Race to the Sun Read online

  “Stop who? Dad?”

  I nod, frantically. Dad’s halfway across the yard, hand outstretched. Seconds from contact.

  “That’s him!” I whisper.

  “Who’s ‘him’?”

  “The one I saw at the gym. The guy who was watching me.”

  “But…” Mac frowns, confused. Then he goes all bug-eyed as he finally understands.

  “Dad! Noooooo!” we both scream, banging on the window glass. But it’s too late.

  He reaches out, and we watch as our dad shakes hands with a monster.

  “What do we do?” Mac squeaks.

  I’m not sure, but I do know one thing. “We remain calm. We have the upper hand right now.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “He won’t want to blow his cover in front of Dad, right? So as long as we play it cool…” I glance over at Mac. His expression reminds me of that time we went to the amusement park and he insisted on riding the Cyclone right after he’d eaten three chili dogs. Part super-excited, part terrified, and part ready to barf. “I said play it cool, Mac. C-O-O-L. Right now you look decidedly uncool.”

  “I’m trying,” he says. He takes a few deep breaths, nervously shuffling the ice pack between his hands.

  Dad is eagerly waving us over.

  “We better go,” I say. “Dad’s waiting.”

  “He’s going to want us to shake hands,” Mac reminds me.

  Dad always wants us to shake hands with everyone. Once, we went to this honoring ceremony for Native American veterans. There were at least thirty of them there from all different tribal nations, and Mac and I had to walk the entire line and shake every single hand. I was really annoyed at first, because I was hungry and everyone knows that elders get to eat first, so it was going to take forever. But then it turned out to be kind of cool to meet all those people and see their medals up close. One grandpa had even been a Navajo Code Talker in World War II. I think he must have heard my stomach growling, because he slipped me a chocolate chip cookie on the sly. I was so grateful, and ever since then, I haven’t minded shaking hands so much.

  However, this time I mind a lot.

  “No way I’m touching a monster,” I protest.

  “What else can we do? Run for it?”

  “Yeah, that’d be real cool.” I sigh. “Come on. I’ve got an idea. Just follow my lead, okay? And whatever you do, don’t touch him.” I don’t know much about monsters, but it seems like common sense. Who knows what could happen? They could slime on you, suck out your soul, eat your eyeballs. The terrible possibilities are endless.

  We get out of the car together and walk slowly over to Dad, Mr. Charles, and the two bodyguards in white. I see Dad focus on us and his eyebrows shoot up. Looks like he’s finally noticed my bloody shirt and Mac’s black eye. But he doesn’t have time to say anything before Mr. Charles speaks.

  “So this must be Nizhoni and Marcus,” Mr. Charles says enthusiastically, giving us an oversize grin. “But holy heck, what happened to y’all? You both look like you’ve been wrestling longhorns!” Despite his fancy suit, he’s got a twangy accent that shouts Aw shucks and Gee whiz like a fake cowboy in an old movie. I don’t trust it.

  “Sports injury.” I narrow my eyes at Mr. Charles and wait to see if he says anything. After all, he was there. But he doesn’t let on that he knows, and it’s hard to figure out what he’s thinking behind those sunglasses. His face is just politely curious, and maybe a little grossed out. What kind of monster gets faint at the sight of blood?

  “Well, shoot. Sorry about that, but it looks like you survived,” says Mr. Charles. “Nice to meet you both!” He thrusts his right hand in front of me. It looks perfectly normal, but I remind myself that it’s not, that this a disguise. Underneath that perfectly normal-looking skin is something truly awful—something scaly or tentacle-y or…or…

  “Better not,” I say, trying to sound regretful. I hold up my hand and wiggle my fingers. Thankfully, there’s still some blood underneath my nails and dried bits flaking off my palm, so I have the ideal excuse.

  “Go get cleaned up, Nizhoni,” Dad says, gesturing to the front door. He nudges Mac to shake hands.

  “My hands are full,” Mac says. He clutches his iPad closer to his chest, eyes wide. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Dad says, and takes his iPad away. And just like that, Mac runs out of excuses.

  I gulp, worried…and watch as Mac reluctantly reaches out and shakes Mr. Charles’s hand.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, shoulders tense, and wait for Mac to scream in pain. Or freeze and fall over. Or for his eyes to flash green and for him to start talking in a robot voice, hypnotized by Mr. Charles’s touch.

