Avery Phoenix - Prologue

Prologue

The Levitating Bed

10-year-old Avery Phoenix dove into dark green bushes. She held in a yelp as her long, dark, brown hair got caught on a branch. As fast as she could, she untangled her hair and disappeared into the bush. Avery struggled to slow down her breath, having run at top speed to the bush. She checked the shape of the leaves and let out a smile. Holly, she thought. He’ll never find me in here. He wouldn’t even look – he’d get poked by the leaves.

But her face fell as she heard a twig snap. She tensed and held her breath as a humanoid shape ambled closer to her. And then: “Come out Avery. Found you.”

Avery stayed silent, hoping that the shape was bluffing. After a good 10 seconds, it repeated itself. “Avery, seriously. I don’t want to stay here forever.”

“Dang it!” Avery shouted as she emerged from the bush. She came face to face with her friend James Boone. James had a small afro, dark skin, and was wearing jeans and a light green t-shirt. But what was interesting his appearance was his eyes. James had violet eyes that made his now-smiling face very mysterious. “How the heck did you find me?”

James didn’t speak, he simply pointed to his friend’s shirt. Avery looked down to see that she was wearing her only neon clothing that day.

She glowered at James. “Well, maybe I’ll just wear black tomorrow,” she said. “Good luck finding me then.”

“You’ve been saying that every day for the last three weeks,” James teased. “And yes, I have been counting.” James lifted a silver water bottle to his lips, took a swig, and then offered it to Avery.

After accepting the ice-cold water, Avery said, “That is probably super insanitary.”

“Who cares?”

“Good point.”

Avery and James had been best friends since she moved to Asheville, North Carolina around two years ago. They shared everything, from meals to toys to secrets, so why should a little bit of water matter? They started sharing these things soon after Avery moved, when they had decided to start a secret council. Only they were allowed, no older siblings (Avery’s brother was 15), no parents, and no one else from school. They wouldn’t let their classmates in, because Brandon Rainer, the school bully, constantly teased them about “sitting in a tree,” which annoyed them both greatly. They didn’t want to take any chances with the other people in their grade. Avery and James’s parents tried to soften the verbal blows by telling their children that the bully was simply jealous, but that didn’t stop the taunts.

They were currently on a three-day field trip to Richmond, Virginia with the rest of the fifth grade, and their parents couldn’t come. Brandon took this as an opportunity, but luckily their principal was nearby, and caught Brandon in the act. His mother was called, and he was quickly put on probation. One wrong move and their tormentor would be sent home.

They heard their teacher calling them back, saying that the lab was about to open. They both took another drink of water and headed back to the clearing in the park, crossing paths with Brandon as they went. Brandon smirked and said, “Ooooh, the inseparable couple.”

“You’re on probation,” Avery and James reminded him. The fact that they said it together probably didn’t help their case.

By that time, they had reached their teacher, Miss Chang. “Okay, everyone’s here,” she said after completing a head count. “We are about to go into the Richmond Center for Electrical Research. We will be following our museum rules. Can everyone repeat what those are?”

“Don’t touch anything, stay with your buddy, talk quietly or not at all,” the fifth grade chorused automatically.

“Very good!” Miss Chang said, just as automatically.

They entered, and there were cheesy lightning bolts plastered all over the walls. The Richmond Center for Electrical Research had obviously prepared for the occasion. They were led to a central room with a circular glass case in the middle of it, with a fluffy black mattress inside of it. A man with glasses, longish salt-and-pepper hair and a short beard was lying down on the mattress. But then, to Avery’s astonishment, he began to levitate!

He landed back on the bed after a few seconds and left the glass room. He walked to the front of the class, and a huge grin spread across his face. “Hello class 5-C! My name is Mr. Jackson!”

“Hello, Mr. Jackson,” the class said together.

“I bet you guys weren’t expecting me to start floating, huh?” Mr. Jackson said. He moved his hands as he talked, and Avery kept half expecting, half hoping that he would accidentally hit himself in the face.

The class collectively shook their heads “no.”

“Well, that was a result of…” Mr. Jackson then launched into a very boring speech about how the electromagnets in the bed’s springs pushed the iron in his blood upward, causing him to levitate. A few of the students looked like they wanted to fall asleep, and everybody else looked extremely bored. James was the only one remotely interested; Avery knew he wanted to be a scientist when he was older.

But Mr. Jackson’s last sentence caught everybody’s attention. “Who wants to try it first?” he asked.

Almost every single hand shot into the air, Brandon accidentally-on-purpose hitting James in the back of the head in his haste. Mr. Jackson grinned even wider, and then pointed to Avery. “How about we have this young woman go first, eh?” he suggested. “What’s your name?”

Avery, astonished both at being chosen first, and being called a young woman rather than a girl, was able to stammer out, “A-Avery, sir.”

“Well, Avery, why don’t you just come on up here!” Avery followed Mr. Jackson into the glass room. “Just lay down here…”

As Avery reclined, James raised his hand. Mr. Jackson pointed to him through the open glass door. “Yes, did you have a question?”

“Um, yes, sir,” James said. He pointed out the window, where the blue sky had turned dark gray with storm clouds. “Is that thunderstorm going to affect the electromagnetic field at all?”

Mr. Jackson looked out the window, mildly concerned. Then he turned to James. “No, your friend will be just fine,” he said, his signature grin spread across his face.

Mr. Jackson then left the room and started speaking to Avery through a microphone. “You ready, Avery?”

“Yep!”

“All right, prepare to have your mind absolutely blown,” Mr. Jackson said as he flipped a switch on his dashboard. Avery rose slowly into the air, feeling completely weightless. She smiled almost as wide as Mr. Jackson. She had always wanted to know what it was like to fly.

But then something happened.

A massive bolt of lightning struck the building, sending a shockwave through every wire. The lights glowed brighter, and Avery started climbing faster – too fast. Tiny sparks began to dance along the black mattress, and a wave of energy collided with Avery.

Avery recoiled as the lightning hit her. Then her voice kicked in, allowing her to shout in agony. Avery had never been hurt so much, not even when she had jumped off a swing wrong and broken her wrist. A thin fork of electricity flew off of the fingers of her left hand and shocked the glass, but did not break it. She faintly heard Mr. Jackson yell for someone to cut the power to the building, and then everything went black.

Four years later and three hundred miles away, fourteen-year-old Avery Phoenix woke with a start.