Psychic Schoolkids pt8

Of all the terrible things...Tarot Cards.

I mean, they work. Chloe used them once and was quite successful. But that's different, she can see the future. But when your average person comes up to me with a deck of cards and tries to tell me what's in store for my week I regard them with considerable skepticism.

Yet there Sarah was, sitting with Dane and myself shuffling her cards.

"I have to shuffle them myself." She explained to Dane. "And if anyone else touches them their energy makes the cards go wacko and they won't work for me."

I tried not to make the rolling my eyes visible. Sarah was...smitten. It was odd, feeling her attraction to Dane across the table. It make me feel like a third wheel. Dane seemed nowhere near as frustrated with Sarah as I was, which I think make me even more annoyed at her.

Sarah was in the year level below us, and for some reason had taken a liking to Dane, which meant I had the unfortunate pleasure of spending quality time with her as she told Dane of her magical wiccan adventures once a week while I try not to sneer. Last week she was telling us how she was astrally projecting around her house...which was a headache and a half. I could avoid her completely, but the side-effect to that would be avoiding Dane as well.

Thankfully, someone was answering my prayers and Chloe came over to me. It had been a few weeks since our first date, and there had been a second date in there too. It was nice to have Chloe to rely on as more than a friend. She sat down next to me and looked at Sarah's cards with the same skepticism I had.

Sarah dealt the cards out onto the table.

"Hermit, Magician, Moon." Chloe whispered in my ear.

"Well now you've ruined the fun." I said to her.

"The hermit." Sarah said, turning over the first card. Dane looked on, interested.

"Oh god do I have to listen to her mangle interpretations and try to predict the future again?" Chloe whispered. "I could predict the future more accurately with a tea cosy than she can with a deck of cards."

"Remind me to get you a tea cosy next time I want the answers to a maths exam."

"The magician." Sarah turned over the next card.

"Okay bored now." Chloe said, loud enough for Sarah to hear.

"Excuse me? I'm trying to read the future here." Sarah said.

"Okay well here's a hint, it doesn't involve hermits, or magicians, and definitely not the moon. It involves blood. And a dead body, and circles."

"It always involves hermits and magicians...but clearly you haven't met the shaman." She turned over the last card. "And just you wait until the full moon..." She didn't even comment on Chloe's ability to predict the card.

"Woah...girls...chill." Dane tried to intervene.

"It's okay Dane, I can deal with Chloe's negative energy." Sarah said.

"And I can deal with Chloe's attempts and the future. There are no werewolves, we will be fine during the full moon, and I think we'll be even better off without Miss Teen Wicca here ruining my lunch break." Chloe stood up so she was standing over Sarah

"Noone is making you sit here!" Sarah said, gathering up her cards

"My friends are here...why are you here?" Chloe said.

"I don't know, obviously I'm not welcome!" Sarah stormed off in a far too dramatic fashion. Her feelings werent even hurt by her argument with Chloe. Dane however, was annoyed. He stood up and followed Sarah away.

********

"Sarah asked me out."

We were sitting in Psych class, a few hours after Chloe had made the world a better place by reminding Sarah she was not a psychic.

"Oh." Was the best I could reply with. This was a situation I had expected to deal with. Dane had been the class loser when I met him, and so the concept of him dating was one I hadn't anticipated. There were times when I envied Chloe.

"I haven't answered yet." Dane added. "I'm not sure what to do. I mean, I haven't dated a girl before. And I know that Sarah has...and...I don't know what to do."

"Well if you're not sure, isn't that a sign to say no?" I offered.

"I know, but....girls don't ask me out a lot...or...at all. How do I react to that? I mean what if I say no and every other girl in school thinks I'm not dating and then I never get a date?"

"Woah...I think you're getting a bit ahead of yourself here. But is 'because she asked' the right reason to date a girl? Shouldn't you date a girl because you actually like her?"

"...that's an odd concept."

"I know, but it's one that, like flossing, you should try out some time. I mean, if you use Sarah as a last...or possibly first resort, you might have fun, but you'll end up hurting here. But if you actually like the girl...I say go for it."

I think Dane was confused still, but the idea of dating was still kinda new to him - hell it was still new to me, being a whole two dates ahead of him....

Psychic Schoolkids pt7

I woke up to familiar voices, and a familiar argument too.

"That was stupid. He was stupid to do it and you were stupid to let him." Came Lisa's voice.

"I didn't let him. And regardless, Emily is in control of her powers, so nothing is going to burn down any time soon." Chloe defended herself.

"She's in control of her powers for now. What happens if she has a freak out tommorrow, will we go through this again?"

"Umm..I am in the room guys." Emily's voice came from a chair nearby where I was lying.

"Stay out of this." Lisa ordered. "Chloe, you know I only care about you, but you can't keep doing this every time someone new with a power comes along. What happens if the next person does something even weirder? You try to mess with it like this and someone ends up dead. Or worse."

