True Talents(41)

The word we heard the most from Trash was, “Sorry.”

I finally told him to knock it off. It was Friday, but we’d decided not to sneak out of the school. We didn’t want to ditch Trash, but we didn’t think the town of Edgeview was ready for a visit from him. Besides, one of those bitter-cold mid-February storms had made the trip less appealing than usual.

So we were hanging out in the room. Torchie was playing the harmonica. All of a sudden, his chair jolted as if someone had given it a hard kick. It didn’t move far enough to knock him off, but it sure got his attention. “Whoa!” Torchie shouted as jumped from his seat.

“Sorry,” Trash said.

“No big deal,” Torchie told him. He sat back down and returned to the thirty-ninth chorus of “Red River Valley.”

A minute later, Cheater screamed and leaped from the floor where he’d been sitting. As he twisted around, I saw the back of his underwear hanging over the top of his jeans.

“Wow,” I said, amazed at the sight. “That’s got to be the world’s biggest wedgie.”

“Sorry,” Trash said.

“Did you do that to him on purpose?” Lucky asked as Cheater straightened out his clothing.

“No way,” Trash said. “I’d never touch anybody’s underwear on purpose. Not even with my mind.” He shuddered.

“Yeah,” Flinch said. “If you did that, you’d need to get brainwashed.” Before I could laugh, a pencil flew from my desk and plunked against the side of my head just hard enough to make me say, “Ouch.”

“Sorry.” Trash picked up the pencil and put it back on the desk.

“How about you just say sorry once a day?” I suggested. “Say it in the morning, and that’ll cover whatever happens during the next twenty-four hours. Okay?”

“I’ll try.” He dropped his gaze to the floor for a moment, but then looked back up. He reminded me of a puppy who’d just been scolded.

I glanced around the room. “Everyone happy with that?”

“Sure,” Torchie said. “Fine with me.”

The others nodded.

“And you,” I said, staring at Flinch. “Stop it with the sneezing thing. Someone is going to figure out what’s happening. You did it again this afternoon in science.”

Flinch had fallen into a habit of saying “Gesundheit” right before any of us sneezed. That afternoon, he’d even handed me a tissue. He must have been keeping it ready, just waiting for an opportunity. He’d reached over and thrust it into my hand during class and whispered, “Bless you.” A half second later, I’d sneezed. It’s a good thing Mr. Briggs hadn’t been looking.

“You have to knock it off,” I said.

Flinch grinned and, doing a great imitation of Trash, he hung down his head and said, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s not funny,” Cheater said. “If they find out about us, bad things are gonna happen. People hate anyone who’s different.”

“Yeah. They could cut us up to figure out how we work,” Lucky said.

“That’s”—I almost said crazy, but I caught myself in time—“not going to happen.”

“Or lock us in a room,” Cheater said. “You know, use us for weapons. Or as spies.” He walked over and blew out a small fire that had started smoldering in the wastebasket.

“They wouldn’t do that,” Torchie said. “But we’d probably get split up if they found out.”

“It’s like a secret weapon,” Lucky said. “It works best if nobody knows about it. We can’t tell anyone.”

“It’ll work even better if you learn to control it,” I said. As those words left my lips, Torchie’s pillow shot across the room and whizzed past Flinch’s head. Naturally, he’d dodged aside a second earlier.

“Sor—” Trash started to say. “Oops.”

“How can we control it?” Torchie asked.

Trash shook his head. “I can’t. I’ve tried.”

“Me, too,” Cheater said.

“There has to be something we can do.” Torchie looked at me as if I had all the answers in the world.

So did the others.





BURNING QUESTIONS

The truth is, I’d been thinking about this a lot. And had plenty of ideas. But how could I tell them what to do when I didn’t even know what it was like to have special powers? That would be like a cat trying to teach a dog to bark. Besides, Cheater and Flinch were both a lot smarter than I was. One of them should be in charge.

“Come on,” Flinch said. “You’ve got to have some ideas.”