by C. G. Cooper
I looked to the others. The twins wore the same look that seemed to either say “How did he do that?” mixed with “That was gonzo.”
Roy actually started clapping. That made my frown go away, but I could feel my face going hot.
“Well, that’s it for today,” Kennedy said, standing up from his brick perch. “Tomorrow we start your training.”
“What kind of training?” asked Xander, the annoying sarcasm already back in his tone.
“Didn’t I tell you?” said Kennedy, scratching his white hair like he’d forgotten something. “Tomorrow you each get to teach your friends how to do what you just did.”
And with that he started walking to the door. Xander was shaking his head as he followed behind, mumbling something under his breath. The twins were whispering again and sneaking looks at me as they went after Xander. I wondered what they were saying. At least they weren’t looking at me like I had the plague or something.
Roy and I came next, side by side. He nudged me and I stumbled a step. I wondered if he knew his own strength.
I looked up at him to see what he wanted. He glanced at the others like he was making sure they couldn’t hear and then asked, “Can you teach me how to fly?”
I nodded and we both smiled. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad after all.
Chapter 8
Memories
Roy and I talked as we made our way back to the exit tunnel, following the steady stream of kids that were going the same way. Some of the kids were crying, and more than one was being comforted by a friend. Everyone looked up at Roy as we passed, but he didn’t seem to notice. It was like he was used to being the biggest one of the bunch. I wondered if he ever felt like a freak because of it. Probably.
I listened as Roy explained how he’d carved the stone. “My granddad taught me how to whittle with skinny blocks of pine. When I got good at that he let me try birch, oak and even cedar. I’ve got a pretty big collection at home.”
It was the most I’d heard Roy say at one time. Talking about what he was good at seemed to open him up, so I kept asking questions and he kept answering.
“How did you find out about your gift?”
He smiled like he was remembering something special, like a secret he’d kept. “One day I’d just gotten home from school, my homework was done, so I pulled out my latest whittling project. It wasn’t anything too hard, just a bull’s head I was gonna give a friend. Well, I guess I started daydreaming and when I looked up, I wasn’t carving with the knife anymore. I was doing it with my mind.” He shivered with a smile. “Freaked me out something fierce that first time. Pretty soon I got the hang of it though.”
So Roy hadn’t had a mentor like me. He’d figured it out on his own. I remembered how I had felt when my gifts first came out. I thought I was dreaming and then that I was going crazy. At least it wasn’t too long after that that Kennedy showed up. He’d shown me a little bit about controlling my gifts, so at least I had that. That thought made me curious.
“What else can you do?” I asked.
“I never tried anything else,” Roy said. If he was embarrassed he didn’t show it.
“And did your parents know?” I was taking a risk asking about his past, but since I’d actually met his parents, I figured it was only a little bending of the rules.
“I think they knew something was up at first, probably because I was spending so much time in my room, but they never asked. I heard them whispering about puberty one day, wondering if my growth spurt had something to do with it, but they’re not really nosy. As long as I got my chores done, finished my homework and helped with the horses, I guess they figured I was okay.”
It made me think about how easy it was to hide things from your parents, especially when they never bothered to look.
“What about you?” he asked, moving out of the way of a group of kids who’d decided to run back to the mansion.
“A kid at school was going to beat me up and I pushed him away without touching him.”
Roy’s eyes lit up like I’d just told him that I invented outer space.
“Did he get hurt?”
I nodded. “Knocked him out and he had to go to the hospital,” I answered, not proud of what I’d done.
“Did you get in trouble? I mean, were your parents mad, you know, because of who they are?”
My eyes must have shown my fright at being exposed to the other kids because Roy quickly added in a whisper, “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone that I know about them.”
That wouldn’t be good if he did. I exhaled and answered his question. “My parents were pretty cool about it. They knew I was defending myself, and they trust me, but they still made me apologize.”
Roy whistled softly. “If I did that, even if I was defending myself, I’ll bet my dad would’ve had my tail.”
“You mean you’ve never been in a fight?” There was no way that was possible. By the time a boy turned ten he’d either been picked on, jumped in to defend someone else, or bullied another kid.
Roy shook his head. “Never.”
Part of me was glad that Roy was sort of a gentle giant. I figured that probably had something to do with his parents, both of whom seemed really down to earth and nice. But then it made me wonder what would happen if a kid like Xander really pushed Roy. I couldn’t imagine Roy running away.
“Well, you’re lucky. I wish I could erase all the ones I’ve been in,” I said, feeling for the second time that day that maybe I would be the one teaching Roy something instead of the other way around. In my head it was a turn of events of epic proportions.
I liked Roy more and more as we walked and got to know each other. He was a pretty simple kid, not stupid, but just the kind of guy who looks at things like there’s always a black or white, right and wrong. I knew from painful experience that wasn’t always the case, and promised myself I would be there for my new friend if a bad case of the middle grays ever popped up.
