“You know my gamer tag.”
Dylan strode toward the bench where the second string was watching the game and grabbed Hunter’s jacket. It would be cold out in the parking lot.
As Dylan turned back toward the door, he was startled to see Dad sitting in the bleachers. What was he doing here? He never came to Hunter’s basketball games. Maybe I’m seeing things again, Dylan thought.
Then the crowd shifted and he glimpsed another face that didn’t belong: the face of a girl he hadn’t seen in ages, except in his memories. His stomach twisted.
Definitely seeing things.
The buzzer signaled the end of the game. Dylan lost sight of both Dad and the girl as the crowd stood to cheer. He found a ski cap in the pocket of Hunter’s jacket and tugged it on over his ears as he hurried outside, bristling with confusion.
Out in the parking lot: pale twilight. The cheers gave way to leaves skittering over asphalt, car doors popping open. The typical Seattle smell of rain and salt was in the air, plus a brewing wind. The tops of the distant maple trees shook as if a monster might charge through the branches at any moment, like something out of Jurassic Park.
That sound—leaves rustling in the dark. Dylan closed his eyes. Waited a beat, and then opened them. He half expected the trees to have disappeared, half thought he’d be transported to somewhere else. Where, he couldn’t say.
Why do I see things no one else can see?
In his head, Dad’s voice asked, What kinds of things?
He’d seen that girl in the gym before. Seen her face lit by sunlight. But where? Who was she? A phantom from his memory, someone he had known long ago. But who?
Dylan angled himself toward the doors to the gym. Did Dad come to Hunter’s games all the time? Maybe he did and Dylan just never knew—snuck in and out without saying hi because he knew how much Hunter hated him. Not that Dylan was keen to see him either. Last week’s phone call was as much as Dylan could take for this month: Mom’s fine, Hunter’s fine, school sucks, bye.
“Nice game, Yates.”
Dylan turned at the sound of his last name, startled. Then he remembered that Yates was written on the jacket he was wearing.
“Thanks,” he mumbled to the back of a guy in a school uniform.
What kinds of things do you see? Dad asked again in Dylan’s head.
Blue light sparked along the skin of the guy walking away, and then fizzled out as he maneuvered around the cars in the parking lot: a physical manifestation of post-game excitement. Dylan had seen it before.
He had a name for his ability to see such things, one he’d come up with back in the first grade, when his teacher had read “Jabberwocky” aloud to the class. The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! Over time, he had somehow dropped the blade.
The vorpal went snicker-snack. That was the exact feeling he’d get. His vorpal would flicker and he’d sense something others couldn’t: rain getting ready to fall, squirrels sleeping in nests of leaves, Mom’s worry, Hunter’s dark moods. He never told them about it. Only his dad had understood.
“Yates, nice job,” someone said behind him.
Dylan turned, expecting disappointment or embarrassment: You’re not Hunter, sorry. But it didn’t come. The boy looking back at him was short, bad haircut, definitely a freshman. He kept on talking.
“That hook shot in the third quarter? The defender thought he had it until he almost got an elbow to the face.”
Dylan waited for the kid to realize his mistake. Dylan was three inches shorter than Hunter. His shoulders weren’t even as wide as Hunter’s rib cage.
It was happening again. The weirdest thing: People mistook him for Hunter.
Dylan knew it was his vorpal’s fault. It made him see things, hear things—but it also made people around him see things. Sometimes because Dylan wanted to change what people saw, and sometimes it happened by accident. He wasn’t great at controlling it.
“Think we’ll take Grady Prep on Thursday?” the boy asked.
“Our cheerleaders could take Grady Prep,” Dylan said, because it was true. Heck, I could take Grady Prep.
Out of the corner of his eye, Dylan caught a flurry of movement among the parked cars. His mom darted around a BMW, flapping her hands at Dylan. “Sorry—I missed the whole thing, didn’t I? I’m sure you were great.”
She strode up to him and gave him a peck on the cheek, turned to the freshman. “Was he great?”
Realization finally dawned on the freshman’s face: That’s not Hunter Yates.
Dylan’s mom turned to look at him. Dylan half hoped she wouldn’t realize her mistake, that she’d keep seeing him as Hunter. She was always so glowy with Hunter.
But she jerked her hand away from his shoulder. “Dylan.” Half surprise, half accusation.
Dylan’s face went hot. Skinny as a spider monkey, but even his own mom mistook him for hulking Hunter.