would ever know I was there.â
âDude, Iâm not walking around school with a mouse or a lizard in my pocket.â
âPlease please please please.â
I shake my head again. âItâs just not going to happen.â
She looks so dejected I almost change my mind. Then she brightens up.
âI know,â she says. âIâll change into a pebble. You donât mind carrying a pebble around in your pocket, do you?â
âYou can do that?â
âOf course I can, dude . But youâll have to wake me up when itâs okay for me to be a girl again.â
âA pebble.â
The physics of a human being turning into a rat or a bird isconfusing enough for me to get my head around, but this seems off-the-charts impossible.
âWhy is that so strange?â she asks.
âWell, itâs justâI mean, come on. A pebble.â That makes me think of something else. âAre you telling me everythingâs sentient?â
âEverything has a spirit, silly. How else could it know what it is?â
âI have to tell you, Iâm having trouble wrapping my head around this.â
She shrugs. âItâs just the way things are. Everybody knows that.â
âSo youâre going to turn into a pebble.â
âYes. But you have to remember to wake me up later because when we take shapes like that, we can lose ourselves in them unless thereâs someone around to call us back.â
âAnd all of you can do this?â
âOh no,â she says. âOnly the very smartest and tricksiest
of us.â
âOkay.â Itâs not really okay, but every time she explains it to me it gets a little weirder. So I settle for agreeing and ask instead, âSo how do you wake up a pebble?â
âOh, thatâs easy. Just tap me against a wall or something.â
âTap you â¦â
âNow, hold out your hand, palm up.â
âWait a minute,â I start, but I do as she says.
Before I can go on she leaps into the air, changing as she does. Thereâs a confusing flicker of strobing images as the normal-sized girl shifts and becomes something else. A momentlater a pebble lands in the palm of my hand. Except with my double vision, I see both a pebble and Donalita curled up like a baby. I reach out with a finger. All I can feel is the hard surface of the pebble.
So maybe itâs a pebble, but itâs also Donalita, and the whole thing creeps me out. I slide it carefully into my pocket, but keep reaching in to make sure the pebbleâs still there. I want to give it a rub with my thumb the way you do with that kind of thing, until I remember that itâs also a tiny Donalita, and somehow, that would just be wrong.
Iâm still quietly freaking out about it when I get to school. For a change, Iâm happy to be here because at least Iâll be able to talk to Marina about the latest weirdness going on.
Before I can go inside, Bobby White, one of the Ocean Avers, steps in front of me, blocking my way.
âTheo wants a word with you,â he says.
He nods to where Chaingangâs sitting on his usual picnic table under the eucalyptus trees, shades on, shaved head gleaming. Great. Now everybodyâs going to think Iâm a drug dealer, too.
Two weeks ago Iâd have thought it was cool having Chaingang want to talk to me. Now itâs just a pain in the butt. What does Marina even see in him?
But you donât turn your back on a summons from the big guy.
Chaingang lifts his shades as I walk up and gives me a nod.
âWhatâs up, bro?â he asks, then he studies me, an odd look in his eyes. âThereâs something different about youâlike youâre a Wildling and youâre not, all at the same time.â
âThatâs because Iâve got Donalita in my pocket.â
âYouâve gotââ
âDonât even ask, dude.â
He lets the shades
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