I’ll Give You the Sun(24)
Author: Jandy Nelson

Then all of a sudden Brian snatches the dancing stone into one of his fists, stopping time.

“What I want to know,” he says, drawling out each word. “Is who the hell let you out of your cages?”

“Do you believe this guy?” Fry says to Big Foot, who grunts out an incomprehensible something in Big Footese. They lunge—

I’m telling Grandma Sweetwine I will be joining her shortly when I catch the whipping movement of Brian’s arm a second before Fry cries out, his fingers flying to his ear, “What the hell?” Then Big Foot yelps and covers his head. I whirl around, see Brian’s hand in the bag. Now Fry’s ducking, and so is Big Foot, because meteorites are wailing at them, raining on them, hailing down on them, zooming past their skulls at the speed of sound, faster, at the speed of light, each time whooshing close enough to shave hairs, a millimeter away from ending their brain activity permanently. “Stop it!” Big Foot screams. Both of them are twisting and hopping and trying to shield their heads with their arms as more bits and pieces of fallen sky race through the air at warp speed. Brian’s a machine, a machine gun, two at a time, three, four, underhand, overhand, both hands. His arm’s a blur, he’s a blur—each rock—each star—just barely missing, barely sparing Fry and Big Foot until they’re both balled up on the ground, hands over their heads, saying, “Please, dude, stop.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t hear that apology,” Brian says, whipping one so close to Fry’s head it makes me wince. Then another few for good measure. “Two apologies, actually. One to Noah. And one to me. Like you mean it.”

“Sorry,” Fry says, completely stunned. Maybe one did bean him in the head. “Now stop.”

“Not good enough.”

An additional series of meteorites rocket at their skulls at a billion miles per hour.

Fry cries out, “Sorry, Noah. Sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“Brian.”

“Sorry, Brian!”

“Do you accept their apology, Noah?”

I nod. God and his son have been demoted.

“Now, get the hell out of here,” Brian says to them. “Next time I won’t miss your thick skulls on purpose.”

And then they’re fleeing in a second rain of meteorites, their arms helmetting their heads, as they run away from us.

“The pitcher?” I ask him as I grab my pad.

He nods. I catch the half smile breaking through the wall of his face. He hops off the rock-slide and starts picking up the meteorites and loading them back into his bag. I grab the magnet rake, lying there like a sword. This guy’s so totally more magic-headed than anyone, even Picasso or Pollock or Mom. We jump the creek and then we’re tearing through the trees together in the opposite direction of home. He’s as fast as I am, fast like we could run down jumbo jets, comets.

“You know we’re dead, right?” I shout, thinking of the coming payback.

“Don’t count on it,” Brian shouts back.

Yeah, I think, we’re invincible.

We’re sprinting at the speed of light when the ground gives way and we rise into the air as if racing up stairs.

• • •

I give up on the sketch, close my eyes, lean back in my desk chair. In my mind, I can draw Brian with lightning.

“What?” I hear. “You meditating now? Swami Sweetwine has a certain ring.”

I keep my eyes shut. “Go away, Jude.”

“Where’ve you been all week?”

“Nowhere.”

“What have you been doing?”

“Nothing.”

Each morning since he hurled those meteorites at Fry and Big Foot, five mornings so far to be exact, I’ve waited on the roof, totally deranged, my head a few feet above my neck, for his garage to open so we can plunge into the woods again and become imaginary—that’s the only way I can describe it.

(PORTRAIT, SELF-PORTRAIT: Two Boys Jump and Stay Up)

“So is Brian nice?” I open my eyes. She knows his name now. He’s no longer such a freak? She’s leaning against the doorframe in lime-green pajama bottoms and a fuchsia tank top, looking like one of those color-swirled lollipops you get on the boardwalk. If you squint your eyes, lots of girls look like those lollipops.

Jude holds out her hand in front of her, examines five shiny purple nails. “Everyone’s talking about him like he’s this baseball god, like he’s headed for the major leagues. Fry’s cousin—he’s here for the summer—his little brother goes to the same school back east. They call him The Ax or something.”

I burst out laughing. The Ax. Brian is called The Ax! I flip the page and start drawing it.

Is this why there’s been no retaliation? Why Fry passed me the other day while I was having a discussion with Rascal the horse and before I could even think of peeling away to Oregon, he pointed at me and said, “Dude.” And that was it.

“So is he?” she repeats. Her hair’s particularly bloodthirsty tonight, snaking all around the room, swarming the furniture, vining up the legs of chairs, stretching over the walls. I’m next.

“Is he what?”

“Nice, Bubble, is Brian, your new best friend, nice?”

“He’s fine,” I say, ignoring the Bubble, whatever. “Like anyone.”

“But you don’t like anyone.” I hear the jealousy now. “What animal is he, then?” She’s twirling a string of hair around her index finger so tightly the tip’s ballooning red and bulbous like it might burst.

“A hamster,” I say.

She laughs. “Yeah, right. The Ax is a hamster.”

I have to get her off Brian. Forget shutters, if I could put the Great Wall of China around him and me, I would. “So who’s M.?” I ask, remembering the asshat Ouija board.

“He’s no one.”

Fine. I turn back around to The Ax drawing—

I hear, “How would you rather die? Drinking gasoline and then lighting a match in your mouth or getting buried alive?”

“The explosion,” I say, trying to hide my smile because after all these months of ignoring me, she’s sucking up. “Duh. Obviously.”

“Yeah, yeah. Just warming you up. It’s been a while. How about—”

There’s a tapping at the window.

“Is that him? At the window?” I hate the excitement in her voice.

Is it, though? At night? I did casually mention to him which room was mine—right on the street with easy access—a few dozen times because, well, I have my reasons. I get up from my desk and walk over to the window and flip the shade. It is him. Real and everything. Sometimes I wonder if I’m making the whole thing up and if someone were looking down from above they’d see me alone all day, talking and laughing by myself in the middle of a forest.