by Gwenda Bond
If the messing with the inside of her head part was true, then it might be an even bigger story. The whole thing might fall under the heading of Strange Phenomena. More and more things did these days, even if no one would admit it. The trick to seeing things other people missed was to look for them.
But the bullying angle was enough for now. No need to make these guys think of me as some nutty conspiracy theorist. I waited for the verdict.
James sniffed and crossed his arms in front of his chest. “You’re not the editor.”
“Neither are you,” Devin pointed out. “We’re just news staff. Same as Lois.”
“Technically, I’m the only person in this room who’s an editor,” Maddy said. She smiled. “Look, it’s a better idea than we’ve had yet. May as well try to get a story out of it and get Perry off our backs.”
“Which means you’re outvoted, the Third,” I said, and hopped off the desk. Time to get out while I was ahead. “I have to go home. See you in class tomorrow, Devin.”
“But you’re not in it,” he said.
I winked. “Maybe not,” I said, “but I will be by then.”
CHAPTER 3
When I breezed through the front door of our new apartment, the whole place smelled like from-scratch tomato sauce. In other words: heaven. If heaven was full of unpacked boxes, anyway. We’d arrived ahead of the Army-hired movers the Friday before and had only unpacked stuff we needed immediately over the weekend.
The new place was nice if still a work-in-unpacking-progress, a two-story brownstone in a good neighborhood, a couple of blocks from a subway station. We might not have James the Third money, but generals got paid well enough.
Especially when they were as beloved as my dad.
Speaking of, he poked his prematurely gray head around the kitchen doorframe and waved me over. “Come tell me about this gainful employment you’ve supposedly found.”
He sounded like he approved of the idea. I wasn’t so sure he’d be happy when he heard where I was working. The military liked its secrets, and part of my dad’s job was keeping them. He definitely seemed to be doing more and more of it since two years ago and that night in Kansas when the two of us had seen . . . whatever it was we’d seen.
I walked to the kitchen, choosing the right words as I went. But when I reached the doorframe I realized too late that Dad had summoned me into a trap. A second later, a small knee swooped in behind mine, dropping me half to the ground. My little sister, Lucy, erupted into giggles, and then let me up.
“No fair.” I cuffed the pink-cheeked, blond-ponytailed brat on the shoulder. Everyone always said Lucy and Mom looked just alike, blond and fine-featured, while I took after Dad with my dark hair and sharper angles. “I was distracted.”
Lucy crinkled her nose up, her hair swinging back and forth as she shook her head. “I don’t think you’re supposed to admit that. Not in front of Dad.”
“She might be taking the self-defense lessons a little too seriously, Sam,” Mom said from the stove. But she couldn’t have been that concerned, because without even looking over to check out the scuffle, she kept stirring.
I knew Dad had gone to the office today, but he’d been home long enough to change out of his dress uniform with its medals and ribbons. In a crisp polo, the lack of heroic bling left him only a shade less intimidating.
“So, what’s this job you texted about? Do you know if you got it?” he asked.
General Sam Lane cowed lesser mortals—at least those who weren’t his daughters. But the first lesson I ever learned? Never show fear.
I steeled myself in case he fought me on this. He was not a fan of the media, and regularly spent breakfast grumbling over the “slant” of stories in the morning paper.
“It was the luckiest thing,” I said, going over to pick up a wooden spoon and steal a taste of the tomato sauce. “There was a guest speaker at school recruiting people for a new, um, online magazine that the Daily Planet’s doing. For teenagers. I figured, since we’ll be here a while, it’d be a good way to meet new people. Put down roots.” The things he’d said he wanted me to do.
I stole another spoonful of sauce to hide my nervousness.
“The Daily Planet, hmm?” he said.
“It’s called the Daily Scoop,” I said.
He and Mom exchanged a look. A long one.
“All right, I guess,” he said, finally. “Sounds like it might keep you out of trouble.”
“That’s what I thought too.” I put down the spoon and started backing out of the room. “Me and trouble are no longer on speaking terms.”
Lucy whined, “Lois gets to do everything fun.”
I stuck my tongue out at her. “Your turn will come.”
I’d spend some quality time with Lucy later.
She had a holoset—it hadn’t come with the game she’d asked for, but she played it enough despite that. I wanted to try it out, learn more about how the tech worked in prep for taking on the Warheads. But first, I had a more pressing engagement.
“Dinner’s in twenty minutes,” Mom said as I turned and bounded up the stairs to my room. I closed the door and waited a second with my ear to it to make sure no one was following, including Lucy practicing her stealth skills. Then I turned the lock.
Sure, it was probably overkill. But my friend claimed it was too dangerous for us to talk on the phone, let alone use Skype. He wouldn’t tell me his real name, or let me see his face or hear his voice. He said it was too much of a risk for him—and for me, too, by extension. He wasn’t willing to chance it. He wouldn’t say more about why. I suspected it had something to do with his parents, though he claimed they were just farmers.
But I always locked my door to prevent having to explain to my parents or kid sister what I was doing, since any of them were capable of barging in without warning. My friend and I were also careful about passwords. We only communicated using a hyper-secure chat service. He had an online techie developer friend who was paranoid about spyware and had created the app we used on our phones and the more elaborate software installed on my laptop. Secrecy when we met up was a ritual now too, like locking the door. Habit.
