OCDaniel Read online

  She turned to me, her foggy eyes suddenly looking clear and sharp.

  “Hello, Daniel,” she said.

  CHAPTER 2

  I was so stunned, I didn’t even have a chance to reply. Sara just continued shuffling down the hallway, and I turned and watched her go, Max and Taj slowing down beside me. Max looked at me in disbelief.

  “Did Psycho Sara just talk to you?” he murmured.

  I was watching her black ponytail bob away. “I think so.”

  Eight years. And she’d just said hello like we were old friends.

  “That’s weird,” Taj said, starting down the hall. “Maybe she wants you to ask her to the dance.”

  Max broke out laughing and gave me a little push toward the front doors. “Let’s go. You can ask her out tomorrow if you want.”

  I just laughed awkwardly and followed him out, but my skin was still prickling everywhere like it was on fire. It was weird enough that she had talked to me. I hadn’t thought she could even speak.

  But what was worse was the strange feeling I’d gotten when she’d looked at me. It was like she was the only person who had ever actually seen me. But that was impossible. It didn’t even make any sense.

  Max and I stepped out into the cool fall air, and I tried to forget about Sara Malvern.

  • • •

  As I mentioned, I’m writing a book. I’ve been writing it for about a year now and once got to the twentieth page before deleting it all. It’s supposed to be a masterpiece, but it doesn’t feel like one. I like writing. It’s just about the only time I don’t get Zaps. I don’t know if it’s because my brain is too busy or because I get to create my own world where there aren’t crazy people. Sometimes it’s the only break I get in a day, and I think maybe it stops me from completely losing my mind.

  Basically the book is about a kid named Daniel who wiped out the entire human race by accident and has to find a way to bring them back before the process becomes irreversible. His day starts like this:

  When Daniel woke up, the velvety morning light was shining through his navy-blue curtains like on any other morning. But there was a heavy stillness in the air that unsettled him . . . a silence that was deeper and more ominous than normal. He quickly pulled on some worn jeans and a hoodie and hurried into the hallway, looking around curiously.

  “Hello?” he called. His voice carried through the house like a frantic bat.

  Daniel raced downstairs, but the kitchen was empty. It was eight thirty a.m. His family should have all been there: his mother, his brother, and his sister. He tried the TV. The radio. There was nothing but static.

  Desperate, Daniel rushed into the street, fear clawing its way through his belly.

  The streets were quiet. The houses watchful. There were no cars or pedestrians or noise of any kind carrying on the October breeze. He slowly walked into the middle of the street, the horrible, guilt-stricken realization flooding through him. He had done this. He had killed them all.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of the moon, still reluctant to pass into the Earth. He froze, his eyes locked on the luminescent orb. His legs buckled and wavered.

  The moon had changed since last night. It didn’t seem possible, but there it was.

  A part of it was missing.

  I thought I would start with the action and jump backward, but I get indecisive. So I made a new plan, to just write the book and not change a single word until I have written the end. It’s the only way I will ever finish.

  I don’t even know what I’m writing it for, since I have never showed my work to anyone and never plan to. Like I said, my writing is something I do for myself.

  • • •

  I didn’t have too much time to dwell on Sara Malvern. After school Max and I played three hours of Call of Duty and ate two bags of potato chips, perched on the huge brown couches in my family room. My mom yelled at me for getting chips in the cushions twice. It was a typical Tuesday. I only had one Zap, this time in the bathroom with the light switch. I have a hard time with light switches—I don’t know why.

  Max decided to stay for dinner even after two bags of potato chips, because my mom was making chicken wings and she loves Max and always insists he stays. Max’s dad left a few years ago, and his mom works really long hours, so he doesn’t get a real dinner much. He’s always happy to stick around. Max is one of those kids that is naturally comfortable around parents. He has a gift for polite conversation.

  My brother and sister were there for dinner as well, but my dad didn’t get home from work until late, so he always just ate leftovers wrapped in tinfoil and watched sports highlights.

