Kill Me Now

01Sep08

It was that time of year again. The beginning of school. Many children in America dreaded that horrible, forsaken word of ‘school’. New teachers, for some a new school, and for all, homework. Although parents had tried for ages to get their kids excited, pumped up, and completely ready for the learning process about to take place, many had failed in their roles as adults. Not to say this is a bad sign, or that school is an omen, but the fact that for years people have tried to come up with a way to get children alert and prepared for school, and all have failed.

It was this thought that raced through Ian’s head as he climbed the steps to their new high school. So many things were changing this year. Of course, the obvious fact that he was at a new building. There were many good things about this, such as teachers that might not expect as much from him as some tough ones he had had in middle school, or perhaps teachers that would challenge him more in classes that he needed to be challenged in. Also, the school was approximately 0.2 miles closer than his old middle school to his house. Yet there were also not-so-good things, such as some of his friends leaving him, and older kids who might turn out to be bullies and beat him for money. Even though Ian was a studious child who enjoyed (for the most part) the learning process and whatever came with it, he was alike to his peers that he did not particularly like homework. Last year, in G/T class, his teacher had expected much of him in such little spurts. There were only four graded assignments in the third trimester, yet they took up the entire given time to complete. This year’s G/T class would be much different, whether from the lack of classmates (many had left the school district), or just the teacher and the workload. He would wait to see. Perhaps it would be better. Perhaps not.

 

Music music music…school, school, school. Did he have his trumpet case? Did he have all his summer homework assignments? Did he have his lunch, complete with goat cheese and peanut butter crackers? Yep. So far, so good. It was a bright morning on the first day of school, he had everything he needed, he even had a new polo shirt (American Eagle) and a new lunchbox (The Office). He was ready for high school. But was high school ready for him?

Myles hopped up the sidewalk, having started the year off at his Dad’s house, which was within walking distance from the high school. He was pumped. Myles could almost smell the scent of new textbooks, new teachers, squeaky chairs, hot girls, and jazz band practices. It was going to be so awesome! The one bad thing was that his best friend since kindergarten, Edith, had moved to Falmouth because her dad had moved there and Edith had so many friends who went to that district. So Myles had to walk alone from his dad’s house that morning all the way down the street to the school. No one walked with him, and even Tilly, his dog, had failed to lick him goodbye as she usually did. Myles was taking mostly Honors classes, with AP Prep science. His one exception was G/T. Last year, there had been 13 of them in Gifted and Talented reading/writing class. This year, there were only about 8 or 9 (he wasn’t quite sure). They had had some pretty amazing adventures last year, and he hoped this year was going to be fun, also. But he knew he couldn’t count on anything staying the same in high school.

Whyyyy did she have to be here? WHY? It was sooo not fair. She would much rather be shopping (like yesterday…and the day before…) then sitting in a stinky classroom learning about boring subjects like history. Who actually WANTED to go to school? Losers, that’s who. There was really no point in riding on a smelly, yellow bus all the way to a smelly, old building. She had almost gotten to go to private high school, but because her brother went to this one, her parents had forced her to go here. Life was so not fair. It just wasn’t.

Rachael plunged off the steps of the school bus and onto the sidewalk. Hot juniors to the left, geeky sophmores to the right, and farty, old teachers straight ahead. Rachael chose to go to the far right, towards the section of the school that had all freshmen classes. She knew she could find SOMEONE worth talking to over there, at least until classes started and she got to hang with her BFF’s. Stepping carefully over the cracks in her new 4” heels, Rachael inspected her outfit one last time. Jean mini skirt, white tank top with pink hoodie over it, black heels, and of course, her giant knockoff Coach purse. She carried that everywhere, starting in the 8^th grade. Everyone could distinguish her by it, even from far away. Kids in her G/T class used to always ask her why she carried such a large bag around wherever she went, but it turned out to be fairly handy in their class (on more than one occasion!). Rachael pondered whether or not she would be needing it as much in G/T this year as last, and decided probably not. Seriously, what kind of problems could they face if their teacher was gone? That teacher had hated Rachael. She was the cause of everything.

 

C’mon! Why couldn’t it just be spring already? Lacrosse was what he lived for, all year. Even winter would be good enough, because he could go skiing to distract his mind from lack of true athletic training. Skiing was an easy ‘sport’, something that came naturally to him and he didn’t have to work hard at. In the fall, he didn’t play any sports, because a: he was too good for soccer, b: only gay guys played volleyball, and c: guys weren’t allowed to play field hockey. Also, he was not a runner, so definitely no cross country for him. Hey, big man in the sky, he thought. Can you please speed it ahead to late November, ski season? Also, it wasn’t a bad deal, because then he could skip right over the first day of high school.

Will thought of this as he walked from his mom’s car into the freshmen part of the school. Please, he begged silently, even winter sports sign-ups in October would be alright! No such luck. Apparently the big man in the sky wasn’t feeling generous today. Will scowled and entered the cafeteria, where many of his friends and enemies currently resided. He scouted out Anthony and Sam, who were arm wrestling on a table near the far door. Arm wrestling? Seriously, these guys could do something more productive than wrestling on the first day of high school. Lame…thought Will. He stood still for a moment and pictured himself surrounded by swirling snow, on top of a cold mountain with a pair of skis strapped on his feet. Ahhh…He blinked and opened his eyes to see the usual pandemonium in the cafeteria that he had first heard when he strolled in. Starting to walk towards Sam and Anthony, Will passed Ian standing near the food line. He was in his G/T class (last year, too) and Will couldn’t wait to see what funny things could be cooked up this year. Last year, they had bugged the crap out of Ms. Casson, and although she wasn’t their teacher this year, it would be fun to annoy the new one.

 

Ok. Big day today. First day of school. Some people loved it, some people hated it. He thought it was a fairly big deal. I mean, it’s the first impression for the next four years, how people will remember you, he thought. It had to be good. If a senior saw him picking a wedgie or tripping, his reputation would be ruined. However, if a senior noticed him being cool, hanging with his friends, yet still being smart and athletic, then they would accept him as one of them. It was time.

Colby locked his bike in the bike rack, strapped his helmet onto the outside of his backpack, and hitched his thumbs in his front two belt loops. Oh yeah man, he was cool. He sauntered towards the main building, where all his friends would be. Hopefully there would be some upper classmen to impress, as well. Maybe if he was lucky, his evil math teacher would see him too, and realize how much of a cool kid he was. Then she wouldn’t completely fail him this year in class. Sounded like a plan. Colby meandered past a small group of sophomore girls. He gave them the cool-dude gun-shooting thumbs up. They looked at him in distaste and rushed past. Yeah, they definitely liked him. This was Colby’s thought as he walked smack into the door. Behind him, five senior football players started laughing and pointing. Grreaat…thought Colby. Could this get any better? Sometimes, it was ok to be funny. Like last year in G/T class. That was totally ok to be hilarious, because it would just annoy Ms. Casson and make everybody else smile. But maybe that was why she gave him a B+ instead of an A-. Oh well, it wouldn’t happen this year. Colby was sure of it.

 

WOOHOO! First day of school, first official day of field hockey practice, first time seeing some of her friends since the end of school last year! It was all so exciting. She even had all her bright, carefully organized notebooks, complete with pre-sharpened pencils and smelly erasers, already tucked neatly into her locker. She had come to both of the open houses, one to organize her locker, the other just to be able to traverse the halls she would be learning in for the next four years. High school was going to be sooo much fun! Her brother had graduated last year, but her sister still went to this school. Maybe she could connect her with older kids! Then she would be a little more popular in her own grade. But who really cared? It was all just new!

This is what Maggie thought as her sister dropped her off in front of the school, then drove away to park out back. It was not fair that Emily had her license, but Maggie still had to wait another year, just to get her PERMIT. At least she would be able to drive to school and be the envy of everyone. Maggie spotted the back of Rachael as she walked towards the freshmen cafeteria. God! There were so many people here, she thought as she passed a bunch of unfamiliar faces. Soon, she would know all of them. Grr…her stomach grumbled. Whoops. She had forgotten to eat breakfast, what with the excitement of everything that morning. Well, Maggie didn’t usually eat breakfast, but she did on important days (like the first day of school and the first field hockey game). Picking up speed, she tried to get to the cafeteria faster, hoping the food here would be better than the food last year. Maybe there would be cake, to celebrate the first day of school! Last year, Ms. Casson had brought them cake/cookies on numerous occasions, to celebrate great accomplishments. The cake was reallllyy good. But that was the only time Maggie liked Ms. Casson. All the other time, she was a snobby teacher who couldn’t afford to give Maggie an A- instead of a B+, forcing her to drop down to Honors instead of High Honors. Maggie’s head spun; just thinking about it putting her in a tizzy. It was ok. It was a new year. No more stupid Ms. Casson.

 

This was a new year. Even though unfortunately, he had broken up with his girlfriend near the middle of the summer, he was ok. He had mostly gotten over her. Time to start anew! Even though the summer had been totally awesome…his band had written and rehearsed three new songs, he had played with his dog, he had eaten a bunch of healthy, eco-friendly organic food that his mom brought home in her Prius. He had also hit the beach with his friends, went to Kieve (his all-time favorite camp), and entered a pie eating contest (of which he came in 2^nd!). It had been a great summer.

Greg pulled at the heel of his new shoe, then straightened up and headed towards the open, double doors where the delicious smell was coming from. After having eaten a ton of gross, health-istic food over the summer, he was ready for some greasy, sloppy surprise slop. Right now, his nose was following the sweet scent of syrupy, sugary pancakes and chocolate milk. YUM! Greg had known he would be able to eat something delicious today, so he had skipped out on his mom’s wheat germ banana-blueberry tofu pancakes, instead opting for an apple and hoping that the school didn’t run out of food before he got there. Greg checked his reflection in the window outside, making sure no tags were sticking out, no clothing completely rumpled. He also checked out his hair. Greg had finally gotten a haircut, much to the joy of Maggie and Rachael and Myles, his fellow G/T classmates last year. They had been nagging him about cutting it for three months. Now, finally, it was only about 2 ½ inches long instead of a huge afro that was probably 6-7 inches. Maybe in G/T this year they would actually say something interesting instead of ‘Greg, you need a hair cut!’ or ‘PLEASE cut your hair Greg!’. Frankly, those got pretty annoying. He had heard them the first million times.

 

Now let’s get gone, walk it out (walk it out), now tha-that’s what I’m talking ‘bout…she sang along in her head. Oh, crap. They were at the school. Ugh…so nerve wracking. She liked the first day of school, yet it also brought a sense of mystery and confusion. Who knew what classes were REALLY going to be like? Step-up day was all fun and games, but this was the real deal. She really didn’t want to fail any courses, which would put a huge damper on her plans for Harvard or Dartmouth. It just made her nervous to be there, staring at everyone swirling around her and being busy. Blah…it was too confusing. She hoped she didn’t throw up before she found one of her friends.

Allie groaned and pulled herself up out of the seat and off the bus. She used to have one of her best friends who rode the bus with her every day, but ever since her friend’s brother could drive, she rode with him in the morning, leaving Allie alone with Ian, who even HE didn’t seem to be on that day! Where was everyone? She scoped out the front yard of her new high school, looking for someone that she knew. From far away, Allie saw Colby crash into a door, and Greg poking at his head near another set of doors (those of which were open!). She started walking towards Greg, pausing every few yards to say hi to yet another soccer teammate or basketball player. Since she had played on the summer league for those two teams, she knew a lot of older kids now. They all waved and said hi to her as she passed by. She even saw her JV basketball coach, who was also a math teacher at their school. She waved to Allie and motioned for her to keep going towards the freshmen area of the school. Hahaaa…thought Allie. That was a good one. Allie was taking all honors classes, which included AP Prep science, Honors Geometry, and of course, G/T (reading and writing). Allie hoped they would have more free writing time this year than last, where all they did was read boring, stupid novels that no one understood, and passed balls around in a circle. Reallll fun. Ms. Casson was one of two teachers that no one had really liked. The only person who beat her for craziness and weirdness was Mrs. Marchand, the creep of a teacher they had had in 7^th grade. Luckily, Allie heard that she had been carted off to a mental asylum the previous year.

 

Sailing sailing sailing…he thought. Why couldn’t school start two weeks later? This was the best time of year to go sailing. Beautiful skies, wavy water, and plenty of wind made for great boating conditions. It was stupid that he had to be stuck inside a building on such a cloudless day. It should be illegal to start school before September 25^th! That way everyone could get their full experience of summer (plus, he could spend the whole week at the fair, where they had tractor pulls, pig races, and he could scope out all the country girls!). Damn Republicans…he thought, cursing the government in his mind. Maybe he should move to Canada.

Bob felt the breeze ruffle his unkempt and slightly greasy hair. Stepping out of his dad’s car, he watched a group of seniors laughing at some poor, idiotic freshmen. Bob laughed, too. Loser. Who would actually crash into a-crap. Bob rubbed his head, cursing himself for walking smack into a wall. His dad waved goodbye, smiling, and drove off. URGH. He just wanted to get inside and read the newest Cheesecake Murder Mystery book. This month, it was Oreo MudPie Custard Mystery. Mmmm…Bob walked into the cafeteria, and noticed Myles to the right. He turned and gave him a full-on glare. Bob hated that child. He was such a freak, and he was so much better at catching balls than him. Last year in Ms. Casson’s class, they had to pass frickin’ balls around all morning. Myles could always catch them, but Bob fumbled every.single.time. It got to be rather annoying, what with Rachael shouting “PAUSE” and Colby knocking every ball down that came towards Will. He remembered his favorite bulky green coat, in which he had hidden many surprises…it helped make for a slightly interesting year, he thought devilishly. Let’s hope this year follows suit.

***

“Hey Rach!” Squealed Maggie happily as she, Allie, and Myles caught up with Rachael. They were all walking towards G/T, their third class of the day (well, technically 4^th but 3^rd period was advisory, which was only 13 minutes long).

“Hey Mags!” Allie and Myles rolled their eyes at each other. Rachael and Maggie were close friends, and they had pet nicknames for each other. It got fairly annoying after the first few times. Allie looked up and noticed Colby and Will walking down the hall to their left, trying to reach the growing group.

“Hi Colby.” Myles called, while he and Allie waited for them to catch up. Rachael and Maggie kept going down the hall, where Myles saw Ian join them up ahead.

“Do you think we’re gonna get a good teacher?” Wondered Will. Myles shrugged.

“I dunno. I haven’t heard anything.” Colby answered. The four of them struggled through the crowds of older kids towards the room where the G/T students were housed.

“Wouldn’t it be cool if we had like, an alien for a teacher?” Kidded Will. Colby nodded eagerly, and the two went off on a rampage about crazy alien teachers and where the teacher would take them on field trips. Allie just kept walking, already familiar with the way Colby and Will acted. Myles tried to fall a few steps behind, so that it didn’t look like he was associated with the people that all the upper classmen were already calling crazy and psychotic.

“Bam bam beedum bam bam beedum bum…” Greg sang Disturbia by Rihanna as he joined the group of slightly insane children named Allie, Colby, and Will. Yeah, everyone pretty much knew they were freaks. But hey, that’s what geniuses were, right? Smart, insane people who invented new things and theories.

“Hi guys! What’s crackin’?” Asked Greg.

“Nada mucho amigo.” Answered Allie. They were almost to the classroom now, and had just reached the spot where Maggie, Rachael, and Ian were waiting. Behind them, Greg noticed, walked Myles and Bob. Myles looked a bit wary, as though Bob might at any moment decide to attack him. Bob himself looked as though he were daydreaming, while wearing that gigantic green coat of his. Jeez, thought Rachael. It was like, 90 degrees out, and also, that jacket was SUCH a fashion faux-paux..

“Ready?” Asked Myles as they approached. Will pretended to shoot himself, and Bob actually stuck his finger out and hit Will.

“Ow, what the heck Bob?” Will rubbed his sore temple. “That’s gonna bruise!” Bob shrugged. He blew out his smoking finger and replaced it inside his jacket pocket.

“Let’s go.” Suggested Maggie, leading the way into their new G/T classroom for the next four years.

“Oh.” Started Rachael.

“My.” Said Maggie.

“Freakin’.” Wondered Bob.

“God.” Finished Myles.

“No.” Began Greg.

“Frickin’.” Commented Allie.

“Way.” Said Will.

“In.” Ian gulped.

“Hell.” Stated Colby. Rachael fainted. Maggie and Ian quickly reached down to help her. Allie slipped behind Colby and Will, knowing that if they were seeing the same nightmare as her, then she couldn’t be dreaming. Myles rubbed his eyes, trying to get rid of the person standing before him. Greg turned to leave the classroom, and Bob glared out from under his eyebrows evilly.

“Hey guys! Welcome back!” Exclaimed the one, the only…Ms. Casson.

“This CANNOT be happening.” Said Maggie incredulously from the floor. Ian continued to fan Rachael, hoping she would return to consciousness soon.

“At least it’s not Mrs. Marchand.” Greg hopefully tried to find some goodness in the situation.

“SURPRISE!” Shouted a white-haired lady, popping out from behind Ms. Casson.

“Wha-what’s going on?” Asked Rachael, struggling to sit up.

“Hi Rachael!” Said Mrs. Marchand excitedly. Rachael fainted again.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Whispered Allie. Will shook his head no. Colby pushed his hair back, then commented,

“Well…where’s the teacher?” Apparently he hadn’t gotten it yet.

“Umm…we ARE the teachers! We’re team-teaching!” Ms. Casson brightly stated. Colby turned pale and tugged at the collar of his shirt. This was bad news. Bad, bad news. Rachael was sitting up, having recovered from her most recent faint, and Greg was almost out of the classroom, his hand just leaving the doorknob when Mrs. Marchand called,

“And Greg! How nice to see you again!” Blushing red, he turned and faced the two most evil, daft teachers he had ever been taught by. Greg feigned a wave. Ms. Casson smiled delightedly, and clapped her hands.

