Lizzie believes she may have caused the death of the person she loved most. Shadowed by grief and guilt, she thinks her family would be better off without her. A camping trip provides the perfect chance to escape. But before she can run away, she faces an awful dilemma: let a stranger die, or reveal herself and risk unknown consequences. Her choice sets in motion a series of perilous adventures that push her to the edge of sanity and death. Finally, Lizzie must make one last choice: hide from the world or embrace who she is. Confronted by homelessness and intolerance, she is called not only to stand on her own, but to fight for others like herself, whom the world sees as trash.

One

When the Stick girl came out, the light was so bright she could hardly stand it. Her instincts told her to remain perfectly still. That’s what she did. She didn’t squint or blink her black eyes. She didn’t stretch or yawn. She didn’t wiggle the fingers on her four-fingered hands.

Connected to her lay other stickers. Stick people. She had a vague memory of being with them in a dark box. There they had waited, all dreaming the same two dreams over and over. One, a nightmare of being in darkness forever, rejected. The other of light, of acceptance.

Her nose itched, but she resisted the urge to scratch it. Flat and motionless, she stared at the ceiling and waited for the world to tell her what she was.

As her eyes adjusted, a huge freckled face came into focus. Green eyes stared down, big as moons. Over the next few years, the Stick girl would be drawn to them. She would come to know the quirky workings of this person’s heart and mind. Like her, a very different kind of girl. Those eyes would become the center of her life.

But some things are not forever. Sometimes they vanish into unbearable nothingness.

The Stick girl felt a sharp sting at each hand, then at her feet. She felt herself being lifted free of the other stickers. She heard plastic sliding on cardboard as they went back in the box. Sensing that they had been rejected and that she had been chosen, she felt two things at once: an urge to jump for joy and another to cry. An invisible new companion introduced itself. Guilt.

“I picked one,” called the giant girl with green eyes, her voice raspy, sandpaper on stone. The Stick girl wondered if she could speak, too, but she didn’t dare try.

Then a woman’s voice. “Elizabeth, sweetie, that one’s defective. Look at its mouth. Choose a normal one.”

Her name is Elizabeth, thought the Stick girl. And, What does that mean? Defective.

A new giant spoke, neither Elizabeth nor the woman, in a voice like a songbird. “Yeah, Lizbeth, don’t be a weirdo.” Then quieter: “Weirdo.”

Elizabeth’s green eyes darted towards the voice. Her thick eyebrows bunched up like caterpillars ready to fight. “Mind your own business, Sophia!” She stared down at her sticker and whispered, “Are you broke?” The question arrived with the aroma of peppermint. The Stick girl, somehow knowing that she shouldn’t reply, sent a thought instead. Nope. I just woke.

The second girl’s face appeared. Sophia. She also had freckles, green eyes, and thick eyebrows. To the Stick girl, the twins looked exactly the same and completely different.

“Mine’s perfect,” Sophia said. “See?” She held up a second Stick girl, with a dress, pigtails, and a smile shaped like a crescent moon. The other Stick girl looked beautiful. Holding her by her arms, Sophia flew her away.

“I like mine better,” Elizabeth called, showing a crooked grin. The Stick girl felt a tingle as a giant finger moved across her mouth. “She smiles like me.”

In the distance, the woman called, “Honey, grab the Windex and paper towels.”

A man’s voice: “Yes, dear.”

“Everybody got one? Let’s stick ‘em on the car.”

Sophia: “Yes, Mommy.”

Footsteps. The woman appeared over Elizabeth’s shoulder. “Stop staring at it and come on before it rains.”

“Sure thing, Mom.”

Mom.

The Stick girl’s view spun—ceiling, walls, windows. She felt herself being carried. A door opened to sunlight and a sky strewn with clouds. She saw trees, a yard, a house, and something that made her feel safe: an old white minivan, parked facing the street. The names of these things came to her as if they flowed from Elizabeth’s mind to her own.

Running around the giant people was a giant four-legged creature, brown as dirt. Dog, the Stick girl thought. We love him.

The tallest giant approached, the yes dear guy. As he sprayed and wiped the minivan’s back windshield, the Stick girl inhaled blue mist and thought, Yum! The man peeled away some paper from a Stick man and placed him in the lower left corner of the glass. “That’ll work,” he said.

