by Jennie Brown
Logan took the initiative and stood up. “So, let’s get started,” he said abruptly and almost a little too drill-sergeant-like while clapping his hands in our faces.
Ellie and I flinched backward, looked at each other, and laughed. Heart beat still—that was like the second time today we actually laughed as if we were semi-acquaintances.
She rolled her eyes.
“We all have had a glimpse of that old meanie clothes-too-tight Larriby,” Logan said. I snorted. It was cute that he used silly little nicknames to recognize people like I do. Did I just say cute? I meant to say nice. It was nice.
Ellie smirked at me.
“She probably has all our stuff locked up somewhere on campus.” Logan paused, and turned toward Sam. “You were here last year, did anyone say anything about this?”
Sam’s blue eyes pulled away from the magazine and he scratched his orange puffy head. “I have no idea. In fact, I didn’t even know about the stuff going missing. Like Larriby said, nobody has ever gotten to go home early, so why would people admit that they failed at her stupid little challenge?”
The bed shook as Ellie stood up and started to pace. “I need that bracelet back. What if we can’t find the stuff? Will that fashion-challenged, ugly, hateful woman actually keep them, like, forever?”
We all shrugged. No one could possibly know the answer. But, considering the way Headmistress Larriby had been treating us since we got here, she just might. That really scared me.
“What about Pickle? She’s actually a living thing!” I said, thinking about how scared she must be without me. I could see it now. She was probably shaking uncontrollably in some dark corner of this prison just waiting for me to save her. Sure, Larriby told me she was safe, but how could I possibly know that for sure?
“Shut up about that stupid Peanut!” Ellie shouted, eyes burning into mind. “It’s your own fault for bringing that furry little creature to Power Academy, anyway. And your fault we’re even here because of that stupid chair stunt.” She paced toward the door and dramatically whipped her head around so that her long hair went flying. “So maybe your stupid dog deserved to get taken!”
The room grew silent once again.
“That was pretty harsh, Ellie,” Sam said, setting the magazine on his nightstand.
“Even for you,” I sarcastically added, tentatively making eye contact with her—surprised that I’d even said it.
“Well, I’m not sorry,” she said, breaking eye contact and gently sitting back down next to me.
Boy did she have a temper. Work together, huh? This was going to be one long summer.
Chapter Thirteen
So, while discussing our little challenge the next morning, we all decided that the best time, and only time, really, for us all to meet would be at dinner (which really wasn’t the safest) and then during the dorm room time—which we would have to risk getting caught outside of our rooms.
Even though we had a time slot every other day for “Team” practice, it turned out that those sessions were held in the library and supervised by Headmistress Clothes-too-tight. She was probably going to do everything in her power to ensure we didn’t find our missing items, so that would not be the best time to discuss our strategy—especially with her being a Thursday.
We also decided that each of us was going to have to work our butts off during our separate power-intensive classes. The better we mastered our powers, the more likely we could get our stuff back in the next few weeks. And the sooner we got our stuff, the sooner I would be lounging by the pool with Veronica sunbathing on one side of me and a big glass of cold lemonade on the other. I pictured Pickle in her cute purple-and-silver swimsuit and smiled. Mrs. Larriby said she was safe and sound, but I was super worried about her.
“Hey,” Logan said, passing me with a tray of disgusting-looking food in his hands.
I turned my nose up and pointed to the dog-food-looking pile in front of him. “Is that what I think it is?”
He shoved a giant bite in his mouth. “If you’re thinking of turkey and stuffing with gravy … then yeah, that’s exactly what this is.” He took another bite right in my face and smiled. “Mmm … I love Thanksgiving in summer,” he said through chews.
I swallowed hard, trying not to look down at the tray of vomit-like food as he continued on to our table. Since you could choose either the prepared meal (turkey grossness) or the fresh fruit bar, it was easy to see that I would be having a banana with peanut butter for dinner, even though it’s a little too healthy for my liking. Where’s the mac-n-cheese and hotdogs when you need ’em?
I noticed that Ellie was going the healthier route as well. Wouldn’t want to put a pound on that dainty little figure, now would we?
Ellie had uttered maybe a total of four sentences to me these first few days at Power Academy. Since her freak-out in the boys’ room she still felt I was to blame for this whole challenge thing, and had been anything but nice. Her icy glares and blatant attempts at ignoring me were all the evidence I needed to know for sure that she hated me. The fact that we would never even come close to being friends was solidified. I just didn’t get why she was so mean to me.
“So, what did you all find out?” Sam asked once we all got settled at the table.
Ellie pushed her plate of strawberries away and leaned in. I leaned away from her, but more importantly, from the stuffing. Yuck.
“I totally read my power teacher Mr. Brotwurst’s mind. You know, just to see if he knew anything,” she said, only making eye contact with Logan and Sam. It stung a little.
“Yeah?” Logan prompted.
Ellie sounded like she might have something good here.
“And …” Her eyes darted around, looking for any adults in the room. “It turns out that he is like totally a compulsive booger-eater.”
This information had absolutely nothing to do with our mission. “What?” I asked, slightly annoyed.
