The Odds of Lightning (19 page)

It was a good poem. She thought it was good. That was all that mattered. What was Josh's problem?

He's a pretentious jerk,
Tiny's brain answered. She couldn't believe she'd never seen it before. She'd spent so many years believing the illusion, she didn't even realize there was a real person behind it. She'd gotten caught up in the hype.

But she guessed that maybe everyone was guilty of that.

Tiny stood and walked with great purpose to the copy center. She put a few coins in the Xerox machine and then punched in
100
. She watched it pump out copy after copy of her awesome poem.

Nathaniel, Lu, and Will were watching her like they were on a safari and she was a wild animal they didn't want to spook. They didn't know what she was going to do next. But they didn't try to stop her.

“Okay,” she said, holding the stack of poems. “Now we can leave.”

No one argued with her.

Outside on the street, the Rapture rally had moved on, leaving Herald Square eerily empty. The wind was blowing even harder now than it had been earlier, sweeping bits of litter up into the air in a cyclone of garbage.

“I guess it was more of a Rapture parade,” Lu said, holding up her arms as a plastic bag flew past her face. “I wonder where they marched off to.”

“Maybe the Rapture came early,” said Will.

“Tiny,” Nathaniel said. “Can we find a way back to school now?”

“No,” Tiny said, gripping her stack of poems tight to her chest so they didn't blow away. “Not yet. I'm not finished.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I'm talking about a grand gesture. I'm talking about facing my fears.”

“But we have to get to school,” said Will. “So we're not stuck this way forever. I thought that's what we agreed.”

“School can wait a little while longer. Science or no science, there's something I have to do first. Something I have to do for myself. It's about time.”

“Tiny, this is crazy!” Lu was next to her in a flash. “You sound legitimately bonkers!”

Tiny looked around at the three of them. “Yeah, well, you all got to be crazy for a little bit tonight. I never get to be crazy. Not ever. I'm the careful one. The cautious one. The one nobody notices. So now it's my turn.”

“Okay,” Lu said slowly, backing away. “Well, you know I never turn down an adventure. Where are we going?”

Tiny turned uptown—it was the opposite direction from the one they needed to go in. She knew that. But right now she didn't feel like being logical.

“This way,” she said, and started walking against the wind, shielding her face. After a second, the others followed.

In a few blocks, a fancy-looking couple emerged from a dark side street. The woman wore a sidewalk-sweeping black gown that fishtailed out at the bottom in a swirl of sequins. The man wore a tailored tuxedo. A gust of wind blew the bottom of her dress up in a sequin tornado.

It was an odd thing to see two people dressed up for a black-tie gala in the middle of a superstorm. It was odder, still, that they both wore elaborate masks, festooned in feathers and fur.

“What . . . ?” Nathaniel said. “Did they not get the memo that this entire city is shutting down?”

“Did we?” said Will.

“Where do you think they're going?” Lu whisper-yelled above the wind.

The couple stayed a good half a block ahead of them for a few minutes. Wherever they turned, Tiny turned.

“Are you following them?” Lu asked, clearly losing her mind with excitement over the idea.

“No,” said Tiny. “But I have a weird feeling we're going to the same place.”

“Hurry!” The woman laughed, clutching the man's arm. Her voice echoed across the empty street as they clattered uptown. “Star light, star bright. The first star I see tonight.”

“Come on,” Tiny said, taking off even faster.

She followed the couple down Thirty-Sixth Street and then turned onto Fifth Avenue.

“Where do you think they're going?” Lu asked, catching up.

“The question is more like, where are
we
going?” Nathaniel said.

“Do we have to be dressed up for this?” Will asked, making a face. “I left my formalwear at home.”

“Shhh,” whispered Tiny. “Don't draw attention to us.”

“Hey,” said Lu. “So what'd you write on that stack of paper you're holding?”

“You'll see when we get there.”

Ahead of them, the couple stopped in front of the Empire State Building. A tired-looking doorman stepped out to greet them.

“I wish I may?” he asked.