By the time we arrived at the open door leading back into Sublevel 6 of my family’s mansion (that was still too weird to think about), we were both starving and the only thing we could talk about was food. Luckily there was a mentor standing at the bottom of the steps telling everyone that passed by, “Go up to the dining hall on Sublevel 2 if you’re hungry. Lunch is waiting.”
I looked at Roy and we both grinned. He started taking stairs three at a time while I tried to keep up. When we made it up the four levels, I was out of breath and Roy looked like his heart wasn’t even beating fast. Must have been all that time wrangling horses.
The smells hit me as soon as I made it to the landing labeled Sublevel 2. Once again I had a hard time not running to keep up with Roy’s long strides as he went straight for the food line at the far end of the enormous cafeteria. It looked like a fancier version of something you might see at a nice beach resort. You had to serve your own food, but there was plenty of it. We both grabbed a tray and started loading it. I filled a bowl with a linguini and some light red sauce, and then chose a couple pieces of pizza. It was the good stuff, the pizza that was invented in southern Italy.
Roy piled three steaming rib eyes on his plate and then a whole French baguette. We both stuck with water to drink and then went to find somewhere to sit. There were five person tables scattered everywhere in the huge room that must have been the size of two school gymnasiums. We found an empty table, sat down, and attacked our food. It wasn’t until my stomach was stuffed, and Roy had somehow managed to eat everything on his tray, that we stopped to talk.
“What did I miss at last night’s feast?” I asked, sitting back to give my extended belly a little more room to stretch.
“Your dad…I mean Tim introduced himself, told us the rules, and then introduced all of the mentors. Then they split us up into our gift groups. There are a lot more Destructors than the other two, by the way. Then we got put into our smaller groups.”
“How did they pick those?”
Roy shrugged. “They’d
kinda just herded us, like separating sheep for sheering. No lists or anything. Totally random.”
I guessed it would’ve been hard to call out names without using last names, so the next best thing would be random groupings. It made me wonder what else my parents and the rest of the mentors had to plan for before we got there. Probably a lot because of all the kids.
“And what did they tell you about leaving the mansion?”
“They said they’d take us out in groups soon, but that we should stay inside for now. There’s a game room one level up from here on Sublevel 1. Trust me, they’ve got enough stuff in there that we might never want to leave.”
That made me want to get up and check it out right away, but I still had more questions for the only kid who would even talk to me.
“What do you think we should do about Xander? I mean, I don’t know him, but he’s kind of a…”
“Pain in the backside?” Roy asked. “Tell me about it. No way my parents would let me hang out with him at home. But I don’t think he’ll be much of a problem. Heard him crying last night when we were going to sleep. I’ll bet he’s just as scared as the rest of us.”
Once again, I couldn’t believe that someone as big as Roy could be scared of anything.
“So what else did they tell everyone about what’s going on?” I asked, wondering if my dad had told the others what he’d told me.
“Tim said this was something new they were trying, helping out kids like us who might screw things up in the real world if we didn’t learn how to use our gifts the right way.”
“Was that all?”
Roy shrugged, gulping down the rest of his water before he answered. “That’s what Kennedy told me when we first met, that they were starting a new school for kids like you and me.”
Wow. So they hadn’t told the others about what was going on with the rest of the gifted world, that war was probably coming and that they were getting us ready for it. I’d have to ask my parents or Kennedy about that. I didn’t like being the only one to know something like that. Besides, shouldn’t they tell everyone so they’d know this wasn’t just a game or a fun camp? I was the odd one out again and that didn’t make me happy.
Roy didn’t seem to notice that I was suddenly preoccupied, so I changed the subject.
“Hey, have you wondered why they call us Destructors? Kind of weird compared to Growers and Healers.” Kennedy had already told me the answer, but I wanted to see if he’d told Roy too.
Roy frowned. “I was wondering about that as soon as Kennedy told me what I was.”
“And what did he tell you?”
“Well, I didn’t ask.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. Did you?”
I could either lie, and risk Roy finding out that his new friend didn’t tell the truth, or I could give him the answer. I decided to go with option number two.
“I think it’s kind of a warning, like calling TNT dynamite and not something that doesn’t tell you what it can do.”
“I don’t get it. Everybody knows what TNT does. They use it all the time where I live.”
I tried to remember how Kennedy had explained it to me. That seemed like so long ago.
“What if there are gifted people out there who use their gifts to do bad things?” I asked.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, like breaking into banks and stuff.” I said, still trying to figure out how to explain it without giving away everything I knew. “So what if the name they give us is a warning to always be careful about how we use our gifts because of what they can do?”
Finally it seemed that Roy understood. He nodded slowly. “I think I get it…but wouldn’t it be better if they called us Mind Movers or something?”
I laughed. “You think that sounds better than Destructors?”
Roy chuckled with a shrug. “You’re right, but there’s gotta be something better.” I wondered if the original gifted had had the same problem. After all, calling yourself a telekinetic sounded weird too, like you had wires strapped to a metal helmet on your head.
“Hey, maybe if we come up with a better name we can get them to change it!”
