Poppy Mayberry, a New Day

by Jennie K. Brown

  I quickly scanned the article. Certain words stuck out. “ … Fire … Nova Power Corp … Elliot and Margaret Prince … Left behind son … ”

  It was easy to piece together what everyone thought happened to them.

  “Let’s see what else we can find?” Logan asked, gaining a sudden burst of energy.

  We searched and searched his parents’ office, and the only things that turned up were more articles celebrating the Princes, Mayberrys, and this Dr. Nalsom, and even more honorable mentions and medals for excellent work at Nova Power Corporation.

  “Check the desk,” Logan said.

  “We really need to stop all this snooping,” I said. “It’s like all we do lately.”

  “I know,” Logan said. His eyebrows shot up to the sky. “We make a pretty good team.” I could hear the smile in his words.

  I pulled open the top drawer of the desk, revealing the usual office supplies—pencils, pens, stapler, tape, and scissors. But when I reached for the next drawer down, it didn’t budge. “It’s locked.” I frowned.

  “That’s probably our sign we need to stop for tonight.” Logan plopped himself down in the soft leather chair behind the desk. “I still can’t believe I’m at my parents’ house,” he said, leaning his head back against the top cushion. His eyes darted around the room. “For so many years.”

  I looked at the photograph on the corner of the desk. What appeared to be a three-year-old Logan sat on Mr. Prince’s shoulders with a gigantic smile spread across his face. Mrs. Prince’s hand wrapped around Logan’s, and her smile reached her eyes. Logan looked so happy. His parents looked so happy. To think of all the memories he could have made with them over the past ten years.

  “That’s weird,” Logan said, breaking me from my thoughts. He’d sat up straight and pulled the curtain back from the window, staring at the street below.

  “What?” I asked through a yawn, realizing again how late … early it was.

  “Probably nothing,” he brushed off. “I just thought I saw movement outside the window.”

  “Yeah. The wind,” I explained. “Branches have been tapping on the glass all night.”

  I stood in the center of the room, a million thoughts swirling around my head. And then, I focused on Logan. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Logan closed his eyes, and the cute crooked smile I loved so much spread across his face. “I think I will be. So what next?”

  There were many places I wanted to go. Not literally. Just a lot of things I wanted explained. What did my parents do at N.P.C.? Why didn’t they tell me they knew Logan’s parents? How could I even teleport with Logan? What would I say to my parents when I got home? What would happen with Logan? With his grandparents? His parents?

  Leaving Nova to come here raised more questions than it did answers—the opposite of what I thought coming to Morlantown would do.

  Logan got up from the chair. “Let’s try to get some more sleep,” he said. My face grew warm as he gently squeezed my hand.

  Logan poked his head out of the office, making sure his parents weren’t out there. I’ll see you in the morning, he thought to me.

  I tiptoed down the hall and quietly slipped into the guest room where Ellie still snored away at the foot of the bed.

  In just a few short hours, we’d hear some truths. Somehow, I was able to turn off my thoughts, because as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I woke up a few hours later to the smell of bacon and eggs wafting through the Prince house. I smiled. The smell reminded me of home, and a feeling of guilt washed over me again as I wrapped my fingers around the orange pendant always hanging from my neck.

  I need to get home and see Mom and Dad. They could explain everything. But what would happen when I got there? Did they know I wasn’t really at Ellie’s house working on the science project? I guess it didn’t matter at this point. I was determined to find out about their connection to Nova Power Corporation and being friends with Logan’s parents. The truth of where I actually went was bound to come up eventually.

  It will work out, I heard Ellie think to me. We knocked on the boys’ door. Logan answered and rubbed a fist to his eyes. “We should fill them in,” I suggested, gesturing toward Ellie, Sam, and Mark.

  “Fill us in on what?” Ellie asked, reading me. I sat down on the edge of Logan’s bed and started talking.

  “So you mean your parents might have known about the Princes?” Ellie asked, her eyes wide as saucers.

  I ran my fingers over the fringe on a soccer-ball-shaped throw pillow and pulled my mouth to the side. “There’s really no way to know at this point.”

