Wood Sprites

“If we’re going to highjack the play completely, we’ll have to talk to them a lot,” Louise pointed out. “We work for almost three months on the play. Half of April and all of May and June.” The play represented a massive amount of work, all in the name of learning how to cooperate as a class. Everything was a joint effort, from voting on what play to do, to designing and building sets, to the actual performance. “Either we talk to them or devote all that time to The Little Mermaid.”

“Ick! Okay, let’s talk to the boys at recess about this.”

“Today?”

Jillian waved the party invite. “Elle’s party is in two weeks. We vote on the play the week after. We have to get this up and running quickly if we’re going to head off Elle.”

Any time on the video would take time away from their research on finding a way to save their little brother and sisters. If they were going to do it, then they should do it as fast as possible. “Okay, we’ll do it this recess.”

* * *

Perelman School for the Gifted had a rooftop playground with tall perforated metal screens creating a protective enclosure and shade. Through the orange-painted mesh, they had a clear view of all the skyscrapers of New York rising up to loom over the school. Heat of the sunbaked roof battled with the cold April wind off the bay.

The boys played four square at the edge of the playground, taking turns at rotating through the grid as players fouled out of the game. Iggy tended to hold the King’s square for long periods, controlling the large red ball with ease. For some reason, today he was sitting in the shade, just watching the game.

While Jillian was fearless around adults, she tended to be shy of other kids, especially boys. Louise suspected it was because “cute” didn’t work on kids their own age. Or maybe it did, and they only thought it didn’t because when they were younger, what melted adults to helpless puddles utterly failed to impress other toddlers and preschoolers.

Louise marched up to Iggy and asked quickly, “Can we take pictures of you?” before she lost her nerve.

Iggy lifted his head to glare up at her. His left eye was swollen nearly shut and bruised dark purple. “Why do you want my picture?”

“What happened to you?” Louise asked.

“Doh. What does it look like? Some guy hit me.”

“A guy? Like an adult? Why?”

“Yeah, he’s twenty-four. He was one of those protesters that are pissed at the Chinese over the Elfhome thing. The whole ‘China is stealing the heartland of the United States’ bullshit. Like I have anything to do with that!”

“Why would he even hit you? You’re just a kid.”

“All Chinese are short even when they’re full grown!” Iggy obviously was imitating someone older than him. “I think the jerk just hit the first Asian-looking person that was shorter than him. There’s several billion Chinese on the planet, and most of them don’t give a shit about Pittsburgh or Elfhome. My dad says the protesters are a bunch of redneck idiots. The United States makes a hundred times more off the elves than China does, and China is still paying back the loans it took out to cover their original remuneration.”

The Saturday newscast that panicked their mother suddenly took on new meaning. The nine-year-old boy attacked on the subway was Iggy. His three older sisters also attended Perelman School for the Gifted.

Louise realized that the reason he was sitting out of the game was that two of the fingers on his left hand were splinted. “Are you okay?”

He followed her gaze to his fingers. “Oh, yeah.” He blushed and looked away. “My sister tasered him. We all ended up at the police department. They’re calling it a hate crime and throwing the book at him.”

“Good,” Louise said.

Iggy squinted up at her as if she was a miniature puzzle. “You know, I don’t think we’ve ever talked before.”

She wasn’t sure what that meant. “You don’t know our names?”

He laughed. “We’ve been in school together for five years. I know who you are. It’s just that you don’t talk to anyone. It’s kind of freaking me out.”

“We just want to take pictures of you.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s part of the weirdness. Why?”

“We’re making a music video.”

“If anyone else said that, I’d figure that they were setting me up for a viral-meme joke. I think, though, that you two would only do that if I’d done something epic to really piss you off, and I’m fairly sure I haven’t. Have I?”

“No.” Louise cut Jillian off because she saw her starting to consider making up a lie. “Elle is talking the girls into doing The Little Mermaid for this year’s play.”

“Oh, gross, another kissy-face play?” Iggy groaned.