PROLOGUE

BAM! The black-and-white soccer ball bounced down a flight of stairs, ricocheted off a nearby wall, then rocketed back toward the hard concrete steps. Racing down the staircase to catch up with the ball were two eight-year-old kids, Maddie and Navid. They were having the best time in the world, playing ball where they weren’t supposed to, in an abandoned industrial complex on the south side of London. But nothing in the world could prepare them for what was about to happen next.

The soccer ball rolled back toward the first step, bounced, and then magically—unbelievably—rolled up the wall, defying gravity. Maddie and Navid stopped dead in their tracks. Did that just happen? They looked at each other in amazement. Smiles instantly stretched across their faces as the kids gave chase, more determined than ever to catch up with the magical ball.

As they ran down a long corridor, they passed yet another oddity: a window, with its glass seemingly broken and shattered, but somehow frozen in place. The kids looked closer and their smiles widened. In front of them were hundreds of shards of glass hanging in midair, as if by magic. A dripping sound then caught their attention, but when they searched for the puddle, they were shocked to see that it was above them. The water was dripping in reverse—down from the floor and up to the ceiling. All around them, oddities of unexplainable proportion unfolded before their very eyes. Astounded, the kids kept on chasing their ball.

Finally, Maddie and Navid located their ball in a large room. There, in the center of the room, was their soccer ball. But instead of lying on the floor, it was floating in midair, surrounded by dust and debris. As they entered, they felt a sudden charge of static electricity through the air, and the debris began to swirl. Navid grabbed the ball out of the air. He spun it in his hands for a few seconds, then smiled. Pulling back his arm he threw it as hard as he could. But before it could get farther than a few feet, the soccer ball simply disappeared. A moment later, the ball burst through a skylight, breaking the glass. The young children shielded their faces from the falling debris, but the shards of the skylight slowed and froze, like the window. Peeking through her fingers, Maddie gasped in delight and then belted out with laughter! Soon both kids were laughing until Maddie, eyes widened, pointed to Navid, as the boy’s hair began to stand up on end. But the best part was yet to come. The children heard cranking and clinging coming from behind them. Racing to another larger, half-open room, they saw an old cement truck. But this cement truck was floating inches above the ground and slowly starting to rotate. Navid raced over to the truck and stopped inches from it, looking up at the massive piece of spinning, metal machinery. Then, he gently laid his fingers on the metal bumper and gave it a tiny push. The truck flew back and started to spin faster. Navid smiled a mischievous, happy grin at Maddie.

This was the start of something big.…