Race to the Sun Read online

  “Ugh.”

  “Yeah, ‘ugh’ is right. What happened? You were totally spacing out back there. I thought you were going to make the winning shot.”

  “I thought I was, too.” At least, that was the plan. To be honest, I’m not very good at basketball, just like I’m not very good at most things. I even flubbed my one line in The Very Hungry Caterpillar. But an opportunity like that, to get all the glory, and have the fans scream your name? I had to try, right?

  “I was really hoping to launch my bid for school fame,” I confess as we start to walk toward the gym doors. “I’ve given up on being internet-famous, but school-famous still felt within the realm of possibility. A game-winning basket would have been a perfect start.”

  Davery snorts. “Well, that plan is a total loss. The only thing you launched was a thousand sad memes.”

  I chew my bottom lip, thinking. “Do you think this means all sports are out of reach now, or just basketball?”

  “What did you have in mind?”

  “I could try to join the lacrosse team.”

  “You don’t know how to play lacrosse, either.”

  “A ball, a stick, how hard can it be?”

  “Don’t let the Haud Squad hear you say that.”

  The Haud Squad is the group of Haudenosaunee girls who rule the lacrosse team. Since their people invented the game, that makes sense.

  “Okay, lacrosse is out. What about the swim team?” I barrel on. “Wait, do we even have a swim team?”

  “Nizhoni…” Davery says, shaking his head.

  “Cricket? Volleyball? Synchronized swimming?” I fling my free arm out in a ballet-like move. Davery ducks at the last minute to avoid getting hit in the head. Whoops! “Okay,” I say, “maybe not synchronized swimming.”

  He sighs. “Why do you need to be famous, anyway?”

  I stifle a groan. Davery wouldn’t understand. His parents love him, dote on him, and turn up for everything he does. They were front and center for The Very Hungry Caterpillar. They even came to watch him present a book report once, which was, admittedly, a little awkward, since they were the only parents there and had to sit on those tiny chairs next to Laurie Wilder, who kept asking Davery if he was “really Indian.” (Davery’s mom is African American and his dad is Navajo, and small-minded people like Laurie can’t fathom that folks can be part of two cultures—ignorance like that is another reason Davery and I both left our old public school and transferred to ICCS.) But at least Davery’s parents cared enough to come. My dad didn’t. And my mom…well, she’s been gone since I was a toddler.

  I clutch the turquoise pendant under my shirt. It’s the only thing I have left of her besides the one picture of her, my dad, my little brother, and me that Dad keeps on the fireplace mantel. I still don’t know why she abandoned us, and Dad won’t talk about her, so I don’t even get the benefit of his memories. Just this necklace. Sometimes it’s enough, but more often it’s not.

  So I’m that kid. The one with no mom and a barely there dad, and some therapist would probably say I crave attention or approval or whatever, and that’s why I try so hard to be popular. But it’s not just that. It’s something…deeper. Something more important. Yet every time I think I’m ready to try to explain the truth to Davery, I can’t make the words come out. So instead I say, “Are you kidding me? Heroes get all the glory. Single-handedly winning the game at the last moment with a clutch shot? My eyes get teary just thinking about it. Besides, everyone knows you when you’re the school hero. Maybe then people will learn how to pronounce my name.”

  We pause in front of the gym doors and Davery gives me a dubious look. “Like it’s hard to say Nih-JHOH-NIH.” He plants his hands on his hips. “I noticed how distracted you were in the game. What’s really going on with you?”

  For a second, I want to blurt it all out. But the words sit on my tongue, cold and uncomfortable, like the time I stuffed a whole bag of marbles in my mouth on a dare and they kept trying to escape from my cheeks. Almost died from that one. Didn’t!

  I want to tell Davery about the weird feeling I had about the man in the black suit, the surety that he wasn’t human and the fact that, at least at that moment, his eyes were red. Explain that it isn’t the first time I’ve sensed a monster. But I don’t. The truth is, Davery is smart and funny and could have any friends he wanted. He hangs out with me because we’ve known each other since preschool—his dad and mine are old buddies from Fort Lewis College. It’s probably just a matter of time before he decides being with me is a liability he doesn’t need. And then I’ll be alone.

