Read an Excerpt
Chapter 1: Five Years, Four Months, Three Days, and Two Minutes Later CHAPTER 1 Five Years, Four Months, Three Days, and Two Minutes Later
A mischief of magpies rapped repeatedly on the pristine triple-paned window of an esteemed military school, and everyone looked at Rim.
Rim tried not to look at anyone at all and would have preferred if his teacher, Mr. Stricts, continued with his discussion. But Mr. Stricts, growing increasingly tired of the variety of animal interruptions that had begun frequenting his classroom now that Rim Wickford was there, glared at the birds.
“As I was saying...” Mr. Stricts continued.
... Rap, rAp, raP...
“The end-of-the-year festival will start after class today...”
Rap rApPity RAP!
“...the principal will be here soon to make an announcement...”
... RAPPITTY RAP RAP RAP!...
“For goodness’ sake, someone shoo them away!” Mr. Stricts pushed a fancy button and the windows smoothly whirled up.
Nine magpies darted in, dropped several caramel candies onto Rim’s desk, then swirled around the ceiling to avoid everyone’s swatting hands, and flew out.
Rim’s face burned. Though the candies were a welcome addition to his day, the method of delivery was about to get him in trouble. He quickly put them in his jacket pocket.
“Are any more coming?” Mr. Stricts was breathing hard and highly annoyed.
The truth was, yes, because today was Rim’s birthday, and he always received strange gifts from birds on his birthday. Seeing as Rim was eleven years old today, he should have eleven gifts coming, which meant two more candies should be delivered, though he knew not to say that to his teacher; it was much better to feign ignorance, so he shrugged.
But it was not just on his birthday when animals acted strangely around Rim. For as long as Rim could remember, animals had always caused him all sorts of trouble on a regular basis. Just this week, Rim had to run extra laps around the field for not saluting his commanding officer properly (a hummingbird had circled around his face); he did twenty rope climbs for not having his bed dressings pulled tight enough for a penny to pop off of them (squirrels had wrestled across it, messing it all up); he came in dead last in a field day triathlon (a plague of locusts swarmed his bike and fish kept hopping in his face!); he was late to assembly (a nod of frogs had overwhelmed the hallway, forcing him to tiptoe around them); and today the crease in his pants was not ironed sharp enough to cut something (well, that one was all Rim’s fault actually, but the cord on the iron did look like a snake), which caused him to miss his morning breakfast while he straightened them out.
It was annoying, but the animal bit wasn’t the only reason Rim was strange. Everyone knew there were three reasons why Rim Wickford was so different.
Twenty-seven minutes to go...
The large flat-screen at the front of the classroom blinked on and the principal of the academy appeared with a bright smile.
“Hello, students! Our festival and ribbon-pinning ceremony is about to begin, but I want to take a moment to congratulate Rim H. Wickford for achieving the highest score on our standardized tests! Our board has presented him the Blue Ribbon award. Every student who receives the Blue Ribbon award is granted a full ride to the esteemed Westfield Institute and has gone on to achieve great things—investment firm partners, hedge fund managers, and of course generous alumni donors. This is such a high achievement.”
The principal clapped rapidly. The applause from Rim’s classmates was less enthusiastic.
“Since you cannot attend the festival, Rim, I will present your Blue Ribbon award in my office when your uncle arrives. Congratulations and I will see everyone else on the field!” The screen cut off.
“But he doesn’t even know what blue looks like,” Jax whispered much louder than he needed to.
And there it was, the second thing that made Rim different. He was color-blind. Fully color-blind. While everyone else saw a bevy of colors, Rim saw only in shades of gray.
No, it was not annoying—people asking him about it was annoying—and yes, it was the truth. For Rim, color sounded like something out of a science-fiction novel.
Chuckles erupted around the room. Rim sat quietly, clenching his jaw and fists. The attention would divert from him soon... hopefully... it usually did anyway.
“Quiet!” Mr. Stricts barked. “Listen closely. It is hot outside. Hot with a capital H. There are water booths by the front door and around the yard. You will march single file to the front of the building, where you will grab a water bottle, then you will march to the yard, where you will stand at attention, as we practiced. There will be many exciting booths that will attract your attention. You will not look at them. After the band plays the school song, the principal will speak, and the remaining students will receive their awards. When that is done, then, and only then, you may greet your parents and enjoy the festivities. Rim—”
The world stopped and every head turned to Rim; he truly hated when this happened.
“—you will wait for your uncle outside the main office. Put on your headphones and come with me.”
And there we had it, the last and biggest thing that made Rim different.
You see, Rim was not allowed to listen to music, to play music, to sing music, and most certainly to ever be around music. His uncle had provided him with unique noise-canceling headphones with strict instructions to put them on if music was around. The headphones were a beautiful sleek design, handcrafted from wood and leather, and they were always around Rim’s neck. He lifted them to his ears and tried to ignore the students’ whispers as he walked from the room.
Twenty-two minutes to go...