  Mark paced to the window. “So what were their jobs there? I mean, that whole meteor thing is obviously not true.” He pulled the curtains closed.

  I shook my head. “In time, I hope we find out,” was all I could answer.

  Sam fidgeted with the edge of his brown cowboy hat and then eventually looked up. “Maybe it’s time to talk to your parents about all of this.”

  “I’ve tried a hundred times before,” I huffed.

  “But now you know even more, Poppy,” Ellie offered.

  I sighed. “Let’s just see what Mr. and Mrs. Prince have to say.”

  We made our way down the million steps to the first floor.

  “Good morning, sleepy heads,” Mr. and Mrs. Prince greeted us as we walked in the kitchen. The yummy smells of our delicious breakfast warmed me from the tip of my toes to the tip of my head.

  “Morning,” we all said.

  “Did you all sleep well?” Logan’s parents asked. Their eyes lingered over me and Logan longer than the other three.

  Did they know what we found out?

  “Mm hmm,” I mumbled. “Slept fine.” I looked at Logan quickly and then down at my plate of food. Mr. and Mrs. Prince had made a smiley face out of breakfast—two egg yolks made the eyes and a piece of bacon curved upward in a smile. This felt so normal, like five friends eating breakfast at another friend’s house in the middle of Nova.

  “We aren’t in Nova anymore,” Ellie whispered to me, nudging my shoulder.

  We certainly weren’t.

  “And who wants pancakes on this wonderful morning?” Mrs. Prince sing-songed with a sparkle in her eye. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how excited she was to have her son here.

  All five of us raised our hands in unison, as if we were in school answering some algebra equation for Mr. Salmon. Well, on second thought, I probably wouldn’t have been excited to answer any question for that toupee-wearing meanie. Ugh.

  Mrs. Prince grabbed the spatula from the counter, slid the edge under one of the pancakes, and then tossed it in the air. She did a terrible job because the pancake hit the edge of the counter and then fell toward the floor. I caught it using my Monday power, making the pancake do a few flips mid-air and then placed it gently in the pan—raw side down, of course.

  “Thank you, Poppy,” Mrs. Prince beamed.

  I noticed a pile of chocolate chip yumminess sitting on the counter next to the stovetop and used my telekinetic power to slide a few in Mrs. Prince’s direction.

  “Is this a hint?” she said, her eyes smiling.

  I nodded.

  “Anyone else up for some chocolate chips in their pancakes?”

  “Me.”

  “Yep.”

  “Me.”

  “And I’d love some too,” Logan’s dad said as his mom dropped pieces of chocolatey goodness into new piles of raw batter.

  This felt so normal. I noticed the perma-smile on Logan’s face since we got down here this morning. He was happy. Really happy. In this moment, he’d forgotten about all we had yet to discover and focused on the present—being with his parents.

  “So how is your foot feeling today, Ellie?” Mrs. Prince took a seat across from us and poured maple syrup on her breakfast.

  “Better,” Ellie answered. “I
think I just needed some time off of it.”

  Mrs. Prince’s lips curved up just like the bacon. “Well, when you get back to Nova today, you’ll want to have that checked out.”

  And there was our answer. We’d be back in Nova today.

  “Back. Today?” Logan asked, his shoulders slumping. “What will I say to Gram and Pop?” Logan asked. His face scrunched up in one of those don’t-cry-now looks. The happy air turned serious quick.

  Logan’s dad looked at his mom and then he reached his hand up and grabbed Mrs. Prince’s hand. “Well, I think you can leave that up to us,” he said. “But before we discuss the logistics of getting you home and what happens from here, I’m sure there are some questions you have for us. Some things you should know.”

  I swallowed hard.

  “Let’s finish up here, and then we’ll talk in the front living room,” Mr. Prince said, bringing a bite of pancake chocolatey-ness to his mouth.

  I’d never eaten faster in my life.

