The last time Grandma was here, Nola and her mother had found her before she could make it any farther. Nola had walked her back home. Had Grandma Pat really managed to board a bus to Denver this time, dressed the way she was? I sucked in my breath. Buses and Beaumonts didn’t always mix.
I pulled Grandma’s winter formal invitation from my pocket and looked at it again. My hands trembled as I ran my fingers over the engraved image of the Larimer High School clock tower. Denver was huge. It had suburbs and skyscrapers and roller coasters. Having lived most of my life between two tallgrass prairie states, surrounded by summer corn, winter wheat, and big, long stretches of nothing, I’d spent the little end of never in big cities. I was overcome by the thought of Grandma all alone in Denver, and overwhelmed by the idea of going there myself to search for her. A country mouse in the metropolis.
With time caught in a gridlock, the only way for me to get to Denver would be to hike thirty miles of highway.
I needed to restart time.
I dashed back up the winding road. As I listened to the dull thud of my boots clomping through the stillness, I tried to remember what I’d said or done to restart time the previous Sunday. But my memory of that day was still a blur.
Keeping my eyes glued to the asphalt, I jogged forward, repeating streams of words. Hoping to eventually stumble across the right ones.
“Start, start, start . . .”
“Go, go, go . . .”
“Tick, tick, tock . . .”
“Please, please, please . . .”
I had tried the same sets of syllables last time. None of them had worked on Sunday; they didn’t work now, either. What were the magic words?
I was having a rough day. Grandpa Bomba’s savvy had given him the power to move mountains, not see into the future, but he must have guessed that I’d have a bad day or two ahead of me. Why else would he have put that quote in my birthday card—the one from Shakespeare—about time and the hour running through the roughest day? Right now, time wasn’t running at all. I was. And I was getting tired.
Halfway up the hill, I slowed my pace, then stopped. Both my legs and my lungs needed a break. Sucking in crisp mountain air, I tried to assure myself that this night would end, one way or another.
Looking up from the asphalt and the gravel, I took in all the sights around me—the hills, the stars, the trees, even the rising storm front, heavy with snow. Maybe there was a purpose to it all. A grand master plan. I didn’t know. I did know that I couldn’t hold an entire blizzard at bay forever. I had to face the fact that a storm was coming.
“You’re as ready as you’ll ever be, Gypsy,” I told myself. I took a long, slow breath, and held it. When I breathed out again, I whispered, “Come what may.” Then I did the same thing three more times. Breathe in. Breathe out. Come what may.
Feeling a little better, a little calmer, I began to jog up the road again, softly chanting the words Grandpa Bomba had given me inside my birthday card.
A sharp blast of arctic air plastered my curls across my face, making me shiver. A snowflake landed on my nose. I jogged on, listening to the wind shaking the evergreens, and to the sound of traffic, far away in the distance. A car horn honked, startling me. I turned, hoping it was Momma returning from the store at last with bags full of cake and packing tape. When a stranger in a pickup truck drove past me, I realized with a jolt that time had started moving again without me noticing.
Had I found the right set of magic words at last? Perhaps Grandpa had given me one final gift before he died, when he wrote come what may inside my birthday card.
“Thank you, Grandpa!” I shouted to the frosty sky.
As more snowflakes began to fall, my jog turned into a celebratory skip-hop-jump. The thought that I’d found a way to scumble my switched-up savvy made me want to spin and twirl and sing a chorus of hallelujahs. But I couldn’t slow down. Now that the world was whirling again, the real race to find Grandma was on.
WHEN I RETURNED, SAMSON and Tucker were in the middle of the road, calling out for me and Grandma. The front door of Grandma’s house stood open, spilling light into the yard. Nola clung to the door frame, like she’d just lived through an earthquake—a major shake-up of everything she thought she knew about the world. Witnessing my family’s abilities for the first time sometimes had that effect on people.
I tried to imagine what it must have been like for Nola when time started again. One moment, she was watching Samson light up like a house on fire; the next moment, she was blindfolded . . . Tucker had moved away from the window in a flash . . . Samson’s flames were out and he was dripping iced tea . . . and I’d completely vanished.