  No, I can’t tell him about the monsters and let him think I’m even weirder than he already knows I am. Besides, if I were him, I wouldn’t believe me, because I can barely believe it myself.

  “There’s nothing going on with me, and I was distracted because I’m hungry. Feed me and I’ll be fine.”

  “Hey,” Davery says, “maybe we can go get froyo? Rainbow sprinkles to celebrate your humiliation?”

  I laugh, accidently snorting dried blood up my bruised nose. “Ouch!!!” I know Davery’s just trying to cheer me up by offering a delicious distraction, and I’m all for it. Rainbow sprinkles are my favorite.

  “At least the bleeding’s stopped,” he says. “But your uniform is toast.”

  I glance down at my good old Isotopes jersey. The front of my shirt looks like a ketchup convention gone awry. Dad is not going to be happy. Although, on second thought: “It does look pretty heroic, right?”

  “It looks like you lost a fight with an angry tomato.”

  Okay, so maybe not quite heroic.

  “What gets bloodstains out?” I ask.

  “Soda pop will get it out.”

  “Like from the vending machine?”

  He nods. “It contains carbonic acid, which breaks down the proteins—”

  “Okay, okay,” I say, waving a hand. “Stop science-ing me. How do you know these things?”

  “I like to read.”

  “I guess that’s what happens when your dad’s a librarian.” The head librarian of the whole school district, in fact. Davery spends a lot of time in the main branch as a result.

  “Even if he wasn’t, I’d still like to read. I like knowing things.” He frowns at the look on my face. “You should try it sometime, Z. That, and doing your homework. It’s not so bad.”

  “Maybe, but doing homework is not how I’m going to find my true destiny.” I push the exit door open and motion for him to go first, sighing over yet another missed opportunity to be a middle school superstar. Before I follow him out, I take one last look back at the nearly empty gym.

  The custodian has already appeared to sweep up the mess, his broom moving steadily back and forth across the wood floor.

  And there, at the top of the bleachers, is someone else. The man in the black suit.

  Red eyes staring right at me.

  I have never been so happy to see my dad’s white Honda Accord waiting in the pickup lane. He’d gotten the coach’s message and come after all! I double-time it over and wrench open the car door, ready to slide into the passenger’s side.

  “Occupied,” says a bored voice from that seat. Black hair hanging in his face, sneakers covered in doodles, llama-face T-shirt that says I JUST WANT TO FOCUS ON MY ART RIGHT NOW in a purple thought bubble. My little brother, Mac.

  “Move it, Marcus,” I say, using his full name for emphasis. “I’m oldest. I get the front seat.”

  Mac doesn’t even look up from whatever art thing he’s animating on his iPad. “You’re only older by ten months, which means we’re practically twins—”

  “We are not twins.”

  “—which means I should get equal time in the front seat.”

  I huff, irritated, but decide it isn’t worth fighting over.

  “Hey, Mr. B,” Davery says from behind me.

  “Hey, Davery,” Dad says, distracted. He’s wearing a crisp blue dress shirt and has a fresh haircut, his black
hair carefully combed back over his ears. He’s texting on his phone, head down, and not paying attention to us. “How was the game?” Dad asks me, not even bothering to turn in my direction. “Your coach called and left a voice mail, but honestly, I can’t understand a word that woman says. She was going on and on.…”

  “Fine, Dad. I’m fine.” Just covered in blood, that’s all.

  I open the back door, slide the flat pile of Dad’s moving boxes up against the far side, and scoot in. I motion for Davery to get in the back seat, too, and he slides in next to me. It’s a tight fit, but we manage. “Is it okay if Davery comes to froyo with us?”

  “We’re going for froyo?” Mac asks, looking up excitedly.

  In the rearview mirror, I see Dad’s face crinkle up like he’s in pain. “I’d like to, Z, but my new boss is in town and he’s coming over for dinner. I really need to get home and prepare—”

  “He’s not your new boss yet,” I protest. Even worse than being humiliated and seeing monsters, we might have to move from Albuquerque to Tulsa for Dad’s new job in a few months, when the school year is over.

