by Amy Ignatow
“We do not even know if we would be welcomed back home,” Beanie said, still looking at the floor. “And we did not talk about this. You talked about it.” He glanced over at Willis. “He needs help, yes. But I do not know if I need help.”
“But if you are not normal you will certainly not be able to come back. With me. I thought you wanted to come back with me.” Rebecca seemed on the verge of tears and Nick felt a sudden desire to be anywhere but in that apartment witnessing something that seemed like not at all his business.
And then Nick was in a long hallway with no windows. He’d been in this hallway before . . .
He was at Auxano, in the hallway where they’d found the earsplittingly-loud screaming bunnies. GET OUT OF HERE! Nick mentally shouted to himself. But he stayed put.
He heard footsteps and voices, and looked frantically around for a hiding place. The door nearest to him was locked, as was the next one down the hall. The third door was open, but it was a women’s bathroom. Nick could hear the footsteps getting closer. He held his breath and slipped into the restroom.
It looked just like a men’s room, only there were more stalls and no urinals, with a small basket full of markers wrapped in white plastic. On closer inspection, those were definitely not markers. Nick heard the voices coming closer, and saw that the bathroom door was opening. He quickly ducked into a stall and locked it, hoping that the women coming in wouldn’t notice his beat-up gray sneakers.
“Ugh, I had to get out of there,” one woman was saying as she entered the stall next to Nick’s. “Maggie swore they were getting better, but I don’t see it. Four of them had to be separated for biting and we had to put an actual muzzle on that Izaak kid.”
“And where is Maggie, anyway?” The other woman got into the stall on the other side of Nick. “She should be here.”
“I don’t know.” The woman sighed. “This whole thing is a nightmare. Do you think they’re ever going to let us go home?”
The women reminded Nick of his mom and his aunts, who would also have uninterrupted conversations while one of them was in the bathroom. Women were weird.
“Dr. Carpenter keeps telling me that it won’t be long, but I’m pretty sure he has no idea what he’s talking about.”
“Dr. Carpenter definitely knows what’s going on.”
“Oh, the other Dr. Carpenter, sure. Her husband is in a panic, though.”
“Aren’t we all.”
Dr. Carpenter and Dr. Carpenter? Jay’s parents? Nick let out a little gasp.
The women stopped talking. Had they heard him? They had definitely heard him. They knew he had been listening. Nick thought fast and shoved his hand through the neck of his T-shirt into his armpit and brought his arm down, making a fairly realistic farting sound. Then he did it again. And again. And again.
The women quickly finished their bathroom business and headed out the door. “Oh my god . . .” he heard one of them saying as the bathroom door closed. Nick let out a sigh of relief and removed his clammy hand from his armpit. Jay was going to get a kick out of this, if he ever saw Jay again.
“Old sport, where have you been?” Jay asked. Nick was back in his aunts’ living room.
But how was he going to tell Jay that his parents knew . . . everything?
Cookie didn’t know if she was getting used to Nick popping in and out of thin air or if she was just really tired and didn’t care. This was her new normal! Hanging out with her weirdo friends who had magical powers that they couldn’t control while their entire town was on lockdown. No biggie.
She texted her mom and lied, yet again, telling her that she was still at the party and that everything was fine. The boys were playing video games and the girls were painting their nails different colors (more details now, fewer questions later). She put away her phone as Nick told them about his unintended trip to Auxano.
“So they’re not getting any better,” Jay said, pacing furiously, “and the Auxano people don’t know how to make them better. But Willis does.”
“Willis did,” Nick explained, “and he wrote it down, and we need his notes.” He looked at Farshad. “Can you get them back from your parents?”
Farshad rubbed his temples. “I don’t know where they put them. It seemed like they knew what they were—they probably took them to Auxano already.”
“Wait, did you just abandon Martina at Rebecca and Beanie’s apartment?” Cookie asked.
“Uh . . .” Nick looked at his shoes. “I guess I kinda did?”
“Nick!”
“Teleporting is tricky! I don’t know what I’m doing!”
