Rippler (11 page)

everyone, not like a huge raid on any one person. I mean, you could walk through walls.”

He frowned. “Nah, that’s too much like something my dad would do. I take a pop-tart from someone, it’s stealing.”

I nodded, but I was pretty sure I’d have stolen the stupid pop-tart. My life was sheltered, easy. I’d never seen our fridge or pantry empty. Anytime I wanted something, I only had to mention it to Sylvia. I had never imagined things any different.

“Hey, Sam,” Will interrupted my ruminations, “you still want to walk through walls?”

My face lit up. “Heck, yeah!”

“I was thinking that could be a fun way to kick off our training, you know, like we talked about. Assuming we’re still on . . .”

“We’re totally on.” I needed practice, control.

We made plans for Will to give me a tour of Las Abs where he would show me some of

his favorite things to walk through. He felt that with my being newer at the whole thing it would be safer to do this at night. He also gave me homework, insisting that I practice rippling and reappearing on my own for a few days.

“Great,” I said. “Because it’s not like I’m going to get any homework today or anything.”

“We don’t want to repeat having you materialize inside anything. I want you to ripple away and practice telling yourself to look and make sure you’re clear first before you ripple solid,” he said.

I continued through the first day of school, gathering homework. At lunch, Will and I sat together, and today Gwyn joined us. She fluttered from clique to clique in our small high school, like she didn’t acknowledge the well-defined barriers the rest of us saw. And everyone just let it happen, because everyone liked Gwyn.

She sat and launched into the woes of being the daughter of Bridget Li. “Ma’s forcing me to take AP Biology,” she whined. “Which means I’m already behind. Did you guys know about the research project over the summer?”

Will nodded and I said, “Yes.”

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” she said, laying her head down on the table in mock despair.

“Buy a really good paper online?” I suggested.

“Sam!” Gwyn raised her head and glared at me.

“Just kidding,” I said.

“You can join Sam and me, on our project,” said Will.

Gwyn beamed at him. “I knew there was a reason I sat down here,” she said, unwrapping her sandwich. “Great. Organic PB-n-J on whole grain bread. Again.” She stared longingly at my preservative-laden ham and swiss on sourdough.

“Just take it.” I passed her my sandwich.

All that week I practiced, getting ready for our Sunday night rippling “class.” Control meant secrecy. Secrecy meant safety from whoever wanted me dead. It didn’t hurt that I expected to have some fun learning this control.

My dad was down in the Valley with one of the berry farms. Sylvia gave me an 11:30

PM curfew, more than generous seeing as I was crashed out most nights by 9:45.

Will came by for me as the sun was setting.

“There’re all kinds of places for brick walls; there’s Bridget and Gwyn’s for a rock wall

—did you know they live in the town’s oldest building?” asked Will.

I nodded as he continued.

“And the school cafeteria has those big glass windows that are almost like walls. I think you’ll like glass a lot. Then we could try the gym for cinder-block; I don’t know if you’ll
like
it, but it’s interesting.”

I realized how nervous I felt now that we were actually going to do this. I mean, we were talking about walking through
solid objects
here. I thought we could avoid a disaster like at the creek, but it was still a sobering reminder that Will didn’t know everything.

He glanced over at me as we pulled into the Murietta Park parking lot. “You okay, Sam?

You’re so quiet.”

“I’m scared.”

“I thought ahead. Check this out.” He pulled out the small camera he’d taken on our trip to Yosemite.

My heart fell to the bottom of my stomach. “You’re going to film this?”

“No, I have some footage of Illilouette Creek to calm you. Water, right?”

“You’re a genius.”

He shrugged. “You know the willows here in the park? Well, they’re not exactly a wall, but the branches form a solid mass, and you like running your hand through them, so I’m thinking maybe we could start there?”

I smiled. “Perfect.”

We walked across the parking lot to the willow cluster. Will turned on the camera. It was dark now: the screen threw off light like a flashlight.

“I’m setting this to loop continuously,” he explained, pushing buttons.

“Would you mind going first, just so . . . I don’t know; I think it would be easier if I watched you first.”