“Who wants to start off the year with a good round of ball-passing and reflections?” Rachael dropped to the floor again. This time she was out cold.

“Um…I think we should bring her to the nurse.” Commented Maggie carefully, unsure if she would be taken seriously.
“Nope! She’ll be fine if you just leave her there.” Mrs. Marchand muttered something under her breath.

“Sorry, didn’t quite catch that.” Ian addressed her.

“Oh, nothing!” She replied quite cheerily. Deciding he had better give in to ‘the man‘, Myles attempted to follow Ms. Casson over to the circle, but was stopped by Bob who held on to the back of Myles’ shirt. Bob yanked him backwards. Shaking himself, Myles scowled at Bob and faced the teachers.

“C’mon guys!” They hopped over to the pre-made circle of chairs. Reluctantly, Colby and Will followed suit, still pursued by Allie, and Myles tagged after the trio. With a last look at Rachael, Maggie, Ian, and Greg cantered over to the circle. Bob brought up the rear. He paused only to decide whether he should whip out his secret weapon or wait until another day. He chose to wait.

“Good morrow, Maggie!” Sang Mrs. Marchand as she threw the ever ominous beach ball at Maggie’s head. What the heck? Thought Maggie. Was this some kind of British thing today? Deciding she better follow Mrs. Marchand’s lead, Maggie passed to Will and went,

“Good day, William.” Will looked at her funnily, yet let it go.

“Hi Colby…” He almost growled. Colby DID growl. Apparently Ms. Casson didn’t hear it.

“Ian.” Colby said pointedly. Ian caught the ball, skills that were gained last year returning.

“Good morning Ms. Casson.” Called Ian, his tendency to be a favorite of all teachers taking control of the situation, although he didn’t want to give in to that particular one.

“Welcome back Myles!” The words ripped out of Ms. Casson’s throat. He winced, the pain of hearing her voice too excruciating.

“Um…hi Bob.” Myles threw it to Bob, who didn’t quite get a grasp on the ball. It fell to the floor.

“Who still needs it?” Asked Bob. Maggie smacked her forehead. Some things never changed. Surprisingly, only Allie and Greg raised their hands this time. Usually, there was at least half the circle left. Bob chucked it at Greg, who lightly tapped it at Allie.
“Oops! Greeegg, you didn’t say anything to Allie!” Ms. Casson made them re-pass the brightly colored ball.

“Sorry.” Mumbled Greg. “Hey Allie.” He threw it to her.

“We’ll be reinforcing that rule this year, of always having to say hello to whomever you throw to.” Mrs. Marchand injected.

“Correct.” Ms. Casson backed up Mrs. Marchand’s injection. Oh great, thought Colby. They’re already backing each other up and deciding on rules beforehand. How very parent-ish of them. By this point, Rachael was awake and carefully ruling out any factors that could possibly make this reality a dream. There were none. Accepting that she was now part of a living nightmare, Rachael awkwardly made it to the circle and sat down as far away from Mrs. Marchand as she could (which was about three seats over).

“Ahh, Rachael, so nice of you to join us!” Ms. Casson quickly threw to the ball to her, almost knocking Rachael out of her seat with the force.

“Ehhgh…” She made a weird noise and threw it back to Ms. Casson.

“SO!” Mrs. Marchand exclaimed. “Even though I’ve only known what Ms. Casson’s told me about last year,” Oh boy, thought Will. She knows about the pets and anti-pets activity. “I want to hear about all of your summers! What have you been up to?”

“Puking.” Bob spat out automatically. Mrs. Marchand looked taken aback, but Ms. Casson knew it was normal.
“How so, Bob?” She asked.

“My doctor thought I had fatty liver disease, but then we found out that was for cats, so we switched doctors. My new one told me that I just had a bad bout of the flu.” Bob itched his leg. Jeez, thought Maggie. I seriously never thought I’d have to repeat the last two years. Over a period of four.

“Interesting…” Mrs. Marchand’s face had a sickly pallor to it now. She wasn’t good around health issues. Rachael remembered that.

“Too bad Miranda wasn’t here to hear that reference to cats.” Ms. Casson moaned sadly.

“Where is she anyways?” Asked Colby.

“Miranda’s family had a sudden relocation to Latvia. Apparently there are a lot of free-roaming cats and guinea pigs that needed their help.” Ok, weird, thought Myles. I guess the love of cats (or obsession) ran in the family.

“What about you, Myles?” Asked Ms. Casson.

“Um…I went to UMF for jazz camp. It was cool.” Bob grunted and Ms. Casson shook her head.

“Tsk tsk Myles. We don’t use ‘um’ and ‘uh’ in our reflections.”

“Allie?”
“Um, I played a lot of basketball and soccer for the, uh, school.” WHAT THE HECK? Wondered Myles. That was not fair! Allie just used um AND uh and she didn’t get penalized for it. Allie gave Myles a sympathetic look, because she had caught on to that fact, also.

“Ian! Very nice to see you. Anything to share about your summer?”

“My family went on a few nature trips, and I visited the library a couple times. I also hung out with Greg and Robert this summer. It was pretty fun.” Surprisingly, Ian said quite a bit, which was unusual, because last year he had mostly uttered the word ‘pass’.

“William! How nice it is to see your face again.” Mrs. Marchand happily belted out. Creepy, Will thought, seeing as how he hadn’t been in her class two years ago. He gave her a look of disdain.

“Oook…well this summer I went to lacrosse camp with Colby, then Kieve with Greg! It was awesome!” He said enthusiastically.

“Great. Greg?” Ms. Casson asked.

“Well, yeah, I went to Kieve with Will. Kieve is my all-time favorite camp. One time when I was there, we were decorating potato sacks for the potato sack race, and this random kid came up to me and asked if he could borrow the blue marker. And I was like ‘uh, no dude that’s mine, go find your own blue marker’ but the kid totally didn’t get it, so he started like punching me going ‘give me the freakin’ blue marker!’ and I was like ‘dude u can’t-”

“GREG!” Snapped Rachael impatiently. Oh yeah, remembered Allie. Rachael ALWAYS got impatient with Greg’s long and elaborate reflections. Funny how you could forget all this stuff over a period of two months, but then suddenly remember it in just 45 minutes.

“Rachael, perhaps you’d like to share a reflection?” Asked Ms. Casson.
“Yes, I would.” Rachael appeared as though she wanted to reach over and bite Mrs. Marchand. “I went shopping every week this summer, besides going to lacrosse camp at Wayneflete. Also I went to New York to visit my cousins for one weekend. It was sweet! We saw a play on Broadway called ‘Revenge of the Martians’ which, if you think about it, actually sounds a lot like MARCHAND.” Rachael’s voice was nearing hysterics. Maggie patter her shoulder, to relax her.

“I went to Stix Camp this summer (a field hockey camp).” Maggie explained. “It was really fun because two of my friends went, also. Plus, today’s the first official day of field hockey practice!” She squealed, obviously excited.

“Congratulations Maggie.” Ms. Casson commended her. “Colby, want to be our last reflection for the day?” Colby looked as though he’d rather do anything than be the last reflection, but decided it was against his power to struggle.

“Yeah, so I went to lacrosse camp with Will. Then I also went to New York to see my friend Isabel. I had a pretty good summer.” Colby saw Myles glance eagerly at the clock, to see when the class was over, and how much more of the nightmare they had to cope with. About four minutes.

“Well, does anyone want to hear about MY summer?” Asked Mrs. Marchand. NO NO NO! Rachael thought silently. Taking everyone’s awkward silence to be a ‘yes’, Mrs. Marchand started a complicated discussion of what she had done.

“My husband and I hiked through Yellowstone National Park, then we came home and camped out at Bradbury Mountain. Lastly, we went to Kansas, because that’s where doctors used to send sufferers of consumption in the olden days, to get cured. We thought it would be good for our health.”

“TIME TO GO!” Shouted Maggie. Everyone gathered up their stuff and rushed out the door without another word.

“See you tomorrow!” Ms. Casson called after them.

“Bye Rachael!” Mrs. Marchand yelled. Rachael was leading the pack that was running away from them.

“I cannot believe that.” Allie whimpered. Maggie and Colby patted her back, because they felt the same way.

“Me.neither.” Rachael panted, after having run so hard. Everyone understood that. Those two teachers were both the ones that had hated Rachael the most (and the feeling was mutual), and she used to get nightmares when Mrs. Marchand was teaching. They had all been through a terrible ordeal that morning. But everybody had to split up, because the school day wasn’t over.

***

“This has seriously been one of the worst first days back to school in a long time.” Whispered Maggie to Allie. They were sitting in math class, working together on some problems.

“I know!” Allie wrote the answer down and then showed it to Maggie, who copied it onto her paper. Hey, sometimes you just can’t think about math, thought Maggie, who was letting Allie do almost all of the work.

“I just can’t understand how she got the job at the high school! Why couldn’t we have had Mrs. Dichter?” Whined Maggie, while copying another of Allie’s answers.

“Because that would have just been too convenient.” Snapped Allie, furiously typing something on her calculator. Stupid administrators. Why did Mrs. Dichter have to move down to the middle school and Ms. Casson have to apply for a job up here? They had FOUR MORE YEARS with Mrs. Marchand and Ms. Casson, and there had been a pretty shady past for both of them. Allie remembered how Ms. Casson had made Bob turn evil, and he went on a rampage, trying to kill everyone in their G/T class. Mrs. Marchand had been mean and almost made Rachael pee her pants every day (Rachael was sitting three seats behind Maggie). Also, with Ms. Casson, evil Canadians had come and she hadn’t even tried to stop them! It was all very weird.

Ian watched Allie and Maggie from across the room. He noticed how the sun sparkled in Maggie’s hair, each glistening strand like a spider web. It looked very nice today, up in a ponytail. Also, her eyes were the prettiest shade of blue he had ever seen. They were almost the color of the ocean on a foggy day…
“IAN! Snap out of it!” Stefan, Ian’s best friend, waved his hand in front of Ian’s face and sighed.

“Sorry.” Ian amended, telling Stefan his answer. “I got 42.36.” To be truthful, Ian had much more important things on his mind besides Maggie and math. The reappearance of Ms. Casson and Mrs. Marchand was quite disturbing. Not only were they of a cabalistic nature, but the fact that the two of them, exhorting together, well, it was almost too much to bear.

Meanwhile, near the opposite end of the school, Colby, Will, Myles, and Bob were sitting through a boring honors science class. The teacher was reviewing things that they had learned last year, such as exactly how many atoms made up the desk in front of them and how rise over run correlated with the height of spaceships, how much fuel they needed, and the trajectory angle they landed with. It was all very boring. Colby was doodling little fuzzy creatures. Will was flirting with the blonde girl next to him, who was giggling quite loudly for Bob’s taste. Bob was staring into space, not really doing anything. Lastly, Myles was watching a crow outside. He decided to name it Ihatemscasson and that it would be his ‘school’ pet from now on. Myles waved to the crow. Bob mistook the wave and thought it was aimed at himself, so he then proceeded to glare at Myles the rest of the science class.

All alone in mastery, Greg was completing his Spanish homework. Number review, body part review, and verb conjugation. Fun. Once he was done, he leaned back and surveyed the students around him. There were three close by. One was a girl, fairly tall, brunette, medium weight, pretty nose (probably had nice toes, too, thought Greg). She had on a pair of short khaki shorts, a blue tank top, and blue flip-flops. She appeared to be working on Latin. Good, thought Greg, she should be smart.

Another of the three people was a boy named Sam, who was in Greg’s math class. He was on the short side (something Greg could kind of relate to, sort of), had blonde curly hair, and was wearing a Red Sox hat backwards. He also had on long, black basketball shorts, a red and white striped polo shirt (Aeropostale, perhaps, the origin?), and old white basketball sneakers. Greg knew he played point guard on the school’s team, and found himself wondering how many points he scored in a game. Really, if the position was ‘point guard’, then shouldn’t they score a lot of points? It just made sense. Sam was completing his Algebra II homework. Greg realized he should probably start that soon.

The last person nearest to him was another guy. Greg didn’t know his name, but he had a football jersey on, so he assumed he played football for Varsity, because he was big, beefy… and the Varsity had a home game tonight. The guy looked to be your average joe; he was doing CP science problems. Not dumb, but not overly smart. Good for a football player. The guy also had cargo shorts on and a few stubbly hairs sprouting on his chin. Absently, Greg reached up to stroke his own chin, probably hoping to find a few new hairs there. No such luck. Perhaps he was not destined to grow a goatee. But even so, just one or two tiny hairs there would make a big difference, he thought dejectedly. Sighing, he opened his Algebra textbook and got to work.

***

Allie took a bite of sandwich, then lividly started writing things down on a piece of paper. She was pressing so hard, the tip broke. Again. Allie slammed the pencil onto the table and ripped another bite of sandwich.

“Jeez.” Commented Myles, while chewing his goat cheese. “Anger management problems much?”

“Yeah!” Agreed Maggie. They were sitting at a lunch table together, in a cafeteria that was slightly less inhabited than the other one.

“Yes. I do.” Allie stated simply. Maggie was unsure of whether she was being serious or just kidding. She decided to forget it. Maggie pulled a bag of wheat thins from her lunchbox and started mechanically making little cheese and turkey cracker sandwiches. Myles watched with interest as Allie scanned the cafeteria sadly, the pressure of the day just overwhelming. She watched a group of sophomore guys throwing milk caps at each other, then a few junior girls texting on their phones, hardly touching their salads.

“Is it me, or do all cafeterias seem to follow some domesticated rule of who does what during their lunch period?” Wondered Allie out loud.

“I think you’re right.” Replied Maggie after some deliberation. “You always see the same people doing the same thing. There’s never any difference from day-to-day activities.”
“Also, if you’re caught doing something out of the ordinary, then you’re immediately dismissed from the status quo. People look at you in an entirely different way. It’s a-”
“PARADIGM SHIFT.” Maggie and Allie chorused together, laughing. Myles raised his eyebrow, not having understood any of that particular conversation (except the paradigm shift-that was from the horrendous book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens by Sean Covey. Myles had actually written him a letter discussing how wrong and stupid the book was. He never got a reply).

“See those people over there?” Maggie showed Allie a table near the door. Allie nodded.
“Every single day, those two girls eat a granola bar and a water, and the guys eat sandwiches, milk, and chips. The girls are always texting, and the boys are always being total slobs and leaving a mess all over the table. Nothing changes ever.”

“Yeah, I see what you mean. Well, I think that’s a common problem in our school. Everyone has a certain ritual they follow each day, and they do that because it’s comfortable. If someone changed a bunch of things in their daily routine, they’d have no guidance and no place to be accepted by others around them. It’s sorta interesting, if you really take the time to study it.” Allie observed.

“Wow. That’s so deep, it’s shallow.” Maggie said, heartfelt. They both laughed, and even Myles could join in on that one. All three of them understood Maggie’s constant use of the phrase “that’s so deep it’s shallow” and Myles and Allie could almost always finish her sentence when they knew what she was going to say.

Myles looked up and saw Colby waving to him from near the trashcan. Scooping up his dirty wrappers, Myles headed that way.

“Dude, I’m thinking of going to the office and asking for a different teacher. No one likes Ms. Casson or Mrs. Marchand.” Complained Colby.

“What good would that do though? You know they wouldn’t get a new teacher, just for you.” Myles pointed out.

“Yeah, well…your mom.” That was all Colby usually replied with when he was frazzled and didn’t know how to think straight. Myles just shook his head and returned to Allie and Maggie. He saw that Rachael had joined their table during his absence.

“…so I was like “Oh no you didn’t” and the guy ran away.”
“Oh no you didantt girlfriend!” Myles copied Rachael while snapping his fingers. Rachael cracked up laughing in that obnoxious, loud voice of hers while Maggie giggled and Allie sighed. She had some special friends, that was for sure. Rachael said bye and went back to sit with her boyfriend Eric. It was weird how Rachael and him were going out, because they weren’t really anything alike on the outside. But it’s always the inside that counts the most. At least that’s what everybody’s always told. I wonder if it’s true…thought Maggie. Probably. It was most likely one of those crappy old Chinese proverbs or something. Typical; adults trying to sound all smart and wise by using ancient sayings. HA! Maggie was on to them. She knew what they were trying to do!

“Maagggiee…” Allie waved her hand in front of Maggie’s face. Maggie jerked back into reality.

“You were zoning out again.” Disapproved Myles. Maggie shrugged, the sorry-for-spacing-out-yet-again expression on her face.

“Time to go.” Allie reminded them. The three kids scooped up their trays/trash and dumped them in the trash can on the way out of the lunchroom.

***

“Tienes un cerebro pequeno, Ian.” Joked Allie during Spanish class.

“Ha.ha.” Ian responded. “Tienes un imaginación muy grande, Alejandra.” The two of them were sitting in Spanish class, last period of the day, and they were bored out of their minds.

“Este es muy abburido.” Droned Ian in a voice similar to Senora Zipper’s.

“Hahaha!” Laughed Allie. Senora Zipper walked by.

“Do you have enough to do, Ian and Allie?” She asked sternly.
“Si Senora.” Allie responded with a grin. Senora Zipper shook her head and walked away. Ian frowned. His expression mirrored madness because he could not tame teachers the way Allie could. He just didn’t have the same charm.

“It’s ok, Ian.” She smiled, noticing his distress. “We still love you.”

***
“This.cannot.frickin.be.happening.I.just.can’t.stand.it.”Rachael muttered to herself during field hockey. They were doing a passing drill, and she kept missing the ball because her mind was on Mrs. Marchand. She hit the ball back to Maggie, pretending it was Mrs. Marchand’s head. HA! Thought Rachael. Take that. Oops. Accidentally, Rachael had smashed it over Maggie’s head towards the window behind her. CRASH!
“Ahh!” Whispered Maggie. Keeping a strained face, she led Rachael back towards a different group of people.

