B005N8ZFUO EBOK

by Lubar, David

  I’d been thinking about that, too. But I’d already gotten enough attention. I kept silent.

  “Well, someone in this room has an answer,” Cheater said.

  It looked like there weren’t going to be any secrets with this group. I figured I might as well tell Flinch my idea. “I have an answer, but it’ll take some work.” I leaped across the room and threw a punch at Flinch’s face.

  He ducked before I even had my fist halfway out. My hand shot through the air where his head had been. I had to put out my other hand to keep from smacking face-first into the wall.

  “Hey, what was that for?” Flinch shouted.

  “Practice,” I told him. “You need to learn to hold back a bit. Try not to jump so soon this time.”

  “Good thinking,” Flinch said. “Come on, let’s try it again.”

  I threw another punch. Flinch waited too long. Before I could stop myself, my fist connected with his jaw. A sharp jolt shot through my wrist.

  “Oh man,” I said as he went down. “Are you okay?”

  Flinch shook his head hard, then staggered back to his feet. “Yeah.” He rubbed his jaw. “I guess sooner would have been better.”

  “I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?” My whole hand was starting to ache.

  “Not really,” Flinch said. “It’s just that I’ve never been punched in the face before. I can’t say that I like it.”

  “Never?” I asked.

  “Never,” he said. “I always managed to get out of the way. Come on. Let’s try it again.”

  “You sure?”

  He nodded.

  I threw another punch. Flinch dodged too soon, but not as soon as he usually did.

  “Better,” I said.

  “Can I hit him next?” Cheater asked. He swung his hand in a karate chop.

  “I thought you didn’t know any of that stuff,” I said.

  “I don’t,” Cheater said, “but it looks like fun.”

  Flinch glared at Cheater.

  “Hang on,” I said. “Everyone will get plenty of time punching Flinch. Right now, let’s work with Torchie. Okay?”

  They nodded.

  “We need something that can put out fires,” I said.

  “No problem.” Lucky dashed out of the room. I figured he was going to dig through the loot in his closet. Sure enough, when he came back he handed me a small blue plastic squirt gun. It was the old-fashioned kind with a squeeze trigger—not the kind that gets pumped up. A drop of water hanging off the plug in the back showed me he’d just filled the gun.

  “Now what?” Torchie asked.

  I tossed the water pistol to Flinch. Then I tore a piece of paper from my notebook and passed it to Torchie. “See if you can start a fire. Try to pay attention to anything happening in your mind. Once you figure out how you do it, then maybe you can get some control.” I looked over at Flinch. “Your job is to make sure he doesn’t get burned.”

  “Got it.” Flinch nodded.

  We all watched the piece of paper in Torchie’s hand.

  Suddenly, Flinch said, “Look out!” and squirted the paper.

  “Hey!” Torchie shouted. “Why’d you do that?” As he spoke, a bit of steam rose from the damp paper.

  “This isn’t going to work,” I said to Flinch. “You’re reacting before it happens. Let someone else do it.”

  “But I could use this for practice,” Flinch said. “It beats getting punched in the face. I can try to wait until the flame really starts.”

  “Yeah, but it doesn’t beat getting burned fingers,” Torchie said. “If you wait too long, I’ll get hurt.”

  “You won’t get burned,” Flinch told him.

  “You’re right, I won’t,” Torchie said. “Because you aren’t going to be the one with the squirt gun.”

  “Hold it,” I shouted. “Stop arguing. Cheater, you take the water pistol. Everyone else, watch the paper and see if you notice anything. We won’t get anything done if everyone is fighting.”

  “Yes, Dad,” Flinch joked.

  Oh man. He was right. I’d sounded like a parent shouting at a couple of kids who were horsing around in the back seat of a car. That’s the last thing I wanted. I kept my mouth shut and concentrated on watching the paper in Torchie’s hand.

  Torchie managed to start a couple more fires, but he didn’t seem to have any idea how he was doing it. “Enough,” he said after half an hour. He slumped back in his chair.