“Gypsy!” Tucker shouted when he saw me running up the road.
“There you are!” Samson met me in three long strides. He gathered me up in a warm, damp hug. “As soon as that pitcher hit me, I knew you’d stopped time again. Plus, I had that same queasy feeling in my stomach we all got the last time you stopped and started time.
“Yeah, me too,” Tucker whined, holding his tummy. “I don’t like it when you do that, Gypsy.”
Samson hugged me fiercely. “When we couldn’t find you—”
“Erf,” I mumbled into the front of my brother’s shirt. “I love you too, Samson, but you’re squishing me. And roasting me.”
“How long were you on your own this time?” Samson asked, taking a step back but not letting go of my shoulders. His worry brought a smile to my face. My older brothers all shared a steadfast overprotective streak.
“Not long,” I said. “But we have to get moving.” I pointed up at the sky. “The storm is here, and I’m pretty sure Grandma is on a bus headed into Denver.”
“A bus? Into Denver?” Samson’s jaw dropped.
“Where’s Denver?” Tuck wanted to know.
I pulled out Grandma Pat’s winter formal invitation, the note scrawled on the napkin, and the fur pom-pom, displaying them all for Tucker and Samson.
“I was trying to tell everyone earlier,” I said, “but nobody would listen. Right before the switch happened, I had a vision—a vision of the future. A vision of this night . . .”
Still standing in the yard, I rattled off a shortened version of my clock tower premonition. I explained how, at first, I’d thought the old woman in the vision was me, a long time from now. I didn’t share the part about the hands reaching out from the red sleeves, and how it was going to be up to me to save Grandma. I knew it would only double Samson’s distress, and I couldn’t risk the possibility of more blazes.
Tucker looked more confused than anything else. Nola crept closer as I spoke, staring at the rest of us like we were a family of purple unicorns.
By the time I finished telling Samson about my vision, I was trembling. “Why isn’t Momma back yet?” I cried. “We need her!”
“Don’t worry, Gypsy,” said Samson. My brother led me back toward the house, brushing past Nola, who still stood gaping. “We’ll use Grandma’s phone to call Momma—to call the police too, just like Nola wanted us to do. I don’t know where Momma is; she should have been back by now. As soon as she gets here, we’ll all go after Grandma. But without a car—”
“I-I have a car.” Nola’s voice stopped us in our tracks. “I-I mean, my mom’s new SUV is in the garage. She’s still in Chicago, at her medical conference, and Dad is two hours away, in Pueblo—probably in the middle of removing someone’s gallbladder, or something. But my mom’s car is here.” Nola pointed over her shoulder, toward her house. She looked both wired and uncertain, like she was offering a getaway car for a diamond heist.
“Only . . .” Nola paused, looking back at the rest of us through her bandit mask of black eye makeup. “I don’t turn sixteen until next month. I don’t have a driver’s license yet.”
“Samson’s got one,” Tucker piped up, jabbing Samson in the arm repeatedly with one finger.
> “Would you really let us use your mother’s car, Nola?” I asked.
“Only if you guys tell me everything—and I mean everything. And only if you take me with you.”
Things moved quickly after that. We all rushed back into Grandma’s house, where Samson ran to use the telephone in the kitchen, and Tucker and I stood in front of Nola, spilling the entire can of beans about all things savvy-secret. We talked over each other in our haste, explaining everything as fast as we could. Starting with the tale of our first savvy ancestor and ending with the switch, we condensed an entire pot of spicy chili into quick spoonfuls and small bites. Worried that Nola might be scared of Samson now, after nearly getting flambéed by his fire show, I told her how heroic my brother could be; I divulged how he’d once pushed his old invisibility-and-strength-giving savvy to its limits to help save the day. How he’d lost his powers completely for three miserable months afterward.
Nola kept her eyes narrowed, her arms crossed, and her lips pressed tight, like she didn’t trust a single word Tucker and I were saying. But she couldn’t deny what she’d already seen.
