“There are a lot of rules,” Nory whispered to Mitali. “How are we supposed to have fun with so many rules?”
Mitali shrugged. “All our games have lots of rules.”
“Fluxers may flux into creatures with night vision or powerful senses of smell,” said Father. “Fuzzies, however, may not enlist the aid of animal companions. Those animals are not students here, and this game is only for students of Sage Academy!”
“And Dunwiddle!” called out Rune.
Father gave him a look. “I stand corrected.” He continued. “Flares may not heat, smoke, or use fire in any way to expose a Flicker’s location. Each found Flicker is one point. Reminder that Flickers must become visible immediately upon being found and will report back here to Ms. Fujita. We have thirty senior Flickers, eight Flicker faculty members, one staff member, and me, for a total of forty Flickers fighting fortune’s finding.”
He looked hopefully at the audience, perhaps expecting awe at his use of alliteration. When he received no reaction, he cleared his throat. “The game ends at ten p.m. If, at that time, three or more Flickers remain undiscovered, the Flicker students will all be treated to a movie night on Friday. What’s more, the student who has the most points wins a new laptop.”
The Flickers gave an enormous cheer.
“I hear no one ever finds your father,” said Mitali. “Not ever. Do you by any chance know his secret hiding place?”
Nory did not.
“All right,” announced Father. “Use your ears. Your noses. Your well-educated intelligence. And good luck.”
With that, he and all the senior Flickers disappeared. Nory could hear them getting out of their seats, saying “Good luck, suckers!” to their non-Flicker friends as they hurried out of the hall.
Ms. Fujita set a timer for five minutes. “You may speak among yourselves and strategize until the hide-and-seek begins!”
“We could try puppy,” Nory said to Mitali. “As puppies, we’d have a good sense of smell. But my puppy goes upside down pretty easily.”
“All the fifth-grade Fluxers will be doing puppy,” said Mitali. “And the older Fluxers can do tracking breeds like bloodhounds. There’s no point in doing that. I was thinking I might try my robin? I could fly around and maybe find Kinnette.”
“Won’t the Flyers be up looking for her?”
“But they won’t be tiny. I could slip into nooks and crannies. They can’t.”
Nory wasn’t sure that would actually help. And she was still wondering what she could do to find the Flickers when the timer went off. The hunt was on!
Pepper and Marigold ran up to Nory, full of excitement. “If I fierce the fluxed students, that could clear the way for one of you to win the laptop,” said Pepper, grabbing Nory’s arm.
Oohh! That was a great idea!
They jogged across the lawn to the main building, going inside just as Sebastian tagged a Flicker boy who was hiding behind a coat of arms in the hallway. The boy flickered back to visible. “Aw, man!” he complained. Then, with a sigh, he asked, “Whom shall I say hath found me?” Apparently, that was the traditional Flicker thing to say when caught.
“Sebastian Boondoggle,” said Sebastian.
The boy slouched off.
Of course. Sebastian could see invisible things! And that included invisible people!
Sebastian opened the door to an apparently empty classroom, walked across to the teacher’s desk, and tagged the Flicker hiding under it. The girl stomped her feet as she came into view. “Ugh! So annoying. Whom shall I say hath found me?”
“Sebastian Boondoggle.” Nory and her friends trailed Sebastian as he walked easily through the building, gently tagging Flicker after Flicker. Wherever they went, students fluxed into bloodhounds and beagles ran away because of Pepper’s fiercing, or popped back into human form.
In one classroom, Pepper scared a Fluxer pig that must have weighed eight hundred pounds. In the college guidance office, a large brown bear dropped to its belly and crawled into a corner in fear. Then Pepper paused her magic for a minute. The bear fluxed into a very cranky senior girl. “I’m not sure using upside-down magic is fair,” she said.
“Dr. Horace listed all the rules,” said Mitali. “He didn’t say not to.”
“Well, there’s a Flicker in here wearing way too much perfume,” said the girl as she stormed off. “Good luck finding her without me sniffing her out.”
