I walked forward with dread. Sure, this was supposed to be one of the best days of your life, for a normal Vanarian. I was everything but a Vanarian it seemed.
All my life, I had been labeled odd, peculiar. It wasn't only my outward appearance, I didn't even think like a Vanarian. It didn't ever seem like it was my fault though. Can I help what I think?
My sister knew I was odd, and she knew what happened to people who stayed near me, so she kept far away. People who were near me got their popularity demoted for hanging out with the weird kid.
I don't really mind, though. I have two best friends. They think that only having 2 friends is stupid, and awful. What's the difference, though, 2 or 200?
At least one of my friends is normal. Luke is very popular, despite hanging out with me half the time. Girls think he's cute, and whole hoards of them swarm him whenever they can. Sometimes I wonder why he doesn't dump me for one of his more popular friends. He wouldn't do that to me, though, he's a very loyal friend. He is good at sports, and all the girls think he's handsome.
Curls is my other friend. She kind of sticks out too, but people still hang out with her, although she isn't very popular either. She understands me a bit better. Her real name is Carlianna, but because of her personality, and her hair, we all just call her Curls. Plus, Carlianna is a mouthful to say.
We moved forward in line. Luke, in front of me, turned to me. "I can't wait 'till I get to the front of the line! What do you think yours will be? I bet yours will be completely unique, something no one has ever seen before. Mine, ooh, I hope that I get super-strength or something awesome like that!"
I grinded my teeth together. "I don't know, Luke, stop asking me! I don't really even care at all what power I get, so long as people stop asking me what I think mine will be." Luke got a little offended at that.
"Sheesh, I was just wondering." He replied, and turned to talk to the person in front of him. They talked in excited whispers.
"Don't blame him; we all feel that way, Strike. We've been waiting for this day for half our lives… our status and popularity, all of the other important stuff, will change once we get this, okay? Don't spoil it." Curls chided me. I sighed, knowing that she was right.
I was almost to the front of the line now. Luke sucked in a deep breath, smiled, and then, jumped into the pond. I looked around. It was fall, and the trees were yellow and brown. The pond reflected the trees, though the blue sky shined in it, too.
Luke emerged at the other side of the small pond. He started punching his fist into the air. Nothing happened. He grabbed a tree, and tried to pull it. It didn't move.
"Get going, silly!" I heard Curls from behind me. Then, all of a sudden, I was falling. Curls had pushed me!
I tumbled into the water, hearing the big splash that I made. As I sank lower, I saw a sparkle in the water. I swam further down, and saw more sparkles. Something golden in the water caught my eye. I tried to swim down further, but I was out of breath. I swam to the top, and emerged out of the pool.
I saw concerned faces that turned into relief when they saw that I was all right. I got out of the water completely. I punched my fist in the air, but nothing happened. I stomped the ground, and grabbed the nearest tree, and pulled it as hard as I could. Nothing happened.
I swallowed, embarrassed. Suddenly I couldn't breathe. I had always feared that this would happen. I didn't have a power. Nothing inside of me felt different. I just wanted to be away from here, from everyone.
I took off as fast as I could. My power wasn't super speed either. I felt humiliated. Why was I so peculiar? Why couldn't I be normal, and sporty, like every other guy?
I cried, as my greatest fear had happened. I would stick out, being odd and helpless as I always was. I would be known as the loser, whose power had never shown up. My poor mother would be secluded from normal life, as she would always have to take care of her strange boy with no special rare gifts that they had always ranted would make me popular.
I woke up. I had slept in my small tree. I didn't want to disappoint my parents until I had to. I went to school. I passed Lukes' house, and he came out. He didn't see my upset face, so he started talking.
"You will never believe my power. It's not super strength, but it's the next coolest thing. I can run super fast. The girls love an athlete. I'm so lucky." He sighed, contently.
Curls ran up to me. "Guess what?!" She blurted out. "I have the gift of fire!" I blinked. Wow. I thought she would get a more subtle gift, like sunlight or something.
