Going Wild

  “Okay,” said Charlie. A shadow of doubt entered her mind. Maybe tryouts would be tougher than she expected.

  Mac took a bite of his salad, then turned his attention to his cinnamon roll and started painstakingly picking the raisins off it. Charlie resumed eating and watched him curiously.

  Mac glanced up at her. “The raisins look like bugs,” he said. When he’d gotten them all, he shoved half of the roll into his mouth. “Arfopaws ow isgussee.”

  Charlie frowned. “Arfopaws? What?” She laughed.

  Maria rolled her eyes as Mac chewed. “He said arthropods are disgusting.”

  “What’s an ‘arthropod’ again?” asked Charlie. It sounded familiar.

  “Bugs, lobsters, junk like that,” said Maria dismissively. “It’s a word on our science vocab list this week.”

  “Ah, that’s where I saw it,” said Charlie.

  Mac swallowed. “I mostly just hate bugs.”

  “He’s terrified of them,” Maria said.

  Mac shrugged, unapologetic. “I like snakes, though. Go figure.”

  “I can’t stand snakes,” said Maria. She shuddered. “Give me a bug any day.” She hesitated. “I mean, don’t actually give me a bug. . . .”

  “I won’t,” Charlie said, laughing.

  Maria picked up her last bite of cinnamon roll and smashed it on top of Mac’s raisins, then shoved the whole sticky mass into her mouth. “’hanks!” she said, chewing.

  He wrinkled his nose and sighed. “I seriously hate raisins. They’re almost as bad as peas.”

  “Raisins are okay,” said Charlie, “but I agree, peas are disgusting.”

  “Right?” said Mac. “They’re literally the worst.”

  “They squeak between your teeth.”

  “I hate that.” Mac shuddered. “Peas are estúpida.”

  “Estúpido,” Maria corrected. “Peas are masculine. Own the peas, Mr. Man.”

  “Whatever,” Mac muttered. He glanced around the cafeteria, then said abruptly, “I gotta go.” He stood up and shoved his chair under the table, and with a nod, he was off to return his tray and join a group of boys who were leaving the cafeteria.

  Maria frowned and licked the frosting off her fingers. If she was bothered by Mac’s brisk departure, she appeared to get over it quickly. “Anyway,” she said, “are you coming to practice after school?”

  Charlie looked confused. “What?”

  “Some of us are getting together to practice in the field after school today—didn’t Kelly invite you?”

  “Um, no,” said Charlie. Her face grew warm.

  “Oh,” said Maria. “Well, can you stay after school? It’ll only be for an hour or so.”

  “I—I don’t have my gear with me.” Charlie desperately wished someone had told her. “Maybe I can have my dad bring it,” she said automatically, like she’d always done back in Chicago. But then she remembered her dad had a job now, and neither parent was around to help her out. She’d have to run all the way home to get her stuff, then come all the way back. And, if her mom hadn’t, she’d have to find it all first. She chided herself for not looking for her gear before. “Actually, never mind,” she said, disappointed. “I can’t make it.”

  “No worries,” said Maria, standing up. “It’s not a big deal.” She smiled reassuringly and gathered her tray and utensils.

  Charlie wasn’t sure what to do. Was she invited to hang around with Maria? She hastily downed her milk as Maria started walking away.

  Maria looked over her shoulder. “You coming, Chuck?” she asked.

  Charlie grinned at the nickname and jumped to her feet. “On it.”

  Things were looking up. Now all Charlie had to do was make the soccer team. And from the way Maria spoke about it, it might not be easy. Tonight was definitely going to be a practice night, even if she had to practice solo.

  CHAPTER 7

  A Mysterious Gift

  “Mom!” Charlie yelled when she walked in the house after school. “Have you found my soccer stuff yet?” Jessie bounded over and jumped up to lick her face. Charlie pet the dog’s neck distractedly, then gently pushed her to the floor.

