MEG
THERE’S NOTHING SCARY ABOUT THE DARK. I’VE NEVER HAD MONSTERS UNDER my bed, just lost jigsaw puzzle pieces and dirty laundry and probably an old, discarded pizza crust.
But tonight I can’t sleep, and it’s the dark’s fault. I can’t see my magazines or my LumberLegs posters or my phone or even the fly that’s been buzzing about in the corner even though he should be dead, shouldn’t he, because it’s winter?
There’s nothing to distract me from the realization that I am fundamentally unlovable. Grayson doesn’t want me. Neither did Brad. My friends. My dad. Even my stepdad, Stephen. All of them realized, at some point, that Meg is not worth having.
I flick on the light beside my bed.
LumberLegs—the knit doll Kat gave me for Christmas—sits across the room on the shelf he was demoted to in case Grayson would be jealous if I slept with him. I thought it was a silly fear, but I guess I was right to worry.
I don’t have to worry about that now.
I get up, snatch Legs off the shelf, then cozy back into bed, the top of Legs’s head tucked just under my chin. I don’t need Grayson. I’ve got LumberLegs.
I turn on my tablet and search for flights to LotSCON. Then stare through the darkness at the glowing screen.
Lizard balls.
Lizard. Balls.
Flights are expensive. How the heck do people fly all over the place? Are they made of money? Because I am not. I drop the tablet on the floor and squeeze Legs tighter.
If I slept with Legs in real life, I bet it would be different. I bet he’d know what to do to make sure I don’t bleed, and he’d be gentle and kind, and afterward we’d cuddle just like this except my head would be under his chin instead of the other way around.
I don’t have real-life Legs, though, only the doll, and apparently that’s all I’m ever getting, so I try sliding the doll up so his head is above my own. But then my face is buried in his belly button—or at least, where his belly button would be if he was human and not a doll—which just feels weird.
So I slip him back down under my chin and hug him close until I finally fall asleep.
KAT
IT’S SCIENCE PROJECT CHECK-IN DAY, WHICH IS FINE, BECAUSE I HAVE ALL twenty of our questionnaires and test results completed and ready to show Mr. Carter.
“And I hope your projects are all coming along swimmingly,” he says before he makes his rounds, “because I’ve got some exciting news. The school board has approved our funding, and this year, in addition to the regional fair, the winners from each school in Edmonton will be flown to Toronto to compete at the national fair. It’s on March fifteenth, so mark your calendars. But remember, only one team can win!”
In front of me, Meg’s lying across her desk with her right arm sticking out into the aisle, her head resting on her bicep. With her left hand, she lazily flips the pages of her planner. January. February. March.
She sits up abruptly, then turns around and thrusts the planner practically in my face. “He said March fifteenth, right?” she whispers.
I nod, then look down at the page. And suddenly I understand, with a tightening of my chest, her unexpected glee. From Friday, March 16 to Sunday, March 18, Meg has giant words written over and over across the space in green pen:
LOTSCON
LUMBERLEGS
TORONTO
“Ms. Winters. Ms. Daley,” Mr. Carter says before I can burst Meg’s bubble and remind her that I don’t fly. “Is there something you’d like to share with the class?”
Meg snatches her planner out of my hand and whirls back around in her seat. “Only that our project is going to whup their butts!”
Mr. Carter’s mouth contorts in a half grimace, half smile, as if he’s not sure whether to reprimand her or to laugh. “You heard it here first, folks,” he says finally. “The project to beat.”
Meg glances over her shoulder and flashes me her sparkly white grin.
My heart crashes into my stomach like a plane from the sky.
MEG
I KNOW LUMBERLEGS CAN’T DATE EVERY LOVESTRUCK FAN WHO’S EVER LAID eyes on him. And I know he’s got a lot of fans.
But . . .
He’s got to date somebody, right? And why couldn’t that somebody be a lovestruck fan? And why couldn’t that lovestruck fan be me? Especially when the universe is basically handing us this free flight.
Grayson practically thought Legs and I were dating already. Plus, we both like to joke and we both like turtles and we’re both bad at LotS and we’re going to meet at LotSCON and I already know what our wedding colors would be.
Plus, dating him would be like a swift kick to Grayson’s balls.
KAT
THE MOMENT WE STEP INTO THE HALL AFTER SCIENCE, MEG TURNS ON ME like a shadowwolf who’s just spotted its prey.
