The Octopus Effect (4 page)

Simon shrugged.
Maybe Alysha is right
, he thought.
Why worry?

Owen shook his head. “Doesn't sound good to me. I mean that Book knows things, Simon. If it says we're in danger then we should at least be ready—” He paused and leaned forward. “Wait what's that?” He was pointing to a blinking green light beneath the Viewing Screen.

I tried to act casual. “Oh that, that's nothing. Just an indicator light. To remind me that the Screen's been paused.” I moved quickly but calmly until I was standing in front of the Recording Monitor atop my desk.

The device, closely resembling an ordinary computer monitor, could ruin everything if the kids saw it. They'd notice it was filled up with words and might realize that a new Chronicle had started. Fortunately, they had no clue—

“Why are you standing in front of the Recording Monitor?” Owen asked. “Is there something you're not telling us?”

Drat. Before I could think of something to say, the phone on my desk rang. The kids and I stared at it as it rang once, twice, three times.

“Aren't you going to answer that?” Alysha asked.

It was an excellent question; the truth was, it had never rung before. Not in decades of narrating from this apartment. “Of course,” I said. “But please hush—it'll be important Narrator business, no doubt.”

I picked up the phone. “Hello?” I tried to keep my voice from shaking.

“Mr. Geryson,” a woman said in a clipped English accent. “This is unacceptable!”

I cringed. It was Miss Fanstrom, the Keeper of the Historical Society. My boss!

“Do
not
give them any sign that you're speaking to me,” Miss Fanstrom said.

“Er,” I said. “Why yes, I would like to hear about your apartment cleaning service.” I managed a glare at the kids. “It happens I have
quite
a mess to take care of.”

“Clever,” Miss Fanstrom said. “Now be cleverer and send those three on their way. I'd rather not have them discover a new Chronicle's started . . . not yet, at least. They'll know soon enough.”

“Of course. Except . . . how?” I coughed. “How do you get it so clean, I mean?”

“Tut tut, Mr. Geryson,” Miss Fanstrom said. I could picture her hair—a two-foot-high black tower—remaining perfectly still as she shook her head. “You are the one who chose to let Mr. Bloom and his friends come over again and again despite our Society's rules on the subject. You must be the one to deal with the problems it causes.”

I decided not to remind her that it was
she
who first sent them to visit me in the previous Chronicle. Telling your boss such things wasn't good for job security.

“A wise decision, Mr. Geryson. Now get to it.”

The line went dead, leaving me to wonder for a moment whether she'd known what I was thinking. There was no time to worry about that; I had to get rid of these kids. But how do you get three seventh graders to do anything they don't want to do?

I turned to the kids. “My, such interesting cleaning tips.” I cleared my throat to buy some time to think. A-ha! “Now that you three are leaving, I can give them a try.”

Alysha folded her arms. “Leaving? We've only been here for a little while!”

I smoothed out my comfy brown bathrobe (standard issue for all Historical Society Narrators) and struggled to keep my voice calm. “Oh, you can stay if you want. But I figured you might want to play with your formulas at Dunkerhook Woods before you meet with the Council of Sciences.”

Simon, Alysha, and Owen looked at one another. Their glances said it all. Even hyperanxious Owen was tempted by the idea.

“Okay,” Simon said. “Maybe we'll come back later, though?”

“Whatever you like, Simon,” I said, keeping myself between them and the Recording Monitor as I ushered them to the door. I could only hope that whatever happened next would be enough to keep them busy for the rest of the day.

As I closed my door behind Simon and his friends, I pulled that handheld device out of my bathrobe pocket and flipped a switch on it. Suddenly my Viewing Screen image changed from the previous Chronicle's frozen playground fight-scene to that of the current Chronicle: an image of the three kids rushing down the hall.

With Alysha and Owen reviewing old action on my wall-size Viewing Screen, I'd had to watch Simon's experiences on my mini-Viewing Screen. It wasn't the same, but it did the trick in emergencies.

I sighed and removed my eyeglasses to rub the bridge of my nose. The last time Simon and his friends were featured in a Chronicle, my life and the nature of the Union had been thrown into upheaval. What would happen
this
time?

I settled into my reclining chair. It's not as if I could do anything more than just watch, but with so much at stake, I might as well be comfortable.

Now that I'm officially narrating once more, I realize some of you might not have read the previous Chronicle. If not, shame on you. I'll continue to toss in a little background as we go, though reading the first Chronicle—
Simon Bloom, the Gravity Keeper
—certainly wouldn't hurt. (You can do that now if you wish.) (I'll wait.)

And now, back to the action! Simon, Owen, and Alysha left my apartment building and entered the same alley Simon had landed in. They put on their backpacks, held hands, and then jumped, with Simon's gravity control letting them leap hundreds of feet. Unlike Simon's solo flight, this time they used Owen's velocity control to move through the air. His formula made for much smoother, safer flying than Simon's did . . . but it was still fast.

Within minutes the trio reached their destination: the dead-end street Van Silas Way. Owen brought them down in the backyard of a house closest to the end so nobody would see them land, and then they walked out to the street.

Thanks to a complex combination of the Knowledge Union's formulas, the people that lived on Van Silas—in fact, most people on Earth—would never be able to go beyond the edge of that dead end. That was because the formulas worked against Outsiders—those not in the Union. Outsiders wouldn't be able to send anything (a Frisbee, a flashlight beam, a bag of squashed grapes) past it, on purpose or by accident. They wouldn't have even thought about it; to them, the street just ended.

