Free The Power of Un by Nancy Etchemendy Page B

Instead of crawling around under the table with the whisk broom and the dustpan, we actually finished our experiment and wrote up the results in our notebooks. And those results were boring, just as I’d originally feared—there wasn’t enough salt to draw the water out, so nothing much happened.
    Toward the end of the period, things started to get familiar again. The bell rang. We picked up our backpacks and headed down the hall to other classes. I met up with Ash, who had no idea the unner existed. We talked about our carnival plans and tried to make each other bump into walls as we walked to gym.
    Things went exactly as they had before. I grinned and felt muscles in my arms and shoulders loosen that I hadn’t even realized were tight. I’d used the Power of Un to rescue myself from one of the worst parts of the day, and still I was in a chain of known events, and everything was going along just fine. Maybe time was like a pool of water: when you disturb it, ripples go out from the place you touched—strong in the center,but getting fainter and fainter, till finally you can’t see them anymore.
    I hoped I was right. But I couldn’t be sure. So I made a pact with myself not to change things carelessly. Making changes felt bad, like cheating. I also didn’t want to get lost and find myself in a future even worse than the one I knew was coming. It seemed strange to think such a thing, because after all, what could be worse than Roxy getting hit by a truck? But I could imagine worse possibilities: both of us getting hit by a truck, or Mom and Dad getting hit by a truck, or an earthquake, or our house burning down with all of us in it.
    The trouble is, as the hours passed and things continued to happen just as I remembered, I got kind of overconfident. All those awful scenarios faded into the background until they seemed so overblown and unlikely that I stopped worrying about them. Probably I’d already done a bunch of stuff differently without even realizing it, and so far there were no problems at all. How much could it hurt if I changed a few tiny things on purpose?
    When I went through the lunch line, I asked for macaroni and cheese, because I remembered that the potatoes and gravy had tasted putrid. It didn’t make one speck of difference that I could see, except that I liked my lunch better. Feeling pleased with myself, I gave in to temptation and made another small changelater, on the playground. I stepped out of the way instead of getting whapped in the stomach by a stray dodge ball.
    Ash said, “Whoa! That was great! How’d you see it coming?”
    I grinned and said, “I dunno. Instinct, I guess.”
    Then things started to get weird. Instead of bouncing off my middle and scudding back toward the kid who threw it, the dodge ball sped toward an open gate.
    “Hey, catch that ball!” the kid yelled.
    “Sure thing,” Ash called, and he ran after it. For one awful moment I was sure he would chase that ball into the street and run in front of a truck. But it didn’t happen that way. He caught the ball before it got through the gate and threw it back to the players. Still, the scare left me struggling to keep that macaroni and cheese in my stomach where it belonged.
    I tried to get things back on track and insisted we go to the computer lab, even though Ash wanted to stop for a drink of water on the way. The awful possibilities sprang into clear focus again. Who could say what might happen if he stopped for that drink? After a few minutes, events began to happen the way I expected, and I could breathe normally again. But I renewed my vow not to change anything else.
    Minute followed minute until the end of the day finally arrived and it was time for Ms. Shripnole’smath class once more. Ash and I passed notes to each other instead of doing our decimals work sheets, and when I opened my binder for more paper, the soda straw fell out. I gritted my teeth and picked it up, knowing exactly how uncomfortable the