It was Kinnette. Sebastian saw her easily, floating on the ceiling. He asked Andres for help tagging her. Andres took off his brickpack and tapped her quickly on the shoulder.
“Whom shall I say hath found me?” Kinnette asked.
“You take this one, Andres,” said Sebastian.
“Andres Padillo,” cheered Andres.
Sebastian found all forty of the invisible Flickers within ten minutes. Ten minutes! It was a new Sage record, Mitali told Nory gleefully.
Father was the last to be found, but he was found nonetheless—for the first time in Sage history. He was sitting, cross-legged but still dignified, on top of his own set of filing cabinets.
Nory could tell that Father was not pleased. He got down from the cabinet by stepping on a small table. Nory knew he wouldn’t like doing such an awkward thing in front of the students.
“Whom shall I say hath found me?” he asked Sebastian.
“It’s my friend Sebastian,” Nory blurted, wanting Father to be kind to her friends. “Aren’t his powers amazing?”
“Quite,” said Father sourly.
Once Father reported himself found, a gong sounded. Everyone hurried out of the main building and across the lawn to the Hall of Magic and Performance.
Father announced that Sebastian Boondoggle from Dunwiddle had won the laptop. The Flickers grumbled and mumbled, and Nory bit her lower lip. She was happy for Sebastian, but now the Flickers wouldn’t get their movie night, ending a ten-year streak of winning.
And the rest of the kids hadn’t gotten to enjoy the big hunt.
“Well, that sure was fun,” she heard one of the sixth-grade Fluxers grouse. “Not!”
“We barely got to do any seeking!” said someone else.
Both complainers glared at Sebastian.
Unlike her friend, Nory wasn’t an Upside-Down Flicker. She couldn’t see the bolts of anger she was sure the non-UDM kids were shooting at them, but she sure could feel them.
Okay, students,” Dr. Vogel announced, Wednesday in Flare class. “Fill your jars with cold tap water. We’ll be heating the water to ninety degrees precisely, and I want you to aim for speed and accuracy.”
Everyone filled their jars and took out their thermometers.
Elliott was worried. He could not heat his water in less than seventy seconds. He just couldn’t do it. He’d keep trying, but he wasn’t sure it would ever work.
Dr. Vogel went around the room checking people’s times.
She stood in front of Lacey. “You were able to do it in under ten seconds, correct?”
“Um, yup,” Lacey said.
“Excuse me?” Dr. Vogel said.
Lacey’s cheeks turned pink. “Yes I was, Dr. Vogel.”
“Let’s see.”
Lacey placed her thermometer in the glass and then her hands on the jar. She focused on the jar, her jaw clenched in determination.
“Go,” the teacher said, pressing the timer.
At ten seconds, the thermometer said sixty-five degrees. At twenty seconds, it was at seventy-nine. At thirty it was at only eighty-eight. Lacey finally hit ninety degrees at thirty-nine seconds.
The teacher’s eyebrows were raised.
“There’s something wrong with this thermometer,” Lacey protested. “I did it in under ten back in the dorms.”
“Mmm,” said the teacher.
“Or maybe my water started off colder than everyone else’s.” Lacey glared at Elliott. “I bet the wonko froze it. You did, didn’t you?”
“No, Lacey, I didn’t,” he said.
Dr. Vogel turned to Elliott. “You’re up.”
Elliott took a deep breath and picked up his jar. “I don’t think I can beat seventy-two seconds,” he told her. “That’s the best I did in my homework.”
Dr. Vogel nodded. Elliott began. He focused all his energy on the water in his jar, trying to push heat out of his body and into the water.
Lacey and Rune tittered.
“I just grew a beard waiting,” Rune said.
“He’s the worst at Dunwiddle, too,” Lacey explained to the Sage student next to her. “He’s in the special slow class and everything.”
Elliott tried to ignore them.
Hotter. Hotter. Hotter. The water heated up to the required temperature in sixty-seven seconds!
“Better than you led me to expect,” Dr. Vogel said. “A question: Do your hands get cold halfway through?”