By the time Samson rejoined us, glancing nervously at the neighbor girl, Nola was a little calmer. But she still kept her distance, uncertain if it was safe to get too close to any of us.
“I’m not sure I believe half of what you guys just told me,” she said. Then she added, “But I’m still going with you. I’m worried about Mrs. B.” None of us argued with her. We needed her. Nola knew the city; we didn’t. And we needed her mother’s car.
“Did you talk to Momma, Samson?” I asked as my older brother clasped my shoulder with one broiling hand, like he was trying to make me feel stronger, the way he could before the switch. I was grateful for the gesture, even if it did make my skin feel like it was going to blister.
“Did you call the police? Are they going to put out an alert for Grandma? Are they going to look for her?”
“Momma’s phone went straight to voicemail,” Samson said, glowering. “Either her battery is dead, or she turned off her phone by mistake. And the police?” Samson scoffed softly. “They thought I was a prank caller—said if I didn’t stop playing on the phone, I could face penalties. I suppose I shouldn’t have told them Grandma is trying to get to the top of a clock tower dressed like one of the Twelve Dancing Princesses.”
“It’s up to us, then,” I said, even though I knew that, in the end, it was going to be up to me, and me alone.
I helped Tucker find his coat and mittens while Nola retrieved her cosmetics case and shopping bags from the entryway. Samson didn’t need a coat. He was warmed naturally from the inside out.
The snow fell in droves as we all trooped across the road to the Kims’ garage. Nola punched a code into a small keypad, opening the garage door. She then moved quickly to her mom’s spotless, pearl-white SUV, where she opened the rear hatch and tossed her shopping bags inside.
“You do have a driver’s license, right?” Nola asked Samson as she grabbed a set of keys from a peg on the wall and dangled them in front of him. When Samson nodded, blushing, Nola sighed and said, “Lucky.” Then she slapped the keys into my brother’s palm and climbed into the passenger seat of the car.
Tucker and I were in the backseat in a flash.
“This is crazy,” Nola said as Samson backed the mammoth car down the driveway. “I bet I’m dreaming all of this.” She clutched her slouchy sequined hat, fingering a few of the silver sequins that had warped and melted during Samson’s fire show. “I’m in the car with a bunch of kids with kooky powers, my elderly neighbor is missing, and my phone is trashed. I should probably try to call my dad, down in Pueblo—but what would I say? If I told him the truth, he’d want to X-ray my brain.”
Nola ranted on and on as Samson got us on the road. “Three weeks! I was going to get my driver’s license in three weeks. If my mom finds out we took her car, she won’t let me take my driving test until I’m older than Mrs. B. And I won’t be allowed to stay home alone again, ever.”
“But you and your parents have been caring for Grandma Pat,” I said from the backseat, fastening Tucker’s seat belt, then mine. “Wouldn’t your mom want us to go look for her?”
“Not in this car.” Nola took a long, exaggerated sniff. “Smell that? That’s New Car Scent. When it comes to this SUV, the president of the United States could be sinking in quicksand, and Mom would be too worried about getting the floor mats dirty to rescue him. So nobody make a mess or . . .” She pointed at Samson. “Or set any part of this car on fire.”
“What about our momma?” Tuck asked, twisting in his seat to watch Grandma’s house disappear into the distance. “Momma’s savvy is all messed up, and she’s been gone forever. What if she’s in trouble?”
“Momma will be okay, Tuck,” Samson said, even though he didn’t sound entirely convinced. “Who knows why her phone is off? With her savvy all switched up, I suppose anything could’ve happened to it.”
Tucker nodded gravely. “Maybe she dropped it in the potty. And then an alligator ate it.”
Samson smiled. “I suppose it’s possible.”
“Drat! I know exactly why Momma is so late,” I said. I felt like kicking myself as the memory of one of my very first savvy visions came rushing back to me. How had I not remembered earlier? On the morning of my thirteenth birthday, I’d looked into Momma’s face and seen a tow truck, pine trees, snow, and a cupcake.
