Luis ran from likely house to likely house, rejecting each one and working up a sweat. All the while he felt time passing. Eight ten was the first bell and eight fifteen the second. If he got to school after eight twenty-five, he’d have to get a pass from the office, and that meant dealing with the school secretary. He did not want to do that. The last time he’d needed a late pass was when he was in fourth grade. Back then his dad drove him to school, and his dad had overslept. The secretary must have been in a chatty mood that morning because she asked him what Nicaraguans eat for breakfast.
“I’m not Nicaraguan,” Luis had told her.
“Oh—my bad,” the secretary had said. “I always thought that’s where your family came from.”
“I come from right here in New Jersey,” Luis said. “I’m American.”
The school secretary had frowned, apparently not liking this answer. “You should watch your attitude,” she’d said.
When Luis imagined getting a tattoo someday, that’s what it would say: You should watch your attitude. It was 8:20 when Luis suspended his search for Computer Genius. He felt bad, but he would try again after school. A few more hours without chocolate milk wouldn’t hurt, would it?
CHAPTER FIVE
At the big intersection across from Dudley School, the traffic lights were out. Some white guy wearing a gray coat and an Eagles cap—not a cop—was directing traffic. To Luis’s surprise, most of the drivers obeyed.
Late as he was, Luis thought this over. Does the guy know what he’s doing? What if he waved go when he should’ve waved stop? Would the drivers crash into each other, or think for themselves?
Dudley School was a tall, stark, unfriendly building with bars on the windows and an asphalt playground. The school had been built to educate twice as many kids as now attended. So many empty classrooms, closets, and corridors almost made the place feel haunted. In kindergarten, Luis had had nightmares about ghosts and sharp-toothed teachers. Now the school looked the same as usual but with one difference—kids and teachers were all outside on the playground.
Luis breathed a sigh of relief. The power outage must have silenced the bells and undone the schedule too. He was almost half an hour late, and it didn’t matter.
“Hey, hue.” Luis’s cousin Carlos slapped him on the back as soon as he came through the gate. “Where you been anyway? It’s crazy about the power, am I right?”
“Crazy, hue,” Luis agreed. In Hampton, the Latino kids called each other “hue,” pronounced “way,” like kids elsewhere called each other “dude” or “bro.”
“And how are they gonna teach us without electricity?” Carlos went on. “My eyes are delicate; they can’t read in the dark.”
In Luis’s experience, the word “cousin” applied to anybody whose relatives came from more or less the same place as yours, but Carlos was a real cousin—Luis’s dad’s sister’s kid. He was also Luis’s best friend now that Maura had been demoted. In some ways, Carlos was Luis’s opposite—softer, rounder, and less coordinated. His default setting was cheerful. Once Maura had called him a teddy bear to his face and he hadn’t even minded.
Speaking of Maura—here she was beside them on the blacktop, looking at her phone. “Late bell should’ve rung by now,” she announced. “They’ll have to send us home if the power doesn’t come back. It’s too dangerous to keep us in a dark school. Not to mention the toilets won’t flush.”
“Ewww—TMI,” said Carlos.
“Why won’t they flush?” Luis asked.
“You have to pump the water to the higher floors, and that takes electricity,” Maura said. “The water pressure already in the system will keep it working for a while, not for long.”
“How do you even know this stuff?” Luis asked.
Maura tapped the side of her head. “Brains up to here.”
Carlos laughed. Luis ignored the comment, but then he thought of something. “Have you called your mom?” he asked Maura. “Is she working?”
“I tried but no answer. She must be super busy,” Maura said.
“During that big storm that time, didn’t she work, like, two days straight?” Luis asked.
“Three,” said Maura. “They set up cots so she and the other dispatchers could take naps.”
“What’s her job again?” Carlos asked.
“She’s a dispatcher for NJL—New Jersey Light,” Maura explained. “She watches the electricity. If something goes wrong, she makes adjustments to fix it.”
“So it looks like today she messed up,” Carlos said.