  But when I open my eyes…

  Nothing happens.

  Charles lets go, and then Mac moves over and shakes hands with the two bodyguards—first the man, who introduces himself as Mr. Rock, and then the woman, who says her name is Ms. Bird. And nothing weird or scary happens. Nothing at all.

  Well, besides Mac looking back at me over his shoulder and giving me a huge thumbs-up.

  “What happened to playing it cool?” I mutter under my breath.

  “Hurry up and get ready, Nizhoni,” Dad says. “And put on something nice. Mr. Charles is taking us to the Pasta Palace for dinner.”

  Did I hear that right? The monster is taking us to my favorite restaurant for dinner? Is that even allowed?

  Behind me I hear Mac ask the woman bodyguard, “Is that a real gun? Can I see it?”

  And now I am thoroughly confused. I still have that feeling that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, but Mr. Charles hasn’t done anything that would make me think he was evil. Was I wrong about him being a monster? Was I wrong about Dad and Mac being in danger? Was I wrong about everything?

  I wash up quickly, getting rid of both the lingering blood and the gym-socks smell from basketball, and like Dad said, I pick out something nice to wear. Not too nice, in case the monster calling himself Mr. Charles attacks us or something and I have to make a run for it. But clean jeans, my favorite Frank Waln shirt, and a pair of Nike N7 sneakers. I’m leaving my bedroom, pulling the door closed, when I notice something odd.

  Mr. Charles is standing in our living room by himself—no Dad or Mac, and no bodyguards. He’s in front of the mantel, where we keep some family photos. He picks up the largest, peering at it closely before setting the frame down and examining the next. I know which picture it is from here—it’s the one of my whole family, including my mom. Mr. Charles flips the frame over and turns the clasp that holds the photo inside. He starts to slide out the paper. Wait…he’s stealing it?! He shouldn’t even be touching it! It’s special, and he needs to keep his monster paws off.

  “What are you doing?” I snap.

  He looks up, sunglasses still on, and calmly slides the photo back into the frame and sets it down. “Hello, Nizhoni.” His blond hair looks almost silver in the late-afternoon light coming in from the windows, and he smiles self-assuredly, showing a mouth full of perfect white teeth. He pulls something from his pocket and palms it so I can’t tell what it is.

  “Did you know that your name means ‘beauty’ in Navajo?” he continues. “Well, of course you did.” He chuckles. “It’s your name.”

  “Where’s my dad?”

  “You have a very interesting family,” he says, gesturing back to the photos and ignoring my questions. “Is that your mother?”

  I glare at him. No way I’m telling him anything.

  “I never met her, of course, but she is known to my…” He pauses, as if searching for a word. “…associates.”

  “Monsters?” I blurt out.

  His face freezes for a moment, but then he grins. “I see you and I don’t have to play games. That’s good. I like that we can be honest with each other.” All traces of his hokey cowboy accent are gone.

  I knew it! All my feelings were right! Mr. Charles is a monster. But on the heels of my triumph come
s dread. Why is a monster interested in my family, and how would he and his so-called associates know about my mom?

  “As long as we’re being honest,” Mr. Charles says, “let me tell you why I’m here. To explain that, I’ll have to start with your mother. Did you know her side of the family goes way back in Navajo history? All the way back to the goddess Changing Woman? She’s—”

  “I know about Changing Woman. But we call her a Holy Person, not a goddess,” I say, lifting my chin and trying to sound brave. “I mean, as long as we’re being honest.”

  My shimásání—that’s what I call my grandmother on my mother’s side—taught me that Changing Woman created the clan system of the Navajo people. The system tells us who we’re related to, and it’s one of the first things Mac and I had to learn. Since I carry three of the original clans in my lineage, being descended from Changing Woman isn’t as strange as it might sound.

  Mr. Charles’s greasy grin gets bigger, if that’s even possible. His bright teeth look sharp behind his lips. “Such a smart girl,” he says, in a creepy fake-compliment voice. “Then I assume you also know that your mother’s ancestry can be traced directly to one of Changing Woman’s sons.”