  Chapter Seventeen

  We sat down in what I would call the formal living room. Heat emanated from the marble fireplace in the corner of the room. In the corner opposite the fireplace was a grand piano, not like the stand-up pianos I was used to from music class. Everything about this space was grand—from another grandfather clock, to the crystal chandelier, to the claw-footed furniture covered in floral upholstery. I glanced over at Ellie and laughed. I bet she felt right at home.

  “Ha, ha,” she snarked. We only have claw-footed furniture in the dining room, she thought. I chuckled inside.

  Ellie and I sat on a small sofa while Sam, Logan, and Mark squeezed themselves on a matching one right next to ours. Mr. and Mrs. Prince took their seats, matching hunter green wing-back chairs facing us. The fire crackled sparks of yellow and orange and red to our left.

  Mr. Prince cleared his voice and began. “You see, very few people know we’re living here.”

  “Not even Gram and Pop?” Logan asked.

  Mr. Prince folded his hands in his lap and stared at them. “No. Not even them.”

  The room grew quiet. “We couldn’t risk the chance of anyone finding out until it was safe,” Mrs. Prince said.

  “Safe?” Mark said through a swallow.

  Logan’s mom nodded. “Yes, Mark. Safe.” She looked at the rest of us. “And all of you being here puts us all at risk,” she added matter-of-factly. “But we’ll get into that.”

  “But you’re safe now,” Ellie said.

  Logan stood. “Yeah. That’s what we came to tell you.”

  He looked to Mark who spoke next. “My mom’s been—” he paused. “She’s been put away,” he finished quietly.

  Mrs. Prince wrapped her hand around Logan’s. “Oh, kids. There’s more danger to us all than Mayor Masters, I’m afraid.” Mr. and Mrs. Prince gave one another an awkward look—a look I’d seen my parents give one another one too many times. “This was something we’d hoped to share with you, Logan, when you were grown. But it seems that circumstances surrounding Nova,” he paused, “surrounding Nova Power Corporation and Power Academy forced you all to grow up a bit faster than expected.”

  “No kidding,” Logan muttered.

  Mrs. Prince took over. “You see, we did work at Nova Power Corporation for many years—”

  “With my parents?” I interjected, unable to hold the question in any longer.

  Logan’s dad tilted his head to the side, narrowed his eyes, and looked at me. I knew in that moment he and Logan’s mom most definitely knew what Logan and I found out last night.

  “Yes, Poppy. With your parents.”

  “Go on,” Ellie said, resting her elbows on her knees.

  “Logan’s mother and I worked in the research department of Nova Power Corporation. We were just a small number of researchers who reached a certain level of security clearance.” He breathed out heavily, pushing any ounce of hesitation aside. “Now that you know about where your powers came from—”

  “Not from a meteor,” Ellie said proudly.

  “Yes,” Logan’s father continued. “Now that you know that, we can be honest with you. Your mother and I were on the team that worked in developing the powers.”

  We all gasped. “You mean, you, like, made the stuff that gave us our weekday powers?” Sam asked.

  “Sort of. We didn’t exactly create the powers. That was done before our time in the research department.” Mr. Prince hesitated and then folded his hands in front of him. “We were on a team to ensure the integrity of the powers. Make sure the formulas stayed original and never fell into the wrong hands.”

  Mrs. Prince put a hand on her husband’s arm. “Sort of like … protectors … of the powers.”

  “You see,” Mr. Prince started. “Only a very small number of people have the authorization to manipulate the serums. And there are people who … ”

  “Who want to get their hands on your research,” Ellie finished, obviously reading their minds.

  “On the formulas,” Mark added, knowing this all-too-well because of his mother.

  Silence. All we heard was the crackling of the fire and the creaking of the hundred-year-old wooden floorboards.

  Logan’s father broke the silence. “That’s probably why you haven’t been told much more. If this secret got out, it would destroy the credibility of Nova. Not to mention it would be devastating to the town. So much chaos would follow.” He paused. “It’s also why you can’t tell others about what you learn here.”

  Logan leaned forward. “But why would you just leave me?”

