Has Anyone Seen Jessica Jenkins? (18 page)

“How did you know I was thinking . . . ?” Tom began. Then his eyes widened. “Oh, yeah. Jeez, that’s pretty impressive.”

“It’s called howlite,” I said.

Tom swallowed. “All right, then. I’ll take it,” he said.

“The howlite?”

“Uh-huh.”

And before I could stop him, he’d taken the crystal out of my hand.

We all stared at him in silence.

“Tom, you shouldn’t have done that,” I said. “It could do
anything
. We haven’t tested these. They could — ”

“I’ll be fine,” Tom said. “Don’t worry. There’s something about this one. . . .” He turned the howlite over in his hands. “It feels kind of right for me, if that doesn’t sound too stupid.”

It didn’t actually sound stupid at all. That was how I felt about my rose quartz. “Yeah, I know what you mean,” I said.

“Me too,” Heather agreed. Max gave a little nod as well.

Tom looked at the howlite in his palm. “OK, so that’s all sorted out,” he said. “Now what?”

Heather got up from her seat. “Wait a sec.” She went over to the drawers by the window. She opened the top one, pulled out a ball of string and a pair of scissors, cut a length of the string, and brought it over to us.

She put her hand out for the crystal. Tom gave it to her and she threaded the string through the hole in the middle and handed it back to him. “Here,” she said. “Put it on inside your shirt. Keep it next to your skin.”

Tom took the string necklace from Heather, tied it around his neck, and tucked the crystal under his shirt. “Now what do I do?” he asked. “Nothing’s happening.”

“You have to relax,” Izzy said. “Don’t think about anything.”

“Kind of empty your mind,” I added.

“Empty my mind?”

“Yup,” Max grunted. “Sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”

Tom thought for a moment. “Not really,” he said. “Some of the most important scientific breakthroughs in history have involved theories about emptiness. If quantum physicists can devote their lives to it, I’m sure I can spare a bit of my mind for it. I can try, at least.”

We all waited in silence while Tom closed his eyes and tried to relax. Probably not easy with the four of us staring at him, watching for something to change.

Nothing happened.

Tom opened his eyes and frowned. “Hmm, OK, let me try that again,” he said. He closed his eyes once more. This time, he took a couple of deep breaths and slowed his breathing down. We waited a full minute.

Still nothing.

“Maybe you’re doing it wrong,” Heather suggested carefully.

“It takes a while,” I added. I hadn’t really expected anything to happen right away. I mean, I’d had to practice for hours before I really got the hang of it. Mind you, this was Tom. He was the quickest person I knew at picking up a new skill.

Tom actually looked crestfallen. Maybe he’d been starting to like the idea of having a superpower after all. “Or maybe it’s not going to work,” he said. “Maybe the serum never got into my system. I should have known I wouldn’t — ”

“Do what you did at karate,” Izzy interrupted.

Tom squinted at her.

“When you went to karate classes in elementary school, you said you had to do a kind of meditation thing before you began. Remember?”

“Oh, yeah. The teacher said I was the best in the class at it.”

Izzy smiled. “Try that.”

Tom closed his eyes. I watched him for thirty seconds. Then his eyes were open again — and he was beaming.

Why was he looking so pleased with himself when it hadn’t worked — again? Maybe he was right after all. Maybe the serum
hadn’t
ever gotten into his system.

“It’s probably easier if you practice on your own,” Heather suggested. “I could never have learned how to do it if I’d been trying in front of other people.”

“And it’ll take longer than half a minute,” I added.

“I
gave
it longer than half a minute,” Tom insisted. He was still grinning. “I gave it about two minutes. None of you moved. Wait. I know what I’ll do. Are you ready?”

“Ready for what?” Heather asked.

“For . . . look, I’ll show you.” Tom turned to Max. “Max, what’s on the table?”

“Er, nothing,” Max said.

Had Tom lost it already? He couldn’t see that the table was empty?

“OK. Now, observe.” Tom closed his eyes and took in a slow, deep breath.

A moment later, his eyes were open. He
really
hadn’t gotten the hang of this. I was about to say so when I looked at the table. It was full of stuff: books, paintbrushes, a vase of flowers, all our bags.

I pointed at the table. “What . . . ?” I said. “I mean, like, where . . . ?”

The others stared.

“How did you do that?” Izzy asked. “How did you get all those things on the table?”

Tom gave her a sly smile. “I can’t be sure,” he said. “But I think I stopped time.”

It felt like hours before we all stopped staring at Tom and found our voices.

“You . . .” Heather began.

“Stopped time. Yeah,” Tom finished.

“But that’s, I mean, that’s . . . phew!” Max added helpfully.

“I spent all night practicing my power before I could do it that easily!” I protested.

Tom shrugged. “What can I say? I’m a quick learner.” His smile was infectious. “You were right. I
am
like you guys! I have a superpower, too!”

The end-of-lunch bell stopped our celebrations. We had five minutes until afternoon classes began.

“When are we going to get together again?” Heather asked as we picked up our bags and quickly scarfed our lunches.

