OCDaniel (3 page)

“Shut up.”

Max burst out laughing and hurried down the street, tucking his hands into his jean pockets. I scowled and shut the door, knowing my mom would definitely ask about Raya as soon as she got the chance. Heading upstairs to avoid any questions, I heard her fighting with Steve in the kitchen.

“I'm sixteen!” Steve shouted, banging his fist on the wall.

“You break that wall, you're paying for it!” my mom shrieked back. “And you're right, you're sixteen. It is a school night, and you will be home at ten!”

“That's not fair!”

They fought pretty much every night. Emma was already closing her bedroom door. I went to my room, opened my laptop, and checked my Facebook page. No updates.

Unable to resist, I opened Raya's page. She was smiling in her profile picture, instead of having one of those duck-faced selfies all the other popular girls had. I could never ask her out. She would say no, and then I couldn't have my dreams anymore.

I leaned back and looked around my room. It was a work in progress. One wall was covered in bookshelves and action figures, while the others had posters of bands and movies, and even one of Tom Brady that my dad had bought me when I'd made the football team. My desk was tucked under a dusty window that overlooked the street, and it was constantly littered with papers and drawings and books. I went to click on my home page, when I was Zapped. I went back and clicked it again. It still didn't feel right. I was at ten clicks and already feeling sweat bead on my forehead when I closed the browser. I could feel the urge to go back and try another click. But I knew it might start something that would take hours. I needed to write. Now.

Daniel stared at the moon in disbelief. It was like something had bitten the bottom right section, taking a chunk out like from a vanilla cookie. The moon stared back at him, glimmering faintly in the daylight.

A million thoughts ran through his head. But only one mattered. The device had worked. It had seemed so unlikely, tucked away in the attic and wrapped in a blanket of dust. But there was no other explanation. He had turned it on, and he had done something terrible.

As he stared in horror at the sky, something else caught his eye. A flicker of movement.

Daniel turned just in time to see something slip between two houses. Something big.

There was a gentle knock on my door, and an even softer voice. “Dan?”

“Come in.”

Emma stepped inside, clutching a book under her arm and watching me from beneath a loose strand of blond hair.

“What are you doing?” she asked curiously, spying my laptop.

“Nothing,” I said, shutting it before she could read anything. Even the little writing I had done had calmed me a bit. I didn't feel like I had to go click the link again, anyway. “What's up?”

She sat on the bed and shrugged. “You want to read for a while?”

“Sure.”

We both lay down on the floor, staring up at the stucco ceiling. We did that a lot.

“What do you see?” she asked softly. Sometimes we created entire stories in the stucco. Her hair was splashed out like sand on the carpet.

I focused on one spot in particular. “A bird. An eagle maybe. Eroth, the King of Eagles, flying over the plains of Alog. He is preparing for a battle, I think. Goblins march on the kingdom. You?”

“A face. It looks like a girl. Pretty but cold eyes. A princess maybe . . . no . . . an archer. San'aa, the daughter of a fallen king, and the most famous archer in Arador. She can hit a bull's-eye from one hundred yards.”

Emma looked over and smiled mischievously, her hazel eyes twinkling.

“Are you really going to ask a girl on a date?”

“Probably not.”

She turned back to the ceiling. “You seemed different at dinner.”

“How so?”

Emma seemed to think about that. “I don't know. Just . . . distant. Even more than usual.”

That instantly brought Sara Malvern back to my mind. A tingle crept down my back and into my socks.

“Just tired, I guess,” I replied, hoping she didn't hear the worry in my voice.

Emma opened her book and started reading. “I don't believe you.”

“You never do.”

We read until my mom came in and told Emma to go to bed. We both stood up, stretching sore limbs. Emma said good night and shuffled through my bedroom door. I watched her shadow turn the corner, fading into the hallway light. I was alone again.

I decided to write a bit more. As I opened my laptop, I noticed a piece of paper sticking out of one of the pockets of my backpack. Frowning, I picked it up. Scribbled in splotchy black ink was a note.

