Wheels (4 page)

“Oh my God, my arm! My arm, McKenzie, my arm!”

“STOP!” McKenzie pressed her hands against her eyes, harder and harder until her eyes throbbed and her head ached.
I should have stopped it.
I should have tried harder!
I should have—

Chapter 4

FBI TRANSCRIPT 21205

Agent Wink Krumm and James Wu
Tuesday, April 7th

KRUMM
: Your wife did not survive.

J. WU
: No.

KRUMM
: She was pregnant, a boy I believe? And the fetus was…
deformed
?

J. WU
: Now just a minute!

KRUMM
: I’m merely stating facts. The child had no legs.

J. WU
: This is none of your business.

KRUMM
: My business? What would be my business? My personal log, my phone…
the diary
?

J. WU
: What diary?

KRUMM
: Funny, your daughter had the same response. Let me jog your memory. It was a Monday, ten days ago in which you, accompanied by two gentleman—no, let me be more specific, two aliens—

J. WU
: You’re in the wrong profession, Krumm; you should be writing science fiction.

KRUMM
: And you should have investigated your wife’s accident more thoroughly.

J. WU
: What?

KRUMM
: I have reason to believe your daughter, McKenzie, is…
dangerous
. Did you ever question her?

J. WU
: One more word about my daughter—

KRUMM
: I want it back. That’s all. My personal log, my phone, and the diary of Julianne Wells.

***

ALIEN SKIN & ACCIDENT VICTIMS

Monday, March 16th

M
cKenzie’s wheelchair shot backwards across the room, missing a chair before bumping into Principal Provost’s desk.

The box was glowing so brightly she was sure everyone in the school could see it. What’s more, there was a sound—a pounding, pulsing vibration—coming from the box.

Voices drifted into the room from outside the office door.

McKenzie popped up her desktop, grabbed her notebook and pencil and scribbled:

Why I Should Not Be Racing Down the School Hallway

Pencil poised, heart pounding, she waited. The voices were silent. McKenzie closed her eyes. Gone were the memories.

Lowering her pencil, she sighed. The room was quiet. The pounding had stopped. Blinking twice, she looked at the door and then at the box. It was still there. It was still real—an odd, little, pale-blue box. But it was no longer glowing.

What was happening to her? If she was going crazy, then thinking about it was making her crazier still.

McKenzie noticed a gray wastepaper basket beside the desk. She was about to toss an imaginary basketball through the air, then paused. After the game last night, Coach Nickels had threatened to bench her for good, claiming she wasn’t acting like a team player.
As if they’d even be in the finals without me.
She frowned. If Principal Provost kept her out of the game Saturday—
Oh, God!
Coach Nickels would be furious.

The office door slid open, and without a word, Hayes sauntered in. He plopped onto the chair in front of the principal’s desk.

McKenzie picked up her pencil. Tap-tap. Tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.

Hayes yawned, stretching his arms so wide that,
just for an instant,
his fingertips pressed against McKenzie’s shoulder.

Tap-tap, tap-tap-tap. McKenzie’s shoulder tingled. She grabbed the extra rubber band from her wrist and pulled her hair back while sneaking a glance at Hayes’ profile. He was smiling. No. Grinning. Laughing. He was laughing at her!

McKenzie dropped the pencil, ripped off a piece of paper, crushed it into a ball and took aim. “Need some paper?” 

“Hey there,” said Hayes, shielding his head with his arm. “I’m supposed to be recuperating.”

“Right! How can you rest? You’re the one who crashed into Principal Provost. You should be writing a paper, not me.”

Hayes turned his head just enough to fix McKenzie with one of his sappy, puppy dog looks. “I’m injured.”

McKenzie had to bite her lip to keep from laughing. Hayes’ forehead looked good. The cut was barely visible. Nurse Prickel had probably used skintape. Grandma Mir was always muttering about how skintape was like having alien skin grafted onto your body and “just you wait,” soon there’d be a whole population of accident victims walking around like zombies.

“So…” McKenzie was not ready to give up. “When’s the rematch?”