“Sure.” Will smiled and turned to the trees.

A breath of wind passed us, and the willows rustled in response, a whispering chorus.

Will approached the murmuring branches, faded and was gone.

He reappeared seconds later with a huge smile. “You’re going to love it.”

“Yeah, okay.” I held out the camera where I could see it.

“The camera is going to go invisible at the same time you do because you’re touching it.

Just a heads-up.”

I nodded. That would have distracted me.

“Oh, and Sam, one more thing.”

“Yeah?”

“Step away from the branches before you come back. In case branches explode like

water.”

I nodded, trying to smile. I looked at the tiny bright screen and saw the creek in miniature perfection. The water looked glassy-still, but as I watched, a pine needle cluster worked free from a rock and spun lazily into the current and out of the frame. The image rippled away. My invisible lips smiled, confidence coursing through me. I turned to the willows.

Leaves and branches tickled their way right through me. I wanted to giggle. I caught a scent component: greenish, damp, and full of life. Maybe it was even a flavor rather than a scent. I turned to take another pass—again, the fresh soothing taste passed through my mind.

Again, the willows shivered against me as I moved ghostly-smooth in my invisible state.

Incredible. I had to tell Will about it. I rippled solid.

“It’s like I have to invent words for what that felt like, and the incredible taste—wow!”

We tried out different words for the sensation of the willow branches as they passed through us: “prickly” and “needling” we rejected, “slithery” and “ticklish” worked.

“You’ll like passing through glass if you liked that,” he said. “But it’s too early to risk being seen in front of school. We should probably wait ‘til after midnight for that.”

“My curfew’s 11:30.”

“Oh. Right. So maybe we head over to the bakery now? You’ve got to try a rock wall.”

He grinned eagerly at me.

I nodded and we turned to walk down Main Street. “How did you figure out you could

walk through walls? That must have taken some nerve the first time.”

“My dad threw me at our fireplace when I was seven. Instinct kicked in and the next thing I knew I was invisible and sailing right through this screechy brick wall. I stood outside, trying to figure out what happened, and if I was dead or alive. A few days later, I got curious enough to try walking through.”

“Um, did you just say your dad
threw
you at a brick wall?”

“Yeah. He was pretty drunk.”

“You could have died. What was he thinking?”

He shrugged as we walked on. “He storms in one night shouting for money. I ripple and hide behind the couch ‘cause I’m scared. He grabs Mickie and puts her in a headlock and calls for Mom, saying how he’s gonna squeeze Mick’s brains out if Mom doesn’t bring him some money right
now
.

“I’m watching all this from behind the couch and Mom comes out of the kitchen and sees Mickie and freezes, tells him to let go of her, she’s a child, stuff like that. Dad’s shouting even louder how he knows she’s hiding a hundred thousand dollars somewhere in the house, and she better get it quick. She grabs an envelope she got at the bank that afternoon. I’d been with her and watched them count it out, and I know it’s only a couple hundred, so I’m getting pretty scared what he’ll do if he counts it. Plus Mickie’s face is a bad color, and I’m thinking he might actually kill her this time.”

Will paused to point me into the alley beside Bridget and Gwyn’s.

He continued. “Then after Mom gives him the money, he clocks her and she goes down

like a rag doll. I just lose it. I mean, I actually see
red
for a couple seconds. I ripple solid and charge him. I get a couple of good soccer kicks in on his shins before he even notices me. But when he sees it’s
me
hurting his shins, he drops Mickie like she’s on fire and grabs me. He doesn’t even take any swipes, just throws me at the fireplace.”

I realized I’d been holding my breath and let it out.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Me? Sure, I’m fine. I didn’t have to
live
that. Geez, Will. And how’d you turn out like, one of the nicest people I’ve ever met when you had all
that
to deal with?”

Will shrugged. “Growing up with my dad around, I knew exactly what I
didn’t
want to be
.
With Mom, we always knew what it meant to be loved. Maybe it would have been different without her. I wish you could have met her.”

“Me, too.”

It felt like peeling through an onion-skin layer of honesty.

Will punched me on the shoulder. “Nicest person you ever met. Give me a friggin’

break.”

