Page 49 of Room to Breathe

He closed the book, his finger keeping his place. “It’s about a girl who works as a messenger for the king. Everyone in the land has special powers, but she hasn’t figured out what hers are. She lied to get the job. I guess her dad was a messenger before her, soshe didn’t have to go through the normal testing messengers have to go through, nepotism and all that.”

“Stupid nepotism, always ruining things,” I said, folding down a corner of my paper.

He smirked. “Seriously. She thought it would be an easy job because it’s just delivering mail and packages. But the woods between neighboring towns and cities are a scary place.”

“Oh yeah, I think I read about a monster attack.”

“There have been several monster attacks. This last one was pretty cool.”

“Yeah?”

He nodded.

“Read it to me.”

“Read it to you?” he asked.

“Yes, my eyes are busy making a cootie catcher.”

He tilted his head. “What’s a cootie catcher?”

“You know, that thing that looks like a mouth that opens two ways. You ask it a question and then you pick a color and then numbers and then it reveals the answer.”

“Oh! We called that a fortune teller.”

He had moved to town seventh-grade year from Arizona. His dad was tired of the heat and his mom loved the ocean, but I wondered if they were really trying to get out from under the shadow of her father. She seemed to create her own shadow when she got here. Or maybe it was his, taking up more landmass than she realized.

Beau and I had found a couple of other regional word variations over the years, but not many. “Huh, well, whatever the name, I’m making one.” I jerked my head toward the book. “Read.”

“I…uh…don’t usually read out loud to people.”

“Well, today we’re doing a lot of things we don’t usually do.”

He chuckled. “True.” He opened the book and flipped back a few pages. “Now, remember, she doesn’t have powers, or at least hasn’t discovered her powers yet, so this is seriously scary for her.”

“I will remember,” I said, completing my last fold.

He started reading. Beau was right. In all the years I’d known him, we had never read out loud to each other. We’d read separate books in the same room before, to ourselves. I’d heard him practice reading with kids in the tutoring center, drawing out his vowels or emphasizing the ending or beginning of words. I’d never heard him read a novel, in his deep voice, with his excellent pronunciation and perfect pace.

A smile I couldn’t control crept onto my face as I wrote colors and numbers onto the paper device I’d made.

“ ‘The creature looked like it was made of forest—its limbs shaped like sticks and brush, its eyes red like berries—but its teeth were sharper than rocks and its claws stronger than twigs,’ ” he read.

“I hope her power is that she can turn into a slug,” I said in an even voice. “That creature with berry eyes wouldn’t be able to find her then.”

He grunted. “That’s not her power.”

“Do you know her power yet?”

“No, but it’s not that.”

“What do you hope her power is?”

“Fire or invisibility or somethingactuallycool.”

“Slugs are cool,” I teased. “She wouldn’t be able to fight salt, though.”

“You’re such a dork,” he said.