Midnight on Strange Street, page 8
Dani frowned down at the glass. The smoothie wasn’t just bubbling, it was…transforming. Different hues of green, from the spinach, kale, cilantro, and apple skins, were separating and swirling outward. The lighter greens began to form a liquid pinwheel at the top of the drink, standing out starkly against a darker green background. Then the bubbling calmed, but the liquid continued to move. The pinwheel’s arms extended, curling outward and detaching, morphing into shapes—into images, light green atop dark. Without knowing how it had begun, Dani found herself in the middle of a story.
A girl was mounting a glowboard, skating. Then she wobbled, her legs gave out, and she lost her balance entirely, falling forward onto the concrete.
There was a crackling sound in Dani’s ears, and through it, a voice became clear. The voice spoke in Dani’s mind, gentle, but insistent—a butter knife tapping glass.
Such pain in your world. Unnecessary pain.
The green liquid images transformed, this time rendering the figure of a group of boys, pointing fingers and laughing at a solitary girl.
At last, Dani understood: That’s me, she thought. The girl who’d fallen from her glowboard, the girl enduring a bully’s taunts—that was her. These were memories.
The voice spoke again, in her mind, though now it was turning garbled, fuzzy with static. We will rescue you…and eradicate…all that remain. We are…coming. At the appointed time…when…
The static overtook the words, drowning out the rest of the message.
“WAIT,” Dani shouted. “WHAT?”
She reached for the smoothie, but in her haste, she fumbled, knocking it over. The glass rolled along the table, then dropped to the floor, shattering.
“Danielle!” Dr. Hirsch cried, starting up from the table.
Dani gaped at the mess of broken glass and pulpy greens at her feet. The voice in her head was gone.
“I—I—” she stammered.
“What on earth is wrong with you?” Dr. Hirsch said, even as she hurried to the kitchen to fetch a dustpan for the glass shards.
“I didn’t meant to,” Dani finally got out. “I swear.”
“Help your mother clean it up,” said Mr. Hirsch, sternly observing Dani from over his newspaper.
“Yes, sir,” Dani said, getting to her feet and fetching paper towels from over the kitchen sink.
It was an unpleasant cleanup, and all the while Dani’s mother lectured her about being more careful. Dani insisted again that it had been an accident, but even she had to admit, such an “accident” didn’t look good after so many months of complaining about power smoothies. In the end, all she could do was sop up the remaining green gloop from the floor and follow her mother to the trash can.
“You’re nearly a teenager, Danielle,” Dr. Hirsch said. “You have to stop acting like a child.”
Dani nodded morosely. “It was an accident. I just…haven’t been feeling like myself lately.”
Dani’s parents exchanged a troubled glance, and then Dr. Hirsch sighed. “You know, dear,” she said, in a gentler voice, “it’s not too late to sign back up for swim team. Ms. Bettis has told me several times how much they miss you.”
Dr. Hirsch had told Dani several times how much Ms. Bettis missed her. Dani was a natural talent, they said. Her mother had earned a college scholarship for swimming, and Dani could do the same.
Dani couldn’t help that there were no college scholarships for glowboarding…yet. She liked swimming, but she loved glowboarding, and no amount of scholarship money was going to change that. The only money she cared about was the first-place prize at Glow in the Park that would buy her a new, dependable glowboard.
But Dani wasn’t up for a fight, so she merely said, “Yeah, I’ll think about it.”
As she headed for the hall, Dr. Hirsch called out, “Danielle? Stay for a moment, please.”
Dani froze. This wasn’t good. Danielle, stay for a moment could never be good. Slowly, she turned to face her parents. Was she about to receive an infamous Hirsch Code lecture?
“Danielle,” her mother said, “your father and I have been discussing this glowboarding business.”
Dani’s mind filled with a flurry of rebuttals: It is legitimate, there’s a cash prize, it’s what I love, you have no right. Before she could voice any of them, her mother continued.
“We know that, for whatever reason, you’ve fixated on this hobby.”
Sport, Dani wanted to say.
