The day Jake Miller’s shadow started acting up was, of course, the day of the biggest science test of the seventh grade.
It began subtly. As Mrs. Davison droned on about mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cell, Jake slumped in his chair. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his shadow on the floor do the same. Weird. He sat up straight. So did the shadow. He chalked it up to tiredness and a overactive imagination.
Then he dropped his pencil.
As he bent to pick it up, his shadow’s arm shot out from the floor, independent of Jake’s own movement, and nudged the pencil back toward his fingers. Jake froze, his hand hovering mid-air. The shadow’s arm slithered back to its proper place.
His heart hammered against his ribs. He stared at the floor. The shadow was perfectly still, a normal, boring, light-created silhouette. Had he imagined it?
The rest of the day was a silent, nerve-wracking battle. In the hallway, when a sixth-grader’s backpack swung toward him, his shadow on the lockers subtly shifted, deflecting the backpack an inch to the left. In gym class, during a brutal game of dodgeball, a red rubber missile seemed to curve around him. No one else noticed, but Jake saw his shadow on the gym wall twitch like a matador’s cape.
By the final bell, he was a wreck. He power-walked home, his stupidly loyal shadow stretching and bobbing behind him like a faithful, and deeply embarrassing, dog.
“Okay,” he whispered, once he was safely in his bedroom with the door closed. “What are you?”
He stood in the middle of the room, the afternoon sun casting his silhouette onto the wall. He waved his right hand. The shadow waved its right hand. He did a little dance. The shadow did a little dance.
Then, on a whim, he thought, Touch the lamp.
His shadow’s arm elongated, stretching across the wall like black taffy. The tip of its finger brushed the base of the lamp, and the whole thing wobbled.
Jake gasped, a mix of terror and pure, unadulterated coolness flooding through him. He had a superpower. A weird, useless, definitely-not-heroic one, but still.
He spent the next week experimenting. He discovered the shadow was strongest in bright light. It could carry small, light things—a pen, a comic book, a bag of chips from the kitchen to his room without him having to move. It couldn’t talk, but it seemed to understand his thoughts. It was like having a silent, two-dimensional best friend who lived in the walls and floor.
The real test came on Friday. Sarah Kendrick, the girl who had perfect handwriting and an even more perfect laugh, was presenting her diorama of the Amazon rainforest. She carried it carefully, a shoebox masterpiece with tiny, hand-painted animals and green tinsel for vines.
And then, Bradley Thompson, the school’s resident klutz, tripped over his own untied shoelace. He stumbled backward, his arms flailing, right toward Sarah.
It happened in a split second. Sarah’s eyes went wide. Bradley was a human wrecking ball. The diorama, her project she’d worked on for three weeks, was about to be annihilated.
Jake didn’t even have time to think. He just willed it.
His shadow, cast by the fluorescent lights of the classroom, was a giant on the floor. It surged forward, a pool of darkness flowing between Bradley’s feet. It wasn’t solid, not exactly, but it was like suddenly trying to walk through deep, sticky tar.
Bradley’s stumble turned into a slow, comical stagger. He windmilled his arms for a moment, giving Sarah just enough time to spin away, clutching her diorama to her chest. Bradley finally crashed to the floor, but harmlessly, away from everyone.
“Whoa, Bradley, watch it!” someone said.
The classroom buzzed with chatter. Bradley turned red. Sarah shot Jake a look of pure, bewildered gratitude, as if she somehow knew he’d done something, even if she didn’t know what.
Jake just looked down at his desk, a slow smile spreading across his face. His shadow was back where it belonged, perfectly still. But as he looked, he saw the tip of its finger rise off the floor for just a second and give him a tiny, secret thumbs-up.
It wasn’t a power for fighting monsters or saving the world. But as Jake sat there, listening to Sarah’s presentation, her voice steady and confident again, he decided that saving a friend’s science project was a pretty good place to start.