“Tomorrow at lunch?” I suggested. No one disagreed. “Great,” I said, feeling a bubble of excitement at the thought of it. “See you all here again tomorrow, then.”

“Looking forward to it,” Heather said with another of those shy smiles.

“I can’t
wait
!” Tom beamed as he pulled his bag onto his shoulder. He was himself again, only better. More confident. “I’m going to practice nonstop till then!”

Max laughed. “And, hey, see you this evening, Jess,” he said, reminding me we still had to take the crystals back to the lab to keep Nancy from worrying about intruders. “Text me when you’re on your way and I’ll meet you on the bus.”

“Will do.”

As I headed into the afternoon’s double history class, I couldn’t help hoping that we weren’t going to be learning anything too important. There wasn’t the remotest chance of my concentrating on anything other than the crazy, the wild, the impossible, and the completely bizarre — aka my life.

That evening, Max and I were crouched behind a hedge — the same one Izzy and I had crouched behind when we’d first spotted Max. It was beginning to feel like my special spot.

We’d spent the bus ride going over what had happened at lunchtime and planning what we were going to do now. We’d decided the best strategy was to put the crystals back in various random places where they could easily have been overlooked.

We’d been behind the hedge for ten minutes now, scoping out the street and waiting for the perfect moment — or, to be more precise, building up the nerve to break into Max’s father’s secret lab.

“There’s no one around. The place is dead,” Max said. “Plus, my knees are hurting. Come on. Time to go for it.”

I had one more look down the street. Max was right. It was deserted.

“OK,” I agreed. “You’ve got the crystals and the bottle with the serum?”

Max patted his pockets. “Yep.”

“And you know the passcode?”

Max frowned. “I know it as well as I know myself,” he said darkly.

“OK, good.” I looked around one last time. “All right. Come on, let’s go.”

I stood up and was about to walk out from behind the hedge when Max grabbed me. “Wait!” he hissed. “Get back down!”

I instantly crouched back into position beside him. “What?” I hissed back. “What is it?”

“Look!” Max was pointing at someone. It was almost a repeat performance of the last time I’d been here, when Izzy and I had crouched down out of sight. Last time, it had been Max going into the lab. This time, I had absolutely no idea who it was.

From here, all I could see was a tall, slim man who seemed to be wearing a nice coat. He was definitely heading for the lab.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

Max shrugged. “Can’t really tell from here.”

“Is it your dad?”

“No. He’s too tall to be my dad.”

I thought for a millisecond, then I knew what I had to do. “Max, I’m going in,” I said.

“What do you mean, you’re going in?”

I’d already closed my eyes. “Shh, I’m concentrating.” A moment later, I’d turned invisible. “I’m going to follow him,” I said. “See who he is and what he’s up to.”

“You can’t! It’s too dangerous.”

I replied in a whisper. “He won’t know I’m there,” I said. “Just don’t go anywhere, OK?”

“I won’t,” Max said.

“OK, give me the stuff.”

Max took the bag with the crystals and the serum out of his pocket. He held his hand out, waving it around like someone feeling their way in the dark. I reached over and took the bag from him.

“OK, I’m off,” I said. And before Max had a chance to talk me out of it, or I had a chance to freeze up with nerves, I was halfway down the road and heading toward the lab — and the stranger.

The first thing I deduced was that he clearly wasn’t supposed to be there. He was fiddling with the keypad, trying different combinations. If he was part of the research work, surely he’d know the code. I studied his face as he entered numbers.

I didn’t recognize him. His hair was short and neatly parted on one side. Even in the darkness, I could see that he had piercing blue eyes. So piercing, in fact, that when he looked around a couple of times and glanced in my direction, I felt positive he could see me. He couldn’t, though. He wasn’t acting like someone who knew they were being watched.

He was holding a notebook open at a page with various numbers on it. He tried a couple. Each time, the keypad made a buzzing noise and the door didn’t open.

The man didn’t seem to be getting ruffled at all. “You knew it wasn’t that one,” he mumbled. “Come on. You know the one to try.”

He ran his finger down the page in his book. “This one,” he said as he came to a number at the bottom of the page.

I watched him press the numbers: 0 . . . 6 . . . 2 . . . 6 . . .

The keypad beeped and the door clicked open. He’d done it. He’d broken in.

I put a finger in my mouth and bit on it to stop myself from gasping or making any other kind of noise that would have alerted him to my presence. Instead, I watched him calmly enter the lab, and before he had a chance to close the door behind him, I followed him inside.

The man peered curiously around the lab in a way that told me he hadn’t been in here before. He wandered around, reading papers, sniffing the contents of bottles, examining the machines on the desks. All the time he did this, he was scribbling things down in his notebook.

Somehow, through my panic, I reminded myself what I was here for. The crystals.

I took the bag out of my pocket. Each time the man’s back was turned, or he was busy making notes, I sneaked crystals into various places. I placed a couple of them under a table that had some others on top of it. I pushed them right up against the table leg, where they could easily have been missed. I put a couple more under some paperwork piled high on a desk. Again, it would have been easy enough to have missed those.