Backward, Backward, Kyle!

After Kyle is chosen to taste Ms. Ocampo's glowing Sizzle Serum, he discovers he can rewind objects thirty seconds. He and Devontae laugh over the trick, but Kyle causes a chocolate-milk mess and then ruins science fair projects when he repeatedly rewinds his wobbly volcano. When Priya's crystal garden shatters, Kyle uses his power to restore it before the countdown ends, learning that helping someone matters more than winning. Kyle does not win the ribbon, but Priya's garden earns second place, and his green spark remains.

Chalk dust hung in the air of Room 14 while Ms. Ocampo lifted a vial of glowing green liquid called Sizzle Serum. "This will only fizz for one lucky volunteer," she said, her hoop earrings swinging as she turned the vial in the light. Twenty-six hands shot up. Kyle chewed the end of his pencil, hoping his desk number, seven, would get called. Ms. Ocampo spun a wheel taped to the whiteboard. It clicked past six, and stopped, trembling, on seven.

The serum tasted like fizzy limes and static electricity. Kyle's fingertips buzzed, then flashed a quick green spark. Nobody else noticed, but when his eraser rolled off his desk and hit the floor, it suddenly hopped backward, landing right where it started. Kyle blinked. He nudged it off again. It rewound again, thirty seconds, every single time.

Devontae leaned over, sneakers squeaking on the tile. "Nice trick. Not," he said, arms crossed. Kyle grinned and knocked over Dev's water bottle on purpose. It glugged across the desk, then slurped backward into the cap like a tiny green tornado. Dev's eyebrows shot up. "Backward, backward, thirty seconds gone!" Kyle whispered, and Dev, despite himself, laughed.

At lunch Kyle tried the trick on Dev's spilled chocolate milk to show off. He touched it a second too late. The milk rewound, alright, but it yanked the carton backward too fast, and it smacked Dev's shoes, splattering the laces brown. "Aw, man," Dev groaned, shaking his foot. Kyle's ears went hot, and some things, it seemed, could not be un-spilled.

By science fair day, Kyle was sure his power made him unbeatable. When his volcano model looked wobbly, he rewound it three times to keep it from tipping, tugging the same thirty seconds back again and again. On the fourth try, something snapped. The volcano erupted early, spraying red goo across two judges' clipboards. The gym went dead silent.

Ashamed, Kyle slunk toward the door, sneakers squeaking. Then he heard a crash. Priya's crystal garden, three weeks of careful work, lay shattered on the floor, and Priya knelt over the pieces with her shoulders curled inward, saying nothing. Kyle stopped walking. Winning had never once felt like this mattered. Helping might.

Kyle knelt beside Priya and touched the broken glass jar before the countdown in his head hit thirty. "Backward, backward, thirty seconds gone," he murmured, and the shards spun upward, crystals stitching themselves whole again, the jar landing gently in Priya's open hands. Priya stared, then laughed out loud. "You're kidding me," she said.

Kyle didn't win the ribbon that year, but Priya's garden won second place, and Dev wore his brown-splattered shoes to school the next week like a badge of honor. That night Kyle dropped his eraser on purpose, just to watch it hop backward one more time, the small green spark still glowing on his fingertip.