Unshown: Nonny Book One

By Adam B. Ford

What would you do if you were fourteen years old and you had no super-power?

Paley Curtis is a smart, resourceful girl living in a world where everyone has a talent, but not her. Maybe she's late, but as the days go by, it seems less and less certain that her talent will show. Then a chance encounter with a crazy man confr

• Language: English
• Publisher: H Bar Press
• Release date: Jul 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798986152257

Adam B. Ford

Adam B. Ford lives in Vermont with his two dogs, Bulo and Koey. Bulo has mastered the art of teleportation around the Green Mountain National Forest (the inspiration for the setting of this book), but Koey is still working on her skills. Both of them have far too much energy and insist on being taken for walks every day. When he's not writing, Adam teaches snowboarding and plays ultimate Frisbee. Someday he might grow up.

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UNSHOWN

NONNY, Book One

©2023 Adam B. Ford

Cover artwork @2023 Clarissa Martinez

This book was set in Faustina, by Alfonso Garcia. Chapter headings are Rudge, by Adam B. Ford. Cover title type is Pangolin, by Kevin Burke. Handwriting fonts are Clackline, by Adam B. Ford; Daniel, by Daniel Midgley; Jenna Sue, by Jenna Sue Design; Note This, by West Wind Fonts.

Publisher's Cataloging-in-Publication Data

provided by Five Rainbows Cataloging Services

Names: Ford, Adam B., author.

Title: Unshown : Nonny, Book One / Adam B. Ford.

Description: Wallingford, VT : H Bar Press, 2023. | Series: Nonny, bk. 1.

Summary: A 14-year-old girl seeks a hidden truth in a world where everyone has a super power except her. | Audience: Grades 7 & up.

Identifiers:

ISBN 979-8-9861522-3-3 (hardcover)

ISBN 979-8-9861522-4-0 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-9861522-5-7 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Young adult fiction. | CYAC: Ability—Fiction. | Superheroes--Fiction. | Inner cities—Fiction. | Perseverance—Fiction. | BISAC: YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Girls & Women. | YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Superheroes. | YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Social Themes / Class Differences. | YOUNG ADULT FICTION / Magical Realism.

Classification: LCC PZ7.1.F67 Uns 2023 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.F67 (ebook)

DDC [Fic]—dc23.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023903926

A note on the word i

Throughout this book, the word i is not capitalized. I’ve always found it odd that of all the pronouns, this one was, for some reason, written with a capital letter. It seemed wrong to me and i stopped capitalizing that word sometime in my youth. I’ve grown used to it, and i hope that by the end of this book, you will too.

This book is dedicated to Teco (Tee-ko),

who accompanied me for most of his life.

Teco

January, 1995 – January 26, 2013

Contents

1. Not Yet Shown 1

2. You’re Probably a Nonny 6

3. The Man Over The Sidewalk 13

4. The Project 24

5. Cort, Jen, and Teco 35

6. Media Relations 44

7. Flames and Records 49

8. The Apartment 58

9. A Recognized Name 68

10. The Coroner‘s Report 78

11. The Belfry 91

12. Some Math 100

13. Dance and Fire 108

14. Marty 121

15. Alone 131

16. Paley’s Answer 138

17. Christmas and a New Year 149

18. New Girl 160

19. New Friend 170

20. The Teller’s Apartment 178

21. Paley and Ti 186

22. The Truth Comes Out 193

23. The Shiver 203

24. Snow Day 216

25. Burn It 228

26. Testing 241

27. A Very Bad Day 246

28. A Walk with Mr. Kendall 257

29. I Promise Not To Tell 266

30. More Testing 277

31. Sisters 288

32. Nothing Changes 295

33. Visits from Ernie 302

34. A Meeting with Marnie 312

35. Sixes 319

36. A No-show and Ultimate 327

37. Boys and Books 334

38. The Worst Day 341

39. Night in the Hospital 351

40. Home 364

41. The Kendalls 371

42. A Midnight Run 378

43. An End and a Lie 387

44. Teco 398

45. The Notebook 404

46. Everything 413

Chapter 1

Not Yet Shown

Paley stood in the checkout line watching her father slide their groceries along the conveyor belt. The belt was broken, so their bags of rice and dried beans had to be shoved along, one by one, to make room for the next customer’s items. The sun shone in through the grimy windows at the front of the store, casting shadows of the accumulated dirt and the fading posters taped to the insides of the windows advertising this week’s specials, which never seemed to change.

Paley stretched her arms and neck as an excuse to get a look at who was behind them. It was a woman with one child hanging off the side of the shopping cart and another wandering away down one of the dingy aisles. The woman didn’t seem to notice or care, but she caught Paley looking at her and stared back in an almost menacing way. Paley half-smiled then looked down at the racks of candy bars and gum next to her, wishing that she could get one but knowing that her father only had enough for the groceries that they were buying. Paley had some money of her own, but she didn’t want to waste it on a candy bar.