“Oops. Sorry.” Apologized Rachael. She carefully grabbed another ball and started cautiously passing with Maggie in the middle of the field, so that she wasn’t near any windows.

“I hope no one saw that!” She bit her lip. Actually…maybe Mrs. Marchand got hit with it! YES! Rachael jumped up and down with her stick. Suddenly she realized everybody was watching her.

“Ummm…yeah…” She settled down and received another spectacular pass from Maggie.
Jeez, grumbled Maggie. Why’d everything have to be so awesome on the first day, and then POOF! It all went down the toilet. What a rip-off. She smacked the ball back to Rachael. She was pretending that it was Ms. Casson’s head. Suddenly a ball came flying through the air towards Maggie. She snapped her hand out to protect her face.
A few seconds passed. Pulling her hand away, Maggie saw that it held the ball between her fingers.
“Whoa, Maggie! I didn’t know you had such lightening reflexes!” Rachael commented. She looked kind of puzzled. But her expression had nothing on Maggie’s. Still holding the ball in her hand, Maggie studied it before her face. How the heck was that possible? I’ve never caught anything that fast before, she thought. Technically, it should have smashed in her face. It was a bizarre phenomenon.

Maggie opened her hand to drop the ball. But it wouldn’t leave her fingertips. She splayed her fingers, trying to shake the ball loose. It wouldn’t budge.

“Wow. You’re like frickin’ spiderman!” Rachael stared in awe. Luckily, no one around them was paying attention. Grabbing the ball with her other hand, Maggie tried to pry it off her fingers. Finally, it came. Then it stuck onto her other hand.

“WHAT THE HECK!” She screamed, frustrated. She set her hand on the ground with the ball and put both feet around it, pulling her arm upwards. Finally, her fingers released the field hockey ball and it settled on the ground. Maggie stared at her hands. Tiny, porous hairs, nearly invisible to the naked eye, littered her fingertips. Nothing was on her palm, but each and every one of her fingers on both hands was covered with sticky hairs.

“This is freaky.” She felt like crying, but knew she had to keep a healthy appearance up for the rest of the field hockey team.

“It’s ok Maggie. Just keep playing, and don’t touch anything except your stick with your hands.” Rachael tried to help. It really was weird. She’d never seen anything like it before (except of course on the Spiderman movies, but hey, he was a superhero). Wait. Maybe MAGGIE was turning into a superhero!

“Have you fallen into a vat of toxic waste or gotten bit by a spider or other animal recently?” Rachael asked suspiciously.

“Um…no.” Maggie stared at Rachael as though she were going crazy.

“Just wondering.” The girls continued to pass the field hockey ball back and forth, but Maggie’s hands never left the stick.

***

Myles and Greg were in the band room, cleaning their trumpet and bass guitar after a hard day’s practice.

“Dude, we’re so gonna rock at the next concert!” Cheered Greg. Myles nodded, placing his cleaning cloth precisely on the center of the next valve. He had a very mechanical way of cleaning his trumpet. Even the little spit dropper, which he had to clean every so often, was perfectly shiny. Greg’s guitar, however, was a different story. Crumbs from various snacks littered the strings, and dirty fingerprints dusted the outside of the bass. Greg swiped a dirty cleaning cloth over the whole mess, then stood the guitar upright and stretched.

“Is it almost time for the late bus?” He wondered aloud. Myles nodded and placed his trumpet, newly polished, back into its hardwood case. Then he methodically folded his cleaning cloth and screwed the cap back onto the bottle of polish.

“Um, a little help here Greg?” Myles joked, sitting on the floor and holding out his hand. Greg reached down to help him up. SHOOM! Myles flew past Greg’s head and landed with a clash next to the drum-set 15 feet behind them.
“Holy shit.” Myles panted, staring at Greg curiously. Greg stared at his arms. They appeared normal. But maybe…He walked over to the piano. If he could throw Myles that far just by picking his hand up, he must have super strength or something! Bending down, Greg grabbed ahold of the piano’s legs and hoisted.

“Holy frickin shit.” Myles whispered. The piano dangled in the air, held up with one arm by Greg.

“How the hell did I do that?” He wondered, almost dropping the piano in shock as he placed it carefully down again. Myles backed slowly away from Greg, as though he were going to hurt him.

“Don’t worry dude.” Greg said, placing his hands into his short pockets. Myles breathed heavily and returned to stand next to his trumpet case.

“We should tell someone about this.” Myles bit his lip.

“What, like some freaky scientist dudes who would want to examine me and prod me in places I don’t want to be prodded in?” Greg exploded.

“No…I meant someone like Allie or Maggie. They’re good at keeping secrets, and they might be able to help you. There’s not much I can do for you Greg.” Myles honestly said. Greg nodded, like the weight of the world had suddenly come down on his shoulders.

“Yeah…let’s go wait for the bus.” Together, the two boys gathered their belongings and trudged outside.

***

“When I grow up, I wanna be famous, I wanna be a star, I wanna be in movies!” Sang Colby as he and Will walked back to Colby’s house. Colby lived about a mile and a half from the school, and he and Will always hung out. Today was especially important, since it was the first day of school. They had a lot to talk about.

Will laughed at Colby, then playfully shoved him into the bushes on the side of the road. What he didn’t realized was that the person who lived there, Colby’s neighbor, was having a huge bonfire right on the other side of the trees.

“Oh my god!” Yelled Will. Colby was in the fire, struggling to get out. There were burning sticks all around him, and nothing to grab on to. The pyre of orange, licking flames spit and hissed over him.

“Hang on Colby!” Will shouted, searching for someone to help him. But suddenly, there was too much terror going on for him to reach help. Colby was emerging from the fire, ablaze and with arms held high.

“Phew, that was close, wasn’t it? I almost got burned there!” Colby said to Will.

“Um…um…Colby…you’re uh, you’re on fire!” Will stammered. Colby glanced down at himself.

“HOLY CRAP!” He started to gallop around the sidewalk, stamping his feet and trying to get rid of the flames licking up his body. Then he stopped.

“Wait- I don’t FEEL any of this. I’m not hot, I’m normal. And I’m not dying right now, so that’s good.” Colby inspected himself, patting each and every part of his anatomy to make sure it was all there. We’re all good! He told himself.

“Man, you’re like that guy from the Fantastic 4 movie! The flame guy!” Will shouted joyously. This realization came to Colby as well, and he snapped his fingers just like the guy. Immediately, the fire went out and Colby was back to normal Colby, albeit missing his shirt and shoes. Clad only in his shorts, Colby snapped his finger again. This time, a flame about 2 inches high clicked into play above his fingers.

“Whoa!” Colby snapped again. They started walking back towards Colby’s house, all the while with him snapping his fingers to make the fire go on and then off again.

“Ok seriously Colby, that’s getting really annoying!” Will spazzed.

“Sorry.” Colby snapped once more, then stopped.

“I wonder if this has happened to anyone else.”

***

Bob and Ian sat stiffly next to each other on the bus, Bob looking straight ahead and Ian staring out the window. It wasn’t their fault they had to sit next to each other! The late bus was crowded that day, with tons of upperclassmen coming home from their first sports practice of the year. Ian could barely make out the backs of Greg and Myles’ heads up front.

“Bob, could you give me a little space please?” Ian pleaded. Bob was leaning in on him, practically breathing down his neck. Grudgingly, Bob shifted his body weight so he was leaning more towards the center aisle then on Ian. Bob grumbled something.
“Sorry, what?” Ian didn’t have the best ears on the planet.

“Nothing.” Bob muttered. A few seconds passed.

“WHAT? I do not have funny looking hair!” Cried Ian, much to the annoyance of the juniors sitting around them. Bob stared at him as though he were from another planet.
“Yeah, you were thinking that I had funny hair and that it needed to be cut.” Ian complained hurtfully. Bob still stared.
“How’d you KNOW that?” He pressed. Suddenly, Ian looked less mad at Bob and more interested in what had just happened.

“I don’t really know. I was just getting kind of mad for not knowing what you had said, and then all of the sudden I could basically see inside your head. The most prominent thought at the moment was about my hair!” Ian gradually died down to a whisper, lest the people around them hear and think they were queer.

“Ok. That’s creepy.” Bob said. Talk about yourself…Ian thought.

“See if you can do it again.” Bob suggested. Ian nodded.

“Think of something, and focus mostly on that.” Bob nodded also and stared straight ahead again. A few seconds ticked by.

“EEWW!” Nervously laughed Ian. “Bob, that’s gross.” What Bob was thinking of reminded Ian of what Greg always talked about at lunch. I guess Greg’s right…Ian grudgingly decided. I DO need to know what’s possibly going to happen in the future (especially about girls!).

“Bob, you should not be looking at…girls’ shirts…” Ian whispered. Bob shrugged. Hey, what the heck. Ian never said what he had to think about.

“Ok. Well, the point is that you could read my mind again!” Bob said quietly. Ian paused, about to lecture Bob again on the evils of looking down peoples’ shirts, when suddenly he realized that Bob was right.

“You do have a point there.” Ian concurred. Bob looked smugly about him, as though he knew that he was always right.

“Let’s keep this between us, shall we Robert?” Ian made stern eye contact.

“Yess…” Bob agreed. Yeah, yeah, what was he gonna do, tell the president? Suddenly Bob clapped his hand over his mouth, remembering that Ian could now read minds. He had to be very careful about what he thought from now on around Ian.

***

Allie stretched, pulling on her calves. Soccer practice was over, and people were gradually leaving. However, she still had a pain in her right leg and she decided to investigate the cause further. The coach came over to her.

“Is your leg alright Allie?” He asked, concerned.

“Yes. Just a little sore.” She lied, stretching just a bit more. The coach leaned down to help push her foot back, when suddenly Allie slapped him.

“That hurts.” She whined. But the coach wasn’t paying attention anymore. Allie leaned into his point of view, to see what he had suddenly saw. But then he fell backwards, and Allie realized he was unconscious.

“Oh my god.” She whispered.

“HELP!” She screamed to some girls and the JV coach. They came rushing over, and helped prop the coach up against the water fountain. Soon enough, he came around, after getting repeatedly splashed in the face with freezing water. I wonder what happened…Allie thought. All she had did was hit him, and barely hard enough to knock him out. Then, she saw the burn mark on his hand. Whhaa? The thought barely registered that something freaky was going on. She just wanted to find out what she had done. Reaching her hand carefully towards the water fountain, like she was getting a drink, Allie hit it inconspicuously with her right hand. Blue sparks fizzed through the trickle of water that was coming out of the fountainhead. No way! Thought Allie. I have a superpower?! She decided she needed to test it one more time on a real human before she could be absolutely positive it was a superpower of some kind. Walking slowly behind another player from her team (Tess, her name was), Allie stuck out one finger and lightly tapped Tess’s arm. A blue spark was emitted and Tess nearly fell backwards. Quickly, Allie turned her back before she could be connected with the crime.

“What the heck was that?” Tess wondered, gazing around her. No one was near her. “Maybe it was an extreme horse fly bite…”She murmured quietly to herself. Not wanting to be thought of as crazy, she continued to pack up and leave. Meanwhile, Allie stared at herself like she had never seen herself before.

“Dude, this is AWESOME!” She cheered. Wait-no, it’s kind of creepy. Is anyone else like this? Should I tell anyone? Maybe I should keep it to myself…or maybe I should tell someone like Myles or Maggie…yeah, they might be able to help, she decided. Gathering up her soccer cleats and shin guards, Allie walked back to the parking lot.

***

“Myles and Allie, I need to talk to you.” Whispered Maggie urgently. Allie scooted closer with her book, still keeping her eyes trained directly on Ms. Casson’s funky-shaped head. Myles leaned in to hear Maggie.

“Yesterday….something weird happened. This is gonna sound crazy…but…well, do you remember in Spiderman, how he had those hairs on his hands and he could climb up the wall?”

“Wait-I know THIS is gonna sound weird, but are you about to say something about…superheroes or superpowers?” Allie spoke softly.

“No way. How’d you know?” Maggie whispered, amazed.

“Well, let’s see…maybe because, I don’t know, she was talking about Spiderman!” Myles butted in sarcastically. Maggie shoved him against the wall.

“Oow.” He whimpered (faking it, of course-Myles was a toughie).

“Continue. Because then I need to tell you about something that happened to me yesterday!” Allie whispered.

“Well…Rachael hit a field hockey ball to me really fast, and I caught it!” Maggie waited with baited breath for their response.

“Um…cool?” Myles wondered cautiously. There didn’t seem to be anything amazing about catching a field hockey ball.

“Myles-the ball was going like 60 miles an hour, no joke! Rachael can POUND that thing!” Maggie looked towards Rachael for clarification. She nodded earnestly. Suddenly Allie spoke up.

“Um…well, yesterday…I sort of knocked my coach unconscious.” She grimaced, waiting for their replies.

“ALLIE! That must’ve been one sucker of a punch you threw!” Myles cheered. She eyeballed him strangely.

“No, Myles. I would never punch an official coach of the school’s systematic program of athletic education!” She looked horrified. “Actually…I think I electrocuted him with my finger.” Allie whispered. Myles’ eyes grew wide. Maggie leaned against the wall, almost seeming to breathe in a sigh of relief. So she wasn’t the only one that was suddenly affected by this strange kind of magic.

“How did it happen?” Myles suddenly asked, puzzled.

“Well…I was stretching and he tried to reach down and help me, but I didn’t want him to so I sort of pushed him away…except I ended up knocking him out.” Allie explained.

“Hmm…” Myles beckoned to Greg across the room. Crawling on all fours, he joined their little group.

“Greg…tell Allie and Maggie what happened yesterday.” Myles said unexpectedly. Looking uncertain, Greg perfected his collar to a perfect right angle, something he picked up from hanging around with Ian. Maggie stifled a laugh.

“Yesterday after jazz band practice, Myles and I were hanging around, cleaning our instruments, and well, I kind of flicked Myles back behind me.”
“Yeah, like 15 feet!” Myles chimed in. Greg nodded. Affirmative.

“And then I picked up the piano…to test if I had super strength…and I could pick it up. Easily.” His expression was one of total anxiety.

“Wow. Porous hands, super strength, and electrocution ability.” Ian stuck his head in the middle of them.

“Ian!” Said Maggie, appalled. “Were you eavesdropping on us?” Ian grinned sheepishly and buried his head like a turtle into his collar (also at a perfect 90 degrees).

“Yesterday…I could read Bob’s mind on the bus!” Myles, Allie, Greg, and Maggie stared at him (and then Rachael as she returned from the bathroom). They all looked at him like he was crazy. Super strength, sure, they could deal with that (probably just all those hormones that Greg drank in his strawberry-banana-kiwi protein drink every day), but mind reading? Get out of here!

“Wait-I’ll prove it to you! Everyone think of what you would say to me right now, but don’t say it aloud. I’ll tell you what you’re all thinking.” They paused, then decided they might as well humor Ian, seeing as how he was going crazy.

“Maggie, you’re thinking ‘Oh, jeez, I feel sorry for Ian, thinking that he can read minds and all.’” Maggie looked a little scared, watching Ian move on to his next victim.

“Myles, you’re thinking ‘Wow, he actually guessed what Maggie was thinking! Good guesser, but not mind reading.’ Greg, you’re thinking, ‘Holy crap this is crazy, how can Ian suddenly read minds? How come I have super strength? Did I get bit by a spider?’” Immediately after hearing Ian speak the exact words from his brain, Greg leaned down and inspected himself for any suspicious looking red bumps that could be spider bites.

“Rachael, you’re thinking, ‘What the heck is going on! Why does everyone else have superpowers but not me?! So not fair!’ And Allie, you’re thinking, ‘Mmm…I hope I have peanut butter and fluff for lunch, with chocolate milk. Yum!’” The students of Ms. Casson and Mrs. Marchand’s Gifted and Talented classroom froze. It had to be impossible that Ian could be doing this. It had to be! Greg blinked, then shook his head, dismissing any tendrils of doubt that Ian was a mind-reader. He knew it had to be true, and he was the first to accept the fact. Allie was next.

“As strange as this is, I think Ian CAN read minds. He’s shown me enough proof.”

“Me, too.” Myles concurred. Ian nodded, grateful that they believed him now.

“And what are we concurring?” Mrs. Marchand had wandered over and luckily only heard the last portion of their intense conversation.

“Um…the fact that Ian is the smartest person in the class.” Allie came up with quickly. Mrs. Marchand shook her head.

“Now, now, children. There’s no need to feel inferior just because someone is better at one aspect of academics than you are. Everyone is special and unique in their own way. Perhaps you have not yet discovered what you were meant to do, but in time, it will come to you. Although at the moment, all you may have is th-” Maggie zoned out, as Mrs. Marchand went off on her spiel of ‘some day you may be great’. Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Mrs. Marchand was so gullible (yet Maggie was thankful that Allie was such a quick thinker. Otherwise all their secrets might’ve been burnt toast).

Myles looked at Allie and rolled his eyes. Mrs. Marchand had to be the STUPIDEST teacher they’d ever had the luck to get. Allie decided it was time to give her some trouble.

“But Mrs. Marchand,” She interrupted. “What if I end up failing out of high school as a pregnant teenager, never have the chance to go to college, spend all my saved-up money on drugs, and end up living in a cardboard shack on the edge of the interstate?” Allie asked innocently. Mrs. Marchand was taken aback, but only for a mere second.

