The Season of Styx Malone by Kekla Magoon

Author:Kekla Magoon
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2018-10-15T16:00:00+00:00

“I wonder how much gas it would take to go all the way to Chicago,” I said. In my mind’s eye, we were zipping along the highway already, weaving in between cars like the Fast, or the Furious.

“Too far,” Bobby Gene said. “Won’t get back in time for dinner.”

“Okay, Indy, then. The museum.” I scratched at the seam between two flat green LEGO pieces. We were working on the Grasshopper model. We’d had to redo and scale it down when it turned out we didn’t have nearly enough green and black pieces.

“Even Indy’s pretty far,” Bobby Gene answered. “But it’s fun to imagine.”

Imagine? Only for now. Soon it would be possible, in the real world. With Styx, all things were possible. My mind ticked, twisting itself into knots with all the possibilities. Everything was shiny, golden, before my eyes.

Bobby Gene sat cross-legged, lining up black pieces in the shape of a rear tire. I lay on my stomach, sifting through the green pieces, pulling out all the onesies and flats.

We were early enough in the redesign process that we were working with the door open. We didn’t try to cover it up when Mom barged in.

“Boys, I need you to take out the trash.”

We were soul-deep in the planning stage. We had achieved the kind of intense, shared-vision mind-meld that involved a lot of “Ooh-ooh, what if we…” and “Oh, yeah, that’s genius” kinds of revelations. We were on another plane. No quibbling, only shorthand. Boom, boom. We were rocking it. Mom didn’t know what she was interrupting.

“Caleb, did you hear me? Trash.”

“We’ll pencil it in for after supper,” I answered. The LEGO pieces clattered against each other, making a satisfying sound as I sifted.

Total silence from on high. Total. The kind that pulls the hum out of the light sockets. I swiveled to meet Mom’s icy glare. Her eye lasers stabbed me with shivers.

“Excuse me?” she said.

Bad mistake.

Bobby Gene sucked air through his teeth, a small desperate whistle. “We’re going. Going now.” He scrambled to his knees.

“Naw.” I doubled down on the stupid. “We’re in the middle of something, Mom. Why you gotta jam us up like this?”

“Caleb Franklin, if you don’t get up off that floor right this minute and do what I’m asking of you…”

Bobby Gene was already up. “It’s cool, Mom. We got this. We got this.” He grabbed my arm and hissed, “It’ll take two seconds.”

Mom’s laser eyes continued to lop off my body parts. How did she expect me to take out the trash with no arms?

Bobby Gene tugged me up. We hustled past her and pulled the kitchen trash.

“Dude,” Bobby Gene said. “That was close. We almost got grounded or something in there. You realize that, don’t you?”

He was right, of course. But for some strange reason, I didn’t even care.

“Styx does whatever he feels like,” I reminded him. “Why can’t we?”

Bobby Gene gaped at me. “You’re kidding, right?”

I was still half in the mind-meld. Where all that mattered was the Grasshopper.

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