The Hole in the Wall by Lisa Rowe Fraustino

could barely understand her as she huffed and puffed her words. “What’s wrong, Seb? Why’d you take off so fast?” She was worried about me.

    What could I tell her? The truth was too embarrassing. How could I have ever thought a rock was wiggling around in my pocket? It had felt like it was throbbing against my heart. But any ding-a-ling could figure out that it was really the other way around. I’d never felt so stupid in my life. And a lot of the time I feel pretty stupid.

    “I have a stomachache,” I said. Which was the truth. But I was trying not to think of that.

    “Then why did you grab your chest like you were having a coronary before you took off?”

    Before I said any more I wanted to see what that weird rock was up to now. During the wild ride, I’d rolled it into my sock to get it off my chest. When I loosened the material, the pebble fell to the asphalt and spun in loops. It made a wind-chime sound that flashed my memory straight back under Miss Beverly’s chandelier. Crazy!

    As the pebble fell still and silent, I looked to see if Barbie had seen and heard it too. Her bike stood leaning against an oak. She herself had ducked behind the tree. All I could see of her was half her face with one enormous surprised eye. She was scared.

    I knelt to pick up the pebble.

    “Leave that thing alone, Seb! There’s something wrong. It might hurt you.”

    “Sheesh, take it easy. It’s just a rock. Hey, when I was fiddling with it at Miss Beverly’s, did you see anything strange?”

    “You mean, like, besides you waving that thing around with your eyes crossed?”

    “No colors?”

    “You mean the colors from the chandelier?”

    Oh, right. I hadn’t thought of that. The light was made of stained glass. Maybe staring into that had made my eyes go kaleidoscope. Had I imagined the whole thing after all? I wanted to find out.

    The sun was an orange ball hanging low over the western hills. I held the pebble up so it was encircled by orange light and flopped it around in a figure eight. Well, I found out, all right. Instantly the pebble went blinky again. In fact, the more I flopped it, the more excited it got, swirling with bright colors in arcs like a butterfly’s wings flying toward me, and making that soft wind-chime music. It was so beautiful, I could barely breathe past the lump in my throat.

    The next thing I knew, the music in my ears morphed into a wild shriek. Aaaaargh! Barbie. She’d come running up behind me to give my hand a hard smack. The rock went flying into the dead oak leaves beside the road and sat there looking gray, forlorn, and kickable.

    “Hey!” I said, running to its rescue.

    Barbie raced after me and tackled me to the ground. My hand reached the pebble first, and the moment I touched it, the thing started winking colors again. Then Barbie jammed her hand under my arm to tickle me. Me and Barbie probably had our first knock-down drag-out in the womb. She was born knowing all my weak spots. I doubled over groan-laughing, and she grabbed the pebble away. The colors instantly stopped. Jumping up she thrust her arm back as if to throw a shotput, aiming across the road and over the cliff into the gore.

    “No! That’s my rock!” I cried, lunging at her knees, taking her down. And we rolled around wrestling, like we’d done so many times before. Except this time, as I pushed on her and she pushed back, I felt like I was the stronger one, like it wasn’t even a fair fight anymore. I knew I ought to quit before she got hurt. But I wanted that rock. It was awesome. It might even contain the secret to what Boots Odum was doing in the gore.

    No way could I let my sister throw it over the cliff.

6

    On second thought, maybe me having superior strength was just enough to make things even. Barbie was really limber. When I pinned her down by the arms, she flipped her legs up around my waist and rolled me over. So then I pinned her by the legs, and that was even worse. She tickled