Now Luis laughed—and Maura gave Carlos a dangerous look.
“Kidding! I’m kidding!” Carlos said. “Uh . . . so how does that job work anyway?”
“Never mind,” Maura said.
“No, seriously.” Carlos could be very sincere when he wanted to be. “I wanna know.”
Maura shrugged. “There’s something called SCADA—S-C-A-D-A. I can’t remember what it stands for. The idea is there are sensors on the poles and in the transformers. You know, those big can things up on the poles?”
Carlos nodded, but anyone could tell he had no idea what she was talking about.
“The sensors see if something’s wrong, and then they talk to the computers,” Maura said. “Simple.”
“Simple, Carlos, right?” Luis elbowed his cousin.
“Exactamente,” Carlos said.
Up till this point, the Dudley playground hubbub had been pretty much the same as it was on any other day. But now kids were quieting down. When Luis looked, he realized it was because Principal Simon—a tall black woman who wore blazers in every kind of weather—had appeared on the steps that led to the school’s entrance. Her hands were raised for silence, and for once kids paid attention.
Luis thought about the drivers at the intersection again. Maybe there was something about an emergency—even a dinky emergency like the power being out—that made people do what they were told.
“I am sorry to inform you,” Principal Simon said, “that the district has asked us, due to the uncertainty surrounding the timing of the restoration of electricity, to dismiss school early today. Now, Dudley students, if you will all please line up by class for checkout with your teachers . . .”
Joyful shouts and woo-woo-woos resounded from the high flat face of the building. Was Luis imagining it, or were the teachers smiling most broadly of all? He for sure saw the school nurse, Miss Rivera, high-five the kindergarten aide, Mrs. Lynley.
Principal Simon went on to talk about contacting parents, after-school child care, bus schedules, e-mailing parents, and so on. None of this mattered to him, to Carlos, or to Maura. None of their parents would be coming to get them. It had been years since they’d gone to after-school child care. So, like almost all the other kids sixth grade and older, they ignored the rest of what Mrs. Simon was saying and filed out the open gate. The teachers were too busy herding younger kids to stop them.
So far, Luis thought, this power outage deal was great.
CHAPTER SIX
Carlos announced he was going home to play video games.
“For real, Carlos?” Maura said. “Your screen is plugged into the wall, right?”
Carlos looked puzzled. “Yeah, so . . . oh,” he said. “Right. But I bet by the time I get home the electricity will be back. It’s not like there’s a snowstorm. Your mom and her SCUD computer will fix it right away.”
“SCADA,” said Maura. “And you’re right. Probably a squirrel.”
“What do you mean, a squirrel?” Luis said.
“Squirrels cause a lot of outages. They gnaw on the lines and cause short circuits.”
“I’ve always heard that—short circuit—but I never knew what it meant,” Carlos said.
“I know! I know!” Luis raised his hand the way the obnoxious kids did, the ones who wanted to act smart so teachers would like them. He didn’t like those kids. “It means the electricity goes the wrong way, follows a path it’s not supposed to.”
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��Like into the body of a cute, furry squirrel?” Carlos said.
Maura drew her finger across her throat. “And out the other end. Rest in peace, little buddy. You are officially zapped.”
Carlos was wide-eyed. “That’s terrible!”
“The human body is a pathway for electricity too,” Maura said. “It conducts electricity, in other words. That’s why people get hurt when they touch a live power line. The electricity goes right through you to the ground—or whatever else you’re touching.”
“Also, I have it on good authority that you get hurt if you lick a battery,” Luis added. “Not that I know anyone stupid enough to do that.”
“Don’t tell me any more.” Carlos put his hands over his ears. “You are messing with my understanding of the universe, and there’s only so much of that I can stand. Anyway, I am going home. When the power comes back, I want to be in position on the couch with snacks ready.”