Elizabeth gave him a high five. “Way to go, Dad.”

Dad, the Stick girl thought. Two dads. One stuck on glass and one that can move around. 

Next, Elizabeth’s mom stuck a Stick woman to the glass. The sticker woman’s hand overlapped the Stick dad’s so that they appeared to hold hands. “There,” said the woman.

Two moms. One stuck, one mobile.

Next, Sophia placed her Stick girl so that she held hands with the Stick mom. “I think I’ll call you Sunny,” Sophia said, “because you’re so sunny, like me!”

“Seriously?” her dad asked. “You’re naming your sticker?”

Her mom added, “Perfect, sweetheart.”

Sunny, my perfect sister, thought the Stick girl.

Next, Elizabeth’s turn. The Stick girl felt a tickle at the top of her head as a giant fingernail scratched at the corner of her paper backing. Until now, she hadn’t realized it was there.

“I’ll call mine…Lizzie,” Elizabeth said as she worked. “Lizzie Lou.”

“That’s silly,” her sister teased. “Lizzie rhymes with busy rhymes with fizzy. And Lou rhymes with…doo. You know,” she giggled, “like dog doo?”

That’s me. I’m Lizzie. I guess I’ll do.

As the white paper came off, Lizzie could see both in front and behind. One way appeared clear, the other hazy (because of her sticky layer). It took only a second to switch from looking forward to back, just by thinking about it. Her family would eventually call this switching views melding.

Elizabeth carefully placed Lizzie’s head on the glass. The Stick girl’s vision momentarily went dark as a giant thumb smoothed her down. Lizzie felt pressure from her pigtails to her shoes—almost painful—and she was stuck. I have pigtails and shoes, she thought.

“Ha, I knew it,” Sophia pointed as her face loomed close, “yours is crooked!”

“It is not!” Elizabeth exclaimed, and pushed her sister away.

Lizzie could tell that she wasn’t exactly level with the other Stick people. That didn’t bother her. But sensing her knee-length dress for the first time, she thought, This thing’s uncomfortable.

The giant mom touched Elizabeth’s shoulder. “Sweetie, it is a little…off. Plus the smile is kind of broken. Why don’t you go pick a better one? I’ll scrape that one off.”

But the girl examined Lizzie again and shrugged. “Nah. Straight enough for me.”

As the humans turned away, Lizzie lifted her head to get a better look at the Stick girl next to her, Sunny. Unsticking was a lot easier than she expected. But the Stick mom shot Lizzie an angry look. She quickly flattened.

Yes, Mom.

And just in time, because one more family member needed to be placed on the back windshield—a Stick dog. The giant dad stuck him next to Lizzie. As the human smoothed out a bubble, the sticker dog looked over at Lizzie and winked. She liked him already.

Elizabeth knelt down and spoke to the giant dog who had been running around. “What do you think, Hershey? What should we call your sticker dog?” 

The floppy-eared fellow’s stubby tail wagged. “I’ll call him Ups, like the lorry that delivered them,” he replied in a British accent. “It was brown like me!” A Mobile dog and a Stick dog, Lizzie thought, Hershey and Ups. She didn’t remember the brown UPS truck that had delivered her family in a box. But she figured that Hershey had made a joke.

“Wow, that’s the most I’ve ever heard him bark,” said the Mobile dad.

Then the Mobile twins kissed the top of Hershey’s head, where he had a small lock of blonde fur. Lizzie could tell that none of them had understood his words. Apparently, Mobiles didn’t speak Dog.

When the Peeling was over, the Mobiles all walked back into the house. The Stick family stayed on the windshield.

“What do we do now?” Lizzie asked, not at all surprised that her own voice had the same raspy quality as Elizabeth’s.

“We’re Sticks,” Mom whispered. “Most of the time we stay stuck. That’s our purpose. They’re Movers. Their job is to move around.”

The Stick dog’s ears went up. “Really?” he asked. “That’s their job?”

Lizzie and Ups exchanged a glance. “Why don’t we call the big people something else?” she asked. “Movers sounds, I dunno, wrong.”

“What do you suggest, oh crooked one?” Sunny asked. To Lizzie, her sister’s voice sounded much like Sophia’s, sweet to the ears, sour to the heart.

The crooked one shrugged. “I’ve been thinking of them as Mobiles.”

