by Kelly Oram
As I ran my hand along the rack in front of me, the clothes began to cling to one another. I watched as the static worked its way over to Paige and Tamika, making their hair stand up. I decided to kick up the power just a notch, and soon they both looked like they’d been rubbing balloons on their heads. “I’m sorry,” I said, “but did you just call me a freak?”
They both jumped and attempted to cover their shocked faces by scowling at me. “If the shoe fits,” Tamika muttered.
“You looked in a mirror lately?”
They glanced at each other and gasped in unison. The looks on their faces almost made having superpowers worth it. I wanted to laugh so badly, but I managed to resist, and it’s a good thing too because my mother walked up right behind me.
“More friends of yours, honey?”
“Not exactly, Mom,” I said casually. “Did the dress fit?”
My mom is too easy. Her face lit up at the mention of the dress, and she forgot all about Paige and Tamika. “You’re right, Jamie. It’s gorgeous. I think I am going to have to make your father take me somewhere nice now.”
Tamika was still trying to get her hair under control, but Paige scoffed rather loudly, “You came here with your mother?”
She said it like hanging out with my mom was some horribly embarrassing thing, and it wouldn’t have bothered me at all except that I could tell that it made my mom feel bad. Insulting me is one thing, but insulting my parents is not okay.
“It’s a lot more fun than coming alone,” I said, and then plastered a big fake smile on my face. “Speaking of going places alone, how was the dance last night? Do you know who won for king? I didn’t actually make it. Ryan and I sort of lost track of time, but I’ll bet he’d like to know who won.”
My mother didn’t know exactly what had just happened, but she shot me a look when she saw how upset Paige was. I ignored it. If Paige and Tamika were going to call me the ice queen, then I should at least get to live up to my reputation sometimes. And Paige was beyond mad this time. She looked like she was going to either vomit or explode. I’m not kidding you. She was so mad that one eye was sort of twitching.
Of course I kept up my sickly sweet act and smiled as big as I could manage as I asked, “So did Ryan win?”
“Stay away from Ryan, you freak!”
I was really surprised she had the guts to call me that in front of my mom, but I’ve never seen anyone so angry.
I was afraid my mom was going to be upset by that, but she wasn’t mad at Paige. Well, not once she saw the satisfied look on my face. She waited until Paige and Tamika stormed out of the store to chew me out, but I got a lecture all the way home.
“What?” I snapped when she demanded some kind of explanation. “She’s awful. She’s just mad because she likes Ryan and he pays more attention to me. Plus, they started it. They called me a freak.”
“I don’t care who started it, Jamie. I didn’t raise my only daughter to act like such a spoiled little brat. The self-pity thing is going to stop right now. We’re having a talk with your father when we get home, and you are going to have to start making some serious changes, or there will be some serious punishment.”
Sure, I’m a teenager, which means I’ve fought with my parents same as everyone else, but this was the first time I’ve ever seen my mother really angry with me when the issue of my powers was involved. I was really surprised by it, and I was even more surprised at how bad she made me feel. I didn’t say another word until we got home, and I barely held it together through the lecture my father gave me once he was fully briefed on the situation.
If you can believe it, I got grounded from my computer, the library, and all of my books until I got a job, joined some kind of school club, or went out on a date. Not exactly a normal punishment for teenagers, but it was every bit as cruel.
Worse than the lecture and worse than the grounding was listening to the talk my parents had after I went upstairs. They went for a walk down the street, but I have pretty good range. They would have had to drive across the city if they didn’t want me listening in.
Mostly there were a lot of statements like “I’m worried about her” and “she’s getting worse,” and there was a lot of talk about possible therapy. But the most disturbing part was when they somehow turned to the subject of Ryan. My mom said she thought I was having all this trouble right now because I liked Ryan and I was stressed about it. Okay, maybe she was a little right, but it still made me mad that she knew that.
From there the conversation actually turned into a Ryan love fest. “Such a sweet boy,” my mother gushed, “and so polite. And he seems to have taken quite the shine to her.”
“And helpful too,” my father added. “He helped me reset the circuit breakers before he went home the other night. He seems to have a decent head on his shoulders, for a seventeen-year-old.”
After that they came home and spent the rest of the weekend trying to convince me that going out with Ryan would make me feel better.
* * * * *
CHAPTER 6
I knew my parents wanted me to try to live a normal life since we moved to Sacramento, but they were beyond relentless with the Ryan chatter the rest of the weekend. They seemed to think almost as highly of him as he did of himself.
I was so sick of them harassing me about him that when Monday came around and I had to see Ryan at school, the very sight of him made me want to punch something. He was standing out front with all of his football buddies when I got to school, and I could tell he wanted to talk to me, but I was not in the mood.
He started to approach me as I walked past him, but I gave him the most evil glare I was capable of. After that, he didn’t try to stop me, and Mike wasn’t discrete with his teasing. “Oh! Iced by the queen of cold!” he said, slapping Ryan on the back. “I take it you didn’t get lucky this weekend. What’s the matter, man—lost your mojo? I thought you were totally in after the way she was all over you before.”
