Poppy Mayberry, Return to Power Academy

by Jennie K. Brown

  His arm rose, and in another gust of wind the side stage doors flew open to reveal a spread of trees outside.

  “You are playing vibrant, magical creatures.” His eyes darted from person to person. “You have energy, vivaciousness, and exuberance.”

  I didn’t know what those last two words meant, but I was pretty sure it was something exciting. And overly dramatic, of course. Drama seemed to be this guy’s middle name.

  “We need an exercise to get you all into character.” He tapped his pointer finger on his chin. “Your characters live in nature. In the forest. So tomorrow, everyone grab your scripts. We’re going outside for inspiration.”

  To the tune of “London Bridge is Falling Down”, he sang, “To the forest we shall go.” This man was crazy.

  And although Mr. Fluxnut said this would be fun and fantastic, my memories of the haunted forest were anything but.

  Chapter Ten

  I knew that I wanted Sabrina to master her power well before the performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so I decided it would be best to meet during our lunch the next day. Not only that, but I wanted to get to know her a little better. It wasn’t as if Headmistress Larriby left us much room in our schedule to do that.

  “So what can we work on today?” Sabrina asked. We were on the front lawn of the Academy, right in front of the giant entry arches, sitting in the bright green grass.

  “I was thinking we could just start with something light. Something simple,” I said, unclasping the leash from around Pickle’s neck. I rubbed behind Pickle’s ears. “Now, don’t you run away, girl!”

  Sabrina grabbed the two ends of the open collar and pushed the plastic clasp together.

  “Do you really think I’m going to let you do it that way?” I asked, using my Monday power to pull the collar from Sabrina’s hands. With my telekinesis, I opened the collar once again and then set it down in the grass between us.

  “Using your Monday power, I want you to gently lift the collar from the ground and clasp it around Pickle’s neck.”

  Sabrina’s nose scrunched. “But what if I pull it too tight?” she asked.

  “You won’t. I’m here to help you out if I need to,” I said, giving her a reassuring smile.

  The purple collar still rested between us. Pickle’s tail wagged. She probably thought she was getting a treat. Poor girl. “Soon,” I said, rubbing her ears again, sure she could smell the tiny bone-shaped treat burning a hole in the pocket of my skinny jeans.

  I looked up at Sabrina. I could tell she was concentrating really hard because she squinted her eyes so hard they were almost closed. Move. Move. Move, I could hear her think.

  “Sometimes it helps if you point to the object you want to—” Before I could even finish the sentence, Sabrina’s finger pointed at the collar.

  Move. Move. Move, she continued to say in her head. The collar didn’t even budge an inch.

  “I’m sorry, Poppy. I’m just not concentrating enough today.” She picked up the collar with her hands and handed it to me. “Here,” she said, shoving it my way. “You put it on,” she said with a frown.

  “Look Sabrina. I know you think that these powers will never come in, but you have to trust me.” I leaned in closer to her. “Even though it was a hilarious disaster in Miss Maggie’s class yesterday, you could at least move things with your mind. Not to the places you wanted. But you could do it.” I thought about some of the other powerless kids in her class, like the one who sat in the corner and couldn’t move anything at all. I knew Sabrina would be a fantabulous Monday one day.

  Sabrina’s eyes focused on the ground in front of her and then she looked at me and nodded, almost as if she knew what I just thought.

  “So let’s take a break from this for now,” I said, picking up Pickle and putting her in my lap.

  “I like that idea,” said Sabrina.

  “So what days are your parents?” I asked.

  “My dad is a Tuesday,” she said and paused. She picked up a few blades of grass and twisted them in her fingers.

  “And what about your mom?” I pushed.

  “Well … um … she’s a weekend,” her voice trailed off. Obviously, Sabrina was ashamed of that. I had to admit that it’s a bit weird to hear of couples that have one weekday and one weekend. Typically, married parents are either both weekdays or both weekends. I really wished that it didn’t matter what day of the week you’re born and that everyone saw each other as equal no matter if they could teleport, mind read, disappear, or have no magical powers at all.

