Bitter Sixteen

by Stefan Mohamed

  Daryl was shaking his head. ‘Fair play, boyo.’

  I grinned, and tried it on him. Nothing. I tried for several minutes, ignoring his profane indignation, but there was nothing. I stamped my foot again, but still nothing happened.

  ‘Maybe you just need to develop it,’ said Daryl. ‘You’re just starting, you know. It’s not like you can just pick up a tennis racket and become . . . I dunno, some famous tennis player, I don’t know tennis. You need practise.’

  ‘I have to go back to school tomorrow,’ I said.

  Daryl grinned. ‘That’s perfect! The perfect training ground! That rock was way heavier than that twig, but it took more effort to lift the twig, didn’t it?’

  ‘But I was pissed off when I moved the rock.’

  ‘Exactly.’ Daryl was doing a funny little dance. ‘Maybe concentration isn’t the key! Maybe emotion is the key! Strong negative emotion might help. And what better place to strongly, negatively emote?’

  ‘School.’

  ‘School! It’s possibly the best breeding ground for resentment, anger and misery you could find. Within a week you’ll be like . . . like Gandalf, Willow and Dumbledore got caught in a horrific teleportation accident.’

  ‘What would that look like?’ I said. ‘I’m picturing . . . like . . . Willow’s head, wearing Willow’s hat – you know the one – on Gandalf’s body, but with the voice of Dumbledore? And one of Dumbledore’s arms sticking unconvincingly out of the shoulder, Eighties BBC Zaphod Beeblebrox style?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be confusing, though? They’ve each got powers derived from a completely different set of magical laws . . . would it be a combination of all of them? Or could they pick and choose? They could probably pick and choose, right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And do you think the whole entity would be gay? Seeing as how two of the component people were?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘So in a week’s time I’ll be an old lesbian dead gay guy? With three arms?’

  ‘Nothing wrong with being old, a lesbian or a dead gay guy,’ said Daryl, reproachfully. ‘Or having three arms.’

  ‘Sorry. Just spitballing. It’s not all going to be fried gold.’

  ‘Fair enough.’ The dog put his head on one side. ‘Seriously, though, you know I’m talking sense.’

  I nodded. ‘You’re quite insightful, for a small dog.’

  Daryl shrugged, which is an especially funny movement for a dog to do. ‘Judge me by my size, do you?’

  By the time we returned to the house I was no better at levitating objects, but I could fly between trees like the best of them. I hadn’t managed to lift anything more substantial than a twig, but my canine master said it would take time. He seemed to be enjoying it almost as much as I was.

  ‘Do you have any homework?’ asked my mother, bringing me back to Earth with a thud that shook my entire being.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘Did you have a good day out?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Did you have a nice day yesterday?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She nodded. ‘OK. Well . . . are you hungry?’

  ‘Not really, thanks.’

  My father looked up from his newspaper. ‘What were you doing out there?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said.

  ‘You were doing nothing for a pretty long time.’

  ‘It’s tiring,’ I said.

  ‘Doing nothing?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  My father shrugged and went back to his paper, and as I headed upstairs I distinctly heard him mutter, ‘There’s something wrong with him.’

  ‘There is nothing wrong with him. He’s just different.’

  ‘He’s weird. And it’s nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Oh just wash your bloody hands of him then, why don’t you?’

  ‘Don’t swear at me!’

  ‘I’ll swear at you if I bloody want to, you can be such a bastard sometimes!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me!’

  I stomped up to my room and closed the door without touching it. I switched on the lights without raising my hand, and hurled the one and only photograph of my parents that I had against the wall and the glass broke. I stood there, boiling over like too much magma, and flexed my mind, feeling energy crackle in the room.

  Daryl, who was sitting on the bed, nodded sagely. ‘Looks like I was right.’

  I raised my middle finger and a magazine rack fell over.

  In the morning the atmosphere was flammable. My mother was tetchy and my father was still in bed, and I ate my toast in silence while not really watching the news. The headline was something about more missing children in London.

  The buses that took most of the kids to the local secondary school left from a garage at the end of my road, so I was always the first on and had my pick of the seats. I tended to sit in the corner at the back because then there was no-one to sit behind you and kick your seat and stick stuff in your hair and generally be a pain, and you could zone out and pretend that nobody else existed. This morning I waited on the bus for about five minutes before it set off, staring out of the window, listening to some random download on my MP3 player. A band with one singer, two guitar players and about fifteen drummers, playing the music of teenage rebellion. The music you get in the elevators in Hell. I made a mental note to delete it from the player and put the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ One Hot Minute on, and imagined myself wearing a long black coat and fighting zombie versions of people from school.

  Kids got on and as I watched them take their seats I felt something. It was like I was seeing them differently. On Friday they’d been . . . I don’t know. Equals, I suppose. Ish. I was on the same level as them, anyway. We were all human. I was still human, obviously, but now I was . . . different. Genuinely different; more than just feeling that way. It was strange. And then something scary occurred to me: if one of them attacked me, I could theoretically kill them without moving a muscle.

  Why was I thinking like that? I didn’t want to kill anyone.

