Weird Luck

By Matthew Callahan

What happens when you meet a mysterious boy your first day of high school, and you sense there's more to him than meets the eye?

What happens when you start dating him?

Lani Brooks is about to find out, as the quiet new kid Peter drags her, her best friends Clair and Terrence, and her twin brother Kevin on an exciting science fiction adventure filled with action, suspense, and romance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Matthew Callahan
• Release date: Oct 25, 2011
• ISBN: 9781466109384

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Weird Luck

by Matthew Callahan

Copyright 2011 Matthew Callahan

Smashwords Edition

License Notes, Smashwords Edition

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this ebook and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This books is dedicated to

my lovely wife Kate

Table of Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Prologue

On a sweltering July night, a young man with unwashed blond hair, tattered jeans and a dirty t-shirt, wandered the streets of a new town, seeking a place to spend the night. He had hitched his way almost to Chicago, where he figured he could sleep under a bridge or find someone who would take him in. But getting there from this suburb would mean a long walk in the middle of the night, and the temperature wasn’t dropping.

He walked through a middle-class neighborhood and thought about trying to break into somebody’s home. It's a Friday night after all. Maybe some of these people are out tonight. He figured he could get in and get a drink, maybe take a shower.

In the end his courage fizzled. He walked past the neighborhood, through a wooded area until he came to a large, three-story building. A sign reading Shermer East High School—Opening in the fall had been strung over the front door. The building looked more like an office than a school, and didn’t look brand new. Still, maybe I can get inside. A quick check showed no cameras outside. The young man peered in windows, where he saw comfortable looking couches and potted plants just inside. They’ve gotta keep this place air conditioned for those plants, right? Maybe I can sleep here. There’ll be water fountains and maybe even stuff I can steal in a school.

He wandered around the perimeter of the building, checking every door and window. Even the loading dock was locked. Could I climb up on top? Maybe sneak in through a vent? He pulled out his pocketknife and tried to pick a couple of the locks, but to no avail. Finally, with sweat dripping down his brow, he grabbed a large rock from out in the woods and broke a window. He listened for a moment, but heard no alarm, and climbed carefully over the broken glass into the dark interior.

Inside he felt cool air from one of the vents brush the hairs on his head. He sat down on one of the couches, and it felt soft. I could sleep here, I guess. Down one hall he found a drinking fountain that worked, but the bathroom and all of the classrooms were locked. Wonder if the gym’s open. There’ll probably be showers. And maybe the cafeteria will have food that I can—

Sirens blared off in the distance. The building did have a silent alarm after all. Trying not to panic, he ran throughout the first floor, searching for someplace to hide.

The sirens grew louder as he ran to the front of the school and peeked through a window. The police had come. An officer stepped out of her car, hands on her gun. He saw several other cars, fanning out to surround the school. They had him trapped.

The young man rushed back into the school, running up and down stairs from one hallway to the next, looking for anyplace he could stay out of sight. The air vents were too small. He pulled on each door he found, but all were locked.

Finally, rushing down one hall, one of the tiles in the floor made a strange noise when he stepped on it, a boomp sound as though it were hollow. Bending to investigate, he pulled out his knife and stuck the flat blade into the rim of the tile. A few seconds passed before he pried it loose, revealing a hole with a small ladder leading down. The young man hesitated for a moment, but at the sound of footsteps in an adjacent hall he lowered himself into the space below the floor, replacing the tile above him as he descended.

The ladder ended after about eight feet. A puddle of water made a splash when he stepped off the last rung. It was maybe an inch deep, and the air smelled of mold. Fumbling around in his pockets, he found the keychain flashlight he’d stolen from a friend before he ran. The light revealed that he was in a room not much larger than his old bedroom, the walls covered with shelves, several of which held boxes that read Property of the United States Government. He looked through some of the boxes, hoping they might have something he could use or sell, but found most of them empty. The few that had anything in them contained forms with government letterhead, nothing that interested him. Several were wet, as the water had probably seeped in from the ground through cracks in the wall.

