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.