  “How was your day?” my mom asked Max, shoveling some salad onto my sister’s plate.

  We were gathered around the oak table. It had six seats because Max was at our house so much. The wood was marked with a thousand scratches and stains and nicks, but we’d gotten it from my grandma, and my mom liked it. She used really big placemats and center pieces to hide all the damage.

  Max put down his wing. “Pretty good. They announced that school dance again.”

  “Lame,” Steve said.

  He thought everything was lame. Steve was sixteen and was way too cool for everyone—especially me. He played football and had a cheerleader girlfriend and wore baseball caps pretty much 24/7. We didn’t look much alike. I was skinny with blue eyes, freckles, and hair that switched from blond to brown through the seasons. Steve was muscular and athletic, and his short dark hair matched unfriendly eyes. We didn’t talk much. I would have liked to, but he wasn’t as interested.

  “That’s not lame,” my mother said, turning to me. “Are you going?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe.”

  “You should,” she said. “Max, make sure he does.”

  “Will do, Mrs. Leigh.” Max winked at me. “He might even ask someone as a date.”

  I scowled, and my mom’s eyes widened with delight.

  “Really?” my mom asked. “Who is she?”

  “No one,” I muttered. I felt my cheeks burning.

  My little sister, Emma, giggled. She was the opposite of Steve in just about every way. Emma was nine years old, supershy, and happiest when she was in her room reading. We were very close. She used to get me to sit by her bed and read to her every single night, and we still read together most nights.

  Steve snorted and wolfed down a chicken wing. “Space Cadet isn’t going to get a date.”

  My older brother called me Space Cadet too. And Über Nerd. Dink. Sally. Lame Wad. Pretty much everything but “Daniel,” actually.

  “That’s not nice,” my mother snarled. “Daniel is a catch.”

  I sighed. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “He is after a pretty popular girl,” Max said. “I suggested someone else.”

  My mom looked concerned. “How popular?”

  “Does it matter?” I asked, offended.

  She hesitated. “It’s just that popular girls can be so mean. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  Max laughed and sat back, rubbing his stomach tenderly. “He’ll be fine. Thanks again, Mrs. Leigh. That was delicious. I should probably get going, though. I ate enough for the rest of the week.”

  “You want a ride?” she asked, already pushing her chair back.

  “Na,” he said. “Better walk this off. We got a game on Saturday, and I want to be ready.”

  I saw Max out, and he gave me a lopsided grin as he swung the front door open. He used that grin a lot when he knew people were mad at him. It usually worked, but I was still a bit sour.

  “See you tomorrow, Space Cadet,” he said with a casual salute.

  “That was unnecessary.”

  He clapped me on the arm with a strong right hand and then started down the porch. “I know.” He stopped and looked back, shooting me another lopsided grin. “By the way, I think you are a catch too.”

  “Shut up.”

  Max burst out laughing and hurried down the street, tucking his hands into his jean pockets. I scowled and shut the door, knowing my mom would definitely ask about Raya as soon as she got the chance. Heading upstairs to avoid any questions, I heard her fighting with Steve in the kitchen.

  “I’m sixteen!” Steve shouted, banging his fist on the wall.

  “You break that wall, you’re paying for it!” my mom shrieked back. “And you’re right, you’re sixteen. It is a school night, and you will be home at ten!”

  “That’s not fair!”

  They fought pretty much every night. Emma was already closing her bedroom door. I went to my room, opened my laptop, and checked my Facebook page. No updates.

  Unable to resist, I opened Raya’s page. She was smiling in her profile picture, instead of having one of those duck-faced selfies all the other popular girls had. I could never ask her out. She would say no, and then I couldn’t have my dreams anymore.