  “Well, I’m sure they are both great,” I said. “I mean, they have to be pretty cool to have a daughter like you.”

  Sabrina smiled.

  “So do you want to try again?” I asked, putting the open collar back on the ground.

  “I guess so,” she said, straightening her body.

  “Now concentrate really hard,” I said.

  Her eyes squinted tight just like they did before, and I could hear her thinking, Lift up now. Lift up now. Lift up now.

  I didn’t know if it was my little pep talk or if she truly concentrated harder, but this time, the collar wobbled and then lifted about an inch from the ground.

  It fell just as quickly as it lifted, though, when Ellie yelled. “Hey, Poppy!” I frowned at Sabrina. If she only had a few more seconds, she could have totally gotten the collar around Pickle’s furry neck.

  “Hey, Ellie.” I said, turning around to see Ellie dressed in pink (duh) from head to toe. Her Thursday mentee, Shelby Plattworth, trailed closely behind her and looked like a mini version of Ellie, with dark brown hair and a pink tunic with leggings.

  “We’re just on our way to Fluxnut’s rehearsal in the haunted forest. Do you wanna walk to with us?” Ellie asked.

  I read out of Sabrina’s head that she didn’t want us to walk alone, and I read from Ellie’s that she could use the extra company. Last summer, I was a little afraid as we made our way through the forest looking for our stolen items (that we eventually recovered from a beat-up old shed), but the most terrified of us all was Ellie—I remembered how she dug her nails into my arm so hard that she left half-moon imprints in my skin.

  It was rumored—and repeated over and over again by Veronica—that a Wednesday had gone missing after Larriby kicked him out of Power Academy two years ago and made him spend the night in the forest. Some thought he ran away, but most people were convinced that wild animals ate him.

  Knowing that we were about to have a rehearsal in broad daylight though, I had a feeling that this trip to the haunted forest would be much less terrifying than last year’s venture. I sure hoped so, at least.

  Chapter Eleven

  There’s always a weird feeling I get when I go to any place that claims to be haunted—a shudder trickled through my body as I put Pickle in her den and had a seat.

  “Now,” Mr. Fluxnut said, waving his hands about. “In order to really grasp your characters, you need to be one with your characters.” When he said the word one, it looked as if his eyeballs were going to pop out of their sockets.

  Is this guy even for real? Ellie thought to me. I smirked and took a seat next to Logan on the lush grass. He scooted closer to me. So close, I thought our hands were going to touch. My cheeks burned.

  “Miss Mayberry, can you please focus?” Mr. Fluxnut asked, taking me from my thoughts of Logan. I had been staring at the two-inch green space between Logan and my almost-touching hands.

  “Erhm, sorry,” I muttered. “I’m ready, Mr. Fluxnut.”

  “Good. You are to be a model student, so please do act like one,” he said snarkily, the fun drama gone from his tone.

  Logan bridged the two-inch gap between our fingers and squeezed my hand gently. I could feel my cheeks burn even hotter and smiled shyly at him. I grabbed my orange necklace with my other hand and closed my eyes. I wanted to imprint this moment in my memory—the first time I’d ever held a boy’s hand. />
  My enjoyment of the moment came to a screeching halt with the equally screeching sound of Mr. Fluxnut’s voice. “This is a magical play! Fairies are everywhere. For this fantastical exercise, you will be birds lifting off in flight.”

  We all stared at Mr. Fluxnut, unsure of what he meant.

  “Go now. Fly, birdies, fly!” Mr. Fluxnut started flapping his arms, lifting his knees high to his chest and squawking while twirling around in a circle. How the heck was this becoming one with our characters? It was more like making complete fools of ourselves.

  Ellie thought the same thing as me.

  “Go on. You try.” I hoped he didn’t want us to do this for too long. I was in my favorite purple ballet flats, and although I’m not typically prissy about getting dirty, I did not want lime green grass stains dotting the tops of them. Plus, I didn’t want to let go of Logan’s hand.

