The UDM kids met up after school at the pizzeria by the corner store. All eight kids squeezed into one booth. They were squished, but together. They ordered pizza.

Nory was happy. She liked that she got to be next to Elliott, and he was being fun instead of secretive. He froze her lemonade into a slushie when the waiter wasn’t looking.

“Sebastian, scooch over,” said Marigold. She was squashed between Sebastian and Andres.

“Don’t scooch,” said Bax, who was on Sebastian’s other side. “You’re already poking me with the dog cone you’re wearing.”

Sebastian’s hand went to the white plastic cone around his head. It looked like one of the contraptions dogs wore when recovering from surgeries, because that’s exactly what it was. Nory knew because she’d read the price sticker, which Sebastian had forgotten to peel off. It read: DOG CONE, XXL, $7.99. PET VILLAGE.

Sebastian swung the cone around so his face could look at Bax. “It’s a head cone,” he said, “since I wear it around my head.”

Bax cocked his eyebrow. “Dogs wear them around their heads.”

“But I’m not a dog,” Sebastian said. He lifted his chin. “I’m a human.”

Nory turned to Sebastian. “Do you have to wear it while you eat?”

“Today’s my first day to try it,” Sebastian said. “I have to get used to it, like people do with glasses.”

“You don’t have to get used to glasses, actually,” Pepper said.

Sebastian twisted toward her. As he moved, his cone tipped over a shaker of Parmesan cheese.

“Pepper’s right,” Marigold said. She tapped her own ear. “You shouldn’t have to get used to it. With my hearing aid, I turn it on, and it works.”

Sebastian swung his head the other way to look at Marigold, since the cone didn’t allow him any peripheral vision. “My head cone is an experiment,” he said. “I’m working on my upside-down magic by thinking outside of the box, like Ms. Starr said.”

“Out of the box and into the cone,” Bax said.

Sebastian whipped around, and his cone whacked Bax’s cheek.

“Ow,” Bax said. “Seriously, dude? You can’t just take it off for ten minutes?”

Sebastian exhaled. “The cone blocks sound waves that come in from the sides, so I don’t get distracted. Think of how a horse wears blinders so that he only focuses on what’s in front of him. This is the same thing, but with sound. If it works, I am thinking I could wear it in super-loud situations, instead of my blindfold.”

“Andres, since Sebastian won’t take off his cone, would you mind going up to the ceiling?” Marigold asked. “Then we can spread out, and you’ll be more comfortable, too.” Marigold was squashed between Sebastian and Andres, who was wearing a backpack of bricks and was held down by a web of bungee cords looped around his chair and threaded through the table legs.

Andres grabbed the napkin dispenser as if it might help weigh him down. “Go up to the ceiling in front of strangers? No way!”

“What are you going to do at the kittenball game?” Pepper asked. “The arena has bleacher seats.”

Andres paled. His gaze went far off, as if imagining himself floating above the slick, flat benches, his leash and his bungee cords dangling from him like streamers.

“We can get more bricks for his backpack,” Nory said. But she felt her stomach squeeze. She hadn’t really thought about Andres at the game.

“Then it’ll be too heavy for anyone to carry over there,” Andres said, shaking his head. “Maybe I should stay home.”

Nory’s heart sank.

“Sebastian?” Marigold said. “What about your head cone? Are you wearing that to the game?”

“I am committed to my head cone,” Sebastian said. “What don’t you understand about that?”

Elliott put down his pizza crust. “Nory, maybe all of us going to the kittenball game isn’t such a great plan.”

“No!” Nory cried. She clapped her hand over her mouth. She had never spoken so sharply to him before. “I mean … I mean …”

“The Sparkies are already out to get us,” Marigold said flatly. “If we show up with a dog cone—”

“Head cone!”

“—and bungee cords and bricks …” She ripped her napkin in half, then in half again. “It’s a nice idea, all of us sticking together, but something’s going to go wrong.”

“Come on,” Nory said. “We’ll be showing school spirit, which will help prove we’re no different than anyone else at Dunwiddle.”

“Except we are different,” said Marigold. Her gaze flicked to Sebastian, and then to Andres. She stared at her napkin. “Everyone can see it, and we might do some damage. What if I shrink someone?”