Elliott was surprised. How did she know? “Um, yeah,” he said apologetically. “I have to fight off the cold.”
“Have you ever tried Hex gloves?”
“What are those?”
“They’re special gloves that just came out a few years ago. They’re supposed to help Flares with pinched nerves.” Dr. Vogel tapped her chin. “I wonder if your freezing magic is pinching your flaring magic. Want to try the gloves? I have a pair in my desk.”
She rummaged through her drawer and returned with a pair of black fingerless gloves. They were leather, and tight on his wrists.
She brought Elliott a jar of fresh tap water.
He tried again to heat the water, and this time when he pushed on his magic, his hands stayed hot! The freezing didn’t overtake his flaring!
“Twenty-three seconds,” said Dr. Vogel, checking her stopwatch. “Very nice.”
“Whoa!” Elliott said.
The teacher smiled. “Hold on to the Hex gloves while you’re here. I think they’ll help you.”
Elliott flexed his hands and admired the gloves. “Thanks!”
“I’ll need them back before you return to Dunwiddle. They’re expensive, unfortunately,” said Dr. Vogel.
She went on to the next student. As soon as she was out of hearing distance, Lacey glared at Elliott and said, “They don’t accept half robots at Sage.”
“I never applied to Sage,” Elliott said. “I’m here as a visitor, just like you.”
“I’m first on the wait list, you know.”
“I know, Lacey. We all know.”
GJ caught Elliott’s eye and stuck his finger in his mouth, pretending to barf. Elliott grinned.
Mitali was in Elliott’s Science of Fire class, which came next. Since she was a double talent, she had homeroom with the Fluxers, but took some classes with the Flares.
“Elliott!” she called out. “Sit by me. Be my partner.”
They followed the instructions on the board, heating a red liquid over a Bunsen burner and stirring in two tablespoons of green powder.
The liquid fizzed.
“Why is ours fizzing?” Mitali whispered. She glanced around the room. “No one else’s is fizzing.”
Now the liquid was, like, burping. Big bubbles formed, shimmered, and popped.
Elliott reread the lab instructions.
Uh-oh. They’d missed a step.
“We were supposed to squeeze in three drops of purple gel before adding the green powder,” he said.
A huge fireball rose violently from their jar.
“Oh, no!” Mitali cried, rearing back from the heat.
The fireball turned pink and rolled across the ceiling, burning the paint and leaving a trail of cracks and blisters.
Elliott lifted his hands to freeze the ball. Zwoop!
Instead of ice, a burst of flame shot out from his fingertips. It was because of the Hex gloves, which he hadn’t taken off!
He ripped the gloves off and iced the pink fireball. It froze into a bubble and hung from the ceiling.
“Quick thinking!” Mitali said. “No one even had to use the fire extinguisher—and we have to use them all the time in this class. Look at you, saving ceilings one class period at a time!”
“Ha,” said Elliott, pleased. “Thanks.”
Mitali touched one of the gloves on his desk. “Are those Hex gloves?”
“Yeah. They help my flaring. But they stop my ice, I think.”
“But you can flare? If you’re wearing the gloves?”
“Much better than I can without.”
“Lemme see.”
Elliott tugged one of the gloves onto his right hand. He focused on flaring, and a little flame burst from his right index finger.
“Can you freeze with the other hand?” Mitali asked.
Elliott raised his left hand and pushed on his freezing magic. A small icicle formed, extending from his left index finger like a really long, clear nail.
Mitali jumped up and down. “Can you do both at the same time?”
“I don’t know,” Elliott said. He thought for a moment. If he kept the Hex glove on his right hand and left his other hand bare, then … maybe? He pointed both index fingers. He took a deep breath. He focused on his magic, and sleesh-sizzle-pop! A stream of ice and fire collided overhead!
“Dude,” said Mitali. “If freezing was its own type of magic, you’d be a double talent.”
He smiled. “My friend Marigold thinks the ice is its own type of magic. She says I’m a Freezer.”
