“Yeah?”>
“If you want, you can take my car and drive to school today. I’m working from home, so I don’t need it today.”
I paused and leaned against the door. I knew what the car was: another pity offering, something to make my mom feel better about all the upheaval in our lives, but it just made me feel weirder. When things were changing so fast all around me, I wanted everything to stay the same. I didn’t want the car. I wanted our old house and our old neighbors and our old school and our old friends.
“Word,” June sighed under her breath.
I shoved her so that it looked accidental. I’ve had years of practicing that move.
“Okay,” I said to my mom as June frowned at me and rubbed her arm. “Thanks!”
“Of course. And girls, you have fifteen minutes before—” she started to add, but she stopped when she saw us. “What happened?”
I saw June’s hand tighten on the doorknob. “What?” she said. “We’re fine, nothing happened, nothing weird at all happened.”
Good grief. Someone’s gotta teach her how to be an effective liar, fast.
Luckily, if there’s one person who knows how to be blasé, it’s May. “We’re fine, Mom,” she said, drumming her fingers (all of them still present and accounted for) on the doorframe. “Junie’s just still shaken up because she saw a spider. You know how she gets about the creepy-crawlies.”
Our mom looked unconvinced, though. “All of your eyes are verrrry big,” she said, narrowing her eyes at us. “Have you been doing drugs in your bedroom?”
“Moooom. We go to other people’s houses to do drugs,” May deadpanned, then grinned when our mom laughed a little. It’s a lucky thing for May that our parents still appreciate her sense of humor. She and my dad are really similar that way. When the two of them get going, they can go a whole day without making one sincere comment.
“Chillax, Mamacita,” May continued. “We’re fine.”
June looked like she was about to hurl, though, and I realized she was probably trying her hardest to stop reading our mom’s mind. “Yeah, we’re fine,” she echoed May and tilted her head up when our mom kissed her forehead en route to her bedroom.
“Oh, goodie,” May said wearily as we climbed into the car thirty minutes later. “Another car ride with my sisters. What joy will it bring this time?”
“That’s funny coming from you,” June said as she slammed her passenger side door shut.
I glanced over at her outfit. “So you’re wearing that skirt?”
“Yep. It’s important to not care what other people think, after all.”
“So says the mindreader,” May sneered.
“It’s a bold decision in a new direction, June,” I told her.
She beamed at me. “Thanks!”
In the rearview mirror, May raised her eyebrows and said nothing. I could see her hands were white-knuckling the strap on her backpack, the same one she’d had for three years. “So,” she said in her casual-but-not-really voice, “what do you think the chances are that I’ll disappear in the middle of class today?”
“Signs point to yes,” June mumbled. “Big time yes.”
“Seatbelt,” I told her.
“Yes, boss,” she intoned.
“And you just have to control it,” I said to May as we backed out of the driveway. “Pay attention, don’t lose focus, keep your eye on the ball, all that sports advice stuff.”
“Well, that’d be great if I actually played sports,” she muttered. “What if I get called on when I’m not even raising my hand?”
“Oh, that,” June said dismissively. “Just answer a lot when you actually know the answers. Then they don’t call on you when you don’t know the answers.” She settled into the seat. “Easy peasy.”
But I knew the real problem: May always knows the answers. She just doesn’t like to say them out loud. When we were three, four, and five years old, May practically had an emotional breakdown when she had to be an angel in the holiday pageant at our preschool. (June, on the other hand, would have worn every single halo in that room if she could have, and I was just eager for the whole shebang to be over because I had heard there would be cookies afterwards.)
Once we were in the parking lot, we climbed out of the car along with the rest of the bleary-eyed kids straggling towards school. We looked like zombies, none of us wanting to be there, all of us in various stages of sleep deprivation. (Well, everyone except for June, who I’m pretty sure was riding an emotional high off her pink skirt.) Whoever has to teach first period at our school must have drawn the short straw because we aren’t a pleasant group to be around.
“So true,” June muttered next to me. “We’re bitchy.”
I sighed. “June. C’mon. You gotta stop doing that.”
“I’m trying,” she protested. “I swear, April, I really am. But sometimes it’s like I can open a door to your mind.”
May tossed her hair over her shoulder. “June, if you open my door, so to speak, I’ll maim you and enjoy it.”
“Ha. No, you wouldn’t. That’s illegal and besides, Mom and Dad would ground you for, like, a bazillion years.”
I couldn’t handle listening to them argue again, so I turned it off. I was too busy trying to keep track of what was happening now and what was going to happen. The scenes interchanged too fast, and I almost fell over a parking block in my hurry to get towards school.
“April?”
Both my sisters were looking at me quizzically. “Earth to you,” May said. “What’s wrong?”
“Oh, you mean besides the fact that I can predict the future of millions of strangers?”
May shook her head. “Oh, no no no no. No. You do not get to play the Martyr Card. We’re all going through shit right now.”
I sighed. “My brain is already tired.”
“Let’s ditch!” June’s eyes lit up. Ever since she saw Ferris Bueller’s Day Off when she was eight years old, she longs for the day she can ditch school. I guess she thinks it involves downtown parades while singing Beatles songs, but from what May’s told me, it’s mostly just hanging out at Denny’s and watching crappy horror movies at other people’s houses. Not that I’d tell June that, though. Everyone has their dreams.
