Sky Jumpers Book 2 (23 page)

My dad took a deep breath before answering. “We were watching the horizon. As a town, we agreed that
if we didn’t see any sign of you by three days ago, we’d evacuate.”

“What?” I said. “The entire town is in Browning?”

“Every last one of us,” my dad said. “They’ve been good to have us.”

Brenna came running up to us, ahead of the rest of Aaren’s family, and wrapped her arms around Aaren’s legs. “I missed you!” Then she reached out an arm to me, squishing the three of us together. “What did you bring me?”

“What? I—” Aaren fumbled.

“You didn’t let me go with you, and then you forgot about me?”

I rifled through my bag. “Of course we didn’t forget you.” I pulled out the piece of pavement I had found when I went to Downwind. It had almost completely slipped my mind. I hadn’t even shown it to Aaren or Brock. I put it in her hand and said, “We brought this back for you. It’s what the roads were made out of before the bombs.”

Brenna looked up at us as if she’d never seen anything so amazing. “Really? This is for me?”

I nodded, and she brushed her fingers across it a few times. After a moment, she said, “I was faking asleep when Mr. Williams came last night to tell Mom and Dad what happened. Mom freaked out.”

Aaren sighed. “She’s never letting me go anywhere again.”

I heard my name called. I turned to see Luke, standing as though he wasn’t going to walk any farther.

“Luke?” I said. “Are you—” But then I didn’t need to ask. I saw it in his eyes. “You’re not staying.”

He shook his head.

I tried not to be sad. I didn’t think he would stay anyway—he had a lost city of metal to find. “Will I see you again?”

“You will. I know you’re glad to be back home, but someday I’ll stop by to ask if you’re up to leaving again to make a world-changing discovery.”

“Do you promise?”

“I promise. We’ll race horses at an inappropriate time again soon.”

I reached out and shook his hand. “Deal.”

We stood next to the cracks in the earth, where Mr. Hudson and his team had crushed the seforium into powder, readying it to be spread in the crevices. Instead of looking in the cracks, though, I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the Bomb’s Breath. The gray that had looked like haze before was now so thick that I couldn’t see the sky above it. White Rock was thrown into shadows enough that it felt
like dusk. And it was so low! I knew that it was dropping at a continually faster pace and that it would be almost to the top of the tunnel—less than five feet above my head—by the time we got back. I just didn’t anticipate how suffocated it would make me feel.

“No wonder they evacuated,” Brock said.

I spotted a tree with an oddly shaped trunk that had the bottom of one branch below the Bomb’s Breath. The rest of it disappeared into the gray. As I kept my eye on it, I swore I could see the grayness lowering.

“Do you three want to throw in the first of it?” Mr. Hudson said.

I put my hands together and scooped up as much of the orange powder as I could hold; then Brock and Aaren walked with me to the edge of the crevice.

The three of us tossed our handfuls into the opening. The orange powder blew into a cloud as it fell to the bottom. Mr. Hudson’s team started shoveling the seforium along the entire length of the crevices, and we grabbed shovels and helped.

Once all of it was spread along the openings, my dad stood next to me and we both stared up at the Bomb’s Breath.

“I think it’s working!” Aaren called out.

I squinted up to the grayness in the Bomb’s Breath.
Was it getting lighter? It was so hard to tell. I found the tree I had been watching and kept staring at that bottom branch. “It is!” I yelled. “I can see it moving up!”

I was so happy, I wanted to shout that we did it to everyone
everywhere
. We all stood in silence, our heads toward the skies, watching as everything changed so slowly, we hardly noticed it was changing at all. Until we saw the blue sky again, peeking through the gray more and more.

My dad looked over at me. “You seem different now,” he said.

“It’s my new hairdo.” I smoothed my windblown hair, which I was pretty sure I’d never get a comb through again.

My dad touched my hair, as if it was some fascinating science experiment that Mr. Hudson had made. “Nope. That’s not it. I think it’s that you … look older.”

“Really?” I said.