“Well dear, I’m sure that won’t happen, but hypothetically, even if it did, there’d be nothing I could do for you. You’d be a loser at the bottom of the social tier.” Whoaa…thought Rachael. Where did that one come from? Even though she’d provoked teachers enough times to know who were the meanest punishers and who were the nice passersby (Mrs. Marchand being the meanest of the mean), she’d never seen Mrs. Marchand speak like that to anyone but herself and Colby! Especially not Allie; she was just too good to receive feedback like that. Rachael sat and watched Mrs. Marchand march back to Ms. Casson, who was (shocker) grading papers with her glasses pressed up against her mole-like nostrils. Gross, thought Rachael. Seriously, I wish I could just get away from this class. The only good times are during reflection when Bob goes crazy. Her mind made up more and more scenarios like that, and soon, she was raging mad.

“Guys, where’d Rachael go?” Asked Greg as he leaned against the wall and picked up his book.
“She was just here a second ago…” Maggie started to look around her. Rachael was no where to be seen.

“Rachael?” Myles called into the abyss of the Casson/Marchand classroom. Obviously she wasn’t there.

“Um…guys, I’m right here.” Rachael hated putting up with stupid crap when people pretended not to notice you. It got to be soo annoying.

“Ookk…did anyone else just hear that?” Allie asked, a little freaked out. Greg nodded with large eyes, and Maggie shook her head yes. None of them could see Rachael anywhere.

“Guys, seriously, I’m right here! Right behind Maggie!” Rachael said in her normal, I’m-getting-annoyed voice. Maggie turned around to empty air. She started to hyperventilate.

“Ok Maggie, chill, you don’t need to fake death.” Rachael set her palm on Maggie’s shoulder.

“AHH!” Screamed Maggie.

“WHAT IS GOING ON?” Rachael yelled. Luckily, Ms. Casson knew this was normal talk for Rachael and Maggie and decided to let it be, for now. No teacher intervention was needed. Scared out of her wits, Maggie gently reached a hand up and touched Rachael’s fingers on her shoulder. Maggie turned very pale, and Myles and Allie automatically moved closer in case it was necessary to perform CPR. Cautiously, Maggie felt down Rachael’s arm, across her neck, the other shoulder, then both the legs that Rachael was kneeling on.

“Um…Rachael?” Maggie whimpered.

“What?” Snapped Rachael, getting impatient. This was NOT a funny game.

“I can’t see you.” Maggie said quietly. This made Rachael pause.

“What do you mean, you can’t see me? Are you blind?” No need to be rude, thought Myles angrily. He couldn’t see her either!

“I can’t see you either.” Allie took the words right out of Myles’ mouth.

“Do you mean, I’m like invisible or something?” Rachael muttered, so as not to attract attention from the passing Cassonator.

“Uh, guys, I think we just discovered another ‘superpower’…” Greg stated. Ian nodded in agreement, shocked throughout this entire discussion so not saying anything. Suddenly, the lights flickered on and off, and the group groaned. It was the signal from last year for reflection, and apparently Ms. Casson wanted to reinstate it. Allie, Myles, Ian, Greg, and Maggie stood up. They all watched while the invisible Rachael clambered up as well. Suddenly, the air in front of Ian flickered a little, and Rachael shimmered into view.

“Wow…” Myles stared, dumbstruck.

“How did you turn visible again?” Wondered Ian. Rachael shrugged.

“I’m not sure. I’ll have to play around with it this afternoon.” She whispered as Ms. Casson walked past them again, towards the circle this time. The group of students involved in the ever-growing story of superpowers joined Colby, Will, and Bob at the circle.

“Here we go Ian!” Sang Ms. Casson as she threw the ball with speed to Ian. Ian caught the first in a volley of balls and threw it to Bob. Bob dropped the ball under his chair, and Maggie sighed. It was always like this. The class that was supposed to be filled with the smartest people in their grade had the most trouble just CATCHING a squishy ball. It didn’t make any sense to her, and Maggie was secretly glad that she had a ‘superpower’ to distract her, otherwise she would probably be extremely angry at the moment. The ball flew towards her, and Maggie swiped it from the air like it was nothing more than a raindrop that she was splattering. Rolling her eyes, she threw it to Mrs. Marchand, who gleefully passed to Myles. Myles growled deep in his throat. He didn’t care to touch anything that Mrs. Marchand had tainted with her skin, but knew there was no hope. As soon as he touched the ball, Myles hucked it to Colby as fast he could. Gross. Casson AND Marchand germs.

“Any reflections?” Today, Mrs. Marchand asked the dreaded question. Sighing, the class looked around the circle at each other.

“Fine. I’ll go.” Will groaned. Secretly, everyone else was very pleased that they did not have to reflect first, and were very grateful to Will for stepping up to the plate. Will opened his mouth to speak, and as he did so, Ian chuckled.

“Something funny, Ian?” Ms. Casson whipped her head around to glare at him.

“Um…I just realized that I knew what Will was going to say.” Ian amended for the fact that he could actually read minds.

“Hmm…well, watch your mouth next time!” Ms. Casson grumbled, slouching to listen to Will.

“Yesterday, me and Colby,” Will started.

“Colby and I” Corrected Mrs. Marchand. Will apologized.

“Sorry, yesterday, Colby and I were walking home, and I shoved Colby, and he fell through a bush into his neighbor’s yard. But his neighbor was having a bon fire, and Colby fell into it, but miraculously he climbed out (on fire!) and he wasn’t dead or anything!” Will finished excitedly. Maggie and Myles were looking at Colby very weirdly it seemed, and Allie and Greg exchanged knowing glances. They were pretty good at communicating silently with one another, like cartoon characters who just had to look at the other person and they already knew what that person was going to say.

“Well Will, we’re pleased that you have such a vast imagination. But in the future, please limit reflections to either true events, dreams, questions, comments, and/or descriptions of other people.” Ms. Casson stated. Will appeared dejected, but straightened up and laughed as Myles told about his dream that included a run-in with the notorious Bob, who had been listed as one of the FBI’s most wanted on the news the previous night. Apparently Myles had watched the news, been freaked out, then had a nightmare that Bob was coming to kill him. It was fairly comical to Ian, because the real Bob that they all knew, the one sitting in the classroom a mere two feet from himself, didn’t seem capable of hurting a fly.

“Me next!” Rachael spoke loudly. The whole class bored their eyes into her, and soon Rachael had the floor.

“By accident yesterday, I smashed a field hockey ball through a window!” She giggled, thinking it was one of the most hysterical things. Mrs. Marchand looked appalled and Ms. Casson looked thoughtful.

“Oh…so that’s what I heard breaking through the glass next door.” Maggie and Rachael cracked up, suddenly realizing how close they had been to actually hitting Mrs. Marchand or Ms. Casson.

“That could have been very dangerous young lady!” Mrs. Marchand exploded at Rachael. No surprise there. She had hated Rachael ever since the first day of 7^th grade. Rachael tried to sober up and look ashamed.

“I’m sorry.” She fake-apologized, knowing she could never be sorry about something she did to Mrs. Marchand.

“Very well. Don’t let it happen again.” Mrs. Marchand calmed down a bit, and continued to listen to everyone else reflect.

After class was over, Ian, Allie, Maggie, Myles, Greg, and Rachael waited until Ms. Casson left for her usual 9:33 cup of coffee, and Mrs. Marchand made her usual 9:33 bathroom break. Then they waited silently until Colby and Will (who had been packing up their stuff) approached the door.

“Um…” Colby watched apprehensively as the six students shuffled into a semi-circle around him and Will.

“Guys, what’s going on?” Will was suddenly very scared. This image reminded him of how gang fights always started in movies. Hopefully it wouldn’t turn out to be like that. He wasn’t much of a fighter.

“Will, was it true that Colby fell into a fire and climbed out alive?” Myles questioned, stepping slightly out of place of everyone else. Whoa, where did this come from? Thought Colby. Definitely not what either him or Will was expecting.

“Yeah!” Will complained, now letting Ms. Casson’s denial of the event get to him. “You did, right Colby?” He now turned to look at his best friend. Colby was aware of each and every pair of eyes in the room staring at him, and he knew that how he answered this question could possibly change his life.

“Yes…it’s true.” He conceded, giving in to the higher man. The group around him exchanged knowing glances, and suddenly Colby and Will got the feeling that they didn’t know everything that they should.

“You’re not the only one with superpowers.” Maggie whispered quietly, as though she were afraid that Mrs. Marchand or Ms. Casson would walk in on them and think they were holding a conspiracy (a good idea, though, for future reference, thought Ian, who was watching the clock).

“Maggie, Ian, Greg, and I have a power, too.” Allie murmured. Colby looked shocked and Will looked excited.

“Excuse me, what about me?” Rachael blurted out. Everyone looked around for her, but couldn’t find her.

“Well, there’s a demonstration of Rachael’s power.” Greg rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

“You mean I’m invisible again?” She whined. Ian and Myles nodded.

“Shit!” She complained, trying to get rid of the irritating feel of eyes prodding her back.

“Now everyone’s in on the secret I guess…” Said Myles. He glanced behind him. “Except for Bob.” All eight students turned to look at Bob, who was fumbling near his zipper and who appeared to have a line of drool coming out the corner of his mouth. Uck…thought Rachael. That was so nasty.

“Actually…Bob does know.” Ian said quietly. The group turned in one motion to regard the speaker.

“Yesterday on the bus, when I was discovering my ability to mind-read, Bob was sitting with me. I had him test me, you know, like he thought of something and I would mind-read it. So he knows, at least about me.” Greg beckoned for Bob to come over. Lumbering, Bob stuck his head into the middle of the group and waited.

“Bob, Ian’s not the only one with superpowers!” Will blurted out excitedly. Maggie glared at him. Bob still looked complacent.

“I know.” He said simply. Myles peered at him.
“How?”
“Because I have one, too.” He answered, much to the shock of Colby and Rachael (who was now visible again).

“What exactly IS it?” Wondered Greg, not sure if he actually wanted to know the answer.

“I have laser beams that can come out of my eyes.” Bob shrugged.
“No way!” Will shouted, getting excited once again, only to come off his superhero high to realize he was one of the only ones without a power. Myles realized this, too.

“Prove it.” Ian challenged Bob. Bob nodded and fixed his gaze on the empty coffee mug laying on Ms. Casson’s paper-strewn desk. He blinked once, then everyone gasped as red beams shot out of his eyes and smoke spiraled up from Ms. Casson’s smoldering cup.

“That.is.so.cool.” Colby watched in amazement as Ms. Casson’s cup bubbled down to ashes.

“No way. Do it again!” Cheered Allie. Bob shifted his weight and faced the tissue box next to the sink. Focusing, he blinked once more, and lasers came out of his eyes. The tissue box was demolished faster than the coffee mug.

“Again, again!” Colby demanded. He would never tire of watching Bob burn things with his eyes.

“No, Colby. If I do much more, Ms. Casson will suspect something.” Bob said. Inside, Colby knew it was true. But he still wished Bob would kill one more small artifact. Oh well.

“We’re going to be late to advisory.” Ian reminded the silent group. That sped everyone up, and they made small talk as the nine of them walked back to their various advisory locations.

***

“I cannot wait for track!” Myles said to Allie as they left the lunchroom. They both knew Myles’ hopes would have to wait approximately another six months before they could be fulfilled. Myles pretended to do a block start, then started to race outside on the front lawn back towards their classrooms.

“Myles, wait!” Laughed Allie, jogging to catch up. But Myles didn’t stop. He kept going faster, faster, and faster. Allie was starting to get scared. She’d never seen anyone run this fast before, not even Lopez Lomong in the Summer Olympics in Beijing!

“MYLES!” She yelled, sprinting now to try and reach him. It wasn’t appearing to work so well.

“Jeezum frickin’ crow! SLOW DOWN!” Allie shouted halfway across the lawn. She barged through a group of lazy juniors, who watched HER in awe, because they’d never seen a girl run so fast (since they were so lazy). Finally, the blur that was Myles slowed down, then stopped, right in front of the school building.

“Jeez Allie, calm down! I was only running.”

“Only. Running.” Panted Allie out of breath. She shook her head and held up her phone, which she had started making a video of Myles on. Myles looked at the screen, but could see nothing.

“There’s nothing there…” He said gently, not wanting to hurt her feelings. Allie groaned.
“I know. That’s the point. You were moving too fast to see!” She played the video for him again, this time pointing out a small blur of movement in the upper left hand corner of the screen.

“No way.” Myles stared again, this time playing it in slow-motion (thanks to the enormous capabilities of Allie’s phone), and he could almost depict the outline of his poofy hair.

“Looks like someone has a superpower after all.” Allie smiled at Myles, and the grin he grinned back lit up his whole face.

“Haahaa. Looks like Will is the only one who doesn’t have any power.” Since Myles had discovered his, he no longer felt the need to be nice to Will. It was fun to tease him about not being as special as the rest of them.

“Be nice.” Belittled Allie, shaking her finger like a scornful mother. “Maybe he’s just a late bloomer.”
“Yeah…and I’m Ron Weasley…” Muttered Myles. Allie shot him a disapproving look. Together, the two of them took off at a normal speed to get to class.

***

Lickitysplt415: heyy GUESS WHAT

jeezumfrickncrow: wha-ohh

SmarterthanU: what is it myles?

Hahaigotyu: oh wat is it??

I’llgetufirst: TELL

Biteme778: was sup?

Shorty2theRescue: talk now

Lickitysplt415: I have a superpwr! I can run rly fast!

I’llgetufirst: no way!! Cool

Biteme778: yay! Now myles is part of the gang!

Hahaigotyu: aww man-I’m the only one now =[

SmarterthanU: dnt worry-the statistics for our GT class show that everyone should get a power

Hahaigotu: gee thanks ian

SmarterthanU: ur welcome

Biteme778: that was sarcasm ian

SmarterthanU: o

jeezumfrickncrow: g2g-bye guys

Shorty2theRescue: same-later

Lickitysplt415: byee

I’llgetufirst: peace

Greg signed off of Instant Messaging, and started to slowly meander towards the fridge. Even though his mom had put both him, his dad, and his dog, Fruitfly, on strictly healthy diets, Greg was killing for a slice of sugar-loaded Chocolate Crème Pie. They had brought some back from his dying Grandmother’s 99^th birthday party (even though his mother had been totally against it). Mostly their cupboards were loaded with whole wheat flour, 12 grain bread, wheat germ, wheat germ crackers, wheat germ granola bars, wheat germ instant-mashed-potato boxes, and fruit. So having a slice of normal, sugary pie would be a piece of Heaven for Greg. The only problem: getting past the security locks and laser system on the fridge. His mom was wayyyy too into the whole healthy-diet thing. There were three padlocks on the fridge and a red light that if you crossed it, the fridge went into lockdown mode. The light passed directly over the handle and it was nearly impossible to disable the alarm.

Greg started with the first lock. He had actually been able to unlock this many times before, because it was the lock on his old dog, Snot’s, crate. With the bent paperclip that Greg carried at all times in his pocket, he jammed it into the hole and twisted. A satisfying click resounded, and one third of the locks were undone. He studied the next one. It was a brass, Abus-brand lock, with a 1.5 centimeter opening. It would be difficult, but Greg might be able to manage it. Carefully sliding the paper clip up the opening, he gently twisted to the right, the way that most locks unlocked. But the dial didn’t budge. So, he flipped it the other way and started to turn towards the left. Tricky…but he did it. Flipping open, the Abus lock fell with a clank to the floor. One more to go…Greg tried to have a positive mindset, but it was hard. The lock was a precision, all-weather, IC Core, MasterLock with a .5 centimeter lock opening. His paperclip would barely fit in there, especially with the IC Core. He needed something skinnier. Greg reached for the phone.

“Hey, Will, I’m trying to break into my mom’s fridge, and I need something skinny to undo the padlock. You’re good with this kind of thinking, will you come help?”

“Sure. Just let me swallow this blueberry milk (chug chug chug)…ok, I’m coming right over.” Greg hung up the phone. Luckily for him, Will lived two houses away. Both of them lived on the Foreside, because having dads who were Energy-Efficient engineers for third world countries, they made enough money for their families to have comfortable homes.

“Dude, I’m here!” Sang Will as he traipsed into the kitchen. Thank god…thought Greg. He couldn’t stand the craving much longer.

“Here’s the lock.” Greg showed Will the .5 centimeter opening and the toughness of the MasterLock. Will studied the lock (being careful not to swipe an accidental elbow through the laser on the handle). He stuck his eye up to the hole and peered as best he could inside. There wasn’t much to see.

“Wow, your mom got a crazy-hard lock. I don’t think they sell these in the U.S…” Will stared at Greg. Greg shrugged. So his mom was a freak who ordered heavy-duty army type things from overseas…whatever.

Will was in the process of sticking his pinky finger up the hole to sort of clean it off. But suddenly Will said,

“I think my pinky’s small enough to fit in this hole.”

“No way! Even MY pinky can’t fit in the hole.” Greg complained. Being slightly larger than Frodo (but with the same amount of responsibility, what with the newfound powers and all), his pinky was still smaller than most other people.

“But look…” Will shoved, and soon, his pinky was engulfed in the padlock.

“Oh my god…” Greg watched as Will twisted, and soon, a clunk was heard and the lock fell away. Will pulled his elongated pinky finger out of the lock. Greg screamed like a girl.

“What the hell!” Greg flipped out. This was abnormal! It was freaky! It was almost as strange as laser beam eyes, or invisibility skills…or wait.

“MAYBE THIS IS YOUR SUPERPOWER!” Greg exploded. Will blanched. He had been having the same thought, but he pushed it to the back of his mind because he knew it was highly unlikely.

“You mean having a pinky that can stretch?” Will asked. Frankly, he was disappointed if this really was his superpower. An elongated pinky? Big whoop.

“Well…maybe that’s just part of it. Maybe you can stretch other things, too…” Greg trailed off, leaving Will to think of the possibilities.

“Let’s try.” He looked around for something to test his stretchiness on, and then saw Greg pointing to the laser alarm cutting right through the handle of the fridge.

