SHE had to escape. The loud music. The louder neighbors. The grilled burgers that were harder than hockey pucks and about as flavorful. The red, white, and blue paper goods the late-afternoon wind kept tossing to the ground. She couldn’t take it any longer. Memorial Day in West Michigan was more all-American and annoying the older and more cynical she got.
Helicity caught her mother’s eye and gave her a pleading look. Her mother’s lips twitched in either a smile or a grimace, but she nodded her permission for Helicity to leave.
Helicity snaked her way across the backyard toward the kitchen. Snatches of conversation reached her ears.
“Got to have been a proud day for you when the Michigan State offer came,” she heard Mr. Robison say to her father. “A football scholarship is nothing to sneeze at.” His congratulations were edged with envy.
Her father, a large, muscular man with sandy hair turning to gray, gave a slow grin. “It does make paying for college a little easier to manage,” he acknowledged.
Helicity paused by the kitchen door and glanced over at her brother. At six foot four, Andy was easy to spot despite the admirers surrounding him. He was a good-looking guy—thick, wavy brown hair, green eyes, and high cheekbones, features similar to her own—but it was his ability to thread a football between defenders and into the hands of a receiver that made him so popular. Thanks to his throwing arm, their high school football team had posted back-to-back undefeated seasons and finished with a top ranking in the state. In their small town, that made him a hero.
Andy saw Helicity looking. He flashed her his crooked smile and raised his can of pop.
Two girls turned to see who’d captured his attention. “It’s just his little sister, Felicity,” one said. They turned back, dismissing her without another thought.
“Helicity,” Andy corrected.
“What?” the girl asked, looking confused.
“My sister’s name. It’s Helicity.”
“Helicity?” The girl gave her friend a look. “What kind of name is that?” Her friend giggled.
It was a fair question. The answer was sweet and a little nerdy. Just like Helicity. Helicity’s grandmother had liked the sound and meaning of it. A brilliant woman, Grandma Picossi had studied physics before marrying. Helicity was her favorite physics term—it basically means to spin in a helical or corkscrew motion. Helicity, the word, was an integral part of her thesis and doctoral work. A decorated physicist, she died just before Helicity was born. Helicity’s mother insisted on choosing a name that honored her memory. While it was a little strange, Helicity considered herself lucky. The alternative was Doris.
Leaving Andy to his posse, Helicity pulled open the kitchen door and almost ran into Mrs. Van Houten, who was coming out with a platter of watermelon slices. “Sorry!” She ducked in and let her neighbor pass. As she did, her elbow hit a stack of mail on the counter and knocked it to the floor.
“Careful, dear!” Mrs. Van Houten sang.
Helicity apologized again, but Mrs. Van Houten was already closing the door behind her. With a sigh, Helicity picked up the mail. Amid the flyers, catalogs, and bills was a letter from her middle school. It was addressed to her parents, but since it was open, she decided it was fair game. She slid the letter out and scanned the contents.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Dunlap:
Congratulations! Your daughter will be starting high school next fall. Our guidance office is pleased to inform you of their recommendations for her placement in the science and math classes. College prep, or CP, classes offer instruction at a moderated pace while the more challenging honors, or H, classes move more briskly through the curriculum. The recommendations below are based on careful evaluation of your student’s middle school performance in both subjects.
Helicity had been waiting all week to learn if she’d placed in the higher-level honors classes. Like her grandmother, she was drawn to science and math. Unfortunately, those subjects were not always easy for her. She was pretty sure which level she’d be recommended for. Still, her heart fell when she saw the CP boxes checked for both categories.
A thud on the door startled her. Mrs. Van Houten was there, sagging under the weight of a whole watermelon. Helicity let her in.
“Thank you, sweetie.” Mrs. Van Houten deposited the melon on the counter with a sigh of relief. “Want to help me cut this up?”
Helicity murmured an excuse and hurried from the kitchen. She had to get away, go to the one place where she could be alone and think.
In her bedroom, she changed out of her shorts and T-shirt into her riding clothes—boots, jeans, and lightweight long-sleeved shirt. She jammed the letter in one pocket and her smartphone in another, quickly weaved her long brown hair into a thick braid down her back, and then sneaked downstairs and out the side door. She ran to the barn in the far corner of the field behind her house. Her horse, a blue-black gelding named Raven, nickered a welcome. Twenty minutes later, Helicity and Raven were galloping toward a distant hill.
Western Michigan is relatively flat, so the hill provided a good view of the area. A well-worn path wound up the side. Raven didn’t need direction; he’d covered the ground many times before. When they reached a rocky overlook at the top, they stopped. Helicity dismounted and let Raven wander to a nearby patch of grass while she took a seat on a boulder.
She could see a full 360 degrees because there were so few trees on the hilltop. Her town and others nearby spread around her in all directions—a cross-hatching of dirt and paved roads dotted with a golf course, schools, a sprawling mall, churches, and farms. Subdivisions radiated out from her town’s center in ever-widening circles, like ripples in a pond, slowly encroaching on the outlying farmland. On the western horizon, the lowering sun lit up a billowing cloud bank with shades of red and orange.
Helicity picked out the hospital where she and her brother had been born. Other than summer trips to Lake Michigan and a fall weekend here and there in East Lansing to see a Michigan State football game, they’d rarely left their town since.
Andy is getting out soon, though, Helicity thought. In a month, he’ll start training with the university football team. Traveling to games all over the country. I’ll be home alone with Mom and Dad.
She wasn’t sure that was going to go well.
She pulled the school’s letter out of her pocket. Mom hasn’t shown this to Dad yet, she realized. She knew if he’d seen it, he would have made some disappointed comment about her “not reaching her full potential”—among other remarks. She smoothed out the creases on the paper. As she did, a paragraph she’d missed in the first reading jumped out at her.
You can opt to overrule these recommendations and place your child in a higher level. But please be advised that doing so may result in lower academic achievement.
She hadn’t realized she and her parents had a say in the matter. Toying with the end of her braid, she played out different scenarios in her head.
If I bump up to honors, I might not be in class with my friends. Worse, I might crash and burn. Dad would have plenty to say about that. Maybe it would be better to just stay in CP. But CP level classes might not get me on track for—
A flash of lightning jolted her from her thoughts. Thunder rumbled seconds later. A sudden wind bent the branches of a nearby tree and teased loose strands of her hair. Raven tossed his head, jangling his bridle.
Helicity moved to soothe him. “It’s okay, boy,” she murmured. “It’s just a little rain, a little thunder.” She stroked Raven’s glossy neck, glancing back at the storm as she did. What she saw made her pause.
For as long as she could remember, Helicity had been fascinated by the weather. Her favorite television program was whatever was on the Weather Channel. Her heroes were meteorologists and storm chasers. She couldn’t tell you much about the conflicts in the Middle East or the starlet on the cover of People magazine. But if you needed a detailed five-day forecast, you asked Helicity.
Western Michigan got its fair share of wild weather—lake-effect snow from Lake Michigan, drenching rain, ice storms, heat waves, even the occasional twister. So she’d had plenty of opportunities to observe storms up close and personal.
But what she saw on the horizon was unlike anything she’d ever witnessed.
She took out her phone, tapped to Video, and zoomed in on the gathering storm. “I tell you what, Raven, I’m glad we’re seeing this from up here. Because I think anyone near that”—she hit Record—“is about to get walloped.”