Balancer (6 page)

Nicole and Friend

“It’s here!” Amy
slammed Nicole’s locker door shut and shoved a copy of the school newspaper, The Acorn, in front of her. She dialed the combination to her own neighboring locker and proceeded to rearrange her bag. Nicole couldn’t help but laugh — a few days into the new year at Oak Wood High, and Amy’s locker was already a mess of gum packets, makeup, candy bars, magazines and the occasional schoolbook.

“Go on, read it! I waited for you so we could see it together,” Amy urged. Suppressing a smirk, Nicole took a deep breath and ran her gaze down the report.

The headline ran “Heroic Oak Wood Student Saves Girl From Wildfire” underneath a grainy shot of Amy leading and Nicole carrying Elise. It promised details inside.

The editor, Marc, a smart senior who was aiming squarely at Ivy League, had visited Nicole’s house earlier in the week to ensure the story would run in the first
Acorn
of the semester. He’d asked the usual questions about their escape, and Nicole knew her answers had come out overly modest and somewhat on the shy side. Amy, meanwhile, filled in the gaps Nicole had left. She also exaggerated a couple of points.

But something else now stopped Nicole in her tracks. Within two or three lines of reading, she realized, with some horror, that she had been made the feature of the article. Worse still, Amy was mentioned only in passing — and not even by name. The caption under the grainy photograph read “Nicole and friend emerge from the wildfire.” She looked up at Amy, a little concerned.

“You really didn’t read this, did you?”

“What do you mean?” Amy tried to take the paper, but Nicole snatched it away.

“I mean, I have no idea why he reported it this way. Because we were both at the interview, right?”

Sensing Nicole was covering something up, Amy snatched the paper back and read through the columns breathlessly. With every new sentence, Amy’s shoulders sagged a little, and Nicole could see the exact moment that Amy’s heart sank. Her eyes searched desperately over the text a second time for her name, and again it was nowhere to be found.

Nicole watched Amy gather herself as she knew she would, and Amy did her usual stellar job of masking her true reaction.

“I mean, it’s kinda fair enough, right? It was you who carried Elise all that way.”

“I couldn’t’ve done it without you, though! I remember saying that to him. It was total teamwork!”

“Well, teams of two don’t sell as well, I guess.”

“Listen, I know it’s disappointing, but the people who watch our show know the truth.”

“Yeah, sure.”

Amy turned back to her locker on the pretext of fetching something, but Nicole knew it was to hide her disappointment.

“Didn’t you walk in with Drake this morning?”

Amy shrugged and gave a little hum in reply.

“Did he have anything to say?”

“He thought the rescue was pretty cool.”

“Right — there it is!” Nicole was now inadvertently doing her best impression of Amy’s enthusiastic arm waving. “The people who matter know the truth, right?”

Amy nodded, and the twinkle came back to her eye.

“So, tell me — who’s awesome?” Nicole asked.

The friends playfully cast votes for themselves.

*

An hour later, Nicole was trying to let history class absorb her attention, but her mind kept wandering.

This was possibly one of the most embarrassing starts to the school year she could have anticipated.
The
Acorn
had drawn attention to her. She had been thrust center stage when all she wanted was to be a regular student. The worst thing was, she was in the position Amy so badly craved.

Elise’s dramatic recovery still haunted Nicole, and she had begun to receive some quite worrying emails from Ben Owens about animal deaths surrounding the wildfire. Ben Owens, aka NewBenKenobi, was, in Amy’s words, a “massive Nix fan.” Nicole and Ben weren’t friends, and though she didn’t have anything against the guy, he never seemed entirely comfortable around her. Nicole was thinking he was just using the media attention as an excuse to reach out to her.

Nicole felt a nudge on her thigh and she looked up. The entire class was staring at her, awaiting a response.

“Miss Aaronson? Are you with us today, or still on vacation?”

“Here …” replied Nicole, trying to appear as unembarrassed as she could. A low wave of comments rippled across the class.

“So, please, would you tell us your opinion of why the Treaty of Versailles caused World War II?”

Nicole blinked. It wasn’t that she didn’t know the answer; she was just hyper-aware of all eyes on her again. She took a breath.

“The Versailles Treaty was a contributing factor to World War II, but more because of how representative it was of Germany’s feelings that they had been humiliated than the actual treaty itself.”

Silence for a moment, and Nicole could hear her heart pounding. That seemed to be enough, though, and with a last lingering glance letting Nicole know she’d gotten away with it this time, Mr. Stanford clicked to bring up a new screen.

After a few moments, Nicole let herself relax back in her chair. Being called out like that in front of the class had shocked her into attention, and now taking in the words of her tall, white-haired teacher was much easier.

Only a note, slid to her by a classmate named Reilly, who sat next to her, could distract her. Reilly indicated it was from Ben. Nicole made brief eye contact with the short, brown-haired boy across the room. He looked up as if to acknowledge receipt, and seemed to want her to open it.

