Part 35 (1/2)

Danny grabbed on and started spinning.

He really did spiral upward. But it didn't stop at the roof. Just as Hal said, the gate took Danny to a spot about a mile over the school-and held him there.

Before the gate began to let him slip downward, another kid from gym cla.s.s joined him in the middle of the air at the south end of Buena Vista. ”This is freakin' awesome,” he shouted. ”How'd you get it to do this? You some kind of freakin' magician or something? I want to learn how to do this trick!”

Danny spun down. All the guys in the cla.s.s were lined up to ”ride the rope.”

Coach Lieder was sitting down, watching his students grab onto the rope and flat-out disappear. He looked at Danny with hatred and fear. ”They're riding it like at a carnival,” said Lieder. ”You did this.”

Danny had no answer. This was the worst thing imaginable. Word would get out. It would attract media attention. Especially once somebody set up a telephoto lens outside to see the kids hanging in midair before they spun back down. And Danny had no idea how to shut it down.

”Where are you really from?” asked Coach Lieder. ”What d.a.m.n planet, New Kid?”

”I don't know how this works,” said Danny truthfully. ”Hal must have done it.” Please, please, let Hal get all the credit in the media. Not that the story wouldn't still bring all the Families to Parry McCluer. And that would be the end of Danny's high school career.

A couple of weeks and it would be over. All because Danny had had to use gates to impress his friends. No, oh no, it was to to use gates to impress his friends. No, oh no, it was to help help his friends. his friends. Except Except Danny knew better. He really was a show-off. He had been so careful not to use gatemagery to cheat at athletics, and here he was using it to cheat and win at high school life. What had he been Danny knew better. He really was a show-off. He had been so careful not to use gatemagery to cheat at athletics, and here he was using it to cheat and win at high school life. What had he been thinking thinking? He had fallen into the same trap as the typical nerd hero in young adult novels, who gets himself in serious trouble by trying too hard to make a good impression on the other kids.

I learned nothing, thought Danny. And now I'm going to lose it all. I have to get away from here. Preferably now.

He might have gated away on the spot, gone home to Yellow Springs, and confessed all to the Silvermans, except that one of the guys at the rope shouted, ”Hey! What's going on?”

Danny looked. The kid was spinning and spinning on the end of the rope, but nothing was happening.

The kids who had already gone up the rope kept coming down, so it was obvious that the gates were still working. Except the bottom one.

Danny looked at the gates. Or rather, felt felt the gates with that inner sense that had nothing to do with his eyes. They had been changed. They looked like his old gates. Only this was the first moment that he actually registered the fact that his old gates and the gates he made now were different. When had they changed? And why had the gates with that inner sense that had nothing to do with his eyes. They had been changed. They looked like his old gates. Only this was the first moment that he actually registered the fact that his old gates and the gates he made now were different. When had they changed? And why had this this gate changed back? gate changed back?

As he watched, other gates in the spiraling sequence also changed. It was as if they were getting pinched. Closed. Someone or something was closing his gates right now. right now.

Has the Gate Thief found me?

The last kid was back down the rope, and now the downward gates pinched off, one by one, until all the gates were locked.

All my old gates looked just like this. They must have been locked when I created them, so I was the only one who could go through them. But when Veevee found them, she unlocked them. She's a Keyfriend, that's what she does. Only once I saw what my gates looked like open, open, I started creating them that way. I imitated what she did with my gates without even realizing it. I started creating them that way. I imitated what she did with my gates without even realizing it.

Had Veevee figured out how to lock gates as well as open them? Was she checking up on him and saving him from his own mess? If so, he would not not be angry. The kids could say what they wanted, Coach Lieder could tell all to the media, and n.o.body would believe them as long as the spiral gates no longer worked. Unless a camera saw it happening and showed it on the news, it never happened at all, and the only story that would reach the papers was if Lieder was stupid enough to insist on the story until he got fired or committed. be angry. The kids could say what they wanted, Coach Lieder could tell all to the media, and n.o.body would believe them as long as the spiral gates no longer worked. Unless a camera saw it happening and showed it on the news, it never happened at all, and the only story that would reach the papers was if Lieder was stupid enough to insist on the story until he got fired or committed.

Veevee had probably saved Danny's b.u.t.t. She had to be just outside the gym somewhere-her range wasn't anywhere near as long as Danny's, she could only affect gates that were within a few blocks of her unless she actually saw them get made.

