by them. What exactly did they say?”

  Farshad tried to remember. It seemed like it had been a month since he had last seen his parents. “They said that it was similar to something they’d been working on at Auxano,” he murmured.

  “Right. And what do you think that might be?”

  “How should I know?”

  “What is the most important thing that Auxano is working on right now?” Jay asked. He had begun to pace the room with a wild look in his eyes. “Something that they’ve spent a lot of time and money on. Something RISKY. Something so important that they’re willing to shut down an entire town just to keep it under wraps!”

  “The formula that made us this way,” Martina whispered.

  “Do you think those calculations are related to Dr. Deery’s formula?” Nick asked, his mouth agape.

  “Oh, I have no idea,” Jay said, sitting down. “It looked like utter gobbledygook to me. But I know who would know.” He leaned forward. “We need to talk to Willis.”

  Cookie let out a snort-laugh. “You’re kidding me, right?” she asked. “Dude can’t talk.”

  “No, no, my dearest friend who I very much respect, it’s not that he can’t talk. It’s that he won’t talk. We need to find a way to talk to him.”

  “That’s madness. We can’t even leave this house,” Farshad said, looking at the curtained windows.

  “Yes, we can,” Martina said, looking at Nick.

  Nick stared at her, his eyes as round as saucers. “What, I’m supposed to transport everyone to Rebecca and Beanie’s apartment now? What makes you think I can do that?”

  “Because you can,” said Martina.

  “Easy for you to say,” Nick grumbled, looking at his scuffed-up sneakers.

  “Just try.”

  “Why?” Nick said. “Haven’t we done enough?”

  Farshad looked at Nick. He looked lost, and despite his frustration, Farshad felt very, deeply sorry for him. All Nick ever wanted was to help people, but he didn’t have the faith in his own abilities to do so. That’s why he always hung around Jay—if there’s one thing Jay was really, really good at, it was the one thing that Nick was really, really bad at: believing that he could do or be anything, even if that thing was completely ridiculous. A guy like Nick needed a guy like Jay to show him that anything is possible. And a guy like Jay needed a guy like Nick around to keep him from trying to use suction cups to scale the Auxano building or eat a whole tire or whatever bananas idea Jay came up with next.

  These are my friends now, Farshad realized. I finally have friends, and they are really, really odd.

  And where did he fit in?

  “I think you can do it,” Farshad heard himself saying. He shot a quick look to Cookie, who looked just as surprised to hear him say it as he was; she was definitely not at the steering wheel of his brain. But something inside him knew that Nick needed to try to help, and if he gave up, he’d be worse off, because the world needed more people like Nick: people who did the right thing just because it was the right thing to do.

  Thinking too hard about helping the jerks who had made Farshad’s life miserable for years was beginning to hurt his head, but he kept talking. “Look, we’ve got these powers, and they’re all getting stronger.” He shot a quick glance to Martina, the only one in their group whose power didn’t seem like much of anything, but he kept going. “And you were right,” he said to Nick. “If we don’t harness them and use them, then we don’t deserve them. It feels wrong to just sit on our abilities while kids we know are being rounded up and used as lab rats.”

  “So you expect me to be able to somehow zap all of us to Rebecca and Beanie’s apartment?” Nick asked with a helpless gesture that clearly said, Are you kidding me?

  “Yes,” Martina said, at the same time as Cookie said, “You could try,” and Jay said, “Maybe have another cookie first.”

  “Okay,” Nick said, pacing, “okay okay okay. Maybe we should all prepare. You know. Go to the bathroom first? Maybe? Do we need to pack anything? Maybe we should bring—”

  Martina leapt up from the sofa, grabbed Nick’s arm, and yelled, “GO TO WILLIS NOW!”

  And they disappeared.

  Farshad, Cookie, and Jay were silent for a moment. “Maybe I should pack some cookies for when Nick comes back to get us,” Jay said.

  “Make sure you’ve turned off the oven,” Cookie murmured as Jay scampered back into the kitchen in search of sandwich bags.

  “Do you think they actually made it to Rebecca and Beanie’s apartment?” Farshad asked.

  Cookie sank back into the sofa. “The next time we’re going on one of these adventures,” she growled, “everyone’s getting a frigging cell phone.”