"What did you get?" She turned excitedly to me. Uh-oh, I was in trouble now. What to do, what to say? If I lied and gave a random power, she might ask to see it, but if I didn't… she would know how stupid and powerless I was. Even I wouldn't be my own friend if I was her.
"Uh… I can talk to small animals." I lied to her. "Oh. Cool," she remarked disappointedly. "That's, uh, really something." She looked around. "Oh! Hey why don't you tell that potgut over there to come over here and stand on two legs? You could probably even teach it to roll over."
Oh, no. I knew this would happen! I froze. What to do, what to do? I panicked. "Please, PLEASE, come over here and stand on two legs for me, Mr. Potgut." I didn't say this out loud, of course. I was hoping and praying to myself that it would run over here.
I stuck my finger into my backpack. "Squish," I felt my finger touch my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I hoped it would be worth it. I pulled my peanut butter finger out.
Curls saw it. "Eew, what are you doing?" She cried out.
"I'm… uh, well, potguts like peanut butter. He told me so himself." I lied. The potgut ran over to me. I froze and stayed completely still, hoping that the potgut would lick my extended finger. It sniffed, and started, to my relief.
I sighed, thanking Sirah (the goddess whom we all honored, because she granted us life) that the potgut had licked my finger. It was a lucky coincidence.
"That was… weird." Curls remarked. "Well, it is a pretty subtle gift. What did you expect from me, lava?" I replied. She shrugged.
"I guess your right. But it would look really cool if you ordered a tiger around!"
"Uhhhh, I don't control animals, I talk to them. If the tiger was in a bad mood, it wouldn't listen to me. That is not a good idea. Besides, I can only do small animals. That potgut was the biggest thing I ever tried to talk to." Yes, what a beautiful lie. I was soooooo brilliant, I thought to myself.
"Well, we're taking powers' class today for the first time. You practice your power there. You'll see, you'll be ordering cats and dogs around in no time!" I almost fell over. Oh no, how could I have forgotten about that? She thought she was cheering me up. "I guess so."
We got to the school. All the little kids looked up in envy and honor at us. They wouldn't look at me in honor when they heard about the boy who didn't have a power, I realized.
"PAY ATTENTION!" The powers' teacher screeched at us. We trembled a little bit. Powers: fun. Teachers: not so much. "Alright, who has not discovered their power yet?" A few tentative kids put their hands up. "Names?" The teacher had a clipboard. She took down their names.
"Now, the rest of you come line up over here and tell me your name and your power. Now!" She barked out at us. We immediately obeyed her command. I moved forward in the line quickly. "Not another dreadful line!" I thought to myself miserably.
It was my turn. "What's your name?" "Uh, Strike, ma'am," I answered her.
"What's your power?" I quivered in fear. I had known this was coming. "I-I-I can talk to animals." My voice shook. I stood there stiffly.
"Alright, alright, MOVE!" She barked at me. I started to sway, to and fro, and she started to look fuzzy. "You heard me, move!" Everything went blank.
"Hello, youngling. I have been waiting for you." I saw a deer in a woodsy clearing. It was talking? I was confused. Last time I checked, deer couldn't talk. I gasped, as it started speaking again.
"Do not worry, youngling, you are in my care. I will protect you." How could a deer protect me? That's it, I've lost it. Lock me up in the loony bin, I thought.
"You will find your powers soon, and they shall be great and wonderful. Do not fear, you will be fine. I see a great era of peace coming towards us. Lead us into it."
"Is he going to be okay?" I heard Lukes' voice in a far-off haze. "What is going on? I'm fine. Where's the deer?" Were my hazy thoughts.
Then, with a painful shudder, I had a HUGE headache. My head hurt, my feet hurt, even my legs hurt. What was happening to me? I wondered in despair.
"Most likely, though that head injury could get infected. He might even have brain damage. Johanna, get over here! I need you to try to heal this boy. The hospital might take too long to get here." I painfully heard a loud voice that I recognized as my powers' teacher.