Danny was glad to see that the disappointed boys were pestering Hal about the fact that the gates no longer worked. It would give him a moment to slip out and apologize to Veevee for his stupidity and promise that he would never, never do it again, and as long as she was closing gates, could she please do something about the Tripping Place in the lunch room?

Danny stepped through the outside door and scanned for Veevee. Not there. She must be around the other side of the building.

So he ran in search of her, rounding the first corner in only a few steps. Rounding the second corner.

It wasn't Veevee.

It was the Greek girl.

A Family had found him. Even without the story hitting the papers. There had to be a whole bunch of the most powerful Greek mages poised to zap him with whatever powers they had. Filled with immediate terror, Danny did the only thing he could do. He gated away.

20.

LOCKS.

Danny was glad that he had never gated from his little house in Buena Vista up to the school or back again, even in the rain, because otherwise the Greek girl would be able to go from there to Veevee's house in Florida or the Silvermans' in Ohio or Stone's house in DC. Yet she had found and followed him from somewhere, and she would no doubt follow him now.

His first jump had been by reflex, to the place up in the woods above the school where as a child he used to sit and watch the high schoolers. From there, he gated to a rest stop on the road to DC where he and Eric had waited for three hours before they could find a ride, though they did get a couple of lunches and a lot of nearly-finished bags of snack food. Danny had made no gate there.

He thought he might have a moment of safety in which to think about what had just happened and what he had just learned. But he had only been at the rest stop for about a minute when the Greek girl was right there beside him.

”Please wait!” she said.

If she said any more, he didn't know what. He created a gate to the spot in front of the Library of Congress where Eric had confronted him and where he had mooned the security guards. Now that he understood the difference between locked and unlocked gates, he could see that these were locked. What did he know about the Greek girl? She knew how to lock gates. Could she unlock them?

Danny pa.s.sed through his own gate into the restroom alcove inside the library. He felt through all the gates in the library-all locked. If Lockfriends could unlock gates as well as lock them, then she would be inside the library in no time.

But she didn't come.

Was it that easy to lose her?

Did it even matter? Now that she had found Parry McCluer High, he could not remain there. Not that he hadn't already ruined everything himself, with his stupid spiral gate that took people a mile higher than he ever meant to, and which was public even though he didn't do any of the things that he thought making a public gate required.

No time to think about that, to regret the high school years he wouldn't have after all. All that mattered was staying alive, period.

And that would require that he learn how to take conscious control of the locking and unlocking of his gates.

The gates he had made ever since meeting Veevee were open; all the gates before that were locked. Why had he changed? How How had he changed? Did Veevee's mere presence suddenly reshape the gates he made? Or did she deliberately change them, opening all his gates without his realizing it? had he changed? Did Veevee's mere presence suddenly reshape the gates he made? Or did she deliberately change them, opening all his gates without his realizing it?

No. Veevee wasn't changing them-he'd know it if she were, just as he knew when the Greek girl closed the spiral gates at the climbing rope in the gym. They were already open for her when he made them.

Danny made a gate between the bathroom alcove and a spot right in the middle of the catalog room. It was a gate he never meant to use. He just had to see how gates came out of him now.

It was unlocked. If the Greek girl were inside the library, she could find it and use it.

But what was it about the way he shaped it that left it open, when before he had made all his gates pre-locked? What changed when Veevee came on the scene?

It wasn't just that she unlocked his gates when she used them. He hadn't even noticed the difference. Maybe it was the way Veevee changed his att.i.tude att.i.tude toward gatemaking. Her exuberance. Her enthusiasm. She made gatemagery fun. toward gatemaking. Her exuberance. Her enthusiasm. She made gatemagery fun.

And before it had always been something fraught with peril. Escaping from the Family compound, knowing he'd be killed if he were caught. On the run with Eric, getting into the library, doing burglaries-those gates were about survival. Or crime. But once Veevee came on the scene, and he realized he was making the gates as much for her as for himself, it became a pleasure. But how did his mood change the way he shaped the gates? And how could he control his mood for gate-shaping purposes?

He made gate after gate to various points around the library, trying to refine his mood. The trouble was, it couldn't couldn't be the mood he was in, because at this exact moment he was terrified, and yet none of the gates was locked. be the mood he was in, because at this exact moment he was terrified, and yet none of the gates was locked.

To judge from my gates, he thought, I'm having all kinds of fun.

He remembered the pinching feeling that he experienced when the Greek girl was closing the gates. That That was what he needed to duplicate, not his emotional state. was what he needed to duplicate, not his emotional state.