Larriby acted as if Saturdays and Sundays were the dregs of society, and a lot of people treated them that way. At Nova Middle, Mark Masters and Rylee Huckabee (a powerless Sunday) were always picked last for anything we did, whether in gym class or a group project, even though we were supposed to be equal in the public school setting. We weren’t allowed to use our powers, but everyone did anyway, making the Saturdays and Sundays feel even more worthless. Poor Mark.
“But I saw that guy grab—”
“You think you saw a security guard grabbing Mark Masters, but in reality, he was just leading him back to work. You see, Mark has been selected for an internship program in maintenance, and he has been extremely resistant to this new appointment.”
“Maintenance?” I asked. “You mean picking up trash and cleaning bathrooms? Blech!”
Clothes-too-tight Larriby squirmed in her seat. “Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. Since he has some, um, connections, it was decided to give him some responsibility at Nova Power Corporation.”
Although it was a reasonable explanation, I had a sense that Larriby was hiding something. And the way she said, selected for the program. Why wouldn’t he elect for the internship, especially if it made him feel more special? What it was though, I had no clue. And as much as I wanted to question Headmistress Larriby right then and there, it probably wasn’t in my best interest to do so. Not so early in the summer program, at least.
“Not only do I need to address the Mark incident with you, Miss Mayberry, but I also feel the need to remind you of what is prohibited here at the Academy.” She looked me dead in the eyes. “Even though we are connected to the Nova Power Corporation, that does not mean you can feel free to explore the N.P.C. Headquarters at your leisure. Although attached, we are two entirely different entities. What occurs here is in complete separation from what occurs at N.P.C.”
She leaned back in her chair and sighed. “There was no obligation for me to share that information with you, and it would be in your best interest to forget we had this conversation and move along with your advisory duties. You are here to do one thing, and one thing alone … help those poor Mondays with their powers.”
“But that guy with Mark—”
“That guy nothing,” she said. The redness in her face became more pronounced as she held my gaze. “As far as you’re concerned, that never occurred.” And this was when her tone became downright cruel. “And if you so much as mention it again, you will be removed from campus, and I will ensure that you do not get paid for your time here.” She paused and a smile spread across her face.
I swallowed hard. How could she ensure anything of the sort? She had no power over that stuff, so what made her think she could speak to me that way?
“Oh, I will be keeping an especially close eye on you, Miss Mayberry. You can be sure of that.” She turned around in her chair, dismissing me.
I guess I was back on Clothes-too-tight Larriby’s hate-list. Ugh.
As I opened the door to leave, I bumped into a smirking Mayor Masters who rushed into Larriby’s office.
“Poppy,” she said, nodding.
I slowed my pace. I sensed that Larriby felt uneasy about something, and I wanted a second to read her thoughts. I didn’t think it was about me, but there was definitely something else going on here. The door slammed behind me before I was able to figure it out.
Chapter Eight
The whole walk up to my room, I couldn’t stop thinking about Mark. The face he made. The plea for help. It definitely did not seem like he wanted to be there. And what was he doing there so early? Was it a custodial overnight shift? Headmistress Larriby just didn’t have me convinced. But I had other things to think about.
I shrugged it off and opened my dorm door. “I just can’t put my finger on it,” I said to Pickle. Of course she had no clue what I was talking about, so I got a bark and a lick on the cheek. Pickle was so excited to see me. After tossing the Embrace Your Day, Be Special ball with her a few times, I headed to the power intensive class with my favorite Power Academy teacher ever, Miss Maggie. Last year, she helped me find Pickle and rooted for me during the whole ordeal. Not only was I excited to see her, but I was also super excited to meet my mentee, Sabrina.
“Pah-ppy,” Miss Maggie and her British accent greeted me. Her skinny bird-like arms wrapped me in a hug.
“And how is that power coming along?” she asked with a wink. I knew she wasn’t talking about my Monday one.
“Great!” I said. And that was the truth.