I could feel them watching me as I walked away, but I didn’t look back. It made me angry that Ryan didn’t seem upset by the laughter and the taunting of his friends. And even worse, I hated his response. He actually laughed with them and then said, “It’s Jamie Baker, dude. It’s going to take me some time to break the ice.”
“Ry,” Mike said. “I know you’re the man and all, but even you can’t break Baker. She’s impossible.”
“Watch me.”
Ha! If he thought I was mad at him Friday night… “Watch me”? Someone should tell him it’s not wise to make me angry, and after that conversation, angry would be an understatement.
I don’t get him! I mean, he’ll stand up to Paige in front of the entire school and say I’m not a slut, and then he’ll turn around and brag to his buddies about breaking me? News flash, Ryan—Mike’s right. Never. Gonna. Happen.
I was so mad that I was afraid just looking at him would make me lose control of my powers, so I opted to avoid the cafeteria at lunch, but English had me worried. I thought about skipping, but I didn’t want to look like I was hiding from him after he saw me cry this weekend.
Luckily, Ryan didn’t say anything to me during class, but he caught up to me like two seconds after I walked out the door. He’d flashed me a small smile as he walked out of the classroom, which he could tell I wasn’t happy about, so I thought I was safe. I thought for sure he’d just leave.
I took my time getting out of the room just to be sure. Enough time that Mr. Edwards asked me if I had detention he didn’t know about. “Sorry, Mr. E. I was just kind of caught up in my book,” I lied.
When Mr. Edwards got up from his desk and walked my direction I started gathering up my things. I wasn’t quite fast enough. “Interesting choice,” he said as he picked up the biography of Stephen King.
“Hey, you said anyone.”
“I’m not saying it was a bad choice.” Mr. Edwards chuckled at my defensiveness. “Stephen King is one of the greatest writers of our time.”
Th
at surprised me. “You like Stephen King?”
“American literature isn’t just Mark Twain, Ms. Baker,” Mr. E. said with a wink. “I just find it interesting that you would choose the king of horror as the subject of your book report. Generally, people choose someone they can relate to on a personal level.”
Which is exactly why I chose him, I wanted to say. But I didn’t want a lecture and a referral to my guidance counselor’s office, so instead I grumbled, “He’s a lot more interesting than Ryan Miller,” as I snatched the book back from Mr. Edwards. I was still a little sore about being forced to have a partner.
Mr. Edwards laughed at me and then stepped out of my way so I could leave the room. “See you tomorrow, Ms. Baker,” he called after me.
Mr. Edwards had successfully distracted me enough that I’d forgotten all about Ryan until I walked out of the room and found him waiting for me. I groaned as he peeled himself away from the wall and began keeping pace at my side.
He didn’t say anything at first, which I thought was weird, and he was a little cautious when he finally spoke. I was surprised because it was the first time I’d ever heard him sound even remotely nervous. “How are you?” he asked.
“Peachy,” I grumbled, refusing to look his direction.
“Oh, come on, Jamie. You’re not still mad at me, are you?”
I didn’t answer that. I was still furious, just not for the reason he thought. I went back to ignoring him, but he only waited for a second before trying again. “I finished my paper already. Do you want to read it?”
“What, no parties? No hot dates?”
“Yeah.” He laughed, a little embarrassed. “I’m not usually such an overachiever, but I was so worried about you after what happened that I didn’t really feel like going out. And since I couldn’t stop thinking about you, I figured, why not?”
Ryan was really starting to irritate me. I couldn’t tell if he really liked me or if he was just trying to score. I mean, Friday night in my room he was this incredible guy. He listened, he cheered me up, he promised not to tell any of my secrets—and so far he’d kept that promise—but then what was all that about earlier, with Mike?
“I’m really sorry for upsetting you the other night.” He sighed when I didn’t respond. “I wasn’t trying to brush off your past. It’s just that you seem like an awesome person when you let your guard down. I wish everyone could see you the way I saw you the other night.”
I was so touched by his apology that I finally looked at him and regretted it immediately because it turned me all gooey on the inside.
Seriously, how does he do that?
Suddenly I wasn’t mad anymore, but that was actually a bad thing. I slapped my hands over my face, rubbing at my eyes as I attempted to control my frustration. It was obvious I was softened a little by his confession, and I expected him to call me on it, but he didn’t. Instead he decided to move on to the next tactic he’d obviously thought of before hand. “Are you busy right now?”
Yeah, like I really needed to spend any more time with him right now so that he could break me down completely? “Do I even want to know why you’re asking me that?”
“Well, I’ve got about twenty minutes before practice, and I thought it might be a good time for an interview.”
“What do you mean?”
“For your paper. I’m done, but you still don’t know anything about me.”
“I told you I wasn’t going to write one.”
“You’re just going to blow off the assignment?”
“I have an A in the class. One paper won’t make that much difference.”
It took him a minute to respond, but finally he grinned. “How come you don’t want to write your paper?”
“Why don’t you just tell me why I don’t,” I said dryly, “since you seem to think you already know?”
“You’re afraid to find out that I’m not such a bad guy. Because if you were to realize how much you actually like me, that would make it very hard for you to keep blowing me off.”