For supposed health-related reasons, Rim’s uncle was against music and told every school Rim attended that he could not associate with it whatsoever. Musical beeps and boops from computers were usually fine, but music class, school concerts, talent shows, festivals, or anything with live music was a big no. For those, Rim had to stay in his room with his headphones on. It was miserable, lonely, and most important, boring.
However, there had always been a delightful melody stuck in Rim’s head. He wasn’t quite sure how that melody got there, but he often had funny dreams about it. Dreams where he was happy as people danced all around him.
Rim sat quietly in the hallway outside the principal’s office, his large headphones positioned securely over his ears. Every now and again the electric doors slid open as students and guests looked for the bathroom. Screens the size of posters lined the hallways, their images changing every few seconds.
Rim played with his charm bracelet, which held a bell and a small photo of his parents. His uncle always said Rim’s mother and father were the same but different. Rim’s mother’s skin was brown like a pine tree and his father’s was a cloudy white; but his mother’s hair was full like a cloud and his father’s was bone straight like a pine. Rim’s appearance fell somewhere in between, as in, whether his skin was olive, sandalwood, or bronze and whether his hair was straight, wavy, or curly depended on who you asked. One thing was for sure though: his hair was the inkiest of inky blacks.
As for his height, if he was standing next to the other kids in his class, then you might call him short. This was mostly because his birthday just so happened to fall at the tail end of spring, making him the youngest among his classmates.
Which brings us to today’s point—Rim’s eleventh birthday, a quite important birthday to note because ages are important. Very important. Especially the ages of ten and eleven. Why, might you ask? Well, ten is the first time you add a digit to your age; that doesn’t happen again until you turn one hundred. Can you fathom that? The next most important age is eleven because that is the first time you have identical digits in your age; that won’t happen again until you turn twenty-two. That’s two lifetimes for an eleven-year-old! So, as you can imagine, having ten and eleven happen back-to-back is a very noteworthy time in a child’s life, a time where magic can occur.
Well, Rim H. Wickford, at just-turned-eleven years old, was well past due to have something magical happen, and it was going to happen very soon.
Fifteen minutes to go...
No one knew this, of course. Not even Rim’s uncle, who had just arrived and was walking up the hallway with a quiet devil-may-care swagger that often made people stop and stare. His dark suit was tailored to perfection and his bowler hat was in his hands; when he got to Rim, he stood a foot away, pulled off Rim’s headphones, and ruffled his buzzed head. Muffled sounds from the festival filled his ears.
“Ready, birthday boy?” Uncle’s voice was deep and rotund. “Bags packed for summer school?”
“Yes, sir.” Rim was spending the entire summer at Planet A.I. Quest Accounting Camp for Kids. Followed by a week with his grandparents before returning to military school.
The door to the building slid open; festival music floated inside, along with two stealthy birds, who swooped through the hallway and dropped off the tenth and eleventh candies, which bounced off Rim and fell to the floor.
His uncle picked them up. “Birds still love you I see. How many does that make?” He handed the candies to Rim.
“Eleven,” Rim said, pocketing them. “Thanks.”
“I should thank them for always keeping things interesting.”
“Mr. Wildernest!” the principal called out, panting up the hallway and dabbing the sweat from her forehead. “I’m glad I caught you. We are so happy to present Rim with the Blue Ribbon award!” She pinned the award proudly on Rim’s jacket. “He will learn so much number crunching at the institute, which is a valuable skill to know. I am sure Hedge Fund Manager is in his future! We have a lot of paperwork to fill out for Westfield; perhaps Rim can walk around the festival in the meantime? With his headphones on, of course.”
“He can wait here,” his uncle said turning to Rim. “It’s hot outside—you’ll thank me later. Good job getting in, by the way; Hedge Fund Manager sounds great. I won’t be long, but keep these on.” He pulled Rim’s headphones back over his ears.
“Yes, sir.” Rim nodded, glancing at the festival. There were dozens of booths on the field with hundreds of parents and cadets enjoying them. It looked fun. The principal motioned Uncle into her office and closed the door behind them.
Eleven minutes to go...
Rim returned to playing with his charm bracelet. In addition to his parents’ photo, it had one other charm on it, a sleigh bell that didn’t ring. Rim always wondered why his uncle never got it fixed.
Suddenly Rim’s headphones were yanked from his head.
“I can’t believe you got that award.” It was bigheaded Jax, the self-important bully, and his bobbleheaded friends. Though Rim couldn’t see the color, he knew Jax was wearing a Red Ribbon as indicated by the “2nd place” on it. Jax twirled Rim’s headphones in his hand. “I bet you cheated with these.”
“Give it back,” Rim said firmly. “And I didn’t cheat.” Though smaller than Jax, Rim refused to be a pushover. His uncle would say he got that from his mama.
“Tell you what, if you can tell me what color this is, I will.” Jax pointed to the ribbon on his own chest. “Oh, that’s right, you can’t.”
“Sure I can: it’s whatever color they give to idiots. Congratulations.”
Jax no longer looked smug. “If you want your dumb headphones, come and get them.” Jax bolted through the sliding doors. Rim stopped himself from following. He shouldn’t go after them; he shouldn’t go into the festival; his uncle would not like that.
