Midnight on Strange Street, page 13
“Yeah.” Dani nodded, businesslike. “Then that takes care of that. Now, let’s do what we came here to do, and skate.”
“Tethering,” said Dani once they’d gotten their boards and their gear and lined up. “It’s how we’re going to win.”
Lola had been dreading practice for this exact reason.
Free skating the day before had been so relaxing, so freeing, so good. For a couple hours, she’d remembered how fun skating could be, with no rules or limitations, and no trophies to win.
Now that was over.
Glow in the Park was on the horizon. There was a flock of Grackles to beat.
And Dani seemed to think that winning depended on tethering.
“I don’t see how it’s going to make a difference,” Lola said, toeing her hot-pink glowboard. “We already skate in a good formation.”
“You’re not looking at the big picture,” Dani said as she strapped on her helmet. “If we can share thoughts, that changes everything. We’ll skate better, faster. We can talk to each other. We could never do that before.”
That much was true, Lola had to admit. The draft train involved skating against a wall of hard, loud air. Even if someone shouted from behind or ahead of you, their words would be almost impossible to catch.
“It’s a glowboard team’s dream,” Dani went on. “Imagine if the Grackles could do this. They’d jump at the chance. And we should, too.”
“I don’t see why everything has to be about the Grackles,” Lola mumbled, but when Dani fixed her with a stink eye, she sighed. “Fine. How exactly do you want to practice?”
“I think we should start small,” Dani said. “Form our train two at a time. Me up front, you behind, like normal. But just the two of us to start out. We’ll head down the hill, staying in each other’s thoughts at all times. When we’re comfy with that, we add Bastian, and then Avery.”
Lola nodded, though out of obligation, not enthusiasm. What if she got out of control, the way she did in the cafeteria? What if, instead of sending food into the air, she sent Dani flying over the edge of Hazard Hill?
Lola. It’s going to be okay.
She turned to Avery, who was smiling encouragingly at her. And remember, you don’t have to do it if you don’t want.
The look in Avery’s hazel eyes filled Lola with confidence. She nodded, then turned back to Dani.
“It’s worth trying, at least,” she said.
Dani kicked on her glowboard and hopped on. “That’s the spirit,” she said, motioning for Lola to join her on the track.
Lola kicked on her own board, hovering a few inches above the ground. Pushing off, she skated up and grabbed Dani’s hands, which she held behind her back—their usual racing configuration. What wasn’t usual was how Lola reached from her mind to Dani’s. She didn’t merely send thoughts her way, like she would if they were having a conversation. No, if they were going to stay connected all the way down Hazard Hill, while skating, they needed an actual connection. So Lola took a hook from her mind—the kind she used to tether the Sardines together—and cast it out for Dani to catch.
Got it? Lola asked.
The tether took hold as Dani replied, Got it. Now, on the count of three. One, two…three.
Dani pushed off the track—one strong kick from her left sneaker. Then they were off, gathering speed. The sensation was familiar to Lola, but odd, too—she was used to Bastian’s hands in hers, to the weight of both him and Avery behind her, forming their complete draft train.
Bend to your right, Dani instructed.
Lola, noting the curve in the track, adjusted the bend in her knees. In that moment, she felt a snipping sensation, behind her eyes. Her tether to Dani—it was pulling apart.
Dani, wait, Lola said. I’m losing the tether.
Make it stronger! Dani thought back.
But there was no strengthening this thread. Snip, snip—the sensation came on again, harsher than before, until, suddenly, there was a final snap.
Lola cried out, tumbling back and falling off her board, hitting the track with a hard thump. Dani, meanwhile, was falling forward, waving her arms in a wild attempt to regain her balance.
“AAAH!” she shouted, before toppling off her board and landing on her hands and knees, skidding to a stop.
“Lola! Dani!”