He examined me closely, trying to guess what the change was. I wondered if he’d see that I figured out a lot of things about not giving up. And that I wasn’t just like my parents or just like my birth family—that I was somewhere in the middle. Or that I realized I might be good at discovering things, and that we made a discovery that might someday change the world.

Or maybe he couldn’t see past the windblown hair. I couldn’t blame him.

In many ways, writing book two in a series is more difficult than writing book one, and I relied on my core group of support so much more. A few people deserve greater thanks than I could ever do justice on a couple of pages.

Many thanks and much gratitude go to my family, especially to my husband, Lance, for all his help with brainstorming plotting, giving feedback, providing encouragement, generating ideas, showing unconditional love, covering for me each time writing took me away from home, and making me laugh (especially when I have “Tuesday Face”). I love you, sweetie! To my kids, Kyle, Cory, and Alecia—thanks for all the encouragement, the prayers, the laughs, the support, and the love. You are even more amazing than you know (and you already know you’re pretty amazing). To my siblings, for making sure
my life growing up was full of adventure (and only occasionally full of peril); my parents, for believing we were capable of doing big things on our own (and for going on dates every Friday night, leaving us to some creative boredom busting); and my sister Kristine for being the kind of adult that made me want her as a best friend (and a trusted assistant).

To my editor, Shana Corey, who is brilliant and insightful and kind and dedicated and isn’t afraid to suggest big changes that’ll make the book infinitely better—thank you times a million! (My book thanks you, too. It knows how much better it is under your direction.)

To my agent, Sara Crowe—thanks for being encouraging when I need encouragement, for being excited when I’m excited, for being calm when I’m stressed, and for being amazing all the time.

I’m grateful that Sky Jumpers found a home at Random House. I owe many people thanks for helping it get into the hands of so many readers. Especially Nicole Banholzer, my remarkable publicist, who is incredible and a joy to work with; Paula Sadler, who is delightful (and has the most beautiful handwriting!); Mallory Loehr, my phenomenal publisher; Nicole de las Heras, for her art direction; Alison Kolani, who is a fantastic copy chief; Adrienne Waintraub, for getting my book into school
libraries and promoting it at conferences; and sales, for all their tireless work.

Many thanks to my critique partners. To Erin Summerill, who is not only an impressive sounding board, but spunky, energetic, stylish, serious, lighthearted, and loyal, all wrapped into one. To Jessie Humphries, who is loving, happy, helpful, fun, and supportive (and doesn’t let a little thing like a six-hour drive stop her from being here anytime she’s needed). To Rob Code, the setting and arc master, and Jason Manwaring, emotion and logic savant. To Elana Johnson. Dude. I owe you so much more than cookies. If I listed all the ways you’ve helped over the years, it would take pages. Hulk smash! And Clint Johnson—you definitely should’ve been thanked in book one for being an insightful critiquer and helping a new author find her way. To Skipper Coates, scientist extraordinaire: your brain is incredible. I brought an armful of random geology-shaped puzzle pieces, and you helped me make a picture.

I’m privileged to be a part of some fantastic writing groups. A huge thank-you to the Lucky 13s, the League of Extraordinary Writers, Eight Times Up, all of the Story-makers, the Rock Canyon group, and the Writing Group of Joy and Awesomeness—you girls definitely live up to your name. Chantele Sedgwick, Katie Dodge, Ruth Josse, Kim Krey, Donna Nolan, Jeigh Meredith, Taffy Lovell,
Julie Donaldson, Sandy Ponton, Julie Maughon, Shelly Morris, Christene Houston, and Jamie Thompson—let’s laugh long into the night again soon.

Most of all, much gratitude to everyone who reads
The Forbidden Flats
. Your kind words and the way you’ve enthusiastically shared
Sky Jumpers
with your friends has meant the world to me. Thank you.

PEGGY EDDLEMAN
lives at the foot of the Rocky Mountains in Utah with her husband and their three kids. In addition to writing, Peggy has worked as a newspaper delivery girl, a software tester, a fast-food worker, a bank teller, a technical writer, and a tutor for fourth graders. You can visit Peggy online at
peggyeddleman.com
or on Twitter at
@PeggyEddleman
.