B003J5UJ4U EBOK (4 page)

A police car cruised past. My instincts flipped. Run and hide? Chase after them and ask for help? I didn’t think either of those was the right move.

I needed help. But until I knew who had kidnapped me, I didn’t think I could trust anyone—except my friends from Edgeview. As I thought of them, I stared at the small, round scar in the center of my right palm.

Torchie would help me. Just like I’d do anything for him. But he wasn’t great at figuring things out. Lucky was fiercely loyal, but he was also as tense and touchy as an unsprung mouse trap. Cheater was smart, but the stuff he knew didn’t have anything to do with the real world. He could tell you who invented asphalt or why people drive on the right side of the road, but he never remembered to look both ways before he crossed the street. He was always bumping into trouble.

It had to be Martin or Flinch. Flinch was the smartest as far as the real world, and the funniest, but Martin had an awesome ability to solve problems, and to get people to work together. That’s who I needed to talk to. If anyone could help me figure out what was going on, it was Martin.

He lived farther away, which meant the call would cost more. I figured I didn’t have enough coins. I saw a bank on the next block. I headed there to get some change. When I saw my reflection in the window, more memories rushed back, kicking away the remaining drifts of fog from my brain with a jolt, and flooding my throat with another harsh wave of nausea. I remembered that single moment of greed and stupidity—the moment that led to all this.

sometimes, it’s ok
to swear

I STAGGERED AWAY
from the bank window as that one memory kicked loose a dozen others, each one freeing more in turn, like a nuclear fission reaction. The past returned with a blinding flash.

MARTIN HAD BEEN
the first one to get out of Edgeview. I got out a couple weeks later, right before the end of the school year. So did Flinch. The other guys all went to summer programs so they could be allowed back in regular school in the fall.

But it was the day he left—the last day we were all together—that’s important. We’d taken a vow. Martin had just finished cramming his stuff in his bag, but we still had an hour before he had to go.

“We can’t ever tell anyone about our talents,” Lucky had said. “It’s too dangerous.”

“What about our parents?” Cheater asked. “Or my big brother?”

Martin shook his head. “Not even them. Unless we absolutely have to.”

“That’s the way it’s gotta be,” Flinch said. “Normal kids get beaten down just for being a little different. Wear the wrong shirt, listen to the wrong music, and you get crushed. Imagine what would happen to us. We all need to swear not to tell anyone.”

“Right,” Martin said. “We don’t tell. And we don’t leave any evidence. We shouldn’t even mention our powers when we email each other.”

Torchie held up his little finger. “Pinky swear?”

“No way,” Lucky said. “This is a blood oath. Hang on. …” He dashed off, then came back a moment later with a compass—the kind you use to draw a circle. He jabbed the point into his palm, then held out his hand.

“Do you know how many pathogens are in human blood?” Cheater asked.

“We’ll count them later,” Lucky said, jabbing Cheater with the compass.

The rest of us stuck ourselves, then clasped hands and swore to keep our talents secret from the world. I’d kept my vow and kept my mouth shut. But I also couldn’t help testing my limits. I’d even found I could move stuff I saw through binoculars, or in a mirror, though not stuff I saw on live TV.

School definitely got better now that I had control of my power and wasn’t snapping and breaking stuff all around me. Even with my control, I was reluctant at first to do anything. The memory of my punishment lingered.

But temptation always wins out over memory. At first, I played around with small stuff. I could make a biology specimen
twitch just enough to get a whole table to scream, or open some lockers for fun. Then I discovered the thrill of being an anonymous hero.

I loved watching Max Eldretch, the nastiest kid in my class, suddenly trip and fall in the cafeteria—especially when he landed face-first in a trayful of nachos. The whole place laughed and clapped. Even though I couldn’t take credit, I felt like they were applauding me.

But I didn’t just punish the wicked. I also helped the weak. Like Aubrey Toth, the class nerd. I helped him hit a double in gym class. I can still remember his stunned expression when the ball shot over the heads of the outfielders. The pitcher was pretty shocked, too. And it was funny how my one mean teacher, Mr. Dinzmore, was always losing his pens.

Life at home got better, too, at first. Things had been tense between me and my parents for years. Mom kept trying to get inside my head and find out what was bothering me. Dad would glance up from his phone calls when I walked by, and study me like he was staring at a puzzle written in another language. I could hear them talking at night. The words were never clear, but the tone was unmistakable.
What did we do to deserve this? What can we do to fix it?

There was a time, back when I was little, when Mom sang songs to me and took me on trips to the zoo. There was a time when I sat at the table after dinner and drew pictures of dragons while Dad told me about his business deals. I never understood what he said, but I loved that he said it to me.

I know the exact moment when my life took a sharp left turn. The memory still has the sting of a razor cut.

Fourth grade. Mr. Rostwick’s class. The day we got back from spring vacation. The end of my life as a normal, happy kid. There was a new kid at the desk next to me. I don’t even remember his name. Just that he was twice my size, with small, beady eyes and a crusty patch of dried snot next to his left nostril.

“Whatcha doing?” he asked before class started.

I held up the drawing I was working on. I’d always liked to draw. Especially monsters and rocket ships. This one was a cool monster with three heads.

“Can I have it?” he asked.

“Nope.”

He reached over and snatched it. “It’s mine now.”

“Give it back.”

He shook his head. “Finders, keepers.”