"A-a-are you sure? I might mess up his head. What if it never restores order?! It'll be all my fault if he ends up retarded!!!" I heard a girls' voice.
"Better retarded than dead," the teacher replied dryly.
CRACK! I heard something. I was screaming in my head. Something was wrong with me! There was pain everywhere inside of me.
"Oh, no, I messed up! He's dead, he's dead, I just know he is!" Apparently, I was screaming out loud too. Slowly, it started to go down a bit, though still incredibly painful.
"Oh well. It was too much to ask of you, Johanna. I wonder what I should say to his parents when they come looking for him. Dang, I might even lose my job." I felt a new throbbing pain. She had kicked me.
"Unnnnnh," I grumbled. "Ow. Ow, ow, ow, ow OW!" The pain was a lot more than my words. I kept moaning miserably. I heard gasps all around me.
"He's alive! Quick Johanna, keep doing whatever you were doing just now!" I felt teardrops on my face. She was crying.
I felt more pain, and then I relaxed. It was completely gone for a couple seconds, and then came back.
I opened my eyes, and heard more gasps. What was with these people? They were going to hyperventilate if they didn't stop gasping all the time.
I tried to get up, but the girl Johanna pushed me back down. Ow, more pain. "I'm fine," I complained, "I just have a little headache!"
"You're not completely healed yet. You just stay right where you are." To the others she commented. "Get this boy some juice! He's lost a lot of blood, he needs liquids." I felt a straw at my lips and started drinking, realizing how thirsty I was.
"I think he's going to be okay." Johanna said confidently. "Help him up. Let's get him over to that bench."
I extended my arms and they lifted. I stumbled over to a bench a little ways off. "Careful! Don't try to do anything yourself." She scolded me.
"Thanks," I muttered gratefully to her. I noticed Curls for the first time. She came over and sat down next to me. She sighed.
"You really had us scared there. We were afraid we were going to lose you. What happened?" There was a lot of curiosity in her voice.
"I don't know, I'm the one who blacked out, remember? You tell me what happened."
"Well, you were standing in front of the coach, and you wouldn't move. She was about to push you out of the way, when you blacked out." She stopped and looked at me.
"I remember that part."
"Then you fell down and with a 'crack' you hit a rock. We all panicked, screaming loudly. Luke thought that he just lost his best friend. Coach tried to stop the bleeding by grabbing someone and ripping part of their shirt.
"She made a bandage for your head, but very quickly blood was seeping through. She called Johanna over. Johanna was ordered to try to fix you, but we all thought that she had messed up and you were dead, until you muttered 'ow'."
"Oh," I muttered. "So, am I retarded?"
"Who knows?" Curls looked me in the eye. "But, I'd rather you alive and retarded, than dead." I nodded. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
"Three," I replied.
"Well, if you are retarded, then only a little bit of you must be, because you're sounding fine to me."
I woke up, yawning and stretching as tall as I could. I walked over to my window and looked out. The sun hadn't come up yet, and it was still quite dark out side. I sat on my window sill, even though I was on the second story of the house.
All of a sudden, I felt compelled to jump. "What?" I wondered why I needed to jump. I would most likely black out again, if I lived at all. Besides, this time Johanna wasn't here to heal me. I started to become itchy all over, and without thinking, I jumped.
I felt a light still of leaves as I tried to regain my balance. I wasn't dead? I looked down. I had landed on my feet. "Well," I thought in awe, "They should be feet." Because right under my ankle, were largely shaped cat paws.
As I stood staring at them, they quickly morphed back into human feet. My feet. "Is this my new power?" I thought to myself. If so, It was awesome!
"I hope I'm not dreaming, and if I am, please nobody wake me!" I could and would have shouted for joy were it not for the fact that it was probably 6 a.m. in the morning.
I ran to the closest tree, closed my eyes, and raked my nails down it. When I opened them, I saw that my hands were lions' paws and started running fast into the forest. I picked up speed, and soon the trees were a blur past me. I stopped, gasping for breath.