“We certainly don’t want to force you to do anything you don’t want. But you’re familiar with our concerns, and we think that, perhaps, you’re not looking at this long-term. Swimming will be an asset to you in college and adulthood; glowboarding won’t.”
“You don’t know that,” Dani retorted. “More and more people glowboard. It’s a real sport, with rules and regulations. Just because it’s new doesn’t mean it’s not legitimate. Take Glow in the Park, for instance—they’re giving away trophies. Cash prizes. What’s not legit about that?”
“We’re aware,” Mr. Hirsch said, after he and her mother had shared another look. “In fact, Danielle, it’s this new race of yours that got your mother and me thinking. We have a proposal for you.”
Dani squinted skeptically. She wasn’t sure if this was a trap, but “proposal” sounded a lot better than a lecture.
“What we propose is this,” said Dr. Hirsch. “You clearly enjoy glowboarding, and you’ve told us that you and your teammates excel at it. We’re giving you a chance to prove that to us, through hard work and dedication. You said there are trophies at this Glow in the Park—rankings, yes?”
Dani nodded cautiously. “And money. There’s money, too.”
“Right,” said Dr. Hirsch. “We propose that if you and your teammates place first in your division, or category, whatever it might be—if you can distinguish yourself, can actually make money in this pursuit—then your father and I will be willing to fund glowboarding like we did your swimming. We’re giving you a chance to prove that you can succeed in this field. That there are actual benefits to be reaped from competition.”
Dani opened her mouth. Her veins thrilled with adrenaline. This was way better than a lecture. This was a gift. If her parents actually bought her equipment and the Sardines won Glow in the Park, they could buy so much more with the first-place prize: upgrades, extra glow cartridges, maybe even uniforms.
“However”—Dr. Hirsch cut into Dani’s daydreaming—“if you do not place first, you will do something for us: You’ll set aside this hobby and you’ll rejoin the swim team.”
Dani’s mouth was dry from hanging open so long. She shut it, hit by hard reality. This wasn’t a gift after all. This was a deal. A deal that would change everything. And Dani knew her parents would follow through; the Hirsch Code demanded strict adherence to all promises. For a moment, she considered the possibility of no more glowboarding. Of practice days no longer spent on Hazard Hill, but in chlorinated water.
It was worth the risk.
Because the Sardines would win. Dani had a plan.
“Deal,” she said before she could second-guess herself. “It’s a deal.”
Dr. Hirsch raised her eyebrows.
“Very good,” she said at last, reaching out a hand.
Dani shook on the agreement with all her might.
Dani headed to practice early. She was always first on Hazard Hill, and most days, she spent the free time working on her form, or thinking up new strategies for the team.
Today was different, though. Today, she was a girl with tele-whatevers who had received a message from aliens.
Eradicate all that remain. The words looped through Dani’s brain, again and again, until they became a single word: eradicate.
Dani had barely gotten a wink of sleep the night before, thanks to that blue column, and now this? Memories in her power smoothie? A voice in her ear saying that aliens were going to wipe out the earth? And on top of all that, a glowboard agreement with her parents that could change the course of her life forever.
The strain of it all was beginning to take its toll. When Dani mounted her board on Cedar Lane, her hands shook, her balance uneasy. Her board sputtered pathetically, shuddering the whole way out to the hill. Dani wasn’t much better; she wobbled at stop signs and nearly wiped out turning a familiar corner at Morris Avenue. By the time she arrived at the battered entrance gate of Hazard Hill, she was winded and flushed. She dismounted, pressing her hands to her knees, trying to breathe and right a spinning world.
Eradicate all that remain.
Set aside this hobby.
“Hey. You okay?” asked a familiar voice. A familiar, stupid voice. Skating up to her, a totally fake look of concern on his face, was none other than Zander Poxleitner.
“Leave me alone,” Dani told him.
“You don’t look so good.” Zander hopped to the ground, grabbing his board from its hover and notching the power switch off. “Maybe you should sit down.”