Lola looked back to see Avery and Bastian running to catch up with them. Grimacing at the pain in her backside, Lola grabbed her board—hovering stationary beside her, right at the spot where she’d fallen off. She was grateful, at least, for the board’s security feature. Dani, however, was not so lucky. Her board—a way older model—was still hovering its way down the track, coughing out gunky orange glow in its wake.
“NO!” Dani shouted, scrambling to her feet and chasing after it.
“Ouuuch,” Avery said, groaning sympathetically as they watched Dani hurl herself onto the board, face-planting once more on the track. Then, kneeling beside Lola, Avery asked, “You okay?”
Lola nodded weakly, rubbing her head. Her tether to Dani was completely gone, and judging by the look on Dani’s face as she came storming up the track, Lola decided that was a good thing.
“What was that, Lols?” Dani demanded once she’d reached them. “We were doing really well. You have to focus.”
“I was focusing,” Lola retorted. “I told you to wait, I felt the tether snapping. I’ve never done this before, not when we’re skating. If you’d listened to me—”
“Lols is right,” Bastian said. “Cut her some slack, okay?”
Dani looked as angry as ever at first. Then a moment passed, and her glare lost its force. She looked to the ground.
“I’m…sorry,” she said. “I guess I’ve been a little…overexcited about this.”
“A little?” Bastian snorted.
“Okay,” said Dani, “a lot. It’s just, I don’t know if you guys understand the potential of tethering like I do. If we master this? We can be the best skaters on this track. Better even than all those high schoolers doing single speeds. We could make a name for ourselves. If we race fast enough, we wouldn’t just beat the Grackles, we’d set a record no one else could beat. We’d show that we’re legitimate.”
Lola watched in wonder as Dani spoke. Dani could take the fun out of practice, and right now, Lola was more than a little annoyed with her. But she still admired how passionate Dani got about glowboarding. When it wasn’t annoying, it was kind of…inspiring.
You sure you’re okay?
This time it was Avery, back in Lola’s head. Her words were gentle, careful—the way they always were.
Lola brightened. She had an idea.
“Dani,” she said. “I’ll try it again. But, um, this time…can I skate with Avery instead?”
“I don’t see how it’s going to be different,” Dani said from the sidelines, arms crossed.
Avery smiled. She and Lola, they understood each other. That had been clear from the first thought they’d shared, and it was even clearer now as Lola placed her hands in Avery’s and lined up behind her on the racing track. Lola’s thoughts appeared in her mind, lavender-hued and full of warmth.
Feeling okay? Lola asked.
I should be asking you that question, Miss Scraped Knees, Avery replied. Then she nodded. I’m ready whenever you are.
Ready, Lola said.
Then she pushed off the ground, and they were off, skating downhill.
Avery wasn’t used to the position of lead, but she knew the basics. She bent her knees and tilted her head forward, using her helmet to take the brunt of the wind as they gained speed.
Still okay? she asked Lola.
Yep. You? the lavender thoughts replied.
Oh, watch it! Avery shot back as she noted a large chunk of rock ahead—too large for their hovering glowboards to crest. Bend to the left.
It happened in an instant: She and Lola both leaned, changing the course of their glowboards, perfectly aligned.
Now back on track, Avery said, and again, in tandem, they returned to their path.
Avery’s smile had turned to a full-blown grin. It was working.
But at that very moment, she felt a pinch behind her eyes.
The tether, Lola said, frantic. It’s breaking again.
That’s okay, Avery replied. I’m letting go. We’ll spin out.
With that, Avery released Lola and, crouching, lowered her hands to the track. Her sliders screeched against the asphalt, and Avery caught a whiff of burning rubber—not what you wanted from a stop, but with worn-out sliders like hers, it was the best she could expect. And even though she stopped several yards farther down the track from Lola, she did stop.
When she did, the pinching sensation in her head let up.
Avery rubbed at her eye and looked to where Lola was getting up from her crouch.
Still there?
Lola smiled. Yeah, I am. That was a way better ending than last time.
