I seriously wanted to throw up. Mom…and my band teacher? “Wait,” I said, “so they were in CoffeeBoy at the same time? That doesn’t mean my mom is…” I shook my head in disgust, unwilling to complete the sentence.
Cal was insistent. “When I walked in, they were sitting in a corner together, huddled over a table. At first I just thought it was some random guy, which would be weird anyway, but then I spotted the comb-over.”
“Oh my God, that is so gross.” I bit a nail. “Seriously, there has to be some kind of explanation.”
Calvin didn’t look so sure. “I said hi to them, ’cause otherwise it would have been really awkward, and it was obvious they saw me. It’s not like there are too many black kids in wheelchairs rolling through Coconut Key.” He pressed the recline button on his chair, and the device tipped him back slightly. He crossed his hands comfortably behind his head. “Anyway, when I went over to their table, they both looked like they were hiding something.”
I couldn’t believe it. Even if they weren’t doing…it, the notion that my mom would grab a coffee with the dorky band instructor was mind-boggling.
“Anyway, your mom played it off real smooth, like she hung with Jenkins on a regular basis and so what, blah, blah, blah. Jenkins turned red and said something like Good afternoon, Calvin. Before I left, your mom told me about the pizza, and would I like to join you.” Cal laughed. “I’ll pass, by the way.”
“Thanks a lot,” I replied. But I didn’t blame him. My mind was racing. Was it possible that this was the reason we’d moved to Florida? Because Mom had a secret boyfriend? But Mr. J was new at Coconut Key Academy this year. I’d started school here last spring, and the old band instructor, Ms. Mackillop, had been awesome. But she’d really been old, and she’d retired at the end of the school year.
Leaving the position open for Mr. Jenkins to come in, move me to percussion from first chair clarinet, where I’d excelled, and then rub salt in my wounds by dating my mom.
Calvin shrugged. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. But I didn’t want to keep it from you.”
“No, it’s good you told me,” I said. “Can we change the subject?”
Calvin nodded.
I took a deep breath. “You’re probably not going to believe this,” I started.
“After the last couple days?” Calvin asked. “Try me.”
“Okay. Well, first of all, I want you to look at my wall and tell me if you see anything different.”
Cal glanced over to where I was looking and laughed. “Girl, really?”
“Tell me what’s different,” I insisted.
“There’s no cat poster.”
“There’s no cat poster. That’s right. I just thought I’d let you witness that yourself, in case you thought I’d been blowing smoke.”
“Nah,” Cal said, “I believed you when you told me. I just don’t think the bogeyman is responsible.”
“Neither do I,” I said, agreeing with him. “And that’s where it gets intense.” I stood up and walked away from my bed. “Okay. Brace yourself.” I paused. “I moved it.”
Cal looked at me. “Okay…”
“But I didn’t simply move it,” I continued. “I moved it”—I paused dramatically—“with my mind.”
Calvin’s eyes got wide for a second. He was still looking at me. Several seconds of silence passed, and then Cal started to laugh.
“It’s not funny,” I said.
Calvin wasn’t just laughing now. He was officially hysterical. “Oh,” he said, holding his stomach. “Oh, Sky, you’re killin’ me!” He wiped tears from his eyes.
“Cal, it’s not funny,” I said again.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said, throwing his hands up in the air as if surrendering. “It’s just…what? You’re some kinda whatchamacallit? A Greater-Than?” His comment sent him back into hysterics.
“Yes,” I said. “I think maybe I am.”
That only made him laugh harder.
I’d expected this, and I even forgave him, because he had no idea how absolutely the idea freaked me out. I just sat down at my desk and waited for him to stop.
When he finally came up for air, I said, “Remember April? Not month-April, but girl-April. Crazy-girl April.”
Cal nodded, looking at me with his of course heavy in his eyes.
He and I had met and become friends after a really scary incident where a girl named April brought a pair of handguns to school, with the intention of committing suicide-by-cop.