I wanted to hit him, but Dad always told me not to solve problems with my fists.
You can negotiate with anyone.
“You didn’t find it. You stole it.” When I tried to grab it, the kid yelped like he’d been pinched, and leaned away from me.

“Edward! Stop bothering the new boy,” Mr. Rostwick said.

“But he—”

“I said stop.” Mr. Rostwick gave me the glare he used when he was about to explode.

I gave up. “Fine,” I whispered. “Keep it.” I figured I should be happy he liked it that much. But the kid stuck his tongue out at me and started to slowly tear up the drawing. As he ripped each piece off, he slipped it in his desk. I grabbed the legs of my desk and squeezed them hard to keep from leaping up and smashing him in the face.

When we headed out for recess, I went around the building and climbed back into the classroom through the window. I was just going to get the pieces back. That’s all. And, okay, maybe tear up something of his.

Mr. Rostwick caught me right when I reached the kid’s desk. “What are you doing?”

I froze. For a moment, I couldn’t even remember how to breathe. Mr. Rostwick walked over and knelt so he could look into the desk. He gasped, and then started pulling stuff out and piling it on top of the desk. “Edward, how could you?” Everything was trashed. The notebooks were shredded, the pencils were snapped in half, and the calculator was pulled apart. It looked like someone had tossed a grenade in there.

“I didn’t do it.” I tried to think of some way to prove I was innocent, but my mind was as frozen as my body.

“Young man, you are in serious trouble,” Mr. Rostwick said.

My parents had to come in for a conference. Nobody believed me when I said I hadn’t done anything. They took money out of my allowance to pay for everything. Before the end of the school year, I’d gotten in trouble two more times—once for trashing another kid’s desk, and once for destroying the set for the play after I wasn’t allowed to help paint it. Nobody would believe I hadn’t done either of those things. Mom and I had more and more long talks. Dad and I had more and more long silences.

It got worse in the fifth and sixth grades. Everyone started calling me Trash. Kids tried to get me mad, hoping they’d see me wreck something. Things got wrecked, but nobody ever saw it happen. By then, I had a permanent desk
in detention, and no chance of an allowance for a very long time.

When I went to middle school, I hoped things would change. But the first week there, I got into an argument with my art teacher, Ms. Eberhardt. She wanted me to hold my pencil a different way. I told her I’d been holding it this way all my life. She snatched it out of my hand and broke it in half, then told me to get out of her class. I stomped out of there and left the building, but went and sat outside the window of the art room until long after school let out. I was too angry to go home right away.

I probably should have stayed away longer. That evening, the police showed up at our house. The entire art room had been trashed after school—except for my project. Every pencil, brush, and piece of pastel was broken. Every paint tube was squeezed empty and stomped flat. There wasn’t a single whole sheet of paper left. All the easels were trashed, and both blackboards had been ripped from the walls. Even the lights had been broken.

The school pressed criminal charges. Dad wouldn’t look at me during the hearing. Mom’s face was so sad, I couldn’t look at her. The thing is, they could have hired the best lawyer in the country. Mom wanted to, but Dad refused to help me. He said I needed to understand that all actions had consequences. I didn’t have a chance. The judge gave my parents a choice—juvenile detention or Edgeview. At least they’d picked the one I was able to survive.

I can look back now at the trail of smashed and broken stuff, and understand how my parents felt. I think the worst
part for them was that I’d never admit I’d done anything. The worst part for me was that they didn’t believe me when I said I was innocent.

When I got home from Edgeview, it took Dad a while to even talk to me. But after I made it though the first marking period without any problems, and brought home a good report card, he started to relax and talk to me again, like he did when I was little. He’d explain the business deals he was doing, and I’d tell him how my classes were going.

I especially loved high-school art class. It wasn’t just stupid craft projects like we’d done in elementary school. We learned about the golden section and studied famous artists. Ms. Vanderhoven was great. In November, when we started doing watercolors, she let me use one of her own brushes.

“Nice?” she asked as I laid out a thin line of cobalt blue.

“Yeah.” I couldn’t believe the difference between her brush and the cheap ones we used in class. Those worked little better than cotton swabs. With this one, I had total control of the paint. I blotted it out and tried a dry-brush stroke. I stared at the results, amazed I could paint that way. “Do they make these for oil paints, too?”

“Absolutely. They make wonderful paints, too. I’ve got an extra catalogue you can have.”

When I asked Dad for some money to buy a good set of Winsor & Newton brushes—that’s the brand Ms. Vanderhoven uses—and some tubes of paint, he reminded me that I was still in debt. “You aren’t getting any art supplies until you pay off the money you owe for all the supplies you destroyed.”

“But that’s not fair. I’ve changed. I don’t get in trouble anymore.” I didn’t see why I should still be punished for something I had done when I was so different than I am now.

“I’m glad you’ve changed. But that doesn’t erase your responsibility. You can’t just remove red ink from the balance sheet.”

“I’m really good at art,” I told him. “You should see what I can do with a set of those brushes.”

“Artists starve,” he said.

“Not good artists,” I said.

The phone rang. “We’ll talk about this later.”

I could tell he wasn’t going to change his mind. But I didn’t give up. When it got near Christmas, I mentioned the brushes to Mom. I figured she’d understand. She had a degree in English and was working as a fact-checker at a publisher’s before she met Dad. She still worked at home, part-time. Being around editors and writers a lot, she’d have to be familiar with creative passions. But all she’d said was, “We’ll see.”