Sometimes Rod thanked God or Fate or whatever that he’d grown big. If he’d topped out at five foot two, if he’d had to walk around underneath other guys’ noses, if he’d ended up with narrow birdy shoulders or stick-arms or creepy little hands, he didn’t think he could have taken it. He’d probably have become a serial killer or something.

Now he had something new to thank God-or-whatever for—that he’d ended up on the strong team instead of the sparky one.

The strong ones (they really needed a better name) had made Stephanie Barnaby’s house their unofficial headquarters. Stephanie’s parents were a highly useful combination of rich and crazy. They were rich enough to design and build their own house, crazy enough to make it sprawling and weird, with diagonal walls and curvy walls and dead ends and game rooms and movie rooms and music rooms and yoga rooms and guest rooms.

They were also rich enough to spend the summer in Europe for no particular reason, and crazy enough to leave Stephanie behind by herself just because she asked.

Stephanie, eager to play hostess, had put out snacks—bowls of chips and dinner rolls and stiff, store-bought cookies, and one bowl of metal washers she’d brought up from the basement. Rod had taken a handful of these to the comfortable den where he and Connor were lounging on fat leather sofas. He tossed a washer into the air and caught it in his mouth like a grape.

“So do you think we’re stronger than we are tough,” asked Connor, “or tougher than we are strong?”

“What do you mean, Ginger?” Rod worked the metal washer around his mouth with his tongue, enjoying the taste.

“We can punch a tree hard enough to split the wood without breaking the bones in our arms, right? So we’re tougher than we used to be. And we bruise and scrape, but it doesn’t really hurt.”

“Yah.”

“There’s something in us that supports our bones, and fixes them when they break. So if you hit me in the face as hard as you could, would you break my jaw?”

Rod swallowed the washer. “Well, there’s only one way to find out.”

Connor laughed. “I’m curious, dude, but I can live with the mystery.”

“Ah, come on. How about you hit me first? I’m serious.”

“Um…”

“Hit me, Ginger, and if it hurts too much I won’t hit back.”

Connor blinked, and probably realized that Rod wasn’t going to let this drop. “Okay, man, okay.”

They faced each other in the middle of the room. They stood with their feet apart like fighters in a video game, which now that Rod thought of it was where their only combat knowledge came from, and Rod pondered whether they’d learn to really fight in the next weeks or months. He was excited by the prospect and wondered why he had never looked into it before.

Connor punched Rod in the face, and Rod staggered back before assessing the damage. “Not too bad.”

“I’m not sure I hit you as hard as I really could,” said Connor.

“Yeah, that’s a problem,” said Rod, and punched Connor as hard as he really could.

Connor reeled back from the momentum. When he straightened up again he seemed fine, though he was glaring at Rod. “That hurt a little. Not much.” He touched his chin and jaw with one hand. “Nothing’s broken. So I should do you again, right?”

“Oh please do.” They exchanged several punches, none of which did more than twinge. It was almost getting boring. “Kick me,” said Rod.

“I’ve kicked down a tree, Rod. You remember how I kicked down a tree?”

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“Just do it. I can take it. I’m mature for my age.”

“I’m not going to—”

“Kick me, you sad excuse for a—”

Connor kicked him. His foot landed on the side of Rod’s stomach, and there was an audible crack and a stab of hot red pain, and Rod toppled back onto the floor.

“You broke my rib. You magnificent specimen. You broke my rib!”

“It’ll be okay,” said Connor, frantic. “It’ll heal. Just… give it a second. It’ll start to go numb. It didn’t break the skin, did it?”

“Nah.” Rod winced. The pain was honestly pretty bad. “You may be a magnificent specimen, but you’re not good enough to make me bleed.”

The pain faded off, replaced with tingling numbness, and Connor helped Rod to his feet. It was only then that Rod noticed Priya in the doorway, leaning against the frame.

“Oh, Priya,” said Connor, embarrassed like a fool. “How long have you been watching us?”

“Oh, a while. I didn’t want to disturb you when you were having fun.” Priya, Rod suspected, was carefully controlling her face and voice. She was smart about people and knew she had to parcel out her disapproval in small doses to keep it effective. If she wasn’t going to stink-eye their punching game, she probably had some other issue to discuss.

“What’s your problem, Ya-ya?”

“My problem?” She smiled and cocked her head, all prettily confused. “What makes you think I have a problem, Rod?”

“What do you think of our little run-in with Danny and the, uh, what did your sister call them? The Blues? Heh. Great name.”

Priya had already committed to this “Problem? I’m too chill to have a problem” tactic, so she barely flinched when Rod mentioned Danny. “I thought it was funny,” she said.

“Really? Because I’ve known you for a couple months now and I never noticed you having a sense of humor. Maybe you developed one at the same time as the grippy hands.” He raised his eyebrows and wriggled his metal-studded fingers in the air.

“Guys…” said Connor.

“It was funny,” said Priya, biting out each word, “because a few weeks ago Danny was my boyfriend and Kess was my best friend and my sister, but now they’re on the other side. But the other side of what? There’s no conflict! There’s nothing we’re competing over. There’s no issue we disagree on. It’s just my brain—something that’s been done to my brain.”

“Your brain’s all you are, Ya-ya. My brain says Danny’s my enemy, he’s my enemy. That’s how brains work. Also enemies.”

“Well, and…” Connor spoke up and trailed off.

“Yes?” said Priya. “Connor? What were you going to say?”

Connor looked seriously uncomfortable. “Whatever happened to our brains happened to theirs too. They feel the same way about us, so even if they haven’t done anything to us yet they’re probably going to. So we should probably, you know, keep our eye on them. Be ready to strike back the second they make a move.”

“Connor,” Priya practically gasped.

Rod laughed. She’d been expecting Connor to agree with her. “Excellent point, my rib-breaking bud. You know, Danny makes a better enemy than he did a friend.”

“Come off it,” said Priya. “Danny’s the best person you know, and you know it.”

“Exactly. With him, everything’s about duty and honor and Boy Scout crap. When you’re his friend, that means he’s boring and lectures you a lot, but when he’s your enemy it makes everything more epic. It’s not a fight, it’s a field of battle. You feel like the black knight or something. It’s awesome.”

“So what you’re saying is you’re having fun.”

“More or less. And I’m going to continue to have fun, Ya-ya, because you can’t always control people by being hot and smiling.”

Priya’s last attempt at a poker face melted away to flashing anger. “What does that mean?”

“It means I know your deal.”

“My deal is not controlling people, Rod. My deal is persuading people, partly because I’m nice but mostly because I’m right. Like now, when my position is we should not get sucked into gang warfare, and I’m so obviously right you don’t even have a real argument against me.”

“Eh. Let’s just see what happens.”

Priya sucked in a breath so hard and sharp Rod could hear it hissing through her teeth. Then she turned and stormed out of the room.

Connor groaned and pushed his hands through his freaky-bright hair. “What do I do now?”

“I don’t know, man,” said Rod. “You did have an opinion different than her opinion. That’s pretty bad. You might have to kneel in front of her like a dog.”

“Dogs don’t kneel, Rod.”

He shrugged. “Human ones do.”

###

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