  I leaned back and looked around my room. It was a work in progress. One wall was covered in bookshelves and action figures, while the others had posters of bands and movies, and even one of Tom Brady that my dad had bought me when I’d made the football team. My desk was tucked under a dusty window that overlooked the street, and it was constantly littered with papers and drawings and books. I went to click on my home page, when I was Zapped. I went back and clicked it again. It still didn’t feel right. I was at ten clicks and already feeling sweat bead on my forehead when I closed the browser. I could feel the urge to go back and try another click. But I knew it might start something that would take hours. I needed to write. Now.

  Daniel stared at the moon in disbelief. It was like something had bitten the bottom right section, taking a chunk out like from a vanilla cookie. The moon stared back at him, glimmering faintly in the daylight.

  A million thoughts ran through his head. But only one mattered. The device had worked. It had seemed so unlikely, tucked away in the attic and wrapped in a blanket of dust. But there was no other explanation. He had turned it on, and he had done something terrible.

  As he stared in horror at the sky, something else caught his eye. A flicker of movement.

  Daniel turned just in time to see something slip between two houses. Something big.

  There was a gentle knock on my door, and an even softer voice. “Dan?”

  “Come in.”

  Emma stepped inside, clutching a book under her arm and watching me from beneath a loose strand of blond hair.

  “What are you doing?” she asked curiously, spying my laptop.

  “Nothing,” I said, shutting it before she could read anything. Even the little writing I had done had calmed me a bit. I didn’t feel like I had to go click the link again, anyway. “What’s up?”

  She sat on the bed and shrugged. “You want to read for a while?”

  “Sure.”

  We both lay down on the floor, staring up at the stucco ceiling. We did that a lot.

  “What do you see?” she asked softly. Sometimes we created entire stories in the stucco. Her hair was splashed out like sand on the carpet.

  I focused on one spot in particular. “A bird. An eagle maybe. Eroth, the King of Eagles, flying over the plains of Alog. He is preparing for a battle, I think. Goblins march on the kingdom. You?”

  “A face. It looks like a girl. Pretty but cold eyes. A princess maybe . . . no . . . an archer. San’aa, the daughter of a fallen king, and the most famous archer in Arador. She can hit a bull’s-eye from one hundred yards.”

  Emma looked over and smiled mischievously, her hazel eyes twinkling.

  “Are you really going to ask a girl on a date?”

  “Probably not.”

  She turned back to the ceiling. “You seemed different at dinner.”

  “How so?”

  Emma seemed to think about that. “I don’t know. Just . . . distant. Even more than usual.”

  That instantly brought Sara Malvern back to my mind. A tingle crept down my back and into my socks.

  “Just tired, I guess,” I replied, hoping she didn’t hear the worry in my voice.

  Emma opened her book and started reading. “I don’t believe you.”

  “You never do.”

  We read until my mom came in and told Emma to go to bed. We both stood up, stretching sore limbs. Emma said good night and shuffled through my bedroom door. I watched her shadow turn the corner, fading into the hallway light. I was alone again.

  I decided to write a bit more. As I opened my laptop, I noticed a piece of paper sticking out of one of the pockets of my backpack. Frowning, I picked it up. Scribbled in splotchy black ink was a note.

  I need your help.

  —Fellow Star Child

  CHAPTER 3

  I read the note several times and then folded it up with trembling hands. I had no idea what a Star Child was, or why anyone would possibly want my help. Someone must have snuck it into my bag when I wasn’t looking.

  But who?

  I decided to look up “Star Child” first. Maybe that would give me some clues. My first search yielded this:

  Star Children, according to a pseudoscientific New Age concept, are children who are believed to possess special, unusual, and sometimes supernatural traits or abilities.

  I read through the first few articles. It sounded like conspiracy-theory stuff to me. Alien DNA, telepathic powers, and a lot of parents who believed their kids were Star Kids because they behaved badly.

  I stayed up for a long time that night, checking Facebook for possible leads to the identity of the note leaver. Nobody had anything about Star Kids on their page, so I gave up and started getting ready for bed.

