Breadcrumbs Part 6

She had had no idea before that day how long the bus ride was, how slowly the driver moved through the streets. Every stop was a lifetime. The brakes creaked.

The stop sign on the side of the bus inched its way into place, struggling to push past the uncompromising air. The bus door opened with a hissing psst, like it was telling a secret. The first graders gathered their things, thing at a time, and stumbled by with their tiny little legs. Down the stairs. Out the door. In front of the bus. The blinkers ticked, perpetually. Onto the sidewalk. Psst, the door closed. The stop sign inched its way back, the bus trembled, then plodded down a block or two to do it all again.

Finally, they got to their block, and with a creak, push, tick tick, psst, it was time for Hazel to get off. She gathered her things with the precision and care of a first grader, but it did not matter. Jack burst through the aisle as if he'd been shot from a cannon and was off the bus and down the sidewalk in a blink. The Revere twins followed. And Hazel picked up her backpack and headed home, alone.

When Hazel walked in the house, her mom was sitting at the desk. She smiled when she saw her daughter. "Oh, honey, I just-"

And Hazel started to cry.

"What's wrong? Hazel, sweetie-"

Her mother's face looked stricken, as if seeing her daughter this way was the worst thing that could possibly happen, and Hazel could do nothing but tell her the truth.

"Jack isn't talking to me," she said.

Mrs. Anderson led Hazel to the couch and sat down next to her. "What do you mean? Did you guys have a fight?"

"No!" Hazel exclaimed, wiping her eyes. "He just stopped talking to me! He was mean."

"Oh, baby," her mom said, her voice cracking a little. "I'm so sorry."

"Something's wrong." Hazel said. "He wouldn't just do that. He's my best friend."

"Oh, Hazel." Her mother shook her head. "You know, this is so hard. It's one of the really hard things about growing up. Sometimes your friends change."

"What?"

"Well, sometimes when you get older you grow apart."

Hazel straightened and stared at her mother. "Overnight?"

Mrs. Anderson shrugged. "Maybe. You guys have been two peas in a pod for so long. Maybe Jack decided he needs to have some friends who are boys. It's natural for someone Jack's age."

"But . . . " Hazel said, "he has friends who are boys. He just likes me better."

Her mom gazed at her, lips pressed together, and Hazel could hear all the things she was not letting herself say. "Haze, dear," she said finally, "Jack's going through a lot, you know. It's got to be so hard for him."

"Yeah, but . . ." But that's why he needed her.

"You just wait and see what happens. If he's a true friend, he'll come back."

"He is a true friend!" Hazel mentally stomped her foot.

"Well, good." She stroked Hazel's shoulder. "And in the meantime you can make other friends. We're going to the Briggses' tomorrow, remember? You had fun with Adelaide, didn't you?"

Hazel felt the tears come again, and she put her head in her hands.

"Oh, sweetie," her mom said, hugging her. "This happens. I'm so sorry it happened to you."

And Hazel could see that she was sorry. She meant everything she said. But her mom didn't know. She didn't really know Jack. Jack was her best friend. He wasn't going to leave her because he was going through a lot. And he was not going to grow out of her overnight like she was an old puffy purple jacket.

It didn't make any sense at all.

Chapter Seven.

The Witch

Once upon a time, there was a boy named Jack who lived in a small house on a place mat of a yard. He lived with his father, who held the whole house on his back, and his mother, whose eyes registered nothing when they looked at him. He was made of superheroes and castles and baseball, but sometimes he had trouble remembering that. One day the snow transformed the world around him into a different kind of place, and two days after that he got a piece of an enchanted mirror in his eye. The mirror went right to his heart. And then he changed.

But Jack didn't know anything was wrong. He felt suddenly wonderful, as if all the energies of the world were surging through him, as if he knew precisely what he was made of. He could barely get through the school day with his body crackling like it did. At the end of the day he bounded on the bus with his friends, brain and body abuzz with something like he had never felt before. And as he headed down the aisle, he felt the bus would not be able to go fast enough for him, no matter how hard it tried, and what he should have been doing was flying through the winter sky.

Instead, he tripped on a third grader's backpack.

"Smooth!" yelled Tyler as Jack stumbled.

"I meant to do that!" Jack yelled back. "And it was awesome!"

The third grader eyed Jack warily and inched his backpack out of the path. Jack grinned at him and winked. No one had anything to fear from him.

"What are we doing today?" Rico asked as the bus pulled out of the lot.

"We gotta go sledding!" Jack said.

Jack wasn't going to be inside, not today. All he wanted to do was be in the snow. At recess they'd made snow forts and had s...o...b..ll fights and Jack was a master-his fort was bigger and thicker than everyone else's, and his s...o...b..a.l.l.s seemed to have targeting computers on them. He got hit a lot, too, but he was a superhero and the snow just fueled his powers. He was the Snow Man, and he could be either hero or villain, Indomitable or Abominable. Both sides wanted him for his amazing powers-and neither wanted the other to have him. What would Jack choose?

"Yeah," said Tyler. "Bobby and Kai want to come. Kai's got a new sled, supposed to be super fast."

"Not as fast as me!" Rico said.

"Whatever," said Jack. "I'll beat any of you."

The boys agreed to meet at the sledding hill in an hour. Jack had to go home first because his father had made him promise he'd call right after school. Jack thought he was making a big deal about nothing. He barely remembered the accident. He had been at recess, he knew that much, and then something got in his eye. And then there was pain shooting from his eye to his chest. He remembered that part like you'd remember a story someone told to you once, like you might nod in sympathy but it wasn't like it happened to you.