“Okay,” she says, “what do we have to do to win this thing?”
“We’re not going to win.” It’s going to be hard enough just to finish our project. And there are over three hundred people in our grade, so that’s at least a hundred and fifty projects to beat. So I need to stop worrying, because winning is something that I don’t have to worry about. Fortunately. There’s no way I’m riding in the air in a hunk of heavy metal all the way to Toronto. I start down the hall toward my locker.
Meg scurries after me and loops her arm through mine. “Don’t be such an Eeyore. Come on, we can totally win. What do we have to do?”
I glance at her. Her gaze is on me instead of on what’s ahead of us. Mr. Carter let us out a bit early, so it’s not the between-classes rush yet, but still. Apparently she trusts that her arm through mine is enough to guide her safely through these halls.
I’m sure she knows we won’t win. I’m sure she knows LotSCON tickets are probably already sold out. But she’s staring at me like she’s hungry for it—like she’s desperate to finally conquer something. She deserves to conquer something. And she will. Even if we won’t win, we can at least get an A.
“Dude, get out of your head and talk to me,” Meg says. “What’s the plan?”
I roll my eyes at her. “Well, we’ve got to actually finish the testing first. We still need ten more people.”
“Okay. Easy.” Meg beats me to my locker and starts entering my combination.
“And you have to be passing all your courses.” She deserves to conquer more than just science.
Meg’s head jolts up from the lock to stare at me. “You’re lying. That’s not a thing.”
“It is. It’s a requirement. Mr. Carter said.”
It might just be the way the skin around her eyes sags, but Meg’s eyes seem to flash with darkness. Like in the X-Men movies when a character’s eyes flash with yellow to reveal she’s really Mystique in disguise, except this color suggests powerlessness, not superpowers.
I was right. She’s sick of feeling like she can’t win. “I’ll help you,” I say. I haven’t told Meg, but I’ve been researching homework techniques for teens with ADHD. I’ve figured out that she avoids homework at lunch because there’s too much going on, not because she’s slacking. She’s definitely not slacking. She works hard and gets a ton done—when her brain’s not getting in the way.
The darkness vanishes so quickly that I wonder if I imagined it. “Okay, well, I’m only failing math,” Meg says. “I think there might be a test coming up or something.” She grimaces, then scares away the frown with an excited little hop. “I can’t wait until we’re at LotSCON! It’s going to be epic!”
I thought my heart had been returned to its place in my chest, but I was wrong. It’s still crashed and crumpled and heavy in the bottom of my stomach. Meg does know that winning is a super long shot, right? That it’s basically impossible? She has to know. And she knows I wouldn’t go even if we won—which we won’t—right? I’ve told her I don’t fly. Haven’t I?
Before I can think through whether I have, Meg breaks into my thoughts. “Okay, so now do we just invite people to my house for testing, or what? I’d suggest a big testing party, but I know parties aren’t your thing.”
Of course she knows that. Meg gets me. She knows all my fears, so of course she knows about my fear of planes. She’s just fantasizing, like she does about Legs all the time. I push my worries away and explain to Meg how I’ve been using the library computers, and how we’re limited to two people per lunch period in order to fit in the cooldown periods between tests, and also how I’ve run out of people to ask.
“Well, that’s easy,” Meg says. “Hey, you two!” she calls out to two girls who have just passed us. They spin around to look at us with matching what-in-the-world-do-you-want expressions.
“Us?” the one girl says. She has one of those shoulder bags instead of a backpack, and the weight of it makes her stand a little crooked. I think I recognize both of them from my English class.
“How would you like to play video games? And eat sugar? For science!” Meg wiggles her hands near her face in an “It’s so magical” kind of gesture, as if science is some kind of voodoo and not, well, science.
The crooked girl giggles. “Um, what?”
The other one smiles. They’re definitely in my English class.
Meg’s voice returns to its normal non-exaggerated-but-still-excited tenor. “We need a few more subjects for our science project. You guys free?”
“What, like, right now? We have class.”
“Tomorrow at lunch,” Meg says. “In the library.”
“You can’t eat lunch first, though,” I say, jumping in. “It’ll mess up the results.”
“So, you up for it?” Meg asks them confidently. She can definitely conquer this.
Shoulder-bag girl—their apparent spokesperson—shrugs. “Sounds more fun than sitting around in the caf.”