  The Routine began at twelve thirty. It’s something I have to do every night. I’ll explain later. I went to sleep at four a.m.

  • • •

  The next day, I found Max in the school yard with the other cool kids. They just talked in the morning, though they usually played basketball or touch football at recess. That meant I had to play too, of course, even though I was even worse at basketball than I was at football. Max passed to me sometimes, but I usually passed it right back as quickly as possible and only shot when I was literally right under the net. The other guys gave me a hard time but let me play because of Max. If it wasn’t for him, I would probably be in the corner reading with Emma, which I wouldn’t have minded, except it would have made the prospect of talking to Raya even less likely.

  As it was, Raya was actually in the circle of cool kids today, but by the time I got over there, the bell rang. She did give me a little smile, but that was it.

  “Ready for the big game on Saturday?” Max asked me as we walked into class.

  I sighed. “For the last time, I don’t actually do anything.”

  “If the kicker gets hurt, we need you,” he said seriously.

  “How often does the kicker get hurt?”

  Max paused. “Rarely. But still. And hey . . . you gonna ask her today?”

  I snorted and pulled out my books. “Of course not.”

  “If you don’t hurry, someone else will.”

  I thought about that for a moment and then shook my head. “I can’t do it.”

  “You’re a sissy.”

  “Agreed.”

  I was still thinking about Raya when Mr. Keats drawled, “Math books out, please.” He looked like he wished he’d slept in today.

  I sighed. That made two of us.

  I don’t like math for one important reason: the numbers.

  We were doing some simple equations, and I kept having to change them. I made a four a forty-one. A nine a ninety-one. I didn’t even write the six. Every time I saw a bad number, I had a Zap. A pit-of-my-stomach-things-are-wrong-do-something-now feeling. It was like being punched.

  I tried to hide my notes from Max, but he noticed.

  “Even I know that’s wrong,” he said, pointing at one answer. “Take the zero out, dufus.”

  “Oh, right,” I muttered. But I didn’t change it.

  I started sweating profusely halfway through class—my skin hot and flushed and prickling. I changed so many numbers that it looked like code. Nine was giving me a real problem today.

  Every time I wrote it, I felt like something bad was going to happen.

  I don’t know when it started or why, but some numbers are good, and some are not.

  Here’s my list:

  1 = Okay

  2 = Mostly okay

  3 = Bad when combined with another three, four, five, or six

  4 = Bad

  5 = Okay

  6 = Bad

  7 = Mostly bad

  8 = Always bad

  9 = Bad

  10 = Good

  As you can imagine, it gets complicated in the double digits.

  This probably sounds confusing, and that is likely because I might be crazy. But the numbers make me feel better or worse, and there is no arguing that. If I do something four times, my skin crawls and my stomach hurts and I can’t breathe right. Five times, and I feel fine. The numbers control how many times I do things, but I also don’t like writing or saying the numbers either. I know . . . bonkers.

  But who am I to argue with feelings?

  I don’t know what triggers the Zaps, really. It’s usually just a feeling or a thought that pops out of nowhere and attacks my brain and makes everything cold and dark and hopeless. I can be Zapped at any time, though thankfully, it’s mostly at nighttime and when I’m alone. At those times it’s relentless.

  “I hate math,” I muttered.

  “Yeah,” Max said. “And I hate that you aren’t good at it. My grades are really suffering.”

  Max looked at me and frowned. “You all right?”

  I wiped my head and forced a smiled. “Fine. Just a little warm in here, don’t you think?”

  “No.”

  “Oh. Maybe I’m sick.”

  Max put his hand on my forehead. “Yeah. Go dunk your head in water. You look like Raya just touched your arm or something.”

  “Thanks,” I muttered.

  “May I go to the bathroom?” I asked Mr. Keats.

  I hurried down the hall, wiping my damp forehead and wondering what was wrong. Sometimes this happened at night, but never at school.