After Carlos took off, Luis felt awkward standing with Maura on the sidewalk by the school. It was random that the two of them had ended up here together. Till yesterday, they hadn’t been spending much time together. “Uh, so what are you doing now?” Luis asked after a minute.
“Going home, I guess,” Maura said. “Wanna come? We’ve got a battery radio. We can find out what’s going on.”
“I’ve got my phone. I don’t need a radio,” Luis said.
“You’ve got your phone till it dies,” Maura said.
“You really think the blackout will last that long?” Luis asked.
“It’s good to be prepared,” Maura said. “The radio has a crank on it too—a generator, I mean. Turn the crank and it’s supposed to work forever.”
“Cool,” said Luis. He had never seen a radio like that. Also Maura’s house was nice, and there would be good snacks. Still, he did not want anyone he knew to see him leave with a girl. So he glanced around to make sure nobody was looking.
Maura frowned. “You don’t have to come home with me, you know. There’s plenty of other people I’d rather hang with—pretty much everybody, now that I think—”
“Yeah, no. Sorry,” Luis said. It was annoying that she saw through him. “So let’s go and let’s hurry, okay? Maybe there’s ice cream in your freezer. Melting ice cream.”
Maura smiled. “If Beth didn’t eat it first. She loves ice cream.”
“I thought Beth was away at college,” Luis said.
“She’s home this semester. She’s got an internship with the police department,” Maura said.
“That’s cool, I guess,” Luis said, but in truth he was no fan of the police. It was different for Maura, but for him and most of the other people in his neighborhood, the police were the ones who took parents or friends away. Some of them were deported and never came back. Maura got her bike, and the two of them started walking back to Luis’s house so they could pick up his. There was a hand-scrawled sign on the door at Señora Álvaro’s bodega: STILL OPEN. CASH ONLY. FREEZER ITEMS HALF OFF.
Shoot, Luis thought, remembering Computer Genius and the chocolate milk in his backpack. Now he had time to seek him out. But he couldn’t do that with Maura. She wasn’t the kind of kid who went exploring abandoned houses. He would have to come back later.
At his house, he told Maura he’d be right back and went to grab his bike. Inside, it was quiet, which meant his mom was still in bed. The meatpacking plant where she worked was just north of town. Luis wondered if it would have to shut down for the day. You couldn’t pack meat in the dark, and the cutting machines and conveyor belt ran on electricity.
So far the blackout was no big deal—a day off from school. But what if it turned out to be bigger than he realized? A lot of things ran on electricity. What happened if it didn’t come back on? How had people lived before electricity anyway?
Luis’s bike hung on a hook on the wall of his bedroom. Carrying it through the living room, he heard something through the window, a crackle-distorted voice over a loudspeaker.
Back outside, he followed Maura’s gaze and saw a red pickup truck with a speaker on the hood moving very slowly down the street. The windshield was tinted, but Luis could make out the driver, a bald guy who seemed to have been stuffed into his black shirt. In the truck bed, a blond woman wearing a red jacket and blue slacks was yelling into a microphone and waving as if there were a crowd.
Only there wasn’t a crowd. There was only Luis and Maura.
“Who the heck’s that?” Luis asked, but then he saw campaign posters plastered all over the truck: JULIA GIRARDO FOR MAYOR: SHE’S GOT ALL THE ANSWERS!
“. . . a power outage of unprecedented scale,” she was saying, “. . . the most important message is that we must not panic, amigos. No matter how much you miss your light, your heat, your precious televisions—this is the time for action! Fight back against the shocking deterioration of our city, deterioration that the current mayor has allowed to take place! Now, does anyone have a question? Because Julia Girardo has answers! Young man!” She waved at Luis. “Do you have a question?”
“Me?” Luis looked around like he was sure she meant someone else. “Uh, no. I don’t.”
“You keep thinking, then, young man!” Julia Girardo smiled and waved some more. After that, mercifully for Maura and Luis’s eardrums, the truck continued down the street.
When it was gone, Luis shook his head. “Never saw anything like that.”
