Knack (Benjamin Brown Book 1)

by Tom Twitchel

  The rest of the period was pretty basic, ground rules, important semester dates and supply needs. Justine must have looked in my direction over a dozen times, winking and smiling at me in response to Mrs. Sayles’ heavy Boston accent. At one point, she had actually said “wicked good” and it had been all we could do not to laugh out loud.

  When class had ended, Justine waited for me to get up.

  “See you later, Benny,” she said as she walked past me and gently bumped me with her hip. I was blushing again (had she meant to do that?) and barely managed to say “later.”

  All of my other classes blended together, each of them setting up expectations and handing out schedules. AP calculus and AP English had heavy assignments, which were met with predictable groaning.

  Day one, for the most part, was pretty tame. Lunch was interesting.

  When I got to lunch, I picked out a table with just a few other kids seated at it and set my tray down, looking for Baffle. Not seeing him, I sat down, scanning the crowd, craning my neck and trying to spot him.

  “Is anyone sitting here?” I looked up into Justine’s brown eyes.

  Probably should save the spot for Baffle. “Nope. Just you.”

  Chuckling, she grabbed a seat and started unloading her tray.

  “You never called me over the summer. No texts, no tweets. I thought for sure you might just say “Hi.”

  I started to respond, who knows what would have come out of my mouth at that point? It seemed to have a life of its own. But before I could, I felt something slam into my back.

  “Hey, watch it crip. People are tryin’ to get through.”

  Coby Munger, a Witkowski pack mate, walked by with the remains of Rusty’s posse trailing behind him. They snickered at their new leader’s humor.

  “Hey Coby! Don’t trip!” I called after him, at the same time that I reached out with my knack and caused his feet to slide out from under him. He and his friends went down in a tangle of arms and legs. When Coby struggled to his feet, he turned to glare at me, obviously thinking about coming back in my direction. The dining room monitor had reached him by then and tapped him on the arm, directing him and his crew to start cleaning up the mess. Giving me another dirty look, he angrily began picking up dishes and food off the floor. Several kids at nearby tables covered their smiles, enjoying Coby’s misfortune.

  “Oh, my gosh! I can’t believe he tripped right after you said that! He is such a jerk!” Justine giggled, not trying to hide her amusement at all. “You would think they’d all take a lesson from what happened to Rusty. Are you okay?”

  Rolling my shoulder, I nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m a target for morons. You know, bad leg, good grades. Maybe I should start flunking a few classes, join their crowd.”

  “I know you’re not serious. And it wouldn’t matter to boys like them no matter what you looked like or what your grades were. Haters just hate. They don’t need a reason.” She frowned in Coby’s direction.

  “Easy there. I might get the wrong idea and think you were…” I trailed off, not sure I knew what I was getting ready to say.

  Her smile was wide, blinding, expectant. “I’m what? What were you going to say, Benny?”

  My tongue suddenly felt too big for my mouth. “Umm…I’m not sure what dumb as…what stupid remark was getting ready to come out of my mouth. I’ve been saying all kinds of goofy stuff today.” That was certainly true.

  “Are you flirting with me?” she smiled, clearly not upset but just as clearly wanting an answer.

  I swallowed hard. “Me? No. I’m just trying to enjoy lunch and not say the wrong thing.”

  “Flirting wouldn’t be the wrong thing you know.” She smiled and my heart started beating too loud.

  “I—”

  “You got room for me?” Baffle said as he loudly dropped his tray on the table, spilling his peas all over his tray.

  “Uh, yeah, just help yourself,” I said.

  Justine’s smile drooped a little. She looked at Baffle’s tray, wrinkling her nose.

  “Oh, wow. Whirled peas! Get it? W-h-i-r-l-e-d p-e-a-s. World peace,” Baffle joked.

  “I get it. Hilarious.” Justine sniffed.

  “Stooopid.” I chuckled. For all of his brilliance, his inability to read a social situation correctly was…well, baffling. Pun intended.