“I know, gross, right?” Wide-eyed, she looked around at us (the boys) only to be greeted by dumbfounded expressions. “All he wanted to do all class was just reach up there and—”
“We get it,” Logan cut her off.
The turkey stuffing was bad enough. Did we really have to discuss nose-picking and booger-eating? And I thought I had gotten away from people like Mark Masters—the nose-picking king of Nova.
Her shoulders slumped over. “Sorry. He just didn’t think about anything useful for us. And you would think that in a room full of Thursdays he would censor his thoughts!”
I looked at the guys. “What about you two? Anything?”
They shrugged in unison.
“It doesn’t seem like any of my teachers know a thing,” said Sam. “But it’s not like I can read minds or anything.” He had this goofy smile on his face as he said this to Ellie.
I may not know much about flirting, but it seemed that Sam was totally making googly eyes at her. Better Ellie than me.
Logan shook his head. “Found nothing either.”
We were so busy in my power intensive class starting with the basic stuff like moving feathers and lightweight objects that couldn’t hurt anyone if they suddenly flew out of control (which mine did, bummer), that I didn’t have the chance to talk to Miss Maggie about a thing. But I wasn’t so sure she would know much of anything anyhow.
“Well, maybe, like, the teachers know about Larriby’s challenge, but they aren’t allowed to say anything. You know?” Ellie said, quickly glancing at me, taking the words directly out of my head. Her cherry-ChapSticked lips curled into a smirk.
“She did say that we have to work together, so it would make sense for her to leave it completely up to us,” I added, looking toward Ellie.
She stared at her fruit. So annoying! I should have given up on the whole trying to be nice to her thing. It was getting me nowhere.
“Yeah. Maybe Mr. Brotwurst thought about eating his boogers all day because he didn’t want to give anythin
g away through his thoughts,” Logan added, taking a bite of stuffing. I cringed. How could he eat that? But he definitely had a point about Brotwurst’s thoughts.
“Or maybe he just likes the taste of ’em,” Sam added.
We all chuckled. Grossfest all the way!
“Or maybe it’s Headmistress Larriby’s and Mr. Grimeley’s own little test?” Sam said as some gravy ran down his chin. Ick. “The less people they tell, the less likely we’re able to find our stuff.”
Logan’s fingers tapped the bottom of his chin. Sam picked up on the signal and wiped the gravy from his face. Ellie and I laughed.
“But, either way, no one is saying,” I looked at Ellie, “or thinking, a thing.”
We sat in silence, contemplating what we could do next.
“What if we break into Old Lady Larriby’s office? Maybe she has something in there that can point us in the right direction,” Sam offered enthusiastically. Really, having Ellie read her teachers’ minds didn’t get us too far, so this was probably the next best thing.
“Yeah,” Logan added, “if Headmistress Larriby and Mr. Grimeley are the only two who know where our stuff is hidden, then chances are we can find something in there.”
“Especially if she needs to lock it up like that. Something big has to be in there!” exclaimed Sam.
“But if we get caught?” Ellie asked. “It is a bit risky.”
“If we do it right, we won’t get caught.” I realized how confident I sounded. All eyes were on me—even Ellie’s. I needed to come up with something fast.
“Okay … Logan, what if you use your Friday power to disappear?” I paused, hoping the rest of the plan would come to me in the next few seconds.
Three sets of eyes prompted me to go on.
“Of course we would do this after Mrs. Larriby has gone to her private room for the night and the rest of P.A. is sound asleep.”
“Do you think she lives here all year round?” Ellie asked totally off-topic, twirling a few strands of flat-ironed hair around her finger. Ditzy, much?
“Back to the topic at hand,” Logan stated firmly and sent a crooked smile my way.
“And then you could just sneak into the room, and find something … anything that could lead us to our stuff.”
Sam opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by Logan.
“I can do it, but I need another few days or so to build up the strength. I’ve used my Friday power a lot the last week, and my energy is drained.”
I thought back to him disappearing on the bus, disappearing the night we snuck in the boys’ room, and I’m sure he disappeared a lot during his power-intensive classes. That would get exhausting.
“It wouldn’t matter,” said Sam matter-of-factly, finally getting his word in.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Didn’t any of you notice the giant locking keypad on the door?”
My eyes immediately shot to Sam’s.
As if he read my mind, he shook his head. “I tried last year.”
My jaw dropped. Sam really was a total rebel.
He continued. “My Wednesday powers didn’t work with it. We would need the actual combination.”
The breaking in idea came to a dead-end quick.
“We have our meetings with nostril-man Mr. Grimeley, so why don’t I try reading him?” Ellie said, trying to redeem herself from today’s nose-picking discovery of Mr. Brotwurst’s that was pretty much worthless to our cause.
“Maybe we could try to find out some info again, and then we can give the whole breaking in thing a shot,” Logan said, nodding his head as two pieces of hair fell in his face. Yet again.
Part of me wanted to reach over there and push them out of the way, but instead I concentrated really hard on moving them away using my Monday power. What harm could that do? Plus, we all agreed that we needed to practice as much as possible.
