by Gwenda Bond
SmallvilleGuy: Did you see it?
SkepticGirl1: Not yet. Give me a sec.
SmallvilleGuy: Hurry. I need you to calm me down. I might be freaking out.
Posted by Insider01 at 3:05 p.m.: The flying man will be sighted tomorrow night near Omaha, Nebraska, at precisely 2:30 a.m. UCT, or 8:30 p.m. local time. The coordinates are as follows: 41º22’04.59” N, 96º04’22.73” W. This is not a prank, a joke, or a hoax. I have information that this will definitely occur. I expect someone here to report back and confirm that it did.
I tried to wrap my head around what this meant and why it had SmallvilleGuy so freaked out, failed, and clicked back over to chat.
SmallvilleGuy: Did you read it? Do you think it’s legitimate?
SkepticGirl1: I don’t know. Those coordinates are pretty specific.
SmallvilleGuy: So you think it’s true? That whoever this is knows there will be some kind of appearance of a flying man?
I was shaking my head before I remembered he couldn’t see me. That was a habit I hadn’t been able to break. Sometimes it felt like we were sitting across from one another.
If only. Then maybe I could see more about what he was thinking.
SkepticGirl1: I don’t know. I guess? We’ll have to wait and see.
SkepticGirl1: Um, can I ask something and you won’t get mad?
SmallvilleGuy: Always.
I hesitated, but I trusted him. I trusted that he meant it.
SkepticGirl1: Why are you so worried by this?
He didn’t respond right away, but when the message came it didn’t look like I’d offended him.
SmallvilleGuy: It must seem like I’m overreacting.
SkepticGirl1: Maybe a little. ;)
SmallvilleGuy: I promise I’m not. I don’t know what this means for me.
I stayed careful.
SkepticGirl1: I’ve never asked you how you knew what I saw happened, but I’ve always assumed that you’ve seen him too. Or you know him.
No response.
SkepticGirl1: I don’t know who I saw that night. I only know that it’s not a surprise to me that there might be another person like him.
I expelled a breath of air in relief when I saw that he was typing a response. I felt like I was balancing on a bridge over that gulf of secrets between us.
SmallvilleGuy: They said “the” flying man this time.
SkepticGirl1: I noticed that too.
SmallvilleGuy: Seems like there must be only one.
SkepticGirl1: One flying man seems like a lot.
He ignored that.
SmallvilleGuy: There’s no way they could know this information. What do you think they want?
I drummed my fingers on the desktop and thought about it. The most obvious answer would be that the poster either was the flying man or had firsthand knowledge of his movements. But SmallvilleGuy seemed positive they couldn’t be posting honest intel, and I trusted him more than some random poster. Oh, how I wished I had more answers for the people who wanted them from me.
Having people you cared about and who cared about you in return wasn’t easier than being lonely. It was a different kind of hard. A kind of hard that could hurt someone besides yourself, if you weren’t careful.
SkepticGirl1: I can’t know that without knowing if it’s true—or assuming it’s not, as you think—without knowing who is doing the posting.
SmallvilleGuy: Good point. I’m going to contact TheInventor.
TheInventor was another member of the message board—perhaps its creator, though I didn’t know that for sure. I did know that he’d made the chat software we were currently using, and the messaging app on our phones. He’d also helped SmallvilleGuy infiltrate a developer’s circle to provide an assist with my first big story.
Maybe he could help with this too, uncover some detail that would make SmallvilleGuy feel better.
SkepticGirl1: It makes sense, though. That someone’s looking for the flying man… I suppose I have been too, in a way, that’s why I came to the boards. Why we met. If there really is a man out there who can fly—and I think you and I both agree that there is—then I bet I’m not the only person who’s been looking for him. We know other people who’ve seen him and posted about it.
The little flashing ellipses that meant he was typing a response popped up and stayed there. Flashing and flashing. But when the message posted, it was short. Which meant he’d probably deleted whatever he’d been typing and typing. More thoughts I’d never get to see.