  Since I was the “role model” for the learning Mondays and had to serve a good example for Sabrina, I started my bird dance. I hunched my back, flapped my arms, and mimicked Mr. Fluxnut’s high-pitched vocals. After about fifteen seconds, Ellie jumped in. She flapped her arms vigorously, whirls of pink encircling her. The rest of the students joined in on the awkwardness, and even I had to admit that this actually wasn’t half bad. In fact, it distracted me from everything else that was going on. I didn’t worry about the way I left things with Veronica outside of Novalicious, Larriby’s threats, or the weird encounter with Mark Masters (which still seemed fishy to me). As I screeched around the rehearsal space and passed by the other weekdays, I noticed that someone was missing.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Fluxnut?” I said, straightening out. I had broken the weird-squawking-bird character, and I had a feeling he wouldn’t be happy about that.

  “Why are you not being one with your magical personality, Puck?” he asked in a huff.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, scanning the nesting space again. “I’m just wondering where Sam is.”

  “Sam who?” he asked, obviously miffed that I was interrupting his amazing rehearsal technique.

  “You know. Sam Bricker. The Wednesday playing Lysander.” Of course he knew who Sam was.

  “Oh, yes, yes, yes. I’m not really sure,” he said, brushing me off and then continuing his little birdlike prance. I could tell he was avoiding the question.

  I looked at Ellie, who was completely engrossed in the bird exercise, her arms flapping away while Shelby pranced in circles around her.

  And then I got Logan’s attention. He cocked his head to the side and creased his eyes. He wouldn’t just not show up, Logan thought to me.

  “Something’s up,” I mouthed right back.

  So where could he be?

  I strutted over to Logan.

  “He was here this morning,” Logan said. “And I saw him after power intensive class and after lunch.”

  I glanced up to see Mr. Fluxnut staring in the direction of the Nova Power Corporation. I followed his gaze. Two men were rushing toward him, and one of them was the guy I saw arguing with Mark Masters. Mayor Masters followed closely behind.

  There seems to be a situation, I heard the one man think.

  “There seems to be a situation,” he then said aloud to Mr. Fluxnut.

  The two men surrounded Mr. Fluxnut. He swiftly turned on his toes and headed back to N.P.C. with them.

  It was a frazzled Mayor Masters who dismissed us for the rest of the afternoon.

  “It’s just so weird,” said Logan. We were in his and Sam’s dorm room. I could see that whenever Sam left, he did so in a rush.

  His bed was full of empty chip wrappers, greasy, finger-stained hunting magazine, and clothing. He didn’t even take the time to clean up a bit. His dresser drawers overflowed with clothing of all sorts of colors. Two more magazines—one about hunting and one about woodwind instruments, still in their original wrappers—sat on the top. It was obvious he didn’t pack a thing, and the evidence showed that he didn’t expect to leave Power Academy anytime soon.

  “What about his bathroom stuff? You know, the essentials?” I asked, pushing the trash to the floor so I had room to sit down.

  Logan shook his head. “I looked earlier. Toothbrush, toothpaste, soap. It’s all there.” He frowned and shook his head. “Everything’s still there.”

  “Yeah,” Ellie said. “It’s almost as if he disappeared.”

  “And that’s my job,” Logan said, cracking a smile.

  Ellie rolled her eyes. “Ha, ha, ha,” she said without an ounce of humor.

  “Maybe he had an emergency at home,” I offered, but deep down, I knew I was wrong. Something felt off. Just like it felt off last year with the whole Pickle situation. I should never have decided to come back to this place. Maybe I should just get out of here now. Pickle whined, as if she knew that I needed some snuggles right now.

  “They aren’t telling us something,” Logan said.

  “Yeah. Did you see the way those N.P.C. guys showed up today? That was just plain weird.” Ellie said.

  “Maybe we should ask Larriby or Masters what’s going on?” Logan offered.

  “I’m already in enough trouble with Larriby as it is. There’s no way I’m gonna ask her about this,” I said.

