I frowned at her. “Rolling what?”
Felicity drew her finger across her throat like she was playing pirate, and sighed. “Let’s go again.”
She asked all the easy questions first, like name, age, grade, and school. Then she got to the serious stuff. “Tell me why you think the satellite will land on your house, Robyn.”
It made sense in my head, but I knew it would sound silly out loud. “It’s like our roof has its own personal gravity or something.”
I could tell Ms. Kildare wanted to smile, but she hid it well. Squashed kids are hardly funny. “You know the chances of the satellite landing on your house are infinitesimal?”
“So are the chances of a skydiver dangling from our weather vane.” I had to work hard at keeping the sarcasm out of my voice. “It still happened.”
After I told the story of Nickel’s email to NASA, it was his turn. He gave his eyewitness account of the time Sarah-Belle’s inflatable My Little Pony ended up dangling from the eaves over my bedroom window. When he was done, it was time to go outside.
The cherry picker truck reversed up our driveway with a cameraman in the basket. I hoped he would not get high enough to fall from our roof too. The cherry picker whirred and creaked as it wound itself up, up, up for a view of our roof.
The cameraman shouted down, “I could grab a Frisbee or two if you want.”
That offer would have been very handy a week earlier. “No, thank you.”
He laughed and said something about awesome footage. Felicity’s teeth glittered in a delighted smile; they were even brighter in the sunlight and made me glad that my glasses had lenses that got darker outside. After a while, the cherry picker eased back down to the ground, and the cameraman stepped out of the basket.
Next they filmed me waving through the gaping hole in my headquarters and pointing at the spot where Mrs. Cuthbert’s tree used to be. We finished on the front lawn with Nickel and me holding up the crumpled email from NASA. If this was fame, it felt an awful lot like posing for a great-aunt on a visit from Canada—except with more questions and less cheek pinching.
Felicity turned to the camera. “Thank you, Robyn and Nickel. And come on, NASA, there is still time. Help a girl out, won’t you?”
Felicity smiled and waited a few seconds before saying, “And cut.” She thanked us all as she shook our hands again. “The interview should be on tomorrow evening’s broadcast. I’m sure you’ll love it!” The men began to dismantle their cameras and load boxes of gear into the back of the van.
“Wait,” I said. “I have something else to say.”
The reporter’s grin faded a bit as she glanced at her watch. “It will have to be fast. David?”
One of the cameramen hoisted the smallest camera onto his shoulder and pointed it at me.
“I have a special message.” I swallowed hard and glanced at Grandma, who was setting her rosebushes free. Hopefully, she was too busy to listen in. I couldn’t see where Mom had gotten to, but I knew I’d have to take the risk. Keeping my voice as low as I could, I said, “If my dad is watching, I want him to know I’m a pretty good kid, and I want to meet him before the satellite hits. Benjamin O’Malley, contact me while there is still time. Thank you.”
Felicity blinked. “Wait…O’Malley. How do I know that name?”
I reminded her about the report she had done—the albino kids and the picnic—and told her about Benjamin O’Malley. Her eyes got very wide. “Oh, you poor kid. You’re much too well behaved to be one of them.”
Parts of me got hot and angry at that comment. What was so wrong with my family, anyway—apart from the obvious things, like magnet roofs and Michael?
“You and I have to talk,” Felicity said, resting a hand on my shoulder and directing me toward the van.
Grandma stepped between us, a sprig of accidentally broken rosebush in her hand. Her eyes were bright and wild. My heart made a sharp jump in my chest. Had she heard every word?
Grandma put her hand on my arm. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Kildare, but I can handle this from here. Nickel, time for you to skedaddle off home.”
Before I had a chance to protest, Grandma herded me inside and locked the door behind us.
“Grandma, I—”
“Sofa. Then we talk.”
My heart was a speedy tickle in my chest. Mom would find out what I had said. I might be grounded for life. But if my father heard my message on TV and came looking for me, it would be worth it. I sat down on the comfy part of the sofa while Grandma pulled the coffee table closer and perched on the edge of it.
“Tell me everything,” she said.
It was too late to hide anything now. Besides, if my plan worked, Dad would come find me. If it didn’t, then telling Grandma couldn’t make things any worse. So I told her everything.
She listened to my story without interrupting once, which is a special Grandma-only superpower. When it was over, I held my breath, waiting for the lecture, or the grounding, or worse. She was quiet a long time, staring at the messages on my cast as if they had more of my secrets to tell.
At last, she patted her knees and sighed. “We sure have missed a lot.”
She nodded once, almost to herself, then stood and went upstairs.
I had not seen that coming and didn’t have the first clue what to do next. I sat frozen for a long time, eventually turning on the TV when she didn’t come back. The clock ticked on and on without any sign of her or Mom.
By bedtime, I thought I might be worried—or annoyed—but mostly I was hungry.
We hadn’t even had dinner.
Nickel was late to school the next morning. I had to tell him about Grandma’s weirdness during Mrs. Gilbert’s class or wait until lunchtime. A note was too risky, so I came up with a better idea. Holding my cast under my desk, I scrawled a note across the palm section, where Mrs. Gilbert would think it was just another autograph.