Hayes sat up and scooted his chair around to face her. “Rematch?”

“Nobody won that race.”

“What do you mean ‘nobody won’? I won.”

“You crashed. Automatic forfeit.” McKenzie smiled and stretched her arms as if she were now going to take a nap. “Ahhh….” She yawned. “Tell you what, Rudy, why don’t we ask Principal Provost what he thinks.”

“DON’T call me Rudy!”

“Rudy, Rudy, RUDY!”

“What’s going on?” Miss Chantos was standing in the doorway.

“Hey there, Miss C.” Hayes had gone from grimacing to grinning in one second flat.

McKenzie glanced at the box. Not exactly invisible, but at least it wasn’t pounding or pulsing.

“We were discussing…” McKenzie yanked the horn off her chair and held it out in front of her, “my paper. I’m supposed to give this to you,” she said, hoping to draw attention away from the box.

“How ‘bout we turn it down a notch,” said Miss Chantos. “Principal Provost is trapped—I mean, attending a short meeting in the library.”

McKenzie quietly slipped the horn into her armrest.

Miss Chantos favored McKenzie with a quick nod and then turned back to Hayes adding, “And let’s keep the door open. Shall we?”

The next few minutes passed in silence. Hayes scratched at the almost invisible wound on his forehead. McKenzie stared at her paper.

Finally, Hayes stood up. “You know,” he said, retrieving McKenzie’s paper ball from the floor, tossing it over his shoulder and into the wastebasket. “This is the first time I’ve been left alone in Principal Provost’s office.”

“Hello! What am I, invisible?”

Hayes ignored her and began creeping stealth-like towards the open doorway.

“I give it thirty-seconds,” McKenzie warned, watching the door slide shut. “And then, I’m telling Miss Chantos you did it.”

Hayes sauntered back, grabbed a piece of McKenzie’s hair and began twisting it around his finger. “This,” he said, gazing much too seriously into her eyes, “could never be invisible.”

For the second time that day, McKenzie felt herself blushing, and forgetting about the hair wrapped around Hayes’ finger, pushed herself away. “Ow, ow, OW!”

“Weird,” said Hayes.

“Sorry, would be more like it.” McKenzie rubbed her head and glanced at the door, surprised that Miss Chantos wasn’t already standing in it. By the time she looked back, Hayes was in front of the box.

The vein in her neck began to pulse. Until she’d touched it, somehow, someway, that box had remained hidden. McKenzie was sure of it. Now the particles that had covered it were gone.

Hayes was moving his hands through the air like a blind man feeling for the wall. It was all McKenzie could do to keep from racing across the room. “What are you doing?”

“It feels warm,” he murmured. “Coming…from this box.”

“Leave it alone!”

“Calm down. It’s here, see?” Hayes paused to define the area. “Out here it’s normal, but when you get here it’s warmer. I wonder—”

“STOP IT!”

Hayes jumped. “What the—!”

“Shhh…!” McKenzie pointed to the door. “It’s just I…I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Hayes’ eyebrow shot up.

“Anyway, you shouldn’t go around touching strange objects. I think it might be a—a space heater. Old! An old, old space heater. Which means you could, you know…burn yourself.”
Arghhhhh!

Hayes’ right eyebrow rose up to meet the left one. “Why, Miss Wu, I didn’t know you cared.” His face burst into a smile, the same smile he used to charm Nurse Prickel, Miss Chantos and every other female.

“Ugh!” McKenzie covered her face with her hands.
Starting tomorrow, no more racing—no nothing.
What did she care if Hayes could see the box? Or even touch it. Particles wouldn’t follow him.
Nothing would happen…

McKenzie’s hands drifted slowly to her lap. Hayes was already reaching for the box.

Or would it?

Chapter 5

FBI TRANSCRIPT 21203

Agent Wink Krumm and Principal B.R. Provost
Tuesday, April 14th

KRUMM
: For the record, please.

PROVOST
: B.R. Provost, Principal of Avondale High School.

KRUMM
: And B.R. would stand for—

PROVOST
: I’d rather not say.