The rawness of the moment passed.

“You up for some breaking and entering, without the breaking?” asked Will.

I smiled, letting the weight of his story slide off my shoulders.

Will said he could go first, and I nodded. I still needed proof that this was possible.
Of
course you won’t actually see him do it—he’ll be invisible
, a part of me said. But even as I heard that small voice, I realized that the truth was I trusted Will, completely.

“Here goes nothing.” He winked at me as he rippled.

A minute later he rematerialized, beaming like a kid with a new bike.

“Rock walls are so sick! Wish our house was made of rock. Okay, you go now.” He

reached down to switch the camera to the creek video again.

I held the camera in front of me. I was calmer and this time I rippled right away.

Walking through a wall didn’t sound like a strange idea anymore. I felt invincible. The feeling seemed to accompany rippling. Without fear, I passed into the wall of Bridget’s bakery kitchen.

The flavor was sand. Or what a river-beach would smell like on a warm day. Dry, a bit of desert-dustiness to it. The physical echoes were harder for me to place. I ran my hand back through the wall again and decided that if I were an hour-glass with sand running through me, this might be how I’d feel. It was unmistakably pleasant—Will had that right—almost like something I’d felt some other time, but I couldn’t place when or where. Then I laughed. It was almost exactly like the feeling of sand as I poured buckets over my hands when I was little.

I passed back through the wall, a delicious whisper of sand, and saw kids loitering at the mouth of the alley. I wanted to tell Will how right he was about rock walls. As I waited for the kids to leave, I moved closer to Will, leaning against him, which I figured would freeze him in an obvious way and let him know I’d passed back into the alley.

He grunted a small laugh. He knew I was here. We waited for the loiterers to leave. I moved away from Will and spun on one foot, flinging my arms out like an ice-skater. The lack of resistance against whatever “me” existed felt so cool. If I were visible, I’d be doing perfect spirals. I continued spinning, never dizzy, but very aware of the sense that my arms and even my ponytail were flung out from me in some “real” sense. I scooted closer to the wall so I could pass through the falling-beach-sand sensation while spinning

He called to me, a stage whisper, “Sam—they left.”

I prepared to ripple back solid beside the corner of the building, spinning one last time and noting the same sensations that my invisible body had reality, from toes to pulled-back hair.

Just as I came solid, a shotgun report blasted out, so near it deafened me. A rain of fine gravel and small rocks followed the sound.

I yelled in pain as a rock caught my jaw and another clipped my shoulder.

Will grabbed for me, trying to pull me away from the shower of debris. “Your hair,” he said. He pointed to a small hole blasted through the wall of Bridget’s kitchen, right beside the corner. Several cats were growling behind us—a low, eerie noise.

I didn’t see the connection between the wall and my hair. And then I did see it. “My ponytail did that?” I asked, pointing to the hole.

“It was ‘in’ the rock wall as you materialized,” he said. “Your hair displaced the wall.”

I cringed, imagining what could have happened if it had been my arm or leg.

We heard shouting. Perhaps ten seconds had passed after the explosion. “Over there: the alley,” shouted a deep, male voice.

Within seconds, a police car siren wound to life.

“Let’s ripple. Now,” said Will, vanishing.

I tried to still my heart. “I don’t think I can,” I said to thin air.

Will reappeared, looking around for additional ways to escape.

There were none.

Chapter Ten

ROCK STAR

We were blocked in, buildings on either side of us, an eight-foot fence running the width of the dead-end alley before becoming the back-side of the cat kennels. Cats yowled, making freaky noises I didn’t think should come out of a cat. The police car approached, lights bouncing into the alley.

“I’ll hide in the cat kennels,” I said. “You ripple!”

I dashed to the closest one, lifted the latch, and let myself in. I saw Will hesitate. What was he doing? I watched through the tiny cat kennel windows, one on each corner. Will took a running leap at the fence, grabbed the top, and hauled himself up, lit by oncoming headlights.

The patrol car paused for a moment as Will disappeared over the fence. Then the vehicle backed out of the alley rapidly, tires squealing as it raced down Main to catch him on the other side.