“Look, he can’t come out. He must be trained to stay.” Jax laughed and tossed the headphones around as they walked away.
Rim stared at them, anger boiling inside him. The kind of anger you could feel coming out of your ears. Rim was not the kind of person who was mean to anyone, who made fun of anyone, and he did not like how people like Jax thought it was okay to do so. Just thinking about that tripled Rim’s anger. Jax shouldn’t get away with treating people like that.
A kid ran up to the door and grabbed a water bottle from the table just outside. Without thinking twice, Rim went through the exit, grabbed a water bottle from the table, and launched it with all his might directly at Jax. It hit Jax in the back with incredible accuracy, sending him rocketing forward and landing belly first in the grass. The headphones flew from his hands. Jax rolled over, stunned.
“I said give it back!” Rim stood still, fists clenched, the heat from outside matching the anger he felt within. “Or are you trained to fall?”
“That’s it, Wickford!” Jax got to his feet.
Rim remained where he was, heart pumping, head steaming, ready to take on whatever was coming his way. Even though Jax was bigger, and stronger, one punch should do it, right in the nose. Rim pulled his arm back; he shouldn’t fight, he knew that, but his anger had taken over, and if he timed it just right...
Out of nowhere a trio of ravens swooped in between them and started plucking at Jax and his group’s hair and clothes. “Ow, get off!” they yelled, swatting at the birds and running away.
“Bunch of big bobbleheaded blocks,” muttered Rim, walking to pick up the water bottle and his headphones, the leather already warm from the sun; he brushed them off when—he heard something.
A solid, steady note.
Crisp, clear, clean.
And beautiful.
Rim turned to the gray booth where the sound was coming from. The music booth. Instruments were organized neatly on the table. One man was sitting behind the booth, possibly sleeping. The other man was standing and playing a pipe. Several kids were clamoring to be next.
“Okay, everyone will get a turn,” the musician said.
A rocket fired at the rocket booth, catching everyone’s attention, and all the kids, highly impressed by that, took off running to it.
“Well, I can’t compete with rockets,” the man said, chuckling. He put the pipe on the table, patted sweat from his brow, and said, “You gonna stare at me all day, cadet?”
Rim startled. “No, sir. I just liked that sound, sir.”
“Well, all right, then come on over, ain’t no line anymore. The military band may not be as exciting as a rocket, but we do sound a whole lot sweeter.”
“Yes, sir.” Rim stepped cautiously forward; his headphones were in his hand. He should put them on and go back inside, but that sound, it was just too wonderful. He had been so mad at Jax, but when he heard this noise... no, not a noise, it felt wrong to call it that... when he heard this note, every angry thought and feeling he had melted away.
Five minutes to go...
“Want to try it, cadet?”
“Can I, sir?”
“Yes, of course, we’re hoping to get people to sign up for the band, isn’t that right, George?” he said to the sleeping sergeant.
“Just get as many cadets to play that pipe as possible,” George muttered, eyes closed. “And their brothers and sisters too.”
The musician held the pipe out to Rim. “You heard him—it’s yours if you want to try it out. Like I said, ain’t no line anymore.”
Rim stared at the pipe.
No matter how much he wanted to, Rim knew he shouldn’t take this instrument whose sound gave him this delightful feeling, but he also didn’t want to stop himself; he wanted to sink deeper into this feeling, to be fully immersed in it, to float with it and see where it took him. But first he had to reach out and take it.
So he did.
Three minutes...
The pipe was light, lighter than Rim thought it would be; though the weight of what his uncle might say and do if he saw him was quite the opposite, and yet... although Rim cared what his uncle might think and what he might say, as Rim held the pipe in his hands, it was like he was standing right at the edge of a crystal clear lake, at the edge of getting every happiness he ever wanted, and all he had to do was jump in.
So even though his stomach was in knots, even though he was breaking his uncle’s number one rule, he took a deep breath and blew softly into the pipe.
A solid, gorgeous note escaped.
The musician clapped. “Well, look at that! That might be the best one today, eh, George?” George might have agreed because he was suddenly awake and had sat up. “Want to try again?” the man said.
Two minutes...
Rim should have said “no thanks.” He should have backed away and gone inside. But the sensation of playing this pipe was too blissful to ignore. Yes, he wanted to try it again.
One minute...
Rim knew this would be the last time he would play the pipe before he had to run back into the building. Therefore, he wanted the note to be as perfect as he could make it, and he wished everyone on the lawn was just a little bit quieter so he could hear it.
Ten seconds...
Closing his eyes, Rim took the deepest of deepest breaths he had ever taken in his entire eleven years and released it smoothly into the pipe.
Three-two-one...
Inside, the principal was explaining the importance of alumni donations to the school’s foundation when a sound came floating through her window as clear as a bell. Rim’s uncle, who was listening patiently, quickly turned his head in the note’s direction. His eyes narrowed. That sound was coming from Rim, he could feel it, and he had to put a stop to it before—
Without warning, the principal paused her speech. Her eyes grew droopy, her body limp, and her head clanked on the desk as if the life was sucked right out of her.