KRUMM
: You’d rather not say?

PROVOST
: It’s embarrassing.

KRUMM
:
Ahhhh
…but it is for the record. The official record.

PROVOST
: Bewfordios—

KRUMM
: Bew-for-dios?

PROVOST
: But, you may call me Principal Provost.

***

DAYDREAMS & DILLY-DALLYING

Monday, March 16th

H
ow in Concentric’s name did I blunder into this?

Mary Boncher, head librarian and volunteer coordinator, had grabbed Principal Provost’s wheelchair as he left the band room, spinning him in the direction of the student resource center and gently, but firmly, reminded him of his promise to attend this year’s volunteer brunch. An affront not another human being within a thousand-miles would dare to commit.

He’d texted Miss Chantos to have McKenzie remain in his office. Meanwhile, he was stuffed between Mrs. Snipe and Ms. Nimrev, Avondale’s most enthusiastic busybodies, listening to a five-minute testimony on each and every volunteer’s efforts throughout the school year.

Time,
he thought
, I’ve wasted too much of it.
Loonocks
have gone by and I haven’t located Revolvos. Blast the old
cir
, wouldn’t it be just like him to be dead.

Mary Boncher’s mouth opened and closed, opened and closed, as a stream of unimaginative words spewed forth. Principal Provost thought about McKenzie. What could he possibly say to convince a fourteen-year-old Earthling that her destiny lay on a tiny planet in another solar system light-years away, saving a race of beings she knew nothing about? He shook his head. Plenty! But nothing that sounded sane.

If only Revolvos were here!

Mary Boncher continued to talk. Open and close. Open and close. Principal Provost’s eyes mimicked the action. Open and close. Open and close.
Revolvos, where are you?
Open and close. Open and close. Open and…

********

“What are you mumbling about, Bewfordios?”

“Don’t call me—WHAT? REVOLVOS? How did you get here? Oh dear, where IS here?

“It would appear that we’re in a cave.”

Principal Provost stared at his old mentor. Revolvos seemed to be in front of him, hovering immediately out of reach. Stranger still, he was hovering in some sort of reclining lounge chair. Revolvos, however, was right; they did appear to be in a cave. A dark, damp and…hummm, slightly sweet smelling cave. He had a vague notion that all this should surprise him. But why? Then it came to him, “I’m SUPPOSED to be in the library.”

“Perhaps you’ve fallen asleep,” said Revolvos.

“I’m dreaming? But I’m still in my wheelchair.”

“An outdated version by the look of it. I really should fix you up with one of our—”

“Yes, yes, of course, I AM dreaming!” said Provost. “It’s the only logical explanation. And that means you’re either dead or—”

“DEAD!” Revolvos looked outraged. “Of course, I’m not dead. Stop gaping, you make me feel as if I’m three hundred loonocks old.”

“Oh, you’re far older than that,” said Principal Provost. Although, the Revolvos who hovered in front of him didn’t look any older than the last time he’d seen him, which was over a hundred Earth years ago. But, of course, this was a dream, so why should he look older?

“What do you want, Bewfordios?”

“Stop calling me that. You know I prefer Provost. Anyway, this is my dream. ‘What do I want?’ Why…to get to the office and tell McKenzie about—wait! This isn’t a normal dream, is it?”

“Define normal.”

“It’s more vivid, more—why, I haven’t dreamt like this since I left
Circanthos
. Which can only mean one thing; you’re NOT dead.”

“Thank you.” Revolvos yawned and stretched his arms, as if feeling slightly confined in his hovering lounge chair.

“No, no. Don’t you see?
Circanthians
often talk to each other in dreams. Which means you must be alive and what’s more—close by!”

“And asleep,” said Revolvos, yawning. “You know, I believe I’m napping in one of those crazy human contraptions called an airplane. I’m feeling quite rested. Dear me, you’d best say what you came to say before I wake up.”

“Don’t rush me,” said Provost.

“Is that the Captain I hear speaking?”

“Right. Okay. Where to begin? After you went back to the
Isle of Iciis
and discovered the key to translating the
Circolar
—”