  Baffle smirked at me and then leered at her. “Have you seen my new car?”

  “No,” she said, plainly not interested in Baffle’s new ride.

  Baffle warmed up to his new favorite topic. “Oh, you should. Leather, GPS, V-8 and dual exhaust.”

  “That’s nice,” Justine replied blandly.

  Not picking up on her lack of interest, Baffle plowed ahead. “Oh, it’s nice all right. It’s so smooth and really safe. Airbags all around. You should let me give you a ride.” What the heck was he doing?

  Justine smiled crookedly, “I’ve got a car, a Prius, but thanks anyway.”

  Seemed like everyone in my tiny social circle had gotten wheels over the summer except me.

  Leaning back and putting his arm on the back of my chair, he smiled smugly. “Well, if you change your mind just let me know.”

  Putting her things back onto her tray, Justine stood up. “I’m going to finish with my girlfriends. See you tomorrow, Benny.”

  We watched her walk away. Baffle turned to look at me. “What’s her problem?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess cars aren’t her thing.” I tried not to let my disappointment at her leaving show. I didn’t need Baffle stirring the pot with Maddy.

  We spent the rest of lunch period talking about his car. I tried not to be jealous, but I won’t lie, it was hard. He promised to give me a ride home. While he chattered away about his new toy, I half listened and thought about what my interaction with Justine meant.

  At the end of the day, I waited for a half hour for Baffle, but not seeing his Land Rover I concluded that I’d been ditched. Several texts failed to get a response.

  Yup, ditched for sure.

  Of all the indignities that your high school friends can lay on you, getting ditched is right up there close to the top of the list.

  I was pretty sure there was a blond girl sitting where I should have been.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Passing by Goodturn’s on my way home brought unfamiliar feelings to mind, unhappiness being first. Sorting through how I was going to reconcile what he had told me was going to take a while.

  I’d texted Maddy to see how her first day had gone at O’Dea, and she was flooded with homework. I guessed that the curriculum at a Catholic high school was intentionally packed, you know, to keep all the students busy and engaged with academics instead of getting into trouble. She was going to be unavailable until the weekend at the earliest.

  I knacked opened the door to my apartment building and caught the aroma of fresh floor wax. Breno was sweating, moving a mop over the floor with fierce determination.

  “Is this dry?” I asked, not wanting to mess up his work, especially after what I’d put him through the day before.

  He took a couple of extra swipes at the area to the side of the stairs and then looked up. His face was covered in sweat, but he was smiling.

  “Yeah. It’s mostly dry over there. I’m jus’ puttin’ a lil bit more right here. I like it shiny.”

  Stepping over the threshold, I looked at the floor, carefully avoiding any areas that looked a little wet.

  I stopped on the first step, kind of my thing I guess. “Breno, can I talk to you for a minute?” I was afraid he would go bonkers like he had the day before because of how much I had upset him. His crying had really made me mad at myself. Bringing pain to someone so simple and innocent had to be a sin.

  His goofy grin immediately removed all my fears. “Sure! You jus’ finish school?” He put his mop into a bucket sitting off to the side and carefully balanced the handle against the staircase rail, gently patting the handle like it was a puppy that might not sta
y put.

  “Yeah, first day. Hey, I wanted to say I’m sorry about yesterday. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Breno walked over to where I was standing, towering over me. “‘Pologize? Why you ‘pologizing Benny? I ain’t mad.”

  Short-term memory loss? Or maybe memory of discussions about his house burning down got flushed by whatever Mr. Goodturn had put in his head.

  “I just thought I upset you and I wanted to say I was sorry. You’re my friend and friends shouldn’t upset each other.” I was never sure how certain concepts would translate in that big noggin of his.

  Smiling, but furrowing his brow slightly Breno nodded distractedly. “Yeah, friends should be nice. Yer nice, Benny.”