“Me neither,” Maura said, “but I guess the power outage is the mayor’s fault.”
“Is that what she said?” Luis asked.
Maura shrugged. “Something like that.”
“The longer it lasts, the more ice cream and the less school,” Luis said. “Are you ready to go?”
“Vamonos,” said Maura.
“Don’t even try,” said Luis. “Your Spanish is terrible.”
“Gracias muchísimas,” said Maura.
Luis made a face and shook his head.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The bike ride to Maura’s house took only twenty minutes, but the change of scenery was dramatic. First the narrow streets of Luis’s neighborhood fed into boulevards lined with strip malls and Wawa stores, then to a highway with big-box stores and parking lots big as dairy farms on either side. Past the big mall were a few actual farms, where you could pick your own blueberries in the summer and pears in the fall.
Finally, you made a turn and arrived all at once in a land of four-bedroom houses, lawns and trees, flowers and driveways.
By now the power had been out for almost four hours. Luis had expected it might be on once they left the city, but it wasn’t. Wherever they went, police officers were directing traffic at major intersections, their cars pulled to the shoulder of the road, light bars flashing. The smaller bodegas had CLOSED signs in the windows; none of the gas stations had customers, and most looked deserted.
For the time being, there was less traffic than usual, but Luis wondered how long that would last. Would people pack up and leave if the power stayed out? Where would they go?
How far did the blackout extend anyway?
Luis had been to visit los tíos in New York City. He knew this was the road you took to get to the New Jersey Turnpike. It was quiet now, but he could imagine it bumper-to-bumper with cars on their way to someplace with electricity, someplace normal.
The blackout made Luis notice something he’d never thought about: the countless power lines along the roadways, suspended by countless poles and towers. Inside them, electrons had fallen down on the job. They were supposed to be buzzing from atom to atom, negative charges seeking their positive partners. Only now the electrons were still. “Hey, Maura!” he hollered.
Riding a few yards ahead, she looked over her shoulder, then dropped back. There was so little traffic that they could ride side by side. “What? I’m right here. You don’t have to shout,” she said.
“Do you know a lot about electricity?” Luis asked. “I mean, like, do you know what those barrel things are on the power poles?�
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Maura glanced up. “Sure,” she said, “but I can’t believe you care. I mean, now that your circuit is built.”
“I don’t,” Luis assured her. “I’m only curious. I mean, I wouldn’t mind getting my ‘precious television’ back, like the mayor lady said. Or maybe tonight I might want to read a book and it’ll be dark and I can’t. So if that happens, I might want to know why.”
“Right—you’re gonna want to read a book,” said Maura.
“Call it a hypothetical—if you know that word,” Luis said.
Maura was right that reading was not Luis’s favorite pastime. He liked beating someone in a race or eating his mom’s ceviche, a Nicaraguan specialty. He liked video games sometimes, and exploring abandoned houses. But Tía Laura—she had been a teacher in Nicaragua—had given him a book of Greek myths, and when one night he’d been bored enough to open it, he’d realized the stories were awesome, with more gore than a Texas chain saw ever inflicted.
Also, the gods were like kick-butt superheroes.
Later, when Tía Laura had given him another Greek book, The Odyssey, about a general sailing home after a war, he’d read that too. The story had words he didn’t understand, but he liked the general for keeping cool and thinking straight even when he was threatened by monsters, sorcerers, and gods.
It seemed to Luis that keeping cool was key if you wanted to be a hero.
“God, you’re annoying, Luis,” Maura said. “And yes, I know that word. And I know what the ‘barrel’ things are too. They’re called step-down transformers.”
“Like what you were talking about at school—with sensors in them,” Luis said.
“I can’t believe you were listening,” Maura said.
“Ears were a wonderful invention,” said Luis. “So what do the transformers transform?”
“Electric current,” Maura said. “There are coils of wire inside that transform it from the high voltage that runs through the power line to lower voltage for your house. Otherwise the electricity would fry your precious TV and melt your wires too.”
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