We both laughed and got up from the table, taking our trays to the trash area. It was time to check out the game room.
Chapter 9
Shock
The game room was amazing. It was so good, I’ll say it again. It was AMAZING. If any kid (and probably a lot of adults) didn’t step into that gigantic wonderland with their mouths open, they were probably blind.
It was like Dave & Busters, mixed with Chuck E. Cheese’s, and then mixed with Disney World. There was something for everyone. From arcade games and Xboxes to pinball machines and shooting galleries, the complex was packed. There were even mini theaters, with curtained sides and cushy chairs, where you could put on headphones and watch any movie you wanted without being disturbed. A library in one of the corners was packed with popular books. Two bouncy rooms were big enough to hold fifty kids each. I think the only thing they didn’t have was a pool and a petting zoo.
I swear it took ten minutes to finally unhinge my jaw and shut my mouth.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Roy said.
All I could do was nod.
Five hours later, an announcement came over speakers in the ceilings. “Dinner is now being served in the dining room.”
I looked up from where I’d been teaching Roy how to play the latest Halo (he’d never played video games before).
“Should we go eat?” I asked.
“One more level,” Roy said, jumping through a blue portal that sent us swirling to the next mission.
Once we finished the level and saved our progress to our profiles that had been waiting when we logged in, we ran back to the dining room and ate as fast as we could. When we were stuffed, we ran a little slower back to the game room.
By the time the announcement called for everyone to get back to their rooms, my eyes were dry from staring at the flatscreen television. I turned off the console and stretched.
“I could do this every day,” Roy said, standing up with a yawn.
I nodded, but then I remembered why we were really there and that took a little joy out of the fun we’d just had. Roy was right. Why couldn’t we just forget everything else and play? We were kids after all.
We stumbled into our room just as the twins were turning off the lights. We’d seen them in the game room, but they’d stuck to the library while Roy and I gorged on video games. Xander was already in bed and looked like he was asleep. We hadn’t seen him since the trials. I wondered what he’d been up to.
Someone had left us each a set of matching light grey pajamas on our bunks. They were some kind of soft cotton and really comfortable. I changed in the bathroom and brushed my teeth.
When I got back to the room everyone was snoring lightly, Roy’s doing a funny whistling thing that made me think of old cartoons. As I went to climb into bed, I realized that I hadn’t seen my mom since breakfast. The thought of not seeing her made me think about when she and my dad had disappeared. It wasn’t a good feeling.
So despite what my body was telling me, I put my shoes back on and snuck out of the room.
I only got turned around once, and somehow avoided a group of adults who were saying something about another attack. I couldn’t hear the details, so I filed it away to ask Kennedy or my parents about later.
When I got to their room, there was a sliver of light at the bottom of the door, so I knew they weren’t asleep yet. I put my ear to the door and thought I heard crying. Easing the door open as quietly as I could, the crying got louder. I stepped in, shut the door and said, “Mom?”
The crying didn’t stop, so I moved through the room to where the sound was coming from, the large walk-in closet. When I looked inside, my mom was sitting on the white carpet, sobbing with her face in her hands.
I went to her and put my arms around her. I expected a hug back, but instead she wh
ipped around and knocked me into the hanging clothes. “Get away from me!” she screamed. Her eyes were bloodshot and her eye makeup was streaked down her face from the crying. “Get away from me!”
I didn’t know what to say. She’d never yelled at me before, and the way she was looking at me…it was like I was the devil or something. Her face didn’t change, but she scooted away from me like I was contagious. “Get out! Get out!”
The screams were like daggers. Tears came a moment later as I watched this mad woman who was supposed to be my mom wrapping herself up in a pile of clothes like a homeless person.
I didn’t hear my dad come in, and barely felt it as he pried me off the wall and carried me into the bedroom. He sat me on the bed and picked up the phone on the bedside table.
“It happened again. Yes. Okay. Thanks.”
He hung up the phone and went to check on Mom. She screamed at him too. “Get away! Get away!”
Dad came back out, his face sagging a little. His eyes were sad when he sat down next to me. I clung to him and he to me.
“What’s wrong with Mom?” I asked.
“She’s sick, buddy. But don’t worry, they’re coming to take care of her.”
Just as he said the words, a woman and a man rushed into the room. They weren’t wearing scrubs or anything, but the woman had a black bag from which she pulled out a clear vial and a syringe.
“She’s in the closet,” said Dad.
“How long ago did it start?” asked the man.
Dad looked at me. “When did you come in, buddy?”
For a few seconds I couldn’t talk, my throat felt like it was permanently shut. I shook my head. “Three minutes?” I somehow whispered.
“We’ll take care of her,” said the woman. “Why don’t you take your son for a walk.”
Dad didn’t argue, picking me up and carrying me to the door.
“Don’t worry, Mom’s gonna be okay,” he said as we left the sound of Mom screaming louder than before. The wailing filled my ears and haunted my soul as the door closed, muting the noise to my ears, but not to my heart.