The Odds of Lightning by Jocelyn Davies Page A

one,” Will said.
    â€œBecause you always used to,” said Lu.
    â€œNo, I didn’t,” said Nathaniel. “It was my brother. He always knew what to do. I just followed along.”
    Tiny’s chest tightened.
    â€œBut we can’t ask Tobias,” she said. She put a hand on his back. Nathaniel looked up at her. His Adam’s apple moved up and down, like he was swallowing hard. “I wish we could. So can we ask you?” Nathaniel looked down at his hands, fidgeting. “Will you help us?”
    â€œI don’t know,” said Nathaniel. “Why me? What makes you think I’ll know the right thing to do?”
    Tiny chewed her lower lip.
    â€œWhat about Tobias’s paper?” she said. “The one he wrote for that scholarship?”
    â€œThe Anders scholarship?” Nathaniel asked.
    â€œYeah. Could we get that? It might have answers.”
    â€œWhere would it be?” Lu asked.
    Nathaniel paused. “School,” he said. “It’s bound and published in the school academic archives.” Something sparked in his eyes. “Actually, yeah, this could work. Tobias was storm chasing, kind of. His paper was on the relationship between climate change and electrical storms, specifically on the question of whether the atmosphere of big cities is more conducive to lightning. If we can get down there and find it, we may be able to figure out what to do without having to go to a hospital or tell our parents.”
    â€œUh, what?” Will looked disgusted. “It’s a Friday night, and you want us to go back to schoo l ?”
    â€œYou don’t have to come with us,” said Lu. “You can just stay that way forever.” She turned back to Nathaniel. “Okay, so it’s settled. We’re going to school to find the answers in your brother’s paper.”
    Tiny closed her eyes just as another flash of lightning lit up the sky behind the clouds. The storm seemed to be hovering right above her. For one brief, eerie moment, Tiny had the feeling that it was waiting for her to decide what to do.
    She could walk through that roof door and go home. Take off this stupid outfit and put on her oversize T-shirt dress. Crawl under the covers and wait, against all odds, to reappear.
    The SATs were tomorrow. Only the single most defining moment of her high school life.
    But it was hard to care about a stupid test when you were kind of disappearing.
    â€œLet’s go,” she said. “If we hurry, we can beat the rain.”

Lu
    She wasn’t cold.
    It wasn’t even that cold out. And yet Lu could hardly feel her fingers. The skin on her arms felt numb, like her mouth felt that time she’d had a cavity filled.
    Would they think she was crazy if she said something? Wasn’t lightning supposed to hurt? Was it possible that it had made her numb instead? Or was she imagining it? It’s not like there was something outwardly wrong with her, like Will. Or that she’d done something totally crazy, pulling a door off its hinges like Nathaniel. She just felt kind of weird.
    Or actually, she didn’t feel anything at all.
    But they were already making their way through the door Nathaniel had muscled open, and Lu felt like the time for saying something had passed. Maybe it was better to just get downtown to school, find Tobias’s paper in the archives, and get the answers they needed as soon as possible. Maybe if she were lucky, the numbness would wear off by then and she wouldn’t have to say anything at all.
    It was just as dark inside as it was outside.
    The power was out.
    The couple was still making out on the couch as if nothing had happened. The four of them kept going, back through the upstairs hall, the many rooms, down the stairs, through the party. What a fucking castle.
    Inside, the place was in total chaos, and people were squealing and huddled together in clusters across the vast foyer. Every few seconds a