He was my secret and I would keep it faithfully. Yes, it was irritating that he wouldn’t trust my word and refused to tell me who he was. But, well, it wasn’t irritating enough for me to give up on our . . . friendship. He had his reasons and I had to believe that they were good ones.
Someday maybe he’d tell me what they were. Or I’d figure them out on my own.
For tonight, I hoped he was there.
I opened the silver lid of my laptop and typed in my secret fourteen-character alphanumeric password. After it was accepted, I opened the chat window and put in the next code.
He was there waiting, or at least it looked like he was. The second I logged on to my chat account, invisible to anyone else, I saw his handle. Before I could type a greeting, he did.
SmallvilleGuy: I expected to see you on the news, the first girl ever kicked out of a Metropolis high school on her first day. I was going to tell you I was impressed. But a job?
I grinned. Rolled my eyes a little, and laughed. I typed out several messages in a row, not letting him get a word in edgewise—he was used to that from me, he always teased—about school, my new job, and the fact that even my dad had seemed to approve.
Sorry to disappoint you, I typed last, but I told you it’s going to be different here. I’m making a change, onto the straight and narrow.
I waited, the cursor blinking, until a line of text popped up that told me he was typing a response.
Those seconds when I was waiting to see what he’d say next, sometimes they were the longest moments of my life. The pure anticipation made my heart race.
I could admit it to myself, because no one else would ever see it. Even he would never know how silly and vulnerable I wa
s while I waited.
I—also known as SkepticGirl1—had first met SmallvilleGuy two years earlier on Strange Skies, a message board where the slightly-less-lunatic fringe tracked reports of phenomena or sightings or events that couldn’t be easily explained away, no matter how dedicated the local cops and the military and anyone else who got asked about them were to downplaying and denying.
I wasn’t dumb—especially when he said he couldn’t tell me his name, I was aware he might be some middle-aged creep pretending to be my age, and so I demanded proof that he wasn’t.
After a few minutes, he’d sent me a message with an image attached. It was a photo he’d taken with his phone of his learner’s permit, his thumbs covering up his name and his face. The age and locations were right, though, and it had only been issued a few days before.
Then fourteen, he was too young for a regular driver’s license, but had been able to get a permit early because of his parents’ farm. His willingness to provide proof (and his personality and my gut feeling) had convinced me.
Before, I never really had anyone I could talk to. No one who was interested in things the way I was.
Before, there was no one I could count on talking to about my day at the end of it.
He was still typing. But when he finally stopped and the words appeared, I suspected he’d typed something else first and deleted it. The message was way too short for the time it had taken.
I knew it wasn’t fair, because I liked that he wasn’t able to see me blush or snort laugh or scoot up to the edge of my chair during our chats. But I did consider it a downside that I couldn’t see him.
SmallvilleGuy: I hope you love it there, but you don’t need to change. You said Perry saw you arguing with someone. Who was the someone?
SkepticGirl1: Um . . . it might have been the principal?
SkepticGirl1: Shut up.
SmallvilleGuy: Yes, clearly the straight and narrow.
SmallvilleGuy: (But I mean it. Don’t change.)
SkepticGirl1: Anyway, sap, I did want to tell you about that part. I think it might be like something off the boards. Maybe. This girl’s claiming a group of gamers have been messing with her head. Literally. At least according to her.
I called him sap, pretending it was a joke. But it wasn’t. He was never afraid to be openly sincere, something I had a tougher time with. “Don’t change”—who besides a counselor would be brave enough to say that to someone and emphasize that they meant it? Not me.
I told him the rest of the story about Anavi and her pleas to the principal.
SmallvilleGuy: Definitely weird. I’ll see what I can dig up. It could just be stress from them targeting her. I have a feeling they’ll regret it, now that you’re on the case. Promise me you’ll do something, though?
SkepticGirl1: Kick them in the face?
SmallvilleGuy: Be careful, at least until you know what the deal is.
SkepticGirl1: Sounds boring.
SmallvilleGuy: Ha. You know, I wasn’t that far off. So what if you’re not on the news . . . you’re going to be writing it. And you’ll be great.
I grinned. Then typed: So, how was your day?
He might not be willing to tell me his real identity, but we told each other just about everything else.
SmallvilleGuy: Same old mostly. Got a B on my Macbeth paper, even though the teacher hated it. All her comments were about how I was focusing too much on my own reactions.
SkepticGirl1: Or maybe she just likes the play. Didn’t you make it a big discussion of how terrible all the people in it are?
SmallvilleGuy: It’s not a good sign when the witches are the most sympathetic characters, that’s all I’m saying. And maybe she has a crush on the Thane of Cawdor.
SkepticGirl1: A B’s not so bad. Don’t complain too much. Anything else?
SmallvilleGuy: Bess the Cow (your favorite) finally gave birth.
SkepticGirl1: And you didn’t lead with that?!
Bess was the subject of many hilarious farm boy anecdotes.
SmallvilleGuy: Sorry. I’ll take a cute calf picture for tomorrow.