“May, can I ditch with you?” she asked.
“JUNE,” May snapped. “Enough with the brain intrusions!”
“Sorry!” Her eyes were glassy, though. “But you ditched last year! I saw it! Can I come next time? I won’t even talk or read your mind or anything, I swear.”
I glanced at May, who studiously looked away, and I could tell by the worry wrinkle between her eyes that she was doing everything in her power to keep June from reading her mind. The truth is, May used to ditch more than all of us, including half the student body. Let’s just say she’s had a lot of day-long orthodontist appointments for someone who doesn’t even wear braces.
“Ditching is wrong,” I tried to tell June.
“Whatever.”
“Look,” I said. “Let’s all try to get through today without attracting national media attention or becoming lab experiments, all right?”
“Yeah, like the biology frogs,” June said. “Or the anatomy cats.”
“Should we synchronize our watches, too?” May rolled her eyes. “Code names? Set up a secret meeting place in case the world ends?”
“Don’t joke about that.”
“I want my code name to be something awesome,” June replied. “Like a celebrity baby name.”
I pressed my fingers to my temples, willing my headache away. “Our parents couldn’t stop at one,” I sighed. “They had to have two more.” But really, I was nervous. My sisters and I were pretty much loose cannons, and I kept searching to see if May would disappear to get out of a history quiz or June would read the mind of our assistant principal and cause everyone over the age of thirty to have a meltdown.
“Buck up,” June said to me as May started trudging towards school. “And stop freaking
out. Some day you’ll be glad you have us.”
“I don’t see that vision coming for a long time,” I scowled at her, but I fell in line and followed my sisters toward school. Halfway to the front door, I grabbed May by the elbow while June pranced ahead of us. “Hey,” I whispered. “Don’t ditch today.”
“Yeah, I know,” she whispered back, and when she looked at me, I felt it, whatever that thing is where you can talk to your sister without saying a word.
I guess it’s always special when you can do that. No matter how special you are.
To my immense glee, my day wasn’t disastrous. I kept my head down, didn’t look at anyone, and tried hard not to see anything. And it worked.
At least until lunch.
I was standing at my locker, pulling out books and putting books away as this guy stood over me, trying to get into his locker. “Uh, excuse me,” I muttered as he knocked me in the head with his elbow. It didn’t help that I’m kind of short, and he’s the human equivalent of a redwood tree. You could probably hollow him out and drive a car through him, just like those Sequoias in the national forest.
But he never said “Sorry” or “Excuse me” or “Forgive me for being the rudest person alive.” He never said anything. I didn’t even know what his name was.
Not that I cared what his name was. I’d just seen him at his locker before.
Anyway.
So there we were, doing our daily locker do-si-do, when I saw something. At first I thought it was a memory, but when I realized what was happening, I sucked my breath in and grabbed my locker door, as if my power could pull me right off the ground.
I couldn’t see anything in front of me, not even Sequoia Boy’s stupid elbow inches away from my face. It was like someone lowered a movie screen in front of me and hit play.
I saw people running, ducking themselves into every doorway. Some people even ran outside, the morons. I saw the ground roll right underneath my feet, coming towards me like a wave. I saw a light fixture falling, the fluorescent one that was right over my head, and I saw it coming right towards Julian and me.
How did I know his name all of a sudden?
“—my way.”
I shook my head and glanced up. “What?”
“In my way,” the guy—Julian—was saying, motioning to where my hand was gripping the bottom of his locker. He couldn’t shut the door without slamming my fingers.
“Oh,” I started to say, but for some reason I knew to keep hanging on, and it’s a good thing I did, since the initial jolt made the building feel like someone had driven a Mack truck into the side of the school.
There was a flurry of tiny screams, and then someone yelled, “Earthquake!” And I saw it again, people going into doorways or streaming outside. Just like in my …
In my what? My vision? My daydream? What the hell was I supposed to call these things?
The linoleum floor seemed to rise up like a tiny wave, curling itself up and down as the earthquake shook us. I was still standing by my locker, still hanging on to its metal frame while everyone around us ran for cover.
That’s when I heard the crack and saw the spark.
I shoved Julian so hard that he staggered backwards. “What the hell?” he yelled at me, but I was too busy ducking out of the way of the crashing light. And then I heard him yell, “Oh, shit!” as the glass flew everywhere and the hallway went dark.
The earthquake, I knew, only lasted for ten seconds or so: 5.2 on the Richter scale, which wasn’t too crazy by Southern Californian standards. The light only fell because it hadn’t been bolted in correctly. I saw press conferences on the news and school officials looking at the damage, even though none of it had happened yet. I knew that the chem teacher would need three stitches in his hand because he got cut by a broken glass test tube.
The visions came so fast that it felt like the earthquake was still happening, and when I could finally see normally again, I saw my fingers still gripping the edge of Julian’s locker.
I can still feel that locker in my hand sometimes—that’s how hard I was holding on.
“Whoa,” someone said to me. “You’re kinda pale.”