“Have the wish,” the man said, and handed him a feather. The doorman stepped aside, and the couple swished into the lobby.

“Come on,” Tiny said. The four of them approached the lobby entrance. The doorman stepped up to greet them.

“The first star?” he asked.

The four of them glanced at one another. Tiny shrugged.

“I see tonight,” she said and handed him one of her poems. The doorman looked at it, surprised. He looked at her, and then looked closer.

“Looks like you could use a wish,” he said. “Take the elevator to the top.”

“I can't believe that worked!” Lu crowed as they ran across the gleaming art deco lobby to the elevator. “Is that one of your poems? Please, can I read it? Pretty please?”

“Yeah, can we read it?” Nathaniel was peeking over her shoulder.

“No! No one can read it. Not yet.”

“Good,” said Will. “I don't get poetry.”

Lu shoved him. “Shut up. Hey,” she turned to Tiny. “What are you going to do with all of those?” Lu was bouncing up and down on her heels. “This is so exciting!”

The elevator dinged, and the huge brass doors opened. They got on.

On the way up to the top, they made funny faces at the security camera.

“Smile,” sang Lu, holding up her camera to take a picture of the four of them. “That's a good one,” Lu said. “We don't even need a filter. These elevator lights are incredible! I wish we had them at school.” Tiny could hardly even see herself in the picture. No one mentioned it.

Then the doors were opening and they tumbled out onto the observation deck.

They found themselves in some kind of twenties-era speakeasy masquerade party. The wind was blowing wildly this high up, and men and women milled around in sequined formalwear, clutching the feathers in their hair and the masks on their faces to keep from flying away. Tiny, Lu, Nathaniel, and Will were the only ones not hiding their true identity.

There was a bar set up on one side, with old-fashioned barkeeps in suspenders and newsboy hats mixing up fancy cocktails that they served up very carefully to avoid spilling into the wind. Off to the right, a brass band played boisterous jazz, and under a canopy of tiny light bulbs that swayed back and forth, people danced on a polished wood dance floor.

A gilded sign on the side of the building read:
URBAN EXPLORERS CLUB.

Tiny grinned. Every time she thought her world was small and sheltered, she was reminded that the city—and the world around it—was so much bigger than she ever imagined.

There was magic everywhere in this city. You just had to know where to look.

Beyond the storm of sequins and feathers and flying vodka gimlets, there, in front of them, was the most famous view in all of New York. The buildings glittered beneath the storm clouds. Tiny stared in awe.

Whoa
. She looked out at the magical view. She'd seen it in so many movies and so many TV shows, and read it described in so many books. But she'd never seen it like this, all lit up in the middle of the night, like it was just for her. She was suddenly glad she had left home tonight. Sometimes you had to step outside in the middle of a storm and get struck by lightning to see everything you could have missed. The stars peaking through the clouds in the sky mirrored the glittering streets below. For a minute, even with the lights and music and members of the Urban Explorers Club dancing and laughing around them, it felt like their own private city. She spun in the other direction. She could see the Hudson River now, and beyond it, New Jersey. A helicopter flew past them, bright against the darkness like a ghostly whale floating above them in the deep sea.

“This is so cool,” Nathaniel said under his breath.

“Watch,” said Tiny. She walked to the edge of the observation deck, closed her eyes, and made a wish. “Star light, star bright. The first star I see tonight.”

Lu smiled. “I wish I may.”

“I wish I might,” Nathaniel jumped in.

“Have the wish I wish tonight,” they all finished together.

Then Tiny blew out hard. Across the city, a window in Midtown went dark.

“Cool!” cried Lu. “You blew out that window! How did you do that?”

“Magic.” Tiny grinned. Actually, she'd read about it on some blog. There was a statistic where every five seconds a window light goes off or on in New York City. While that may not have been 100 percent statistically accurate, the odds were pretty good of lining up.

“I want to try!” Lu stepped to the edge of the deck.

“Don't forget to make a wish, Luella,” said Will.

“I
wish
you'd stop calling me Luella.” Lu brushed past him and paused, closing her eyes. Then she blew, and a light went out in the Freedom Tower.

