Boy 2.0, page 20
“It’s amazing,” she said.
“Pay up,” Door said.
Bisa handed Coal a twenty.
“The color is extra,” Door said.
Bisa looked surprised.
“Don’t worry about it,” Coal said, quickly glaring at Door.
“Thanks!” She practically scurried away.
Door slung an arm around his friend and walked him toward the exit. “You know I’m supposed to be the brains of this operation. I should handle all the negotiations.”
“Yeah, no. No negotiations. Thanks.”
Outside, Door headed to the field for practice, while Coal started walking toward the high school.
“You good, though?” Door asked.
Coal sighed. Door had asked him the same question every day for more than a week. “Yeah.”
“You sure?”
“Door, are you mother-henning me?”
“Do I look like a mother hen?”
“That is the distinct sound of clucking,” Coal said.
“Imma peck this whole field!” Door yelled as he walked away.
Coal smirked and sprinted past the swamp and up toward the digital lawn sign that shared the high school’s news. Today it was that the drama club and choir were holding auditions for Once on This Island. Aaron stood next to it talking to a couple of his friends. They gave Coal nods of recognition as he approached.
Aaron separated from the pack. “Check this out,” he said. He showed Coal a report about a man in their neighborhood who had gotten arrested for menacing people with his rifle. Then he swiped to another article about the arrest of two police officers in the murder of Allana Hastings.
“Good day for justice,” Coal said. “How’d they find the guy in town?”
“Looks like somebody tipped off the cops about a neighbor with a habit of waving around a firearm,” Aaron said with a smile. “I wonder who, though?”
Coal snorted. They both knew exactly who’d called it in. When Coal had finally told Doc and Jackson how he’d discovered his ability, they shared a brief moment of shocked silence and then jumped into action. While Doc peppered him with questions getting the date, address, and a full description of rifle guy, Jackson was on the precinct website looking for the photo they had posted with the request for more information.
“You ready to head home?” Aaron asked.
Coal nodded.
“So,” Aaron said. “How are you feeling today?”
“Is this going to be a new feature? Everyone asking me how I’m doing all the time?” Coal asked.
“You might not be okay,” Aaron said. “You’re pretty good at hiding stuff. No pun intended.”
Coal chuckled. “I’m processing.”
“You could process out loud,” Aaron said as they crossed the street. “It might help.”
“I know everybody’s focused on the DNA, the research.”
“Yeah?” Aaron said.
“But the thing that hit me the most were the pictures,” Coal said. “I have family somewhere, probably. An Aunty Arlene.”
“Yeah,” Aaron said.
“Do you think your mom could help me find out where?”
“I think she’s already on that.”
“I wonder what they’ll be like,” Coal said.
“First of all, they’ll need to catch up with thirteen years of birthday and Christmas presents.” He clapped his hands together and looked up into the autumn sky. “You could clean up.”
“I wouldn’t expect all that,” Coal said. “They wouldn’t even know what I like.”
“That’s the good part. You get to tell them.”
“That’s going to be weird.” Coal laughed nervously.
“There’s going to be hugging. Lots of hugging.” Aaron pinched Coal’s cheeks. “And probably some of this.”
“Oh, great.”
“Don’t pretend. I know you’re excited about it.”
“What if they’re not like that, though?” Coal asked. “What if they’re dead, or they don’t really want to know me?”
Aaron shrugged. “You still have us.” He pulled Coal to him, slightly under his armpit, which at the end of a full school day was not the freshest. He turned Coal slightly to get the full effect of his pit stink.
“Geez!”
“What? This is how I hug!”
“Get off!”
“You need to get desensitized to the hugging,” Aaron said. “You don’t want to be all weird when you meet your family, do you?”
“I think I can handle it, thanks,” Coal said.
Aaron let him up. “You sure?”
“Yes.”
The girls were already at the house when they got home. Doc was in the kitchen and it smelled of chocolate chip cookies. There were often baked goods at the McKays’.
“Coal! Coal is here!” Hannah shouted.
“What’s going on?” Coal asked.
“It’s a surprise!”
“Way to ruin it,” Mari said.
“I still don’t know what it is,” Coal said. “So still a surprise.”
“It’s cookies!” Aaron said. He walked into the kitchen and grabbed one from the metal sheet.
His mother slapped his hand. “Still hot,” she said.
“It’s something else,” Hannah said.
Doc picked up a box from the kitchen table and handed it to him.