SmallvilleGuy: I liked your other bet better. This feels… dangerous. The post feels dangerous.
The gulf between us felt like it widened, the bridge across ever shakier under my feet. I wanted to keep from tumbling off it, and so I didn’t ask what he’d decided not to tell me. I joked with him instead.
SkepticGirl1: I’d better go buy a T-shirt, it sounds like. And a cap. The whole costume.
I wanted to bring us back to us. Everything felt too serious, too heavy. I wished he could tell me the whole truth, so I could understand why he was so worried.
But the thing was, I didn’t need any more information to share the feeling. He wasn’t going to explain why, not tonight, that was clear. I knew that, after our exchanges. But I wasn’t offended by the secret-keeping, not right now. That wasn’t what bothered me.
It bothered me that I couldn’t ease his worries. That he was so obviously rattled made me feel rattled too.
I was sympathetically rattled—which, I realized, is what it means to care about someone. Which was scary, considering I still didn’t know if he felt the same. But from the lack of response, I could tell he wasn’t up to joking around and pretending normalcy.
I could do serious honesty, if that was what he needed.
SkepticGirl1: The flying man, he saved my dad’s life and mine. He changed the way I see the world.
I took a deep breath. Did I have the guts to type this next part? My shyness didn’t kick in. I typed and hit enter, putting it out there where he could see.
SkepticGirl1: He brought me to you. We’d never have met otherwise. If your worries are right, he could be in danger. You should warn him if you can. I owe him a debt. Let me know if I can help.
He didn’t reply for a long moment.
SmallvilleGuy: It’s still not a costume. And thank you—you helped me. You always do. I have to go.
SkepticGirl1: Talk tomorrow, right?
He was already gone.
My message hung there, unanswered; his username gray.
I didn’t delete my question. I could have. But instead I left it there for him if he returned later. I might have been thrown by a lot of things that day, but I had faith we would talk the next day. We always did.
*
Almost always.
Twenty-four hours later, he hadn’t returned to chat. He hadn’t posted on the message board. I left my app signed in on my phone, kept it at my side the entire day on Sunday. Nothing. Not one word from him.
He’d vanished.
I had no other way to contact him. I had to wait.
If there was one thing I sucked at, it was waiting. Being patient? Not happening. I brought dinner up to my room, much to my mom’s disapproval. And I waited at my computer, impatiently checking chat and then the boards and then my phone in a clockwork rotation.
Now it was evening, fast approaching the designated hour of the “sighting.” I went back to Strange Skies and stared at the message. “Near Omaha, Nebraska… at precisely 8:30 p.m. local time.” Omaha turned out to be in a time zone an hour behind us, so it was after nine here—and in Smallville.
The post had twenty-five hundred views, and fourteen comments like “No way!” and “Wish I could make it!” and, finally, one from a poster I recognized:
Posted by QueenofStrange at 6:45 p.m.: I live thirty min
utes from Omaha, and I’ve never been sure what I saw that night. I’ll be there. And I’ll report back, everyone, so we can see what this is all about.
I knew her. Not in real life, just from the boards. QueenofStrange was a waitress in rural Nebraska. Over the years she had posted about lots of stuff, including her belief that she saw the flying person one night herself but also about a woman coming into her diner who claimed to have as well. She usually shouted out to me, aka SkepticGirl1, when she talked about the flying person, convinced we’d seen something similar. Though in my case it had been more up close and personal, and potentially deadly.
My entire family had been driving cross-country on our latest move, and I’d asked Dad to pull over when I spotted something strange outside Wichita. A rock tower, stacked and teetering high into the air, in the middle of a flat plain, revealed by the clear night and the ambient light from the city. Dad and I had approached and the rocks had begun to tumble down at us. At the last possible second before they crushed us, someone had appeared and flown the rocks away, saving us. The flying man. Was he going to make an appearance tonight?