  Mom didn’t answer. Charlie set her empty water bottle on the kitchen counter next to a long to-do list, with very few items crossed off. Charlie noticed “find Charlie’s soccer stuff for Thurs” was penciled at the bottom in her mom’s handwriting. But it wasn’t crossed off. Charlie sighed and went upstairs to her room. Fat Princess was curled up and sleeping soundly on her bed. Big Kitty, who’d come out from behind the stove days ago, slunk down the hallway ready to jump at any noise.

  “Mom?” she called again.

  “She’s still at the hospital!” Andy hollered from his bedroom. “She called and said she had to stay late again.”

  “It figures,” muttered Charlie. She tossed her backpack on her bed and, remembering the science vocab she needed to brush up on, considered doing her homework. But she went down to the garage instead.

  Jessie followed her out the door, eager to nose around. Charlie flipped on the light, revealing stacks of boxes everywhere. They couldn’t even fit their car in there yet. The family was planning on tackling it all this weekend, since Mom and Dad were too busy with work to do anything else these days. But Charlie was nervous. She needed her stuff. She hadn’t kicked a ball around in months. Why had she waited until now to prepare for tryouts?

  She started pawing through boxes, looking inside them and closing them again. “Welp, I found the kitchen,” she said to nobody in particular. “Not that Mom and Dad have time to cook anything anymore.” She glanced up and scanned the garage. There had to be a better way to find what she needed.

  Andy appeared in the doorway. “What are you doing?”

  “I need my soccer gear. Tryouts tomorrow.”

  “Most of your stuff is in the back corner. Me and Dad separated the boxes when we unloaded the truck.”

  “Dad and I.”

  “No, it was Dad and me,” Andy said. “I should know. All your books were really heavy.”

  “I meant— Aw, forget it.” Charlie scratched her head and wove through the stacks to the back corner. “Thanks.”

  “I have a couple of friends coming over,” Andy said, “so if you see them, let them in.”

  Charlie scowled. Andy already had friends at the coming-over-to-the-house stage? Whatever. “Let them in yourself,” she said.

  “Okay, cranky butt. Sheesh.” Andy disappeared, and Jessie bounded into the house after him.

  Charlie started peeking inside boxes again. She and her mom had packed the soccer stuff all together with other sports equipment, she remembered. She started moving things around, finding all her summer clothes, three crates of books, a container with FRAGILE written all over it that contained some of her electronics, and a big lightweight box of Halloween costumes. As she tossed the costume box onto another pile, a small package slipped to the floor at Charlie’s feet.

  She bent down and picked it up, then turned it over and saw her name, Charlie Wilde, and her old address. There was no return address and no stamp on it. Was this the package that she saw by the door when they were getting ready to leave the old house?

  “Hmm,” she said. She worked at the flap, trying to rip off the tape, and finally managed to get it started with her teeth. She tore it open the rest of the way and looked inside, then held her breath and carefully slid the contents onto the top of a box. Out came something encased in bubble wrap, and a folded piece of paper. Charlie unrolled the bubble wrap and pulled out a bracelet.

  “Sweet!” Charlie turned the bracelet over in her hand. It had a solid, silvery-metallic band with a small, square, black screen. Tiny buttons protruded from both sides. It kind of looked like one of those expensive health-monitoring bracelets that athletes wear.

  She pressed a button, and then another, but nothing happened. Probably needs a battery, she thought. The bracelet was cool but not flashy, and it might even make Charlie look like a more seri
ous soccer player at tryouts tomorrow, which wouldn’t hurt. She turned it over again. It had a metal clasp with a release button. She pressed it. The clasp separated, but it immediately tried to stick together again, as if the two pieces were magnetic. “Ooh, cool,” she breathed.

  Charlie slipped the bracelet on her wrist, securing the clasp. It fit just a little bit loosely. If she wore it partway up her forearm, it was snug enough that it wouldn’t bounce around.

  “I bet the magnetic clasp is for balance or something scientific like that,” she mused, twisting her wrist this way and that, admiring it, then held her arm out. She liked the bracelet a lot, probably even more because it was so professional looking. It was the kind of thing Charlie’s soccer hero, Alex Morgan, would wear. Or Jessie Graff from American Ninja Warrior. She picked up the folded piece of paper and opened it.

  Charlie, it’s time. You know what to do.

  There was no signature.