“Movers, Mobiles, doesn’t matter,” Mom replied, “just hold the pose. That’s an order.”

The thought made the Stick girl fidget. “That’s boring.”

“No, it’s glorious!” Sunny said, and gave her sister’s hand a squeeze.

Lizzie snorted. “Are you sure we’re related?”

Just then, a bumblebee buzzed right past Lizzie’s nose. It hovered for a moment, then flew up and out of sight. Without a thought, the Stick girl freed her hand from her sister’s, unpeeled, and raced up the windshield after the thing. By the time she reached the top of the minivan, the bee had vanished, but the world had appeared. The wider world. Endless streets, houses, and cars. Dogs in backyards and kids on a swing. A man riding a motorcycle, a woman watering flowers. Lizzie stared, searching her head for the names of these things, but finding none. Her ears—keen for a Stick person—picked up voices, slamming doors, and the rumble of traffic. In the distance, a jetliner silently inched its way across the horizon. From where she stood, it looked no bigger than the bee. That one’s so slow and quiet compared to the buzzer, she thought.

“Hey, dummy!” The Stick girl turned to see her sister’s face peeking up over the edge of the roof. “Get back down here!” Sunny demanded. “You’re in SO much trouble!”

“Oh. Okay.” Lizzie followed her back down onto the windshield.

“Young lady!” her mom began, peeling up to shake a finger at her. “Don’t you EVER—” But the Stick woman suddenly flattened herself. “Lay down! Freeze!” she snapped.

With good reason. The front door of the house burst open and Elizabeth ran down the steps. She stopped a few feet away and stared at Lizzie. She said nothing, just grinned another crooked grin and made her eyebrows dance one more time.

Two

When the Stick family was again left to themselves, Lizzie mumbled, “I-I-I messed up. Next time I won’t—”

“There better not BE a next time,” Mom seethed. But that was all. No lecture.

Better not BE a next time, Lizzie thought. Be. Be. Bee! “Hey, that thing that flew by,” she said, “I think it’s called a—”

“Your person is weird,” Sunny cut her off.

Lizzie closed her mouth. It appeared that nothing she had to say was worth hearing. She glanced over at the perfect Stick girl. “You talkin’ to me?”

“Duh. Your person ran back outside, didn’t she?”

For the first time in her life, Lizzie blinked. “What do you mean, my person?” Out of the corner of her right eye she could see Sunny shrug.

“Dunno.”

“What Sunny means,” Mom explained, “is that each of us has a big version of ourselves. A Mover—scratch that—a Mobile person. Isn’t that right, hun?”

“Yes, dear.”

“Each of us is connected to a Mobile,” Mom continued, “but only one. That’s the first rule about being a Stick person. One Stick for each Mobile.”

“So…” Lizzie thought out loud, “that must be why I felt stuff when Elizabeth looked at me. And I felt nothing when that other girl did.”

“Other girl?!” Sunny scoffed. “You mean Sophia. She’s not just some other girl. She’s the superstar in the family. And your girl has a broken voice.” She glared at Lizzie. “You both do.”

“No need to argue,” said Dad. “Both of you are special and so are your Mobiles.”

Lizzie peeled her head up just a little and sneaked a peek at him. He’ll always accept me, she thought, no matter what. She rested her head back on the glass. But she couldn’t stay silent. “Um, Mom?”

A heavy sigh. “Yes? Speak.”

“How do you know all these things? Didn’t you just come out of the dark thingy like the rest of us?”

“Out of the box, you mean, not a thingy. A dark box.” Mom cleared her throat. “Because moms know everything. Right, hun?”

“Yes, dear. Listen to your mother, girls.”

Lizzie pressed on. “Ya know, when I came out of the—whatchamacallit—box, the first thing I saw was the ceiling. Pretty sure that’s the first time I ever saw one. But I knew what it was and what it’s called.”

“Me too,” said Sunny. “I knew it, too.”

Lizzie looked up. “But out here the ceiling’s called…sky. I think.”

The Stick dog wagged his tail and added, “The girl next to me has a point.”

“I’m Lizzie.”

“Lizzie has a point,” Ups amended. “I keep thinking I need to mark my territory. MY territory. Not someone else’s.” He barked a laugh. “But I have no clue what that means!”