And our station wagon nose-down in a ditch.
When I shared the things I’d foreseen three months ago, Samson pounded his fist against the steering wheel. A ball of fire scorched the windshield in front of him and quickly dissipated.
“I knew I shouldn’t have let her drive!” he said, ignoring Nola’s shrieking as he rubbed a black scorch mark from the glass. “Now we have to search for Momma too.”
“No we don’t, Samson,” I assured him. “You were right when you said Momma’s fine. She isn’t hurt. And a tow truck will come for her—it might already be on its way. I saw it, Samson. Momma will be safe, I promise. Grandma won’t be.” I shuddered. My premonition of Momma and the tow truck was just one more thing I hadn’t been able to keep from happening. How would I ever save Grandma?
SNOW GUSTS BUFFETED THE SUV, but thanks to Samson’s brooding, we were plenty warm. We’d barely left Evergreen before Nola took off her jacket, revealing a flowing leopard-print scarf and a tight purple T-shirt with the words Pop Star bejeweled across the front. She opened the hard-sided cosmetics case she’d stowed at her feet and rummaged through it.
“I feel like my eyelashes got toasted,” she said. Using the mirror on the back of her sun visor, Nola applied six new layers of mascara.
Samson drove top speed, following Nola’s directions into Denver. The storm gnashed its big teeth at us, trying to swallow us whole. Making the roads and highways spit-slippery.
For the first ten miles, we sat in silence, filling the inside of the SUV with unspoken thoughts and worries. Samson snapped his fingers nervously, igniting the tip of his thumb over and over again. I tried not to picture Grandma Pat wandering down some dark alley in the wind and weather. Nola knew where Grandma’s bus from Evergreen would stop once it got to Denver; she didn’t know where the old high school was. So we were headed for the bus terminal, hoping to catch up to Grandma there.
The clock on the dashboard was too small for me to see. I asked Samson for the time so often, he took off his watch and gave it to me. I secured the canvas band around my own wrist, even though the watch itself was hot, hot, hot. If anyone needed a timepiece, it was me. It was 6:25. We had to find Grandma Pat before midnight. I tried to relax. We had plenty of time.
But as the skyline of the Mile-High City grew bigger and bigger in the windshield, I realized that we could search for a week and not find Grandma.
Nola continued to fiddle with the melted sequins on her hat, like she was still tryi
ng to process everything she’d witnessed, and everything we’d told her.
“So let me see if I’ve got this right,” she said, after instructing Samson to take the next exit. “Before everything got ‘switched up,’ as you say it did”—Nola made air quotes with her fingers, then pointed to my older brother—“you could turn invisible and make other people feel calmer or stronger, or whatever, when you reappeared. But now you’re Fire Guy, making people like me collapse in fear?”
“Fire Guy?” Samson jerked his head back at the nickname. But when I caught his reflection in the rearview mirror, I could see him smiling. He liked his new savvy!
“And before this so-called switch”—Nola turned to look at me—“you used to be able to see into the past or future, right?”
“She totally could!” Tucker said, kicking Nola’s seat. “Gypsy even had a vision of me burying Poppa’s fifty states quarter collection in the backyard when I was five. That was when I liked to pretend I was a pyrite.”
“Pirate, Tuck. Not pyrite,” I corrected him.
“Yeah, a pirate.” Tucker dismissed my interruption with a wave, still kicking Nola’s seat. “After Gypsy had her vision, we all went out with shovels and dug up the quarters. It was fun! Gypsy is always taking off her glasses and spacing out. Momma says it’s not good manners to stare, but Gypsy stares at people all the time. She gets this really dopey look on her face and—whammo! She gets a vision.” Tucker bulged out his eyes and made a silly face. “At least, she used to.”
“I don’t get a dopey look on my face!” I squeaked, completely mortified. “I don’t, do I, Samson?” Samson winced apologetically in the rearview mirror.
“Sorry, Gypsy . . . you sort of do. Or, did. But it was always kinda cute.”