  Nick flopped onto Rebecca and Beanie’s worn-out couch and closed his eyes. He’d done it, and he didn’t exactly know how to feel about what he’d done. He’d purposefully transported both himself and another person all the way to Lancaster, to a specific place.

  What did this mean? Could he go anywhere? If he thought too hard about Hawaii, would he just end up in Hawaii? Could he take his mom on the Hawaiian vacation she’d always wanted? But what if they got stuck in Hawaii? HE HAD TO STOP THINKING ABOUT HAWAII. Nick opened his eyes. He was not in Hawaii.

  “You took my notes,” Willis said. He was crouched on the sofa next to Nick, his eyes wild. “You took them.”

  “Yes,” Nick said, “I did. I’m sorry.”

  “You took my notes.”

  “This is all he’s been talking about since you left last time,” Rebecca said wearily. She walked over to the sofa and reached out to Willis, who recoiled and tried to hide underneath the cushions. “But at least he’s been talking.”

  “Of course I can talk,” Willis said, his voice muffled behind a pillow. “Of course of course of course and he took my notes and I need those notes.”

  “What do you need the notes for?” Martina asked. She sat on the sofa between Nick and the pile of cushions that wasn’t doing a particularly good job of hiding Willis.

  “I need them because I need them. I do. I need them. And he took them. And he needs to give them back because I need them.”

  Martina looked at Nick. “Can you get them back?”

  Nick looked at Willis, who was chewing furiously on the cuticle of his left thumb. He felt helpless. “I don’t even know where they are.” He looked over Martina at Willis. “I’m really, really sorry. I didn’t realize how important they were.”

  “They are very important! Super important! They are of the utmost importance!” Willis cried.

  “But why, Willis?” Rebecca asked gently.

  “Because! Because they are! Because I can use them to stop . . . all . . . of . . . this!”

  “All of what?” Nick asked.

  “Our powers,” Martina said.

  “What?” Rebecca asked. “Willis, are you serious?”

  “WHY WOULD I BE JOKING?” Willis screamed, and began throwing pillows at Rebecca. “I. CAN. MAKE. THIS. STOP.”

&n
bsp; Rebecca dodged the cushions. “You can make us normal again?” she asked when he was out of ammunition.

  “OF COURSE I CAN WHY WILL NO ONE UNDERSTAND ME?” he shrieked.

  “I understand,” Martina said. Nick stared at her, wondering again what her power was. Maybe it was understanding people like Willis. And seeing vortexes. And invisible men.

  “I need those notes back,” Willis told her, beginning to cry. He looked small and frail as the sobs shook his body. “I need them.”

  “I’m so sorry . . .” Nick whispered.

  “If he has his notes, we will all be normal again?” Rebecca interrupted, hopeful.

  “What is going on?” Beanie asked. He had just come into the apartment with an armful of groceries and was surveying the situation. “Did the sofa explode? Oh, hello Nick.”

  “Willis has been working on a way to make us normal again,” Rebecca said, her voice shaking.

  “IT IS A CHEMICAL FORMULA THAT WOULD NEGATE THE EFFECTS OF THE FIRST FORMULA!” Willis screamed, and went back to crying.

  “We need it,” Nick said, trying not to sound scared. “Ms. Zelle and the people at Auxano have been giving it to our classmates and it’s made them act like wild animals. We need it to stop them.”

  “Oh,” Beanie said, putting down the groceries. He picked a knitted blanket off the floor and wrapped it around Willis, and then grabbed one of the notebooks and a pencil to give to him. Willis immediately stopped crying and started scribbling, once again oblivious to everyone else in the room.

  “We have to help them,” Rebecca said, and gestured to Willis. “We have to help him.”

  Beanie frowned. “Would we lose our powers as well?”

  “Of course!” Rebecca cried. “And then we will all be normal again.”

  Beanie leaned against a wall and looked at his feet. “I do not know if I want to be normal again.”

  “What?”

  “Rebecca—”

  “No! We talked about this!” Rebecca paced the apartment, agitated. “If we were normal the Auxano people would stop coming after us. We would not have to hide anymore. We could go home. Beanie, HOME. I want to go home!”