by Marilyn Kaye
‘But this is too dangerous!’ Tracey protested.
Amanda looked at her watch. ‘The bell’s about to ring.’ She got up. ‘So now you know I’m not the spy, and you’ll stop hassling me, right?’
‘But how am I going to persuade the others to stop if I can’t tell them what you’re up to?’
‘Find the real spy,’ Amanda said. She started out of the room, but paused at the door and looked back. ‘Did you say you visited me at the hospital?’
Tracey nodded. ‘With Emily.’
Amanda frowned. ‘Did anyone see you there? Were any of my real friends visiting?’
‘Not while we were in the room.’
‘That’s a relief,’ Amanda said, and left.
Tracey didn’t even feel insulted – by now, she was used to the way Amanda protected her social reputation. Besides, she was still reeling from Amanda’s revelation and she couldn’t give much thought to anything else.
Mr Jackson, their very own principal! He wasn’t exactly loved by the students, but he was an important man in a highly respected position. He was an educator! How could someone like that be a criminal?
She supposed it was possible that Amanda had just made up the story, to throw suspicion off herself. But Tracey didn’t think so. Amanda just didn’t seem like she had that much imagination. And it was Mr Jackson who had brought Serena into their class . . .
It was all beginning to make sense. If they were in on this together since the beginning, Serena would have told Jackson what she’d learned about their gifts. But Serena wasn’t around any more, and someone was still feeding Jackson information. Someone in the class.
But if Amanda wasn’t the spy, then who was? There was still one person she considered to be capable of treachery – Charles. Now was as good a time as ever to check out his private life. So, just before the Gifted class, she ducked into the bathroom.
Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and conjured up an image of her former self, friendless and lonely. She dredged up sad memories of isolation, alienation, feeling worthless and unimportant. She concentrated intensely on the emotions she’d known back then and the sensation of not being seen. She visualized herself fading away, and then she started to feel it. The sensation of being weightless, lighter than air . . .
She opened her eyes and looked at the mirror over the sink. There was no reflection. She was getting better and better at this! Pleased with herself, she left the bathroom, went upstairs, and positioned herself outside Room 209, where she could hear what was going on.
There wasn’t much to hear, though. Apparently, Madame had set them to work on some sort of writing assignment, and her classmates were industriously scribbling away in silence. So she amused herself by roaming around the building, dancing in front of oblivious hall monitors and peeking through classroom windows. She considered going to the office and checking out Mr Jackson’s activities – but there was always the chance she might inadvertently reappear. She couldn’t risk it.
She came back to Room 209 just before the bell rang. When the door opened, Charles was the first to emerge. That wasn’t unusual – he could make that wheelchair go very fast, and the others stepped aside to let him pass. Tracey was never sure if that was because they were trying to be kind or if they were afraid he’d run them over. She suspected that Charles would prefer the latter reason.
Ken was right behind him. She thought she might tell him what she was up to. It was comforting to know he could hear her when she was invisible, when no one else could. But Ken brushed by her so quickly, she didn’t have a chance, and Charles was moving in the opposite direction.
People jumped out of the way as his motorized chair tore down the hall to the lift. As far as Tracey knew, he was the only student permitted to use it. She hopped in with him, and rode down to the main floor.
She’d never paid attention to how Charles got home. Today, for the first time, she noticed the white van parked just in front of the exit. A man stood by the vehicle, and when Charles appeared, he opened the back door. A ramp slid out, and the man pushed Charles’s chair up into the van. Tracey stayed close behind, and got inside just before the man closed the door.
It wasn’t until the van pulled away that she got a look at Charles’s face. It was red, and she wondered why. Was it from the exertion he’d expended, hurrying out of school? Or maybe he was embarrassed by the van and the assistance he’d needed to get into it.