  “Nizhoni,” Dad says, sounding exasperated, “we’ve had this conversation before. If you and your brother want me to be able to pay for things like fancy basketball sneakers and art classes”—he shoots a pointed look at Mac—“then I need a better-paying job. And that job is in—”

  “Oklahoma,” Mac and I finish for him, in unison.

  He stares straight ahead for a minute, clearly not amused. “Landrush Oil and Gas is a major company. If they offer me the job, I’m taking it. End of story.” He looks back down at his phone and starts texting again, and I know for sure I’ve blown my chance at rainbow sprinkles.

  “Isn’t Landrush that company people are protesting for putting in that pipeline?” Davery asks, low enough that Dad can’t hear him.

  I nod miserably. Another reason Dad should definitely not take this job. But when I tried to talk to him about companies like Landrush ruining the water and land, he told me folks have to eat, and unless the protesters were going to pay his rent, he wasn’t interested. “He won’t listen,” I tell Davery. “And, sorry, but it looks like froyo’s a no-go.”

  “It’s okay, Nizhoni,” Davery says, opening the door and sliding back out of the car. “My dad’s still at the main library. I’ll just head over there. Text me later?”

  I slump in my seat and wave him good-bye.

  Dad pulls out of the pickup lane to merge with traffic. Now he’s talking with the phone up to his ear, which, last time I checked, is illegal to do while driving in the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico. But it also means he’s not paying attention when I lean forward to talk to Mac.

  “I saw something,” I whisper to my brother, the only person who knows about my secret. “A you-know-what.”

  Mac’s head snaps up, revealing a worried expression, which immediately transforms into a grin. “Whoa! What happened to your face?”

  “What happened to your face?” I ask. Because Mac has a huge black eye, which, sadly, is not that unusual for him.

  “What do you think?” Mac mutters, doing his signature hair flip that drops his bangs down over his eyes, hiding the evidence.

  “Adrien Cuttlebush?” That’s Mac’s nemesis. He’s a seventh-grader, like me, and Mac’s only in sixth, but they know each other from summer camp, where Mac did something to Adrien that he won’t fess up about. Ever since then, Adrien has had it out for him. Cuttlebush once flushed Mac’s entire sketchpad—a new one he’d just gotten for his birthday—down the boys’ bathroom toilet, one sheet at a time. Rip. Flush. Rip. Flush. Brutal. And another time, he tried to flush Mac himself down the toilet, but the assistant principal intervened before Adrien could get more than a sneakered foot in the bowl.

  “I told you I’d help you fight him,” I say. “No way are you gonna be able to take on him and his goon squad all by yourself.”

  “What are you going to do, Nizhoni?” he asks, sounding bitter. “Bleed on him?”

  I wince. Low blow. I’ve been trying my best to keep Mac safe from his nemesis, but I’m not very good at that, either.

  He grimaces, like he’s sorry he snapped at me. “So did the monster—?” He points at my nose.

  “Monster-size basketball!” I say quickly, cutting him off. Mac tends to talk before he thinks. I don’t want Dad to know I see monsters. He has enough to worry about, what with the new job prospect and all. “Right to the face.”

  “So what did you see?” Mac whispers. We both look over to make sure Dad’s not paying attention. Yup. Totally into his phone call about boring surveyor stuff—no way he’s listening to us. Or looking—he still hasn’t said anything about my bloody uniform, and I doubt he’s even noticed Mac’s puffy eye.

  “Definite monster.” I hand my brother the ice pack, because my nose feels better. “Wait…” I wipe blood off the pack with the only clean corner of my shirt. “Here.”

  He gives me a grateful smile and holds the bag to his bruised skin. “What did he look like?”

  Mac keeps thinking the monsters are going to be covered in scales or grow tentacles or something, but most of the time, they appear normal.

  They just don’t feel normal.

  “He looked human, but I could tell.” And then I lean closer to whisper, “He was in the bleachers at the end of the game, and I swear he was watching me.”

  Even now I feel a trickle of fear.

  “Did you do anything? Make eye contact?” Mac’s face lights up. “Did he take a bite out of anyone?”