  I don’t remember my shimásání ever saying anything about Changing Woman’s son. And how does this white dude from some oil and gas company know anything about Navajo stories, anyway? A chill crawls down my spine.

  “Perhaps I don’t have to explain why I’m here,” Mr. Charles goes on. “Perhaps you already know.” He raises an expectant eyebrow.

  “To take us to the Pasta Palace?” I blurt out, fear making me say something ridiculous. Real smooth, Nizhoni.

  He laughs. Twirls whatever it is he has in his hands. It’s a long black object that glints in the afternoon light, but I still can’t get a good look at it. “You can probably guess that I’m a very powerful man. I run a corporation worth billions of dollars. On my private estate, I have dozens of people at my beck and call. I’m not used to being thwarted. And yet, it was recently brought to my attention that there is a girl, the daughter of our former enemy, who could impede my plans for the future.” He steps closer.

  My back is up against my bedroom door. I’m not trying to be brave anymore. In fact, I’m considering screaming. Through the living room window I can see my dad outside, chatting with those bodyguards. Isn’t he wondering why I haven’t come out yet? What his boss is doing? Unless Mr. Charles used some power to make Dad forget all about me…not that he needs much help in that department.

  “Well, imagine how upset this news made me,” he says. “I’ve worked so hard for all that I have.” He puts his sunglasses on top of his head, and I see that his eyes are bloodred. He stares at me and my whole body freezes up. His gaze is powerful, dangerous. I felt it before, at my basketball game, and I feel it again now. “With the hope that I could prove my associates wrong, I had to come see for myself. It was easy enough to set up a meeting with your father. And when you recognized my true identity at the basketball game…”

  I shake my head and start to say something, but he cuts me off.

  “Oh, don’t bother denying it. We’re being honest here, remember? I found that it was true. You are your mother’s daughter. And I’m sorry, Nizhoni, but I can’t afford to have one girl, one tiny speck of a girl, ruin everything.”

  “But I can’t ruin anything!” I protest. My heart is beating a mile a minute, and I just want out of here. “I see stuff sometimes, I admit it, but that’s all.”

  “Stuff ?” He chuckles, waving my words away. “It’s okay, Nizhoni. You can say it. You can detect monsters. But interestingly enough, your brother cannot. In fact, I thought he might take after your father instead of your mother and be perfectly mundane. But then Marcus shook my hand, and I felt his unrealized potential. He’s special, too.”

  I knew it was a bad idea to shake his hand! A burst of anger overrides my fear, and I shout, “You better not touch my brother!”

  “So fierce. What a good sister you are! But don’t worry about Marcus. I want him alive. His power is different from yours, and once it manifests, he will come in quite handy for my business needs. You, however…” He shakes his head sadly. “It does pain me to hurt youngsters, it really does. But best to do it now, before you grow up and truly become a problem. I am so very sorry, Nizhoni, but I’m afraid…” He stops twirling the object in his hand and points it at me. It’s long and flat and made of black stone, and it looks sharp at one end.

  My heart thuds hard in my chest when I realize he’s holding an obsidian knife.

  “…I need you dead.”

  I don’t even think before I run full tilt at Mr. Charles. His startled eyes are the last thing I see before I kick that knife right out of his hand. It goes skittering across the tile floor.

  Whoa! Where did that move come from?

  But I’m not done. I head-butt Mr. Charles in the stomach. He goes Whooof and stumbles back. And for good measure, I execute a perfect elbow strike to the cheek, just like I learned in the self-defense class Coach taught in PE last year. I’ve never been able to do it before, but this time it’s a direct hit. And it’s fast! I’m fast! Mr. Charles definitely makes an Uggghhh sound.

  “Nizhoni!” my dad yells from the open front door, horrified.

  I pause in my vicious monster-fighting onslaught to look over. It’s not just Dad, but also Mac and the two bodyguards pushing through the entryway. They’re all staring at me, mouths open, eyes big as frybreads. Well, I can’t see the bodyguards’ eyes behind their reflective sunglasses, but something tells me they’re huge.

  “What on earth…?” My dad rushes forward to help Mr. Charles. The man is bent over, one hand holding his stomach and the other rubbing his cheek. “I am so sorry,” Dad murmurs as he helps Mr. Charles stand up straight. “I have no idea what is wrong with her.”