Funny how she’d never thought about how Charles might feel, being unable to walk. She didn’t even know how the situation came to be – if he’d been in an accident or something like that. It dawned on her that she’d never had any sort of private conversation with Charles. She didn’t think anyone in the Gifted class knew much about him. She doubted that anyone had ever been invited to his home.
It was a very nice house, all on one level but large, with a fine, freshly mowed lawn. At the end of the drive she saw a couple of bicycles leaning against the garage wall, and a basketball net hanging over the door. She remembered Madame saying something to Charles about having brothers. Hadn’t Charles said that they were ashamed of him?
The man pushed Charles out of the van and started wheeling him up the drive. ‘Beat it!’ Charles growled. ‘I can do it.’ The man released him and Charles took control of his chair. But instead of continuing up the drive he turned the chair so it rolled over the grass, making ugly tracks on the lawn.
‘Charles!’ Tracey exclaimed, forgetting for a moment that he couldn’t hear her. Not that it would have made Charles move back on to the drive. He had a tight smile on his face that made her think he was messing up the lawn on purpose.
The woman who opened the front door obviously thought so too.
‘Charles!’ she cried out. ‘Stop that! Look what you’re doing to the grass!’
Charles rolled himself up the ramp and right past her without a word of greeting or apology. Then he turned to the right, accelerated, and sped into what looked to Tracey like a very formal living room with a white carpet – over which there were now streaks of brown and green from the wheels of Charles’s chair.
‘Oh, Charles!’ There was a note of resignation in the woman’s voice, which led Tracey to believe this wasn’t the first time Charles had pulled a stunt like this.
Charles stopped in the middle of the room and looked at a fancy vase filled with flowers on a pedestal. The vase rose up, moved towards Charles, then fell and broke, sending flowers and shards of glass all over the floor.
‘Charles, why are you doing this?’ the woman wanted to know.
Charles ignored her. He crossed the room, raced down a long hallway and turned into a room. The door slammed shut before Tracey could reach it.
Astonished, she looked back at the woman to catch her reaction to this little performance. At first, she’d presumed this was Charles’s mother, but now she realized she must be someone who worked here. Probably the person who would have to clean up the mess. She wondered what would happen when the woman reported Charles’s behaviour to his parents.
She couldn’t get into Charles’s room now because he’d closed the door. The front door was still open though, so she went out to check if she could look into Charles’s window and see what he was doing.
But something else distracted her. A couple of boys were now on the carport, shooting baskets. As she moved closer, she saw the family resemblance. Both boys had Charles’s red curls and freckles. They were close in age, maybe fifteen and sixteen.
She wondered if they were both on the basketball team at the high school. Tracey didn’t know much about basketball, but they looked like they played pretty well – most of their attempts sent the ball through the basket.
But then one of the boys threw the ball towards the basket and it veered off in another direction. The other boy grabbed the ball, tossed it, and it went straight up in the air, so high that it disappeared. Then it came down so fast both boys scampered away to avoid getting hit on the head by it.
They both looked annoyed, but not surprised. ‘Charles!’ one of them bellowed.
That was when Tracey noticed an open window, and Charles looking out of it.
‘Charles, knock it off,’ the taller boy called out.
‘Make me!’ Charles responded. To Tracey, he sounded like a five-year-old.
The other boy moved towards the window and spoke calmly. ‘Why don’t you come out and play with us?’
‘Yeah, I’ll run around and chase the ball like you,’ Charles said sarcastically.
‘You can play in your chair,’ his brother said. ‘You know there are whole teams who play basketball in wheelchairs. I’ve seen them on the Sports Channel.’
‘If I can’t play like a normal person, I don’t want to play,’ Charles replied.
The boy sighed. ‘OK, don’t play. But you don’t have to mess up our game, OK?’
Charles uttered a word that would have sent him straight to Mr Jackson if he’d said it at school. The ball flew up from the ground and settled on the roof of the house.
‘Thanks a lot, Charles,’ one of the boys muttered. Charles’s window slammed shut.