“A Freezer and a Flare,” Mitali said excitedly. “Hey, listen. I’m part of the double-talent affinity group, and we’re meeting this afternoon. Do you want to come?”
“Really?” Elliott asked. “Me?”
“Yes, you!” she said. “It’ll be fun.”
There he is,” Nory heard someone say at lunch. “That’s the Boondoggle kid.”
Sebastian was sitting next to her, eating a serving of apple cobbler bigged-up by Marigold.
Nory looked over her shoulder and saw two boys. Miller was the redheaded guy Sebastian had seen peeing in the pool. The other boy was reed thin and had a neck that was not much larger than his tie.
Something whizzed past Nory and bounced off Sebastian’s skull. His head bobbled with the impact, but he didn’t do anything.
Ugh. What did they even throw? Nory searched the floor beneath Sebastian’s seat and found a wad of bread. A wet wad of bread.
“Those boys threw a spit-bread-ball at you!” she whispered.
Sebastian shook his head disdainfully, then went back to eating.
Nory picked up the spit-bread-ball, trying to make as little skin-to-bread contact as possible. She went to Miller’s table. “Excuse me, but I believe this is yours.” She plopped it onto his plate.
“Tell your Flicker friend he ruined hide-and-seek last night,” said the boy with the skinny neck. “He’s a waste of space and should make himself invisible. Except—oh, wait. He can’t, can he? Too wonky.”
“And whom shall I say is sending this message?” Nory asked in a steely voice.
Suddenly, Miller’s table monitor was standing over them. He was frighteningly tall and intense. “Hello,” he said. “I am Monitor Hoggins. At Sage, students remain seated throughout the meal.” He beckoned to Monitor Sorbee, who rose and came over. “If you can’t control your table,” he said to her, “I’ll tell the head of lunch patrol.”
“They started it,” Nory protested. “They threw a spit-bread-ball at my friend.”
Miller pointed at Sebastian. “Because he’s the kid who ruined hide-and-seek.”
Monitor Hoggins pressed his lips together. “Is that so?”
Sorbee crossed her arms over her chest. “Uncool,” she said. “Spit-bread-balls are the least of what he deserves.”
Sebastian put down his fork and said, “The game was hide-and-seek. You guys hid. I found you.”
“You ruined the game for all of us,” Miller said.
Pink spots rose on Sebastian’s cheeks.
Nory wanted to stand up for her friend. She wanted to flux into a dritten and roar at thes
e mean kids with her fire breath. Sebastian had won fair and square! The Sage kids were being sore losers!
“Nory, let it go,” Sebastian said. “If our table loses points, Sorbee’s going to blame you.”
With a jolt, Nory realized that Sebastian was looking out for her.
It was Nory who needed to make friends here. Sebastian would return to Dunwiddle at the end of the week and never see any of these people again.
She ducked her head and returned to her seat.
In writing class, Nory got in trouble for her penmanship. Her Q’s, it seemed, were too swirly.
In fluxing class, she got in trouble for adding squid legs to her puppy, even though she sat and stood and lay down exactly when she was supposed to.
By the time she got home, all Nory wanted to do was curl up with Dalia’s rabbits. Or take a nice hot bath with so many bubbles that she could disappear into them.
But she had homework to do: loads and loads of boring boringness.
She dropped into her chair at the kitchen table, where Dalia and Hawthorn were already hard at work on their own homework.
“So many assignments,” Nory moaned. “I have something in every single class!”
Dalia gave her a funny smile, then went back to scribbling notes. She was adding lots of exclamation points and smilies. Smilies!
Hawthorn said, “Nory, shh. I’m reading about architecture and how buildings affect the way we live. It’s fascinating.”
Nory stared at her brother and sister. She loved them, but she felt so different from them.
They were sitting right there, but she felt alone.
At dinner, Nory pushed her food around on her plate. How could she eat when her stomach was all tight and achy?
“Nory, is there a problem?” Father asked.
She blinked.
Father had noticed! He’d actually noticed how she was doing, and he actually seemed to care!
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