  Wrong with me? “He had a knife!” I exclaim. “I was protecting myself!”

  Dad looks around. “I see no knife.”

  “I kicked it away,” I say. “It’s on the floor over there.” I gesture vaguely in its direction.

  Mr. Rock bends over and picks something up. “This?” he asks, holding up a sharp, deadly…mechanical pencil.

  “It was a knife!” I insist.

  Mr. Rock presses the fraction of lead sticking out of the top of the pencil, and it breaks off with an audible snap, showing how thin and fragile it is. Mac makes a low whistle and mouths, Way to play it cool, Z.

  “But—but…” I take a step toward Mr. Rock, ready to search his pockets. Of course he switched out the knife for the pencil, of course he’s hiding it. He works for Mr. Charles, doesn’t he?

  “Not so fast,” Dad says, holding out an arm to stop me in my tracks. He grabs my wrist like a vise, and the low rumble in his voice tells me I’m in big trouble. The only thing worse than the rumble is when he calls me by my full name.

  “Don’t you think you’ve caused enough trouble, Nizhoni Marie Begay?”

  Welp!

  Mac mouths, You are so grounded.

  I narrow my eyes. Oh, no. I’m not getting blamed for this one. “Dad, he had a knife, honest! He was threatening to kill me! Why else was he in our house—?”

  “I came in to use the little boys’ room,” Mr. Charles says with an embarrassed Aw shucks chuckle.

  Oh, please. Surely Dad’s not falling for that. I mean, do monsters even pee?

  “Then why were you studying our family photos?” I ask with a growl.

  “I was admiring them,” he says. “You have such a lovely family.”

  Aha! More lies! Everyone knows Mac is funny-looking.

  I ask, “Then why did you need a pencil?”

  He crinkles his brow, puzzled. “You asked me for an autograph. Don’t you remember?” He holds up a small flip-top notepad. Mr. Rock pumps the eraser to load fresh lead and hands the pencil to Mr. Charles, who signs a piece of paper with a flourish. He tears it out and holds it out to me.

  “Th
anks,” I mutter, taking the paper automatically. I look down at it and see that he has very nice handwriting. That seems odd for a monster.…Wait, monsters give autographs? Double wait, I never asked for his autograph. He’s totally lying!

  Dad simmers.

  Mac mouths, Loser.

  “Dad!” I start to protest, but he’s not listening.

  “To your room!” he says, quietly but firmly pushing me down the hall.

  “I swear he had a knife!” One last protest.

  We’re at my bedroom door, and he marches me across the threshold, plants me by the bed, and turns to me. I’ve never seen him so mad. His face is bright red, his eyes are wet like he’s about to cry, and the veins in his neck are pulsing with parental rage.

  “I have never been so embarrassed in my entire life!” he hisses through gritted teeth. “How could you attack my potential new boss, who I’m trying to impress? And then make up some wild story about a knife?!”

  “But—”

  “No!” He holds up a hand. “You’re done talking, Nizhoni. In fact, you’re done, period. You are staying here while the rest of us go to Pasta Palace and have a nice violence-free dinner. You are not to leave this room, and I’m taking your phone, too, so you can spend time thinking about what you’ve done. Do you hear me?” He raises a shaky hand to his face and pushes his short hair back. “And I am going to apologize profusely and try to save my job. I know you don’t want us to move away, but you’ve gone too far. Much, much too far! I hate to say it, but I am ashamed of you.”

  And just like that, all the fight goes out of me. I feel like a worm. Worse—the end of a worm. Worm butt, that’s me. I feel my stomach sink, and tears rush to my eyes.

  My father gives me one last look, a look of pure shame, before he closes my bedroom door right in my face. I stand there for a minute, staring at the back of the door. I can hear Dad making more apologies to Mr. Charles and that slimeball laughing it off and asking if I cause trouble in school. Unfortunately, I also hear Mac helpfully volunteering that I once had to attend a Saturday anger management class at my old school for punching Elora Huffstratter in the nose. But Mac neglects to mention that Elora Huffstratter, a white girl, said my mom left us because I was a dirty Indian. Then she made war-whooping noises like something out of a bad Western. So, as far as I’m concerned, Elora totally had it coming. I would do it again in a heartbeat, even if it meant another Saturday anger management class.