  “You know, I’ll bet there are lots of people out there with special powers,” Flinch said.

  “Maybe,” I said, “but don’t go wild and start thinking every coincidence is an example of psychic powers. It has to be rare, or we’d know a lot more about it.” I thought about the two dozen names on my list. One by one, I’d crossed off everyone except Lucky.

  “I’m sure my grandfather was psychic,” Torchie said.

  Flinch laughed. “Yeah. Right. What did he do, carry a bucket of water whenever he knew you were coming?”

  “No, really,” Torchie said. “He had a special talent. Anytime I got hurt, he seemed to know where—even if I didn’t tell him about it. If I got a shot, he patted me on the shoulder. If I had a sunburn, he slapped me on the back. He wasn’t trying to hurt me. He just had a knack for finding my sore spots.”

  Suddenly, everyone could think of examples of friends or relatives who might have had psychic powers. I let them talk for a while, but then got back to work trying to control our group’s powers.

  As for Lucky, that seemed simple enough. “Just don’t pick up stuff like wallets and jewelry,” I said. “Then you won’t be accused of stealing.”

  “Yeah, that’ll work,” he said, but something in his voice worried me. Well, unless he wanted to tell me more, there was nothing ! could do.

  Meanwhile, there was plenty to keep me busy. I made up some tests so Cheater could practice rephrasing his answers while we all sat around him.

  Every once in a while, no matter what we were doing, I threw a punch at Flinch. Cheater was right—it was fun.

  And then there was Trash. Trash was amazing.

  WHY I LIKE BEING ME

  WILLIS “FLINCH” DOBBS

  TRAINING TRASH

  His real name was Eddie, but we were all used to calling him Trash. He didn’t seem to mind. Trash had said he couldn’t stop stuff from flying around. “Don’t try to stop it,” I told him. “Try to do it.”

  He caught on right away. If he could intentionally use his power, he’d have a chance of controlling it. So that’s what he worked on.

  I was amazed that he’d never figured out the part he’d played in smashing and crashing objects. But I guess that’s how it was. Long ago, he’d realized that things went flying when he was around. But until now, he’d never been able to accept that he was the cause. As soon as Trash started exercising his power, he began to have fewer unplanned incidents.

  Everyone kept an eye out for other signs of talents. But we didn’t see anything. So, for the moment, there were five of them. I mean, there were six of us, but only five were special. They’d started calling themselves the Psi Five, which rhymes with high five. Anytime they passed each other in the hall, they’d slap hands in a high five and mouth the words Psi five. The first time I saw them do that, I got this funny feeling in my gut, like when I was four years old and watched the kid next door unwrap a real nice birthday present. I guess they couldn’t call themselves the Psychic Six, since I didn’t count. Sometimes, they called me Coach as sort of a joke since I was helping them to train. It wasn’t like a real nickname, but I liked it.

  And there were lots of signs of progress.

  “Look,” Cheater said one afternoon at the end of history class. He held up his test—he’d gotten an A. “You were right, Coach. I made sure to use my own words. It worked. It really did.”

  “Great.” I was happy for him. He’d do fine. Though the sad part was that, in a way, it didn’t really matter. Once you got dumped at Edgeview, everyone assumed you’d never get
better. We were all treated as if we were incurably sick.

  “Good job,” Flinch said to Cheater. “You know what? It helps, understanding what’s going on. It’s hard work, but I’m getting better control.”

  It was hard work for me as well as Flinch. I must have thrown about a thousand punches a day at him. Okay, maybe not that many. But it sure felt like it. After the first day, my shoulder hurt. I didn’t nail him in the jaw again, but I came frighteningly close a couple of times. Still, Flinch was learning to handle his reactions. He’d figured out this system where the faster he saw something happening, the longer he knew he had to wait before reacting.

  Cheater liked to work with Flinch, too. Despite his protests about stereotyping, he loved to scream “Hiyaaaa!” and throw what I guess was some kind of karate chop.

  Torchie was making progress, too. Even though he still hadn’t figured out exactly what made it happen, the very fact that he spent time each day trying to start fires seemed to have cut down on unintentional flames.