Finally, at 9:30 p.m., there was a post from QueenofStrange: It was true.
That was it. That was the only thing she said. Her posts were usually gabfests, full of asides and little details.
It was true.
I checked the circuit again. Nothing.
There was a light knock at my door, and Lucy came in. Her blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she was wearing her unicorn pajamas. In the game she played, she wouldn’t be caught dead in pastels. But she couldn’t tell Mom that, and so she had to wear the unicorn pajamas she’d gotten for her birthday.
“Hey, Luce, what’s up?” I demanded. That came out harsher than I wanted.
She recoiled, then took a few steps farther in. “Would you mind reading over this paper I had to write?” She paused. “You can ignore the spelling. I can do that part.”
I hadn’t even noticed she had a sheaf of papers in her hands. I glanced at my computer screen again, confirmed the nothing and no one in chat, and shut the lid. Lucy didn’t know about my secret long-distance friendship.
“No problem,” I said. “But don’t you usually get Mom to read for you?”
“I thought you might like this one,” she said. “For, uh, reasons.”
“All right, I’m intrigued. Hand it over.” I stuck out my hand and accepted the papers.
While I read, she sat down on my bed, waiting for the verdict.
The paper was a short history of journalism in the United States with a focus on women and cultural views about women journalists. It included sections about Nellie Bly and Ida B. Wells, mention of an old movie called His Girl Friday, and even a reference to work for the New Yorker and Vanity Fair by a writer Lucy knew was one of my favorites because I had a quote of hers on my bedroom wall, sharp-tongued member of the Algonquin Round Table Dorothy Parker. And the entire thing ended with a big finish, calling the Scoop the next part of the story.
I’d have thought it was good even if I wasn’t the perfect audience for it, but…
Lucy stood when I looked up. “You liked it, right? Your story was so good. Everyone at school was talking about it. The teacher asked us to write about a larger topic that we had a personal connection to, and I wanted to show off a little. I guess that I… I guess I’m… proud.” She sounded slightly disgusted when she added, “You know, of you.”
Lucy and I had been through a lot together. We’d packed many suitcases in the same room, said goodbye to many of the same schools and all the same towns. She’d called me the worst many times, but later recanted. She’d also always had an easier time than I did fitting in, even if she’d never been able to put down roots either.
It occurred to me that journalists consulted experts. I was a good sister, but Lucy was winning the race, especially tonight, with her sweet gesture. She could be my expert.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll never tell anyone you said it.”
She snorted. “I better get a good grade on this.”
“You will,” I said. “I have another question for you. It’s related to a story.”
Her eyes grew big and interested. “Shoot.”
“Is there anything you could imagine me doing that would be so bad we wouldn’t talk to each other anymore? Ever?”
Lucy took her pages back, her face pinching as she thought—if I had to guess—about every slight I’d ever slighted her, and vice versa. “No,” she said. “We’d still be sisters. No matter how mad I was. I’d get over it eventually.”
“Me too. That’s what I thought, but thanks. And for the essay.”
Whatever had driven Maddy and Melody apart must be bad, but it couldn’t be insurmountable. Maddy still cared or she wouldn’t be concerned about how Melody fared. Or maybe she would, because that was the sister deal. Argh.
Lucy closed my door on her way out. I murmured, “They’re still sisters, so don’t mess this up.”
I hoped to make some progress on Melody’s problem the next day after school. But it was all a distraction, and I was already reopening the laptop lid. Mostly, I hoped SmallvilleGuy would show up to tell me what he’d found out from TheInventor.
I just wanted him to show up. Period.
I opened my computer and logged in to chat. His name still wasn’t there.
SkepticGirl1: I’m starting to worry about you.
SkepticGirl1: Please let me know you’re okay when you get this, mystery boy. Otherwise, I’ll have to hunt you down.
