Mrs. Lehman taught with four different dry-erase markers like she got paid per colour. Blue for "potential," green for "kinetic," red for "thermal," and purple for little swoopy motion lines that made the class go "ooooh" in unison.
Stephen sat very still. Still like a lake in the morning. Still like someone who'd already solved the worksheet and the one after it and the lab you do next week.
"Okay!" Mrs. Lehman chirped, writing a circle with exhausted little dashes. "When a ball rolls to a stop, what happens to the energy?"
Hands went up like prairie dogs. Not his.
The girl to his right whispered, "is it… friction?"
Stephen turned the smile down to "neighbour" and gave her a thumbs up. She raised her hand. She said it. The class clapped. Mrs. Lehman beamed at the room and only a little at the right person.
Stephen looked at his notebook. The lined page said "Notes," but the ink said Property of Doombringer Steve in big sixth-grader marker and, under it, a heat engine that wasn't in the book. He'd drawn it with arrows and teeth like a cartoon shark.
He shaded the fins. He coloured nothing in. He meant both.
_ _ ♛ _ _
School was easy in the way that makes you itch.
He didn't hate it. He liked the pencil smell and the squeak of sneakers on waxed hallways and how Priya made eye contact like a challenge coin. He liked William's terrible jokes and the one custodian (Alvarez) who fixed things like a magician.
But everything came with a governor. Answer two questions and then stop. Laugh at the right joke even if the timing's off. Pretend you don't know what the sub's calling out before she calls it out.
"Stop showing off," Dunst said under his breath when Stephen's hand went up too fast last week. Stephen had kept his hand down for three days after that.
Group work was roulette. If a teacher assigned him, people smiled like he was a calculator with hair. If they didn't, he made a bridge out of index cards no one asked for and watched the glue dry like a monk.
He could learn the dance. He could not make it feel like music.
_ _ ♛ _ _
The vending machine in the hall ate Jamie's dollar like a snake and then thought about it. He kicked the bottom. It thunked.
"Don't," Stephen said, already walking past. He tapped the top right corner twice. The bag of Doritos shivered down a rung.
Jamie gaped. "How'd you—"
"It was leaning," Stephen said, because that was the boring answer. He did not explain harmonics to snack food.
He didn't take the chips when they fell. He let Jamie whoop and jog away triumphantly and then tucked that exact tapping rhythm in his red notebook later with vending = top-right double tap and a sketch of a machine labelled hungry box.
[SchoolNet — "Vending Machine Ate My $1 AGAIN"]: hero unknown returns balance to the snack economy
[reply]: twice
[reply]: dunst says it's gremlins
[reply]: gremlins carry quarters stop slandering them
_ _ ♛ _ _
Recess was running-laps-but-thinking, which was better than standing-still-but-thinking. The sun combed heat through his hoodie. The field sighed up dust.
Across the grass, the soccer game found its fever. Stephen watched from the fence. Patterns popped like subtitles. Left-footed kid only cut right when pressed. Keeper overcommitted high, every time. The girl with pink scrunchie always checked her shoulder before a through-ball, which gave it away.
"You seeing it?" Priya slid in beside him, braid swinging, breath even.
He made a conspiratorial face. "Scrunchie telegraphs like she's being paid by the tell."
Priya cupped her hands around her mouth. "KRISTA, NO TELLS!" she yelled.
Krista blinked, laughed, then scored anyway because scrunchie girls are inevitable.
"Assist by telepathy," Priya said. "Write it in your dumb red bible."
"It's a notebook," Stephen said, already hearing the line he'd write later: Don't coach from the fence unless somebody asks. He bit back the urge to fix Scrunchie's angle and instead memorized the way her celebration looked—theteeth-all-out kind of happy.
_ _ ♛ _ _
A flyer flapped on the office corkboard like it wanted to be a bird.
[DISTRICT STEM SHOWCASE — "Build Something That Solves A Small Problem"]
Small problem. He could make a list. He could make forty.
"Hey," Priya said, plucking the bottom tab to hand to him. "You should do this."
"I'm allergic to fairs," he said automatically.
"Mm." She popped her gum. "Build a cure."
He tucked the tab in the front pocket of Doombringer Steve and felt it burn there all second period.
_ _ ♛ _ _
After school, Mark found him at the corner convenience store because their routes home crossed like a Venn diagram with snacks in the middle.
"Two-for-one taquitos," Mark said, tragic, heroic.
"We are not eating weaponized bread tubes," Stephen said. He bought a juice and a bag of orange slices that had never once seen an orange tree.
They walked. Mark talked with his whole body, hands carving the air, backpack slapping his spine. He was annoyed at physics and proud of his relay split and deeply concerned about a sitcom he watched like it was the stock market.
Stephen listened with his eyes—shoulders rounded, thumb twitch when Mark got to a bad part, the way he sped up when he remembered good news.
"Coach says my form is 'earnest.'" Mark grimaced. "I can't even tell if that's a compliment."
"It's a vibe," Stephen said. "Golden retrievers have form."
"Wow. Rude. True, but rude."
Mark bumped him with that brother-shoulder knock that says I love you in caveman. Stephen bumped back.
_ _ ♛ _ _
Home was sauce steam and clink-of-fork and Debbie's playlist in the background doing the thing where every song sounds like Saturday morning. Nolan moved through the house like a quiet line drawn with a sharp pencil.
By the time the plates hit the dishwasher, Stephen had the itch—hands that wanted to make a thing.
He raided the junk drawer (batteries, takeout menus, 19 rogue rubber bands, three solemn paperclips) and the garage shelf where dead solar garden lights went to be remembered.
Back in his room, he spilled the parts onto the desk like a tiny metal confetti storm.
"Explain," Mark said from the doorway, already amused. "What ritual is this."