"Not everything comes back to Chris. Besides, if we hadn't stepped in when we did Emily would have gotten worse. Someone would have died."

"She does have a point..." Emily tried to interject again.

"If Dane hadn't messed with her head then it wouldn't have been as bad." Lisa ignored Emily and kept berating Chloe. "His power is probably the most dangerous of the lot of you...you all take it so for granted that he is doing the right think when he pokes in people's heads."

I tried to move from where I was, but I had no energy still, I felt the room flare up a couple of degrees as Emily, who clearly had the energy, stood up.

"Okay listen." She pointed a finger at Lisa's chest. "I don't know what the hell is up with you people, but all you seem to do is argue. I just learned I can do these really cool things, and they are fun, but it seems all you want to do is tell people how dangerous they are and then heal some people when it suits you. Well guess what! I didn't ask for this power, I'm sure Dane and Jacob didn't ask for theirs either." The room heated up a little bit more, and Lisa retreated a little. "Chloe is right though - without them today would have been a lot messier, for myself, for you, and for everyone else. So whatever your history is with these guys...get the hell over it. At least someone is willing to help other people deal with their problems instead of pretending they're too good for it."

Emily nodded to herself in satisfaction, and tried to hide the fact that she had no idea what had come over her. Emily didn't seem like the type to yell at someone, but clearly Lisa was doing a good job of pushing her buttons. Lisa was shocked, and although I couldn't seen the look on her face from where I was on the couch, I could picture it in my head and took a little bit of pleasure from it. I heard her footsteps leave the room without a word.

I took this as my moment to sit up again, with some success. I half-heartedly attempted to clap my hands at Emily's effort in ridding us of Lisa. I think it looked more pitiful than anything else.

"Jacob!" The girls both said, rushing over.

"I'm fine, my head is just a little...sore. Mostly from Lisa's whinging. God that girl can complain."

"What's her problem anyway?" Emily asked Chloe.

"Long story. Definitely one for another day. Possibly tomorrow."

Emily's meekness appeared to have returned just as quickly as it had left, as she left the topic there.

"Did we win though?" I asked as I tried to stand up, before realising the couch was much comfier and didn't spin as much as the floor. "Noone wonders why a trail of fire was following Emily and why I was unconscious?"

"Well umm...yes. Everything got smoothed over." Chloe said.

"Ms Ellis came back while you were out though...we kind of had to tell her you'd fainted." Emily explained.

"Oh great." I put my head in my hands.

"It was the best we could come up with. Plus you were kid of a sissy. Just go inside someone's head for five minutes and then pass out on me? Puh-leeze. I can spend a few hours looking at the future and barely get a headache. And yes, I can see the future." Chloe said that last bit to Emily, who was looking amazed.

"So do all of you guys have powers?" Emily asked.

"Just Jacob, Dane, Lisa and myself. And now you of course. It's hardly that rare a thing anymore really. But yes, you're the first to set things on fire, or really do anything so flashy." Chloe still hadn't been able to shake her habit of answering questions or responding to things before people had asked them. This was especially problematic in a conversation with three people...I kept getting the feeling like Chloe was the only one having the conversation sometimes.

I tried once again to stand, this time managing it, although ending up leaning on Chloe as I did.

"Oh god." She said. "You're far too heavy for this. And I'm sure chivalry means you should fall over rather than lean on a lady."

"You're implying that I'm chivalrous there." I said, shuffling my way wtih Chloe towards the door.

"I'm glad you didn't say the second part of that sentence." Chloe said. "Otherwise you'd have been faling over."

"I know better than to say you're not a lady until at least the third date. It does sound fun in my head though."

Chloe stepped away from me, watching as I stumbled off balance for a bit and then stood on my own.

"Chloe!" Emily said disapprovingly.

"What? I knew he'd be okay."

"Unless you were wrong?" Emily said.

"I'm never wrong." She then turned to me. "Okay, hardly ever wrong. Depends on how far away it was. That was like two seconds away, even you could almost predict that and all you do is a half assed job at reading minds."

"I'm sorry, did I see you saving the day at all today?" I said, as I limped and Chloe and Emily limped out of the office and back into the hallway...


* * * * * * * * * *

Thankfully the rest of the week passed by with very little event. Well, Emily accidentally froze her coke one day, but noone was hurt and I think she was doing it more for an experiment than anything else. What the passing of the week did mean was that I got my date with Chloe.

The main problem with taking a girl who can see the future on a date is that no matter what you try to do, you're not going to suprise her. With this in mind, I didn't even bother trying anything even remotely romantic in the planning stages, and simply met her at a cafe for dinner before we went to the movies.

"So I've been thinking Jacob" Chloe said over dinner.

"Oh you poor thing, you must be in pain." I tried to resist being a smart ass, and failed. The response to this was a kick under the table. Thank god Chloe hadn't dressed up too much for our date and I was kicked only by sneakers.