“All in good time,” Mom said. “We’re still learning. If you know things that don’t make sense, it’s from being around your Movers. Or your Mobiles, if that’s what you want to call them.”

Kinda sorta makes sense, Lizzie thought. She closed her eyes and enjoyed the warm glass against her back. She was safely stuck with her family. It felt right.

Then, for no reason that Lizzie could figure, her dad laughed and blurted out, “Wanna hear a joke?”

“No!” the others all answered. At least on this point, the rest of them were in agreement.

When Lizzie opened her eyes again, she noticed that the sky had turned dark and the blue parts had disappeared. A powerful BOOM shook the air—as though the house had crashed into the minivan.

“Mommy?!” squealed Sunny.

“Hush, hush,” Mom said with a soft chuckle. “It’s just thunder.”

“Thunder?” Lizzie and her twin both asked.

“Nothing to be afraid of.”

They all stared at the charcoal, moving sky. After a few seconds, Ups asked. “What exactly is that? Thunder.”

Dad lifted his head and turned to the Stick dog. “That’s a good question, buddy. You see, our big people have big people of their own,” he explained, “way up in the sky.” Everyone stared upward.” So big,” he went on, “that none of us can see them. And that noise—” Thunder cracked again. “That’s what they sound like when they play football.” He looked away with a dreamy expression, then lay flat on the windshield. “Whatever that is.”

“Oh,” Sunny said. “So dads know everything, too?”

Lizzie grunted.

“Sounds like a bunch of hooey to me,” Ups whispered. Lizzie sneaked him a pet on the muzzle.

“It is a bunch of hooey,” Mom said. “There are no giant giants, just the regular ones, the…Mobiles.” Dad started to say something, but she silenced him with a wave of her hand. “Thunder is the sound of lightning, which is…” She seemed to search inside her head. “Which are lights in the sky, powerful ones. We might even see some.”

All eyes turned to the sky again. Eventually, a flash illuminated the dark clouds, followed by another loud boom. Ups let out a whine. Sunny said, “So cool,” but with a tremble in her voice.

Lizzie didn’t care about the coming storm. Something else was bugging her. Something bigger, if not louder. “Hey, Mom,” she began. She felt her mom’s stare and quickly changed her tone, trying to sound as sweet as Sunny. “Mommy? I have another question.”

“Go ahead, but this will be your last one for the day. After the thunder booms go away, we have a lot to do.”

“A lot to do?” Sunny cut in. “Like what? We’re stuck on this clear stuff—”

“Glass, dear. The clear stuff is glass.”

“Okay, glass,” Sunny said. “What’s there to do besides hold hands and look at stuff?”

Mom patted the windshield. “Well, we need to inspect this beast and make sure she’s road-worthy. Check the tires. Check the oil-change sticker on the front windshield. I’m making a list in my head.”

Dad said, “I think I need to check the…wiper blades.”

“We don’t have to stay stuck all the time,” Mom went on, “just when I say so. But absolutely, without question, we always have to be back On Glass before the Mobiles come outside. Understand? We’ll know when they’re on the way. We should feel it.”

“Awesome,” Ups said with a yelp. “I wanna run around the yard, like that big dog, Hershey.”

Sunny shouted, “Yah!”

Lizzie grinned, relieved to know that her entire life wouldn’t consist of standing by her family. Although they were starting to grow on her. Even Miss Perfect.

Mom said, “But don’t be rude, Sunny.” Lizzie glimpsed the Stick woman’s hand as she lifted it and yet again wagged a finger. “You interrupted your sister.”

“Sorry, Mommy.”

“Lizzie. Make it quick.”

Lizzie took a big breath. “What about the ones left in the box?” she asked. “The other sticky people. What about them?”

Silence followed, long enough that Lizzie wondered if keeping her mouth shut would have been better. She searched for a memory of the unchosen Sticks—a face, a name, the feel of their hands or feet. But like the blue parts of the sky, darkness had chased them away.

“They’re gone forever,” Mom finally said, her voice as flat as her family. “Don’t think about the ones back in the box. Don’t speak about them. Ever. They never existed.”

A cool wind passed over the glass.

“Oh,” said Dad.

“If you say so,” said Sunny.

Mom: “I do.”

Ups opened his mouth, then closed it without a word.

And Lizzie just stood there, stuck, as the first cold raindrop in her life trickled down her face.

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