Wheels (3 page)

McKenzie sighed. Her favorite blue shirt, which had seemed so comfortable this morning, suddenly felt dingy and faded. She pushed a wayward curl behind her ear and tried to remember if she’d brushed her hair. If only she had inherited her dad’s glossy black hair, instead of her mom’s ridiculous red curls.

Joanne held up her hand as if to wave, and McKenzie raised hers—then caught herself. Even if she’d wanted to be friends, she couldn’t. Not now. Not when one stray wish could twist particles of Joanne Chang into a toad.

Gotta stop thinking like that.

Joanne’s hand, still in midair, formed the shape of an L. Still looking at McKenzie, still smiling, she mouthed, “LO-SER.”

“Miss Wu?”

McKenzie blinked. Principal Provost’s pale-blue eyes stared at her quizzically.

“Going,” she mumbled, taking off down the hallway. She felt dizzy, sick, and not at all sure she wasn’t going to throw up. Her life, like the particles, was shifting, rearranging, changing into something completely unrecognizable.

********

Principal Provost sat outside room twenty-three pondering the events of the last few minutes. The molecules of the floor had begun the weaving process—but it was not his doing.

Absently, he began tugging one of the long, scraggly hairs of his right eyebrow, struggling to recall everything he knew about the girl who had recently moved to Avondale. McKenzie Wu on the basketball court; a tough, skilled player, bashing wheelchair against wheelchair, stealing balls and shouting orders to other players. McKenzie, alone, waiting outside the school or sitting at lunch. McKenzie doing something stupid but harmless, with that boy, Rudy Hayes.

Must take this slowly, he thought. Humans could not
particle-weave
—and yet, it appeared McKenzie Wu could. After all this time, had his instincts finally paid off?

“Thank goodness I found you!”

Principal Provost almost jumped out of his chair. A tall, thin man with a wide, flat, and at the moment, unattractively moist forehead, was standing in front of him.

“I’m so glad I—
hiccup
—found you. There’s been a—
hiccup
,
hiccup
—been a—
hiccup
—oh bother!” The man hiccupped two more times, backed up a few steps and tripped.

Principal Provost groaned. “Where did you come from?”

“Greencastle, Indiana.”

“What?”

“Ohhhh—
hiccup
—oops! You mean as in—
hiccup—
I’m the new band director. Remember?”

Principal Provost squinted, trying to recall what a band director was and resisting the urge to tug at his eyebrow again. “Ahhh. Yes, I remember. Of course, I remember. Hired you, didn’t I? Tip-top. How can I help?”

“Well uh…we have a small problem. Ha, ha. About a tuba. Hee, hee.” Now the man was laughing; punctuating his sentences with high-pitched, self-conscious tweets. “On the other hand—ha, ha—maybe it’s not small, maybe it’s more like medium. I guess it depends on how you look at it.”

“Time,” murmured Principal Provost. “No need to waste precious time. Come along,” he said, taking off down the hallway. “You may explain the details on our way to the band room.”

Chapter 3

FBI TRANSCRIPT 21209 - 10

Agent Wink Krumm, Joanne Chang and Penny Nickels
Tuesday, April 7th

KRUMM
:  How well would you say you know McKenzie Wu?

CHANG
: Did she steal something? Because like, well, if she did, I would have to tell Penny’s dad, Coach Nickels, wouldn’t I?

KRUMM
: Think of this as a survey.

NICKELS
: OMG! Are we on TV?

CHANG
: Penny, shut up!

KRUMM
: Let’s try this again. Have you ever noticed anything…
different
about McKenzie?

NICKELS
: Ohhhh, now I get it. Yeah, lots of things. Her eyes!

CHANG
: Yeah! Her eyes are like emeralds—

NICKELS
: Freaking green! But she’s Chinese, like Joanne.

CHANG
: Right. Chinese. And get this—she’s got massively curly red hair.

NICKELS
: Weird!

KRUMM:
Fifty years ago, yes. Today people can have whatever color hair, skin, or eyes they—or rather, their parents please. You’re right…it
is
weird.

CHANG
: Totally! Plus, she always wears it pulled back in a rubber band.

NICKELS
: I mean, like, why would she do that? It’s so beautiful. That’s not natural.

KRUMM
: Anything different about her behavior? Anything…
odd
?

NICKELS
: Absolutely. She doesn’t like Joanne.

CHANG
: And she hates Penny!

NICKELS and CHANG
: And we’re like the most popular girls in school!

CHANG
: OH. And she acts like a boy.

NICKELS
: Joanne’s right. McKenzie likes boy things. Science, math, basketball.

CHANG
: Hey! I like basketball. Oh, my gosh—does McKenzie take steroids? Steroids are illegal. McKenzie would be kicked off the team!

NICKELS
: Agent Krumm, are you all right? Like, are you gonna puke? Cause if you feel like you gotta puke—

KRUMM
: Thank you, girls. Thank you. That’s all for today.

***

HURRICANES & DAYDREAMS

Monday, March 16th

M
cKenzie waited inside Principal Provost’s office. When the door didn’t open…when Miss Chantos didn’t stick her head in—when she could no longer stand it—McKenzie raised the eReader in front of her face. “I can do this. I can make this stupid old tablet disappear,” she whispered, squinting, as if to see right through it.

 Seconds passed. A minute. The eReader—still present, still solid—dropped to her lap. McKenzie shoved it into her backpack, “Nuts,” and turned away from the door. “I’m crazy and nuts.” She laughed. “I’m double nuts!”