Maybe he’d be coming out of his room now, Tracey thought. As she started back towards the door, a car pulled into the drive. The boys got out of the way and the car went into the garage. A few seconds later, a nice-looking woman with a shopping bag in her hand emerged.
‘Hey, Mom,’ the boys called out to her.
‘Need a hand?’ one of them added.
‘No thanks, dear, I can manage,’ she said cheerfully. She paused and looked at the lawn. The cheerful expression vanished. ‘Oh, no. Charles must be in one of his moods.’
The woman Tracey had seen earlier opened the door for the woman. ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Temple. I couldn’t stop him. I’m cleaning the mess in the living room now.’
‘I’ll help you,’ Charles’s mother said.
Tracey skipped on ahead of her so she could get back inside the house. She was interested in seeing how Mrs Temple was going to deal with Charles’s behaviour. Would he be grounded, lose privileges?
But Mrs Temple didn’t even go to Charles’s room. She disappeared for a few minutes, and when she returned she was carrying a vacuum cleaner. She joined the other woman in the living room.
This must be normal behaviour for Charles, Tracey realized. His mother was upset, but she didn’t seem at all surprised by the mess he’d made.
She stood there, watching the women clean the carpet and waiting for Charles to come out of his room. Suddenly, out of the blue, a dish came floating across the room. It carried a stack of cookies, and as it whizzed past her, cookies fell off and dropped on the carpet. Mrs Temple sighed, and put the vacuum cleaner down. Picking up cookies along the way, she kept pace with the plate. Tracey went too. When the plate reached Charles’s door, it opened. Mrs Temple went in, and Tracey followed.
Charles was on his bed, watching TV. He barely glanced at his mother. He made the plate settle on his lap, took a cookie and crammed it into his mouth.
This was something new, Tracey realized. Charles had summoned the plate from another room that was not in his line of vision. She’d never before seen Charles move something without being able to see it. So his gift was evolving and changing too, like hers. But he hadn’t shared this with the class.
‘Charles, I want to talk to you,’ his mother said.
Charles didn’t respond. His mother took the remote control and switched off the TV. That got a response.
‘Hey!’
For a moment, Tracey felt like she was watching a replay of what had gone on in Martin’s house. There was a big difference, though, between Martin’s bullying grandfather and Charles’s mother. Mrs Temple sat on the edge of her son’s bed, and gazed down at him with serious concern.
‘Charles, why do you do these things?’ she asked him.
‘What things?’ he mumbled.
His mother’s voice became sterner. ‘Things like ruining the lawn, when you could have gone up the drive to the back door.’
‘I just wanted to see what it felt like, to be on the lawn. I would have walked on it but I can’t walk, in case you haven’t noticed.’
‘Why did you make the vase fall?’
‘Because I wanted to smell the flowers. Only I couldn’t because I can’t stand up.’
She indicated the plate of cookies. ‘You summoned your snack here, and now there are cookies all over the floor. Were you just too lazy to go to the kitchen for them?’
‘I’m not lazy!’
‘Then why did you use your gift?’
Charles pressed his lips together tightly, as if he was trying to keep the words from coming out. His mother waited, but when he still didn’t respond to her question, she sighed and shook her head.
‘I don’t know what to do with you, Charles.’
He had an answer for that. ‘Just leave me alone.’
Silently, Mrs Temple rose and left the room. Tracey remained. Was Charles like this all the time at home? she wondered. Or was this an especially bad day for him? She recalled the expression on his face when he saw his brothers playing basketball. Maybe that was what set off this wave of bad behaviour.
She couldn’t be absolutely, positively sure, but she thought maybe she knew why Charles acted like this. He felt helpless, and he used his gift to feel powerful.
He wasn’t helpless, of course. Being in a wheelchair might give him a disadvantage, but lots of people had disadvantages. Charles used his gift so he wouldn’t have to deal with the fact that he couldn’t walk. He was hung up on being helpless.