A note from Ben now? What on earth could he want? But with Stanford turning back to scrutinize the class once more, there was little opportunity to open it, and so Nicole slid it under her books. She spent much of the rest of the lesson immersed in the details of the lead-up to the Second World War, relieved she could at last concentrate on something other than the wildfire.

When the lunch bell sounded, Nicole’s mind had completely moved away from all talk of wildfires and newspaper gossip. As the class cleared, Mr. Stanford approached her desk.

“Is everything OK, Nicole? I heard about the campgrounds fire.”

“Yeah, perfectly fine. Sorry about earlier. I was kinda zoning out.”

Mr. Stanford’s brown eyes rested on her for a second. “It must’ve been very frightening.”

Nicole held his look and nodded.

“You’ll let me know if anything is interfering with your schoolwork this semester, and I’ll make sure you get back on track. Deal?”

Nicole smiled, relieved. “Deal.”

“Good.” Mr. Stanford collected up his battered leather briefcase and left Nicole alone in the classroom.

The stillness of the room reminded Nicole of her dream the night of the wildfire. She was half toying with the notion of going to the window to see whether it really was déjà vu when she realized it wasn’t the rumble she remembered.

However, a few seconds later there was a definite SLAM! and an excited Amy clattered into the classroom.

“I knew you’d be here.”

“What’s up?”

“What’s up? Let me show you wassup!” Amy produced her smartphone with a flourish and presented it to Nicole, beaming. “Look at the numbers!”

Nicole looked down at
AmesAndNix.com
, with the most recent YouTube clip of them talking about the wildfire. At the bottom of the page were a hundred new followers.

“Wow!”

“I know! A hundred since this morning!
The
Acorn
’s just doubled our audience!” Amy gave a hoot of delight and hugged Nicole. “The more people who read the paper, the more people who will come to our site. This could go viral, Nix!”

Nicole laughed. She always admired her best friend’s all-conquering zeal for things, and this turn of events had certainly brightened her day, allowing her to forget
The Acorn
’s oversight. The website had been floating below the 50-follower mark for weeks, and this gave it a welcome boost. “Maybe we can use the next show to set the story straight,” Nicole added.

“Oh no!” protested Amy. “We just do … whatever. We have to think of what we can do! It’s got to be awesome. Come on — food.” Amy put her arm around Nicole and nudged her toward the door.

“Lemme get my stuff.”

“K. I’ll be outside. Seeing who loves us!” Amy sang as she balletically exited the classroom.

Nicole returned to her desk and collected her books, pen case and beloved new messenger bag, a new-school-year gift from her dad.

A folded-up piece of paper fluttered down to the floor. Ben’s note. Nicole had totally forgotten about it.

She headed out of the room, unfolding the note as she went. Its one-word message was simple yet surprising.

Hero.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Hero

T
he camera clicks
on and Amy appears, dressed in jeans and sneakers with a cute pink top. She’s standing in a hallway decorated with picture frames and a rubber plant. It’s early morning, and behind her light is peeking through the cracks in curtains. She peers into the camera, raising her finger to her lips.

“Shhhh,” she whispers. “I have to keep very quiet, because I’m here on important secret business. See this?”

Amy flicks the camera to a Web page on her tablet. The headline reads “Family Says Thanks to Local Superhero,” and underneath it is a photograph of the Allertons with Nicole.

Amy points to a door and pushes it open.

The camera moves past a sign on the door that reads
Nicole’s Room
.

The light is low here, and the camera zooms in on a mound under duvet covers. The sound of gentle breaths points to someone undisturbed, asleep.

Amy turns the camera back to herself and whispers, “I’m going to put my personal safety at risk just to show you what a sleeping superhero looks like. Let’s see if she exhibits any of her superpowers this morning.”

Amy sticks out her foot and prods the mound.

No response.

Amy sneaks up to the curtains and flings them open, flooding bright sunlight into the room. Some low groaning comes from the mound.

“She wakes!”

Grinning, Amy tiptoes up to Nicole’s bed and throws back the covers.

“Morning!” she squeals.

Nicole sits up, sees the camera and, looking mortified, lets out a brief scream. She grabs the covers, hurls them over herself and returns to being a mound of duvet again.

“Amy! No!” Nicole’s pleas are muffled.

“I can’t hear you!” Amy tugs at the duvet, but Nicole isn’t budging. “Nix, come out and talk! Don’t you have anything to say to your adoring fans?”

The mound does not reply.

“Nix, come on! You’re totally the town superhero! Your followers await your words!”

No reply, but a foot emerges and tries to locate Amy’s leg, aiming to kick.

“Aha! The superfoot!” Amy’s hand hovers over Nicole’s kicking foot. “Wait for it …” She grabs for the foot.