No way they know about this place, he thought. I can hide here for a day or two, go through these boxes and drink the water on the ground if I have to. Flashing his light once more around the room, he saw something out of place with the rest of the room in the corner, a large box of glass with steel framing. The contraption looked like a standup shower, though it had several unmarked buttons in a control panel on the door.

He opened the door and stepped in and saw it had a metal bench along one side, which he sat down in. Not too comfy, but I can probably sleep in this until the drama squad upstairs disappears. He could hear light footsteps above him now, people pacing the halls trying to scout him out.

The young man looked up at what he assumed was an oversized showerhead, a flat cylinder of metal about twelve inches in diameter, dotted with little holes. Too bad I didn’t have this last night, after that car splashed mud all over me.

As he sat down on the bench and tried to arrange himself comfortably, he noticed several buttons on a control panel inside, with a large red button in the center. I'm already wet from this sweat, and I smell pretty bad, he thought. I wonder how this thing works? He pressed the button, and a thousand tiny needles shot from the grooves in the metal cylinder and pierced his brain.

Chapter 1

Lani had weird luck. That's how Terrence described her tendency to find herself in the middle of strange and unusual circumstances. For starters, her half-Hawaiian mother gave her the name He’welani, so the weirdness must have begun at birth. But every year seemed to top the last: the glowing lights she and Clair saw in the sky, way back in second grade; the bigfoot she ALMOST snapped a photo of on a field trip in fourth; the dreams she had in fifth about meeting a new friend, right before she and Clair met Terrence; and the penguin at the zoo she could swear had talked to her the summer before seventh.

So it came as little surprise that Lani’s first year in high school turned out pretty weird, too. Lani grew up in Shermer, a northern suburb of Chicago close to Lake Michigan. Shermer was a medium-sized town where old neighborhoods with little ranch houses mingled with larger new developments, the kind of suburb where people moved to get their children a good education.

The Brook’s family moved there when she and her twin brother Kevin turned seven, when a local manufacturing company offered her mother, Rebecca Brooks, a management job, and her father, Walter Brooks, found work there as an actuary. Lani looked just like her mother, about medium height, with long black hair, piercing brown eyes, and a tanned complexion. They both even wore the same black-rimmed glasses. Kevin took after their father, tall and lanky, with fair skin and a pointy chin. He eschewed his father’s crew cut, though and let his scraggly brown hair grow out and fall all over his head like a mop turned upside-down.

Two years after the move their mother took ill. She fought bravely for about a year, but succumbed to her illness one April morning, a few days before the twins turned eleven. The family mourned her all that summer, but Lani’s father eventually returned to work, taking extra hours to help make ends meet. Kevin dealt with the loss by becoming immersed in his computer hobby, but Lani leaned on her two best friends for support.

She met Clair Ellis on her first day at Lincoln Elementary. The teacher partnered them together to learn school and classroom rules when Lani enrolled in the middle of second grade. Clair stood an inch taller than her, and had long blonde hair, green eyes, clear pale skin, and dimples. She was a good student, but shy and nervous around new people.

In fifth grade the two girls became friends with Terrence O’Donnell, a wiry boy just shorter than Lani, with freckled skin and a Beatles haircut. He loved music, especially from the sixties and seventies, and had a sincere desire to perform his own songs on stage.

In eighth grade Lani and Kevin found out they and their friends would enroll in Shermer East High School. The city had experienced tremendous growth, and the original Shermer High School no longer had enough room for every student. The school board bought a three-story research office building from the federal government, which they contracted to turn into a new campus. The board decided to open with freshmen only. When the first year students became sophomores a new freshman class would come in, and after four years the first freshman would be the first seniors, and the school would have reached capacity.

All summer long crews got the new school ready for teachers and students to start in the fall. Occasionally the Brooks family would hear about the project on the local news, and with the exception of a break-in in July everything went according to plan.

On the first day Lani headed to school with her brother Kevin in tow. The two of them marched up to the white-brick building, on the new concrete sidewalk that led to the main doors. Her arms swung in wide arcs as she scanned the new school and tried to take everything in, but her brother walked with his head facing the ground. At the main entrance she had to maneuver him around the flagpole to keep him from bumping into it.