“I’m still hungry…” Greg tapped his foot, gesturing that Will should try to go over or under the laser and open the fridge. Will studied the handle for a moment, then stood a good 15 inches back from the fridge and stuck out his arm. At first, it appeared nothing abnormal was going to happen. Then, with almost a sigh from inside Will, his arm started to expand farther than normal human anatomy should be able to. His hand stayed the same size as always, but focusing on his arm, Will made it to the handle of the fridge (he was going to try to go over the top). Now focusing on his fingers and hand, he slowly crept behind the laser and finally touched the handle. With a jerk, Will yanked on the top of the handle and the fridge fell open. Greg could hear the Hallelujah Chorus singing behind him (Hallelujah Hallelujah Halleluujahhh). Then he realized that Will’s phone was vibrating on the counter.

“Sorry dude, I gotta go!” Will grabbed his phone and dashed towards the door. Greg made a motion to stop him, then decided he would see Will at school tomorrow. It was, afterall, only Tuesday. Greg slunk towards the open fridge, and the Chocolate Crème Pie that was waiting for him. It was any man’s for the taking now.

***

Da dun, da dun, da dun da dun dun dun dun dun dunnn….Colby replayed the Pink Panther theme song in his head as he strolled towards the Doom Room (otherwise known as Ms. Casson and Mrs. Marchand’s class). The day was going well so far: he had gotten an A- on a wicked hard exam in science, he had been able to eat Toaster Strudel (strawberry flavored) for breakfast, and the girl of his dreams had said Hi to him as he passed her in the hall (no names were mentioned in Colby’s mind-he was a bit superstitious and thought that if he said the name aloud to himself, it would make the dream more of a cruel reality-and lower his chances with the girl). Colby was in such a good mood that he was willing to take a little risk. Glancing around him to make sure nobody was watching him or was close to him (luckily, the hall was nearly empty), he laughed and snapped his fingers. A flickering flame appeared between his pointer finger and thumb. He snapped again, and the flame disappeared. It was so cool being able to light yourself on fire and not burn. It was every little kid’s dream to be able to ’play with matches’ and not get caught for it. Colby laughed again, then quickly diminished the flame as a senior couple, Michael and Ali, walked by. Michael was Colby’s lacrosse idol. One day Colby hoped to replaced Michael as Captain of the team. It was a high goal, but Colby was sure he could make it.

On his left, Ian was approaching fast. Up ahead on Colby’s right, Greg was skipping along, oblivious to anything. Uh oh…thought Colby. How much sugar did Greg have today? Colby paused a step for Ian, and together, they walked to the Gifted and Talented classroom. Ohh great…what did Ms. Casson have in store for them today? Thought Colby as he and Ian approached the waiting teacher next to the door.

“Good Morning!” Ms. Casson called cheerfully. Colby moaned and Ian half-waved hi. Suddenly Colby remembered Ian could read minds, and thought a) he was lucky he knew what Ms. Casson had planned for them, and b) he could obviously read Colby’s mind, so Colby thought DON’T GIVE IN TO THEM IAN! STAND YOUR GROUND! A few seconds later, Ian looked ashamedly at the floor.

“Colby, here’s your card.” Ms. Casson handed him an index card with a picture of what appeared to be moose antlers drawn on it. Each child traversing through the door received similar cards with different pictures on them. Ian’s had a tree, Bob’s had a trio of bags, Allie’s had a star, Myles’ had a man, Maggie’s had a barn, Will’s had another man, Rachael’s had a baby (she was lucky, because she had always wanted a child of her own), and Greg’s had another man.

When all of the kids were finally in the classroom, sitting in the two rows of chairs facing the whiteboard, Ms.Casson shut the door, dimmed the lights, and walked to Mrs. Marchand who was standing behind a projector. Mrs. Marchand flicked a switch, and soon a little movie started playing. Maggie watched, appalled, as Ms. Casson and Mrs. Marchand acted the story out on the big screen.

 

The Miracles of Jesus-Part 1. His birth.

 

Once long ago, in Bethlehem, a young couple of the names Joseph and Mary approached a tavern. After receiving the call that they had to go to Nazareth because they had to be counted or there was something to do with taxes (I can’t remember which), Joseph strapped Mary on a donkey and started walking many miles. After they arrived, the pregnant Mary knew her baby would be soon born. Trying every local pub and tavern in town, the couple searched for a place to stay. Since everyone was going to their hometown, there were no rooms available. So finally, at one place, the owner of the Inn said, “Yo dog, there’s no crib to crash at around here. But if ya wanna use my pimpin’ barn yo, there‘s plenty of room to get jiggy in there. Peace out homies.” Joseph led Mary and the donkey out back to the barn, where there was comfortable hay, smelly animals, and an empty pig’s feeding trough. Soon enough, Mary gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. He was placed in the pig’s feeding trough surrounded by hay (for warmth) and named Jesus. A large star appeared in the sky above the barn, and that’s how the three Wise Men found baby Jesus. Bringing him gifts of frankincense, gold, and murr, they worshipped the baby Jesus and calling him the next King. Joseph sure didn’t know what all this was about, but he went along with it for Mary’s sake. He didn’t think Jesus would be the next big thing. But he was wrong.

 

 

The recorded movie of Ms. Casson acting everything out, and Mrs. Marchand narrating, was enough to make anyone either laugh out loud or scream in pain (it was that bad). Maggie was scared out of her mind, and Greg laughed each time Mrs. Marchand pronounced Jesus (she said it with an accent, so it ended up being Hay-sus). Colby was upset at their poor use of gangster talk, but Ian thought the whole play was ridiculously funny. Myles and Allie stared at the screen with wide eyes the entire time. Rachael cracked up every 20 seconds or so. Overall, only two people clapped when it was done, Greg and Ian. Suck up, thought Myles. Ian ‘heard’.

“So, now that you’ve seen the first part of ‘The Miracles of Jesus’, and you have your index cards, you now understand that we’re going to re-act this play.” Mrs. Marchand glanced happily around the group of teens. Some of them looked like they were going into cardiac arrest.

“What do moose antlers have to do with the story?” Wondered Colby. It was Ms. Casson who answered.

“Neither of us could think of a better animal to draw, so we just drew the antlers to represent the animals in the barn.” Colby could think of a ton better animals to draw, but decided to keep them to himself. He nodded, showing that he understood the significance of the moose.

“Um…what about my tree?” Asked Ian, sure that there was some plausible explanation like for Colby.

“We really couldn’t think of anything else to do, so we just gave you a tree.” Mrs. Marchand explained while sliding the projector to the side of the room. Ian tried not to let his disappointment show, but it was hard.

“So our three men,” Myles gestured to his, Greg, and Will’s cards, “are the three wise men, right?” Ms. Casson shook her head.

“Nope! Only Greg and Will’s are. You’re the Inn keeper.” Myles looked kind of excited about that, but Ian was mad. How come they couldn’t have given him the third Wise Man? What the heck? What kind of operation were they running here?

Mrs. Marchand called for all of them to set up as though the Wise Men were just arriving to see baby Jesus.

“You all are acting out whatever is on your card.” Ms. Casson called, seated in a director’s chair complete with a beret and a megaphone. Oh god, thought Myles.

“ACTION!” Mrs. Marchand shouted, as everyone took their places on ‘stage‘. Rachael laid down as baby Jesus, all alone with no parents, under Maggie’s upstanding arms (she was the barn). Ian the tree was standing next to Maggie, and Colby was practically laying under Rachael as a loyal and obedient pig. Allie stood behind Ian and Maggie as the star, and Myles stood off to the side as the Inn keeper. He didn’t have much to do, seeing as there was no Mary and Joseph. Will and Greg stood farther back, with Bob (acting as the gifts to Jesus).

“I NEED MORE EMOTION!” Ms. Casson yelled into the megaphone. “Give me a different angle! Where’s Mary?”

“Sorry!” Mrs. Marchand called. She rushed onstage, complete in an old-time ensemble with a head cloth and everything. “I’m here!” She took her place as Mary, mother of Jesus, next to Rachael.

Rachael smacked her hand over her mouth and stifled herself from screaming bloody murder. She started coughing and choking, pretending to stab herself in the heart while shooting herself in the temple. Mrs. Marchand didn’t really notice anything except the coughing, but Colby, Maggie, Ian, and Allie did. Rachael HATED Mrs. Marchand. She never wanted (EVER) to think of her as a motherly figure. TERRIBLE thoughts entered Rachael’s head then, about how Mrs. Marchand would have conceived her with Ms. Casson (Ian was tuned in to Rachael’s thought line and was getting more grossed out by the minute, yet understood what she was thinking), and EW EW EWWW! Thought Rachael. Ian was turning slightly green.

“ON WITH THE PLAY!” Ms. Casson directed from her chair. She tilted her beret and said, “ACTION!”

“Oh dear sir, we need a place to stay!” Mrs. Marchand wailed to Myles. Myles leaned away from the spittle flying out of her mouth, and answered,

“Um…yo dig dog home skillet…you can stay in the pimpin’ barn yo?” Ms. Casson seemed to like line well enough, and motioned for them to proceed.

“Uhhh, mmmh, ggggggrrr, ummmhmm…” Mrs. Marchand groaned. Ian stared appalled as she mimicked having a baby. Greg stared in wonder at what the hell was happening.

“EW.” Whispered Allie in Maggie’s ear. Maggie nodded earnestly.

“A baby boy! I’ll name him Jesus!” There goes that accent again…thought Will. Ms. Cason motioned for him and Greg to step forward. Greg led the way towards Rachael and Mrs. Marchand (who was now stroking Rachael’s hair like she would stroke a newborn baby) and Will towed Bob behind them.

“Uh…I present to you, baby Jesus, Frankenstein, gold, and Murphy!” Will announced with spirit, shoving Bob towards Rachael and Mrs. Marchand.

“CUT! No, no, no Will! It’s frankincense, gold, and MURR! Not Murphy!” Ms. Casson sighed and spoke through her megaphone again.

“ACTION!” Why won’t the bell ring? Thought Bob sadly as, yet again, Will attempted to present the gifts to Jesus.

“I present to you these gifts of frankincense, gold, and murr!” Will pushed Bob towards Rachael, who was lying on the ground. However, Bob being Bob, well, let’s just say that he lost his footing. Tumbling, Bob crashed into Mrs. Marchand and Rachael, who started screaming and flailing about, which in turn forced Colby to knock Maggie’s knees out from under her, who then pulled Ian and Allie down with her. Allie’s legs kicked out, catching Greg in the wrong spot, forcing him to keel over and fall on Myles’ foot, who then crashed into Will, who was the final person to fall onto the mess of human bodies laying on the floor of the Doom Room. The bell rang.

“We’ll pick it up tomorrow.” Ms. Casson sighed, and released her students into the wilderness of the high school.

“What the hell was that?” Rachael exploded angrily as she and Will walked towards Spanish class. Will was upset, too.

“I know! Myles bruised my knee when he fell on me.” Will made a saddish face to Rachael, and she cracked up, disturbing a senior who appeared to be doing some kind of illegal drug use in the open doorway of the girls’ bathroom. Will was so funny, thought Rachael. And he was kind of cute in a boyish, elfin way. She decided to write his name on her ‘list of possible boyfriends’. So far it had 31 people on it, including Chris Brown, Will Brown, and Aladdin (if she was ever made into a cartoon character). Will would be placed at #32.

Maggie and Ian navigated through the halls to their Latin class. Maggie was just thinking about the most recent book she had read (the second book in the BFG series) when she barely caught herself before tripping over her own toes. Ian quickly snatched her arm, pulling her up with his awesome swimming and golf strength. Inside her head, Maggie was thinking ‘Phew!’, and luckily Ian could read minds, because she never said that out loud. All she said was,

“Thanks Ian.” And continued walking. What a let down…thought Ian bitterly as he followed her to Latin. Maybe something about how heroic he was (modeled after Alexander the Great, of course), or his mighty strength, or even “Oh Ian, I just realized my great love for you! Take me away on your horse now!” And she would jump into his arms, and they would ride off into the suns-OW! Ian smashed headfirst into the brick wall next to the door. He hadn’t been watching where he was going, and Maggie had already entered the classroom. Well…that was going to leave a mark. Ian hurried into class and took his front-row center-aisle seat directly in front of the whiteboard and Mr. Servus Clamavit (also known as Master in Latin). It was a rigid class, but something that Ian prepared for constantly. It was why he had an A in Latin and a B+ in Spanish. Oh well. With some extra credit, the grade should shoot right up. He had done the math.

Colby and Allie pranced down the hallways of the high school. They might be late for History, but who cared? They were having fun pretending to shoot fellow schoolmates (without their knowledge-Allie and Colby did this nearly every day, pretending to be James Bond on their way from Ms. Casson‘s class to the next). Oops, there was the druggie in the bathroom. And there was the crazy science teacher for the sophomores. Also, there went the senior football captain! Oh well. Colby and Allie put away their guns as they entered the premises of Ms. Pollo’s (which meant chicken in Spanish: Allie wasn’t sure if it meant chicken like the animal-dead or alive- or like a scared person-either way, it meant she was scared or dead meat) room. The two of them sat down near the back for a long, epic lesson on the Romans.

Bob and Myles sauntered to their French class. Well…Bob sauntered. Myles sort of walked slowly behind him, so as not to be associated with such a freak in public. They reached their class, where Madamoiselle Pomme de Terre awaited them at the door.

“Bienvenu Calmar y Porc-epic!” Myles laughed quietly to himself. Calmar. What a stupid name. How did Bob end up calling himself ‘squid’? Stupid boy.

Little did Myles know, Bob was thinking nearly the exact same thing. Porc-epic? No, it was not epic pork as many non-French speakers believed. It was actually porcupine. Why Myles chose ‘porcupine’ as his name, Bob did not know. But he did know that it was probably the most stupid choice ever in the history of stupid-chosen-names.

Both of them sat down, and Bob opened his book while Myles placed his hand on Bob’s knee and stroked. Bob groaned. They were both kidding. It was just a way to annoy Madamoiselle. Well, it was the norm for them. Since French class was so boring, both had to find a way to entertain themselves. While Bob read the latest installment of ‘Cruising the Maine Coast’ magazine, and the newest issue of “DockWalk”, a magazine about yacht crew life, Myles counted the crows outside the window. It never got old.

Greg strolled into his Algebra II Honors class 2 minutes before the final bell would ring. Taking out his completed homework like a good little child, Greg whipped the organic apple out of his jeans, contemplated taking a bite, then decided to shine it up and place it on his teacher’s desk. Hopefully she like organically grown apples. Like his mom.

The bell rang and Greg waited patiently while their teacher went over all the homework answers. Greg got only one wrong out of 18. He was fairly impressed with himself. He handed in his paper onto his teacher’s desk, then return to his seat. Greg was the only kid in 9^th grade that had skipped two grades of math, so he was taking Honors Algebra II with a bunch of juniors and a few sophomores. There was, in fact, a cute junior girl sitting across the aisle from him. Greg gave her a little half smile, and she smiled shyly back. Yes! Score one for the big guy. Today’s status: so far, so good.

Unfortunately, it was not the same for Maggie.

“Ugh!” She cried, frustrated, as her binder broke open and displayed its contents on the floor to the entire school. None of her friends were nearby; there were only a few scattered upperclassmen roaming the hall, and no one was stopping to help Maggie retrieve her items.

“Here…I’ll help you.” Ian said gently as he handed Maggie a stack of papers. Maggie nodded appreciatively and tried to neatly clip the papers back into her binder (she had a slight case of OCD). Unluckily, she had forgotten about her newfound power, and the papers stuck to her hand like a piece of scotch tape sticks to a wall. A single tear dripped out of Maggie’s eye socket and down her cheek.

“I know…” Ian patted Maggie softly on the shoulder, and she knew he understood. Together, they finished picking up the papers (Maggie handed them in the order she wanted them clipped, and Ian clipped them in). They only ended up ripping 2 sheets.

“Thank you Ian.” Maggie whispered, heartfelt. She stared into his eyes. This was a moment the two of them could share for days to come, that no one else could ever feel the strength of. A new bond was being forged.

“Raacchhaeelll!” Will whined, dragging his feet down the hall after her. Rachael was power-walking back to her locker, to maximize her socializing time in between classes. Will was trailing after her like an obedient puppy.

“Yes?” Rachael called over her shoulder, secretly thrilled that Will was willing to follow her around.

“You said you would help me!” He complained, finally reaching her at her locker.

“Oh. Right.” Rachael remembered her promise, to make Will look cooler so that ‘more chicks would dig him’ (his words, not hers). Rachael faced him and folded down the popped collar on his shirt. Can’t be too preppy. She unbuttoned the top few buttons so the collar was open, and then she made Will untuck his shirt from his pants except for one spot (she wasn’t willing to reach down there and do it for him). There, thought Rachael, satisfied. He looked good. Clean. Well-shaven. Well, she wasn’t actually sure if he really shaved or not, but his face showed no signs of stubble. That was good. Rachael liked her men clean-cut.

“Thanks!” Will checked out his new look in the mirror hung on the door of Rachael’s locker. Rachael responded with you’re welcome, then set about reapplying her lip gloss and fixing her hair. Soon, her locker buddies came by (Catherine and Meaghan) and the trio of girls started gossiping, Rachael’s favorite sport. But inside she was proud of herself, because she caught the glances that were headed in Will’s direction from her two friends. Will was leaning again the locker next to Rachael’s, just surveying the student scene. However, Colby soon walked by and he ran to meet up with him.

“Myles!” Allie spoke, her voice traveling through the exiting French class to his ears.

“Hey.” He turned with her, and their steps were in synch as they headed towards their mastery.

“How was French?” Allie asked matter-of-factly.

