Bax hated Dunwiddle School’s tuna noodle casserole. He stood in line, but only took potato chips, canned peaches, and then some raw broccoli from the salad bar. He carried his tray over to sit with the other UDM kids at one big table. Nory had called a meeting.
Nory looked around, as if making sure all eight of them were there. Andres had a bag lunch and floated above. The other seven were all seated. “What are we going to do about Lacey’s petition?” she asked.
“It’s my fault for shrinking her,” said Marigold. She poked her casserole with her fork instead of eating it.
Bax felt bad for Marigold. He knew what it was like to have out-of-control magic.
“Do you think you can make it up to Lacey somehow?” Willa wondered. “Get her to forget about the petition?”
“I doubt it,” Elliott said. And he would know—he and Lacey had been friends in ordinary school, until she and the other Sparkies shunned him because of his freezing magic.
“I talked to Principal Gonzalez,” said Marigold. “I told him I’d take whatever consequence I deserved.”
“What did he say?” Pepper asked.
“He said not to worry about it and that he would talk to Lacey’s family. He said he knew it was an accident.”
“Hey, people, I’m having a birthday party!” called Andres from the ceiling. “It’s this Saturday at two, and all of you are invited!”
Andres hardly ever heard much of what went on during cafeteria conversations. He was eating a sandwich, dropping crumbs on people and occasionally calling down random remarks.
Nory looked up. “Sounds fun, Andres! I’ll come!”
“Me too,” Bax said. He’d be at his mom’s, but Bax knew she’d drive him to Andres’s.
The other kids said they’d be at the party as well. Nory brought the conversation back to Lacey.
“The shrinking isn’t the big problem,” she said. “The real issue is the rocks, because they affected so many people. The kids from kittenball think we did it.”
“What do you mean, ‘we’?” Sebastian said. “Like, all of us?” He glanced from face to face. “Listen. Was it any of you guys? It wasn’t me, I swear.”
“Or me,” said Marigold.
“Or me,” said Willa.
“Or me,” said Elliott.
The other kids proclaimed their innocence one by one, until Bax was the only person left.
“It wasn’t me, either!” he said. But his friends were looking at him funny. His stomach flipped over. “What? It wasn’t!”
“Bax, you’re the one with rock magic. Have you ever turned anything else to stone?” Elliott asked carefully. “Anything other than your own body?”
“Never!” Bax said. His voice cracked.
Elliott said, “Right. Okay. Just checking.”
“Never,” Bax insisted. A lump formed in his throat, and he dug his fingernails into his palms. He hadn’t turned other things to stone. His magic didn’t work that way.
“What if it was a prank?” Willa asked. “Principal Gonzalez said something about the eighth graders, how they prank the school every year. They said they didn’t do the stones, but would they admit it if they did?”
“When my sister was in eighth grade,” Sebastian commented, “the eighth-grade Flickers made all the toilets disappear. I mean, they were still there, but nobody could see them. Then people stopped flushing after they used them, because that was the only way they could see where the toilets were. Everything got really disgusting.”
Andres called down from the ceiling. “The rocks weren’t an eighth-grade prank. My sister, Carmen, is in eighth now and she swears it wasn’t.”
“Is she trustworthy?” Elliott called up.
Andres huffed. “She’s in the honor society!”
“So we’re right back where we started,” Nory said. “It wasn’t us, but it looks like us, because no one else has wonky magic.”
“Don’t say wonky,” Willa said automatically. “Say unusual.”
Bax felt itchy.
It seemed like Elliott secretly thought it was him. It seemed like everyone secretly thought it was him.
But it wasn’t.
* * *
At tutoring, Coach wanted to talk to Nory. And only Nory.
Bax was not surprised.
“The mitten was exciting, and I’m happy to know you can do it, but let’s face it,” said Coach, “you could get squashed. And most people don’t master insect forms until college, if they do them at all. There are a lot of complications. So let’s see that dritten of yours again.”
Nory bit her lip. “I think I should work on just plain kitten some more. So I can learn to stop other animals from popping out.”