“Yeah,” I replied, even though I had no idea what I looked like. Across the hall, Julian was staring at me, but I didn’t have time to stare back because we were all getting herded around by the vice principal, who finally had the opportunity to use the whistle that always hung around his neck. “PHWEET! PHWEET!” The sound was worse than the earthquake. Everyone looked either dazed or freaked out or excited, and I caught a glimpse of Avery, the girl with the black hair May had almost run over with the car the day before. She definitely looked freaked out, and I couldn’t blame her. Almost getting hit by a minivan one day, and dealing with an earthquake the next? I could almost hear May’s voice in my ear saying, “Sucks to be her.”
“Hey,” Julian said to me, but when I turned to look at him, I couldn’t see him anymore. I was getting something else now. Something a hundred times worse than an earthquake premonition.
I could see myself kissing Julian. He was holding my face, and his eyes were really brown, like deep-set marbles. And his skin was softer up close than it looked from far away. He smelled really good, too, like laundry even though his shirt looked a few days’ worth of dirty. And his lips were—and his hands were—and—
Whoa, Nelly.
I closed my eyes hard, then opened them again, but it was the same thing. We were making out, I was seeing it like it was HDTV, and I couldn’t stop it.
What?
WHAT?
HOLY HELL HOW WAS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE?
“Hey,” Julian said again, and this time I managed to look up at him. “Hey, what—” But I slipped past him and out the door with everyone else, trying to find a way to turn off my brain. The images were pummeling me, flashes and glimpses of everyone’s lives. I didn’t know if I was seeing the past or future or what, but I suddenly remembered being six years old again, standing on the hot concrete with my sisters.
I remembered watching May disappear.
My sisters.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
It was like I could see everything behind me and in front of me, and yet I had no idea where I was. All I knew was that it felt like something bad was on its way … and I was the only one who could see it coming.
chapter 5
“You have no idea how fast things can change.” may
I got hauled into the office that afternoon after the earthquake. Not because I caused it or anything, obviously (although that would be one awesome power, I have to admit), but so I could get set up for tutoring.
Honestly, I’d take the earthquake again.
Luckily, I was outside when it happened, getting ready to sit under a tree and eat lunch by myself like the loser I am. When the first shock hit the ground, I disappeared without even thinking about it, but after it was over, I didn’t bother coming back.
I mean, why would I? I was sitting by myself. Under a tree. Who cared if I was there or not?
I have to say, disappearing without anyone noticing was pretty fantastic.
But you know what’s not fantastic?
Tutoring in European history.
It would have been helpful if my psychic big sister had mentioned this plot development. But she never said a word and I got summoned out of geometry and sent to the assistant principal’s office to discuss my “course of action.”
I can’t say I was too disappointed about missing geometry, but sitting in that office wasn’t my idea of a fun time, either.
“Maaaaaaaay,” Mr. Corday said in his best I-may-be-in-a-position-of-not-entirely-deserved-authority-but-let’s-be-friends- anyway voice. “Let’s talk. I heard that you might need some extra help in one of your classes.”
“Do you have a reliable source?” I asked him. “Signed affidavits? Eyewitness accounts?”
“Your initial test score.” He raised his big bushy eyebrows. It’s gross how old dudes’ eye
brows get all gray and long.
“Oh,” I said. “The test score. Maybe I’m being framed.”
“Let’s focus on the issue at hand,” Mr. Corday replied, adjusting his glasses as he pulled out my transcript from my last school. “Your grades in your freshman history class at your old school are excellent. As and Bs.” He set the paper down and folded his hands over it. “What’s different this year?”
I started to laugh. I couldn’t help myself. “What’s different?” I said through my giggles. Well, for starters, I imagined saying, my parents divorced, we moved here, my mom’s stressed, my dad’s becoming some sort of hippie/cowboy hybrid, I had a tequila-filled night that still makes my liver cringe, and oh yeah, I almost forgot! I can control your mind and make you think I’m disappearing! Other than that, though, not much is new.
I bit my tongue, though, and tried to stop laughing. “Sorry,” I said. “Look, here’s the thing. My history teacher at my old school? She was old and half-blind. We all cheated like we were counting cards in Vegas. Everyone was making As. I only got a B on my final ’cause I was too lazy to even cheat.” This was only semi-true, but unless this guy was a mindreader like June, I didn’t care.
Mr. Corday’s eyebrows drew together like angry centipedes. “You know we have a zero-tolerance cheating policy at this school, Miss Stephenson.”
I tried to make my eyes wide and innocent, like Bambi. “Well, as you probably can tell from my test scores, Mr. Corday, I’m not cheating.”
He couldn’t argue that point, that was for sure.
“I’ve amended my ways,” I continued. “Consider my Shawshank redeemed.”
“Yes, okay, May, the point has been made.” He sat back in his chair and pushed his glasses up high on his forehead. Not a great look for him. “You know,” he said, “I happen to think you’re a very smart girl.”
“You’re not alone in that,” I replied.
“But you might just be too smart for your own good.”
I just blinked. “With all due respect, Mr. Corday,” I said, “I think more people should be too smart for their own good.”