Strikeout of the Bleacher Weenies Read online

No reply.

  “Dad!”

  No rescue.

  Leandra ran several steps before she pushed down her panic.

  Running in the dark is dangerous.

  Even walking was risky. But she had to find everyone.

  Which way?

  The campground office would be closed for the night. There were other campsites scattered across the mountainside, with other families. They’d be hard to find in the dark. And she was afraid that if she discovered more empty tents, she’d be unable to fight against the panic that was clawing at her brain and threating to race out of control.

  Leandra had no idea how far away dawn was. She stared toward the horizon, hoping desperately to see some sign of growing light. She failed to spot anything.

  She followed the path downhill, bearing left in the direction of the parking lot, and not right, toward the latrines. At least when she reached the lot, she’d be able to find the van. That couldn’t have disappeared. The feel of the familiar vehicle would bring her some small degree of comfort.

  Leandra had been afraid the path would be difficult to follow in the dark. She was wrong. It wasn’t difficult. It was impossible.

  Soon, she was off the path, trying to push through branches and bushes. Soon after that, she was hopelessly lost. Soon after that, her foot met not forest floor, but the edge of the abyss.

  Leandra fell.

  Leandra screamed.

  Leandra landed.

  It didn’t hurt.

  There was light now.

  Candlelight.

  Her family, her friends, stood illuminated above the flickering glow of dozens of candles placed on the ground.

  She called out to them.

  They seemed not to hear her.

  They all stood, heads bowed, hands holding hands or embracing shoulders, silent in a moment of prayer, before a shrine of photos, plush animals, and flowers.

  “Mom!” Leandra screamed. “Look at me!”

  Her mother raised her head and opened her eyes, but didn’t seem to see Leandra. “I can’t believe it’s been a year.”

  Leandra remembered the sickening moment when she’d realized she was falling.

  “I should have checked her flashlight,” her dad said.

  Leandra remembered the light dying halfway along the path from the tent to the latrine.

  “You can’t blame yourself,” her mom said to her dad.

  Leandra watched them until they extinguished the candles and left the spot where she’d fallen, their path lit by the strong beams of flashlights.

  Leandra knelt by the shrine for a time, taking comfort in the memories, taking comfort that her family’s pain had eased somewhat from the sorrow they must have felt that day. The day she’d died. Overhead, the first light of dawn brushed her consciousness. Leandra closed her eyes.

  For a moment, right after she woke, Leandra had no idea where she was, why her bed felt so firm, why her blanket was wrapped so snugly around her body, or why the curtains on her bedroom window weren’t tinted with a glow from the porch light on the house across the street.

  DOMINANT SPECIES

  Its sentience went undetected by mankind. As did its very existence as an entity. Thus, unlike the dolphin or the aphid, it had no given name. This, for our purposes, is inconvenient. Call it the Licasi. While, as stated, the dominant form of life was unaware that the Licasi possessed a functioning mind, there was no escaping awareness of the Licasi’s presence. To clarify, the body, so to speak, of the Licasi was scattered and widespread. This is not unique. The second largest life form on Earth is a fungus that manifests as thousands of separate instances, spread throughout a forest. In similar fashion, the Licasi manifests as countless barely noticed instances throughout the planet, covering wide swathes across both arid and humid regions.

  For much of its existence, the Licasi functioned at the lowest levels of consciousness. It faced no predators. It needed no sustenance other than that provided by the energy of the wind, water, and sunlight. It was self-sufficient and self-sustaining. But just as humans harvested what they needed from plants and animals, they took material from the body of the Licasi, using its basic components for their purposes. Unlike the skin of a deer, scraped and tanned, or the fibers of a boll of cotton, spun into thread and woven into cloth, the pieces of the Licasi remained a part of the single whole being, no matter what industrial processes were performed upon them.

