Only on Tuesdays

Remi could move things with her mind.

Not big things. Not cars or houses or anything like that. But she could wiggle a pencil across a desk. She could make a sock float from the floor to her laundry basket. She could nudge a cookie jar lid open from across the kitchen — though her mom had asked her, very firmly, to stop doing that.

There was just one tiny, very annoying detail about Remi's power.

It only worked on Tuesdays.

She had no idea why. She'd tried Mondays. Nothing. Wednesdays. Nothing. She'd even tried really, really hard on a Saturday once and gave herself a headache. But every single Tuesday, like clockwork, she could squint at something and — whoosh — it would move.

Today was Monday.

And today, of all days, Remi had a problem.

It started at recess. Remi's best friend, Cyrus, kicked a ball so high it sailed over the fence and landed — plonk — right on the roof of the equipment shed. Not just on the roof. In the gutter. Wedged in tight, like the ball had decided to live there now.

"Oh no," said Cyrus, staring up at it.

"Oh no," said Remi, staring up at it.

"Oh NO," said their friend Willa, who hadn't even kicked the ball but liked to be part of things.

The ball was the red one. The good one. The one that bounced perfectly and didn't wobble to the left like the other balls. Everyone on the playground loved that ball, and now twenty-three faces turned toward the roof and then turned toward Cyrus, who looked like he wanted to melt into the ground.

"I'll tell Mr. Darrow," Cyrus mumbled, and shuffled off toward the teacher.

Mr. Darrow walked over, looked up, scratched his chin, and said what adults always say: "I'll see what I can do." Then he went back to his coffee. The ball did not come down.

Remi stared at the gutter. If it were Tuesday, this would take her about four seconds. She'd squint, and the ball would pop out and float right down into Cyrus's hands, and everyone would think it was the wind, because that's what people always thought. Easy.

But it was Monday. The most useless day of the week.

"Can't you just... you know?" Cyrus whispered. He was the only person who knew about Tuesdays.

Remi shook her head. "Monday."

Cyrus groaned. "Can you try?"

She tried. She squinted so hard her whole face scrunched up like a raisin. Nothing happened. The ball sat in the gutter looking very comfortable.

"Maybe we just wait until tomorrow?" Cyrus said.

But Remi could see the other kids already arguing about whose fault it was, and two second-graders were starting to cry because they'd been waiting all recess for a turn, and Cyrus was doing that thing where he rubbed the back of his neck over and over, which meant he felt terrible.

Tomorrow was too far away.

Remi looked around the playground. Really looked. Not the squinty way she looked on Tuesdays, but with regular eyes, searching for regular ideas.

There was the jump rope bin. The cones from PE. A pile of hula hoops. The long foam noodles that were supposed to be used for "gentle sword fighting" but mostly got used for not-gentle sword fighting.

Remi grabbed a foam noodle.

"What are you doing?" Willa asked.

"Getting the ball," Remi said.

She stood on her tiptoes beneath the gutter and stretched the noodle up as far as she could. It flopped against the side of the shed like a cooked spaghetti noodle.

"That's not going to work," said Willa.

"I know that NOW," said Remi.

She looked around again. She grabbed a jump rope and tried to lasso the gutter. The rope went up about three feet and came back down on her head.

"That's also not going to work," said Willa.

"Willa," said Remi. "Are you going to help, or are you going to keep telling me what's not going to work?"

Willa thought about this. "Both?"

But then Willa did help. She found a tennis ball in the lost-and-found bucket and suggested they throw it at the red ball to knock it loose. They threw the tennis ball eleven times. They missed eleven times. On the twelfth throw, Cyrus hit the gutter — clang! — and the red ball shifted just a tiny bit but didn't come out.

"We need something longer that won't flop," Remi said, pacing in a circle. She walked past the equipment shed and stopped. Leaning against the back wall were the big orange cones — the tall ones — stacked together.

"Cyrus. Willa. Come here."

Here was Remi's plan:

Step one: Stack three tall cones on top of each other and tape them together with the medical tape from Mr. Darrow's first aid kit. Willa asked for it very politely by telling him she had a "tape emergency," which was technically true.

Step two: Tape the foam noodle to the top of the cone tower so it stuck up like a long, wobbly finger.

Step three: Remi would hold the contraption up while Cyrus steadied her, and Willa would direct from below.

"Left!" Willa shouted. "More left! YOUR other left, Remi! Up! Now poke it!"

The foam noodle jabbed into the gutter. The ball shifted. Remi's arms were shaking.

"Again!" Willa yelled.

Remi poked again. The ball rolled an inch. She could feel her shoulders burning.

"One more!" Cyrus shouted.

Remi took a huge breath and jabbed the noodle forward with everything she had.

The ball popped out of the gutter, bounced off the edge of the roof, and dropped straight down. Willa caught it with both hands like it was a baby falling from the sky.

"YES!" Willa screamed.

"YES!" Cyrus screamed.

The whole playground screamed. Twenty-three kids came running over, and suddenly everyone was cheering like Remi, Cyrus, and Willa had just won the World Cup. Cyrus was beaming again, and the two second-graders were already fighting over who got to kick first, which was annoying but also kind of beautiful.

That afternoon, Remi sat on the bus next to Cyrus. The cone tower was dismantled, the tape was returned, and the foam noodle was back in the bin, slightly bent but still perfectly good for not-gentle sword fighting.

Cyrus was tossing a crumpled piece of paper up and catching it. "You know what's funny?" he said. "That was way cooler than if you'd just floated it down."

Remi laughed. "It was NOT cooler. It took us twenty minutes and I almost dropped a cone on Willa's head."

"Yeah," said Cyrus, grinning. "That's what made it cool. Everyone helped. Everyone saw it. If you'd done the Tuesday thing, it would've just been... wind."

Remi leaned her head against the window and watched the houses blur by. She thought about that. On Tuesdays, her power was invisible. Secret. Quick. Nobody ever noticed.

Today, Willa had talked her way into getting tape. Cyrus had thrown a tennis ball twelve times without giving up. Two kids she didn't even know had held the cones steady while she reached. And the whole playground had exploded with cheering — real cheering, for something they all saw happen with their own eyes.

It had been loud and messy and imperfect and completely wonderful.

Tomorrow was Tuesday. Remi could already feel that familiar hum in her fingertips, the power warming up like an engine.

She smiled and closed her eyes.

She couldn't wait for Tuesday. She always loved Tuesdays.

But she was starting to think Mondays might be pretty good too.