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felt it.
    Felt it. Heard it. Smelled it. Tasted it.
    He pulled his hand back out of his t-shirt.
    Zavion couldn’t move. He couldn’t even get out of the bathroom and back to the bench.
    Instead, he gripped the bathroom door so hard his forearm shook—the rain pouring, the men shooting marbles and laughing, the water rising, the little girl playing, his mural breaking, Grandmother Mountain crumbling, his house collapsing, Ms. Cyn knitting, and the wind—the wind whipping and pulling and pushing him. His knees buckled and he fell to the floor. He couldn’t keep his balance in the middle of it all.

chapter 14

HENRY
    “The school secretary didn’t mention there was a field trip to our house today,” said Jake. “And on the second day of school too.” He sat next to Nopie, drinking a cup of coffee.
    Nopie was at the table!
    Henry couldn’t believe it. But there he was, hunched over a piece of paper, drawing something. A heat rose up inside Henry. A smoky heat that curled and wisped from his feet all the way to his face. What was Nopie doing here, just sitting all comfortable, in Henry’s chair, the chair Henry had sat in a million times before with Wayne right next to him, like he belonged there?
    Nopie’s head shot up all of a sudden like a spark had singed his eyebrow, and he grabbed hold of a Tupperware container full of something white.
    “My mom needed some sugar,” Nopie said. “She’s making an apple pie for Pop and she ran out of sugar and when we went apple picking the other day we got a whole lot of thosetart apples, ’cause it’s really too early to pick apples, the kind that make your eyes water when you bite into them, so she really needs the sugar to sweeten ’em up and—”
    “Give it a rest, Nopie,” said Henry. “Your mouth is gonna fall off.”
    “Henry…” Annie cut the bottoms off some flower stems. She shot Henry a look.
    “So I came here to get sugar,” Nopie finished, and took in a deep breath.
    “Great,” said Henry. He put his hand out to pat Brae, but Brae lumbered over to Nopie and wagged his whole body against his shiny, silver-booted leg.
    Nopie sat there, shaking the sugar container like it was a maraca. He had lived up the road from Henry for as long as Henry could remember. His motor mouth was the most glaring thing about him, always talking a mile a minute like he had lost the brakes on his tongue. But there was other weird stuff about him too. Like Nopie kept a rabbit at the school all last year in the lighting booth in the school auditorium. He had stolen a key from the janitor. Henry had to admit that was pretty impressive, but still, Nopie was a grade-A weirdo electric mixer–turtle dude.
    “Sit down, Henry,” said Annie. “I’ll make you boys something to eat.”
    Henry didn’t want to eat. He thought if he managed to swallow anything it would end up charred in his belly.
    “So which neighbor saw Tiger last?” Nopie interrupted Henry’s thoughts.
    “Four neighbors said they saw him,” said Annie. “I think the last one was Mack.”
    “I’m making a map of all the houses on the road and then marking where Tiger’s been spotted,” Nopie said to Henry.
    “Good for you.”
    Jake put down his coffee. “Tiger’s been gone since the day Wayne died.” His leg began to bounce up and down under the table.
    “He used to take walks with me,” said Annie. She brought a plate of apples and peanut butter to the table. “Like a dog. He would follow me onto the trail and walk the whole thing at my side. Honestly.”
    “Tiger is a strange cat,” said Nopie.
    “You’re strange,” said Henry.
    “
Was
a strange cat,” said Jake. “Maybe a fisher’s gotten him.”
    “Don’t say that, Jake,” said Annie.
    Tiger could not be gone.
Oh man
, all the wrong things were disappearing—Henry glared at Nopie—and all the wrong things were staying rooted right where they were.
    Nopie chewed on his apple, sucking peanut butter frombetween his teeth. Henry