As I concentrated on the hair, in the corner of my eye I caught Logan’s wrist tracing the spoon around the edge of his plate, attempting to get every last bit of make-me-wanna-barf food that was stuck to it. Just as the strands were about to move from his face, the whole gross food-on-spoon thought popped into my head, and before I could make it stop, stuffing and gravy projected from the spoon. Most of the grossness landed on the floor, but a few chunks splattered on Ellie’s perfect little pink cardigan.
“Eeeek! Poppy! What the heck?” Ellie bolted up, scooped the stuffing off her cardigan, and threw it, ick, back at me.
“I didn’t mean to. I swear,” I said brushing the glob from my tank top and onto the table.
She spun around so fast that strawberries flew off her tray and into my hair. “Let’s just find our stupid stuff and get the heck out of here. I can’t deal with the ugliness that is you anymore.” The look she gave me as she walked out the door told me that she truly could not stand the sight of me.
I picked the strawberry pieces out of my hair, and looked across the table to see the boys uproariously laughing.
“Meow,” Logan said, with fingers bent out like a cat.
They may have been amused, but I wasn’t.
Chapter Fourteen
Bff Veronica,
I totally can’t believe I’m actually handwriting you a letter. I mean, yes we write out our notes to each other in school and stuff, but a hand-written letter? Anyway, it’s been only a couple of days here, and guess what? My powers are getting better. Really … they are! Although they probably aren’t as awesome as they should be, I was able to write with chalk in my Power Academy class. No Hands! We are going to start working on moving heavier stuff soon. Miss Maggie says that she’s impressed by me! Yippee!
So, you’ll never guess what??? There is a chance that I will be coming home early! I could even be home before you get this through old snail mail. Okay, so this place is a total nightmare, and that’s mainly cause of Headmistress Larriby, greasy-nostril-man Mr. Grimeley, and the fact that they totally took Pickle hostage and are hiding her—I will explain that whole disaster at a later time. Craziness. Not to mention the worst part of camp—fakeity-fake-o Ellie Preston who is nice to me one minute, but terrible the next. I tried Mondaying it up yesterday, and it kind of backfired. Some stuffing and gravy kind of stuck in her hair, and so she hasn’t talked to me since. Ugh. BTW, she’s my roommate. I feel like the last two years of her nastiness are on repeat. Over and over again, and I can’t get away because she’s always here! She makes snide remarks under her breath and blatantly ignores me. So annoying.
I miss you bunches, and can’t wait to spend the rest of the summer hanging out. Just cross your fingers that my powers will work well enough to let me get out of here early!
Xoxo,
Poppy
“Fakeity-fake-o Ellie?” I heard Ellie’s shrill voice come from behind me. She plopped a bottle of nail polish down on the dresser. This girl was seriously painting her nails every single day.
I guess her whole silent treatment was up. I tried apologizing like fifty times yesterday and at least ten more times just this morning, and instead of even glancing up at me, she would simply go back to filing her nails. She really was obsessed with them.
“Could you at least attempt to stay out of my thoughts?” I said, rolling my eyes. “That’s what got you here in the first place.” Two can play the snotty game. And I was tired of trying to win her over with kindness.
“And if I knew I’d be stuck with you then I definitely wouldn’t have used them back at Nova Elementary.” Her eyes burned into mine as she angrily pulled her hair back in a messy bun.
I could never get the messy bun thing to look right on me.
She threw herself on her bed and sighed heavily.
I did the same. There was that strange awkward silence again.
I sighed. She sighed. We lay there across from each other just … well … sighing. It was like each of us had something to say, but were too afraid to say it.
This girl w
as impossible!
As if we both read each other’s thoughts, we sat up at exactly the same time.
“It’s just …” we said simultaneously.
“You go,” Ellie demanded.
“No, you go.”
She sat across from me cross-legged with her eyes cast down to her fluorescent-pink yoga pants. It kind of looked like she was either going to cry or she was just concentrating on something really hard.
She finally looked up after like a trillion minutes of silence, and when she did, I thought that I could see a little bit of wetness in the corner of her right eye.
“I just feel like I have to always use my powers because—” Whatever she was about to say must be pretty darn good, but it also made me feel uncomfortable. Her eyes darted back down toward her pants. “Because I don’t know how to get by without reading minds.” Her eyes met mine for a second, and then looked back down at the carpet below. Ellie was insecure. She looked me directly in the eyes. “And the—”
“But you get by just fine,” I cut her off, trying to hold back the bitterness, thinking about how she always seemed to “get by” by being a witch and especially nasty to me. My voice softened. “Just think how lucky you are that you can use your Thursday power whenever you want, Ellie.” She really was lucky. “All I want is to be able to control mine, but every time I think I have it all under control, everything goes crazy. Like last night at dinner for example.”
She let out a chuckle, which was hard to believe considering her angry reaction to one of my truly accidental Monday disasters. She laughed some more and her head fell forward so that a few strands of hair escaped from her bun and covered her face. “Or the chair incident with Headmistress Larriby.”
I caved and joined in with her laughing, thinking about Larriby’s body plopping to the ground. “Yeah. That chair thing was pretty epi—”