  “Then let’s just listen in as best we can today and see what we get,” Ellie said to me. This was a logical idea. I had a Thursday power, after all. I might as well use it to listen in on thoughts. Sometimes my ditzy friend surprised me.

  “We will figure this out,” Logan said, pulling me in for a hug. “But first, I told Deklan I would meet with him about an assignment we have from our Friday Power intensive class.”

  I so wanted to believe him when he said we would figure this out.

  Ellie left to go rehearse her part with Shelby, so I decided to head back to our room to cuddle with Pickle and work out one of my problems. Between Monday Power intensive classes and twice-daily rehearsals with crazy Mr. Fluxnut, I hadn’t had much to time to think about the situation with Veronica.

  This was the first time we’d gone more than a day without talking at all since we met way back in second grade. Sure, we’ve had minor disagreements here and there over stupid stuff like having the same crush or getting to eat the last slice of pizza. But I don’t ever remember her walking away from me like she did right before I left for Power Academy.

  I thought back to how mean Ellie had been to me over the last few years before we became friends—tripping me in the cafeteria, nailing me in the head with tennis balls during gym class, trying to steal Logan and my other friends away from me. To think Ellie did all of that because she was jealous of my Monday powers—her mother wanted her to be a telekinetic Monday like her, not a mind-reading Thursday. And now Veronica was dealing with the same jealousy issues herself. I needed to fix this; Veronica and I had been best friends since the second grade, and I never wanted to lose a friend like her.

  It had been bothering me how we left things before I left for Power Academy, and now I was ready to move on from that. Because we weren’t allowed to bring cell phones to Power Academy, I couldn’t just text her like I normally would. Last summer we sent letters back and forth, so I figured I would do that again. This would help distract me from the Sam situation, too. Pickle curled up next to me as I began to write.

  Dear BFF Veronica,

  I know the way we left things was a little rough. I’m sorry if I made you upset in any way. I didn’t mean to snap at you over the whole Mark Masters comment. I know that you don’t really like Ellie, but you should give her a chance. She really isn’t as bad as you think. Those things last year were just flukes.

  It’s only week two here, and there has been weird stuff happening already. I will tell you more in person, but Sam just left, completely out of nowhere, and it just seems so strange. And these creepy N.P.C. dudes are always skulking around—they’re up to no good.

  I stopped writing, wanting so badly to tell her about my cusp powe
r and that I can read minds on top of moving things telekinetically. But then, I thought back to Larriby and Mayor Masters and Mr. Fluxnut and their insistence on keeping it under wraps for now. I still didn’t understand why. I mean, Mayor Masters said that we’d learn more about our powers this year. But we hadn’t learned much about them at all. I pushed it out of my head and kept writing.

  On top of all the weird stuff, I have to act in this play (which, by the way, seems like a total waste of time for all of us), and you know how acting has gone for me in the past. Total. Train. Wreck. What’s even worse is that the creeper guy we saw at Novalicious is the director. Didn’t expect that at all. But I still feel like he was watching us that day.

  Anyway, I know you’re mad, but please write back. I miss you. I miss my best friend.

  Love,

  Poppy

  I folded up the letter and instead of putting it in an envelope, I tucked it into my back pocket. I knew that Logan would probably be teleporting home at some point over the next day or two, so it seemed easier for him to deliver it that way.

  Chapter Twelve

  The next two days flew by. During that time, neither Logan, Ellie or I heard a thing about Sam, and whenever Ellie or I attempted to read Larriby’s or Mr. Fluxnut’s thoughts, it all came up blank. Total blank slate.

  Mr. Fluxnut thought about weird drama exercises, like, all of the time, and Larriby’s thoughts usually revolved around stuffing her face full of food. No surprise there.

  What was even stranger than Sam’s disappearance was the fact that three hours later, Logan said that two N.P.C. guys barged into his room, packed up Sam’s stuff, and quietly left Power Academy. I had a hunch before that something wasn’t right, and that just confirmed it.

  When I wasn’t rehearsing, working with Sabrina, or in the middle of class, Sam was all I thought about.