I knew you’d be fine, Miss Maggie thought.
I sat down next to my mentee, Sabrina Pennycoff. I could already tell that she definitely had some work to do in the Monday power department. It made me think back to my total ineptness last year. In fact, Sabrina reminded me of … well … me, in general. She was probably around the same height and weight as me, and her rosy cheeks were too cute. Her hair couldn’t contrast mine more, though. It was light blond and just barely brushed her small shoulders.
“Hi, Poppy,” she said sheepishly, sinking into her chair. Now I was certain she was petite like me, too—she was barely able to rest her elbows on the table. “I’m Sabrina,” she said, and her cheeks became redder. The poor girl was nervous. I thought back to my first day at Power Academy and understood why she’d be anxious. There’s a lot of pressure on wannabe weekdays.
“Welcome,” I heard Miss Maggie’s British accent say from the back of the room. Just like last year, a piece of chalk flew through the air above our heads, and, using her Monday power, Miss Maggie wrote her name on the front board.
I heard “oohs” and “aahs” coming from the six other Mondays. I remembered the feeling the first time she did that. Oh, I wish I were like her, I read from Sabrina’s mind. I smiled. Didn’t we all?
“You are all here for a very special reason,” Miss Maggie began. “You want to show your full Monday potential, and I am going to help you do that.” She smiled widely. Her energy almost made me believe her even though I knew that one or two of these students would never master their Monday power. Those two hopeless souls might as well have been born on a Saturday or Sunday. And here I sat with two powers. Sometimes I wished I could give some of my power to the powerless. I frowned, knowing that was impossible.
“I’d like to start this class with an exercise to gauge where you all are in regards to your Monday ability.” She did the “come here” finger movement and nodded in my direction. “Poppy, please come up here and assist me.”
All eyes were on me as I made my way to the front of the room. I didn’t expect Miss Maggie to make me the center of attention this first day.
“Poppy was in your shoes last year at this time. She could barely lift a feather without using her hands,” she said through a chuckle. “But after just over a week of intense classes and workshops, Poppy mastered her telekinesis with ease.”
“Wow!” a voice exclaimed from the back of the room. “Only a week?”
I smiled, loving how Miss Maggie neglected to mention the whole stealing-my-dog-as-an-extra-incentive thing.
She smiled at me again. “Show them.”
Miss Maggie’s hand flew up and she pointed toward a bucket of red paint, a row of brushes, and white pieces of paper. They hovered in the air on her Monday direction.
She explained what I was to do with these through her thoughts.
As if Miss Maggie and I had planned this prior to class, using my telekinesis, I did just as she instructed in my head. In a flick of my wrist, I placed a piece of paper, brush, and cup of red paint in front of each of the Monday students. Because Sabrina was my mentee, I gave her a little extra paint. No one seemed to notice.
“And now, just as I did with the chalk, you will do the same with the brush and paint. Write your names on the blank sheet Poppy so aptly placed in front of you,” she continued, beaming.
Last year, our opening challenge was to simply move a glass of water. The only m
ess we made was cleaned up in a matter of seconds. Giving these struggling Mondays an assignment like this invited disaster.
And I was right. Within a matter of two seconds, all heck broke loose. The boy seated in front of Sabrina, Hunter McKelly, stared intently at his brush, willing it to move. Instead, his cup of paint slid sharply to the left and tumbled onto his clean pants. A few of the other Mondays laughed. “Great,” he muttered, as Miss Maggie sent a roll of paper towels across the room to him. But he looked down at just the right time, and the roll smacked him across the face. More laughing.
Caleb Wagner had just as much luck. He used his hands to dip the brush in the paint, and then he tried to telekinetically write with it. In a sudden movement, the brush flew across the room and smacked Morgan Dankers across the face.
“Hey!” Morgan shrieked, breaking her concentration.
Then there was Omar Jafrey. He did get his brush to move … but not to the right place. It lifted from the desk and slapped Sabrina on the back of the head.