Hey girlie, some of us are waiting here, said the woman behind her. Paley glanced back, then shuffled forward a little bit, closer to her father, but not too close. She was at that age when, while she liked her parents a lot, she sometimes didn’t really want to be seen hanging out with them too much, even in a checkout line in a smelly supermarket where no one knew who she was. The woman pushed her kid off of the side of the cart and started piling 20-piece plastic trays of chicken thighs onto the conveyor belt. The child immediately grabbed a candy bar and held it up to his mother.

Buy this for me, he said. I want this. Buy this for me, i want it.

Put that back, said the woman. She snatched the candy bar out of the boy’s chubby hands and put it back in the wrong box on the rack.

The boy picked out another candy bar and repeated the performance with the same result. On the third try, the woman grabbed the candy bar out of his hand and threw it on the conveyor belt next to the bags of chips and bottles of soda. The boy looked up at Paley, who had been watching this, with a smug look. He’d won and he knew it. Paley turned away and looked again at the bulk food next to her father. If only that candy bar could have landed next to the beans, then maybe the checker would ring it up before her father noticed and he’d discover that he’d miscalculated and he actually had enough money to pay for all of the bland food and the candy bar as well.

But no, the candy bar sat next to the gallon of soda where it belonged, with all of the other bright and colorful packages of food, taunting Paley. She tore her eyes away and looked up, across the row of checkouts, to the low walls of the manager’s office, raised half a level above the rest of the store. Bossman was there, looking out over the aisles like it was all his little kingdom. Paley didn’t know his name or whether he owned the place or was just a manager or assistant manager or what, but she and her best friend Jen had named him Bossman. When they came into the store, he would always call out two students at a time! and then stare at them as they made their way down the aisles. There was a dirty faded sign taped to one of the doors that said Only 2 students can enter this premises at any time. Paley always muttered these under her breath as she entered and she wondered who those two students were and if they could enter the store even when it was closed, since they could enter at any time, but she didn’t feel that it was worth pointing out to Bossman his faulty grammar.

Hey girlie! said the woman in the checkout line again. I don’t got all day!

Paley looked back and saw that the woman and both of her kids were staring at her. The younger one had deep blue eyes, which, in the few seconds that Paley was looking at her, turned to red, then to gold.

Nice talent, Paley thought to herself. She turned away. Her father was just getting his change and he pocketed it, then lifted the two lightest bags of groceries and handed them to Paley. He gathered up the three heavier bags and thanked the checkout lady, who was busy scanning the trays of chicken. Paley took one last glance at the candy bar, then followed her father out of the store.

It was a cool October day, but it felt warmer than it actually was because the sun was shining brightly. The only time it felt chilly was when the light breeze found itself channeled down an alley to hit passersby on the sidewalk, kicking along dust and maybe an empty potato chip bag. Paley scrunched her shoulders together and hurried to catch up to her father. She wanted to walk next to him but the sidewalk wasn’t wide enough, so she had to settle for just off to the side and slightly behind him, tucking directly behind when someone came the other way. She watched his lanky frame in front of her—the particular style of his movements as he walked. He was thin and wiry and hadn’t filled out into middle age the way other kids’ fathers had. Paley assumed that this was because he worked a lot and didn’t eat very much.

At the first intersection, her father stopped to wait for the light.

How’re you doing there, sweetheart? he asked.

She didn’t always like it when he called her things like sweetheart, but she knew that he meant well by it. I got the lighter ones, she answered, smiling up at him.

Yeah, but you’ll be feeling it by the time we get home.

It was true. It was more than a mile back to their apartment. There was a smaller market which was closer, but they only shopped there when they didn’t have time to come to Bossman’s supermarket, or when the weather was bad. The smaller market was much more expensive than Bossman’s, and as Paley’s father often said, time is cheaper than money.

The light turned green and they stepped off the curb to cross the street. Paley could walk next to her father here because there was space and she determinedly did so until the few people crossing from the other side reached them in the middle of the street, at which point Paley tucked in behind her father again. She felt annoyed that it was always she who moved aside when people came the other way down a narrow sidewalk. Didn’t anybody else in this city have the common courtesy to step out of the way for her?

She was grumbling to herself about this when she almost bumped into her father, who had stopped when he got to the opposite corner. Paley looked up and saw her father looking off to the left. She followed his gaze and saw a tall burly man in a business suit striding up to them. Paley thought that he looked very out of place in this neighborhood.

Wes! the man boomed out, stretching out a hand. Paley’s father hastily transferred the shopping bags to one arm so that he could shake the big man’s hand.

Wes Curtis! How have you been?

Hi Mr. Lemmelson, said Paley’s father.

Please, said the man, shaking Wes’s hand much too firmly. Call me Stan. I’m not your boss anymore.

No, i guess not, said Wes. There was a brief awkward pause as Stan kept a grip on Wes’s hand, looking into his eyes as if he was waiting for some sort of recognition of his superiority.

