The Gift

down the toilet really may just be the ultimate poetic justice. I still can’t figure out if the creep is saving our lives or just getting a kick out of flushing down the pipes his former nemesis and the girl who’d so often rejected him.

But when the full force hits, none of it matters anyway. After the shock of the initial crash of water, which comes close to knocking me senseless against the sides of the pipes, it’s one dark and scary shot straight out of the school building. The water power is so strong I can’t even twist my head far enough to see if Wisty’s behind me. It’s killing me not to know if she made it.

I’d been a champion swimmer in school, so the sensation of being a fish isn’t as odd for me as I might have thought. But this is like trying to do laps in an ocean during a hurricane, so no, I’ve never trained for it. And I’m worried about how Wisty’s handling it… until I remember that she’s done time as a rodent in a gutter.

Wisty, hang in there, I’m thinking. Just remember to breathe.

The pipes are getting wider and wider, which doesn’t offer much relief since there’s these waterfall noises that keep getting louder-and the too-gross-for-words stuff coming down the pipe with us is getting thicker and thicker. Just the thought of it makes me nearly suffocate.

Just remember to breathe, Whit, I say to myself. Which is actually pretty good advice, because when I do, I realize that my sense of smell isn’t on a human scale.

So I breathe even more deeply, and I catch sight of Wisty. At least, I assume it’s her and not some other guppy busting out of “prison” via the sewer.

We make eye contact, and I think, Follow me, hoping that the message somehow comes through in my face. I’m glad we’ve spent so much of our lives understanding each other without saying a thing.

We’re going faster and faster-a real raging river-until suddenly we find ourselves in still water: a storm sewer. From there we make our way downstream and into a maze of lazy subterranean canals under the city.

Before long Wisty and I see something we haven’t seen in a long time-light! Real, honest-to-God daylight! We stare at it, mesmerized as it grows and grows. We start to see blues and greens and yellows and -

Why is the light growing so quickly when we’re not even swimming hard? And what’s that almost deafening, roaring sound?

“Swim back!” I try to scream. But I can’t. I’m a fish.

And it’s too late anyway.

Chapter 69

Whit

YOU KNOW THOSE NIGHTMARES where you’re falling and you’re entirely helpless and you wake up with a start? This rush is kind of like that, but not.

It’s not, because it’s not ending.

There’s no control. There’s nobody to help. I can’t even hope to see Wisty in this powerful, downward-spiraling torrent. All I know is that I’m lodged inside a roar with nothing to hold on to but my useless panic.

Faster, louder, faster, louder, and then-bang.

And then-uhh.

My guppy brain feels as if it’s come unattached from the inside of my tiny little fish skull. I think I just did sixty to zero in point two seconds.

And then all is calm.

Calm… and sunlit?

I’m outside?

In one piece? I think so.

Why am I not surprised that the environmentally unfriendly New Order has a sewer that goes directly into a river without any filters or processing facilities that would grind two innocent little guppies into crop fertilizer?

For the first-and hopefully last-time, I’m thankful for their complete lack of morals and civility.

I’m in a lazy bend in the river, and, despite the toilet water that the New Order has clearly been pumping into it, it’s still totally beautiful.

Lily pads and their brilliant white flowers float around us lazily. Spiral snails slide along the rocks without a care in the world, and a brilliantly striped turtle slips off a log and glides by like a stubby-legged flying saucer.

Suddenly I realize I’m seeing this with eyes that are above water. I’m floating…

Like a dead fish, or a living human being?

I jolt up onto my feet and realize I’m alive and human again, standing in about three feet of water. The spell must have worn off. I whisper a prayer of thanks to Mom and Dad, who I feel are out there, watching over us somehow. Then I give quick thanks that the spell didn’t remove my white Brave New World Center jumpsuit, which is now sopping wet.

I swirl around, looking for Wisty. Thank God-there she is! She’s just now hauling herself up the wooded bank of the river. She’s dazed, but her eyes light up when she sees me.

“Whit!” she calls. “Wasn’t that… wasn’t that just the most amazing ride ever?”

Chapter 70

Whit

IT MIGHT NOT SURPRISE you to find out that I wasn’t just an athlete in the old days, I was also a fourth- degree Falcon Scout. So I know that generally when you’re lost in the woods, the first job is to find shelter.

But on a night as perfect as this one, we’re not stressing about it.

We’ve already walked several miles-west, back toward Freeland-and though it’s starting to get a little cool, we’re just going to sleep under the stars.

The sun has dipped below the horizon, and things are starting to get pretty dark. From here on out, we’re strictly going to be feeling our way around.

“Bring a flashlight?” I ask my sister jokingly. “We could use it to find two sticks. And then we could rub them together, and -” Suddenly the tree trunks ahead of me are flickering with dancing orange light.

I spin around to face Wisty. And there on the ground, with my sister sitting cross-legged in front of it, is the most perfect campfire I’ve ever seen, complete with encircling stones and a nearby stack of wood.

“Fire looks a little hot,” I say, referencing the six-foot-high flames nearly licking the overhanging branches of the trees.

“No problemo,” says Wisty and, as if she were turning a dial on a stove, drops the flames down to a more manageable foot or two.

“And without your drumstick,” I observe. “I’m impressed.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve always done better out of school,” she says. Her pale face is flushed, glowing. She looks like she’s just risen from the dead. “I know it sounds dumb, but it feels so good. To just be able to use my power. Without being crushed. It’s like I didn’t even realize how heavy the weight was until it was gone.”

“I know what you mean. I feel it, too.” And it’s true. Without even focusing too terribly hard, I’m able to produce three hot dogs on the ends of three bamboo skewers. It’s almost as if there’s been a backup of energy and