Dani glared at Zander but remained stooped, hands on her knees. If she stood up straight, she had a feeling she might pass out. She wasn’t about to sit, though; she wouldn’t give Zander the satisfaction.
“Fine,” Zander sighed. “Have it your way.”
“Where’s your team?” asked Dani. The Sardines would be showing up soon, and the last thing they needed was a fight with the Grackles.
“Chill out, would you?” said Zander. “It’s just me here.”
Dani’s fear instantly turned to suspicion. “Why?”
“Uh.” Zander motioned around. “Some people like to skate on their own. You know, for fun?”
Dani risked standing so she could glare at Zander straight in the eye. “Oh right, and I don’t know what fun is. Because I’m a total stick-in-the-mud.”
“You said it, not me.”
Now that she had a good look at him, Dani spied a cut beneath Zander’s eye. It was thin but long, running from the crook of his nose to his ear.
“Where’d you get that?” she asked before she could stop herself.
Zander’s hand flew to the cut. “It’s nothing,” he said. “There are these rosebushes in our backyard.”
“Oh, at your fancy new house, huh?” sneered Dani. “And what, you shoved your face in them?”
“Yeah, sure.” Zander spoke angrily, but his skin had turned a strange shade of purple, like he was…embarrassed? That wasn’t possible, though. Zander was a traitor and therefore incapable of shame.
The hum of approaching glowboards caught Dani’s attention. She turned to see Bastian and Lola skating toward her.
“You should leave,” she said to Zander. “The twins won’t be any more excited to see you than I am.”
“Yeah, got it,” muttered Zander. “I was just finishing anyway.”
He turned his board on, throwing it into a hover and jumping atop it. Then, smirking, he kicked on the glowstream—neon blue—and skated off, passing by Bastian and Lola with a flourish.
Jerk, thought Dani, even as she remembered his thorn-cut cheek.
After reading the newspaper headline over breakfast and deeming that the outside world was safe, Mrs. Gil allowed Lola and Bastian outside to skate to Hazard Hill. Lola didn’t feel like skating, and she was pretty sure the others didn’t either, but once all the Sardines had arrived on the hill, Dani insisted they start practice immediately. She called out orders, timing draft train descents and giving Avery pointers on her finish line crossing. But for all Dani’s efforts and all the team’s attempts, their race time stayed awful, at two minutes and twenty-five seconds—the worst it had been in months. With every repeated attempt, Dani’s commands grew shriller.
“You’re not in sync!” she shouted. “Where is your racing rhythm? You have to be one with the board!”
The truth was, not even Dani was skating well. Lola noticed her feet shifting awkwardly on her board, and after fifteen minutes of practice, she wiped out entirely, tumbling onto the asphalt and scraping up both knees.
Lola reached her first, kneeling down in concern, while Bastian and Avery came up behind.
“That’s what you get,” said Bastian. Immediately, his eyes got big with regret, but the damage was already done. Dani narrowed her eyes at him as Lola helped her to her feet.
“That’s what I get for what? Trying to keep this team together?”
No, Lola thought to herself. No, I don’t want them to fight.
Bastian, though, had committed to his side of the argument. “No one wants to practice right now,” he said. “We’re all too distracted.”
“Oh really?” Dani shoved her hands on her hips, turning to Lola and Avery. “Is everyone too distracted? Do you all think I’m, like, sucking the fun out of everything?”
“Come on, you two,” said Avery. “I’m sure Bastian didn’t mean it that way, Dani. After last night, everybody’s just…I mean, we’re feeling…we’re…”
Scared. I’m scared.
The Sardines turned to Lola, looking shocked. There was a strange, new sensation in Lola’s mind. Her thoughts had reached out, first to Bastian, the same as they had for years. But this time, she felt the words duplicate and split, shooting out in two other prongs, toward Avery and Dani. There were new weights in her mind, like tethers held taut by three different hooks. The others must have felt it, too.
Lols, how are you doing that? Bastian asked.
Lola knew, even as her twin sent the words to her, that they were also reaching Dani and Avery. The energy pulsed from her, electrical threads that joined each mind to the others. Fear bloomed in Lola’s chest. She shook her head and said, “I…don’t know. I just am.”
