Chapter the First
Zoey was late for school. Again. She hurried along, the book bag over her shoulder bouncing against her hip, but kept a careful eye on the sidewalk in front of her. One encounter with a sparkle had cost her twenty minutes. Who knew how long a second would set her back?
Chapter the Second
Blink.
Zoey had read a lot of books from her father’s library. She’d read fantasy and science-fiction and mystery and fiction and strange not-like-any-of-the-others. In some of them, she’d read how the world spun under the main character’s feet, or how everything went sideways or how the ground dropped away.
Chapter the Third
Leaving earlier the next day combined with the careful avoidance of three different sparkles on the way got Zoey to school nearly twenty minutes early. Mrs. Anand gave her a big smile when she walked in and took her seat.
Chapter the Fourth
Saturday afternoon and the skate park was packed. Zoey, just inside the treeline, watched dozens of kids riding their boards or standing around talking. Some rode bikes around the outside edges, waiting for their turn.
Chapter the Fifth
“You and your new friends walked a long way,” Zoey’s dad said as he drove along Hansler Road towards the lake.
“Yeah,” Zoey agreed, wishing once again that she didn’t have to make up stories to explain the sparkles. “We were laughing and joking, so it didn’t seem all that far.”
Chapter the Sixth
Zoey stood with her bike for a long time, just staring at the sparkle. What seemed a thousand questions were racing around in her mind so fast that she couldn’t get hold of any of them long enough to answer it. Why was the sparkle still here? Where had the boy gone to? If he was studying the sparkle for that long ...
Chapter the Seventh
Zoey opened her eyes and saw the boy, looking as terrified as she felt, holding on to her shoulder. She looked around and discovered that they were standing on the same spot where she’d first seen him, the huge sparkle still spread across the sidewalk in front of her.
Chapter the Eighth
“Zimbabwe,” Zoey said as scrolled through the page on her father’s bigger computer later that night after her homework was done.
“Oh!” she exclaimed as a picture
Chapter the Ninth
As soon as she was out of sight of her house and sure nobody was watching her, Zoey found a little sparkle just off the sidewalk. Thinking as hard as she could about the woods just outside her schoolyard, she stepped onto it.
Blink.