You look well, said Wes, trying to break the tension.

"I am well, said Stan. You should have stayed with the company, Wes. It was going places!"

Yeah, well...

Oh, that’s right, they let you go, didn’t they? Hey, sorry about that. But look at me—they made me a vice president! Uptown office, place in the suburbs—life’s pretty sweet!

Oh. That’s good.

It’s great. It’s great... And again, the briefest of uncomfortable pauses. Paley watched her father shift his weight slightly. Stan stood tall, leaning in just a little, like he was daring Wes to challenge him to something. It made Paley think of a great ape, defending its territory.

Again, Wes broke the tension, and maybe that’s what Stan was waiting for—to see who would blink first.

This is my daughter, Paley, he said, turning toward Paley and swinging the arm with the grocery bags on it toward her. Paley kept both of her fists firmly wrapped around the handles of the bags in her hands. She was not going to shake this great ape’s hand.

Is this little Paley? said Stan, looming over her. Why, i haven’t seen you since you were this tall! He held his hand at about Paley’s waist, leaning over her even more. How old are you now, sweetheart?

Paley stared at him stonily. She wasn’t going to break—especially since he just called her sweetheart. Coming out of his mouth, it sounded foul. She looked right in his eyes, daring him to say something.

He broke.

Why, you must be about—

I’m fourteen, Paley interrupted.

Fourteen? I would have pegged you at ten, he said. Then he leaned in closer and lowered his voice. What’s your talent, then?

Paley was shocked. She took half a step back and barely kept hold of the grocery bags. What right did this brute of a man have to ask her that? He stood there, staring her down, making his play for dominance like the ape that he was. A hundred answers flooded through Paley’s head, but she had no response. What could she say? She felt her cheeks going red and she dropped her gaze from Stan’s cold eyes. Damn it, he’d won. Now she was mad at herself as well and she forced herself to look back up at his face, but as she did so, her father stepped into that small space between her and Stan, bumping her with his groceries.

She hasn’t shown yet, Stan.

Ahhh! said Stan, as his face took on a look of concern that had all the sincerity of plastic. Well, don’t worry honey, it’ll happen. He lifted his index finger and put it right in front of Paley’s nose. It began to brighten and glow and in a couple of seconds it was a dull firefly green—noticeable, but not very bright in the morning sun.

If Paley hadn’t been so mad, she would have laughed. A lumie? That’s what he was? This big self-important jerk had one of the worst talents, and a green one at that. If you were a lumie it was slightly less lame to be a blue or a white or the rare red lumie. But green? That was the lamest of the lame. Her anger at this man had suddenly dissolved to pity. She felt the heat in her cheeks fading away and she looked back into his eyes again, almost smiling.

Stan wiggled his glowing finger in front of Paley, seeming to think that she’d be impressed. You’ll find it, he said, and it’ll be awesome. Then he straightened up and clapped Paley’s father a little too roughly on the shoulder.

Great to see you, Wes. How’s the wife? Uh... He trailed off, evidently searching his brain for Paley’s mother’s name.

Liz, prompted Wes.

Liz! Right. Great gal. You caught a good one! Well, i gotta run. He let go of Wes’s shoulder, ignored Paley, and strode confidently away.

Wes set his grocery bags down on the sidewalk and knelt down next to Paley. Sorry, honey, he said, putting his arm around her shoulders.

It’s okay, Daddy.

I want you to promise me something, he said as they watched Stan part the crowds of people on the sidewalk just by being bigger than all of them. Paley turned away and looked up at her father’s kind face.

Don’t ever end up like that guy, he said with a smile.

Paley smiled back. Fifteen minutes ago in the checkout line, she didn’t want to be seen standing too close to her father. Now she wanted to hug him. He gave her a quick squeeze and picked up his grocery bags, then they set off down the sidewalk, this time with Paley in front and Wes stepping behind her when there wasn’t enough room.

Chapter 2

You’re Probably a Nonny

Paley! Dinner!

Mmkay... said Paley, possibly loud enough to be heard, but possibly not, she wasn’t sure. She had a page and a half to go until the end of the chapter in the book that she was reading. Her mother had already called her once and she knew that she’d better get into the kitchen, but she really wanted to finish the chapter. She always found it hard to stop reading in the middle of something and was frequently reprimanded for being late to dinner or class or chores. But she was never very late.

She was sitting on her bed with her knees up and her back against the corner of the room. She could do that because her bed, which was just a mattress on the floor, was pushed into the corner. Her sister Mera’s bed was in the opposite corner, but it was an actual bed, up off the floor. Mera wasn’t happy about having to share a room with Paley and had slowly taken over most of the room. The closet had all Mera’s things in it. Paley’s clothes were kept in cardboard linen boxes under Mera’s bed. The desk was Mera’s—Paley did her homework on the kitchen table. And of course the night stand went with the bed. But Paley’s father had mounted a small lamp on the wall above Paley’s mattress so that she could read, although Mera insisted that Paley shut the light off when she wanted to go to bed. Paley always wanted to stay up, reading, but Mera, being the older sister, controlled the room.