I ignored the fact that he was exactly one hundred percent on the money, and sighed as I burst through the front doors of the school. “You are amazingly self-assured.”
He just grinned at me and said, “Yup. So?”
“So I hate to be the one to burst your bubble, if in fact that’s even possible, but I am always going to keep blowing you off. I’m not just playing hard to get, Ryan. You and I will never happen.”
Ryan looked around and lowered his voice even though, since most of the students were in their cars already, the only people near us were a couple of gardeners, and they couldn’t hear us over the sound of the riding lawn mower. “Look,” he said, “what happened to you was a nightmare. I get that. But you’re never going to get over it if you keep pushing people away all the time. Why don’t you just give me a chance? I know part of you wants to.”
He was almost pleading with me at this point, and I was surprised by his intensity, but after a second his mouth turned up into a crooked smile, and he said, “Haven’t met a girl yet that doesn’t.”
I knew he was kidding this time, but I was also pretty sure he thought it was true. I’m quite convinced that Ryan really does think every girl on the planet would benefit to be in his presence. It was really, really hard not to smile at him, though, so I had to actually glare just to keep from doing it.
It’s not that I hated Ryan, because I didn’t. Far from it, if the truth be told. But the fact that I liked him, raging ego and all, made things that much more impossible, and it only made me that much angrier about the situation. “I don’t need a chance to find out how awesome you are. I already know. You tell me all the time.”
“But that’s not nearly as good as knowing for yourself.”
“You don’t get it! I don’t want to know you because I honestly don’t want people bothering me. And hard as it may be to believe, that includes the one and only Mr. Perfect, Ryan Miller!”
He actually seemed surprised, and I daresay a little hurt by what I’d said. He didn’t look destroyed or anything, he just looked upset, but I’d never seen Ryan upset before. Not really.
I couldn’t look away from his frown, and he stood there challenging me with his eyes until, suddenly, we heard the sound of tires squealing. The noise startled us, and we both whirled around to see what was going on. It was just Paul Warren showing off his new cherried-out Jeep by peeling out of the school parking lot.
Unfortunately for Paul, the Jeep’s ridiculously oversize tires were more than he knew how to handle. He lost control of the truck, jumped the curb, and rammed right into the school’s marquee. Which was a big-time bummer for him because that new electronic sign cost the school a fortune and was Principal Huang’s pride and joy.
Not that I care about a moron like Paul, but contrary to popular belief my heart is not made entirely of ice. So when that big bulky sign started to fall off its pole, heading straight for the poor guy on the riding lawn mower, I took off running.
My reflexes are just a tiny bit faster than your average human, and when I move as fast as I can, things appear to me as if in slow motion. In only a fraction of a second, and before anyone even knew what was going on, I rammed the guy on the lawn mower out of the way.
Should have been an easy first attempt at heroism, right? Piece of cake? Yeah, I thought so too until I slammed into the biggest guy I’ve ever seen. I’m not kidding you, the dude had to be four hundred, five hundred pounds easy. I managed to knock him off his seat and to safety, but I wasn’t prepared for so much resistance. The impact was so forceful that it knocked me to the ground, and that split second of being completely disoriented was just enough time to bring the marquee crashing down on me.
The blow knocked me out cold for a second, and when I came to I understood how the Coyote felt every time the Roadrunner dropped an anvil on him. Pain. Lots of pain. And here I thought superheroes weren’t supposed to get hurt. Life is so unfair.
Okay, so I was new to this
whole saving people gig, but it’s not like I went to any kind of superhero training academy. I got the crap kicked out of me, but I’m pretty sure that if I hadn’t intervened, lawn mower man would be dead right now instead of trying to get to his feet to see if I was all right.
That’s when it dawned on me that any normal person in my position would be dead right now. I had to do something, so I ignored the burning sensation in my muscles and used all the strength I had left to raise the sign off me and leaned it against the side of the lawn mower. Then I scrambled into the tiny space beneath it and waited for Mr. Wannabe Sumo Wrestler to catch up.
Within a few seconds three gardeners were staring down at me, shocked that I was still breathing. “Try not to move,” one of them instructed me. “I called an ambulance.”
What could I do? I couldn’t just get up and walk away, but I couldn’t stick around to be examined by the paramedics either. After giving myself a moment to calm my panic, I decided to go with the whole pretend-it-didn’t-happen tactic. Superheroes do it all the time in the comic books. It all happened in a matter of seconds, and since I was behind the lawn mower, no one had a good view. I crossed my fingers that they were all shaken up enough to believe me. “I’m okay,” I said, slowly climbing out from under my makeshift lean-to.
“Impossible,” sumo lawn mower guy wheezed. “That thing fell right on you.”
“No,” I said, ignoring the aches in my body as I pulled myself to my feet.
“Yes it did. It smashed you like a pancake.”
“If it had done that I’d be dead right now,” I said, trying to hide the fear in my voice. “I ducked. The sign hit the lawn mower, not me.” I brushed the dirt off me and held out my hands, half tempted to do a little tap dance or something. “I’m fine, see?”