“Normal. The adventures of Calmar et Porc-epic continue…” He said glumly. Allie laughed.

“Yeah, Colby and I were struggling to keep up with Ms. Pollo. She was moving a bit faster than her usual 2 miles per hour speed!” Myles grinned. The two of them always knew what to say to each other, unlike Myles and Will, and Allie and Rachael.

“I was thinking earlier today…and I’m wondering, where did Jamie disappear to? Ms. Casson said Miranda moved to Latvia, but she didn’t mention anything about him.”
“Maybe he got abducted by aliens?” Allie tried hopefully. Myles chuckled.

“No, I don’t think so.”
“I’m just kidding. I know where he is. I asked Mrs. Marchand.” Allie said as they stopped at Myles’ locker. There were a lot of people milling about before their next class. Myles listened to the story while he grabbed his binders for mastery.

“Well, you know how Jamie’s dad is a neurologist? A brain-scientist? Apparently he got a job offer to do some research for MIT out on a boat in the middle of the Pacific. So Jamie, his sister, and both his parents are now on a boat floating in the middle of nowhere studying fish heads!” Allie exclaimed gleefully. Myles snorted. The image of Jamie getting his little hands dirty trying hopelessly to gut a fish was hilarious. He’d probably pick up the fish’s brain and be like, “Oh goodness gracious! What an interesting specimen. The membrane of the frontal cortex is nearly split in two!” Laughing to himself again, Myles shoved Allie in the direction of their mastery, signaling that it was time to go. She complied and they trotted to the classroom.

“Damn it.” Bob cursed, redialing the combination on his locker. The stupid lock never came undone on the first try. No wonder. His mom had bought it from Mardens. Finally, it came loose and Bob stuck his hand into the messy confines of the tiny space. Pulling back, a handful of loose papers and some old chewed gum came out. Ahh…thought Bob. My homework should be in here somewhere. Stuffing the papers into his biggest binder, Bob slammed his locker shut and raced (well…as fast as someone like Bob could go) to his mastery. Ian was already there like a good little kid, neatly conjugating Latin verbs on a sheet of crisp, unwrinkled paper. Grr. Bob sat down and smacked his binder onto the table, trying to disturb Ian. Ian never looked up.

“Dude, isn’t it kind of weird how smooth these first few weeks of school have been?” Asked Colby as he and Will wandered the halls. “I mean, last year Ms. Casson gave us so much trouble, we had so many adventures and stuff. Now, it’s all calm. All quiet. It makes me feel weird.” Will nodded along, understanding what Colby was talking about.

“It’s kind of fishy, the way things are going. I mean, the Miracles of Jesus? What the hell was that all about? And these crazy superpowers? How did we get them?” Will was starting to get frantic.

“Calm down.” Colby laid a comforting hand on his best friend’s shoulder and forced him to relax. Will drew in a few deep breaths.

“I’m not sure about the superpowers. But I can tell you, I think the Miracles of Jesus play was just a load of crap that Ms. Casson and Mrs. Marchand cooked up because they have nothing better to do at home than act out stupid scenes from the Bible!” Colby shouted into the empty hallway. A stern looking man-teacher poked his head out of his classroom and shushed them with a finger to the lips. Will doubled over laughing as Colby shook his head, mimicking sadness. It was such a tragedy. Yelling in a school building during mastery where everyone was SURE to be doing some kind of important schoolwork. Hahaah, yeah right. Such a crime. Will led the way into his and Colby’s mastery, with Mr. Perkins, and they settled down to do the easiest homework first.

“This day has probably been the weirdest so far.” Said Greg to Myles as they passed a soccer ball back and forth. Both of them had played soccer in middle school but neither were playing in high school, they just passed for fun. For Myles, it was a way to improve hand-eye coordination (he often played goalie in the net for Greg). For Greg, it was a way to just kick the soccer ball and be like “WOOHOO!”.

“Yeah, it has.” Myles agreed, blocking one of Greg’s upper right-hand corner shots. “Mrs. Marchand is SO.FRICKIN.ANNOYING. I hate her.” He passed the ball back out to Greg. Greg slammed it home, narrowly missing Myles‘ manly spot.

“Yeah…I just have this feeling that something’s up. I mean, how do they even know each other? They must have just met recently, and the school usually doesn’t allow team teaching unless the two are related in some way.”

“HAHAH! Do you think they’re gay?”

“That was a pretty good rhyme. Way-gay. Um…no I don’t. Remember? It’s MRS. Marchand, and MS. Casson.” Greg rolled his eyes at Myles’ stupidity. So innocent.

“Oh. Right.” Myles caught the eye-rolling and rolled his OWN eyes. He was smarter than Greg took him for. The two of them continued passing and shooting on each other until Greg’s mom came.

“Hi Mrs. Ferland!” Called Myles while Greg gathered up his stuff.

“Hello…Richard?” Mrs. Ferland couldn’t keep all the names of Greg’s friends straight, so she went through a few before she finally got Myles’ name.

“Ian?”
“Fred?”
“Bob?”
“Luke?”
“Craig?” (Craig? Thought Greg. He didn’t know anyone named Craig).

“Skippy?” (Didn’t know anyone named Skippy either…)

“Joe?”

“Jorge?” (What the heck? Thought Greg. He didn’t know anyone named Craig, Skippy, or Jorge!)

“Oh! Myles?”
“Yes that’s it!” Myles called back thankfully. Thank god, thought Greg. Pretty soon she would have started shouting out girls names!

“C’mon Gregory.” She shouted to Greg from the top of the hill. Myles snickered (Gregory!) and Greg shot him a death glare. It was funny. Everyone in their G/T class was really skilled at performing death glares on each other. Myles smiled sweetly and waved goodbye to Greg’s mom. Greg scowled and trudged up the hill.

“See you tomorrow, Gregory!” Myles yelled.

***

“10…11…12!” Ms. Casson spoke loudly, counting out each push-up as Maggie struggled to lift herself yet again. Ms. Casson was wearing military-style combat boots and a camoflauge uniform.

“FASTER!” Screamed Mrs. Marchand from the chair behind the desk. Ms. Casson had tied her there to ensure maximum concentration for the students. If Mrs. Marchand had been allowed loose, she probably would have been whipping the kids each time they got off-track with their pushups. Maggie snuck a glance to her left, watching Bob try to push himself up from the ground, and Allie staying right on target with Ms. Casson’s counting. That wasn’t really fair. Allie’s dad was in the military, so he made Allie do push-ups and sit-ups every day. She was really good at them.

“MAGGIE DID I TELL YOU TO STOP?” Ms. Casson boomed in her ear.
“No ma’am no!” Maggie yelled heartlessly while performing another push-up. This was torture. This was Hell. This was-

A dream. Maggie awoke in her bed, covered in cold sweat and shaking. What a nightmare. Ms. Casson and Mrs. Marchand, making them do push-ups? Ugh. Maggie peeked at her alarm clock. It was 2:13 in the morning. Not being able to go back to sleep right away, she dragged herself out of bed and down the hall to the bathroom. She stared at herself, bedraggled, in the mirror, and splashed cold water on her face. Phew. Nothing but a dream, she told herself. Maggie was a little superstitious, but not a ton. The dream could mean absolutely nothing. In fact, it probably didn’t (But, whined the little voice in the back of her brain, it COULD mean something! It could be an omen). Maggie shuddered and returned down the hall to her bed. She retired into a deep and dreamless sleep as quickly as possible.

“Allie!” Maggie said as the two girls were hurrying towards Ms. Casson’s room. “I had the strangest dream last night that Ms. Casson and Mrs. Marchand were making us do push-ups and sit-ups!” Allie breathed out patiently. Maggie often had these weird, dramatic dreams that really made no sense, and Allie had learned to cope with them.

“Interesting…” She droned, picking up her pace a little bit. Allie didn’t really like to be late to class, except when it made the harmless teachers angry. Then it was pretty fun.

“Don’t you think it could be a sign?” Pleaded Maggie.

“Um…to be frank, no.” Allie pivoted down a hall to the left. Maggie struggled to catch up and to understand.

“So you don’t believe me that we had to do push-ups in my dream?” She whined desperately.

“No, I do, in your dream. Not in real life.” Allie rolled her eyes.

“But what if it IS true?” Pressed Maggie. Allie squared to face her and end the discussion.

“OK MAGGIE. Listen, I believe that you had a dream where Ms. Casson was making us do push-ups and sit-ups and military crap. But I do not believe that she will force us to do those when we walk into that classroom today. If it DOES happen, feel free to gloat and rub it in my face and say ‘I told you so!’ very loudly, ok?” Allie rolled her eyes yet again and turned back to face the door to their class. She heard Maggie behind her, grumbling and muttering things to herself. Allie caught the words ‘stupid’, ‘she’ll see’, and ‘could mean something moron’. She sighed. Life with her friends could be so difficult. Allie stepped through the doorway.

“Crap.”

Ms. Casson stood slightly to the left of the door, geared up in full military uniform. Mrs. Marchand was strapped to her spindly, roll-y chair with a leopard print belt. Maggie walked in next to Allie and stared in horror. This was EXACTLY like her dream.

“I t-told you s-s-so?” She stammered. Ms. Casson cracked the towel she held. It was coiled up, and Allie recognized it from various books she had read about boy scouts camping in the wild, and how they used to backlash, or ‘whip’, the other boys on their bare backs and behinds. It was said to be excruciatingly painful if used correctly. Allie had no doubt that Ms. Casson was well-skilled in the art of towel-whipping.

“Join them-now!” She barked, motioning to the already stationed Ian, Myles, Colby, and Rachael on the floor. Maggie immediately hopped down, and Allie followed after a few moments’ deliberation of whether she would like to be hit with a coiled towel painfully or count off some push-ups.

“After Will and Bob and Greg arrive, you will commence…uh, training. Mrs. Marchand and myself have deemed the school unsuccessful in their physical education courses, so we have decided that each Wednesday will be ‘training’ day. Push-ups, sit-ups, timed running, crunches, rock-climbing, gun-shooting, bow and arrow usage, how to treat severe wounds, and how to seduce the enemy are all included. Then there will be an optional day where you may choose whether you want to learn hand-to-hand combat, strategic planning, sniper training, or bomb construction.” She paused to let that information sink in while Greg and Will walked in with confused looks on their faces, then quickly took a position on the floor.

“Are these things all legal by school rules?” Asked Myles, the goody-two-shoes side of him showing. Mrs. Marchand answered from where she sat strapped onto the chair, which set the premise for Bob as he strolled into the room, whistling some happy showboat tune from his sailboat’s radio.

“Robert. Floor. Now.” Mrs. Marchand was unhappy to stop her rampage about the issue of legality to instruct Bob with what to do. He was a smart kid; he was here in this Gifted and Talented class, wasn’t he? Bob should be capable of figuring out what to do by looking around. It was called ‘peer pressure’. God, kids these days.

Bob quickly dropped to the floor, moving surprisingly fast for a man of his caliber. Myles caught himself before he released a snicker. It was sort of funny. This whole situation they were in was impossibly freakish and weird. None of it should be happening.

“For the next 43 minutes we’re working out! Push-ups are first on the list!” Boomed Ms. Casson. “Assume position!” The kids braced themselves for a set of 25 push-ups. So many thoughts were racing through their heads.

Ian was contemplating, “Oh god, how am I ever going to complete what is expected of me?”.
Allie was thinking, “This will be easy. I do these all the time at home!”.

Will was worrying, “She cannot be serious! This is crazy.”.

Rachael was whining, “Wow! I’m totally going to end up breaking a nail! But at least I can learn some hand to hand combat!”

Maggie was hyperventilating, “Ok this is freakishly like my dream. I’m really scared now. Luckily, it will help me stay in shape!”

Bob was thinking, “BOMB CONSTRUCTION?!?!”

Myles was praying, “Dear Lord, please let Ms. Casson drop dead on the spot, and Mrs. Marchand get sent back to the insane asylum.”

Colby was outraged, “What the heck! What about everything we’re supposed to be learning in G/T class? This is stupid!”

Greg’s thought process went something like this: Lemmings…cliffs…lemmings…

“BEGIN!” Mrs. Marchand shouted from across the room. She was straining against the bonds that held her.

“Up…down…up…down!” Counted Ms. Casson. Colby looked up and practically saw the frothy foam building up around Mrs. Marchand’s mouth. Nasty. She looked like some fat toad from a storybook. While blindly doing push-ups, Colby constructed a fable in his mind that involved Mrs. Marchand.

Once upon a time, in a deep, dark, freaky forest, a fat frog of the name Mrs. Marchand lived in a hole. The hole was very wide, because it had to be able to encompass all of Mrs. Marchand-the-frog’s fatness, and her beady eyes and overly large mouth. However, the hole was not very deep, and one day, a rugged hunter of the name Ms. Casson spotted the hole and decided to take a piss in it. Being so large and slow-moving, Mrs. Marchand could not make it out of the way before Ms. Casson peed on her. While a warm shower of yellowness rain poured over the disgusted Mrs. Marchand, Ms. Casson removed herself from her previous squat, and suddenly saw the monstrosity that she had been going to the bathroom on.“COLBY! PUMP THOSE ARMS!” Ms. Casson rested her booted foot on Colby’s back while he struggled to regain his push-up momentum.

“24…25! Break!” Called Ms. Casson while she squirted a water bottle at the somewhat tiny group of newly recruited military members.

“30 seconds before we move on to sit-ups! 50 of those!” Ms. Casson barked. Rachael swooned, being very dehydrated, and nearly fainted. 50 sit-ups? Impossible! Ian was having nearly the same thoughts.
“Begin!” Mrs. Marchand shouted. Each of the students held another student’s feet while they pumped off 50 sit-ups.

“This…is…too…hard!” Panted Will as Greg sat on his feet.

“Sit-ups aren’t that bad!” Greg patted Will’s knee gently as Will struggled to complete his 37^th sit-up.

“No! You’re crushing my foot!” He groaned.

“Oops…sorry.” Greg shifted his weight. Finally, Will completed his 50^th sit-up. He wiped the sweat off of his forehead, then turned to Greg with a malicious smile. Greg pulled at his collar.

“1…2…3…4” Will plopped down onto Greg’s feet, centering all his weight there. Greg moaned dejectedly and furiously tried to finish his sit-ups. To his left, Maggie was slowly chugging along, and to his right, Allie was cranking out sit-ups like there was no tomorrow.

“Faster!” Ms. Casson screamed, flexing her towel. Greg gulped and frantically picked up his sit-up speed.

“TIME.” Mrs. Marchand called out. The group stopped, and again, Ms. Casson went down the ranks, squirting water from a bottle onto the faces of the weary soldiers.
“Next we’re running the timed mile! You’ll get your time today, then next week we’ll do something different, but the week after that we’ll run the mile again and see how many of you improve…and how many of you FAIL!” Mrs. Marchand smiled devilishly. Ian sighed, knowing his life was over as he knew it.

“Outside, hut, hut, hut!” Ms. Casson drilled them in a single-file line to the track.
“Left, left, left, right, left!” She sang as they marched. Greg stomped proudly along, feeling as though he were in a parade (plus, he enjoyed the jaunty tune).

“Line up on this line.” She pointed to a parabola on the track curving away from them. Each student gingerly stepped a toe onto the line. As soon as they did, Ms. Casson blew her whistle. It took nearly a second for them all to register that they were supposed to start running. Ian glimpsed inside of Colby’s head that they should rebel and not run, but with Allie and Will leading the way, the rest followed meekly behind. After four laps, people started to finish.

“Remember your time!” Ms. Casson said. She started yelling out the times as everyone passed.

“6:17” Will nodded his head.

“6:31” Allie crossed the line.

“6:46” Myles flew like a crow over the finish line.
“7:02” Colby joined Will.

“7:14” Greg stood near Allie and Myles.

“7:39” Maggie panted across the finish.

“7:58” Rachael gasped, and fell dramatically onto the ground next to Greg.
“8:47” Ian wheezed over to Myles and Maggie.

“9:56” Bob jogged over the line.
“Ok, so in two weeks we will be running that again. I expect you all to be in much better shape, and improve your times drastically. The most-improved time will earn themselves a surprise.” Ms. Casson looked excitedly around the group of sweaty kids, hoping to catch some excitement. She found none.

“Class dismissed!” Ms. Casson shooed them off the track with not so much as a glimpse at any of them.

“Okay. That was SERIOUSLY freaky!” Rachael breathed heavily out and fluffed her hair.

“That was horrible! I need to look up something on child abuse laws, and educational decrees that would allow you to do such terrible things in school!” Ian arose to the situation.

“We’ll mess up Ms. Casson and Mrs. Marchand’s routine. We can hide the towel and the whistle and the water bottle, and other stuff.” Will spoke for himself and Colby.
“Myles and I will um…well, we don’t know yet but we’ll tell you.” Maggie finished.

“Allie and myself will do things to tick them off during ‘Wednesday training days’.” Greg stated. Maggie and Myles nodded along with him, deciding that that was what they were going to do as well.

“I will implant a hidden camera on Ms. Casson and Mrs. Marchand’s desks, and on the top of the door, so we have proof of this torture on video.” Bob injected. Everyone stared at him for a few seconds.

“Uhh…oook!” Ian fake-smiled at Bob and questioned himself silently as to why he didn’t move with Jamie into the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

“To class, before we’re late!” Rachael tried to hurry the group along. They were almost all out of shape though, and just walking up the hill after running a mile was extremely difficult.