Paley! Let’s go. Dinner. Her mother was standing in the doorway, serving spoon in one hand. She too was thin and strong, like Wes, but not as tall, and she carried the slight weight of a mother of four children.

I just have to finish this chapter!

What book are you reading?

Paley showed the cover of the book to her mother. It was called The Supers, and was about a brother and sister who find out that they have every talent that there is and are called upon to save their country from war.

Haven’t you read that already?

It’s still a good book!

Her mother sighed and tipped her head, her dark brown hair spilling over one eye. How much more? she asked. Paley turned the page toward her mother and measured out with her fingers the half page that she had left.

Okay, hurry up.

Paley raced through the last paragraph, closed the book on her bookmark, and ran out to the kitchen. Her younger brother Zed was at the table, eating a raw carrot stick, her father was pouring milk, and her mother was doling out mashed potatoes.

Where’s Mera? asked Paley, as she took her spot at the table.

Out on the landing, said her mother as she spooned a dollop of mashed potatoes onto Paley’s plate. She took two carrot sticks and stuck them into the potatoes like antennas.

Ew! Mommy! Don’t mix up my food!

Oh, it all gets mixed up in your stomach, Pales.

"Yeah, well, i’d rather it goes in unmixed." She pulled out one of the sticks and started licking the potato off.

We’re not ready to eat yet, Paley.

Zed’s eating.

We’re not ready to eat yet, Zed.

Paley’s father knocked on the door of the apartment as he walked past it. Mera! Let’s go! Dinner time. He looked at his wife with a roll of his eyes. "I swear, Liz, if i were her father... Oh wait, i am her father. He banged on the door again. Wrap it up!"

Paley started scraping the potato off the second carrot with the first carrot, which she’d licked clean. Zed started making faces at her. She ignored him and looked up at her mother.

Is Cort tutoring tonight? she asked.

Yes. He said he’d be home by eight. Do you need help with your homework?

No, i just have to do some math problems.

Okay. Liz sat down at the table, then turned to her husband. Wes... she said, nodding at the door.

Wes took two steps over to the door and opened it. Mera was standing on the landing with her arms around her boyfriend Anthony’s shoulders. His arms were around her waist. At sixteen, Mera was still taller than Paley, but not by much. Paley would probably end up being the taller sister, as Mera had inherited her grandmother’s physique and was, as Wes tactfully put it, the stoutest of the family.

Anthony, may i borrow my daughter for dinner? said Wes, standing aside to give room for Mera to come into the apartment and so that the rest of the family could see Anthony and Mera standing there together.

I guess, said Anthony. He very slowly slid his hands off of Mera as she turned to give her father a menacing glare.

See you tonight, said Anthony to Mera.

It’s a school night, Anthony, said Wes. She’ll see you tomorrow.

Daddy! protested Mera.

Anthony stared at Wes for a second or two. Whatever, he said as he turned to head down the stairs. Wes closed the door and flipped the deadbolt.

That kid has no manners.

"That’s my boyfriend, Daddy," pouted Mera as she plopped down at the table.

Sorry, let me rephrase that, said Wes as he sat down. "Your boyfriend has no manners."

Paley snorted back a laugh.

Shut up Scaley, spat out Mera.

Mera, don’t call your sister Scaley, said their mother.

Sorreeee, said Mera.

Okay, said their mother, what did we all learn today?

This was a nightly ritual in the Curtis family. Before they ate dinner, they would go around the table and each person would tell the rest of the family something that they’d learned that day. Paley couldn’t remember when they’d started this—it seemed like they’d always done it—but she guessed that they probably didn’t do it when all of the kids were little. In any case, when it was Paley’s turn, she most often told of something that she’d learned about a character in a book that none of the other family members had read or knew anything about. She never felt right about making something up—which she suspected some of her siblings did—and so sometimes what she learned was very mundane, but at least it was something. Cort always had the best answers. She was pretty sure that half of them weren’t true, but they were almost always funny.

I’ll start, said Wes. Today i learned that my old boss Stan Lemmelson hasn’t really changed much. Also that he doesn’t remember that he’s the one who fired me. Mera?

I learned that Anthony’s aunt Betty has a mole in her armpit.

Gross! said Zed.

Why were you looking at her armpit? asked Paley.

Mera looked at Paley with a malicious grin. She’s a stripper! she said with a smile.

Oh, she is not, Mera, said their mother. Zed, what did you learn?

I learned that if you step on a yellow leaf, it goes ksssshhhhh!"

You said that yesterday, said Mera.

"No, yesterday it was a red leaf, said Zed. Today it was a yellow leaf."

Oh, big whoop, said Paley.