“Martina is probably fine,” Jay said. “She’s a very resourceful young woman and Rebecca and Beanie have always been gracious hosts. I assume,” he said, most likely remembering that he’d never actually met them. “The real question is, are we certain that your parents know what to do with Willis’s calculations?”
Farshad threw his hands up in the air. “Do we know what to do with Willis’s calculations?” He looked at Jay. “We can’t trust Dr. Deery with them. We certainly can’t trust Ms. Zelle. How would we know that Auxano even wants to make everyone better? They might just want to make them stronger!”
“Maybe my parents would know what to do,” Jay mused.
“No!” Nick blurted, and immediately looked uncomfortable.
Cookie perked up. She had always been good at reading people, but it didn’t take a mind reader to tell that Nick was hiding something.
“I know they can be a little standoffish, but they might prove resourceful,” Jay said, oblivious to Nick’s squirming.
What do you know about Jay’s parents? Cookie aimed her thoughts at Nick.
“Nothing!” Nick said.
“Nothing what?” Jay asked.
“We need a plan,” Farshad said decisively. “One that helps the kids and Invisible Ed and Mr. Friend, if he’s still around.”
“Okay,” Jay said, still pacing. “Let’s figure something out . . .”
“I’m going to put these cookies away before I eat them all and there’s none left for Nick’s aunts,” Cookie declared, gathering the platter. “Show me where your aunts keep the cookie tin?” she asked Nick, giving him a hard stare. He followed her into the kitchen.
“You’re keeping something from Jay about his parents!” she hissed to Nick the moment they got into the kitchen.
“No, I’m not!” Nick said, turning red in the face.
Cookie grabbed his arm. “Don’t you dare go—”
They were in a barn.
“—teleporting anywhere. Are you kidding me?!?”
“I didn’t mean to!” Nick said. “I got flustered!”
“Where are we?”
“Hi, Nick. Hello, Cookie.” Abe was in the corner of the barn, putting his horse back into a stall. “Nice to see you both again. Why are you here?”
“Nick didn’t want to answer a question so he freaked out and teleported us here!” Cookie growled.
“Oh.”
“Jay’s parents already know about the formula!” Nick said. “I overheard two scientists talking about them while I was hiding in the women’s bathroom! They know everything! They’re part of the whole experiment! I think his mother might be in charge of the whole thing!”
“Oh no,” Cookie gasped.
“Why were you hiding in a women’s bathroom?” Abe asked.
“I can’t tell him!” Nick said. “He’s already worried that his parents manufactured his intelligence and if he finds out that they’re part of this whole mess he’ll never know for sure and it will really hurt him!”
Cookie scoffed. “Of course they didn’t manufacture Jay’s intelligence. He’s not that smart.”
“Hey. He does really well at school.” Nick seemed offended on behalf of his friend, which Cookie couldn’t help but find incredibly sweet. But she was still in a barn miles away from civilization, so that feeling went away pretty quickly.
“Okay, but Jay hasn’t turned fer
al or started melting metal with his laser-beam eyes or anything. If his parents had been able to use the formula to alter him then why would they have messed up so royally on everyone else? It doesn’t make sense.”
“None of this makes any sense. But we still can’t tell him about them. They’re his parents.”
“He’s going to have to know eventually! He probably already suspects something.”
“He does! And he was really upset about the idea of it. I don’t think he could handle the reality of it.”
“Jay can handle a lot more than you give him credit for. I—” Cookie paused for a moment, not wanting to say what she knew she had to say next. “I really hurt him. I mean, really. I showed him stuff about how he made me feel that he wasn’t at all prepared to know. You saw it.”
Nick nodded.
“And you know what? He bounced back. Because he’s Jay. And that’s what Jay does. He can handle it. You don’t have to always protect him.”
“So . . . what’s going on?” Abe asked.
“This is sort of a private conversation, Abe,” Cookie snapped.
“My apologies. It is my neighbor’s barn, though.”
“Sorry, Abe,” Nick said.