Finally, they reached the top, and it was almost as though their previous discussion had never existed. Rachael fluffed her hair, reapplied her lip gloss, and trotted off to class. Bob lumbered towards his History class, and Colby and Will play-fought all the way to Science. Allie and Myles walked to their study hall (where all the freaky sophomores resided), and Maggie strode with Ian to Latin. Greg stood for a moment, confused as where to go, then decided to head to Algebra II and hope it was the correct class.
“Gregory Moore Ferland!” Greg was stopped in the hallway by Mr. Moscow (capital of Russia, thought Greg), the principal. Freaky…he thought. How did the Principal know Greg’s full name? Stalkerish…

“Yes sir?” Greg always addressed higher-up men as ‘sir’. They had a better position in life than him, and he hoped to burn the phrase ‘sir’ into their minds so that when Greg was President of the United States, they would treat him with the same respect.
“Shouldn’t you be in class right now?” He demanded.

“Um…yes. I was just heading that way.” Greg answered.

“Good. Oh, and by the way young man, your mother dropped off your foot fungus ointment in the office. You can pick it up after class.” Greg stared at the creepy man, trying to figure out where he was getting the crazy idea that Greg had foot fungus. Freak. Greg scuttled away before Mr. Moscow could force any more answers out of him.

Allie and Myles turned the corner down the hallway to their study hall. To their left, the freaky emo kid named Mike (everyone knew him as a pot-smoker and a crazy man) leaned shadily against a locker and surveyed them. Allie pushed Myles in between Mike and her, because frankly, he freaked her out.
“Yo.” Mike said, snapping his fingers at Myles. Myles looked warily out of the corner of his eye, and replied meekly,
“Umm…yes?”
“Where ya goin’?” Mike asked.

“Um…study hall.” Myles shakily answered.

“Coollll…” Mike leaned away from them and watched the rest of the hall’s activities.

“Freaaakkyy.” Allie whispered from behind Myles’ head.

“Let’s keep going.” He whispered back. She nodded.

I’m a sexy mama, who knows just how to get what I wanna, what I want to do is spring this on you, back up all the things that I told you…Rachael sang Buttons by the Pussycat Dolls as she pranced to her History class. It had a fairly good beat that she often liked to walk to. Maggie listened to pretty much the same music as Rachael, but Colby and Will were more into the punk-rap. They listened to a lot of Eminem and Weird Al Yankovic. Greg and Allie were into the rock genre (Guns N Roses, Nickelback, Green Day), and Myles listened to jazz music. Bob…well, no one knew what he listened to. Some said it was the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack. It was also rumored that he listened only to techno dance. Another rumor suggested that he was a true wild west cowboy. His fellow G/T students had yet to learn which (if any) of these were true. Ian really didn’t listen to much music at all (except that background humming music that is often heard in busy dental offices such as his parents‘). Allie and their other friend Julia tried to help him learn some things on the bus ride home, but he could never remember everything they taught him.

“Rachael,” Snapped her impatient History teacher, “Hurry up and take your seat!” Rachael obeyed. She’d had enough of bossy teachers for one day.

***

“Everyone ready to put the plan in action?” Whispered Maggie as the group stood huddled in front of Mrs. Marchand and Ms. Casson’s classroom a week later.
“I really wish Ms. Casson and Mrs. Marchand were like normal teachers. Normal teachers actually get sick once in a while or have a baby-wait, gross, Ms. Casson having a baby- and they leave school. I mean, what about Mrs. Marchand’s supposed ‘health problems’? NEITHER OF THEM EVER LEAVE SCHOOL!” Myles whispered furiously.

“I know. Chill Myles.” Allie whispered back. Ian shushed them all with a swipe of his finger, then nodded an affirmative. Everyone knew what they had to do. It was time to bring home the bacon. Ian pushed the door open.

TWEEEEET! Ms. Casson blew her whistle directly in Maggie and Ian’s faces.

“Formation! Today we’re taking a field trip to the rock gym. There, you will all be instructed on how to rock climb, including scaling large cliffs, repelling, jumping from rather large and terrifying heights, and climbing sheer cliff-faces that have almost no hand-holds or foot-holds. Clear?” Ms. Casson peered into each of her student’s faces, glaring and prodding with her eyes until they caved and looked at the floor. The only defiant ones were Bob and Colby.

“Fall out!” She led them (with Mrs. Marchand taking up the rear) to a bus waiting in front of the school. Bob pretended that he had to blow his nose, waiting until Mrs. Marchand’s rather large behind squeezed through the door. Glancing around, Bob inconspicuously hid a few cameras on each of the teacher’s desks, above the door, on the whiteboard, and next to the sink. He activated each camera, then quickly jogged out the door towards the bus. Ms. Casson eyed him expectantly while Bob waddled onto the vehicle.

“Nose all clean, private?” She questioned. Bob nodded. Ms. Casson climbed on the bus, then gave the all-clear to the driver. With a groan and a squeak, the doors closed and the class started towards the rock gym.

“This complicates things…” Whispered Ian to Allie as they spoke in hushed tones so Mrs. Marchand (guarding the front) and Ms. Casson (guarding the rear) couldn’t hear them.

“We can still aggravate them.” Allie smiled, and Ian read her mind.
“Perfect.”

***
“Repel!” Mrs. Marchand blew her whistle, sending the climbing children into a frenzy. Every time she blew it, they had to repel down the sheer cliff-face, and when she blew it again, they had to start climbing back up. Everyone (except for Maggie and Ian, who couldn’t get over their fear of heights) had advanced quickly to the hardest climbing course. Colby and Will often climbed trees and big rocks, so they were naturally skilled already. Greg had learned the basics of rock climbing at the camp he went to every summer (where they had tribal meetings and roasted pigs, then stuck the pig heads on sticks and went to war with the neighboring camps). Allie just had a knack for finding foot-holes, and Myles and Bob only made it up because they were determined to beat each other to the top.

“FASTER!” Shrieked Ms. Casson from the top. She was standing on the top of a platform, with the instructor from the Rock Climbing Academy just sitting inside his office, going through papers. Apparently while Ms. Casson was busy being a doormat as a child, Mrs. Marchand came to the rock gym twice a week to climb away her stress. So she had some special privileges that were allotted to her weekly. Maggie really wasn’t happy about those privileges, because there was a huge difference between the advanced climbing wall and the intermediate climbing wall. One had virtually no footholds and handholds, and it was a sheer cliff-face; the other was like the magic carpet at a ski mountain, so easy you could just walk up it. Mrs. Marchand didn’t think Maggie was ‘ready’ to climb the advanced wall, but technically, she was. It was all a matter of the height. She looked up and heard Ms. Casson yelling her heart out at Bob and Myles, who were racing and were closest to the top.

“Go Myles!” Cheered Maggie, while Ian looked on skeptically from behind. Allie and Colby were stopped, suspended in midair while they watched the battle between the two boys. Ms. Casson held out her hands expectantly, the first person having to touch her before the other (in Ian’s sick and twisted mind, he figured she just wanted some ‘action’-he could see that Will was thinking the same thing, except in a more Michael-Jackson sort of way).

Bob and Myles hoisted themselves over the edge, racing to the far reach of the platform to slap Ms. Casson’s hand first. Myles won only because he was a far better sprinter than Bob.

“That’s not fair!” Panted Bob, out of breath. He was bent over, clutching his sides, while Colby and Greg and Will and Allie finished their climbs.

“Time to go!” Whistled up the instructor. Dejectedly, Mrs. Marchand turned from where she was helping Ian and Maggie. While they were on ‘her grounds’ at the moment, the group would soon be leaving. Rachael emerged from the bathroom, where she had spent the last 25 minutes doing who-knows-what. But her fellow G/T students knew. It was time to put the plan in action.

“AHHHHHHH!” Screamed Rachael. Mrs. Marchand and Ms. Casson raced over to her.

“What’s wrong?” Asked Ms. Casson worriedly.

“I think I’m PREGNANT! I’m going to have a baby!” Wailed Rachael at the top of her lungs. Luckily, there were no other people in the rock gym, or that would have been extremely embarrassing.

“Uh…I don’t think the handbook covers this…” Muttered Mrs. Marchand to Ms. Casson.

“It’s definitely not protocol…” Ms. Casson whispered back.

“I’ll call a doctor!” Greg yelped. He whipped out his cell-phone, tripping over Myles’ outstretched foot on the way. He fell to the floor, suddenly starting to bawl his eyes out. Mrs. Marchand quickly left Rachael and scooched down next to Greg.

“GREG’S BLEEDING! CALL 911! CALL 911!” Shouted Maggie, who stood crouched, horrified, over the miniscule scab on Greg’s elbow. Will was running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Colby was slipping Mrs. Marchand‘s wallet and identification out of her pocket, while she stood huddled over Greg. Rachael was screaming bloody murder at the top of her lungs, and Myles was jumping up and down next to Ms. Casson, going,

“What’s wrong? Is it a big baby? Did her water break? Is it a boy or a girl? Has she thrown up? You know, I’ve read a lot about this in the many books I’ve read. Is morning sickness a problem? Is she gonna need a C-section? Why did you have unprotected sex Rachael? Are you going to be sick? I think I’m going to be sick!” Myles did his best to produce a sickly pallor on his face, and Ms. Casson stepped gingerly to the other side of Rachael, putting Rachael between Myles and herself. Ian was at the top of the intermediate wall, and Bob and Allie stood at its base with the instructor, trying to coax him down.

“C’mon Ian! You can do it, just a little farther!” Desperately, Ian shook his head no. He was too terrified of heights.

“COME ON!” Screamed the instructor to Ian, over Rachael’s loud screams and Will’s inhuman noises. Cautiously, Ian perched one toe on the edge of the wall. Then he yanked it back and shook his head again.

“UGH! FINE! There’s a frickin’ ladder that goes down the back!” The instructor cried. Bob surveyed the scene before him.

“Well…there goes our stop at McDonald’s.” He muttered viciously to himself. Allie gave Bob the evil eye. Ian scrambled down the last few feet of ladder, and hurled himself next to Allie and Bob.

“TO THE BUS!” Screamed Mrs. Marchand above the din. Ian rushed out the door, followed closely by Bob, Myles, Maggie, Colby, Allie, and Will. Rachael still stood screaming in hysterics next to the office of the rock climbing instructor, who had locked himself inside it. Greg still lay bawling on the floor, crying his eyes out. Sheesh, thought Colby as they climbed on the bus. Greg sure was good at fake-crying. Maybe he could teach Colby a few things…

Ms. Casson escorted Rachael onto the bus, and Mrs. Marchand followed, hoisting an unwilling Greg over her shoulder. She dropped him into one of the front seats next to Rachael, while Ms. Casson shut the door of the bus.

“OK-ALL OF YOU SHUT UP!” Mrs. Marchand yelled, popping the ear drums of Maggie and Will. The GT class turned deathly silent.

“No one talks until we get to Wendy’s and Rachael is taken to the bathroom. Understood?” 18 pairs of eyes stood trained on her.

“Aww! We’re going to Wendy’s instead of McDonald’s?” Whined Bob.

“Shut up Bob.” Ms. Casson spoke, starting the engine of the bus. It squealed terribly and rolled out of the parking lot. They drove on the highway for approximately 20 minutes until Allie spotted the sign for Wendy’s on the side of the road and Ms. Casson veered sharply to the right. A few seconds later Ms. Casson (being the more sympathetic of the two teachers-and not hating Rachael as much as Mrs. Marchand) led Rachael to the bathroom, and the rest of the class sat on the bus while Mrs. Marchand wrote down their orders. She didn’t think it was necessary to just let all of them into Wendy’s to order themselves.

“I’ll have a double chicken burger with a large frie and a coke!” Called Myles.

“No, I’ll have the Baconator, a small frie, a medium Root Beer, and an Oreo Twisted Frosty!” Colby shouted.

“I want the Junior Bacon Cheeseburger with a small frie and a chocolate Frosty!” Allie called to the front.

“NO ME FIRST! I want a-” Started Greg.

“NO! Everyone be quiet. We’ll start at the front and work our way to the back.” Mrs. Marchand waited while everybody settled down.

“Ok Greg. You first.” She pointed to him.

“Uh…I’ll have two hamburgers with a large Coke and a small vanilla Frosty.” She wrote it down.

“Colby?”
“I want a cheeseburger with no onions, a large frie, and a medium Root Beer.”

“Okk…Myles?”
“Um I’ll have two 5-piece chicken nuggets, a medium Coke, a small frie, and a small vanilla Frosty.”

“Alrighty…Maggie?”

“I’ll have a chili, a small frie, and a small Lemonade please.” She added. Mrs. Marchand shook her head yes.

“Allie?”
“Um…I’ll order a Junior Bacon Cheeseburger with no tomatoes, a small frie, and a small chocolate Frosty-please.” Allie fake-smirked at Maggie, both of them giggling under their breath.

“Will?”
“I want two cheeseburgers with no lettuce, a medium frie, and a large Mountain Dew.” Will ordered. Mrs. Marchand scratched it down on her notepad.

“Bob?”
“Ahh…I‘ll have the Happy Meal. With the tank, not the Barbie.” Bob listed off. Greg and Maggie stared, appalled, as Mrs. Marchand spoke.

“Um…Bob, this is Wendy‘s. They don’t serve Happy Meals. That’s only McDonald’s.”

“Fine.” Bob sneered. “I’ll have two hamburgers, one cheeseburger, a large frie, a large Dr. Pepper, and a large Cookie Dough Twisted Frosty.” Mrs. Marchand wrote it down.

“Whoa…” Will whispered to Allie. “He eats a lot…” Allie giggled and nodded.

“Ian?”
“Um…a hamburger, a small frie, and a small tap water please.” Colby shook his head shamefully at Ian’s lack of taste.

“I’ll go inside and order the food. Rachael and Ms. Casson will join me in there. While I’m gone, I want no funny business. That’s exactly why I had these worksheets printed up, to give you something to do. Each one of them is different, so no cheating occurs and silence is maintained.” Mrs. Marchand started to walk down the steps of the bus.

“Oh,” She poked her head back on the bus. “These are going in for a quiz grade.” She smiled devilishly and went inside Wendy‘s.

Each student faced his/her paper. It was true, they were all different. Although they were all questions, each set had a completely random subject. Ian’s was on how the minds of evil geniuses worked. Greg’s was on how to get girls, and Maggie’s was on famous classical music. Myles’ questions were on the subject of the weather, and Bob’s were about different birds. Allie’s questions were on which city is better, New York or Boston, Colby’s were on rules of a soccer game, Will’s were on Dickens’ books, and Rachael’s were on how to score a touchdown in football (although she wasn‘t even on the bus, Mrs. Marchand forced Greg to set it on the seat Rachael had been sitting on).

Each child struggled through their questions, knowing almost none of the answers. The minutes ticked by, and Maggie got antsy. Ms. Casson and Rachael had been holed up in the bathroom like high-school druggies for almost half an hour, and Mrs. Marchand was taking like 20 minutes to order their food. Jeez, though Maggie, I thought this was supposed to be FAST FOOD, not slower-than-crap food. In his mind, Ian agreed with her.

“Heheh.” Myles looked up when he heard Colby snickering to himself from the middle of the bus. Craning his neck, Myles could make out an orange flickering flame popping down and up next to Colby’s overly large cranium.

“AHH! THE BUS IS ON FIRE!” Shouted Myles. Everyone sat silently, working on their papers.

“Um…excuse me…I said: THE BUS IS ON FIRE!” He shouted dramatically, wailing and screeching like it was the end of the world.

“AHH!” Screamed Rachael. Maggie clutched Allie’s arm for dear life.

“LET’S GO!” Greg jumped up, sprinting down the aisle of the bus.

“Uh…guys…” Will snapped his fingers and Bob reached out and grabbed the back of Greg’s shirt, while Greg ran in place like Scooby Doo on Saturday morning cartoons.

“It’s just…my power.” Colby whispered. He held up his hand and flicked his fingers back and forth. A flame appeared, then disappeared, then appeared again.

“No way.” Greg stopped and stared, forgetting all about escaping the bus. Bob whacked Greg in the head.

“Oww! What the heck Bob?”
“We’ve already seen Colby’s power.” Greg jumped up with an angry gleam in his eyes. He emitted a low growl from deep within the recesses of this throat and picked up Bob with one arm. Bob crossed his arms, waiting quietly while Greg got his anger out. Sighing deeply, and realizing he wasn’t succeeding in scaring Bob, Greg set him back in his seat.

“Thanks.” Bob scowled up at Greg with distaste.

“CASSON ALERT!” Shouted Maggie. Two seconds later Rachael climbed aboard the bus, followed closely by Ms. Casson (who didn’t quite catch the subtle wink Rachael gave to her classmates).

“Peggy isn’t back from the food line yet?” Ms. Casson murmured to herself. Ms. Casson snapped her fingers at Rachael, who immediately picked up the paper Greg had left for her on the seat and started to work on it.

“I’m going to help Peggy carry out the food. Be good guys!” Ms. Casson called jollily. She exited the bus.

Sadly, Bob remembered his lost mother, also named Peggy, who had deserted Bob and his father when Bob was two. It was a painful memory to hear anybody call someone Peggy, because it brought back all of the sad family things Bob had missed out on while growing up, like making cookies at Christmas and eating mud pies and getting sick. Bob lived solely with his father and his sister, whose names happened to be Simon and Sharona Cowell. Bob’s last name was still Potts, on account of his mother’s last name being Potts as well. However, Simon Cowell, Bob’s dad, was a major character on the show “American Idol” which meant that Bob was often home alone with Sharona because their dad was gone away filming all the time. Occasionally, Simon brought home his coworker Paula Abdul, whom everybody in their home called ’Aunty Paula’. But Bob secretly loved her, and plotted so that one day they would escape to Mexico together.

Myles’s family was a bit different from Bob’s. Myles had a loving mother and a loving father, while he was an only child. Well, it appeared to any outside stranger that they loved him. If one was to stroll by his home on a quiet evening, they might glimpse their pristine family sitting to a nice dinner with candlelight. But that would be from the outside. Myles’ father was really a drunk bastard who was failing at his job, and mother smoked crack and worked in an office where she was having an affair that Myles knew about. His family was falling apart at the edges. Myles loved escaping to school, where he studied hard in the hopes that he could do better than his parents, and succeed in life.

