OCDaniel Read Online Free Page A

when I wasn’t looking.
    But who?
    I decided to look up “Star Child” first. Maybe that would give me some clues. My first search yielded this:
    Star Children, according to a pseudoscientific New Age concept, are children who are believed to possess special, unusual, and sometimes supernatural traits or abilities.
    I read through the first few articles. It sounded like conspiracy-theory stuff to me. Alien DNA, telepathic powers, and a lot of parents who believed their kids were Star Kids because they behaved badly.
    I stayed up for a long time that night, checking Facebook for possible leads to the identity of the note leaver. Nobody had anything about Star Kids on their page, so I gave up and started getting ready for bed.
    The Routine began at twelve thirty. It’s something I have to do every night. I’ll explain later. I went to sleep at four a.m.
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    The next day, I found Max in the school yard with the other cool kids. They just talked in the morning, though they usually played basketball or touch football at recess. That meant I had to play too, of course, even though I was even worse at basketball than I was at football. Max passed to me sometimes, but I usually passed it right back as quickly as possible and only shot when I was literally right under the net. The other guys gave me a hard time but let me play because of Max. If it wasn’t for him, I would probably be in the corner reading with Emma, which I wouldn’t have minded, except it would have made the prospect of talking to Raya even less likely.
    As it was, Raya was actually in the circle of cool kids today, but by the time I got over there, the bell rang. She did give me a little smile, but that was it.
    â€œReady for the big game on Saturday?” Max asked me as we walked into class.
    I sighed. “For the last time, I don’t actually do anything.”
    â€œIf the kicker gets hurt, we need you,” he said seriously.
    â€œHow often does the kicker get hurt?”
    Max paused. “Rarely. But still. And hey . . . you gonna ask her today?”
    I snorted and pulled out my books. “Of course not.”
    â€œIf you don’t hurry, someone else will.”
    I thought about that for a moment and then shook my head. “I can’t do it.”
    â€œYou’re a sissy.”
    â€œAgreed.”
    I was still thinking about Raya when Mr. Keats drawled, “Math books out, please.” He looked like he wished he’d slept in today.
    I sighed. That made two of us.
    I don’t like math for one important reason: the numbers.
    We were doing some simple equations, and I kept having to change them. I made a four a forty-one. A nine a ninety-one. I didn’t even write the six. Every time I saw a bad number, I had a Zap. A pit-of-my-stomach-things-are-wrong-do-something-now feeling. It was like being punched.
    I tried to hide my notes from Max, but he noticed.
    â€œEven I know that’s wrong,” he said, pointing at one answer. “Take the zero out, dufus.”
    â€œOh, right,” I muttered. But I didn’t change it.
    I started sweating profusely halfway through class—my skin hot and flushed and prickling. I changed so many numbers that it looked like code. Nine was giving me a real problem today.
    Every time I wrote it, I felt like something bad was going to happen.
    I don’t know when it started or why, but some numbers are good, and some are not.
    Here’s my list:
    1 = Okay
    2 = Mostly okay
    3 = Bad when combined with another three, four, five, or six
    4 = Bad
    5 = Okay
    6 = Bad
    7 = Mostly bad
    8 = Always bad
    9 = Bad
    10 = Good
    As you can imagine, it gets complicated in the double digits.
    This probably sounds confusing, and that is likely because I might be crazy. But the numbers make me feel better or worse, and there is no arguing that. If I do something four times, my skin crawls and my stomach hurts