  His mother frowned. “Oh, Logan. That was the last thing we wanted to do. Leave you.” She brought a tissue to her face.

  “But you need to know,” Mr. Prince continued. “We left because of Dr. Nalsom,” Logan’s dad said through a grimace.

  “Another scientist?” I remembered the name from the newspaper clippings from last night.

  Mr. Prince swallowed. “More than a scientist. He was the man who oversaw our department. Without any type of approval, he began running experiments on weekdays, trying to give people multiple powers.” Mr. Prince shook his head. “Years later than birth.”

  Like Mayor Masters, I thought.

  Logan’s mother stood and walked toward the fireplace. “The power of playing God went to his head, and so your father and I told him if he continued to experiment on people, then we would destroy all of the weekday formulas.”

  “What did he do?” I asked.

  Mrs. Prince again brought the tissue to her face. “First, he threatened to take the formulas and leave Nova—exposing our magical town’s secret to the world.” She paused. “But worse than that—he threatened us if we tried to stop him.”

  Logan’s parents both looked directly at their son. “Dr. Nalsom threatened your life, Logan. We had to protect our son.”

  Silence surrounded us as we sat there in shock.

  “So that’s why you left? Why didn’t you just take me with you?” Logan whispered, eventually breaking the quiet.

  “We knew it wasn’t that simple. If we left, then he would have searched for us—searched for you. Who knows what he would have done? So we did the only other thing we could think of.”

  I thought about the article I found last night. About the fire. “You faked your deaths,” I stated, suddenly remembering what Logan had said the first day we met on the bus. When I asked what had happened to his parents and why he was on his way to Power Academy, he’d said about his grandparents, “I’m actually surprised they are sending me here—since that’s where … ” And then he had changed the subject.

  “You’re smart, Poppy.” Logan’s mom smiled. “Just like your mother. And yes, we staged an ‘accident’ at N.P.C. to make it look like something terrible had happened in our laboratory. If we were gone, and the formulas gone with us, then Nova was safe from him. More importantly, then you were safe, Logan.”

  “And what happened to Dr. Nalsom
?” Logan asked, his voice shaking as much as his hands.

  Logan’s mom turned from the fire as she nodded imperceptibly to her husband, almost as if she was signaling him to go on.

  Logan’s father spoke carefully. “After the fire, Dr. Nalsom just … well,” he paused, “he disappeared,” he said matter-of-factly. “Maybe he didn’t want to be associated with N.P.C. anymore, or maybe he went out looking for us, knowing we’d set the fire ourselves and had taken all remnants of Nova’s origins with us.”

  My eyes grew wide. “So you mean, he’s still out there?”

  Logan’s parents nodded. “Yes, and if he knows we’re still alive, then he knows there’s a good chance the formulas are still in existence. I know he’d stop at nothing to get his hands on them,” Mrs. Prince said.

  Mr. Prince swallowed hard and held onto his wife’s hand. “And I think you being here might be more dangerous than we originally thought.”

  This was just so much to take in. Nova was a giant secret just waiting to be exposed.

  “So you really did leave to protect me?” Logan said to himself, everything just too fresh for comprehension.

  “But why us? Why do we have the extra powers?” Ellie asked.

  Mr. and Mrs. Prince turned serious. “About a year before we left, Dr. Nalsom experimented with the dual powers on an adult first, and that was torture for that poor person. After near-death trials and errors, it eventually worked. The woman did, indeed, develop a second weekday power, but there was nothing humane about the way he went about it.”

  Mrs. Prince took over. “We knew when infants were given their power, it was A) harmless, B) not remembered, and C) a matter of ten years until it fully developed.”

  “Okay,” I said. We listened intently.

  “In order to limit more experimentation and injury to adult weekdays, we came up with an agreement with Dr. Nalsom.”

  “The cusp thing?” Logan asked. “With us.”

  His parents nodded in unison. “The director needed a logical reason to test out multiple powers, and the whole ‘cusp’ thing sounded believable. The four of you happened to be born at the right time to make it a viable sell to the rest of Nova if ever questioned.”