“She focused on me,” I reminded him. “She kept saying You’re one of us. Maybe she was a Greater-Than too.”
But Cal was shaking his head. “Sky, she was messed up. Mentally ill.”
“Yeah, but maybe that was because she was a Greater-Than.” The online articles I’d read had said G-Ts were often driven crazy. That scared me.
Cal was not convinced. “So what was her power?” he asked. “She wasn’t super-strong or super-smart.”
“Maybe she was behind all those broken windows.” Right when the police had arrived at the school, the cafeteria windows had shattered. One theory was that they’d been shot out by a trigger-happy cop, another was that some brave anonymous student had broken them as a diversion to distract crazy April.
“Yeah, because that’s an awesome superpower,” Cal scoffed, “if your superhero name is Vandal Girl.”
“I’m pretty sure G-Ts don’t have superhero names,” I said.
“They absolutely don’t,” Cal agreed. “Because, sorry, G-Ts are not real.”
“Sorry, you’re wrong.”
“Prove it,” he shot back at me. “If you’re a Greater-Than, wow me with your amazing powers.”
“Okay.” I got up, walked over to my bedside table, and picked up my hairbrush.
Cal’s face grew solemn. “Sky, you actually believe this craziness,” he said, and it was less a question and more of an observation.
“I do,” I said with conviction. “It’ll take me a second, though. So please just be patient and quiet.”
I closed my eyes and repeated last night’s litany of people, places, and things that really incensed me. My face began to heat up. That was good.
I opened my eyes and Calvin had the tiniest smirk on his face. It made me angrier. That was good too.
I stared at the hairbrush and focused all of my potentially Greater-Than brain cells on any unpleasant, anger-inducing image I could muster.
“What are you trying to do?” Calvin whispered.
I shushed him, focusing more, furrowing my brows together in concentration. I thought about my mom and Mr. Jenkins, and my face heated up even more.
But the hairbrush didn’t move.
I thought about Mr. Jenkins coming over for family dinners, buying my mom flowers, and trying to offer me fatherly advice.
But the hairbrush still didn’t move.
And then I thought about what it would mean if I really was a Greater-Than, like I’d googled and read about last night. The words I’d said to Calvin echoed inside my head: Apparently, having these weird superpowers can turn Greater-Thans kind of crazy too. Mean-crazy. I didn’t want to become a compassionless, superior freak who was mean-crazy. And I wondered if the change would happen quickly, or more slowly and gradually. Either way, the idea made me sick. It pissed me off!
Calvin’s wheelchair rocketed forward to the wall and then abruptly spun around three times in rapid succession before stopping.
The hairbrush, however, had not moved.
“Damn!” Calvin said, clearly ruffled. “I must have bumped the joystick.”
“How could you have bumped the joystick,” I exclaimed, “with your hands behind your head? That’s just stupid.” Uh-oh, I’d just called my best friend stupid. Was I already becoming compassionless and superior?
Calvin didn�
��t seem bothered by it. “You’re stupid,” he said, but I could see something in his eyes that wasn’t there before. “Sky, hello. You didn’t move me with telekinesis. Really. I probably bumped the joystick coming up the stairs. A wire’s probably loose. I’ll take the chair in for a tune-up—”
“Cal,” I said, determined to make him believe me, at least just a little bit. “There’s more. When I went running, I raced Garrett.”
Calvin looked up at me, and for a moment he looked kind of upset.
“And I won. I won by a lot.” I paused. “I’m not saying this because I’m trying to brag or be superior in any way. But I looked it up online, and I ran something called a sub-four-minute mile today.”
Calvin shook his head. “That’s impossible. The last guy who did that was some Pakistani dude—”
“Moroccan,” I corrected him. “And I know. It sounds crazy. I didn’t believe it either. But Garrett clocked it. And then I did too.”
“Sky, I love the hell out of you. I really do. But you’re losing it.” Calvin pressed a button on his wheelchair, and his position went from reclined to straight. I watched the machine gently bend his knees.