Simon, Owen, and Alysha knew exactly what was past Van Silas Way: a forest. But calling it a forest was like saying a mountain range was bumpy ground or an anaconda was a scaly worm. True, these woods took up less land than most normal forests, but what they lacked in acreage they compensated for in height.

The trees were ordinary species (oak, maple, ficus, etc.), but most had grown to redwood size over the years and now stretched hundreds of feet into the sky. Fortunately, the same formulas that kept Outsiders from noticing the woods also kept them from flying planes, hang gliding, or getting catapulted through that airspace.

The forest's name was Dunkerhook Woods, and it was glad to see the kids. I know, how can a bunch of trees be glad about anything . . . remember, this is no ordinary woods. If it wanted to be happy about something, you'd best not argue. The woods had been a fan of Simon Bloom since it first let him see and enter it five months ago, and the feeling was mutual. Although Simon, Owen, and Alysha had been to Dunkerhook Woods many times since that initial visit, they never grew tired of it.

The woods let loose the Breeze—its equivalent of a welcome mat minus all that foot wiping. The Breeze washed over the trio, filling them with renewed strength and good feeling. That and the energizing Dunkerhook air made naps, caffeinated drinks, and spa visits look bad by comparison.

There were other marvels to the woods. If you explored enough—and believe me, these three had—you could find shrubs that moved from place to place in search of tastier soil, and bushes that changed color and smell just to mess with the insects.

Running down the center of this wondrous mass of vegetation was a wide, smooth dirt path that passed through a clearing. This was the special meeting place of the Order of Physics, who used their own physics formulas and the
Teacher's Edition of Physics
to watch over the universe and help humanity advance their scientific wisdom.

The clearing had numerous tree stumps that served as seats for the Order members. The stumps weren't like those in Outsider forests. These were quite soft and extremely comfy, provided you didn't try to lean back in them—they had no backrests.

Simon and his friends liked to use that clearing to play with and practice their formulas. As they arrived, however, they found someone waiting.

“Loisana?” Simon exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

It was Loisana Belane, a willowy, redheaded Order of Physics member. She was one of those four whom the kids fought in their school playground after Simon first got the Book. Of course, back then the Order thought Simon and his friends were thieves who'd attacked their leader and stolen the Book. Now that Simon, Alysha, and Owen were in the Order, too, they were all supposed to be friends.

“I know you guys come here to practice with your formulas,” Loisana said. “I figured I'd see if you minded one more.”

Simon looked to Owen and Alysha, who shrugged. It might be weird having her there. She was in her twenties or thirties—as old as some of their teachers! Simon and his friends didn't want to have to act differently around her. But she was a fellow Order member . . . these were her woods, too. They couldn't really ask her to leave.

“Sure, why not,” Simon said. “You could help us try some new stuff.” He stood quietly, thinking. “Okay . . . maybe you could start us off with some water?”

Loisana uttered the words of her formula, and in response, water dropped from the sky over much of the clearing (though not where they were standing). It wasn't rain. Loisana controlled changes in phase: she could make matter (solids, liquids, and gases) turn from one form to another. Now she was taking the moisture in the air and turning it into liquid form.

“Okay,” Simon said. “And I'll keep it off the ground.” He made the entire water-filled area a gravity-free zone, causing the liquid to drift through the air as tiny globules. “Now, Owen, can you make them bigger?”

“Bigger than you, he means,” Alysha said.

“Alysha!” Loisana hissed. “That's not very nice!”

Alysha rolled her eyes and Owen shrugged. “Don't worry about it, Loisana,” Owen said. “We're friends—we mess with each other all the time.”

Owen spoke his velocity formula to control the speed and direction of several falling water droplets. He caused droplets to collide, making them double-size. He repeated this again and again until there were six enormous floating globes of water, each roughly the size of a small car. He made them swoop and spin through the air.

“It's easy,” Owen said. Then he grinned and glanced at Alysha. With a flick of his fingers, he sent a globe hurtling at Alysha. “Now let's see how you handle them!”

Alysha dodged the huge ball of water and flung a handful of coins—each filled to the brim with electricity—at it. The coins exploded upon impact, shattering the globe.

“Ha!” Alysha said. She turned back to Owen as a second giant water orb slammed into her. She was knocked onto her butt and drenched with water and dirt: mud.

“Owen!” Alysha shrieked. She ran at him and snapped her fingers, sending a small arc of electricity at his legs. He yelped and jumped back.

“Wait a minute!” Loisana said. “You could hurt each other!”

Alysha frowned. “No, it's not like that. We're fine!”

Owen nodded. “This is how we practice, so we can be ready for anything. We have to keep each other alert and come up with new stuff all the time.”

Simon nodded. “Now Alysha knows she's got to be ready for multiple attacks, and Owen's got to find a defense against her electrical shocks.”

“I suppose that's all right, if it works for you,” Loisana said.

“It helped us beat you,” Alysha said with arms crossed.

Loisana chuckled. “True. That was quite a fight, wasn't it? I'm still amazed that Willoughby Wanderby overreacted like that; he was positive you were the enemy.”

Owen frowned at the mention of his former gym teacher, now fellow Order member, who had led the attack on them in the playground all those months ago. “You know, we've been in the Order with him for months, but he never talks to us.”

“Some people don't react as well to getting an electric shock,” Alysha said.

“Okay,” Simon said. “The reason I wanted Owen to make those water globes was for Alysha to have target practice. I have an idea for her to try. Plasma.”