Paley, we all learn different things in different ways, said her mother. Today i learned that Mrs. Regent thinks that her son Anthony— She paused and looked at Mera, who looked uneasy but curious. Might need tutoring in English.

Oh wow, Mer, said Paley without thinking. Your boyfriend doesn’t know how to speak English?

Mera’s face turned to a look of spite in an instant. She flicked her wrist and one of the carrot sticks on her plate jumped straight at Paley’s face.

Paley never considered herself to be an athlete. She didn’t play team sports, but she liked to run and jump and climb and she was, if nothing else, quick. It was this quickness that allowed her to flinch just enough so that the carrot stick hit her in the forehead, rather than in her eye, which seemed to be its intended target.

Ow! yelled Paley. Mommy!

Mera! snapped her father.

She started it! protested Mera.

"Mera, we do not use our talents in this apartment. said their mother forcefully. You know that."

Cort does.

"Cort is nineteen and is an adult. And he has to use his talent for his schoolwork. And he doesn’t use it to throw things at his sister."

There was a tense silence while Mera looked from her mother to her father and back. Well, if she’d just hurry up and show, we could all use our talents and we wouldn’t have to have this stupid ban.

She’s not the only one who hasn’t shown yet, Mera, said their father.

"Oh, Zed’s been putting bugs and worms back together for like, a year!" complained Mera. We all know he’s a healer.

Mera, we don’t know that for certain, said their mother. And until everyone has shown... no talents. Understand?

Mera stared down at her plate. Fine, she said under her breath.

You want to answer so your mother can hear? prompted her father.

Mera snapped her head up and glared at her mother. Fine! she said. Then she turned to Paley. You’re probably a nonny, she said coldly.

Paley’s gut clenched. She froze in her chair, staring at Mera, who stared right back at her. She could feel the tears welling up in her eyes and a flood of anger and fear and frustration swept through her in the second or two of silence that followed Mera’s statement.

Before anyone could say anything—before her mother could console her or her father could reprimand Mera or Zed could laugh—she shoved back her chair and ran into her room, slamming the door as hard as she could.

–

The muted sounds of conversation and the clinking of silverware on plates filtered through the door to where Paley sat, scrunched up on her bed in the corner of the room. She couldn’t decide if her family was talking about her or not and she couldn’t decide if she was mad that they were or mad that they weren’t. But she was still mad—mad at Mera, mad at her family, mad at the small ugly apartment that they had to live in—and it wasn’t fair. Why hadn’t she shown yet? She was pretty sure that she was the only one in her entire grade at school who hadn’t shown. Her best friend Jen started showing when she was twelve. Triska, a girl in her science class, had been able to move pencils around since fifth grade. And Mera was right, Zed was showing a healing talent and he was only ten. Why hadn’t it happened to her? She tried to channel her anger into... something, but she didn’t know what. She’d heard that people’s talents sometimes came out when they were really scared or really mad or really happy. Paley had tried to make herself all of those things and then use that emotion to make something happen. But when you don’t know what your talent is, it’s pretty hard to figure out how to act or what to think or how to move your hands or arms to make something work.

Paley gave up and sat with her arms around her knees, feeling the tears dry on her cheeks. She didn’t want to read, she just sat. Reading was one of her favorite things to do, but right now she really didn’t want to be sharing the experiences of two kids her age who found out that they had every talent. She hated those kids right now, even if they weren’t real and nobody like that ever existed anyway.

She pushed her back against the cold cement walls and looked around the room, hating everything in it—Mera’s bed and the cheap rug, the posters on the walls, and the walls themselves. No amount of posters and photos from magazines taped around the room could hide the fact that the walls were made of cement and the room was closer to a jail cell than a girl’s bedroom. Not that she and Mera hadn’t tried to make the best out of it. Along with a few posters, Mera had taped up a collage of movie stars and tropical beaches above her bed, with the occasional valentine or birthday card tucked in. Paley had been more methodical, taping together a tapestry of scenes and characters, interacting in a story-like procession along the wall next to her mattress. Every time she found a new picture that she deemed to be wall worthy, she would carefully cut it out, following the contours of whatever it was—person, appliance, snow-capped mountain—and add it into the scene, re-writing the story in her head as each new character or piece of scenery was taped into place.

She hadn’t been adding to the tapestry lately though, partly because of school work, but mostly because she’d been feeling frustrated about her talent and what it would be and why it wasn’t showing. Of all the things in the room that she hated right now, the thing that she hated most was that maybe Mera was right. Maybe she was a nonny. She’d never show and eventually she’d be found out and shipped off to a special town in the middle of the desert that was fenced off and guarded—the place where they put all the nonnies.

She clenched her knees tighter to her chest and a new wave of tears followed the drying tracks down her cheeks.

–

There was a tap on the door and her mother opened it up just wide enough to look in. Dinner was over and Paley’s room had darkened, lit only by the streetlights outside.

Hey Pales, she said. You doing okay?