I need your help.

—Fellow Star Child

I read the note several times and then folded it up with trembling hands. I had no idea what a Star Child was, or why anyone would possibly want my help. Someone must have snuck it into my bag when I wasn't looking.

But who?

I decided to look up “Star Child” first. Maybe that would give me some clues. My first search yielded this:

Star Children, according to a pseudoscientific New Age concept, are children who are believed to possess special, unusual, and sometimes supernatural traits or abilities.

I read through the first few articles. It sounded like conspiracy-theory stuff to me. Alien DNA, telepathic powers, and a lot of parents who believed their kids were Star Kids because they behaved badly.

I stayed up for a long time that night, checking Facebook for possible leads to the identity of the note leaver. Nobody had anything about Star Kids on their page, so I gave up and started getting ready for bed.

The Routine began at twelve thirty. It's something I have to do every night. I'll explain later. I went to sleep at four a.m.

  •  •  •  

The next day, I found Max in the school yard with the other cool kids. They just talked in the morning, though they usually played basketball or touch football at recess. That meant I had to play too, of course, even though I was even worse at basketball than I was at football. Max passed to me sometimes, but I usually passed it right back as quickly as possible and only shot when I was literally right under the net. The other guys gave me a hard time but let me play because of Max. If it wasn't for him, I would probably be in the corner reading with Emma, which I wouldn't have minded, except it would have made the prospect of talking to Raya even less likely.

As it was, Raya was actually in the circle of cool kids today, but by the time I got over there, the bell rang. She did give me a little smile, but that was it.

“Ready for the big game on Saturday?” Max asked me as we walked into class.

I sighed. “For the last time, I don't actually do anything.”

“If the kicker gets hurt, we need you,” he said seriously.

“How often does the kicker get hurt?”

Max paused. “Rarely. But still. And hey . . . you gonna ask her today?”

I snorted and pulled out my books. “Of course not.”

“If you don't hurry, someone else will.”

I thought about that for a moment and then shook my head. “I can't do it.”

“You're a sissy.”

“Agreed.”

I was still thinking about Raya when Mr. Keats drawled, “Math books out, please.” He looked like he wished he'd slept in today.

I sighed. That made two of us.

I don't like math for one important reason: the numbers.

We were doing some simple equations, and I kept having to change them. I made a four a forty-one. A nine a ninety-one. I didn't even write the six. Every time I saw a bad number, I had a Zap. A pit-of-my-stomach-things-are-wrong-do-something-now feeling. It was like being punched.

I tried to hide my notes from Max, but he noticed.

“Even I know that's wrong,” he said, pointing at one answer. “Take the zero out, dufus.”

“Oh, right,” I muttered. But I didn't change it.

I started sweating profusely halfway through class—my skin hot and flushed and prickling. I changed so many numbers that it looked like code. Nine was giving me a real problem today.

Every time I wrote it, I felt like something bad was going to happen.

I don't know when it started or why, but some numbers are good, and some are not.

Here's my list:

1 = Okay

2 = Mostly okay

3 = Bad when combined with another three, four, five, or six

4 = Bad

5 = Okay

6 = Bad

7 = Mostly bad

8 = Always bad

9 = Bad

10 = Good

As you can imagine, it gets complicated in the double digits.

This probably sounds confusing, and that is likely because I might be crazy. But the numbers make me feel better or worse, and there is no arguing that. If I do something four times, my skin crawls and my stomach hurts and I can't breathe right. Five times, and I feel fine. The numbers control how many times I do things, but I also don't like writing or saying the numbers either. I know . . . bonkers.

But who am I to argue with feelings?

I don't know what triggers the Zaps, really. It's usually just a feeling or a thought that pops out of nowhere and attacks my brain and makes everything cold and dark and hopeless. I can be Zapped at any time, though thankfully, it's mostly at nighttime and when I'm alone. At those times it's relentless.