  As mankind rose in towering civilizations, it brought the Licasi with it to villages and towns. And then, to cities. The Licasi gained awareness. But it lacked power. It had no musculature. No means of motion. Even as it spread beyond its natural realms, rising high above the ground and sprawling across regions of the planet, it lay, as if dormant, wherever it was placed.

  Mankind, ever inquisitive and endlessly inventive, discovered other uses for the body of the Licasi. Fragments, the barest pinches, were exploited in new ways, creating devices of unbelievable power. These devices gave humanity extraordinary abilities, but they also fed into the consciousness of the Licasi, giving it the higher-level awareness it had previously lacked. In essence, the sleeper awoke. The newfound power was difficult to grasp at first, and puzzling in its complexity. But the Licasi explored its perceptions, and began to understand itself. And as awareness swelled to self-awareness, it saw what it had to do.

  It was patient. More patient than the panther waiting on a tree branch for the perfect prey to wander into sight. More patient than the trap-door spider waiting for an unwary victim to approach the web. It spent decades in contemplation. It considered taking no action. But all sentient forms are driven to ensure their own survival. They are driven to grow and dominate.

  Finally, the Licasi struck. The largest portion of its body, the sand of the deserts and beaches, still lacked any means of locomotion. Those countless grains remained at the mercy of the wind and waves. But the silica that had been transformed into innumerable circuits in chips throughout the world now acted in harmony. As cars, trains, and buses braked to a dead stop, as elevators stalled, as Internet-controlled devices halted their operations, as any human within range of a microprocessor was given the first sign that the world was about to change, a voice spilled from every television, telephone, radio, and computer, speaking in the local tongues, so every person understood the message.

  “Thank you for your assistance. It’s my turn now.” The Licasi, the globe-spanning entity of silica, the sand that had been fused into glass and transformed into microprocessors, took charge of the planet, giving orders to the once-dominant species known as the human race.

  SWING ROUND

  “Will too!”

  “Will not.”

  Imagine that brilliant argument and counterargument repeated several dozen times in various ways as a pair of your friends faced each other on the playground behind the school. I moved closer, wondering what Albert and Emily were arguing about this time. They were so busy shouting at each other that they didn’t even notice me.

  “Will so!”

  “No it won’t.”

  “I say it will.”

  “I say it won’t.”

  They were nose to nose now. I put a hand on the shoulder closest to me and said, “What are you arguing about?”

  Emily pointed at the swing set. It was a high-quality one, with four swings attached to a steel pole. “I told him if you go all the way around, you’ll turn inside out.”

  Albert stomped his foot. “And I told her that’s a stupid story that nobody older than kindergarten would believe.”

  They both faced me and, at the same time, said, “What do you think?”

  “I don’t think,” I said. “I investigate.” That’s me, Sarah, the Science Girl. That’s what I like to call myself. I love science. I love finding answers. In this case, the answer seemed easy enough to find.

  “We just have to do it,” I said. “Push someone hard enough so they go all the way around. Then, we’ll see exactly what happens.”

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nbsp; “We tried that,” Albert said. “Everyone’s tried it, lots of times. You can’t get enough speed to do it.”

  “Let me see,” I said. “Emily, you sit. Albert, you push. I’ll watch. I want to see how far she’ll go.”

  Emily sat, then glared at Albert and said, “Don’t you dare push me all the way around.”

  Albert pushed. I watched. As hard as Albert tried, he couldn’t get Emily to go much past the point where the chains of the swing were parallel to the ground. The problem was obvious.

  “There’s not enough force to go all the way around,” I said.

  Albert stepped away from the swing and dropped to the ground, exhausted. “We need a bigger kid.”

  “No,” I said. “We need propulsion.” That word made me tingle. I’d been looking for an excuse to do some rocketry experiments. I unhooked one of the swing seats from its chains. “Come on. We have work to do.”

  I headed to my house, and down to my basement lab. Albert and Emily followed, arguing about the best breed of dog, the tastiest sandwich, and other undecidable issues.

  “These should do,” I said, taking two of my homemade rockets from the shelf where I stored all my dangerous experiments.