Rachael’s family was… interesting. She had two brothers, and a younger sister. Her younger sister was the pride of Rachael’s parents, Ralph and Lauren. Sarah (her sister) was the baby of the family, the one who always got good grades, played multiple sports, and was very social. But Rachael and her brothers knew Sarah better. She was a conniving snob who was cruel to her friends and dissed Rachael, Sam, and Eric in public. They hated her. Sam was Rachael’s oldest brother and he played hockey. That was about it. Eric was a year older than Rachael, and he was a punk. He hung out with emo kids, snuck drinks when his parents weren’t looking, and both Rachael and Sam knew that he cut himself. Rachael’s parents were oblivious to all of their children except for the good things, so Rachael didn’t expect to get much help from them.

Ian lived a fairly simple life. His mother, his father, and his younger brother got along as any typical, American family usually does. His dad was a dentist, his mom was a court reporter, and his little brother was a participant of the 2^nd grade. Ian’s family, however (perhaps because of the dentistry, maybe because of the terrible court cases), was slightly germophobic. There was hand sanitizer on every surface in the house, and the children were made to wash their hands before and after every meal, when they unloaded the dishwasher, used the toilet, watered the plants, or played outside. Sometimes Ian skipped washing his hands after lunch at school and before using the toilet, so he hoped none of his friends would tell his parents. Secretly, he always thought, “Wow, I’m such a rebel!”.

Colby and Will were practically brothers. In fact, they were brothers. Colby and Will’s parents divorced each other when the boys were 3. But since both of their parents were high-school dropouts, neither of them were very smart, and they only moved to opposite ends of the street. So Colby and Will walked home together from school every day, and hung out at each others’ houses; but at night, Colby went with his mom and Will returned home to his father. The boys were odd twins, not looking alike but acting the exact same way. When they reached the end of their eighth grade year, Will’s step mom (whom both boys thought was extremely evil) wanted to send Will to private school instead of continuing on to the public high school. But Colby protested, and Will’s step mom, being as dumb as she was, thought Colby was merely Will’s best friend instead of his brother, and because he was so attached to Will, she let Will stay at the public school.

Allie’s family was what could be described as ‘crazy’. Her dad, her mom, her brother, and her sister, lived a hectic life. While one kid was being shipped off to baseball, the other was being picked up from color guard. Her father was a psychotic man who was smart yet randomly broke out into song. Her mother was a woman who was nearing insanity, having to live with Allie’s brother. Her brother, Emanuel, was a pig of a child who constantly ate junk food, played too much play-station, and didn’t do his homework. Allie’s parents had to force him out of bed in the morning. Her sister, Michaeyla, was nearly identical to Rachael’s sister, Sarah. Michaeyla appeared to be a sweet, innocent 5^th grader from the outside, but looks were deceiving. She was truly a devil who hurt other people mentally, and always had to have her way. Allie despised her.

Maggie lived the good life. Her parents were the only other occupants of their house, since her brother was away at college. Her father was a wealthy business man, and her mother was a work-at-home mom. They had plenty of money and her father often donated large sums of money to charities around the world (the local library had a huge sign denoting ‘The Nortons’ as the largest benefactors). She had been to 32 different countries (including Canada and Mexico). Her brother went to Yale, with a full scholarship. Maggie hoped that one day she too, could live up to all that her brother accomplished.

Greg was also an only child. His mother and father adored him, and considered him the greatest child of all time. While Greg was in all the highest classes at school (even taking a math class two years above what he should be in), his parents thought he was just amazing. Nearly every day he came home, his mom would arrive at exactly the same time he stepped off the bus. She would rush him into the house and fix him a healthy snack, and supervise his homework while doing the work she brought home (she worked as a financial consultant 20 minutes from the school-in case Greg ever had an emergency). His father would arrive at precisely 6:00, and his mom would have dinner waiting. They were also a family of ritual. Every Monday was Italian-food night, every Tuesday was Mexican-food night, every Wednesday was surprise night, every Thursday was leftovers, every Friday was pizza, every Saturday was a nice dinner (chicken, pork, etc…), and every Sunday evening before the week started again, they ordered Chinese takeout.

Mrs. Marchand stomped back onto the bus, holding three drink trays, and two large bags. Ms. Casson followed her with another 5 bags. Standing at the front of the bus, Mrs. Marchand called out the food orders while Ms. Casson walked down the aisle and handed everyone their drinks. Thirstily, Rachael grabbed at a large Diet Coke on one of the trays. Ms. Casson swiped it away from her.

“Uh uh uh…a healthy baby or an upset stomach…either way you need a water.” She plopped a large container of water in front of Rachael. Rachael snatched it up and scowled at Ms. Casson, who smiled as Ian willingly grasped HIS water. Suck up…thought Rachael. Ian turned to give her a belittling look. Shit, thought Rachael. She forgot that Ian could read minds.

“I SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED THE TANK, NOT THE BARBIE!” Shouted Bob, jumping up from his seat.
“Shh!” Mrs. Marchand shushed him, taking a large bite of her BigMac.

“It’s not fair!” Whined Bob dejectedly.
“I’ll trade Bob…” Myles said with a sigh. He begrudgingly held out his tank.
“No way! You ordered a happy meal, too?” Asked Bob.

“No…” spoke Myles. “I just always ask for a toy and they comply.” Heheh…they’re secretly my evil minions…he thought…or at least they will be someday. Yeah, right…thought Ian. Kids these days. He shook his head, which caused Maggie to raise her eyebrows at Ian shaking his head at nothing.

“Everyone ready to go home?” Asked Ms. Casson. She was sitting patiently in the driver’s seat.
“Aren’t you going to eat anything?” Greg asked incredulously.

“I already did!” She exclaimed joyfully. “I had an extra-large Diet Coke, a Whopper, a medium frie, and a McFlurry!” Colby stared in disgust as he tried to comprehend Ms. Casson’s skinny throat encompassing all that food.

“Onward!” Called Mrs. Marchand from the very backseat of the bus, so she could keep a lookout for ‘any smooch smoochy business’ as she called it. Yeah, like that’s gonna happen…thought Allie.

Bob happily sat with his tank, zooming it all over the seat, while Myles stared dejectedly at his new Barbie. Colby and Will were throwing French fries at each other, and Allie sat quietly munching her food. Maggie and Rachael were having a disclosed discussion, with lots of hushed giggling coming from their seat. Ian was pondering the meaning of life, and Greg sat methodically dipping chicken nuggets into catsup. Mrs. Marchand kept a wary eye on the children while finishing her BigMac.

Soon, they pulled into the driveway of the high school. It was nearly 2:15, the end of the day, because of the whole soap-opera with Rachael. The class sighed collectively, and gathered up their personal articles.

“Dude, we missed science!” Colby and Rachael high-fived, and Will jumped up and down.

“No math!” He screamed. Ms. Casson glared at him, then stepped regally off of the vehicle.

“Well…she ain’t no queen.” Ian tried to crack a joke on Bob, but it was lost. Bob rolled his eyes, grumbled something unintelligent, and lumbered off the bus.

“Frig.a.toni.” Allie muttered, grabbing her backpack.
“Whatever is wrong?” Asked Myles worriedly.

“I just missed a spelling quiz and it’s going to bring my GPA down-” She started.

“By approximately .024 percent.” Interjected Greg.

“It’s going to bring my GPA down and then I’ll fail and then I’m not going to get into college and I’ll be a hobo and never succeed at life!” Allie started hyperventilating.

“Whoa, chill.” Myles raised one eyebrow. “I highly doubt that missing one spelling quiz-that you can MAKE UP- is going to not let you get into college.” Allie slowed her breathing down and followed Greg off the bus.

“Dude, let’s go.” Colby and Will started to walk away.
“WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING?” Bellowed Mrs. Marchand.
“Um…home. School’s over.” Will jerked his thumb at the red brick building.

“The bell hasn’t rung! The bell hasn’t rung!” Mrs. Marchand spazzed out, jumping up and down and screaming. Ms. Casson stood to the side with a scared Rachael, Maggie, and Bob huddling around her.

“Don’t worry kids,” She whispered. “Peggy freaks out like this often.” She calmly watched the spectacle her fellow teacher was now making. Students from upper floor classrooms stared out their windows at the funny lady down below. Suddenly, the bell rang. Mrs. Marchand stopped jumping.

“Okay, now you may go.” She smiled politely and waved calmly. “Have a nice afternoon!” She called after them. Wow…thought Will. Crazy. He and Colby scurried away before any more embarrassing people could find them.

Allie and Maggie headed inside to their lockers, to retrieve some binders and papers that were needed for that night’s homework. Myles sauntered off to meet his friend to walk home, and Greg stood waiting for his bus, not even knowing that he was bouncing a heavy backpack up and down in his hands.

“Hehehe…” Bob shot a laser beam from his eye at a bush, watching it burn to the ground. A few kids walked by, their eyes large, as they watched the burning flora.

“Pyro…” One of them whispered, and they scurried off. Bob shrugged his shoulders and turned around to board the bus. Out of the corner of his eye, Bob could see Rachael suddenly disappear as her ex-boyfriend strolled out of the front doors. Hmm…thought Bob. He made a mental note to remind Rachael to be more inconspicuous. With a hiss, the bus doors closed shut behind him.

“Allie!” Called Emily, sliding down the nearly empty hall towards her. “Are you riding the bus today?”

“Yeah!” Allie slammed her locker and skipped down the stairs with her best friend.
“Oh my gosh!” Emily stopped suddenly, and Allie crashed into her from behind. Emily blinked her eyes. It seemed as though Myles had just appeared out of nowhere!

“Was he there before?” She wondered aloud.

“Um…yeah, definitely. Let’s go.” Allie pushed Emily ahead of her towards the doors.

“Arefulca ithwa owerspa.” She whispered into his ear as she passed. He nodded thankfully and waved goodbye as Allie loaded onto her bus. He would have to be more careful with that. They all would.

***

Shakira, Shakira…sang Maggie inside her head as she walked down her driveway. With her iPod plugged in to her ears, there was nothing else she was aware of. Suddenly something flashed in front of her.

“HOLY SHI-” She began to scream, yanking the ear buds from her ears. Myles grinned sheepishly and scuffled his toe in the dust on the ground.

“Sorry, just thought I’d go for a quick jog.” He smiled. Maggie sneered and zipped her iPod into her backpack.

“Do you have a lot of homework?” Myles slyly asked. Maggie eyed him, slowly shaking her head no.

“Do you wanna go have some fun?” He asked.
“Okk…that sounded really gross and wrong.” She sighed.

“No! Wait! I didn’t mean it like that! I meant, we could go find like Colby and Will or some people from our class, and like test out our superpowers and stuff at the field right over there.” He pointed to a large, open area with tall grass. The grass swayed gently in the breeze, and Maggie stared longingly at the open encampment. Myles knew he had won.

“I’ll go get some other people. You go put your stuff away in your house. Be back in a flash!” Yeah, literally…thought Maggie as she watched him speed away. He’d probably be back before she got to the house. Not wanting this to become true, Maggie started running to her house. She unlocked the door, dropped her coat and bag in her basket, and opened a bottle of Irish Spring Water. About three seconds later she heard the doorbell ring. Answering it, Maggie saw her entire G/T class assembled on her porch.
“Uh…Myles…this is EVERYBODY. How’d you get them all back here so fast?” “Easy. I went to Greg’s house first, and because I can pick him up, but he has…super strength,” Here, Myles looked warily about and lowered his voice. “Since he’s so strong, he can carry everyone else easily, so all I have to do is run with Greg.”
“It only slowed him down approximately 3.1 seconds.” Ian exclaimed incredulously.

“Well…let’s go play!” Rachael hopped up and down. Bob rolled his eye, accidentally singing Rachael’s butt.

“BOB!” She screamed, extinguishing the smoke. GRR…thought Rachael. Bob was the most annoying creature on the planet, besides Principal Mosca. Ian didn’t agree. What about all those movie stars Rachael had posted up in her bedroom? Weren’t any of them annoying? He calculated that some of them must be annoying.

The group followed Maggie across the tree-lined drive to the wide, open expanse of grass.

“Dude, this is sweet!” Will immediately took off, leaping and bending and stretching every which way. Allie laughed, hitching a ride with Myles so she could lightly shock Will. Rachael giggled, fake-sparring with Colby. Colby would try to burn Rachael, but Rachael would quickly turn invisible, allowing Colby no chance whatsoever to spot her.

“Rachael!” Colby protested, whipping his fiery hand around him, creating a red arc. Sighing, Ian was relieved in the fact that he had thought to bring supplies, just in case. There was: a large, 5-gallon bucket of cold water, an infrared sensor (courtesy of Bob), a brick, a hamster wheel, and a pair of gloves. The bucket of water was for anything Colby might catch on fire, or any people Allie or Bob might laser or electrocute. The infrared sensor was so they could find Rachael if she stayed invisible for too long. The brick was Maggie’s idea, and it was to throw on the ground in front of where they thought Myles might run, so it would trip him. The hamster wheel was Colby’s idea, and his idea was that they could wrestle Will to the ground, force him to shrink up, and stuff him in the hamster ball so he couldn’t stretch (they were only going to do this if Will started behaving poorly). Lastly, the pair of gloves were for Maggie, in case she decided that she wanted to not have her hands stick to everything. She had already taken to wearing gloves during school, claiming that her hands got extremely cold. Now, though, everyone was using their powers freely and she wore nothing to cover up her stickiness.

“Maggie, catch!” Greg meanly threw a large rock at Maggie’s head, who put her hands up to defend herself. The rock stuck onto her hands like a piece of duct tape to a piece of paper. The weigh of the rock (plus the force it was accelerating) jerked Maggie’s hands downwards. She dropped to the ground like a ton of bricks, knees buckling along the way.

“HAHAHHA!” Greg was bent over, laughing. Outraged, Bob perniciously peered at Greg’s lower front area. He shouldn’t be treating Maggie like that! Inconspicuously, Bob walked past Greg, pretending he was walking towards Colby. However, at the last moment, Bob whipped his head at Greg’s private parts, lasering them before moving on.

“HOLY FRICKIN CRAP!” Greg wailed, falling to the ground. Bob stood, laughing, while Will leaped back to the group to see what was going on. He had been almost a mile away, on the other side of the field. A few seconds later, a rustling noise was heard, and Myles and Allie walked out of the bushes.

“What happened?” Asked Allie. Ian explained, gesturing with his hands at all the appropriate moments.

“Aww Greg…that must hurt.” Allie bent softly over Greg’s writhing body. She patted him carefully on his hair, then whacked her hand on his butt (opposite side of where Bob hit him).

“OWW!” Greg yelled, clamping his hand on his backside where Allie had electrocuted him.

“Greg, that’s really mean what you did to Maggie.” Ian stepped in between them before anything else could happen. He did not condone this type of behavior. Greg stuck his tongue out at Allie and Maggie. Maggie stuck hers back.

“WHERE ARE YOU RACHAEL?” Colby screamed, suddenly getting extremely irked. She was nowhere to be seen. Sighing, Ian grabbed the infrared sensor and started methodically waving it over areas around the group. He found Rachael sitting on the ground, grinning at Colby (who was still swinging his arms in circles, trying to hit her). Grabbing Rachael’s wrist, Ian yanked up, until she finally reappeared (much to the displeasure of Colby).

“Jeez. I was just having some fun.” Rachael rubbed her wrist sorely. Ian rolled his eyes and put down the sensor.

“Oh my god guys, look at Greg!” Maggie pointed behind them, where Greg had gotten off the ground and was winding his fist back for a huge punch at Allie and Bob (who were standing right near each other).
“GAHH! Maggie!” Greg scowled. “You ruined it!” He cried. Maggie shrugged her shoulders.

“I prefer to think of it as ’helping the general community’.” She smiled. Greg frowned.

“Guys, look at mee!” Myles, who had kept fairly quiet through this whole ordeal, was now gracefully leaping 10, 15 feet into the air, dancing around the group.

“No fair!” Whined Bob. “He gets TWO superpowers? Speed AND really high jumping?” His lips turned into a pout.
“Let me try.” Said Will thoughtfully, bending his knees and extending upwards. He soared nearly 20 feet into the air, past Myles. Although Myles was a little upset that he didn’t have two powers alone, he was delighted that Will could now frolic with him up high in the skies. Rachael, trying to grab Will’s sweatshirt, leapt higher and higher until she finally caught it.

“Rachael can do it to!” Maggie stared, appalled. Ian was fascinated by this process. Three out of the nine people in their ‘superpower’ group could leap marvelous heights. He wanted to test his theory.

“Bob…try to jump like them. You too, Allie.” Ian pointed at them. Obviously wanting to join his brethren, Bob grasped for Myles’ jacket. Struggling, he hopped up, until suddenly he was flying through the air, prancing around with Myles. Not wanting to be shown up by Bob, Allie jumped, only getting a few feet at first. She kept jumping, until she was going up, up, up. Allie danced around with Rachael, smacking high-fives with Will and Myles, and laughing at Greg sneering up at them. Suddenly, with all the strength he could muster, Greg launched himself into a tremendous jump. He was equal in the air with Will, then suddenly, he was higher. Greg was literally suspended in midair, flying around without having to touch the ground.

“Oh mother fu-” Maggie clamped her hand over Colby’s mouth. He shoved her off, prepared to beat Greg, and be able to fly also. Shaking his hands loose, Colby shut his eyes, relaxing. He let the fire consume his body, his mind. It burned, up his pants and his shirt sleeves and his hair, until his entire body was covered in flames. Doing a normal, human jump, Colby floated gently up in the air, rapidly zooming across the field to meet Greg, who had journeyed to the far side and back.

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