SkepticGirl1: Then I’ll forgive you. Did you name it yet? Boy or girl?
SmallvilleGuy: Girl. Why?
Because I had a crazy thought about what he should name it, thanks to Maddy.
SkepticGirl1: I did some research at the library during English, on famous women journalists.
SmallvilleGuy: Of course you did.
I smiled and stuck my tongue out at the screen.
SkepticGirl1: Anyway, I think you should name her Nellie Bly—she was one of the first investigative reporters. She did all kinds of amazing things like infiltrating an asylum to expose what was going on there and setting a world record by circumnavigating the globe in 72 days.
SkepticGirl1: What do you think?
SmallvilleGuy: That my dad will think I’m crazy. But okay. Nellie Bly it is. Speaking of, I have to go check on Nellie now. Make sure she’s doing okay.
SkepticGirl1: Okay, sap, because I have to go eat dinner. Spaghetti. You ready to tell me who you are IRL yet?
I always asked, though I didn’t expect an answer anymore.
“Lois!” Dad called out for me, but I waited.
SmallvilleGuy: I wish I could. You know I do.
SkepticGirl1: But you can’t. Even though . . .
Today had been a good day and there was going to be a baby cow named Nellie Bly in the world, a tribute to my new hero. Maybe I could risk being brave with SmallvilleGuy too.
SkepticGirl1: Even though if you did, then we could see each other. For real.
I closed my eyes, only opening one to see his response. It wasn’t there yet, but then the words popped up.
SmallvilleGuy: Now I really wish I could. More than you know.
I sighed, and if my fingertips touched the screen and those words for a second before I typed my response, it didn’t matter to anyone but me. No one else would ever know that I could also be a sap.
SkepticGirl1: I’ll keep it in mind. Later, mystery boy.
“Lo, dinnertime!” Lucy shouted from right outside the bedroom door, trying the knob.
I clicked to sign off. But not before I saw one last message from him.
SmallvilleGuy: The Warheads really do sound like they could be bad news. Be safe.
I closed the laptop.
The night I “met” SmallvilleGuy online, two years ago, I had gone to the Strange Skies site for a reason. I’d seen something a week earlier that I didn’t understand and couldn’t let go.
It happened during the overnight drive portion of our then-latest move. My dad and I had been the only ones awake. Kansas was flat and boring, but I was staring out the window all the same. “Stop,” I’d told him as we were passing a field, and he’d pulled the SUV over, probably thinking I needed to go to the bathroom.
But that wasn’t it. There were a few spotlights from the city we’d just driven through playing out over the fields, and one of them had illuminated a large . . . tower . . . made of giant stones, piled one on top of the other. I had the door open as soon as we stopped.
“Lois, wait,” Dad said, but I kept moving. He jogged to catch me, saying, “Stay behind me,” so he either wanted a closer look too or knew I wouldn’t stop until I got one. He never said which.
The structure was eerie, almost teetering, the hunks of stone stretching precariously high into the air above us. We approached it together, both too drawn to the weirdness of it to be cautious, when something slammed into the top, and the rocks flew out into the air, hurtling as if they were going to rain down on me and my dad. I screamed so loud that my throat ached remembering it. Dad threw himself over me, knocking us both to the ground—
But then nothing. No impact. Nothing but the impression of movement and wind around us, the rocks flying
around and around and then up and up, until we couldn’t see the stones anymore. Until it was as if the rock tower had never existed. I could swear—would swear, if anyone ever asked me, even though Dad had been clear I was never to speak of it again—that I saw a form, a body, a person directing those rocks, then streaking away into the sky. But it was dark, and whatever I’d seen had been moving fast. Too fast to be sure about.
There were posters on Strange Skies who reported things that weren’t so far from what I’d witnessed. Things that should have been impossible.
So I created my SkepticGirl1 account and shared my eyewitness report.
Posted by SkepticGirl1 at 11:13 p.m.: I know how this story will sound, but it seems like if anyone will understand or believe me or have an explanation, then it might be someone here. Driving outside Kansas City last night with my family, I think I saw someone who could fly. No, that might give the wrong impression. Crazy as it is, I believe that I saw someone flying. Through the air. Actually flying . . .
I told the whole story, including everything except details that would identify my father. His security clearance alone would have the posters at Strange Skies swooning, and this wasn’t about him. It was about what we’d seen. What I now knew might exist out there in the world, not talked about in the open. I ended my post with: So, am I crazy or did this happen to me? Did I really see this?
SmallvilleGuy had reached out to me right away via private message on the boards, almost as soon as I had posted, and said he went to high school in a small town in Kansas and that he knew I was telling the truth. Because he was confirming what I’d seen, he also said he couldn’t tell me exactly how he knew or who he was. There were others on the boards who made nonsense claims about aliens in the middle of the night and spaceship experiments. I didn’t buy into those. Of course. That was why I’d chosen the username I had.
But SmallvilleGuy’s reassurance and other reports on the boards seemed legit. I was convinced: the reason Dad didn’t want me to talk about what we’d experienced to Mom or Lucy or anyone (even him) had nothing to do with keeping people from thinking we were crazy.