"Homework," Stephen said. Which wasn't a lie. "STEM showcase."
"Oh no," Mark said gravely. "You're going to invent bread tubes."
He built a wristband instead: elastic strip + the salvaged solar cell + a micro-LED scavenged from the nightlight graveyard + the world's worst solder job (heat low; gentle hands; patience high). No microcontroller; no drama. If the LED burned bright, he'd been greedy with the sun. If it dimmed by night, he'd learned something about leak.
He slid it onto his wrist. The tiny light woke up, not a blaze—just a pulse. He grinned and immediately covered it with his sleeve because rules were real.
"It's a watch that tells you… light?" Mark said.
"It tells me 'you can stop sunbathing now,'" Stephen said. "Minimalist features."
"Does it come in 'stop playing video games now'?"
"That's called your bedtime."
"Rude."
Debbie stuck her head in. "That looks cool."
"It's dumb," Stephen said cheerfully.
"It's useful," she corrected, and he blushed in a way he could blame on solder heat.
He labelled it in the red notebook as Sunband v0.1 and drew a square around the v because it felt like the beginning of something or at least a thing that would break and become better.
_ _ ♛ _ _
On the way to take out the trash, he noticed the new "safety" camera the district added to the corner by the crossing guard. It looked like a streetlight grew a wart.
He didn't stare. He listened. Hum was higher than the old ones. The gimbal had a tiny stutter when it swept left—cheap servo. The company name on the pole sleeve had a font that was very federal for a school purchase.
He waved at it. Big, dumb wave. The kid kind.
It kept moving.
Rule Thirty-six hummed: If watched, be ordinary. He added silently: Cameras grow in pairs. Find the second. He did, half a block down, pretending to tie his shoe and not mapping the patrol arc like he was.
[SchoolNet — "new cameras?"]: those were not here yesterday
[reply]: alvarez says "district grant"
[reply]: alvarez also said the grant had teeth. what does that mean
[reply]: it means be cute and pass algebra
_ _ ♛ _ _
Night found him and he let it.
He added a line to the heat-engine page: Entropy: The Universe's Slowest Marshmallow Roast. He drew a marshmallow with sunglasses melting on a stick while stars politely pretended not to watch.
He wrote a list called Small Problems to Solve:
— door that squeaks exactly when Mom's asleep
— Mark's backpack zipper eats its own tail
— cafeteria cartons: no more milk geysers
— find vending machine ghost and ask for a cut
He snorted at his own joke, then tore the zipper tab off an old binder to fix Mark's bag and set the pencil down before he started optimizing the cafeteria.
Footsteps in the hall. Nolan's pause outside his door again. A longer one. Maybe he listened; maybe he counted; maybe he did the thing dads do where they pretend their children aren't miracles and then go to bed so they can try again tomorrow. Stephen listened back.
He clicked off the lamp and lay on the floor, because the floor was cold and honest. His new wrist light pulsed once under his sleeve, small and stubborn. He covered it with his palm.
He didn't feel scared.
He felt ready in the way a slingshot feels when it's not being pulled yet.
The stars did their old trick of being exactly where they always are. He breathed.
And waited for the sun.
_ _ ♛ _ _
Rules (so far) — Stephen's Red Notebook
Act normal.
Ask questions like you don't know anything.
Don't try to fly.
No showing off.
If you mess up, stop.
Listen on purpose.
Small helps count.
Be a kid when you can.
Treat everything like it's made of glass.
If startled, freeze—don't grab.
Sun helps. Don't chase it at school.
Smile and shrug.(If people look too long.)
Headphones when the world is too loud.
Eggs = practice.
Don't test things you can't untest.
Journal everything. (Facts > fear.)
Keep the question mark private.
Practice in shade when you can.
Eat when everyone eats.
If panic → sun or water → breathe. (4–4–4)
Never be the only witness to your own miracle.(Call someone. Make noise.)
Share credit. Let adults finish the save.
Use the boring answer first.("Good ears.")
Listen to metal. Bolts, hinges, brackets.
Receive, don't catch.(Let force go through you into ground.)
Track charge by feel. Don't depend on it.
If asked, answer small. Then ask back.(Buys time.)
When someone you love feels heavy, sit with them.(Quiet helps.)
If you smell sweet-wrong (rotten eggs) → back away → call 911.
Yell the right word.("Fire!" gets feet moving.)
Point people, not problems.(Show where to go.)
Make bravery contagious.(Bubble breaths for small kids.)
Watch how pros move. Learn five things.
Fast fix? Make it look like reflex.(One step, one reach.)
No big saves at home.(Neighbors remember.)
If watched, be ordinary.(Let questions end without answers.)
Midnight cocoa = three marshmallows.(Joy matters.)
No ranked after midnight on school nights.(Brains > bragging rights.)
Online: never flex weird reflexes.(Blend in. Sandbag if needed.)
If laughter feels real, keep it.(You're still a kid.)
Roof = slow feet, three points of contact.
Don't chase the moon.(No night-flight experiments.)
Don't play tag with sky owls.(Ignore drones. Wave like a kid.)
Leave the world how you found it.(Bins back. Doors shut. Evidence tidy.)
Progress = practice, not fireworks.
Two answers max per class.(Make space.)
If you fix a machine, let someone else be the hero.
Build small, test smaller.(Sunband v0.1 ≠ fashion.)
Cameras grow in pairs.(Find the second, walk casual.)
Don't coach from the fence unless asked.
End of Chapter 19
(A/N: started boxing, so chapters will be posted in a weird timing, but worry not it is still 2 chapters a week, AND I GOT MY MONITOR BACK, so i can finally revise some chapters and make more chapters! and worry not, this whole arc is the calm before the storm, so I suggest you all enjoy it while you can, cause I have been COOKING!)