MEG
FINISHING THE TESTING IS EASY-PEASY. ON TUESDAY, WE TEST OUR BRAND-NEW friends, Emily and Kayla, who, it turns out, know Kat from English. On Wednesday, I grab Chris from my math class and Fatima, who I’ve known since like birth, and Kat asks Chris if he can write down my math homework in my planner every class, which is kind of embarrassing, but also good because I’m not letting something as stupid as math keep me from meeting LumberLegs.
Then these two guys in the library wonder what all the laughter is about, so we schedule them in for Thursday. One has a birthmark just under his eye, toward his cheekbone, which is adorably distracting, but I’ve sworn off all guys except LumberLegs, so I just smile at him and that’s it.
On the weekend we enter all our results so far into some spreadsheets, and then on Tuesday I ask Bridget and Louis in geography. It turns out Louis has band practice at lunch, but Bridget brings her friends, and Louis shows up on Thursday with his friend.
Every day after school, we meet in the quietest back corner of the library and do our math homework. Kat’s idea. Her notes make a lot more sense than mine. Her notes make sense, period. And she doesn’t let me leave until I’m done.
Except on Friday, when we go for ice cream even though it’s minus twenty out, because we’re done testing, and we deserve a celebration.
In a booth, Kat stops licking her scoop of chocolate and studies me as I take a bite of my bubble gum ice cream. “You realize there’s going to be more than a hundred and fifty other projects, right?” she says. “That winning is almost impossible?”
“Of course,” I say. That’s what makes it so epic. The girl with ADHD and the girl with panic attacks—like the hobbits setting across Mordor to Mount Doom, no one will see us coming.
Until they lose. Because we are definitely going to win.
We are definitely going to LotSCON.
KAT
PEOPLE DIE IN PLANE CRASHES ALL THE TIME. PLANES CRASH ALL THE TIME. If you search the internet, you can find lists of them. Famous People Who Died in Plane Crashes. Ten Most Famous Plane Crashes of All Time. Worst Plane Crashes in History.
“But most of the people who died were on small, private planes,” people say. “Commercial flights have a much lower fatality rate.” As if that’s supposed to make me feel better.
I force myself to put down my phone and stop researching plane crashes.
I should go downstairs and do one last review of our science project. The final, complete presentation board sits by my front door, ready for tomorrow’s fair. Once we finished all our analysis and reports and write-ups a couple of weeks ago and started working on the board, Meg insisted we work on it here and only here, to ensure the halflings wouldn’t puke on it or turn it into a playhouse or something. I could give it one last look-over to make sure there are no typos or other silly errors we missed.
Or I could waltz downstairs and kick it in half.
My stomach lurches with guilt. Meg hasn’t stopped talking about LotSCON, and the more she talks about LotSCON like it’s not just a fantasy, the more I research plane crashes. And the more I research plane crashes, the more I worry that maybe I haven’t told Meg about that particular anxiety after all.
But it’s too late to tell her now. She’ll wonder why I didn’t tell her in the first place. All I can do now is hope we won’t win—which we won’t, of course. And when we don’t win, Meg will get over her disappointment quickly in typical Meg-bounce-back fashion. I hope. She doesn’t feel quite as bouncy lately.
The doorbell rings, and after a minute or two, Mom calls up to me, “Kat, package for you.”
It’s probably the gaming mouse Mom let me order. I don’t think I’ll get to play LotS tonight with all the reading I have to do for English, but I trot downstairs anyway because, well, it’s a package for me, and how often does that happen?
The only thing on the kitchen table is a white cylindrical package, about a foot long and only a few inches in diameter. It’s definitely not the right shape for a mouse.
I duck my head into the living room, where Mom, Dad, and Granddad are all sitting with books in their laps. Granddad looks up and winks at me before returning to his reading. I wish he’d sit in a different chair. His favorite oversized armchair makes him look even smaller and frailer than he is. His left arm lies limply at his side. It’s been over a month since his stroke, but it still hasn’t fully recovered. And even though he’s starting to gain the weight back, he still looks like his spine would snap in half from the simple weight of a fedora on his head. Not that he’d ever wear a fedora. And if he tried, I’d stop him.
“Mom, where’s my package?”
“On the kitchen table,” she says, not looking up from her book.
So, not my gaming mouse, then.