  I, on the other hand, managed to get into more trouble than ever. I tried—I really tried to keep my mouth shut around my teachers. But I just couldn’t help it—especially when someone like Parsons got in my face and gave me a hard time. He really hated me. So did almost all the teachers.

  And that explains how I was the first in our group to learn the news. Flinch could see into the future, and Cheater could read minds. Lucky could find things. But I found out what was happening the old-fashioned way. I stuck my nose where it didn’t belong.

  MOB VIOLENCE

  The next Friday, right after classes. I was sitting in detention once again. It was Miss Nomad’s turn to play zookeeper. But she wasn’t paying much attention to us. Her desk was covered with leaning towers of papers and file folders. She was busy cleaning out one of her desk drawers when she knocked over a file folder, spilling a stack of papers.

  “I got it,” I said.

  “Thank you, Martin.” She smiled at me, and then went back to sorting through the drawer.

  I guess I still felt sort of bad about some of the things I’d said to her. Maybe I could say something nice about one of her poems. I walked over to the front of her desk and started gathering up the papers. But it wasn’t a pile of poems. The folder was labeled ALTERNATIVE EDUCATION COMMITTEE. When I saw that the sheet on top was a memo from Principal Davis, I couldn’t help reading it. I skimmed the memo, and then the next piece of paper. It was a copy of a letter from the state Board of Education. There was a bunch of other stuff: memos, letters, even some copies of newspaper articles. I didn’t look at all of it, but I saw enough to know what was going on.

  After detention, I rushed upstairs. I reached the room at the same time as Cheater.

  “Wait till you hear my news,” he said.

  “I’ve got news, too,” I told him.

  “What is it?” Torchie asked.

  “The state might close this place,” I explained. “They’re having this big inspection at the end of the year.”

  “Why would they close Edgeview?” Torchie asked.

  “I guess some people don’t think the school is doing any good.” It felt strange to realize that there were people arguing over what was best for me—people who had never met me, people who had never bothered to ask my opinion.

  “Well, it isn’t, is it?” Lucky said.

  “I don’t know.” I wasn’t sure. Not that it mattered what I thought. There wasn’t anything any of us could do. We didn’t have that kind of power. The adults were going to make the decision. And June was far away. “What’s your news?” I asked Cheater.

  “Check this out,” he said, pulling a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket. “It was in yesterday’s newspaper.”

  “Pinball tournament!” I said, reading the ad. “Hey, it’s tonight at nine.”

  “So what?” Trash asked. “They won’t let us go.” He looked around the room at us. “Hey, what are you all grinning about?”

  “You’ll see,” I told him. “I just hope you aren’t afraid of high places.” It was time for a road trip. And so we added Trash to our Friday night gang and headed off that evening for MondoVideo, our pockets filled with quarters thanks to Lucky and his endless supply.

  The Edgies never had a chance.

  I thought for sure Flinch would win the tournament. I hadn’t counted on Trash’s telekinesis. He kept giving the ball a little nudge here and there. Just enough to keep it in play and make it hit the highest-scoring targets and bumpers.

  In the end, Trash took first place, Flinch took second, and I took third. I figured my third place was just as good as a first, since I was the only player without any special advantage. We all got little plastic trophies, and some angry looks from the Edgies.

  I didn’t think it would go any further than that. But they were waiting for us outside the arcade. Ten or twelve of them. “Get out of here,” the Edgie at the front of the pack said. He looked like he was at least sixteen. He was wearing a varsity jacket—the kind you get when you play sports, with a big E for “Edgeview High” in front that had a picture of a football in the middle of the letter. He was the biggest one in the crowd.

  “We’re going,” I said. I started to cross the street.

  “Yeah,” Flinch said. “No reason to stay. We got our trophies.”

  The guy with the varsity jacket swore and said, “Don’t come back.”

  The others followed me across the street and we headed toward the school.

  As we reached the wooded hill that led to the pipe, Cheater said, “Uh-oh.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Is anyone here thinking about kicking the crap out of me?” he asked.