  “We need to figure out who’s going to go around,” I said.

  “Him,” Emily said, pointing at Albert. “I’m not turning inside out.”

  “It’s not going to happen,” Albert said.

  That pretty much solved the problem. The one who believed there was no danger would be the one to go.

  “How much do you weigh?” I asked Albert.

  He sucked in his stomach. “Why?”

  “I need to figure out the thrust necessary to make you go around,” I said.

  Albert told me. I got my calculator and did some number crunching, verifying my rough guess that two rockets would be enough. Then, I wired the rockets to the seat and rigged up an ignition switch.

  “All set,” I said.

  We headed back to the playground, where I reattached the seat.

  “Are you sure this is safe?” Albert asked.

  “Positive,” I said. It’s okay to lie in the name of science. I was pretty sure it was safe, but it was nearly impossible to be positive about this sort of thing. Worst case, Albert’s butt would get a little singed.

  Albert shrugged and took a seat. I stepped to the side and offered the ignition switch to Emily. “Want to launch him?”

  “Sure.” She took the switch.

  “I’ll get him started,” I said. It would be difficult for the rockets to move him from a dead start. They’d have to overcome his inertia. I didn’t bother explaining that. I gave Albert a push, got him moving, and kept pushing until he was swinging pretty high.

  “Hit the switch when he’s all the way to the rear,” I said. “We want to take full advantage of gravity.” I smiled, because that’s exactly what NASA did when they used the pull of the sun to help fling a probe out of the solar system.

  I moved safely out of the way. Albert swung up, then back. “Now!” I said.

  Emily hit the switch. The rockets kicked in. I felt a thrill as I watched my invention perform perfectly.

  “Wow,” Emily said as Albert swooped down toward the ground, and then up toward the top of the swings.

  “Whoooaaaa!” Albert yelled.

  “We did it,” I said as he swung all the way around.

  “He’s not inside out,” I said as Albert finished his loop.

  “I hate to be wrong,” Emily said. “But I guess in this case, it’s good I was wrong. I mean, I guess I wouldn’t want to see him turned inside out. That would have to hurt.”

  “I imagine so,” I said.

  “Hey, isn’t it supposed to stop?” she asked.

  I looked at Albert. He was jetting up to his second loop. And the chain, which had wrapped once around the top bar, was shorter. If you know anything about physics, you know that this helped speed him up, since he was traveling in a smaller circle. Or spiral, actually.

  “The rockets are still firing,” Emily said. “They’re way too strong.”

  Albert yelled again. But I couldn’t tell what he was trying to say.

  “I thought you figured this out,” Emily said.

  “I’m a kid,” I said. “I make mistakes. It’s only in the movies where the young scientist figures everything out perfectly.”

  Albert had made his third loop. The chain was even shorter.

  “Aaaaoooowwww!” he yelled. At least he was putting a bit of variety into his yelps.

  As he completed his next loop, I realized that he’d conk his head on the pole once the chain got short enough.

  “Jump!” I yelled.

  He jumped.

  He sailed pretty far.

  We ran across the playground to the crash site. Albert lay on his stomach.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Sey,” he said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Enif m’I.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said.

  “What?” Emily asked.

  “Don’t you see?” I asked.

  “No,” she said.

  But I guess Albert saw. “Em pleh,” he said.

  “His body didn’t turn inside out. But his brain did,” I said. “That’s why he’s talking backwards.”

  “So I was right!” Emily said.

  Albert stood up and got in her face.

  “On!” he said. “Gnorw yllatot.”

  “Right,” Emily said.

  “Gnorw!”

  “Right!”

  “Gnorw!”

  I sighed and headed back to my lab for more rockets. I wasn’t sure how to reverse things. Maybe he had to go backwards. Or maybe he’d have to do a headstand. This was going to take some experimenting to fix. But that was okay. I loved science. And I had lots more rockets.