  The handwriting kind of looked like Charlie’s grandma’s.

  Charlie’s grandma was sciency like Dad, so she might think a bracelet like this was interesting. But why would Grandma leave a gift on the doorstep like that without coming in or saying something?

  Maybe it was a going-away present from Amari and her other soccer friends in Chicago, and they tried to disguise their handwriting so she’d be surprised. Charlie pulled out her phone and texted Amari. “Did you leave a sports bracelet at my house as a gift?” She took a quick photo of it and sent that to Amari too.

  “Nope!” came the quick reply. “But I wish I had—that’s cool! Just pretend it’s from me, haha. Are you doing better?”

  “A little. I miss you, though.”

  “Me too,” Amari replied, with four rows of crying emojis.

  “I’ve got soccer tryouts tomorrow,” wrote Charlie. “Wish me luck!”

  “LUCK!!” replied Amari. “Don’t worry. You’re a superstar! You know what to do.”

  Charlie smiled forlornly. You know what to do. Amari had written the same words that were in the note. Maybe the mysterious gift was a sign that she’d do well.

  But not if she didn’t find her gear. Reluctantly she replied to Amari with a variety of hearts and put her phone away. It was almost easier to handle the loneliness when she didn’t talk to Amari. Then she could pretend her life in Chicago never really existed.

  Charlie turned back to the bracelet and examined it more closely, studying some etchings near the clasp. “Well, thank you very much, whoever you are,” Charlie said, and shoved the paper and bubble wrap back into the package. With the recycle bin already overflowing, she left it on top of a stack of boxes to take care of on the weekend. “That’s one emptied,” she said, looking over the piles of boxes filling the garage. She pulled her sleeve down over the bracelet in the chilly garage. “Only forty thousand more to go.”

  With renewed energy Charlie began her search once more, tossing boxes left and right with little effort, even the ones full of books. “And Andy said these were heavy,” she scoffed. “Weakling.” She made it all the way to the bottom of the second stack before she found what she was after. “Finally!” she exclaimed, tearing open the box. In her excitement, the flap ripped off in her hand as easy as a piece of paper. She tossed the hunk of cardboard aside and pulled out her favorite soccer ball, her shin guards, and the brand-new cleats her parents had bought right before the move because her old ones were too small. She didn’t have much time to break them in.

  With her gear in hand and the new bracelet on her arm, Charlie left the wreckage and went to the grassy area in the neighborhood to practice dribbling. She wished doubly hard now that Kelly had invited her to the after-school practice on the field, and wondered why she hadn’t. Maybe she’d forgotten. And maybe Kelly was just being Kelly.

  Charlie shook her head as she missed a shot in her imaginary goal, trying to get the negative thoughts out of her brain. She focused on the bracelet and reminded herself that she was an excellent player. And that she did know what to do. And even if she had butterflies inside, the bracelet made her look like a pro. “Okay,” she said under her breath. “Let’s do this.”

  “How’d today go?” Charlie’s dad asked the kids as they sat at the table to eat. His voice had taken on a hint of anxiety since the move. He loosened his necktie and rolled up his sleeves. “I told my students you were settling in.”

  “What?” moaned Charlie. She still wasn’t used to her dad having students, and now he was talking to them about her. “Please don’t do that.”

  “Where’s Mom?” asked Andy, eyeing the take-out pizza on the table. “She said she was going to be home for dinner.” It was the third pizza night they’d had since they’d gotten here.

  “She’s on the way,” their dad explained, “but said to start without her.”

  “Good. I’m starving,” Andy said. He grabbed a slice. “My day was great. Juan and Zach came over to play video games for a while.”

  “That’s cool,” Dad said. “How was school?”

  “Fine.”

  “And how about you, Charlie?” he asked cautiously.

  Charlie looked at her mom’s empty chair and sighed. “Feeling guilty again, Dad?” She reached for a slice.

  “No-o-o,” he said, making a face.

  “My day was okay,” she said.

  Dad’s face cleared. “Good! How are things with, um . . . Katie?”

  Charlie glanced at him. “Who? You mean Kelly?”

  “Sorry. Yes.”