And just when I thought it couldn’t get much worse, it did. In fact, it became an utter disaster area, as these poor Mondays struggled to get a handle on their unstable telekinesis power.
If someone were to look in the classroom window at that moment, they would have seen brushes, all with a coat of red paint, flying around the room smacking various Mondays. I looked down to see a red splotch on the side of my leg. Great.
Morgan was crouched under the desk, dodging gobs of flying paint. Shrieks and screams came from every direction.
The out-of-control brushes that weren’t smacking other Mondays were smashing into walls, leaving red streaks behind. It looked like a bloodbath! Caleb ran around the room while screaming at the top of his lungs, dodging flying drawing utensils. But throughout it all, the Monday students were laughing hard. Even with ruined clothes and paint-laden hair, nobody was upset in the least.
Then there was Miss Maggie standing in the middle of the mess, frazzled. She sent rolls of paper towels to various parts of the room so the Mondays could begin cleaning up, but the Mondays were too busy trying to control their own tools to even begin cleaning.
“Enough!” yelled Miss Maggie. Everyone snapped to attention and the tools came crashing to the ground. Miss Maggie’s face was bright red. She did not look happy. But then she surprised me. Just when I thought Miss Maggie was going to begin yelling at her class of powerless rejects, a short, high-pitched squeal escaped from her lips. And then another. And another. She was laughing. Laughing harder then I’d ever seen her laugh before.
Then Morgan started to laugh, and then Hunter, and then Sabrina, and then the rest of the students. I joined in.
When the giggles finally died down, Miss Maggie spoke. “And that was your true challenge,” she said. “You need to let go of your fears and approach your power with open arms,” she said. What great advice.
And she was right. These Mondays were so distracted with what was going on around them that they didn’t have time to worry about how well they controlled their Monday power—they simply used it.
Miss Maggie smiled. “And look on the bright side of this mess. Even though it was disastrous, at least you were able to make things move.”
I guess there was hope for them after all. Well, most of them. One of the poor Mondays sat in the corner the entire time though, just squinting away at her paintbrush.
After spending the rest of the time cleaning the mess, it was time to pack up.
“How long did it take you to get so good?” Sabrina asked, wiping the final streaks of red from her forehead.
“It took me until like the end of summer to really get good,” I said. I used my Monday power and pulled the brush from her paint cup. In a few effortless swoops, I wrote her name on the top of her art paper.
She gasped. “See. That’s exactly what I want to be able to do!” she exclaimed.
“It will come,” I said. “I promise.”
She smiled meekly at me and then her lips turned down. I didn’t have to use my Thursday cusp power to know that she didn’t believe me. Could I blame her?
As much as I wanted to be a Monday last year, I didn’t have much confidence in my skills when I first started, either. Heck, just being sent to Power Academy was a huge blow to my ego—everyone talks about the powerless rejects who are forced to go. Nobody ever focuses on how good they are when they come out.
Before I turned to leave, I read something else in Sabrina’s mind that was totally unexpected. Maybe I should tell Poppy about … And then her thought trailed off. I was sure whatever she thought about telling me would come out eventually.
Chapter Nine
I had performed in front of an audience two times in my life. First, when I was in second grade and was cast as an elf in my class production of The Elves and the Shoemaker. The day we were to perform in front of our friends and family, I came down with an awful stomach bug. My mom and dad forced me to go to the show, even though I was totally down for the count. Just as I was about to speak my first line, I threw up. On my shoes. On my apron. On Ellie, who was playing the Shoemaker’s wife. Everywhere. I was beyond mortified.
The other time was during our production of Peter Pan, the only time students were actually allowed to use their weekday powers at school. I was playing one of the lost boys. The Mondays were supposed to use their powers to make books, pens, pencils, and other school supplies fly around during the “I don’t want to go to school” line of the song “I Won’t Grow Up.” Well, I hadn’t mastered my power yet, so when it was my turn, my props just sat there in the middle of the stage. Aw sounds and mutterings of “that poor girl” escaped from the crowd—they obviously felt sorry for me and my powerless, castoff self. At the time, Ellie had gotten a kick out of that little disaster.