“What is it?”
“It’s from Hunter Achebe,” Doc said.
“I don’t want anything from that guy,” Coal said.
“You don’t have to open it if you don’t want to,” she said. “But I know what’s in it, and you might be interested.”
“You talked to him?”
She nodded. “He sent me a message.”
“I thought he was in jail with General Knox and Dr. Carroll.”
“He is. He had the box sent from Mirror Tech.”
“And you’re cool with that?”
Doc leaned against a kitchen chair as if she needed it for a little support. “Coal, when you said that nobody’s allowed you to make your own decisions, I was listening,” she said softly. “I don’t want to keep information from you again.”
Coal put his hand on the box and wondered what might be inside. It was pretty big.
“What’s the matter?” Doc asked.
“I understand why she kept me from everyone, but I wish she’d made a different choice anyway.”
Doc pulled Coal to her and held him gently. “I know it was hard. It was hard for Tom and me, too, not knowing what happened to her, and now that we know she . . .” Doc’s voice caught in her throat. When she started talking again, Coal knew she was crying. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like giving you up and then spending her last days alone. But it was the only way she knew to protect us.” She pulled away from Coal so she could look him directly in the eyes. “She obviously left the files in the bank and put me as the contact thinking we’d find you sooner. I’m sorry we didn’t.”
Coal shrugged. “You didn’t know.”
“Still.”
“I miss Tom.”
“I have good news there,” Doc said. “He’ll be able to have visitors soon.”
“Will he be able to talk about stuff?” Coal asked.
“About your mom? Yeah. He’ll be able to talk,” Doc said. “I’ll meet him first and break all the harder news so you don’t have to, okay?”
A question burned inside Coal. He wasn’t sure he wanted the answer, but he knew he had to ask it. He kept his eyes on the tile floor. “Doc?”
“What is it?”
“Do you think keeping my secret is what made Tom . . .” He couldn’t finish.
“No! Coal. No.” Doc pulled him to her again. “It had nothing to do with you. Tom has a disease. Nothing you did triggered it. Do you understand?”
Coal nodded. He was relieved, but he still felt a bit unsteady. Doc pulled away from him and tapped the box. He took it up to his and Aaron’s room and closed the door.
The box was a perfect cube. Shiny, of course, with the Mirror Tech logo embossed on the top. Coal opened it and there was a sealed envelope sitting on top of a tuft of tissue paper. In neat type was COAL.
He read.
Dear Coal,
You have no reason to read this letter, but I hope you do. I’ve been thinking about the many, many mistakes I’ve made. There’s been a lot of time to think about them. After going through all of Michelle’s files, I’ve come to realize something. You have a natural evolutionary gift, designed to protect you. Adaptations passed down through DNA only exist for survival. But you were made for more than survival alone. Coal under pressure makes diamonds. Diamonds are one of the toughest substances on earth, and one of the most coveted.
There’s something else. I know you’ve been teased because of your skin color because I’ve had the same experience. I think about how people use “dark” as a negative. But it isn’t. Dark is a place of birth. You plant a seed in darkness. People are more creative in the dark. Do you know why the symbol of an idea is a light bulb? It’s because all sparks of creativity happen when there’s no light. Can you even see a spark if there’s bright light all around? Exploration happens in darkness. Everything that begins starts in darkness.
Coal, you’ve had to be tough, and adapt, and you’ve been hunted for who you are. But remember, people are always looking for diamonds. People are always looking for a spark. So those are things that need to be protected. I hope this gift will help with that.
H. A.
Coal moved the tissue paper aside and found a button-down shirt that was made out of a nondescript grayish fabric. Beneath that was a T-shirt in the same color. Then a pair of pants, boxers, socks, and a pair of sneakers. All in the same muddy gray. “I don’t get it,” he said.
There was a knock at the door and Doc looked in. “May I?”
“Yeah,” Coal said. He showed her a couple of the pieces.
“They’re made with the mimetic fabric you saw at Hunter’s lab,” she said. “He remembered how it interacted with you when you touched it.”
“But nothing’s happening,” Coal said.
“He said that one of his interns has been working on the coding of the fabric,” Doc said. “Right now, it’s coded to look like regular clothing.”
Coal turned it over in his hands. “Boring clothing, you mean.”
Doc took the shirt and located a small button on an inside seam. When she touched it, the shirt changed to a bright blue with a sketch of Basquiat on the front.
“Now, that’s cool,” he said.
