What Happens Next by Claire Swinarski

Author:Claire Swinarski
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2020-04-16T00:00:00+00:00

10

AUGUST, TWO YEARS AGO

Ten years old

Two years before we set out with metal detectors to find hidden things, Dr. Leo Lacamoire was on a mission to repair something that had been broken. He wasn’t looking for a telescope; he was looking for a person, and he was desperate to find her. Two years ago, the Star-Gazer Twelve was safe underground, but he did not know that yet.

Two years ago, I didn’t know who Dr. Leo Lacamoire was. I was about to enter the sixth grade. Middle school, where you didn’t get recess and had to switch classrooms for different subjects. Sophie, Lex, and I had decorated our binders with lyrics we liked and photographs of the three of us. Lex had a picture of Harry Styles without his shirt on glued to her science one, which my mom would never let me do.

Blair was going to be a junior in high school, but she didn’t want to go. She wanted to be tutored.

“Aleksander says that it’s time I start taking my career seriously. If I want to do ballet as a profession, I can’t be wasting my time learning about geometry,” Blair complained.

We were at dinner, eating baked chicken. We’d all been trying to eat healthier since Mom had seen some documentary about the horror of trans fats. The night before, Dad had snuck the three of us out to get milkshakes, making us swear up and down we wouldn’t tell her. Blair wouldn’t order one, though; she said junk food slowed her down at ballet. She thought it was why she didn’t get the lead in Swan Lake this year even though she had done so well in Coppélia. The girl who had gotten the part Blair wanted was so skinny you could have broken her in half. I didn’t think it was pretty at all, but when I told Blair that, she just rolled her eyes, which made her look like Jade. Blair was always asking Mom if she could help cook, now—I heard them arguing about butter and whether or not Greek yogurt could really match up to sour cream.

“I don’t know, Blair,” said Mom. “You’d miss out on so much. Don’t you want to be a normal kid for just a little bit longer?”

“What do colleges think of homeschooling?” asked Dad, pointing his fork at her. “What would this do to your transcripts?”

“You guys. I’m not trying to be a normal kid! I’m trying to follow my dreams, here.”

“I say if she wants to be a homeschool freak, let her,” said Jade. “Then we wouldn’t have to go to the same school.” Jade was a freshman, thinking she was all that, wearing more makeup than she was supposed to and talking back to Mom and Dad. She was starting to get really annoying. Why did she have to say things like that? It was like she had forgotten that we had ever been best friends. If she was snarky enough, maybe she thought we’d all just poof into thin air.

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