“Marigold’s right,” Elliott said. “It’s too risky.”

Nory turned a pleading gaze on Pepper, then remembered that Pepper had already said she wouldn’t be attending the game—and for good reason. She would fierce the kittenball players.

Were the others’ reasons just as good?

No.

Maybe.

“Coach says a team is only as strong as its weakest player,” Nory said, hating the wobble in her voice.

“Well, I’m the weakest, then,” said Andres, loosening his cord and sliding carefully out of the booth, holding on to the table as his feet floated a couple of inches off the floor. “And I’m sorry, but I’m going home.”

Elliott slapped money on the table. He squirmed past Nory and out of the booth, then took hold of Andres’s leash.

Marigold put money down, too. “Mr. Vitomin is your coach, not mine,” she told Nory. “And I don’t think I’m being weak. I think I’m being smart.”

*  *  *

In the end, only Bax, Nory, Sebastian, and Willa went to the game. The kittenball arena was only a couple of blocks from school and the pizzeria. The high school used it, too. It was bigger than Bax had imagined, given that the actual kittenball field was only the size of a living room. Lots of people brought binoculars.

Older Flyers zoomed and zipped across the top of the arena, trailing school banners. “Milk! Tuna!” Fuzzies yelled, holding out cat treats at the edge of the field. Part of kittenball tradition was that Fuzzies clustered on the sidelines, trying to distract the players of the opposing teams. Laser pointers had been banned. So far today, the players had kept their human minds and hadn’t been tempted by the Fuzzy magic.

“Oh, zum-zum,” Nory muttered, nudging Bax with her elbow. She jerked her head.

Ugh. The Sparkies were sitting down next to them. Bax saw Lacey, Rune, and Zinnia, plus their recruits from the tree house. Lacey had her petition with her.

“You’d think she’d give it a rest,” Nory whispered into Bax’s ear.

“She’ll never give anything a rest,” said Bax. “She is not a restful girl.”

“They must be plotting something. They wouldn’t sit by us if they weren’t,” said Sebastian. He was wearing his head cone and had to turn his whole body every time he wanted to see anything.

Nory clenched her hands into fists and leaned forward. “How come you’re here?” she asked Lacey directly.

“To cheer on our kittenball team,” Lacey said sweetly. “Why else?”

“Right,” said Willa. “I highly doubt that.”

No grown-ups were around, but Lacey lowered her voice anyway. “We’re going to flush you out. Won’t that be fun?”

“Sit back,” Bax said to Nory under his breath. “Don’t let her get to you. That’s exactly what she wants.”

“Everyone is here at the kittenball game,” said Lacey, as falsely pleasant as ever. “The fluxing teachers from all the grades. The principal, the vice principal. Ooh, I can even see the guidance counselor, two Flare teachers, a Flyer teacher, and two lunch-duty ladies. There are some high schoolers here, too, and loads of parents. I sure hope nothing wonky happens at this kittenball game! Because if it does, every single person will see who’s to blame.”

Bax thought about the spying day, on Andres’s birthday. He should have realized the Sparkies would try something like this. Here, where parents and school administration would all see. Marigold was right.

“Nory,” Bax said. “Let’s move to a different part of the arena.”

“No way,” Nory said. “These are really good seats. If we move we’ll be way in the back. We can’t let them scare us.”

Lacey waved her petition. “We’ll get more signatures than we need, and Principal Gonzalez will have to listen to us. You’ll see.”

Below on the field, the referee spoke into a microphone. She wore a leopard-print shirt. “Welcome to the Twinkle Tidbits versus the Dunwiddle Catnips! Let the middle school kittenball season officially BEGIN!”

The crowd cheered.

Sebastian grimaced. “Oh, ow, the visible sound waves. My head cone is not going to be enough if everyone is cheering and shouting into that microphone.” He took his head cone off, unlatching a clip at his neck and setting it on the floor by his feet. “I’m going to have to switch to the blindfold. Wait. Wait. Where’s my blindfold?” he asked, patting his pockets.

The crowd started yelling.

Who’s gonna pounce? CatNIPs CatNIPs

And who’s gonna rule? CatNIPs CatNIPs

We swat so sweet, admit defeat!

You cannot beat

our Catnip!