“That’s not all,” Doc said. “Try touching it while you do your thing.”
Coal had been working on this, on controlling his ability. He focused on just his hand. In a few seconds, it began to go invisible, and the shirt changed with him as well. He gasped.
Doc sighed. “I’m not really sure how I feel about this, but I also didn’t want to keep it from you.”
“Thanks,” Coal said. “I appreciate that.” He moved on to all the other pieces in the box, taking out each one and watching them go invisible. As soon as he moved his hand away, they returned to their original colors.
“Don’t think you’re going to get all your clothes custom from now on,” she said. “This is a one-off.”
“Tell him I said thanks,” Coal said.
Doc was smiling. Cautiously. “I guess you want to try the whole outfit, huh?”
Coal nodded. “Yeah, I really do.”
Doc closed the door behind him when she left the room. Coal put on the pants, the T-shirt, socks, and the sneakers. Then he stood in front of the mirror and went invisible.
It was incredible.
He grabbed his phone and took a video of himself changing back, then sent it to Isadora.
You got it! came back immediately.
You did this?
Who else? You like it?
Yeah! Thanks!
Glad it worked, she said.
How’d you know my size?
Door stole some of your clothes for me. But he didn’t know what they were for. You better tell him what’s up.
Coal texted the video to Door as he ran downstairs. Aaron, Mari, and Hannah were in the living room.
He stood in front of them Superman style. “Check this out.” He repeated his disappearing act.
“Whoa,” Mari said. “How?”
“It’s the Mirror Tech fabric,” Coal said as he changed back.
“That is so awesome!” Hannah rubbed the hem of his shirt.
“You’re a superhero,” Aaron said.
“No, he’s not,” Mari said. “You have to do superhero stuff to be a superhero. That’s what the hero part is about.”
“You don’t think he’s a hero?” Hannah asked. “He saved us from that stinky lab guy. And he got Missus Quickness from the roof last weekend.”
Mari rolled her eyes. “That’s not enough, Han. To be a superhero you have to help others.”
“I’m others,” Hannah said. “Missus Quickness is others.”
“Hold on. What if he doesn’t even want to be a superhero,” Aaron said. “Is that what you want?”
Coal shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe for now I’ll just try this thing out in the wild.”
“Are you allowed?” Aaron asked.
“Superheroes do not have to ask permission!” Hannah said.
Mari made a face. “Another reason he’s not a superhero!”
“He is too!” Hannah said, gesturing with Missus Quickness.
“I’ll check with Doc,” Coal said.
“You’re not going to just disappear, are you?” Hannah asked.
“Just for a little bit,” Coal said.
Hannah shook her head. “No, not like go invisible, like disappear from us.” Her eyes were shiny.
Coal held her hand. “I promise I won’t.”
The McKays went out with Coal into the cool evening. He looked back at them as he approached the street. Doc looked nervous. Aaron looked excited. The girls were arguing and not looking at him at all. Jackson was on his way home with takeout, so he was missing it. Coal knew once he walked away Aaron would probably go back inside and pick up a book to read. Mari and Hannah’s argument would morph into something about science, or the details from a television show, or anything really, but when he returned, they would bombard him with questions.
There were other things he knew. He knew from Doc that his mother had regretted getting involved with the military, and that she and her family had had a terrible falling out. Doc suspected it was because she’d turned their legend into a research project. But he also knew that he had family out there, somewhere. When he met them, there would be things to learn about himself. There were so many questions to answer. He’d get to all of it. Eventually. For the moment he was focused only on one of them. The same one Dr. Achebe had asked him in the lab.
How did it feel to be invisible?
He started walking down the street, moving quickly to warm himself up. There wasn’t a jacket in the box from Mirror Tech. He’d have to ask Isadora about that. He got to the end of the block and changed as he turned the corner, stepping into a breeze.
Coal awaiting spark and wind.
It felt amazing.
Tracey Baptiste is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty-one books and several short stories for children. She writes fiction and nonfiction picture books, middle grade, young adult, and graphic novels. She is best known for the horror adventure Jumbies series and Minecraft: The Crash. Tracey can be found online at traceybaptiste.com and on Instagram: @traceybaptistewrites.
Also by Tracey Baptiste
The Jumbies
Rise of the Jumbies
The Jumbie God’s Revenge
Minecraft: The Crash
African Icons: Ten People who Shaped History
Tracey Baptiste, Boy 2.0