Paley nodded and wiped her face with her sleeve. Her mother came in and sat down on Paley’s mattress.

I wasn’t much younger than you when i showed, Paley, she said. "It was just before my fourteenth birthday. I was on the back porch of our house with my cousin Nancy and i sneezed and a glass of water flew off the railing and smashed on the steps. Of course, my mother was furious that i’d broken a glass and we all had to drink out of paper cups for about a month. But i remember that for the first couple weeks after breaking that glass, i was sure that i could only move things if i sneezed, so i kept trying to sneeze while holding my hands out over a pencil on a table or something. And of course it couldn’t be a fake sneeze, it had to be a real sneeze. My mother couldn’t understand why we kept running out of pepper."

Paley had her face pressed to her knees, but she smiled, and she could tell that her mother knew that she did.

"Eventually, i realized that i could just do it, and it felt good and natural. And when you figure out what you can do, it will feel good and natural to you too. So don’t spend too much time worrying about it. It’ll happen when it happens."

Yeah... said Paley, feeling only a little bit better. But all of the other kids in my class have shown and i haven’t.

"Well, somebody’s gotta be last. Why not you? That makes you special. Y’know my cousin Dale didn’t show until he was almost sixteen! And he’s a stretchie! Sometimes stretchies show when they’re five or six years old."

Really? asked Paley.

Really, said her mother. "And no matter what your talent is or when it shows, your father and i, and your whole family—even Mera—love you very much.

Paley smiled and felt warm, even with her back against the cold cement wall.

There’s a boy in my class who’s a stretchie, said Paley. His name’s Marty. He’s fat.

Fat? That’s not a very nice description.

Well, okay... he’s, uh, kinda plump.

Her mother looked down at her and smiled. Now i’m gonna go to sleep tonight thinking about plump stretchies.

Paley let out a little giggle.

But you’re nice to this boy Marty, right?

Paley gave a little eye roll. Yes, Mommy...

Good. Now get your books and come out to the kitchen. I’ll help you with your homework while you have some dinner.

Paley untucked herself from the corner, gathered her books, and followed her mother out to the kitchen. Mera wasn’t around, but that didn’t surprise Paley. She was always impressed by how her parents could manage everyone’s personal space in an apartment with only four rooms and a bathroom.

As she was eating, she heard Mera quietly leave their parents’ room and slip into her bedroom, closing the door behind her.

Chapter 3

The Man Over The Sidewalk

There you are!

Jen stood at the corner where she and Paley met every morning on their way to school. If it was raining, Jen would be standing under the awning of the combination diner/pharmacy on that corner. It was a weird store. There were advertisements in the windows for chicken sandwiches right next to a big sign for a constipation medicine.

But today was dry, if cloudy. Jen tapped her foot, pretending to be impatient, and tapped her wrist, even though she wasn’t wearing a watch.

Sorry, said Paley. Zed lost one of his shoes.

I didn’t lose it! protested Zed, who was hurrying after Paley. I just couldn’t find it!

That’s the same thing, Zed-head, said Jen.

Is your dad gonna make us run laps today? Zed asked Jen. Jen’s father was the basketball coach at the junior high school and taught gym class, but also went over to the elementary school once a week and taught gym class there.

I hope so, said Jen, as they set off down the street towards the school buildings. You’re getting to be a lard-butt.

I am not! protested Zed. Paley and Jen laughed but Zed dismissed it by comically smacking his head, putting his already tousled hair into more of a mess, then walked away ahead of them. He was thin like his father but the jury was still out on whether he’d end up tall, like their older brother Cort, or short like Mera.

–

Paley liked school mornings, even if she was ambivalent about school itself. She enjoyed learning things and was pretty good in all of her subjects, so the fact that she didn’t hate school certainly made going to it more of a good thing than a bad thing.

Mera always got up first on school mornings, and by the time Paley was fumbling her way out of bed, Mera was out the door, meeting Anthony to catch the bus to the consolidated city high school. Paley and Zed went to the junior high school and elementary school, which were right next to each other. When they were all younger, their mother would walk them all the way to school, but now that Cort was in college, he would walk with them from their apartment building across the park and down Stanton Boulevard to the train station, where he’d catch the train in to City College. The corner where Jen would be waiting every morning was another block up from the train station and the school buildings were another two blocks from there. Paley liked being able to spend time with Cort walking across the nearly grassless park past the swing sets with no swings on them, the merry-go-round that didn’t go ’round, and the cracked pavement of the basketball court which was missing the basketball hoop on one end.

And it was always good to spend time in the morning with Jen, especially in the fall when Jen took the train across the river to Blueburg after school every day to play on a soccer team there. Hayward Junior High didn’t have a soccer team because it didn’t have any playing fields, so Jen played on a team in the suburbs. But that meant that Paley didn’t get to see her as much.

Zed spotted one of his friends and ran into the elementary school yard, leaving Paley and Jen to walk past his school to the junior high building.