Heaving a sigh, Lola sat down right there, in the middle of the track. The others followed suit, forming a circle.
Okay. Dani’s thought shot along the connected threads, reaching each of their minds. So our brains can all connect to each other at once.
Lola can connect us, Avery corrected.
That’s new. Bastian sounded excited, though Lola couldn’t understand why. She shrugged uneasily.
I wanted Dani and Bastian to stop fighting, she told them. I wanted us all to understand each other, so…I joined us together.
Good, thought Bastian. Because we need to talk about what happened.
It did happen, Avery asked, didn’t it? Last night wasn’t a dream?
As each of them nodded, Lola realized how strange they would look to an outsider: four kids gathered in a circle, none of them speaking a word, all of them nodding in unison. They’d look more than strange. They’d look…frightening.
Like freaks. The words spilled from Lola’s private thoughts for everyone to hear.
Don’t think like that, Lols, said Avery. We’re still us. We’re Sardines. That hasn’t changed.
Lola worried her lip with her teeth. But the aliens said they’re going to take us away. And we don’t even know why.
“THERE’S MORE!” Dani burst out, aloud.
“Whoa,” Bastian said. “What’re you talking about?”
“This morning,” Dani said, not meeting anyone’s eyes. “I was eating breakfast, and—I can’t explain it exactly, but I know it was them. It was the same voice I heard last night. They showed me things. Things from my past. It’s like they know my memories. And they told me…They said…”
“Hey,” said Bastian, wide-eyed. “You gonna hurl?”
Dani did look close to puking, right there and then. She was paler than Lola had ever seen her, brow coated in sweat.
Dani shook her head, though, and carried on. “They said—I’m trying to remember it—something about there being pain, here on Earth. And then they said…they’re going to rescue us, but they’re going to…um, eradicate everyone else.”
“WHAT?” the others shouted, in unison.
“Eradicate?” Avery repeated. “Like, blow up? Destroy?”
“Are you sure you heard right?” asked Bastian. Now he looked like the queasy one. “How did you hear them? Did the blue column come back?”
Dani shook her head. “No, they were in my head.” She swallowed, then added, Like we’re in each other’s heads. Like this. I know what I heard. Maybe I can’t remember word for word, but that much was clear: They said eradicate.
“No,” whispered Lola, dropping her head in her hands. “No, that can’t be right. It can’t.”
“Let’s get one thing straight,” Bastian said. “Why are they trying to rescue us? You all remember what they said last night, right? About planting an ‘elixir’ here. About how people have turned against us because of our differences.”
“Our differences,” Avery repeated. “Like our tele-whatevers?”
“I mean, it fits,” said Bastian. “It sounds a whole lot like these aliens have something to do with our powers. Almost like they gave them to us, with whatever this elixir stuff is.”
“And other people have turned against us,” Dani said slowly. “‘So much pain.’ When they told me that, they showed me a memory. It was of Mitchell being a jerk, like always.”
Avery shook her head. “No way. Aliens wouldn’t come here and rescue us because of Mitchell.”
“I think it was a symbol,” Dani said. “They used the memory to make a point, that’s all.”
“A point about how they’re going to blow up the world?” Avery’s voice was strained. “They can’t do that. I mean, they can’t, right?”
“If they can make stuff float and give us tele-whatevers,” Dani said, “I bet they can do a lot of things. They’re obviously way more advanced than us. Maybe eradication is as easy for them as smushing a bug with your shoe.”
“What else did they say?” Bastian asked.
“That was it,” said Dani. “One minute they were in my head, and then they were gone. It was like last night, the way the message faded in and out. But…there’s something else, too.”
The others waited expectantly for Dani to share, and at last, she did.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said, “and it’s only a thought—but do you think what’s happening to us might have something to do with the incident?”
This wasn’t at all what Lola had been expecting. She blinked at the thought, considering what she knew about the incident—what her parents had told her about the mysterious blue light that had supposedly burned on Cedar Lane years ago, before she was born.