A squeal comes from under the mound as Amy tickles Nicole’s foot. The foot swiftly goes under the duvet again, and Nicole curls up into a ball.

Amy puts the camera on herself. “It looks like Nicole has retreated into her Blanket of Solitude to recharge her superpowers. But I wanted to let y’all know that Nicole is appearing on prime-time TV this weekend. Go, Nix!”

Amy cheers and presses a button. Cartoon letters flash up on the screen.

Go SuperNix! Go SuperNix!

Behind her, Nicole lowers the duvet, revealing a face deliberately obscured by a mask of her thick brown hair.

“Ah, SuperNix, you’re in your ordinary teenager disguise, I see.”

“Amy!” Nicole growls from under her hair. Her hand shoots out and grabs the camera.

Abruptly, the screen fades to purple, with scrawled letters:

Peace Out! Ames & Nix xxx

Alien Invasions

It was a
warm Friday evening, and Ben was in his room, laptop on and music blaring. A bowl of spaghetti was getting cold on the desk beside him as he scrolled down a Web page that explained all about how the FBI had refuted spontaneous combustion as the cause of the Lake Fairfax animal deaths. The idea of an animal’s body fat acting like wax in a candle made Ben lose his appetite. Not that he needed much help for that.

His mom had hastily cobbled together “guilt pasta” — as Ben liked to refer to it — before going out for dinner with her new boyfriend. Her special hamburger meat/tomato sauce had been Ben’s favorite when he was seven, and it became the cure-all for scrapes and fights and bad tests at school. His mom whipped it up whenever she saw he was sad or suffering some kind of meltdown. Honestly, it didn’t really work anymore — it hadn’t since his dad had left when he was twelve. But he hadn’t the heart to tell her.

The music ended, and the warm breeze filtered in sounds of the other kids in his neighborhood as they left their houses and headed out for the evening. He listened enviously to the chatter and the slamming of doors as car engines revved and friends gathered for an exciting night ahead.

Ben’s sister was at their next-door neighbor’s party, to which Ben had been invited. He could hear the laughter now that his music had stopped, and he planned to head over after he finished up here. He still had a little more work to do, and he wanted to follow up on one more idea before he reached out to Nicole. He inhaled sharply at the thought of what he was going to have to do, but knew he was right this time.

He pressed Genius on his streaming music app, starting another hour’s worth of music, and twirled in a forkful of tepid dinner. Flicking back to
AmesAndNix.com
, he found there had been no new updates since first thing that morning, when he’d been highly amused to see Amy surprising a sleepy and understandably grumpy Nicole. Nicole had once more gone up in his estimation, if that were possible. She was still modest about everything that had happened — not like Amy, who Ben suspected would happily talk herself up about the slightest thing.

He figured Nicole was feeling pretty uncomfortable about being suddenly so popular at school, so it was understandable that she wasn’t interested in his emails. He knew there were some important details he was missing, and the scattered collection of clues that he did have kept sending him searching for answers in all directions.

Glancing down the Web page, he was surprised to find the girls’ YouTube followers had now beaten the 500 mark — a huge increase in just a short amount of time. Given that there were at least thirty unanswered posts at the bottom of the page, Ben concluded that the pair hadn’t been online again that day.

I wonder whether Nicole knows about the fish kill at Flour Mill Run?

The WBN reporter’s newscast had been brief and to the point. The FBI was investigating a number of leads, including natural causes as well as bioterrorism. The reporter had been calm and breezy this time, which, Ben thought, was rather different from her excitable appearance following the animal carcass formation after the wildfire. Her casual attitude hadn’t reassured Ben, who’d been interested in the paranormal long enough to realize that two oddities in as many weeks wasn’t likely a coincidence.

He Googled about animal formations and had to scroll through more pages than he’d care to remember to find theories on animal deaths and alien invasion. He thought he’d hit the bull’s-eye when he found a website all about animal sacrifices, and he made some hasty notes about how some ancient peoples believed animal sacrifices could heal a human. But could that mean there was someone lurking around Reston making animal sacrifices to help cure people and their pets?

He added animal sacrifices to a cut-and-paste crib sheet he was assembling of all of the possible causes of the wildfire. Among the current headings were “bioterrorism,” “anarchist groups” and “common causes of wildfires.”

Ben tidied up the document and read through it all again. Satisfied, he password-protected the file and attached it to a message he wrote on
AmesAndNix.com
. It simply said: “Nicole. Please read. The password is the note I wrote you in class. NewBenKenobi”

He would now need Nicole to fill in the gaps of his research. After a deep breath, he pressed Send, scooped up the spaghetti to take down to the garbage disposal, and closed his laptop.

He turned off the light in his room, hoping that by the time he got back from the party, Nicole would have replied — for her sake more than his.