“Yeah, I’m sorry,” Cookie said, feeling bad. “And I never got to thank you for sending those animals to protect us. It was very thoughtful. And freaky. And kind of life-saving.”
“I was happy to be able to help. So were the animals. They liked you.”
“Really? You could tell that?”
“They wouldn’t have helped if they didn’t want to.”
“Oh.” Suddenly Cookie had an idea. It wasn’t a great idea, but it was an idea. “Nick. Nick, you have to get us back to the others. I think I have a plan.”
“Is it a good plan?” Nick asked.
“No,” said Cookie, “but it is a plan.” She grabbed his hand. “TAKE US BACK TO YOUR AUNTS’ HOUSE!”
“Why are you yelling at me?”
“I don’t know, it worked before when Martina did it?”
“She startled me. I kind of expect you to yell at me.”
“Hey!”
“What? I do!”
“Well, let’s get back. And bring Abe with us.” Cookie looked at Abe. “We need your help. Are you up for it?”
Abe nodded and Nick took hold of his hand. Nothing happened.
“What are we doing?” Abe asked after a while.
“I’m trying to teleport us all back to my aunts’ house.”
“Have you . . . teleported . . . more than one other person before?”
“Sure,” Cookie said, “he brought me and Martina here when we were trapped in the dumpster.”
“And Rihanna,” Nick said ruefully.
“Ah, right,” Abe said. “So how were you feeling when that happened?”
“Terrified! And I just really wanted to be anywhere else other than there.”
“So we should make you terrified.” Abe thought. “GRRRR I AM A HORRIBLE BEAR!”
“Dude.”
“GRRRRR I AM A BEAR WITH A KNIFE.”
“I think we need to try something else.”
“BUT WAIT MY KNIFE IS VERY SHARP, GRRRR.”
“This is amazing. Can I film this?” Cookie asked.
“Why?” Abe asked.
“Everyone, please be quiet, let me clear my head,” Nick said, feeling the pressure of Cookie’s and Abe’s hands in his. He closed his eyes and thought about the warmth and safety of his aunts’ house; about Jay; about Jay’s parents . . .
“Where are we?” Cookie asked, looking around what seemed to be the living room of a sparsely decorated suburban house. In the corner of a sofa sat a balding man with glasses who was staring at a coffee table full of papers. The man looked up, understandably shocked to see them.
“Nick?” he asked.
Nick blinked. They were standing in Jay’s living room. They were standing in Jay’s living room and Jay’s dad had been staring at Willis’s notes.
“Oh hey, Dr. Carpenter,” Nick said, weakly trying to make it seem normal that he was suddenly in the man’s living room holding hands with an African American girl and an Amish teenager. Doo dee doo, nothing to see here.
Jay’s dad blinked a few times. “Well . . . hello, Nick, old boy,” he said carefully. “How . . . how did you get here?”
“Where are we?” Abe asked, looking around nervously at the Carpenters’ living room.
“This is Jay’s dad,” Nick said, trying to sound calm and like a totally normal person in a not-at-all-bonkers situation. “And Jay’s house.”
“It looks so normal,” Cookie said.
“So . . . hello,” Jay’s father said again, putting down the papers. It was clearly Willis’s work. “Nicholas, I would like an answer to my question, please.”
We have to get those papers, Nick thought wildly to Cookie, and out of the corner of his eye he saw her give a slight, almost imperceptible nod.
“Oh . . . we were just looking for Jay,” Nick said.
“Jay’s in his room,” Dr. Carpenter said. “Studying. Because there’s a curfew and no one should be out and about right now. Did you . . . did you come in through the garage?”
“If he’s studying, we’ll just leave him alone,” Nick said. “I always forget that Jay studies, because school just seems to come so easily to him.” Cookie gave his hand a squeeze. She was going to go for the papers.
“You can’t go anywhere, Nick, you should never have been out in the first place . . . Does your mother know you’re here? And who are these two—”
Cookie leapt forward, grabbed all of Willis’s notes, and screamed, “GOT THEM! GO! GO!” as she flung herself into Nick’s arms, and a second later they were back in Jilly and Molly’s living room.