“That better have been a good wish,” said Will.

Lu grinned. “Oh, it was.”

Nathaniel met Tiny's eyes. “Do you have a wish?” she asked him. He didn't say anything, and just nodded. Then he closed his eyes and blew out the light in a window on the other side of town.

“So,” Nathaniel said. “What did you wish for?”

“That I'd have the guts to do this.” She held up the stack of Xeroxed poems with a flourish. “But I need some help reaching over the glass partition.” Nathaniel, Will, and Lu hoisted her up. “Okay,” she said. Her heart was beating super fast. “Here goes nothing.” She released her fingers.

The wind caught the stack of papers as they fell, scattering them away into the night.

“Gravity,” she whispered, as she watched them fall.

She was a little bit in shock. She couldn't believe she had done it. Her words were scattering all across the city.

Lu helped her down. “That was really brave, Talulah.”

They turned around. Nathaniel was peeling one of the Xeroxes off his face, where the wind had blown it.

“Oh,” Tiny said. “Sorry, I—”

“Shhh.” He finished reading. “You wrote that?” She blushed and nodded, though he probably couldn't see it. “I don't know what to say.”

Tiny had never wanted Nathaniel to read her poems. They were her way of working through what had happened three years ago. This one was about that night with Tobias.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered.

“Are you kidding?” said Nathaniel. “Don't apologize. Not for this. This is really good.
You
are really good.”

Tiny smiled, a real smile. “Thanks. I hope everyone down there agrees.” She smiled wider. “But that's not really the point anymore.”

“I'm glad you've stopped hiding.”

“This is only the beginning.”

She looked down at herself—she could hardly see her body in the dark. The light from the paper lanterns and twinkle lights shone through it like glass, as if her skin were the memory of a song, and the lights were trying to remember exactly how it went.

“I hope.”

“Don't hope,” Lu said.
“Know.”

Thunder shook the roof, and lightning flashed above them. The lights on the Empire State Building went off. They found themselves, once again, in the dark. The music stopped playing abruptly. Everyone cheered.

Everyone except Tiny, Nathaniel, Lu, and Will.

“Oh shit,” said Will. “Is that the power again, or are they closing?”

“Why does that keep
happening
?” Lu moaned.

“The lightning is following us!” Nathaniel cried.

“Let's get out of here!” Tiny yelled over the wind. They made their way through the crowded roof, back toward the elevators. “Come on. Now we can keep on going to school.”

“Hey! Disappearing girl!” Someone was calling her name above the wind, in the dark. Tiny spun around, flabbergasted that anyone else at this party knew her.

It was the unfairly beautiful hipster Juliet, standing by herself on the edge of the dance floor. She rushed over to them, the wind twirling the hem of her skirt.

“I thought that was you! I'm so glad to see you here. You haven't seen Jasper, have you?”

“Who?”

“Oh.” Juliet slapped her forehead. “Sorry. Romeo. Jasper's his real name. I'm Cleo.”

“I'm Tiny,” Tiny said. “I haven't seen him since the park. What happened?”

“We were on our way to this party and got separated in that Rapture rally. I kept going, hoping we'd just meet here. But I can't find him!”

“Actually, it was a parade,” Lu said.

“What?”

“Nothing,” said Tiny. “Ignore her. Do you know where he could be?”

“No! I'm so worried. Will you help me look for him? Please? I'm scared to go alone.” Tiny looked back at the others. Nathaniel scratched his neck nervously. They had taken this detour—it was Tiny's fault. But now they had to get to school. Wishing on stars and throwing poems and caution to the wind could only get them so far. Eventually they had to look to science for the answers.

“We'll help you.” It was Will who spoke. Everyone turned around. “What?” He shrugged. “Guys, her
true love
is somewhere out there, and we have to help her find him!”

Lu narrowed her eyes in his direction.

Tiny looked up at the sky. It was almost two in the morning. They didn't have much time left. But Juliet had helped her when she needed to find Lu. They couldn't leave her alone out there in the storm.