  It was more than I deserved, but I was relieved that he didn’t have any lingering worries over our talk. His eyes drifted toward the front of the lobby and he and I both saw her at the same time.

  “Miz Lap Pam. I told on her,” he whispered. He didn’t seem to have any trouble remembering that she’d upset him.

  When she got to the door, she saw us, or at least Breno. Standing outside, without opening the door, a wicked smile curved her lips and she dug in the purse hanging on her shoulder. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

  Breno moaned softly. “She better not. Better not.” He started to sway from side to side.

  Having seen this little show before and kicking myself for not coming to Breno’s defense, I said a silent prayer of thanks for this golden opportunity to teach her a lesson, which is probably ironic, because what I was preparing to do wouldn’t have pleased my maker.

  Her nasty grin deepening, even with a cigarette jammed into the corner of her mouth. She lit it and swiped her card.

  The first thing I did was make the card slip out of her hand and fall to the sidewalk. As she bent over it, I knocked the cherry off her ciggy and onto her jacket. Then I compressed the fuel lever and flicked the wheel of her lighter, and made it fall into her purse. She reached for the card, oblivious to what was coming. I scooted the card a few feet toward the sidewalk. She almost tripped, but she finally got it. Standing up with that same mean-spirited smile painted on her face, she started walking back toward the door. It was right then that she realized there was more smoke around her than a single cigarette should give off. Her crappy little smile slipped.

  Whatever her coat was made of, it sure burned great. She dropped her purse, which was smoking pretty well on its own. She started spinning around, smacking at her jacket. Realizing it was not going out she shrugged out of it, picked it up and started to slap the coat against the ground. She got the coat out but the breeze from slapping it against the sidewalk had fanned the baby fire in her purse just enough to help it along as a small flame became visible. Yelping, she pounced on the purse with her shoes, doing a demented tap dance all over it. She must have cracked the lighter case and released all of the fuel because the purse burst into flames while she continued to stomp on it.

  When she finally put out her purse fire, she was a sight. Her hair was going in about six different directions, she had dark smudges on her face and her shirt had several small burn holes in it that I was sure she hadn’t noticed yet.

  Yeah, I know, not very nice but that crack she had made about Breno being a retard deserved a little payback, not to mention that whispered comment she had aimed at me.

  Breno had stared at the whole spectacle with his mouth hanging open. Not a flattering look, but hey, who am I to judge? I was grinning from ear to ear and staring with my pie hole open too. Lunging for the door, she swiped her card and wrenched at the handle. I focused on the tumblers and the latch and the door held shut. She swiped the card two or three times with no luck. She couldn’t get in. She screamed at us to open the door and Breno started to move to let her in. I put my hand on his arm and held him back. Truth to tell I didn’t have to use much force. Breno looked down at me with the ghost of a smile on his lips.

  She banged on the windows for moment or two and then stepped back. Throwing her arms out, she yelled something that didn’t sound very nice and then stalked off.

  Grinning up at Breno, I took my hand off his arm.

  “She made fire,” he said.

  I couldn’t help myself; I laughed. “Yeah, but she made it outside.”

  It was short lived and so deep that I wasn’t completely sure what I’d heard, but I’m fairly certain that Breno actually snorted.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The remainder of my first week as a “super” sophomore settled into a pattern with schoolwork, reputations and relationships finding their own rhythm for the new school year.

  Homeroom became my favorite period with Justine’s nearby seat and our flirting. There, I said it. I might not have been good at it but to quote my mother “Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.”

  My lunch period alternated between sharing it with Baffle or Justine. Sometimes, Justine joined me with one or two of her friends, which was okay. When Baffle wasn’t with me, he was either with the blond, Gabrielle or he would try to join Munger’s group. That struck me as odd and offensive. Munger was a jerk.

  What the attraction was I couldn’t figure, but Baff’s orbit around that group was always way outside the center, which was Munger, and it was obvious to anyone watching that he wasn’t much more than a hanger-on. Munger was so clearly an ass that Baffle’s fascination with him really confused me.