He got to ride in an ambulance, though they didn't turn the sirens on. And then he was in the emergency room and there were doctors and at some point the pain just stopped, though he didn't remember if that was because they gave him something or not. And then he was home and the boys came over and it was like nothing had ever hurt him in his entire life or ever would.

It had taken him about fifteen minutes to do his homework that night. He only did the math and ignored everything else. Because the math he suddenly understood instinctively, like a truth. Fractions were like baseball statistics, three hits out of ten is .300 or 3/10. It was perfect.

Jack had trouble sitting still in school the next morning. He wanted to shout all the answers out, to explain to everyone what he now understood. But he didn't even have the words for it; he could just see it: 1/4 is .25 is 25 out of 100.

So Jack did problems in his head all day. A player who had 516 at-bats in a year would need 206 hits to bat .400. A catcher might have 100 fewer at bats, and would need 166 hits.

After the school bus dropped him off, he ran home and fixed himself a peanut-b.u.t.ter sandwich. And then another one. As he was eating the second, his mom wandered in the kitchen.

"You're home."

He put his sandwich down. "Yeah."

"How's your eye?"

"Fine."

"Good."

Silence. Then: "Are you going out?"

"Yeah. I'm going sledding."

"All right."

Jack looked sideways at his mother. Her pants were gross. Her hair was like a homeless person's. Her eyes were dead. Something flared up inside him, and he exhaled and shook his head. He saw something pa.s.s over her face.

"I gotta go," he muttered. And ran out the door.

He felt suddenly like he could not breathe, like the air no longer wanted anything to do with him. He went to the garage to get his sled. It looked beat up and flimsy. It was not good enough.

Jack dragged his sled around the corner and down the ten long blocks to the good park. The sky was touched with purple now, and the snow shone brightly against the dark background. The air smelled of cold. Everything was quiet, the only sound the crunching of Jack's boots and the soft drag of the sled. The noise he made a.s.saulted his ears.

There was no one at the hill when he got there. The park was silent. Jack dragged his sled up to the top of the steep hill. He wasn't supposed to sled by himself, but no one was there to notice. And the trees in the wood behind the hill loomed so watchfully that it seemed he was not alone.

He placed his sled on the top of the hill, sat down on it, and pushed himself off. Down, down the hill he went, buffered by the cool breeze. He leaned back and went faster and faster. The sled reached the bottom of the hill and flew several more feet before skidding out. It was not fast enough. Jack carried the sled back up the hill.

This time he lay on his stomach, head first. He was absolutely not supposed to do it this way. But the trees wouldn't tell. And he pushed himself off and felt as if he were really flying now.

Still, it was not enough. He could not do it.

He dragged the sled back up and was surprised to realize that it had started snowing. He stood and watched the flakes descend around him. They touched down gently on the dark trees in the wood, and Jack found himself taking a step closer. And another.

The snowflakes landed on him like a blessing. Like they saw him and welcomed him. He could see them, too, every perfect symmetrical bit of them. They were icy a.s.surances, proof that there was an order to things. You could crawl into the center of one and understand everything.

A gust of wind picked up in the woods, and the snow in front of it began to stir. It was like a small tornado had settled at the tree line, and snow began to whirl around faster and faster. Jack took a step back as the spinning column got bigger, and part of him wanted to run, but it was only a small part. For he understood he was seeing magic.

And indeed he was. For the snow was not snow anymore, but a woman-tall and lithe like a sketch, in a white fur cape and a white s.h.i.+mmering gown that looked so thin it would melt if you touched it. Hair like spun crystal framed cream-colored skin. The woman stepped closer, revealing eyes as bright as the sun reflecting off snow. But they were cold things, and it was like looking for solace in frost.

Jack could not move as she walked toward him. It did not seem possible that she would be coming for him, but she was. Her eyes did not leave him, and in her cold gaze he found his breath again. The air welcomed him back.

"Are you real?" he asked, though it was a stupid thing to ask.

"I am," she said, her voice twinkling and melodic.

"How do you do that?" He motioned to the snow out of which she had come.

She was in front of him now, and Jack felt his chest expand and then freeze, an inhalation with no companion.

"Doesn't that take the fun out of it?" she said. She spoke slowly, and her voice was like a chain that pulled you gently closer. "To know how it is done?"

"No. I want to know. I want to understand things. I want to understand everything." He sounded so desperate to his own ears.

"I see. And what will you do when you understand everything? Will you share your knowledge to better the world?" Her eyes sparkled with mischief.

Her eyes sparkled, for him. Jack felt a smile on his face. "Maybe."

She leaned in, bringing coldness with her. "Or," she murmured, "will you keep it all for yourself?"

"You never know," Jack said. His heart filled. He could play this game, he understood it like he understood the numbers. Everything made sense. He was pleased with himself for keeping up with this woman made of ice.

"What if I told you that there was a place where there are extraordinary things, things with great power, things that could give you your heart's desire, things much bigger than this small, small world?"

Jack's heart sped up, and he knew he was not playing a game anymore. "Is there?" he demanded.

"There is. What you saw from me is only the beginning."

"You want to take me there?"

"I do. I could tell looking at you that you are destined to do great things."

"Really?"

"Oh, yes, my young friend. I can make you live on forever." She motioned to the wood and he saw there a gleaming white sleigh attached to winged white horses. And he understood how small this world really was.

He took a step forward, but something stopped him, something his heart was whispering.

"Wait," he said, looking up at the white witch. "Will I be gone for long?"

She smiled. "Oh, don't worry," she said. "They won't miss you at all."

"Okay!" He climbed into the sleigh and the woman appeared next to him. She took hold of the reins and looked down at him with a sly smile.

"Would you like some Turkish delight?" she asked.

"Huh?"

"Just a little joke," she said. "Let's go."