She could understand, because she’d given in to helplessness herself. She blamed her parents for ignoring her – but what had she done to help herself? She’d wallowed in self-pity. Amanda had shown her how to break out. And it wasn’t just the clothes, the haircut, the make-up. It was learning to stand up for herself.
That was what Charles had to do – stand up. He couldn’t do it physically, but it was Charles’s attitude that kept him down, not his legs.
He wasn’t the class spy. He was just another sad kid who wanted to be like everyone else. And she could help him. She couldn’t take over his body like Amanda had taken over hers. But she could talk to him, she could be a friend, and maybe he’d open up to her. His family loved him, but they couldn’t understand his needs. She could, because she’d been there.
She wanted to help him, and she had to do it now. When else would she be able to corner him alone like this? If she could make a real connection with him, maybe she could encourage him to connect with the Gifted class, open himself up to the group experience. She knew she couldn’t appear right in front of him, so she dashed out of the room and out of the open front door.
Behind a bush where she knew she wasn’t visible from the house, she closed her eyes and concentrated on becoming visible. She envisioned herself as real and solid, and commanded her body to reappear. When she felt nothing happen, she gritted her teeth and worked harder, concentrating, focusing, directing all her mental energies into becoming herself. She couldn’t remember the process ever taking this much energy before.
Opening her eyes, she realized why. She was still invisible.
And she began to get nervous.
CHAPTER EIGHT
JENNA SANK INTO THE chair in the lounge and looked at the TV screen without even seeing what was on it. She supposed she could take advantage of the fact that for once she was alone in the lounge, and she could watch something she wanted to watch. But she wasn’t in the mood for TV.
She wasn’t in the mood for anything. It was 5 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, and she’d been at Harmony House for three days. What would she be doing if she wasn’t here? Waiting for her mother to come home from work, and thinking about what they might have for dinner. Maybe throwing some things in a backpack for one of the regular Friday night sleepovers at Tracey’s. Checking online to see if there were any good movies playing in town.
Instead, she was imprisoned in a facility for bad teenagers, and she wasn’t bad. And right now, all the really bad teenagers were enjoying visits from friends and families, while she, Jenna Kelley, who had done absolutely nothing wrong, was all alone.
That Landers woman had said she couldn’t have visitors or phone calls for the first forty-eight hours. Those forty-eight hours were over twenty-four hours ago, and she’d had neither a visitor nor a phone call.
Peter Blake, the creepy resident assistant, came into the lounge.
‘It’s visiting hours,’ he announced.
‘Yeah, I know,’ Jenna muttered.
‘Guess you didn’t get any visitors,’ he commented.
Jenna didn’t think she needed to dignify that with an answer.
He turned to leave, but looked back at her from the door. His lips curved unpleasantly into a smile that was more like a sneer. ‘I wonder why.’
So did Jenna. Not one visitor, yesterday or today. Not from her mother, not from Tracey or Emily. She’d harboured a faint hope that Madame might have come to visit her. OK, maybe she acted like she didn’t give a damn what Madame thought about her, but deep in her heart she did trust the teacher, and she thought the teacher trusted her. But now she had to wonder if maybe Madame thought she belonged in this prison.
At first she was surprised by the lack of calls and visits – now she was depressed. Did they all believe she’d really come to school armed with a butcher’s knife? Had they all abandoned her? Was her very own mother on the phone right now to Social Services telling them to keep her daughter for ever?
It hurt, bad. Even during the worst times of her life, when her mother was drinking and Jenna was basically living on the streets, she couldn’t remember feeling so low. So alone.
This morning, she’d had another meeting with that doctor, Paley. He’d asked her if she was making friends here at Harmony House. She’d lied and said yes, just to get him of her back. It wasn’t like she could tell him she’d read a few minds and realized there wasn’t anyone here she wanted to make friends with. So many of them were like the people she’d known before, on the streets.
