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attempted to tackle Danton, but he laughed and eluded them smoothly. Feenix jumped on a chair and lunged for the purse.
    “I’m open!” Edward yelled.
    Danton threw the purse back to him and Edward tucked it under his arm like a football and began to run down the crowded aisle between the tables, heading for open space. Edward generally avoided any public physical activity since it might reveal that he had the hand, foot, and eye coordination of a sock puppet. To his surprise, the moment he had the purse in his grasp he found himself as light and swift as a deer. He held on to it tightly and felt the glorious pleasure of speed. Although shouting and laughing arms reached out to catch him, he was too slippery and too fast. He reached the open space by the water fountains and saw the exit door ahead of him. He put his head down and barreled through a knot of kids scattering them in all directions. When he looked up, there was Feenix, blocking his way.
    He stopped short. She was, as always, taller than he was, and dressed to make other people stare at her. Today it was cowboy boots and pink leggings and some kind of lacy black skirt thing. He closed his eyes briefly, blinded and feeling the warm lightness in his veins swiftly leaving him, hissing away like air out of a balloon. She shook one finger at him as if he’d been a naughty child. She held out her hand.
    Edward took the lumpy beaded purse out from under his arm and looked at it. It had a metal closure at the top. He started to hand it over to her and then stopped. With a quick snap, he twisted it open and, at the same moment, tossed the bag upside down in the air. A fountain of girly junk came flying out: eyeliners, Chapsticks, lipsticks, cell phone, snotty tissues, breath strips, half-eaten candy bars.
    A low growl of fury came from her throat.
    Girls hated it, he knew, when their purses spilled on the floor.
    He watched with triumph while she scrabbled to pick it all up and stuff it back into the bag.
    When she was done, she stood and snapped her bag closed. It had a thin pink strap, which she now slung over her shoulder, tucking the bag tight under her arm. She was breathing a tiny bit hard as she met his gaze with those unnerving eyes of hers. It was then that he spotted it, in the edge of his vision. On the floor near her foot.
    His rock.
    “Hey!” he exclaimed.
    She followed his gaze and, quick as a snake striking, she bent down and snatched it up.
    The wind rattled the windows of the lunchroom. It gave a low, hungry moan and dashed itself against the side of the old school building, like the waves throwing themselves against the rocks.
    “Hey!” he repeated.
    “I’m not happy with you, Edsel,” she growled.
    “That’s my rock.”
    She lifted her eyebrow. “Your name is on it somewhere?”
    “No, my name isn’t on it.”
    “Then how do we know it’s your rock?”
    “I found it in my aunt’s garden this morning and I put it my pocket.”
    “Well, then maybe your aunt’s name is on it?”
    “Nobody’s name is on it, but that’s the rock I brought in for science class.”
    “What if I told you that I picked up this rock last night when I went for a walk in the park?”
    “You would be lying.”
    “It’s just a rock. What are you popping your pimples about?”
    “It’s my rock.” He felt how stupid this sounded, even as the words came out of his mouth.
    The wind shrieked and Edward could have sworn he felt the building tremble.
    “Whoa. Will you look at that?” someone whispered.
    Edward turned.
    The windows in the lunchroom rose nearly to the ceiling and looked out upon a gray afternoon. High up in the sky a gray object came falling toward them. It rushed down from the clouds in odd jerks and starts. Edward wanted to back up, but found that his feet were cemented to the floor.
    The thing grew larger rapidly and now they could see the shape of a person with arms outstretched.
    It was headed for their window, not in a straight line, but