Zoe versus the sparkles

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 and stepped on a specific part of it … could he steer where the sparkle sent him? Where did he come from? Why did his clothing look so strange?

One thought, though not a question, kept coming around more often than any other. A single thought that gave her a tiny glimpse of hope for her own future. Someone else out there could see the sparkles and touch them. There was someone else like her. She wasn’t alone anymore!

Dumping her bike to the ground, not bothering with the lock, she charged over to inspect the huge sparkle herself. Aside from being really, really big, it wasn’t all that remarkable. There were the usual flashy bits of every imaginable color, but there were also the streaks and blobs and strange shapes that Zoey expected in a larger sparkle. After only a minute of study, she decided they were moving in the normal way and she couldn’t find a spot where something seemed to be missing.

Could the boy have touched the sparkle and not changed it? This was something Zoey had never even thought of. Every time she touched one, at least every time she’d checked, it was gone; used up or moved on to somewhere else. But this one looked like it had always been like this.

After another fifteen minutes of staring at the sparkle, with the occupants of every car that passed staring at her, she picked up her bike and rode the rest of the way home. She was still trying to understand what happened and barely watching for sparkles at all. Luckily, none were around to mess with her life.

Once she got home, the rest of the day was a complete write off. She couldn’t concentrate long enough on anything to get her homework done well. With what she did finish, she wasn’t looking forward to class tomorrow, but knew that repeated efforts wouldn’t make it much better. At dinner, she was distracted and had a hard time following the conversation. After cleaning up, she watched a movie with her dad but really didn’t know what went on. In bed, after her mom had tucked her in, she stared at the ceiling for what felt like hours, thinking about that boy and trying to remember all the details of his appearance.

He’d been about her size, maybe a little taller, and slim of build. His skin was darker than anyone she went to school with, really anyone she’d ever met. His hair looked cut short under a wrap of purple and orange that matched the robes he wore. And sandals on his feet. Leather sandals. Not the clothing someone local would wear in the fall with the first dusting of snow due in a month. And jewelry. He’d been wearing metal bangles at his wrists and ankles. They must have been cold on his skin.

Eventually, far later than normal for her, she fell asleep and had dreams of sparkles and the strange boy.

Monday morning came and Zoey groaned when her phone beeped and beeped to let her know it was time to get up. She felt as if she hadn’t slept at all but dragged herself from bed and went through her morning routine, checking everything for sparkles even through the fog of tired thoughts.

Zoey could barely keep her eyes open through math class when they were going through yet another distance/rate/time problem. At least they were getting more difficult, but even these new and harder ones only took her about a minute to solve. She was staring blearily out the window after solving the latest one when the strange boy’s head appeared over the sill. He was staring straight at her. When their eyes met, he ducked back out of sight, but Zoey’s heart was racing. How had he found her? Where did he come from? Did he use another sparkle to travel -

“Zoey Solis!” Mr. Berger called out, far more loudly than she’d ever heard him say before.

Zoey blinked and looked around the room to find every other student staring at her, a couple smiling or nudging those beside them.

“Huh?” Zoey asked, looking back to her teacher. “Sorry, Mr. Berger. I was…”

“Daydreaming.” Mr. Berger crossed his arms. “I was asking how you would go about solving this problem.” He tapped at the board with the piece of chalk in his hand.

“I … um … the … and …” Zoey stammered before looking back down at the notes she’d made.

“Well,” she continued. “This one is harder because you have three cars instead of two. But it really comes down to understanding the question. We’re asked when the three cars will all be in the same parking lot. When. That means it’s a time problem, see?”

Mr. Berger nodded once, and Zoey went on.

“So … we need to figure out the time value for each of them and whichever is the longest, that’s your answer.”

“And,” Mr. Berger prompted.

“And the first one is two point three hours, the second is three hours even and the third is one and a half hours. So, the answer is three hours because that’s when the last one arrives.”

“How long did it take you to find that answer, Zoey?” Mr. Berger asked as her classmates continued to stare.

“Ummm … a minute,” Zoey answered. “Maybe.”

Mr. Berger sighed heavily.

“Please return to daydreaming, Ms. Solis.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Berger. I, um, I didn’t sleep well last night.”

The rest of her classes were about the same. Zoey found it hard to concentrate and when called upon, stumbled over answers and two teachers gave instruction to spend more time on her homework. The only thing that kept her awake through the day was watching the windows. The boy appeared at least once during every class! Peering through the window to watch her, but always ducking away as soon as she saw him.

On her walk home, she kept looking all around, both for sparkles and for the boy. She saw him once and tried to catch up to him, but he vanished before she got to where he’d been. The second time she saw him, she called out and waved a hand, but he vanished anyway. Four times she saw the boy, each time making her a little angrier. Why wouldn’t he stop and say hello? Why was he always running away from her? She had so many questions!

The fifth time he disappeared on her, she had had enough. She stared at the spot where he had been for a whole minute then slowly raised a foot over a little sparkle on the sidewalk. When his head popped up from behind a fence, she stomped down. For the first time in her life, she deliberately touched a sparkle.

Blink.

The sparkle had been pretty small, so she didn’t expect to travel far. On looking around, she found that she’d only traveled a couple of blocks and, luckily, was closer to home than she had been. With a little smile that she’d outwitted the boy following her, she set off down the street on her way home. It was less than a minute later that the boy’s head appeared at the side of a hedge, watching her all over again.

How did he know where she went? How could he possibly follow her through the sparkles? This boy either had the best luck ever or knew how the sparkles worked. She glared at the boy for a moment, then stomped on another little sparkle.

Blink.

This time, she didn’t bother figuring out where she was. She just started looking around for the boy to reappear. Again, it was less than a minute before he was watching her. Enough of this, she told herself and stepped on another sparkle.

Blink.

Another sparkle.

Blink.

Blink.

Blink.

Ha! she thought to herself, feeling smug. Now let’s see you find me.

That’s when she heard a growl behind her. The deep, angry growl of a big dog.

She turned slowly, finally looking around at the wrecked cars and old appliances littering the area, and saw Rubbish, the dog that crazy old Mr. Mackintosh kept in his junkyard on the edge of town. Rubbish was staring at her, his eyes almost level with her own, and had his lips pulled back to expose yellowing teeth.

She took a step back. The dog followed. A quick glance around told Zoey that there was nowhere to hide. Rubbish bunched his legs, preparing to leap at her, and Zoey just closed her eyes, waiting for the bites she knew were coming. She heard the scuffle of little rocks as the dog charged … then felt a hand on her shoulder.

Blink.

Chapter the Seventh