Mera being nice to you again? asked Jen.

Yeah, said Paley. It had been a few days since the nonny incident. The morning after it had happened, Paley found a note on her school books that said, simply Sorry - M. She wasn’t sure if their mother had asked Mera to leave the note or if she’d done it on her own, so there was still some tension between them, but it had faded and they were getting along. They used to get along much better, before Mera started going to high school and dating boys. Mera was always much more interested in boys and movie stars than Paley was. Paley preferred books and the fantasy worlds that she could lose herself in. But being sisters, they had a lot in common and could still reduce each other to giggling fits at seemingly nothing. Ever since Mera started going out with Anthony, though, she and Paley didn’t interact as much, even though they lived in the same room. Paley would finish her homework in the kitchen then go to bed and read until Mera came in much later. They’d chat for a couple minutes but then it was lights out since Mera had to get up early to catch the bus. Paley could tell that they were growing apart because the topics of these nightly conversations had become almost exclusively about why Paley was still up when she should have been asleep an hour ago. Paley’s answer most nights was that she’d rather read than sleep. Reading took her away to places where she didn’t have to think about the fact that she hadn’t shown yet. When she slept, she’d sometimes dream, and lately the dreams had all been about her finding that she had a talent that no one else had and how wonderful it was. Waking up after a dream like that was always a disappointment.

So, said Jen, as they approached the front steps of the junior high, anything today?

Paley smiled. Jen asked her this question almost every day, and every time the answer was the same. Nope, she said.

Tomorrow, then, said Jen, ever optimistic, always sure that it would happen, just not today. Paley didn’t know if Jen’s confidence came from the fact that she was the tallest girl in the school, that she was good at athletics, or if it was just the way Jen was, but it made it great to be around her and be her friend.

Hey, today’s Thursday, said Jen, stopping in the hallway in front of her first period classroom. Are you taking the train with me after school?

Oh, no, said Paley with a sarcastic look. She held up her book bag, which was loaded with library books. I just carry these around for the exercise so i can be all muscley, like you.

"Shut up, Paleo-dorkish."

They slapped hands—front, back, pinkie-hook—then Paley continued down the hall to her first class.

It was science. Paley didn’t like having science first thing in the morning. To her, science was best done as far away from waking up as possible, preferably after lunch. Better yet, just before dinner. But first period was when she had her science class so she tried to get her head into science mode. Jen had English first thing. Paley would have much preferred that. Books and words and language were good any time of the day. Paley and Jen had history together third period, then math just after lunch. That was good because Paley could go over Jen’s math homework while they were eating. Jen was a great athlete, but not so great at math. Paley found math easy, but disliked organized sports, and as much as she would like to have more classes with Jen, she was secretly glad that they weren’t in the same gym class.

Paley walked down the long polished corridor, weaving in and out of the groups of kids walking in the other direction or gathering in clumps outside classrooms. She knew most of them by sight and a lot of them by name, but she was pretty sure that most of them didn’t know who she was. At one time, some of them might have known her as Mera’s little sister, since Mera was one of the popular girls in junior high, but that was a couple of years ago and even then a lot of the kids didn’t know that they were sisters. Mera had dirty blonde hair, usually cut short, and her face was rounder and, to Paley’s eye, cuter than Paley’s—more like their mother’s face. Paley’s hair was dark, even darker than her mother’s, and she thought of her face as plainer than Mera’s—the kind of face that didn’t really make an impression.

She walked along, lost in thought, wondering how many of the kids that she’d been going to school with every year actually knew who she was. She was brought out of her reverie by a familiar voice calling out her name.

Pally Cuttis!

Okay, it wasn’t actually her name, but it was what Peter Kendall called her sometimes, in what he called his northern accent. She always called Mr. Kendall her favorite teacher, but she didn’t have any classes with him because he wasn’t actually a teacher, he was a school counselor. He spent a lot of time talking to kids about depression, or their moods, or why it wasn’t okay to bring a knife to school, or no, you’re not going to fail out of school, or yes, puberty is normal and everybody goes through it. She was always impressed that he could do his job and stay enthusiastic without going completely bonkers.

Paley felt a little bit privileged in her interactions with Mr. Kendall because he was almost like family. He wasn’t, of course, and she’d never met any of his immediate family members other than a girlfriend once, but he was friends with her mother and he used to babysit her and her brothers and sister when they were younger. Paley’s mother even referred to him as Uncle Peter sometimes. Jen had picked up some of Paley’s casual attitude toward Mr. Kendall, but Jen could be relaxed with pretty much anyone.

Mr. Kendall was coming down one of the cross hallways that connected the two long main corridors of the school. Paley stopped and waited for him to get there, causing students to have to navigate around her, which made her a little happy.

"Hi, Mr. Ken-dull," she said.

Oh. Ow. Such wit, said Mr. Kendall, deadpan. "You should be a comedian... ’cause you already look funny!"

Ha ha, said Paley, giving him a pouty sneer.