“No, no. Do dritten,” Coach said.
“I don’t want to fire-breathe on you. If you want something upside-down, I guess I could do the squippy again.”
“Dritten!” barked Coach.
“He wants you to practice it for kittenball,” Bax muttered. “He wants a winning team.”
Nory shrugged. Then, with a popping noise and a whoomp, she fluxed. Her black kitten body was glossy, and her whiskers were perky. It wasn’t long, though, before the wings sprouted from her back and filled the room with a rushing sound as they flapped and lifted her up. Her claws popped out. Her teeth looked dangerous.
Bax sucked in his breath. Dritten-Nory wasn’t that big, but she was scary.
“Go, Nory!” Coach cheered.
Dritten-Nory did not seem to have control of her human mind. She knocked over a case of kittenball trophies with the tip of her powerful wing. She flared her kitten nostrils, opened her mouth full of dragon teeth, and breathed fire at Coach’s shoes.
“Wow!” Coach said. He hopped from foot to foot, and the smell of burnt leather filled the room. “You see that, Bax? Fire!”
Bax walked glumly over to the fire extinguisher and sprayed the carpet.
At the sound of the extinguisher, Dritten-Nory scrambled her kitten paws in the air as if trying to swim. Then with a thump, she fell hard to the floor.
She was in girl form again.
“Fantastic!” Coach said.
“I wasn’t in control,” Nory cried. “I almost hurt you.”
“The kitten body was fully recognizable as kitten,” said Coach. “No one could argue. I’ll have to double-check the regulations, but the Twinkle Tidbits have a six-toed kitten on their team, so I don’t see that wings are any different.”
“I set your shoe on fire!” yelled Nory. “It is not safe to be a dritten!”
“Oh, we’ll get it sorted with practice,” said Coach. “Don’t be a worrywart. You’re going to be a kittenball legend, Nory Horace. Tigerball legend, I should say. Really, you could go pro with that thing.”
“What about Bax?” Nory said.
“What about who?”
Nory pointed.
“Oh! Him! Bax, yes!” Coach said.
Bax smiled grimly. Yep, me, the other person in the room. I just put out a fire on your foot and you still didn’t know I was here.
“What about him?” Coach said.
“What do you want him to do?” said Nory.
Coach faced Bax. “Flux, please.”
“Not today,” Bax mumbled.
“See?” Coach said to Nory. “I can give him carrot juice and flaxseed, certainly. But how can I help him if he won’t show me what he can do?”
“But it’s tutoring for both of us,” Nory said.
“Nory—” Bax said.
“No, Bax, for real,” Nory snapped. “You want to get your magic together. I know you do, because I know how much I want to get mine together.”
Bax got the lump in his throat again.
“Bax. Come on. Show him,” coaxed Nory. “So he can help.”
Nory and Coach waited. They kept their eyes glued to him.
“Can you flux for me, son?” Coach said. It was almost gentle.
Bax did want Coach’s help. He felt ashamed of wanting Coach’s help, but what else was new? He felt ashamed about turning into a rock, too. A deep heaviness filled Bax’s body. His bones felt stiff.
Then he fluxed.
* * *
The next thing Bax knew, he was in the nurse’s office.
Of course. As usual.
Coach was there with Nurse Riley. Nory stood there, too. “Coach said I should stay,” she explained, when Bax gave her a look. “He said we were a team, the three of us, and I should stick around.”
Coach put his hands on his legs and bent closer to Bax. He peered into Bax’s eyes. “Do you particularly like rocks?” he asked.
Bax shook his head.
“What about rock candy? Do you like rock candy?”
Bax looked at him funny. Nurse Riley did, too.
“What?” Coach said. “Rock candy has no nutritional value. None! If a child was to eat a lot of rock candy, who’s to say what might happen?”
“Does Nory eat a lot of kittens?” Bax asked. He hesitated, then went for it. “Do you?”
Nory burst out laughing.
“Fine, fine,” Coach said gruffly. “But nutrition could be a factor here.”
“I hadn’t considered that,” said Nurse Riley. “Maybe he can keep a food diary.”