SkepticGirl1: ;)
The winky emoticon was an attempt to disguise how worried I was. We’d never gone this long without communicating, not since we met.
I checked the boards one last time. There was still no SmallvilleGuy anywhere I could locate. So I signed in to the app and turned my phone up to max volume before I went to bed, in case he messaged while I was asleep.
The ding of a new message woke me from a repeat of one of the nightmares from the other night, a shadowy form tumbling out of the sky and to the ground as I watched, unable to do anything to save him.
I fumbled for my phone.
SmallvilleGuy: Catch you up tomorrow. Got in touch w/ TheInventor.
SmallvilleGuy: I’m okay.
SmallvilleGuy: & I’m glad we met too. You and me, I mean. I owe you more than one.
I wasn’t even sure if he’d read that part of what I said the night before. He’d taken off so quickly, without acknowledging it. I put my hand over my heart. It thump-thump-thumped and I had so many questions to ask him. But he’d said tomorrow.
Still.
SkepticGirl1: Where have you been all day?
But he’d already signed out again. My message went nowhere.
That was all right, now that I knew he was. I’d ask him again tomorrow. Asking questions was something I was much better at than waiting patiently.
CHAPTER 7
I strode into the outer part of the principal’s office at the beginning of first period and waved a white paper bag at my office assistant pal Ronda. Behind her gatekeeper desk, she wore a red and black flowery ensemble and approximately half a tube’s worth of mascara. She smiled when she saw me.
“For me?” she asked.
I gingerly placed the bag in front of her. “Who else? They’re your favorite.”
It was less a white bag of surrender, more a bribe to keep us on good terms. Powdered sugar donuts from the bakery up the block from my school subway stop. I’d been running a few minutes late, but keeping Ronda on my side was important. And I wasn’t that late.
Not that I cared about timeliness for this particular appointment. Yes, it was an abhorrent fact: I had a standing Monday morning session with Principal Butler. It was penance for the story I’d written about the Warheads and the scrutiny it had brought him and
the school. Why did I have to do penance when all I’d done was uncover a shady research partnership that shouldn’t have been taking place, ever, period, and definitely not under Butler’s nose? It only made sense in Butler logic. Too bad for me, East Metropolis High operated on that.
Ronda fished out a sugary white donut and took a bite, eyes closing as she chewed. “Go on back. He’s waiting.”
“Thanks, I guess. Onward to victory—or, more likely, a painful half-hour.”
I marched past her, up the short hall, and straight into Butler’s lair, with its dark wood paneling and bookshelves filled with thick leather spines and reproduced paintings of fox hunting. Everything was perfectly in its pretentious place.
“Lois, welcome. I do so like our chats,” Principal Butler said.
He sat behind his desk. His shark-silver hair was neatly arranged, and today’s crazy-expensive suit was a light plum that might have been dapper on someone I loathed less.
He’d been waiting for me. His hands were folded one on top of the other over the enormous file that contained my “unique” permanent record.
Much to my frustration, I had never been able to sneak a peek inside it. Though he’d given me some out-of-context highlights at the first of these excruciating tête-à-têtes. I had not led teachers on a high-speed foot chase off campus, I’d been helping find a kid’s lost little sister in the woods. And if helping a bullied boy fill someone’s lockers with some harmless feathers as payback on his last day at that school was wrong, I didn’t want to be right.
He leaned back in his chair when I plunked into my usual seat opposite him.
“For a minute there, I thought you were going to stand me up,” he said.
Ew. But I tried not to let it show on my face.
“Never,” I said. “Not in case of rain or sleet or snow or the zombie apocalypse.”
“Oh, really?” he said.
“Maybe not the zombie apocalypse. Unless they’re slow zombies.”
We sat, looking at each other in awkward silence. During last week’s meeting, he’d started off by asking me how I was enjoying P.E. Like physical education, with its mandatory polyester shorts and sweating, wasn’t the worst thing he’d done to me yet. I didn’t have the patience for sports.