  “Not me,” I said.

  “Me either,” Lucky said.

  “Maybe tomorrow,” Flinch told him. “But not at the moment.”

  “I sure ain’t,” Torchie said.

  I had a sudden bad feeling. “Do you only pick up stuff from people real close by?” I asked Cheater.

  “As far as I know,” he said.

  “What if a bunch of people had the same thought? You think it might carry farther?” As I said this, I looked behind us.

  Half a block away, we were being stalked by a mob of Edgies.

  “Should we make a run for it?” Cheater asked, glancing toward the woods.

  That didn’t sound like a bad idea to me. The end of the pipe was masked by bushes. If we headed right into the woods, we could be out of sight before the Edgies caught up. On the other hand, I hated to run away. I waited to see what the others did.

  “I don’t know about you guys,” Lucky said, “but I’m tired of everyone treating me like garbage.” He stopped walking and turned to face the Edgies. “Nobody’s pushing me around.”

  “Yeah, no more,” Flinch said. He stopped walking, too.

  “No more,” Cheater said.

  Torchie nodded. He moved next to Cheater. So did I.

  The varsity jacket guy stepped out from the mob as the rest of them stopped about ten feet from us. “I don’t want to see you around here again. Got it?”

  Lucky moved toward him. “Then keep your eyes closed, jerk.” Varsity swore again and pushed Lucky with both hands.

  Lucky staggered two steps away, then lunged forward and returned the shove. Varsity went back hard. He plowed into the Edgies behind him, and a couple of them went down. I would have been amazed at Lucky’s strength if I hadn’t been standing next to Trash. His grunt told me what had really happened—he’d given Varsity a little extra push.

  A couple of the Edgies slipped toward the back of the mob. We were still outnumbered, but the odds were getting better.

  “You asked for it,” Varsity said as he scrambled to his feet. He pulled off his jacket and threw it to the ground. It landed where I could read the name written across the back. Walden. I guess that was his last name.

  “Kick his butt, Walden,” a kid in the mob said.

  “Yeah, stomp on his face,�
� another kid shouted.

  I still didn’t like the odds. If Lucky won, the rest of the kids might jump him. If he lost, they’d probably jump us. If we ran, they were close enough to catch us. It was time for a show of force.

  As they told us in school: Act like a criminal and people will treat you like one. I stepped up next to Lucky and spat out the first lie that came to mind. “Hey, I’m already doing time for assault. What’s a few more years?” I figured, with our reputation, they might think I really was dangerous. I did my best to look mean.

  “Gonna have your hands full,” Flinch said, stepping next to me. He leaned forward, putting his face close to Walden. “But I don’t think I have anything to worry about. You probably punch like a little old lady.” He turned his head away from Walden and grinned at us.

  Walden threw a sucker punch, trying to hit Flinch when he wasn’t looking.

  Needless to say, Flinch’s head was nowhere near Walden’s fist.

  “Missed, granny,” Flinch said as Walden spun halfway around in his attempt to smash what wasn’t there.

  Torchie headed for the woods. Oh man, if he ran, we were doomed. Any sign of weakness and the mob would rush us. I was about to call after him when he returned, clutching a thick stick. He stepped next to Flinch, holding the stick at both ends. I could see a glowing spot in the center on the side nearest Flinch. I had no idea what he planned to do with a burning stick. He turned to his right and nodded to Cheater.

  “What’s he doing?” I whispered to Lucky.

  Lucky shrugged.

  Walden looked over his shoulder. His buddies were all hanging back. “Come on,” he urged. “Let’s kick some butt.”

  None of them moved.

  Cheater stepped next to Torchie. He threw up his hands like a karate master. I thought he was going to chop the stick, splitting it with his hand. But he didn’t do that. Instead, he paused, glanced at Trash, then at Torchie, and pointed up in the air over Torchie’s head. Trash smiled and nodded.

  Torchie raised the stick, holding it high over his head, still grasping it with one hand at each end.