Coach sat on a stool, his muscly bulk awkward on the small seat. “Bax. Let me get everything clear. No one knows why you flux the way you do. Is that what I’m to understand?”
Bax nodded.
“It’s happening more and more,” Nurse Riley added. He held up the Burtlebox and pursed his lips. “The doctor had this potion formulated just for Bax, and it does work. His parents give it to him at home as well. He takes it more often than I’d like, though. With these individual potions, you don’t always know how a person’s body will react with long-term use.”
“I’m fine,” said Bax. “It doesn’t bother me. It just tastes bad.”
Coach clapped his hand on Bax’s shoulder. It felt heavy and warm. “Listen here, son. I’ve not given you the attention you deserve, but we’re going to figure this out. Ms. Starr, Nurse Riley, and I are on your team! Teamwork is the answer in kittenball, and it’s the answer here as well.”
Bax wanted to believe him. He met Coach’s gaze.
“What does it feel like when you flux, son?” Coach asked.
“Before I flux, I feel heavy. Then I feel nothing. And then it hurts, after.”
“What do you mean, nothing?”
“I don’t feel anything,” Bax said. “I can’t hear, can’t move, can’t smell. It’s like I’m not even there. Not the me part of me.”
“Hmm,” Coach said. “You flux a lot by accident, but you can also choose to flux on purpose. Yes? Yes. That’s an excellent starting point. Are you always a rock?”
“Every time but once,” Bax said. He paused. “I fluxed into a leash—”
“A leash!”
“On purpose, too. Because Andres needed me.”
“It was amazing,” Nory said.
Bax blushed. “But I’ve never done that again.”
“How did you do it that one time?” Nurse Riley asked.
“I don’t know. I mean, I wanted to—and I just did. And then I got stuck, like always.”
Nurse Riley nodded.
“Here’s what we’re going to do,” Coach said. “First, I want you to write down what you eat and when you flux. Like a schedule, see? We can see if you have any allergies that are making it hard for you. After we check for allergies, I’m going to have you start eating seaweed and sardines and other high-nutrient foods. At the same time, I’ll teach you some tricks to help you hold on to your human mind as you flux. I have some ideas that might help. After that, you can work on doing that leash again, but this time, you’ll hold on to your human mind when you do it. Sound good?”
Bax nodded.
“I’m going to work with Ms. Starr on this,” Coach said. “It’ll get better, son.”
“Will it?” Bax said. He heard the hope in his voice, and his face grew warm.
Coach squeezed Bax’s shoulder. “It will.”
Coach left. Nurse Riley told Bax he wanted to take his temperature, but then another student came in, a Fuzzy who had gotten a very small toad stuck up her nose. Nurse Riley had to take her into the back room to extract it. He left Nory and Bax alone.
“So I guess we should keep food diaries,” Nory said, kicking her feet as she sat on the cot. “To see if we have allergies or need more protein to be good Fluxers, or whatever.”
“You don’t have to,” Bax said. “Coach said just me.”
“It’s only fair that we both do it,” Nory said. “Though maybe I’ll write down that I’m eating a regular diet of kittens, just to mess with Coach.”
Bax smiled. “I’ll write about eating gravel.”
“Ew.”
“What about puppies? And goats? And squid? Are you gonna tell him you eat those, too?”
“Of course,” Nory said. “Also dragons. But only, like, once a week.”
“Careful with dragons,” Bax warned. “I hear they’re really spicy.”
They both started laughing.
Nurse Riley returned to the room. “What’s so funny in here?” he asked. He held a tiny toad in a pair of tweezers. He put it gently into a small plastic terrarium with air holes.
“Nory, don’t eat that toad, please,” said Bax. “It’s supposed to go back to the Fuzzy lab.”
“I wouldn’t eat that one,” said Nory, giggling. “That one’s been in someone’s nose! Don’t be gross.”
Nurse Riley shook his head as he took Bax’s temperature on his forehead. “Your temperature’s healthy,” he said. “Though your brain is maybe deranged.”