If I hadn’t argued with my best friend I’d never have been struck by lightning But if I hadn’t been struck by lightning I’d never have gotten my SUPERPOWERS Maybe sometimes things happen for a reason That day I was on the hillside high above the sea It’s the place I always go when I want to be alone The air was still and strangely hot Clouds clashed and rolled and rumbled above me like the thoughts thudding and crashing in my head How did everything get so awful A yellowish tinge to the sky made everything look wrong The grass was the wrong shade of green the sea was the wrong shade of blue My fingers tingled and the back of my neck prickled like all the hairs were standing on end I replayed the argument over and over in my head How could you I’d yelled How could you let me down And she’d just walked away What had happened to her Even her smile was wrong these days Everything was wrong A faint CRACKLING noise came from behind me I turned and looked up at the huge new cell phone tower on the very peak of the hill Sparks fizzed around the gray globe at its top like one of those plasma balls I hesitated A storm was coming a big one And if there was going to be lightning then I probably shouldn’t be up here next to a big metal tower I glanced back at the sea and caught my breath A light had appeared on the horizon Was it the sun peeping through No it was too small and too bright and too sudden It was getting bigger Closer Brighter What was it Should I move But where would I run to Maybe it was a meteor A flaming ball of rock headed straight for me Was I about to die Regret rushed through me I should have tried harder to keep my friend I should have told my family I loved them I should have admitted it was me who dropped
Mom’s toothbrush in the toilet AND NOW NOW IT WAS TOO LATE FOR ALL OF THAT
CHAPTER 1 I’m getting ahead of myself Let me take you back a month Back to where all of this started really with the opening of the new CyberSky building in town CyberSky is a cell phone company We have a TERRIBLE signal down here on the coast and half the time we end up on a French network which costs crazy money CyberSky said we’d all get five bars from now on so I was kind of pleased that they were here But Bluehaven is full of people who get upset and SHOUT about the tiniest things so it had been all over the news before the building was even finished Yup you’ve guessed it Not much happens here They put up a huge high-tech tower on top of the hillside my hillside I love that hillside it’s my favorite place in the whole world There’s enough space to run and practice cartwheels or just sit and look at the view I don’t go near the edge I’m not stupid But you know what After the tower was built I kind of forgot it was there half the time The day of the official opening of the CyberSky headquarters I was down in the town with Mom and my brother Joe and my best friend Imogen Mom was holding a big sign on a wooden post It said DON’T RADIATE MY KIDS She and her friend Nicky are always protesting about something rain forests whales banks Nicky is one of the shoutiest people in Bluehaven This time they were complaining about the phone tower being so close to the town which it wasn’t really and they’d persuaded about twenty people to come along and protest too Joe and I
always find it SO embarrassing Dad would never show up to this Joe muttered Dad’s in the army and he’s away a lot He says cell phones and the towers are perfectly safe and that all this worry about radiation is a complete overreaction from people who believe everything they read online It’s one of the few things he and Mom argue about when he’s home He thinks she gets all riled up about silly stuff Sometimes I think Mom’s right to get mad about things I mean if no one ever made a fuss nothing would ever get changed would it I just wish she didn’t have to drag us into it I don’t like drawing attention to myself There were plenty of other people at the official opening people who thought that the new company would be good for the area and create lots of jobs The Bluehaven mayor Mr Foley was there in support He was nearly bald but tried to pretend he wasn’t by wearing a wig We could sneak off and go buy ice cream Joe muttered No one would notice I was tempted Have you got any money No I spent it on this Batman figurine My brother is OBSESSED with superheroes He makes his own films and collects comics and figurines Sometimes he talks to them as if they’re real people when he thinks no one can hear him Which is kind of sweet but also kind of disturbing Imogen was gazing up at the CyberSky building She’s taller than me and has long brown hair that she wears in a braid It’s almost like it can make itself invisible she said You know All those glass windows like mirrors They reflect the sky so that it almost looks like the building isn’t really there I looked up too Hmm I said It was a building you couldn’t get away from that Tall and square like it belonged in a city business area or something But Imogen has this way of looking at things differently She pulled out a sketchbook and a pen from her bag she’s never without them and started drawing the building I watched over her shoulder marveling My sketches of buildings haven’t progressed beyond the most basic stage two vertical walls a triangular roof a door and square windows and a chimney on top If I have time I’ll color the roof in red That’s the extent of my artistic abilities But Imogen is really amazing Within seconds she had sketched and shaded in the building so that it looked like it was made of clouds and sky Watching her draw I