Therefore, it was a total surprise to me when Mr. Fluxnut announced that I would be playing Puck—the lead fairy of the fairy kingdom—in this summer’s production. I hadn’t had much luck with sprightly, magical creatures in the past, but obviously he didn’t know that little tidbit.
“Now, let’s pick up where we left off earlier, shall we?” Mr. Fluxnut said, pointing to a page in his script. Since it was only the second day of Power Academy, we were still reading through the script. Because of Shakespeare’s crazy difficult language, it’d been taking us a while.
Today, Mr. Fluxnut wore even skinnier jeans than yesterday, which was nearly impossible. They clung to him tighter than all of the headmistress’s tight outfits combined into one form-fitting getup. But, as always, he wore that N.P.C. hat. I shivered. That hat reminded me of the whole Mark Masters thing I saw—whatever that was.
“Earth to Poppy,” Ellie said, jarring me from my thoughts.
The students were chuckling, picking up on my spacing out.
“Sorry,” I muttered, trying to find my place in the script.
Page 12, Logan said to me. I caught his eyes, which squinted from a smile. Gosh, he was cute.
Thanks, I mouthed.
“How now, Spirit? Whither wander you?” I said, lacking any ounce of enthusiasm.
“No, No, no.” Mr. Fluxnut said, getting louder with each no.
“Like this,” Mr. Fluxnut said, hunching his body over and craning his neck forward in one of the most uncomfortable-looking positions I’d ever seen. “How now, Spirit? Whither wander you?” Now, I wasn’t entirely sure what Puck was supposed to look like, but I was pretty sure he shouldn’t be hunched over like a hobbit. I saw him as more of a magical, whimsical creature, not whatever this thing Mr. Fluxnut was doing in front of me.
“Yes, exactly like that,” Mr. Fluxnut said to … well … himself.
Ugh. I was not getting the hang of this whole acting thing.
“Now try it again,” Mr. Fluxnut said, swooping his arm in a figure eight motion and stepping back from me, allowing me to take my place center stage.
All eyes were on me. Seriously, this was more nerve-rackin
g than last year’s pressure to master my Monday power.
You got this, Poppy, I heard Ellie say in my head. Thank goodness for my cusp power.
I wrapped my fingers around the pendant suspended from my neck. After a deep breath I began, bending over slightly. “How now, spirit? Whither wander you?”
Mr. Fluxnut smiled, revealing his buttery teeth. “Much better! Let’s move on!”
Silence.
“Now, where’s my Fairy One?” His eyes darted around the stage.
The Fairy One he was looking for was Sabrina, my mentee. She pulled a bobby pin from her hair and used it to pick the dirt out of her shoes. She looked just as excited to be here as I was.
“Miss Pennycoff?” Mr. Fluxnut pointed a scraggly finger in her direction and in a gust of wind, her script turned to page fourteen.
Sabrina Pennycoff’s wind-blown head snapped up to attention. She read from the middle of the page. “Either I mistake your shape—”
“Not there, Miss Pennycoff!” Mr. Fluxnut huffed. “Can someone please show her where she should begin?”
Silence.
Line two, I said in my head, even though she wasn’t a Thursday and wouldn’t hear me.
Her large brown eyes met mine for a split second and then she began. “Over hill, over dale. Thorough bush, thorough brier.”
If took me a moment to realize that no one had told her where to begin. Did she just read my mind? I quickly threw that thought out of my head. No way. Larriby assured us we were the only cuspers at Power Academy this summer. That would be ridiculous!
Mr. Fluxnut grimaced. “No, no, no,” he said again, throwing his script to the floor. “Obviously you don’t understand your characters at all.”
Poppy Mayberry, Return to Power Academy Page 4