Hey, i’ve been trying to catch up to you all week, but i’ve been busy with various, uh, minor crises. He gave Paley one of those looks that said you know what i mean, right?

Paley did know. Crazy, insane pre-teens, she thought to herself.

I was wondering if you might be able to look after Teco this weekend. Mr. Kendall continued. Teco was his dog. Paley liked him because she liked most dogs, but also because Teco, even though he was rather independent and sometimes aloof, would always trot over and say hi to her, his curly tail wagging, sometimes with a chew toy in his mouth to show her.

Sure! said Paley. You have a Frisbee tournament?

It’s called ultimate, Paley, we use sport discs. And yes, i have a tournament down in Eastport.

Ooh, ‘sport disc,’ lah-dee-dah.

I keep telling you Paley, you should play. I think you’d love it.

Yeah, maybe someday.

Okay. Well, i’m leaving Friday after work and i should be back late Sunday. Is that gonna be okay with you? You need to check with your parents?

No, i’ll be fine, said Paley. I still have a key.

Good. Okay, said Mr. Kendall. He looked up at one of the big industrial clocks sticking out from the corridor wall. Better get to class.

Okay, bye! Paley noticed that the hallway was rapidly emptying as students found their ways to classrooms. She hurried to the science classroom and got to her seat just as the bell rang.

–

It was a typical day at school. Somebody got tripped in the hallway, a few people got sent to the principal’s office, Paley had to correct a couple of Jen’s math problems, and throughout it all, Paley tried to keep track of something she’d learned that day that she could tell at dinner that night.

When the last bell rang, Paley met Jen on the front steps and they walked over to the train station. Jen had a student pass for the city trains but Paley had to buy a two-ride ticket when she went, which she did every other Thursday. She’d asked her parents about getting a pass but they said that it was too expensive, although Paley suspected that they didn’t want her to be able to just hop on a train whenever she wanted to and ride all over the city, which she absolutely would do if she could. So she had to save up her allowance so that she could take the train to the City Library every two weeks. This is why she never bought any candy bars—books were so much better.

They got on the train at the 116th Street station, where Cort caught the train every morning, and headed inbound. Outbound, there was only one more stop, the Glassworks station, which was right next to the R.L. Stanton Glass Bottle Factory, which was where Paley’s father worked.

I like being on an electric train, said Jen as the car moved away from the station on its elevated track.

Do you feel like you’re more powerful? asked Paley, watching Jen let some sparks fly out from her fingers to the metal supports next to their seats.

Kinda, said Jen. I dunno, it just feels comfortable. Jen pulled her finger back about a foot away from the pole and let a spark fly across the gap. She’d been getting better and better at controlling it since she first showed the summer before last. When she first discovered that she was a sparky, she’d shocked Paley a few times pretty harshly, but now she could control it to where it was just a tiny static shock, which she’d zap Paley with every once in a while. They’d tried to use Jen’s talent to maybe induce Paley’s talent, but had no luck with that.

Paley watched the buildings slide by while Jen zapped the metal parts of the train around her. There weren’t any talent restrictions on the trains like there were in the school buildings. And no one was allowed to use talents while playing sports, so Jen liked to get it out of her system on the train ride.

Ooh, check this out, said Jen. She generated a continuous blue spark between her thumb and middle finger, then threw it at the metal pole next to them. It wrapped about halfway around the pole before disappearing with a tiny snap.

You should join the circus, said Paley.

Watch it, missy, said Jen, holding a finger an inch from Paley’s nose. Paley licked her own finger and touched Jen’s, saying tssssss... as she did so.

Oh, you’ve completely defeated me! said Jen, over-dramatically. And also, ew, Paley, spit.

They both laughed and talked about what kind of freaky talents would get you into the circus until they got to the Quincy Street station, where Jen transferred to the Purple Line to get out to the athletic complex. Paley stayed on the Blue Line for six more stops to the Library station, which was in the heart of Uptown. The Quincy Street station was the last elevated station on the Blue Line, and when the train started moving again after Jen got off, it angled down, heading underground, making all of the squeaks and squeals of the cars echo against the walls of the tunnel and changing the whole feel of the train ride. Paley imagined that there were all sorts of secret passageways and caverns down here and that people lived in secret societies, resenting the people who lived on the top in the sunshine. When she got off the train, she always looked down the tunnel as it stretched off to blackness and sometimes felt the urge to sneak through the restricted gate at the end of the platform and head down into the wilderness of stone and steel. But of course, she never did that. She’d pause and look down to the yawning mouth of the tunnel, then climb the wide tiled steps through the station up to street level and over half a block to the City Library.

Mrs. Baca was at the checkout desk when Paley came in, like she was every Thursday afternoon. She looked up from her papers when Paley approached the desk.

Hello, Paley! she said with a big enthusiastic smile. "Did you like The Code of the Day Lilies?" Mrs. Baca had an amazing ability to remember