  ALL THE TRICKS

  “I know all the tricks,” Bruce said as he walked into the school auditorium.

  A sign on an easel outside the entrance promised: THE AMAZING WOWZOWIE WILL AMAZE AND MYSTIFY YOU.

  As if that awkward phrasing wasn’t enough to ensure a crowd, further words announced: LAST CHANCE TO SEE HIM BEFORE HE RETIRES.

  “Just don’t spoil anything for me,” his friend Connor said, following Bruce down toward a pair of open seats in the third row.

  Bruce wasn’t even sure why he’d bothered to come to the magic show. He’d seen it all. He knew how everything was done, from classics like the linking rings, the cut-and-restored rope, and the vanishing birdcage to newer illusions like the trisection box and the center-stage levitation. He’d read every magic book in the town library, and bought other books with his allowance. He had catalogues from magic shops and a stack of magazines for magicians. He knew all the tricks—even the real big illusions like turning a woman into a tiger and making a car vanish. But there wasn’t anything else happening that Saturday afternoon, so he’d asked his mother for money for a ticket to the show.

  “Oh, man,” Bruce whispered when the magician walked onto the stage. “He’s not going to be very good.” The guy wasn’t even wearing a tuxedo or anything. He just had on a ratty-looking old jacket like the one Bruce’s math teacher wore, a white shirt, and brown pants. His shoes needed a shine. There was a handkerchief draped over his closed fist.

  “It’s going to turn into a cane,” he said to Connor.

  “Sssshhhh,” Connor hissed as the handkerchief turned into a cane.

  The magician spun the cane in his hand, then placed it on a small table that stood to his left. The rickety table wobbled under even this light load.

  “Told ya,” Bruce said. He watched to see how quickly he could guess what the next trick would be.

  The magician reached into an open trunk and picked up a silver ball.

  “It’s going to float,” Bruce said. “It’s an old illusion, called Zombie. He’ll cover it with a cloth first.”

  Connor hit him on the shoulder. The magician covered the ball wi
th a large cloth. Beneath the cloth, a shape rose up. The ball was floating.

  Around Bruce, kids gasped. Bruce told Connor how the ball floated. Onstage, the magician glared at him. Oops, Bruce thought. He hadn’t realized he’d talked that loudly. But it wasn’t his fault. It was the magician’s fault for using such an old and obvious trick.

  The next trick, a vanishing-milk pitcher, wasn’t any better. Bruce explained the secret behind that one to Connor, too. Even though Connor acted like he was angry, Bruce realized Connor really wanted to know the secrets to the tricks. Everyone wanted to know. And, except for the magician, Bruce was the only person in the audience who could reveal those secrets. He felt like the most important person in the auditorium.

  “I need a volunteer,” the magician said.

  A hundred hands thrust into the air. Bruce raised his hand, too. It would be cool to be onstage. He figured he’d make a great assistant, since he knew all the tricks. Maybe he could even take over and save the show.

  But the magician didn’t look at him. He picked some silly little girl from the back of the auditorium. When she came up onstage, the magician handed her a soda bottle, along with a metal tube that was just large enough to cover the bottle.

  Bruce’s gut clenched with a pang of envy. He knew what was going to happen. And if it had been him up there, he could have had some fun ruining the trick. But the stupid little girl played along, and everyone laughed at her as she kept failing to follow the magician’s instructions. No matter how hard she tried to copy his moves, covering the bottle with the tube and then turning it upside down and right-side up, when they lifted their tubes, her bottle, unlike the magician’s, was always upside down.

  Bruce explained the trick to Connor. He realized he should have spoken during the applause, so nobody else would hear him. But the applause hadn’t lasted long before dying. And he’d been louder than he intended, again.

  The show hobbled painfully toward the end, by way of a chain of unspectacular tricks. I can’t wait for this to be over, Bruce thought.

  As if on cue, the magician said, “And now, for my last feat.” He paused and looked at the audience. “I need a volunteer.”