Avery jumped to her feet at that. “We did it,” she said aloud. Then, calling up to the distant figures of Bastian and Dani, “We did it!”
Lola shook her head as the girls walked in step, back up the hill. “Don’t be too happy,” she said, “for Dani’s sake.”
Avery laughed. “Sure,” she said. “The tether did still break. But we did do it, Lols. Do you think it’s something you really can practice? Something you could do with all of us, as a team?”
Lola pressed her tongue to her bottom lip in thought. “Honestly? I didn’t think so before, but…maybe it’s possible. If I can keep practicing with you and then add the others, I think I’ll be able to do it.”
“Well,” said Bastian as the two reached the top of the track, “that looked a little better?”
“How did it feel?” asked Dani.
“I mean, so-so,” Avery said, shrugging. “But it definitely helped.”
“See?” Dani said, grinning. Then, looking a little more abashed, she turned to Lola. “Um, I am sorry for being pushy before. If you don’t feel like you can—”
“No,” Lola interrupted. She cast a shy smile at Avery before going on. “I think I can do this, actually. It’ll take work, like you say, but…I do think this will help us skate better. And I’d like to do my part to help out the team.”
Dani grinned again. “Cool. So, how about you two try that again?”
Dani left Hazard Hill with energy buzzing in her veins.
Usually, practice left her sore and a little grumpy, but today, she’d skated way less than normal, using most of her time to coach Lola and Avery as they formed their tether and traveled, little by little, farther down the track. Then, in the last hour of practice, Bastian had joined the formation, and the markers were set back again. At first, the three of them had tumbled to the ground within a second. But over time, they added yards, the team using their shared thoughts to skate as one.
Dani called her shouted orders coaching, but she knew, really, she wasn’t doing much. This power—this tethering—was Lola’s. And even though Dani felt a little jealous that she wasn’t the one who could tether, she’d been satisfied watching her teammates figure out what she’d known from the start: These new powers of theirs? They were good for something. With these powers, the Sardines were going to win.
Anyway, Dani thought, once she’d arrived home from practice and made her way to her room, I can’t do everything on this team. If I were tethering, who’d be left to tell everyone what to do?
Dani also had to admit that free skating the other day had been…nice. She’d forgotten what it was like to skate for skating’s sake—no worries about time, formations, or the next competition. Maybe, she decided, once Glow in the Park was over, she’d reinstate free skates as a regular Sardines tradition. It seemed good for morale.
That, and Zander’s words were still stuck in her head: You made things really hard. And I wasn’t the only who thought that.
Dani sat on the edge of her bed, glaring at her sneakers, concentrating on the blue flame inside. With laser focus, she untied the laces of her right sneaker, then the left—all with her mind. Still filled with adrenaline, Dani did more: She concentrated harder than ever and used invisible hands to tug the shoes from her feet, carrying them across the room toward her open closet.
She’d never done this before. Today, because of all that buzzing energy, she’d felt she could. And she had.
“Danielle!”
Dani jumped at her mother’s shout from downstairs. The shoes fell from midair, landing inside the closet with a thud.
“Danielle, time to set the table! Right now!”
“Coming!” Dani shouted, but she didn’t move.
Even if Zander was right, and the others did think she sucked the fun out of everything, they didn’t have unreasonable parents like she did. The Gils loved watching Lola and Bastian race. They supported everything the twins did. And even though Ms. Sills was busy with work, at least she didn’t call what Avery did a “hobby.”
Dani, meanwhile, had the Hirsch Code to contend with, and an agreement with her parents that she couldn’t bring herself to tell the Sardines about. The others couldn’t possibly understand what winning meant to her. Glow in the Park wasn’t just about beating stupid Mitchell, traitor Zander, and their horrible Grackles. It was about proving herself.
And tethering? That was the key to proving, once and for all, that the Sardines were a team to be reckoned with, and that Dani Hirsch really was the best in her sport.
“Danielle!” her mother called, harsher than before. “I won’t ask again!”