I stride back into the kitchen and pick up the cylinder, which, sure enough, has my name on it. I open my mouth to shout to Mom that I don’t remember ordering a poster, but then I see the return address.
My mouth clamps shut, and without saying another word, I slip back upstairs to my room, poster tube balanced carefully in both hands.
I set it gently on the bed, pull out the red cap in the end with a pop, reach inside, and pull out a small, folded piece of lined paper. I unfold it to read the careful, even scrawl.
Dear Kat,
I’ve been working on this for a while. Thought I’d send it to you as a “good luck at your science fair” gift. Hope it makes it to you in time.
Good luck!
Dan
Sythlight.
I’ve told him all about our results and the competition and how Meg has become a workaholic Energizer bunny. But I haven’t told him that first prize is a flight to Toronto, where LotSCON is, which he’s going to, since he only lives an hour or two away. If I did tell him, he’d probably get excited about the possibility of us coming, and I’d have to either tell him what I haven’t been able to tell Meg, or lie to him—either option feels like a betrayal.
My stomach backflips as I pick up the cylinder again.
Rolled up inside the tube is a large piece of white cardstock. I unroll it, spread it out across my bedspread, and blink at the splashes of color that greet me.
It’s an elf. My elf. My character in LotS. Her pink hair flows out behind her as she stands fierce and strong in her black armor, bow ready as she stares down a frothing wereboar.
I run my finger over every painted line and stroke, tracing the contours until my fingers have them memorized.
Then I call Meg.
“Holy gumdrops,” she breathes. “That’s so romantic.”
“It is not. It’s just a good luck thing. There’s probably one in the mail for you, too.”
She laughs. “Yeah, sure, you keep thinking that.”
I don’t tell her that in the darkest part of KittyKat’s shadow, my finger keeps tracing and tracing over what I’m pretty sure is a tiny, camouflaged heart.
There’s a crash on the line, and some distant, muffled swearing, and it takes Meg almost a full minute to answer my repeated queries of “Are you okay? Meg? Are you there?”
“I’m fine! I’m fine,” she pants.
“Are you skateboarding?” I ask.
The soft whirring of skateboard wheels is my answer.
“Study break,” Meg says. “I pushed the couches all the way back in here, but there’s still not enough room to perfect that back jump thing, whatever it’s called.”
Study and skateboard. They’re pretty much the only things Meg does lately, switching between the two every five minutes.
Well, that and watch LumberLegs. She always wants to watch LumberLegs.
“Know what I love about LumberLegs?” she asked last time we curled up on her bed for a video marathon. “He never leaves. Unlike every other jerk guy in the world, he’s always there when we need him.”
She still won’t tell me how she and Grayson broke up, and she snaps at me anytime I try to bring it up. We don’t eat in the back stairwell anymore; Meg’s been making us work on our project in the library every lunch hour. “Legs is the only one I’ll break my no-homework-at-lunch rule for,” she said when I reminded her of her rule.
Meg’s still skateboarding away, so as her wheels whir in the background, I Google the LotSCON website. I haven’t looked at it—have preferred to just not think about it. But seeing KittyKat’s badass fierceness makes me curious what Dan’ll be doing while he’s there. Will other artists be there? I click on the link.
My gaze slides over the LotSCON heading, past the silver-haired dragonlord leaning casually against the N, and settles on the small red letters in the top right corner: SOLD OUT.
My stomach twists. Does Meg know? She goes on this site all the time, doesn’t she? She talks about LotSCON like we’ve already won, like we’ve already bought our tickets. Maybe they only just sold out and she doesn’t know.
A thump echoes through the line. “Nailed it! Finally!” Meg shouts triumphantly. Happily.
I haven’t seen the powerless darkness in Meg’s eyes since I told her she needed to pass math. Hopefully her recent math test conquest banished it for good, but I’m not telling her about this and risking bringing the darkness back—not when there’s basically no chance whatsoever that we could win. If there was a decent chance we’d win, I’d have already told her that I don’t fly.
“Now, tell me again about the painting,” Meg says, panting.
So I ignore the twisting in my stomach, and I do.
After I say good-bye to Meg, I finish my English reading, put on my pajamas, and brush my teeth. Then, instead of my recent nightly ritual of checking if there have been any more plane crashes in the world, I trace my finger over the shape hidden in the drawing’s shadows again and again until I finally fall asleep.