“We did it!” Nick exclaimed.
“Where’s Abe?” Cookie gasped.
“GAH!” Nick said, teleporting once more to Jay’s living room to find Abe standing awkwardly in front of Dr. Carpenter, who was just screaming.
“Sorry sorry sorry!” Nick yelped, grabbing Abe, and a half-second later they were standing in Rebecca and Beanie’s living room.
“AAAAUUGH!” Beanie screamed.
“Hi, guys,” Martina said. She was curled up in a corner of the old plaid sofa, drawing what looked like a picture of Cookie hugging Nick. Nick figured it was better not to ask.
“Abe!” Rebecca ran to her brother and gave him a hug.
“Where are my notes?” Willis growled from his spot on the floor next to the sofa. “I need my notes. I NEED THEM.”
“We got them!” Nick exclaimed, happy to give good news for once. “Well, Cookie has them. But they’re definitely had.”
Willis looked at him blankly.
“We have them. We just don’t have them here,” Nick explained. “I’m not sure how exactly I got us here.”
“I need them HERE. With me,” Willis said.
“Well, yes, we are working on that.” Nick felt deeply uncomfortable as Willis stared at him without blinking. He cleared his throat.
“When you have them, will you be able to . . . fix things?”
“Yes, yes, of course, of course, that’s why I need them,” Willis muttered. “So we can go back to being like we were before and not being like this, yes, yes, yes.”
“What would you need, besides the papers?” Nick asked gently.
“A CENTRIFUGE, OF COURSE,” Willis snapped, and then quieted down. “And an enclosed room, yes, and a sample of the original formula.”
“And you’re sure this will work?”
“OF COURSE I AM SURE.” Willis bent back over his notebook. “Of course of course of course.”
Nick looked at Martina, who gave him a little shrug. Of course.
Farshad, Cookie, and Jay looked over the papers that Nick had retrieved. “Do you really think this will help us?” he murmured, completely unable to comprehend any of Willis’s equations.
“Oh, ye of little faith,” Jay said, t
aking off his ridiculous apron and tossing it over the back of a chair. “Of course it will help the Company Kids.”
“And you guys were able to grab these from my parents’ house without them noticing?” Farshad asked Cookie.
Cookie gave him A Look.
Don’t ask where we found the papers.
Farshad sighed. He didn’t have the time or energy for this sort of thing. “Why.”
“Hmm?” Jay asked, looking up.
I’ll tell you later. Cookie shot a quick, almost imperceptible glance toward Jay. There was something she didn’t want him to hear. “Where is Nick?” she asked, starting to pace around the living room.
“Here!” Nick said, reappearing next to Jay and flopping on the sofa. “I’ve just been to Rebecca and Beanie’s place.”
“Did you get Abe?” Cookie asked, worried.
“Yes, he’s fine, he’s there, and Willis is sure that if we get his papers back to him we can cure the Company Kids. And Mr. Friend and Invisible Ed, if we can find them. And possibly ourselves.”
“What do you mean, possibly ourselves?” Jay asked.
“Willis thinks he can make some sort of antidote spray that will neutralize the effects of Dr. Deery’s formula,” Nick said. “He says that if we’re able to spray the Company Kids, they’ll go back to being their dumb old selves.”
“I’m all for that,” Farshad said.
“But what if you inhale the spray?” Jay asked.
“Then we’re neutralized, too,” Nick said, “and everything goes back to normal, I guess.”
Farshad looked at his hands. Going back to normal meant his super strength would be gone. On one hand, no more crushed devices and broken countertops. On the other, he’d never again be able to use his power to be a superhero.
But he didn’t want to be a superhero. He didn’t. All he had ever wanted was to get through school and leave Muellersville and never come back.
“If that’s what it takes, I’m okay with it,” he said.
“I’m not!” Jay stood up and stomped his foot for emphasis. “I am emphatically not okay with you guys losing your powers.” Stamp, stamp, stamp.
“Well, it isn’t really up to you,” Farshad told him, annoyed.