Grandma knows I tried to find Dad. Mom will hate me now.
I made a small coughing sound so that Nickel would glance over at me, and I passed him an eraser. Staring hard at my palm, I spread my fingers wide, hoping he would get the idea.
He did not.
But Mrs. Gilbert did.
“Aha! I see what you did there,” she said, striding between the desks toward me.
The class got silent, and all their faces turned toward me, most of them grinning in anticipation of a juicy new entry in the school newspaper. At least Dameon looked a tiny bit sympathetic. He’d provided more notes for the school paper than anyone else, ever.
Nickel’s eyes widened in horror as the teacher took my hand and spread out my fingers to see my note. I tried to pull away, but I couldn’t put up much of a fight with a cast.
Everyone would laugh. Worse, everyone would know what a reject I’d been all my life.
The satellite could crush me now and I wouldn’t care, especially if it opened up a giant hole in the earth for me to fall into.
“I’ll just write this down for the paper, shall…” The teacher’s voice trailed off as she read the note. Her lips turned into a thin line, and her head hung a little bit. “Never mind. I—I guess I was mistaken. Back to work, kids. Those assignments are due in a few days.” As she turned to walk away, her hand hovered for a moment over my shoulder.
I screwed my eyes closed and rested my forehead on my desk. Whatever Mrs. Gilbert knew about my mom and dad, I wasn’t sure I wanted to know it anymore.
* * *
• • •
Nickel came over to watch our television debut. While we waited for What’s Current to start, we discussed Grandma in whispers. We had not seen her since we arrived. Or Mom. In fact, I had barely seen either of them since the night before.
“Are you in trouble, or what?” Nickel asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I kind of wis
h I was. This is…creepy.”
Grandma showed up just before the opening credits played. She sat down on the uncomfortable-spring end of the sofa and leaned forward on her elbows to watch. Nickel and I sat up straight and barely breathed, waiting for her to do something. There was no sign of Mom.
The interview needed to get Benjamin O’Malley’s attention, because this much awkward could not be for nothing.
On the screen, Felicity Kildare and several of her coworkers stood with their arms crossed, staring meaningfully at the audience as the titles rolled. She looked a lot more impressive all serious-faced and lit from behind.
Our story was first up, and the screen switched to Felicity’s smiling face.
“I’m here on Pinetree Lane in the heart of Calliope with Robyn Goodfellow—a girl with a big problem. Robyn lives in a house with a knack for attracting falling objects. The roof of her family home is littered with toys and remote-controlled flying objects. So many, in fact, that our Eye in the Sky traffic helicopter tells me the house is something of a local landmark. Not surprisingly, the news that a satellite is heading our way has Robyn a little anxious.” While Felicity spoke, the camera cut away to shots of the things on our roof.
I gasped and grabbed Nickel’s arm. Even I had not realized how much was up there, especially around my room.
“It’s like a Toys‘R’Us exploded on our house,” I said.
“Nah. They had a few bags of toys to add up there to make it look good on TV. The Eye in the Sky doesn’t even fly over here,” Nickel said. I hoped he was right and not just trying to make me feel better.
The next shot was of me waving from the giant hole in the side of my headquarters.
“Early this year, their neighbor cut down her tree, only to have it defy all the laws of physics and land on Robyn’s tree house and bedroom window, simultaneously.”
The camera cut to a close-up shot of my face. “I had to sleep on the sofa for ages,” I said with a serious expression. “It’s got a wonky spring in it too.”
“Another collision occurred recently when a neighbor’s science fair experiment crashed into the wall—right into Robyn’s own bedroom.” The camera focused on the newest patch, in the middle of the slightly older tree patch above my window.
“It’s like the house has its own gravity,” I said solemnly.
Nickel and Grandma both cracked up at that, which was not very kind, although it was good to hear Grandma laugh. I wished Mom was there too, preferably laughing along with us.
The next shot was of Felicity and me inside the Fairy Wonderland, surrounded by nervous-looking woodland creatures. “Robyn, what would you like to see happen?”
“I want NASA to put some sort of shield over my house. It’s their satellite. It’s worse than littering. It’s…irresponsible.”
The clip finished outside with Nickel and me holding NASA’s email and looking uncomfortable while Felicity read the text aloud. “Thank you, Robyn and Nickel. And come on, NASA, there is still time. Help a girl out, won’t you?”
When it was over, Grandma let out a sigh that sounded relieved. “That’s that, then.”
I tried to think of something to say, even something that would make her mad. But before I could, she stood up and left. A few seconds later, her feet thudded and creaked on their way up the stairs.
Nickel and I glanced at each other. He mouthed, “Huh?” as we waited for Grandma’s footsteps to fade out. When she was gone, he looked at me with wide eyes. “Okay, that was strange.”
“I know. She’s totally weirding me out,” I whispered.
“They didn’t play the bit about your dad.”
“I know that too.”
Grandma and Mom hated me, and I had done it all for nothing.