  Good job, really. A psychic person would be like the best murderer ever. Thoughts don’t leave fingerprints, after all.

  When we got to school I was last off the bus as usual, and wandered to my form room, looking at people, enjoying having a secret. Our form gathered in an English classroom and I always sat at the desk at the back and read or wrote or drew or whatever, but today I just sat and watched everybody coming in, talking, laughing, arguing. A few of them acknowledged me with nods and waves, but nobody spoke. I nodded back at them.

  Then Zach and George came in. Zach looked like a furless rat that had been stuck in a hydraulic press. Pinched, pale face, bleached blonde hair in gelled spikes, nasty thin blue eyes, mouth stuck in a constant grin. And his ears stuck out. He was always shooting witless barbs my way, or shoving me as I passed him in the corridor, or throwing things just to get a reaction, and while I’d never give him the satisfaction of showing it, I hated his stupid twattish guts. He’d never pick a proper fight because he was a wimp, but he had friends who were taller, and that was how things worked in school. George was a good example of this. He was tall and built like a brick shithouse and always looked slightly confused, and he had a pierced eyebrow and liked rugby and tractors. That was the extent of him as a person. In some ways, he was almost an existential tragedy.

  Zach was walking with his usual swagger. His John Wayne walk, although he probably wouldn’t have a clue who that was. He tried to intimidate people, and almost everybody thought he was a wanker but they would never say so because of his tall mates. People were friends with him even though he was a wanker. Because he was, in a way. Everybody was grey. I definitely didn’t believe the world was black and white but I had very definite morals when it came to school,
and if I didn’t like someone I didn’t smile at them. I didn’t laugh at their stupid jokes. I didn’t give them the benefit of the doubt.

  I was finding Zach’s swagger particularly annoying today, and clenched my fists in my lap. My eyes darted upwards so I wouldn’t have to look at him and my fists dropped down by the sides of my chair, and a pile of books on a shelf above Zach’s head overbalanced and landed on him in an avalanche of infinitely satisfying thumps. He fell down and his face hit the cold uncarpeted floor with a noise like a pig’s corpse being smacked with a paddle. People laughed. Even George laughed. Outwardly I was dispassionate but inside I was hysterical. Perhaps school wasn’t going to be so bad from now on.

  I quickly realised that I hadn’t been transplanted to a comic book or a superhero movie. The world didn’t stop for me because I had some new abilities, no mysterious bearded mentors came out of the woodwork, no supervillains came knocking at my door. I still had to do essays and prepare for my exams, and the ability to levitate and move things with my mind wasn’t going to help with that. I was still bound by the laws of my world, and my world was one of coursework and structure.

  That night, having studiously ignored my parents (who were studiously ignoring each other) I told Daryl everything I did that day. The books on Zach’s head. Opening and closing windows to annoy teachers I didn’t like. Tripping people I didn’t like when they seemed about to hassle me, or when they seemed about to hassle someone else, or just generally whenever I saw them. It was all petty. It was childish. It didn’t befit someone as mature as I liked to think I was. But it was fun.

  ‘So,’ said Daryl. ‘This is it from now on? You use your powers to irritate people you don’t like?’

  ‘No!’ I protested. ‘Well . . . a bit, maybe. What do you suggest I do?’

  ‘You could try using them for good,’ said Daryl. ‘Help the helpless. That kind of thing. With great power comes great –’

  ‘Please don’t finish that sentence,’ I said.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘And helping the helpless?’ I lay down on my bed and stared at the zombies on the ceiling. ‘Easier said than done. I live in a small Welsh town where sod all to the power of nothing happens. There are no murders. No robberies. No muggings. No cars get jacked. No houses get broken into. Last week’s headline in the County Times? “Strimmer Stolen”. There’s not much scope for superheroics and the situation doesn’t exactly scream “higher purpose”.’

  ‘You could leave,’ said Daryl.

  I didn’t say anything. The thought had occurred to me but I’d buried it. It was a page I hadn’t coloured in, which I’d shoved to the back of my ring binder so I could forget about it. ‘And go where?’

  ‘Dunno. Cardiff?’

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘Cardiff. The Welsh equivalent of Gotham City, as literally no-one said ever.’

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Daryl. ‘London?’

  ‘How would I get there?’

  ‘Get a train, you plank,’ said Daryl. ‘Or drive.’

  ‘I can only drive in first gear.’

  ‘Get some lessons off your dad,’ said Daryl. ‘Two birds? One stone? Bond with your distant father and get an escape route.’

  The phone rang and I picked it up to avoid the subject. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello? Stanly?’

  ‘Yes. Who’s that?’

  ‘It’s Eddie.’

  Eddie. My cousin in London. So much for avoiding the subject. ‘Oh!’ I sat up. ‘Hi.’

  ‘Hi. Happy birthday.’

  ‘Oh, thanks.’

  ‘Having a good day?’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Today?’

  ‘It was Saturday.’

  ‘Sorry. Shit. Did you have a good day?’

  ‘Yeah, thanks.’

  ‘Sorry I didn’t send you anything.’

  ‘That’s all right. It’s nice of you to call.’

  ‘Get some . . . good presents?’

