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which was supposed to cover the “big” seizures,the tonic-clonics, which it did for the most part, with obvious breakdowns like the soccer tournament. We tried Depakote and then Zarontin for the small ones, but nothing seemed to make them go away completely. And the sleepiness from the extra drugs was wiping me out in school, so we stopped them. Besides, I was lucky that the small ones were generally pretty harmless. Only something about this one didn’t feel quite so benign.
    “Do I look crazy to you?” I said to Manda.
    “Only one million percent,” she said. She dipped her finger in the peanut butter jar for another lick.
    “Don’t do that. You really shouldn’t do that.”
    “I don’t care, Emma, it’s so good.”
    I didn’t say anything. For some reason my seizure had gotten me thinking about what I had seen in the eye specialist’s office. The way my mom had been glowing blue in the dark. Was this some weird new offshoot of my epilepsy? What was happening to me?
    “Emma? Are you listening?” Manda yelled. “I said, did you know I can count to a billion? Emma!”
    “What? Um, oh, you can?”
    “One, two, three, four, five, a billion,” Manda said, and collapsed into giggles on the living room floor.
    I was thinking that I could try it again right now. Take my little sister in the back bedroom, close the curtains, cut out the lights, and see. See if it happened with Manda too. But I didn’t. I don’t think I wanted to see.
    The next change came all at once. I told Mom I was trashing my crutches, no matter what the doctor said. I had been walking around the apartment just fine and was sick of dragging the things to school. She knew it was useless to try to force me, so instead she turned the situation on its head.
    “Okay, if you’re all healed up, tomorrow is garbage day, right?”
    “But my poor leg,” I said.
    Mom smiled sweetly. “Besides, you can take Manda to the playground. She’s been cooped up all afternoon.”
    I grumbled and grabbed my sister and we headed across the Autumn Creste complex to the Dumpsters. She held my hand the whole way, skipping and practically jerking my arm out of its socket. Manda spent eighty-eight percent of her waking life either dancing or singing or both.
    I got her started on the swings, then headed over to the Dumpster to jettison the bag of kitchen crap only to notice that some doofus or, more likely, team of doofi had blocked the Dumpster door with a huge yellow refrigerator.
    I knew the Dumpsters had tops that opened so they could be raised and emptied into a truck, but the Dumpsters at the Creste were old. Iron Age old, complete with lids so rusty they looked like they were welded shut. I thought I would give it a try anyway. Maybe I could get it open a crack, enough to slip the bag in. I found the cleanest-looking grungy spot along the rim of the lid and heaved with my left hand … only, it didn’t just open a crack, it kept going. Flipped all the way over and slammed against the back of the Dumpster like a bomb.
    “Holy …”
    One of the kids over at the swings finished the thought for me. All of them were watching. I looked suspiciously at my hand.
Huh?
    I took my shades off, kept my eyes closed against the light, and mopped my brow. Put them back on and opened and closed my fingers. Something … 
something moved inside me
.
    I didn’t know any other way to put it. It was as if there was a new kind of energy there—an energy that was suddenly loosenedto where it flowed freely down my arms and legs and back. I had the sense that if I flexed my calf muscles and jumped, I could fly to the top of one of the apartment buildings.
    I looked at the refrigerator.
No way
. But why not? I stooped next to it, stuck the fingers of one hand underneath, and gripped the bottom edge. Stood very rapidly …
    The yellow refrigerator came completely off the ground. I watched in shock as the metal trim at the bottom came level with my eyes, then the whole