While the rest of the school smelled of dirty gym socks, baloney sandwiches, and the overlying smell of too much antiseptic spray, Principal Provost’s office had its own distinct scent…musty paper and wood. His huge wooden desk faced the door in front of which McKenzie was now sitting. Beside it was a large set of windows with blinds, overlooking the school entrance. Along the other two walls and surrounding the door, cherrywood bookshelves stood like sentinels, stuffed to overflowing with antique newspapers and books, binders and a variety of framed documents and photos—everything above the fourth shelf was too high for McKenzie to reach.

How does he manage?

Principal Provost’s wheelchair was big, bulky and old-fashioned. By comparison, McKenzie’s was light-years ahead. Though not one of the newer chairs made by her dad’s employer, Sphaera Technologies, its lightweight, scandium construction gave it a sleek, high-tech appearance. It not only looked faster than most chairs, with her help, it was faster.

McKenzie closed her eyes allowing the scent of wood to merge with memories of sweat, burning rubber and the echo of basketballs smacking against the gym floor. She loved the feel of the rims against the palms of her hands, the rush of metal crashing against metal and balls cracking against the backboard. The way her heart pumped and the crowd yelled—

Snaps!

Two more victories and the Warriors would win the championship. McKenzie took a deep breath and held it.
But not without me.
She continued to hold her breath, afraid releasing it might make this thought come true. She’d already missed one game because of detention.
Because of Hayes. Why do I let him talk me into these things?

Sunlight trickled in through the slanted blinds and spilled over her. McKenzie allowed a long, slow sigh to escape her lips. Principal Provost loved wheelchair basketball. He attended all of their games.
He wouldn’t dare keep me out of such an important one.
She frowned, twisting a strand of curly red hair around her finger
. Or would he?

McKenzie turned and rolled over to a bookcase filled with several impressively thick books. Curious and slightly bored, she began reading the titles:
Strategies in Effective Discipline
;
Progressive School Discipline
;
Nano-Molecular Dynamics in Physics;Grey Matter, Dark Energy, and Black Holes;Space Travel and Multidimensional Theories of—

Something odd. Something out of place caught her eye. A cabinet, hardly more than a box with a glass door, was wedged between two bookcases. Pale-blue and weathered, it didn’t blend with the rest of the old-fashioned, library-like décor. Though smaller, it reminded her of Grandma Mir’s curio cabinet. McKenzie couldn’t see what was in the little blue box, but she could recall almost every item in Grandma Mir’s cabinet: glass orbs, all colorful, fragile and tantalizingly off-limits. McKenzie’s great-great grandfather, an inventor and rumored to be a bit of an eccentric, had started the family’s spherical fascination, beginning with the oldest orb, made for his wife, Julianne. At first glance, it appeared to be an ordinary replica of Earth. On closer inspection, the landmasses were all wrong. Something about it had always bothered McKenzie. So, too, something about this box bothered her, more than the size, more than the color. It wasn’t where it was hidden, but how. McKenzie could see—she could actually see—that the particles surrounding the box were thicker. As if they were hiding the box…only not from her.

A lone, gray cloud floated in front of the sun, throwing a blanket of chill over the dimly lit room. McKenzie shivered, thinking she should be writing her paper even as she rolled closer to the box.

That’s when she noticed it; a glint out of the corner of her eye—perhaps only a trick of the light. The particles composing the top of the cabinet had moved. Without her wishing it, they’d shifted.

A vein in McKenzie’s neck began to throb. Willpower lost to curiosity, she rolled closer and carefully, cautiously, reached out.

Nothing.

Against her better judgment, she placed her hand solidly on top of the box. McKenzie’s eyes closed, her breathing slowed, and suddenly her fingers began to sink, pushing aside molecules, rearranging atoms—a quark here, a lepton there. The fabric of the cabinet, the very time it existed in, transformed like soft clay at the tips of her fingers. Tiny particles of McKenzie’s mind and body began to slip away, tugging and tumbling towards the odd, pale-blue box. The room shifted and blurred, melting and merging like a stream of confetti, taking McKenzie with it, drowning her in its depths.

Stop!

Her mind reached out—
What am I doing here?
—and grabbed on to the closest thought she could find:

“
Be careful what you wish for.”

Her mother’s words!

McKenzie’s hand jerked back, as if someone had slapped it. Her mother had often warned her about wishing. It was one of the few clear memories McKenzie had of her.

Why?
She’d never wondered about it until now.

As if the question had unlocked something deeper, memories came flooding through. The gentle, loving touch of her mother’s hand as she tucked a curl behind McKenzie’s ear. The feeling of comfort and safety as she lay beside her mother listening to her favorite book,
The Lorax.
The smell of sugar cookies. Soft, sweet, warm sugar cookies. The backseat of her mother’s car. The headrest with her mother’s hair, red curls like her own, sticking through. The air, suffocating.

“I can’t breathe. Open the window.”

“The window’s broken, honey. Be patient.”

They were driving home from physical therapy. That part was true. Even before the accident, McKenzie’s legs had never worked. But the rest…

“Only a dream,” whispered McKenzie, trying to stop the memories of last night’s nightmare. She knew the truth about her mother’s death. Her dad had told her.

“I’m burning up!”

In her dream, McKenzie had seen her feet. Small and useless and cold, and then warm—then too warm.

“McKenzie, what are you doing?”

“Only a dream,” murmured McKenzie.

“McKenzie, PLEASE—oh God—PLEASE, not the door!”

“I can’t.” McKenzie shook her head. “I CAN’T,” she shouted, all the while trying to make the image of the window opening, the door dissolving, her mom’s arm disappearing—