  Baff was unreliable when promising a lift home the whole week. On Thursday, when he pulled a no-show, I saw him driving out of the parking lot with Gabby in the front seat and several of her girlfriends in the back. I had been close enough to Gabby to read that her interest in Baffle had everything to do with his new car and nothing to do with any interest in him as a boyfriend. Even though I lacked experience in advising friends on the intricacies of relationships with girls, I knew intuitively that he would not appreciate being enlightened about Gabrielle’s true reasons for hanging out with him.

  Men, and I guess boys too, must suffer to learn.

  During the first week back at the academic grind, Maddy and I texted back and forth every evening, but we were both swamped with homework and projects so the exchanges were brief and generic. I was still very uptight about screwing up the only decent relationship I had. All I needed was to try something dumb, like leaning in to kiss her or telling her how I felt, and that would get me the dreaded “Let’s just be friends” speech followed by never seeing her again.

  No way, Jose.

  Texts from Justine occasionally intermingled with Maddy’s. I experienced a twinge of guilt when her name came up on my phone’s screen. During those moments, I would stare at my phone like it was a snake that had snuck into my apartment. Fortunately, not answering a text was a surefire way to minimize getting in trouble, although girls can get real pissy when you don’t text back. Regardless, that was my “go to” solution.

  Each afternoon that I passed by Goodturn’s on the way home without going in I felt more conflicted. I was slowly getting to a place where I was justifying what he had done to Breno and the people who had tried to rob him. But what he had taken from Miss Hoch kept bothering me. He had said that I didn’t know what she had planned to do about me but did that make her evil? He had also said that he never meddled with an innocent. Other than being obsessed with her job, what had she done to mark her as corrupt or impure?

  I was going to have to talk to him eventually. To his credit, he hadn’t bothered me or tried to force the issue. He was giving me time to figure it out. I hadn’t shared any details with Maddy or Baffle. Baffle had other things on his mind (or his hormones) and Maddy and I hadn’t discussed Mr. Goodturn’s standoff with the hold-up guy in months.

  Evenings were focused on homework and practicing my knacks. I could manifest the camouflage knack at will but other than getting good at a new knack, I thought there wasn’t really any way to apply it for profit because it wasn’t true invisibility. If I tried it in front of a cr
owd, they might be able to see me and that would lead to explanations I wasn’t prepared to share with a crowd of strangers. My skill at illusions and telekinesis had improved a lot. I could flick cards or small objects, like marbles, and turn them into missiles and I’d finessed the ability to create enough force to make a card stick in a wall when I influenced it in mid-flight.

  By the time the weekend rolled around, I had caught up on most of my homework and was hoping for good weather. I needed to make some money.

  Every year Seattleites pray for an extended summer, and each year those prayers are answered with a wet, sloppy “No.” The first weekend of school that year was a rare exception with the forecast calling for low seventies. Anyone living in Puget Sound will tell you, that is pure gold. For me, it meant I would have an opportunity to make up for the overcast skies the previous week that had put a crimp in my budget.

  Maddy’s folks were making up for lost time so she wasn’t able to get away after all, and as much as I would have liked to have been chauffeured to the park, I wasn’t willing to call Baffle. He’d bailed on me three times that week and I was more than a little pissed at him.

  Teenagers are so immature.

  At least I wasn’t bitter.

  Much.

  So Saturday morning arrived with the promised sunshine and no friends to accompany me. I figured I had stressed Breno enough recently and I didn’t really want a babysitter, so no hulking bodyguard on this trip. Obsessing about the mail hadn’t caused my stun gun to show up any faster so I was without my new choice of personal protection, but the sun and clear skies chased away gloomy thoughts.

  How could anything bad happen in broad daylight?

  Color me gullible or just plain stupid.

  I chose Freemont Park again for a change of pace and besides, at Canal Park if I showed up without her, people often asked where she was.