Inside the school they joined a group of students studying a map on the wall. After a minute Lani turned her brother toward her. You know where you’re going Kev? Her brother pointed to his right. Lani let go of his arm and said, Okay, but go and make sure your locker combo’s working first, okay? We’ve got plenty of time. Sit with us at lunch?

Kevin nodded, turned around, and stumbled down the hall as Lani went the opposite direction toward her own locker. Along the way she waved some the familiar faces. They asked each other about their summers, and talked about how amazing the new high school looked. Shermer East had a community college feel, with hallways almost as wide as small streets, couches to sit on, and teachers’ offices spread throughout. She wandered the spotless hallways, peered out tall windows toward the sunny street, and wondered how long it would take her to find homeroom once the warning bell rang. Following signs on the wall brought her to a stairwell at the end of a long, carpeted hall. She bounded up them two at a time, so fast that at the top she nearly smashed into another student.

Lani slipped past the rising tide of her fellow freshmen to her navy blue locker and tried her combination, opening it with a sharp ting. Everything about it looked new—it even had that new locker smell if there was such a thing. Okay, lock works, on to homeroom, she thought. But just as she made to leave, a feeling came over her, like her intestines squirmed and her nose itched in a place that didn’t even exist, the sure-fire signals of her weird luck activating. Whenever something odd went down in Lani’s life a queasy feeling came over her, like a subtle shaking of the entire world that only she could feel.

As the sensation passed, a deep-toned cello of a voice behind her said, Could you help me with my lock? Lani turned to see a boy she didn’t recognize at the locker next to hers. He was tall and broad shouldered, and his brown hair looked even more unkempt than Kevin’s. His face showed no emotion, like a rock, and he had eyes as brown as dirt. He was the kind of boy only oddball girls like Lani felt attracted to. He pointed to his combination lock and said, I’ve never used one of these before. Can you help?

Okay, sure. I’m Lani by the way.

The boy looked confused. Ronnie?

She laughed. No, Lani, with an 'L.' L—A—N—I. Lani noticed he had a printout with his combination on it. She nabbed it from him and started working his lock.

The boy put his hands in his pockets. I’m Peter. Can you show how?

She showed Peter the correct way to open the lock. So wait, you’ve never used a combination lock before?

Peter put his hands in his pockets, and said, No. I’ve never had a locker before. This is my first time in a school.

Lani’s face lit up with interest. Oh! So you were home schooled then?

No. Peter blinked at her for a few seconds, like he didn’t know what else to say. Finally, he pulled out his class schedule and handed it to her. Can you help me find my class?

Lani scanned his schedule. He had Early American History next. Hey! You’re in my Intro to Science class after lunch! She smiled, but Peter just stood there, his hands still in his pockets, with no expression on his face.

Maybe I can find it, he said before taking his schedule back, turning around and heading off down the hall. Lani watched this strange new boy trudge down the hall until the warning bell rang and she headed off to homeroom.

At fifth period Lani practically ran to the lunchroom, stomach growling the entire time. Shermer East’s lunchroom looked like a food court at the mall, with two main lunch stations, and several smaller stations that specialized in sandwiches, salads, and other things. It took her a few seconds to scan the space before she saw Clair’s long blonde hair. Her friend stood across the room in the line for sandwiches.

There you are, Clair said when Lani snuck up and tapped her on the back. I thought we might run into each other in the halls, but the school’s so big and confusing. It’s intimidating. How’s your first day?

Awesome, Lani said. Everything’s great. My teachers already love me. Kevin seems like he’s doing okay. I met a weird boy at my locker, too. At the mention of the boy Clair’s eyebrows raised. No it’s–I’ll tell you later. Here’s Terrence.

Ahoy ahoy, ladies. How’s things?

Lani met a mysterious and handsome boy at her locker, Clair said.

Terrence opened his mouth wide in feigned shock, but