“Have you seen my blindfold?” Sebastian asked his friends. “It was in my back pocket but now I can’t find it. My eyes are really hurting with this cheer.” Nory and Willa started looking around on the floor of the bleachers. No luck.

Oh!

Bax spotted the blindfold in Rune’s hands. Rune must have pickpocketed Sebastian! Now he was shoving the blindfold into his backpack. When he pulled his hand back out, he held a pair of maracas.

“Have a look at these sound waves, wonko!” Rune cried, switching one of the maracas to his other hand and banging them together. Sebastian hunched down, overwhelmed. Zinnia got out a triangle and jangled it around. Lacey shook a set of jingle bells. Sebastian covered his eyes and let out a low moan. He needed his cone or his blindfold, but he wasn’t wearing either.

People started to stare.

Then a whistle blew, and everyone turned their attention to the kittenball field. The kittens faced off. Their spines arched. Their tails quivered. The Dunwiddle Catnips wore bright red collars. The Twinkle Tidbits wore yellow.

“Here, kitty, kitty!” the referee cried. She tossed the red yarnball high.

Fur flew. The kittens pounced and rolled, darted and dodged. They swatted the ball and tail-whacked. One of the Dunwiddle kittens pounced on a Twinkle calico, and the calico fluxed into a dazed twelve-year-old girl.

“Out!” the referee yelled, pointing at the girl. She pointed next at the Dunwiddle kitten. “And you, watch those claws! One foot of yarn penalty!”

A new kitten went in for Twinkle, too—it was the six-toed wonder. Wow, that kitty could swat the ball. Bax got a kick out of watching Nory, who leaned forward with bright eyes. There was an amazing whack! And a pounce! Now the yellow yarnball was in play and Dunwiddle was fighting back with a paw kick that sent the yarn unrolling across the playing field. Go, Catnips! Go, Catnips!

Bax got caught up in the game, too. Until he heard the singing.

“Rain, rain, go away, come again another day!”

It was the Sparkies. They had surrounded Willa and Sebastian. They were singing and singing, banging their instruments. They splashed Willa with water from a water bottle. “Rain, rain, go away!”

Willa blinked rapidly. Her cheeks grew pink. She tried to scoot away, but the Sparkies leaned in closer. Sebastian was still rocking with his eyes shut.

“Stop it!” Bax yelled. “Leave them alone!”

“Rain, rain, go away! Come again another day!” the Sparkies sang.

“Don’t rain, Willa!” Nory interrupted. “Don’t give them the satisfaction.”

But the Sparkies kept singing.

And Sebastian kept rocking.

Willa covered her ears.

Bax’s chest tightened. Then the skin of his face tightened. Then his bones tingled in a way he recognized, and he went from helpless to terrified.

No, he told himself. Do not flux.

He flattened his hands on the bench. Deep breath. Hold the flame, just in case, but do. Not. Flux.

Oh, no. Oh, wow. He hadn’t fluxed, but the stadium bench, on which he was pressing down, changed from ridged plastic to hard gray limestone.

Bax jerked his hands away, but the shift of bench into stone continued, moving out from where Bax’s hands had been.

It turned to stone under Willa. And Sebastian. And everyone beyond.

The floor beneath their feet changed, too! The wood became granite, and everything on the floor turned into rock. Backpacks, jackets, drink cups. Nothing changed that was connected to people, but belongings that weren’t—cameras, phones, purses—all turned to stone. The transformation rippled through the arena.

It was as clear as sunlight to Bax that he was responsible.

He had started this. He hadn’t meant to do it—but he, Bax, was guilty.

“Nory!” Bax called out. “Nory, I have to get out of here!”

His words were swallowed by the rising tide of confusion. Toddlers wailed when their stuffed animals went from soft to hard. People’s drinks turned to concrete. A flurry of voices rang out.

“What’s happening?”

“My purse!”

“My coat!”

“The car keys are in there.”

“My money is in there.”

Bax jumped to his feet. He tugged on Nory. She turned to him.

“It’s me!” Bax said.

“What?”

He had to yell. “It’s me! I started it, and it’s rippling out. I’m the one turning things to rocks!”

Nory’s face looked so shocked that Bax stopped breathing.

Then he made himself inhale. He pushed through the crowd. He reached the parking lot and started to run.