I felt like a cheetah. I slowly walked to the nearest stream and sure enough, I was a cheetah. I changed my thoughts, and suddenly, I was a bear. That was my last thought. I put down my head, and everything went blank.
Chapter 3
"Quick, he's over here! I found him." I heard a far-off voice. I opened my eyes and blinked. I looked up and saw my older sister, Sarah. Her eyes looked over me in concern, then skepticism.
"You loser, only a sissy would faint in the middle of a forest and force the whole town to look for him. I hope you know, your classmates are skipping school to look for you. They're all missing their first powers class. They were looking forward to it, too."
I sat up. I fainted, again. Man, people were going to think my power was fainting! They'll all think, man, what a sissy, who's so lame and helpless that the whole town had to put together a search party to find him.
I stood up. "Careful." My sister warned me. I started to walk in a random direction, then stopped. I didn't know where I was going, I realized. How did I get here?
"Our house is that way." My sister laughed and pointed in a slightly different direction.
"Oh." I said in a small voice. "OH!" I remembered how I got here. In a flash I remembered jumping out of the house, and scratching a tree. I remembered looking into a random pond. That's how I got here.
"Guess what, I can turn into animals! Well, only my hands and feet." She looked sarcastically at me, obviously not believing me. "No, really! Watch me."
I felt my hands form into lions' paws again. I heard her gasp, "Ew!" I climbed up a tree using only my front paws to show off. It was getting strenuous, but it was something I felt I had to do. No longer was I her weak brother. Promptly, everything went dark.
"You are in big trouble, young man!" Were the first words that I heard coming into consciousness. I didn't have the strength to open my eyes yet.
My mother was deep into one of her rants that I hadn't heard until just now. I listened silently, giving no hint of being awake yet.
"I was so worried. What were you thinking! How did you creep past our room?! I have ears like a hawk!" She whirled on me. "You still haven't told me your power yet either! You were silent when you ate dinner last night. I don't care if you think your power is lame, I'd like to know what it is!"
She went out of the room. I decided it was safe, and opened my eyes. I sat up and looked at the room. I was in the hospital.
The hospital was only 2 stories tall. It was painted completely white outside, or at least it was supposed to be. The white had faded a bit into a very light gray. Across the street was the ice cream store.
I looked around the room. It was pretty plain, with the walls painted a very light cream color. There was one painting on the left side of the room. It was a painting of the magical pond.
I saw some breakfast on a small table to the right of me. I picked up the tray and started drinking some orange juice. I knew exactly why I was here, and recalled my fainting incidents.
I was pathetic, I realized sadly. I wouldn't show off or use my powers unnecessarily to minimize passing out in the future. Even though my power was cool.
I got up, put my regular clothes on, and went outside my room. I went down the hall, and saw my family sitting in one of the three waiting rooms. My father got up as he saw me.
"You are in deep trouble, son." He said to me sternly. We will talk about it on the way home."
I endured the walk home muttering things like, 'Sorry mom', 'sorry dad,' it will never happen again… no sir, never go anywhere again without permission'.
I finally escaped, without further questioning, to my room. I sat down and started twiddling my thumbs. I got bored and stared out the window.
I saw my claw marks on a tree, and knew it was real. "I should definitely tell Curls and Luke." I thought to myself. They would be the ones with the 'subtle power' then.
Creeeeek, I heard the door to my room squeak slowly. My sister poked her head in. "Hey." She said, slightly bored. She walked further in, and sat cross-legged on the edge of my bed. I sucked in a breath. I knew what was coming.
"I'm not gonna give you a bunch of crap. If I did, it would mean that I'm a sissy, like you. Now, you better open your trap, and tell me all about your power. Don't show me; tell me. I'm to report to sergeant Mother, because she really wants to know."
I told her pretty much everything, which really only was the paws and feet thing. I didn't tell her about the potgut, because the way I figured it, that was only by chance. She listened silently to me.