  I inhaled sharply. For a second I thought . . . no, I didn’t. ‘Um . . . yeah. Got an electric guitar.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Eddie, after a pause that suggested he’d been expecting me to say something else. ‘Cool.’ Does he know?

  ‘What did you get for your sixteenth birthday?’ I asked.

  ‘Mine? Man. That’s a long time ago.’ There was something in his voice. A definite something.

  ‘You can remember though, surely?’

  ‘Well . . .’ And now I could hear in his voice that he could hear something in my voice and I was itching to say something, but I didn’t want to, just in case. ‘Well?’ I prompted.

  ‘Can’t really remember. And I asked you first.’

  ‘And I told you.’

  ‘Did you?’

  My heart stopped. My brain turned to pure electricity and jagged forks of it wrapped up my room and mailed it to a black hole in deep space. After a pause that lasted centuries I said, ‘You know.’

  ‘So you do have them.’

  Daryl was watching me. ‘He knows?’

  I nodded. Nobody spoke for lots of seconds. Eddie broke the silence. ‘How are you dealing with it?’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I . . . just . . . long story. Probably not for a phone conversation.’ I could hear him moving uncomfortably. ‘I . . . I just called to make you an offer.’

  ‘An offer?’

  ‘If you need a place to go . . . someone who knows what you can do. Someone to help . . . you know where I live. Any time.’

  He was inviting me to London. I looked at Daryl. His expression was doglike. ‘Are you psychically linked to my dog?’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing.’ I looked out of the window. A line of red burned across the horizon like a strip of Christmas paper soaked in petrol. ‘Any time?’

  ‘Any time.’

  ‘Thanks. Cool. I appreciate that.’

  ‘Keep me posted on any developments.’

  ‘I will.’ I closed the blinds. ‘Thanks for calling.’

  ‘That’s OK. Take it easy.’ He hung up and I looked at Daryl again. The confused silence lasted until supper time.

  The next day I had two lessons of Drama, and our teacher Miss Stevenson asked us all to sit in a circle because she wanted to talk to us.

  I liked Miss Stevenson. She was thirtyish and had blonde hair with purple streaks in it. I didn’t imagine that the headmaster liked her having her hair like that, but she still kept it, and she wore trendy glasses, long skirts and T-shirts, and was very pretty. Today she was wearing a long denim skirt and a Dawn of the Dead T-shirt. I didn’t have a crush on her at all.

  ‘OK, everyone,’ she said. ‘I know you’re all anxious to get on with your devising.’

  Devising was a part of the drama course where we got into groups and wrote and performed our own script. I was in a group with two girls called Tamsin and Dani, who were OK. As I sat in the circle my eyes kept drifting to a boy called Ben King. I’ll elaborate on him later.

  ‘But,’ said Miss Stevenson, ‘I wanted you all to be the first to know that the school play this year will be Romeo and Juliet.’

  There was a general silence.

  ‘Don’t all cheer at once,’ said Miss Stevenson. ‘I’m planning to do a slightly abbreviated version in modern dress, with modern props. Kind of like the Baz Luhrmann one. Has anyone seen that?’

  Everyone looked at each other. Then Andrea put up her hand and said, ‘Baz who?’

  This was the kind of media-unconscious world that I lived in. God bless teachers like Miss Stevenson.

  ‘The one with Leonardo diCaprio,’ said Miss Stevenson. I could hear the weariness creeping into her voice.

  There was a general chorus of ‘oh’ and ‘he’s so fit’ and ‘nah, he’s gone well fat now’. There were twen
ty girls and four boys in our Drama group.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Miss Stevenson, ‘that’s what I’m planning to do. There’ll be auditions at lunchtime on Wednesday, so anybody who’s interested please turn up. There’ll be a notice about it in assembly tomorrow. Now. Everyone has work to do? Go do it.’

  Everyone moved off into their groups. I was about to go and join Tamsin and Dani when Miss Stevenson said, ‘Stanly? Could I have a quick word with you, please?’

  I walked over to her desk. We had Drama in a big hall that was also used for parents’ evenings and exams, and there was an adjoining room where Miss Stevenson kept all her things, and a big desk covered in props and scripts and stuff. She was looking at something in a red binder. ‘You weren’t in the last school play, were you?’ she said, without looking up.

  I shook my head. ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I . . . I forgot to audition.’

  ‘That’s a shame.’ She closed the binder and looked at me. ‘Because, let’s be brutally honest, it sank without trace.’

  ‘Wasn’t Ben the lead?’ I said, entirely innocently. Oh yeah, entirely.

  ‘Yes.’ I could hear the unspoken ‘unfortunately’.

  ‘So . . . what did you –’

  She looked at me. ‘Would you like to try out for Romeo?’

  I blinked. ‘Um . . . I . . . why me?’

  ‘Your work over the last year has been fantastic,’ she said. ‘You’re a natural performer. The fact that you’re so quiet is what makes it great. You’re very shy and insular, but when you’re out there you pull a rabbit out of a hat, for want of a better cliché. I really think you’d be good.’

  ‘I thought . . . you said there’d be auditions . . .’

  ‘I know, but I just wanted . . . were you thinking about coming?’