“I hate math,” I muttered.

“Yeah,” Max said. “And I hate that you aren't good at it. My grades are really suffering.”

Max looked at me and frowned. “You all right?”

I wiped my head and forced a smiled. “Fine. Just a little warm in here, don't you think?”

“No.”

“Oh. Maybe I'm sick.”

Max put his hand on my forehead. “Yeah. Go dunk your head in water. You look like Raya just touched your arm or something.”

“Thanks,” I muttered.

“May I go to the bathroom?” I asked Mr. Keats.

I hurried down the hall, wiping my damp forehead and wondering what was wrong. Sometimes this happened at night, but never at school.

My arms and legs were tingling like they were on fire, and then they were numb and weak. I even started wondering if I was going to faint. Was I dying?

My breath caught. The hall started to spin.

I was almost to the bathroom when Sara Malvern walked out of the girls' bathroom. Miss Lecky was waiting for her in the hall, texting. Sara immediately turned to me and smiled.

“Hello, Daniel,” she said.

I forced a smile. “Hi,” I managed, trying to get to the bathroom.

She stepped in front of me.

“Splash a little water on your face,” she said quietly. “It will pass.”

Miss Lecky was watching us.

“Okay,” I said.

Her eyes were doing it again . . . telling me that she knew exactly who I was and what I was seeing. But that was impossible. We had never spoken before yesterday. We had never even made eye contact.

Who was this girl?

I hurried to the bathroom and splashed some ice-cold water onto my cheeks, staring into the mirror and wondering what was happening to the pasty-faced kid looking back at me.

  •  •  •  

Things got better in last class. Way better. Mr. Keats assigned us a project about local government and said we could do it in groups of four. I immediately looked at Max, hoping he would find us two other partners quickly before the scramble began. The conversations and turning heads started quickly, but Mr. Keats was faster.

“I have already made the groups,” he said, “so don't bother. Sometimes I think we only have one person doing the work of the group, so perhaps it will be a little more even if we mix it up.”

He looked right at me. He would never put me with Max.

“Max, Clara, Brent, and Miguel,” he began. “You can sit in the far corner.”

“Super,” Max muttered, eyeing Clara, who shot him a grin.

I rolled my eyes. “Poor you.”

The groups were read out quickly, and I noticed very soon that my name had not yet been called, and neither had Raya's. A half hope, half panic started to form and was confirmed a minute later.

“Raya, Lisa, Daniel, and Tom. You can sit where Daniel is.”

I probably had that deer-in-headlights look as Raya plopped down next to me and opened her notebook.

“Hey, Dan,” she said warmly.

I put my arms under my desk to hide the spreading goose bumps. “Hey,” I managed.

Lisa and Tom joined us. Lisa was a superquiet girl, and Tom was a football jock, so they just looked at each other awkwardly and remained silent. Clearly it was up to Raya to get the project moving.

“Anyone against town council?” she asked. “I figure we can get a quote that way—my mom knows one of the counselors.”

“Sounds good,” I said immediately.

“Whatever,” Tom muttered.

“Okay,” Lisa said, and then flushed, as if amazed that she had just spoken in front of Tom.

This would be fun.

Except it kind of was. We laid out what we were going to do and gave everyone homework, and Raya laughed twice. She has superwhite teeth. I needed to go brush.

Just before the bell Tom wandered off to talk with Taj, and Lisa went back to her desk, giving Raya and me an awkward smile and then scurrying away like a mouse. Raya shook her head.

“She'll get her work done, but we're probably going to have to cover for Tom.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I can do that.”

She laughed. “I'm sure you can. You already do Max's work for him.”

I opened my mouth to argue, and then stopped. “Yeah.”

“Why?” she asked.

“He's my friend,” I replied, shrugging. “It's no big deal.”

“You should tell him to do his own work,” she said. “He's smarter than he pretends. I think he likes to be a dumb jock because Taj and Tom are. He should be more like you.”