* * *
• • •
The local gossips—which meant pretty much everyone—telephoned to talk to us before school. Sometimes it seemed like all they were saying was goodbye, just in case. Mom didn’t come down for breakfast, and I began to think that maybe I’d broken her somehow. Grandma could not get me out of the house fast enough. Every neighbor between our house and school peeked through their curtains to watch me run by. I didn’t stop until I met Nickel outside the school gates.
“The whole town has gone super creepy,” I said, bending over to catch my breath.
“Don’t worry. Kids don’t watch the news,” Nickel said as we walked into school.
“We did,” I said.
“We were on it. That’s different.”
That made me feel a little better until we reached our lockers. There, stuck to my locker door, was a hand-drawn arrow pointing downward with a sign that read HERE SHE IS, XR-26. Out of sight, someone giggled—someone who sounded a whole lot like Dameon Swenson. Nickel reached out to snatch the paper, but I stopped him.
“No. Leave it.” Gritting my teeth, I stalked off toward our first class.
“Uh, why?” Nickel asked, hurrying along beside me.
“Because it’s true. Because I don’t care who laughs at me. Just because.”
Except I did care. Very much. I would have smashed that satellite right out of the sky and onto Dameon Swenson’s head if my arms had been long enough. The bad karma would be so worth it.
Nickel sat with me all day for support. Everyone else kept at least six feet between me and them, even moving their desks and chairs away as if bad luck or magnet roofs might be contagious. At lunchtime, Nickel and I sat in our favorite spot and tried to ignore the pointing and whispering and new table layout.
Nickel picked up a weird lump of brown dough from his tray and turned it around in his fingers. “Do you think this is a cinnamon roll? I can’t tell if it’s meat or dessert.”
I pinched off a bite and tasted it. “No idea. It could go either way.”
We giggled for the first time all day. After a few minutes, people quit staring and got on with their food and friends. Things felt better, almost normal, until Darren Morse sidled up to our table.
“I saw my RC helicopter on your roof on TV last night,” he said. “I want it back.”
No “please.” No “thank you.” No “How’s your doughnut or possibly meat loaf?”
“You’re welcome to climb up there and get it,” I said.
His eyes bulged like a frog’s. “You get it down. You stole it. Mrs. Cuthbert says it’s theft. She told my mom your whole family should be arrested, not put on television.”
Everyone in the room stared at us, frozen in mid-chew.
The thing about kids like Darren Morse was that they were born with so many genes for stupidity, you could not win an argument with them, because they’d never know they lost.
“Then sue my roof.”
“Yeah. You’re bound to win, since you’re taking your legal advice from a secret FBI agent,” Nickel said. The sarcasm was so perfect all the kids in the cafeteria burst out laughing.
Darren’s neck turned a deep scarlet that spread upward until it reached the top of his head. “Thieves!” he yelled, and stamped off.
When we were alone again, Nickel grinned. “Admit it. We handled that like Focus Pocus masters.”
I laughed. “Yeah. We crushed his tiny little spirit.”
Later Nickel sat beside me in class, looking like he might fall asleep on his books at any second. I leaned over to whisper while Mrs. Cooper wrote math equations on the board, her chalk screeching, hopefully covering my whispers. “I have a new plan.”
Nickel raised an eyebrow at me. He’d practiced that trick for months and finally had the hang of it. “What now?”
“Your mom takes Penny to Densdale for her ballet lessons tonight, right?” I whispered.
He held his finger to his lips. “Shhh! People would flip if they knew the cop’s wife took her kid to Densdale instead of Madam Shallot’s.”
“Sorry. Anyway, we could go too.”
Nickel sighed and rested his face in his hands. “No. No. No.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not asking. Mom would say no.”
I made a pfft sound. “So? When it comes to grown-ups, ‘no’ is the first step in a long process.”
“Let it go. It’s over. Forget about it.”
“What, I’m supposed to wait quietly and accept my fate?”
Nickel nodded. “That would be a nice change.”
Angry heat spread over my skin. Not Nickel too. Not again. I needed him on my side. “Just me, then. I’ll escape when I get there.”
“Nickel Bugden and Robyn Goodfellow, eyes on books and mouths shut, please.”
Nickel turned green and sank in his seat. He stared at the board and ignored me.
I tugged at his sleeve. “Please. It’s my last chance. There’s no more time.”
He shook his head.
Breathing through my teeth, I clenched my fists hard enough to leave deep little nail prints in my palms. “Don’t do this to me.”
He turned to glare at me and said, way too loud, “No!”
That was how we earned our first detention.
* * *
• • •
Mrs. Cooper had taught my mom when she was at school. She’d probably taught Grandma too. Everything about Mrs. Cooper was gray. She looked like one of the ornaments on the bookshelf that Grandma never dusted.
When all the other classrooms in Calliope Middle School had their old chalkboards swapped for giant dry-erase boards and markers, Mrs. Cooper refused to change. She still used the same textbooks and lesson plans she’d always followed. And the same punishments. Her classroom was like a museum dedicated to last century’s schools.
Neither Nickel nor I had ever been in detention before, much less detention with Mrs. Cooper, but everyone in school knew her routine. We sat in silence, staring at the top of the teacher’s head as she bent over a pile of papers at her desk.
I sucked my dry lips into my mouth as she slowly raised her head, like she had finally noticed we were there.
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