With effort, Dani got to her feet and headed for the door. She’d show her parents that glowboarding was as legitimate as any other sport. She’d show them with a first-place trophy.
Days passed, each June afternoon hotter than the one before, and the Callaway sun burned bright, anticipating its longest day. There had been no more night visions, no columns of light, no messages. All of Bastian’s questions about the aliens remained unanswered. Somehow, life began to feel almost normal again.
Tethering while skating had been a mess at first. Dani had finally joined the draft train formation, and though Lola could technically tether all four Sardines, the connection started out shaky, cutting in and out with every curve in the road. The Sardines’ stray thoughts wandered in—Bastian’s new ideas for a sketch, Avery’s craving for Pizza Palace cheese sticks. But just like with normal skating, the more the Sardines practiced, the better they became, until all that remained inside their tethers were pertinent thoughts about balance and speed. As the tethering improved, so did the Sardines’ draft train time. It returned to 2:15 and then, with more practice, went all the way down to 2:13.
Bastian was secretly proud that, during the “memory tests” at the start of each practice, his memories were the strongest of all the Sardines. By now, he was so used to thinking of his favorite memory—the Grand Canyon one—that he was having dreams about it. If the aliens saw that, they’d know how beautiful Earth was. If they saw how happy Bastian had been on that vacation, they wouldn’t have a reason to abduct him, or any of the Sardines.
Bastian remained the one Sardine the aliens hadn’t contacted on his own. It wasn’t from a lack of trying, either. Every night at his work desk, while stooped over his most recent glowboard design, Bastian reached out, using his thoughts and, more recently, his memories, searching for a recipient above—past the fake constellations on his bedroom ceiling, up in the true vastness of space. He knew one thing for sure: Whenever the aliens did reach out to him, he’d be ready.
The waiting was difficult, though. And lately, Bastian had begun to wonder if waiting was even the right thing to do.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said at the end of practice one day, “things have been quiet lately. It’s been days since we’ve heard anything from the aliens.”
“We have to be patient,” Lola said gently. “We have a time and a place. All we need is a date. They’ll tell us soon.”
Bastian shook his head. “But what if they don’t? Why do we assume they’ll reach out again? Every time they’ve contacted us, their message has cut out. How do they know what we’ve received and what we haven’t? I know we said the only thing left to do is wait. But…well, what if it’s not?”
Dani was studying Bastian, her brow creased. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, we’ve been waiting around for the aliens to tell us a date when they come for us. Well, what if we’re thinking about it wrong? What if, instead of waiting, we reach out to them?”
“But we’ve tried that,” Avery said. “You told us you reach out every night. And talking to that apple didn’t get me anywhere. I bet Lola and Dani have tried, too, right?”
Avery motioned to the girls, who nodded.
“Yeah, I know,” said Bastian. “But maybe we’ve been going about that the wrong way, too. I’ve been thinking about it a lot—their message that night, from the blue column. They said they planted an elixir here. They made it sound like that elixir is why we have our tele-whatevers. Well, haven’t you all been wondering what that elixir is?”
“Sure,” said Dani, patting her chest. “It’s the blue flame we’ve got inside.”
“I think it’s more than that,” Bastian said. “Listen, it’s only a hypothesis, but I’ve been thinking…what if the elixir is…glow?”
“What?” Dani looked incredulous.
“Think about it,” said Bastian. “Component G only showed up fifty years ago.”
“Technically,” said Dani, “it was discovered.”
“Okay, sure,” Bastian conceded. “But it’s new, and it’s different. The government did all that testing on it, and glow isn’t like anything else on Earth. Well, what if that’s because it’s not from Earth?”
“So,” Dani spoke slowly, “you’re saying that glow and our tele-whatevers are connected?”
“I get it,” Lola said, nodding. “Maybe glow affects us in a way it doesn’t affect other people.”
“So, what if it does?” asked Dani. “What difference does that make?”
