IVY ROE:
“Now, I’m gonna spin you,” I told Daisy. “Then you’re gonna bring the cans close to your chest. Ready?”
She bounced up and down in the chair. “Ready!”
Three, two, one. I pushed her, and Daisy held out the cans, slowly pulling them closer. The chair spun faster. She giggled.
Walter sat on the carpet. Asked her, “It really works, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah!” Her face, the back of the chair, her face again.
I said, “When movement of inertia decreases, velocity increases.”
Walter looked at me, something impressed, maybe weirded out. “You’re pretty smart, you know.”
That was all it took. I threw my books and my schemes aside, and I showed Walter and Daisy every science experiment I could think up.
Tornados in a bottle. Popsicle stick catapults. We filled a bucket up with water, spun it over our heads: centripetal force. We sent a magnet down a copper tube, watched it fall in slow motion: Lenz’s Law. I stood in front of Daisy, recited every bone in the body, and she clapped her hands, asked me if she could learn how to do that, too. Within a day she knew where her mandible was. Her radius, her ulna.
Andi noticed. He smiled at Daisy and told her she was brilliant. He looked at me and said, “I didn’t think things would work out this well.”
“What do you mean?”
He shrugged. Went back to scrubbing his dish. “You look happier.”
The second law of thermodynamics: when order increases in a system, it creates disorder in another. Maybe it worked that way with joy, too, because the happier I felt, the less happy Chaos acted.
She grumbled about wasting food at dinner. She held up one of her shirts—a hole worn through the collar.
“You tore this, didn’t you?” She asked Walter.
“I did not.” He shook his head. “I can help you sew it back, though.”
Her mouth twisted. “You’ll waste thread.”
Every time she caught my eye, her eyes flashed. Like I’d done something wrong. Found a friend? Was that a crime?
But I knew what she was so upset about. Stealing the files. Saving Elise from the Corps. She thought I threw that out of my mind, didn’t she?
She didn’t know I spent my nights reading over our plan, picking the lock on our bedroom door, on my box.
She thought I forgot, didn’t she?
“You mean you didn’t?” She pulled grass from the dirt, rolled it around in her palm.
I shielded my eyes from the sun. “I feel like it’s a stupid idea, don’t you?”
“Doing nothing is even stupider.”
I took my glasses off. The clouds, the leaves, everything fuzzed up. We could forget about the files, forget about taping the pieces together, and I’d still wake up tomorrow, flip open an astronomy book and teach Daisy about the stars, constellations.
“Are you even listening to me?”
“I am!” I rolled my eyes, “We’re waiting for the right time. Like you said.”
She tucked her knees against her chest. Blew hair away from her face. “Don’t you feel stuck? Don’t you feel useless?”
“I did. Until Walter and Daisy.”
I expected her to yell or call Walter a thief or something. Instead, she threw down a handful of grass. Walked back inside.
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Things I did today:
- Up-rooted a weed and taught Daisy about the xylem and phloem
- Walter knew more about this than I did
- Practiced picking the lock on my box
- Took stock of medical supplies (we’re low on hydrogen peroxide)
- Tried to talk with Chaos
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Notes:
The files. If only we could know exactly what we were getting into. Maybe I wouldn’t be so scared. Maybe Walter could help us with the files. Maybe Chaos wouldn’t hate him so much if he helped—
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I chewed on the end of my pen, shut my notebook, and stood up to find Walter. Downstairs. He sat on the tile, drawing with Daisy.
I asked, “Can you keep a secret?”
He leaned back on his good arm. “Ivy, I’m not sure—”
“Chaos and I are gonna try to steal files. From the office where Elise works. Can you help us?”
His shoulders tensed, and he shook his head. “No. Don’t tell me anymore. I’m sorry.”
I don’t know why, but Chaos’s voice appeared in my brain. I told you so. He’s no good.
I pushed it away. One set back. One boundary. It’s just not that bad. Right?
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and then Add to home screen.