  “We definitely made eye contact. His eyes were red.”

  “Wow! Like, glowing red? Or just, um, bloodshot like he didn’t get enough sleep?”

  “I don’t remember. It happened pretty fast, and then I got injured.” When I say it like that, it sounds pretty weak. But I know I’m not wrong. I just can’t explain the way it feels.

  “Was he staring at you before you got face-bombed?”

  I shiver as a million tiny ice-footed ants march down my spine. “Do you think he knows I can…?” It never occurred to me that the monsters might be able to single me out the same way I can identify them, and now I’m extra freaked.

  We turn onto our street and our house comes into view. I blow out a breath, relieved to be safe.

  We only live a five-minute drive from school. Most of the time I just walk home, since Dad’s too busy to come get me. But I guess that call from Coach did work. And he even picked up Mac from art class. Probably because he needed to make sure we were home for this dinner.

  “Your monster spotting seems to be happening more and more lately. Maybe we should tell someone,” Mac says quietly.

  “What am I going to say? There was a guy who looked like a pretty normal guy but was really a monster? And get this, he was staring at me? You think anyone will believe me? Or care?”

  “Too bad there’s not a real-life Ghostbusters hotline, but for monsters! With the cool hearse and the plasma boxes and…Hey, who’s that?”

  We pull into the driveway in front of our pretty basic and totally average-looking modest adobe house. But the car parked out front—a big black Cadillac Escalade—is not basic or modest at all. Tinted windows, oversize rims…it looks like something out of the movies. The kind of car the government sends to pick you up, and then you’re never seen or heard from ever again.

  It gives me the creeps.

  “Did the neighbors get a new car or something?” Mac asks.

  No way that’s our neighbor’s car. Ms. Abeyta drives a lime-green Prius with a bumper sticker that says YOU CAN’T FART WITHOUT MAKING A LITTLE ART. I don’t really see her upgrading to a Caddy.

  “Let’s go back, Dad,” I say, suddenly sure we don’t want to be here. I can’t say why, but I know that car means nothing good. “I—I forgot my homework in my locker. Gotta go back!”

  “What?” Dad asks as he swipes to end his call. “Don’t be silly. That’s my new boss, Mr. Charles. I was texting wi
th him before. He arrived early, and he’s going to take us out to dinner. So I don’t have to cook! Isn’t that great?”

  I can’t see anything through the SUV’s dark windows, but I can feel an evil presence nearby, just like at the game. The hairs on my neck rise. The chill puts goose bumps on my arms. I squeeze Mac’s shoulder.

  “Ow!” he whines.

  I point with my chin to the car, making Something is not right eyes. Unfortunately, Mac thinks I’m making I need to go pee eyes, so he says, “Just hold it, Nizhoni. We’re almost inside.”

  I try again, but now he’s looking at the SUV.

  Someone gets out: a Black man with a shaved head and deep brown skin like Davery’s. He’s wearing a white suit, and a holster is showing under the jacket. “Is that a gun?” I squeak.

  “Bodyguard,” Dad says, laughing a little nervously. “Mr. Charles is very high up in the oil and gas industry, which makes him a target for protesters. In fact, it’s kind of strange that he would come all this way just to interview me, but he said he was in town and he really cares about all his employees, even the lowliest surveyors.” Dad’s forehead wrinkles up, like he’s just now realizing how unusual this is. “I, uh, guess they do things differently in Oklahoma,” he says with another little laugh.

  A second person gets out of the car. This one’s a Native American woman, but not Navajo like us. Maybe from a Plains tribe. She’s just as tall and muscled as the first bodyguard, with the same white suit and the same gun.

  “Two bodyguards,” Mac says incredulously. “Who is this mysterious Mr. Charles?”

  I make a little hiccup sound when I see there’s one more person getting out of the car. Tall. Blond. Unusually red lips. Black suit. Mirrored sunglasses.

  “That’s him,” Dad says as he unbuckles his seat belt. He exhales, like he’s preparing himself for battle. He puts on a bright fake smile and opens the door. “Come shake hands, kids.”

  “Mac!” I whisper, squeezing his shoulder harder. “Stop him!”