“I know,” I said miserably. “I wish it were that simple. Then they could just send me to a padded room.” I shook my head. “I guess maybe it is that simple. I mean, crazy people probably don’t know that they’re crazy, right?”
“I wouldn’t know,” Calvin said. “I mean, I don’t think I do.” He grinned at me.
“It’s just so much at once.” I paced around my room. “First Sasha, and then everyone started believing that Edmund would hurt her, and then the whole thing with the crazy gun lady at the Sav’A’Buck, and Motorcycle Girl, and…I’m just so tired. And sad.”
Calvin’s eyes got big.
“I know, it’s a shocker,” I continued. “Skylar Reid is officially talking about her feelings. Call Channel 540 News,” I said. “I just…I’ve been so angry lately too. And scared. There. I said it. This Greater-Than thing really freaks me out and I just want Sasha to come home, and I’m so, so scared that she’s dead. Phew.” I blew air out of my mouth, suddenly filled with fatigue.
“Sky?” Cal said, and his eyes were even wider.
“I’m sorry if I’m overwhelming you. And I’m sorry I called you stupid.”
“Sky!” Cal said again.
I stopped pacing. “What?” I said.
Calvin smiled nervously at me. “Um…your radio…is on strike…against gravity,” he said slowly.
I looked in the corner of my room.
And, sure enough, my old pink satellite radio from grade school, the one that was in the shape of an antique boom box, was traveling back and forth along the wall—back and forth, swinging in the air—a good eight inches above the surface of my dresser.
I looked back at Calvin, who was staring at me. “Girl?” he said. “Whoa.”
—
“Skylar?” Mom called. I heard her close the front door, plastic bags swishing in her arms.
I stared at Calvin, my eyes wide.
He stared back, and mouthed OMG silently at me.
“You here, hon?” my mom asked, her voice singsong as it carried up the stairs.
“In my room! Be right there!” I called back, eyeing the radio as it now swung through the air like a pink paper airplane—except it was a little heavier than paper.
Calvin looked at me, his mouth in the shape of a Cheerio. Then his face broke into a smile. “I’m not gonna lie. That’s pretty awesome,” he whispered.
I focused intently on the radio and willed it back to its place on my bureau. It remained in midair.
“I don’t know how to get you down,” I said shakily. I waved my arms in the air a couple times, as if pretending to cast a spell. Um, yeah. That didn’t work.
“You’re speaking to your boom box like it’s a person,” Calvin whispered gleefully. He kept his voice quiet, as if talking too loudly would somehow remind gravity that it was still an existing law of physics.
“Skylar?” Mom called, her voice louder as if she was coming upstairs.
I couldn’t let her see this. “Wait here,” I ordered both Calvin and the pink radio.
“We’re not going anywhere!” Calvin crooned, and I slipped out into the hallway.
Mom was coming up the stairs.
“Mom,” I said. “Hi.”
As I closed the bedroom door behind me, the possessed satellite radio turned on with a blast of mariachi music.
“Skylar!” she chided. “I’ve told you that I don’t mind you inviting Calvin over when I’m not here, but I’d still appreciate it if you kept your bedroom door open.”
I rolled my eyes. As if Cal and I would actually hook up. Of course, Mom was just being Mom.
She frowned. “And what’s with the music?”
Through the closed door, I heard a thunk and an “Aw, shee-it.”
“Is he okay?” Mom asked, her brow furrowing with concern.
“I’m sure he’s fine,” I replied, trying hard to sound casual. “I just wanted to let you know we’re here, we’re studying, and…that’s it.”
Mom’s expression was quizzical. “Oh…kay. Studying…opera?”
The music had switched to a bellowing baritone voice, the exaggerated vibrato executed jovially in Italian.
“Um, Cal likes listening to that stuff when he studies—something about his brain cells being stimulated.” I shrugged.
“Settle down!” Calvin screamed from the bedroom, his words followed by another loud crash.