  “She’s fine, I guess. I didn’t hang out with her much today.”

  “Oh.” He pressed his lips together and spread a napkin on his lap. “Have you found any other friends yet?”

  “Dad, please.” Charlie took a bite of her pizza and wrinkled her nose. The crust tasted like the desert itself. Arizona pizza makers could sure stand to learn a lesson from Lou Malnati’s or Connie’s.

  “Please what? I’m just wondering about your life.”

  Charlie chewed and swallowed, and gave her father a bored look. “Yeah, okay, I met a girl named Maria and her friend Mac. Maria plays soccer, too.”

  “Wonderful!” said her father.

  “Oh, and after school I found my soccer stuff, so you can cross that off the to-do list—I saw it on the counter.”

  “Great job handling that one on your own!” Dad exclaimed as Charlie’s mom came walking up the driveway from the bus stop. “And look, Mom’s home.” He paused, and his voice softened. “I’m very glad you found a friend, Charlie.”

  Charlie rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah, you make it sound like I’m in first grade, Dad.” They all looked up when they heard the door open, then Charlie continued. “You’d better not go around telling your students that you’re so glad your kid finally found a friend. That’s embarrassing.”

  “What’s embarrassing?” asked Mom, walking into the kitchen.

  “Dad is,” Andy piped up. “He needs to stop talking about us in class. It’s weird.”

  Charlie’s mom laughed. “You just aren’t used to your dad talking to anybody but you kids. But I talk about you all the time at the hospital—I always have. Back in Chicago, too. Just today I was telling the mom of a young patient about the awful diaper rash Andy had as a baby.”

  “Mom!” Charlie and Andy said together. Andy covered his face with his hands and fell dramatically back in his chair. Charlie shook her head.

  “What?” their mom asked innocently. She joined them at the table. “I only do it if it helps me connect with a patient. Besides, every baby has a diaper rash once in a while. Andy’s was just . . . exceptional.” She grabbed a slice of pizza and winked at her husband across the table. “Wasn’t it, honey?”

  “Mother, stop!” Charlie said. Andy pretended to faint off the chair. He crawled under the table.

  “It won first prize in the diaper rash contest,” Dad said, chuckling.

  Reluctantly Charlie laughed too. She had to admit, diaper rash was kind of funny—unless you’re the baby w
ho has it. And when your mom is a doctor in the emergency room, you end up talking about embarrassing stuff like that a whole lot.

  CHAPTER 8

  Escape

  Far from Arizona, a scientist in a white coat entered a heavily guarded office across the hallway from his laboratory. “Good evening, soldiers,” he said to the black-suited figures inside. “You’ve had a busy week.”

  “Good evening, Dr. Gray,” said the two nearest him.

  The scientist’s gaze was drawn to the center of the office by his desk, where the burglar who’d broken into the facility sat. The man’s hands were tied behind his back and his ankles were bound. He had a gag in his mouth.

  “How’s my old friend Jack today?” asked Dr. Gray, walking over to him. He pulled the gag out, then stepped back and leaned against the desk. “Tired of the interrogation yet? Ready to talk, just the two of us?” He studied the man, a curious, almost sympathetic look on his face. “Soldiers, please give me a moment with Dr. Goldstein.”

  Without question they slipped out, leaving the two men alone.

  Dr. Jack Goldstein looked angry and unkempt. He had bruises on his face. “You can’t keep me here, Victor. People are going to notice I’ve gone missing.”

  Dr. Gray reached into his lab coat pocket and produced the prisoner’s passport. He pulled out a folded, unused plane ticket and waved it at Jack. “People think you’re in Peru doing research. Isn’t that right? They won’t miss you for quite some time.”

  “They’ll check in,” Jack said through gritted teeth. “How long are you going to hold me here? If you really think I’ve wronged you by trying to take back what’s rightfully mine, then have me arrested! If not, let me go.” He narrowed his eyes, glanced at the doors to make sure the soldiers were gone, and wriggled his wrists inside the rope. He’d been working at the knots since the soldiers had brought him to this room. His skin was covered in rope burns, and every movement was excruciating, but the knots were getting looser.