"Hey, wait up. Wait up, Luke. No fair, you got a head start!" I called as he was running ahead of me. We were racing to Curls' house. His footsteps stopped abruptly.
"I win, I won. Ha," he panted, gasping for air.
"You cheated!" I accused him.
"No I didn't!"
"Yes, you did. Stop lying!"
"Oh, yeah sure, I'm the one lying."
We would probably have continued fighting, but right then Curls came outside. "Guys, guys, cut it out, CUT IT OUT!" She screeched at us. We stopped and turned toward her. She was frustrated with our behavior, and we realized that if we didn't stop, she would use fire to distract us.
"Oh, we're sorry." Luke tried to calm her. He elbowed me.
"OW! Yeah, sorry," I rubbed my arm. We walked to school in silence, until I realized that this was the perfect time to show them. Just for a few seconds, it probably wouldn't make my faint.
"Hey, guys. You know that lame power that I told you about?" I ran in front of them, and they stopped walking.
"Yeah," They replied at the same time.
"Well, check this out!" I shaped my hands into large cat paws.
"Wow!" They replied in unison again.
"That's really cool! See, I knew you had a great power." Curls commented excitedly.
"Yeah, totally awesome! Show me again," Luke agreed.
"Well, I can't really do that." I confessed. "Last time, I was a bit too excited, and I passed out, remember?"
"Oh, yeah. You had at least half the town looking for you. That's why you must've gotten up absurdly early in the morning and disappeared."
I nodded sheepishly. How embarrassing to have fainted not once, but twice, I thought all over again. We continued to school, with Luke chatting normally all the way.
We came to a stop. Coach had 5 people with her, and she was blowing on the whistle for kids to come over, that I thought her head would blow up.
"Listen up!" She shrieked, silencing all conversations. "Today is the day that we are going to watch you test out your powers. If it is not your turn, you will wait patiently and quietly. Understood?"
Several kids nodded. She continued. "We would have done it yesterday, but apparently, there was a small crisis, and most of you kindly volunteered to help out." Most of the kids turned their eyes to me. I looked at the ground, and hoped that my face wasn't as red as a tomato yet.
"Alright, the first kids to be evaluated are: Kristy Nightly, Jacob Blake, Lily Jayson, and Wally Dawson." The chosen students scrambled to their feet. "Show us what you can do."
Kristy's power was very cool. She eventually faded until we couldn't see her anymore. She could camouflage her body, just like a chameleon, so her nickname was Kristy the Chameleon.
Jacob Blake could lift up very heavy things. To demonstrate, he took an overweight boy and slung him over his head. Coach didn't like that very well; she gave him an 'F' for the day.
So students came and went; their powers ranging from growing plants to having the I.Q. of a genius. "Strike Fayward, Dawn Chatterson, Carlianna Naholm, Luke Nichols, and Taya Camerson.
I got up and went to the front. I gulped, and started itching myself a bit. My legs quivered a bit. I looked down, and saw with relief, that I wouldn't have to go first.
Taya eyes' started to glow bright blue. "Hey, stop picking on that kid!" She called. People started looking around. "Yeah, you; in the back behind that boulder."
A buff looking guy came out with his cheeks a bit red. Promptly, a weaker kid came out with a few scratches on his face and a bruise on his arm.
Curls went next, and after her came Luke. He zipped to Phillips' and bought a burrito, making the trip in 2 minutes, and everyone knew Phillips' was all the way across town. "He's so slow making burritos." He complained to us. Wally could make sticky webs, but that wasn't very entertaining to watch after all the cool powers we'd seen today. His nickname was now Webby Wally.
It was my turn. "Um," I stammered, "well, uh, here I go."
People looked at me, obviously bored. "I've got to impress them," I thought to myself. "I just have to." I closed my eyes and felt my hands changing. I opened my eyes, and heard the gasps of my female classmates. I saw the guys whispering their surprise.
I smiled, and sat down. "That was awesome!" Luke whispered to me. I knew my power was cool now; I felt normal for once for having the 'awesome' power.