“Sometimes when he’s trying to concentrate, he just yells at his brain to settle down!” I explained. “It’s one of his…special studying techniques.”
“Ow!” Calvin yelped.
“Along with vocalizations,” I added.
Mom stared quizzically at my door. I waited, leaning my hand casually against the wall in an attempt to keep her from venturing any closer to my bedroom.
“Well…all right,” Mom said. “I’m just going to put some groceries away, and then I thought we could order out for pizza. Whaddaya say?”
I hated it when Mom tried to get all buddy-buddy with me, almost as much as I hated it when she acted clingy and overprotective. But I wanted her out of the hallway A-SAP, so I could fix this radio situation before she heard—or saw—anything else. “Sounds good!” I exclaimed, feigning enthusiasm. The opera singer’s voice cascaded through the hallway, interspersed with Calvin’s ow’s.
“Great! I’ll meet you down in the kitchen in ten!”
“Awesome!”
“And open that door, please. I mean it.” Mom waved a finger, all cutesy, smiling at me as she sauntered down the stairs.
“Will do,” I said, laughing nervously.
I waited until Mom was all the way downstairs before I went back into my room. When I opened the door, the radio shut off and fell to the ground with a thud.
Calvin was in the corner, holding his hands over his head as if he were fending off an explosion.
I shut my bedroom door behind me and ran over to him. “Are you okay?”
“Girl!” Calvin hissed. “Your satellite radio just assaulted me!”
“I’m sorry,” I said helplessly. “I didn’t mean to—it wasn’t like I was trying to do any of that.”
But Calvin wasn’t really that upset. He lifted his hands off his head and grinned at me. “Dude!” he said excitedly. “We should go on tour! Like that magic guy who was around when my parents were kids. What was his name…David Blaine!”
“I guess you believe me now.” I eyed the radio, making sure it was really going to stay put.
“I believe something just happened here,” Cal said. “Does this mean you’re some mythical superhuman called a Greater-Than? If I were you, I’d wait for a little more information before I monog
rammed everything I owned with a G-dash-T.”
“It scares me,” I admitted. “I hate the idea of going crazy. Or even just being mean and compassionless.”
“So don’t go crazy or be mean or compassionless.” For Calvin everything was always so simple. “You know, I’m serious about that tour thing,” he said. “We’d be set for life!”
“You are set for life! Your parents have plenty of money.”
Cal shrugged. “You’re right. But being famous would decrease my chances of dying a virgin.”
I laughed my amazement. “You’re not going to die a virgin,” I told him.
Calvin sighed. “I don’t really know many girls who think the whole wheelchair thing is sexy.”
“You’ll find someone,” I promised him, and I knew it was true.
“Hah!” Calvin said. “See? You have such a sweet and gooey inner center, it’s impossible for you to not be compassionate. Even if this Greater-Than shite is real, you’re gonna be fine.” But then, because too much solemnity was a strain on his system, he again cracked a huge smile. “Girl, seriously? That shit was awesome!”
“Skylar?” Mom called from the bottom of the stairs. “Bedroom door stays open, please!”
I rolled my eyes. “All right, Mom,” I called as sweetly as Cal imagined me to be, but then gave the finger to my closed bedroom door.
—
I promised Cal I’d call him as soon as my pizza fest with Momzilla was finished. After telling him my secret—that I might be a Greater-Than—I could finally breathe again.
Plus, I wasn’t crazy. At least not yet. Knowing that was cool too.
My anxiety level about Sasha was still pinned pretty high, though. And I was twice as antsy since I hadn’t had time yet today to continue looking for her.
And then, of course, there was the conversation with Mom that I was dreading. How, I wonder, would she bring it up. “So! Skylar! I’ve been boinking your band teacher!”
Mom was making a salad, cutting up cucumbers, as she greeted me with a cheery, “The pizza should be here soon. I paid a little extra for express delivery. And extra cheese!” She sang those last words like she was the one who was excited by that announcement.
Night Sky Page 10