"No seriously." She said. I put my serious face on, which frustrated her even more but she kept going anyway. "Why is it that out of the whole world, we keep getting kids at our school with like...superpowers? I mean - three of us could have been put down to coincidence...but we're now up to five. And Emily and Dane aren't like us. Their powers just appeared and were random and uncontrollable...I don't know about you but I've never felt like I haven't had control over my power."

"Yeah but can you remember when you first got your powers? I mean, we've had our powers since birth, so they've kinda grown with us, The new guys have just had theirs...appear, and their body's and minds don't know what to do with it."

"True, but are they appearing now? I mean unless they've been bitten by a spider or something it's odd timng."

"I agree. I just hope we've hit out cap of superheroes for now. They seem to be getting worse every time though."

"Well we did good wih Emily. I mean, noone got hurt, except for maybe Mr Harding's pride when Ellis had a go at him outside the science labs."

"Ha!" I almost spat Coke out of my mouth as I remembered the moment. "I love seeing bad things happen to Harding. I mean, if we're asking why questions I've always wondered why he's such an asshole all the time."

"I think he's been at the school too long. I mean, he's been there for like twenty years or something, same as Ms Ellis. Except Ms Ellis got a couple of promotions along the way, Harding has just stayed a math teacher the whole time."

"God imagine doing the same job for twenty years? I'm sick of our school and we haven't even been there a quarter of that." i leaned back in my chair. "Speaking of fleeing school, got any ideas about uni yet?"

"Nothing. I mean, there's not a lot of careers I think I'd be good at. Except maybe economics or something. The stoock market could be fun when you can tell what's going to happen next, and it's technically not illegal either."

"Ahh the joys of a legal system which doesn't recognise psychics."

"Let me guess, you're looking at a Psych degree?"

"Cheater" I smiled, at least Chloe was making the effort to let me say my half of the conversation most of the time.

"You said it yourself, the law doesn't recognise psychics, it's totally allowed. Now, what movie are we going to see..?"

* * * * * * * * * *

It's a little weird being on a date with someone you're friends with, because there's always that kind of...friend vibe...behind the whole thing. It's also the problem with being an empath, because although I knew Chloe was having fun and enjoying herself, I couldn't see a whole lot of romantic feeling behind her actions.

As I sat there, watching the movie with Chloe sitting next to me, I wondered if I'd made a mistake at some point. I mean, I know I can't really suprise Chloe, but maybe even just attempting something a bit romantic might have helped to give the evening a bit more of a date vibe.

Even after we had moved the armrest between the seats up, and Chloe's head sat nestled on my shoulder, I still couldn't stop myself thinking. I think I could have hardly told you what took place in the movie, since I was so transfixed on the girl next to me. It was weird, because normally I didn't care about girls, and dates were an even rarer occurance in my life, but for some reason I wanted that date with Chloe to work, and I was worrying myself sick with the idea that it wasn't working.

The problem with thinking too much, was that I realised at some point I had totally stopped paying attention to Chloe's feelings. She was getting a bit restless, mostly because I think she had noticed me staring off into space with a worried look on my face. I looked down at her to see me looking up at my face.

"Stop worrying." She said, and then leaned up and kissed me.

Wow.

Forget anything I have ever said about how other people feel. When Chloe kissed me, and I kissed back, everything was amplified a million times over. I could feel what Chloe was, effectively doubling the happiness I was feeling, but I could also feel with an irregular level of clarity what everyone else in the cinema was feeling. It was strange, but so very intense.

Whatever I had been thinking about Chloe's feeelings, clearly they were wrong. Which isn't a bad thing. I just had to stop over thinkng the situation and live in the now. Chloe appeared to be, and she was a girl who spent half her time a minute or so ahead of everyone else.

The downside was that I left that movie with absolutey no idea about the plot or characters...

Psychic Schoolkids pt6

6 Months Earlier

"I don't know who you are, but you're an idiot."

They were the first words Chloe ever said to me, and I'm sure I'll never quite forget them. As was often the case, Kara and Chris had set about merging the groups together, trying to make everyone friends and more importantly, play matchmaker. Although the attempts at setting up Matt and Lisa had failed miserably, which meant that more attention was being placed upon Chloe and myself, and I think we both knew that.

I wasn't entirely sure what had provoked Chloe's attack on me at our frist meeting.I just knew she walked up to me and introduced herself with an insult before sitting down next to Kara and Lisa.

"Chloe, this is Jacob." Kara attempted to be nice with the introductions.

"I know who he is. I know why he's here, this is not going to work." Chloe said.

"Well I kinda agree wit-" I started to agree with the latter part of Chloe's sentence.

"I know you do, that's why it's not going to work. So you sit there with your boys and leave me in peace."

This is the problem with people like Chloe, you get yelled at for things you haven't even done yet, and because you've been yelled at for them you don't even get the chance to do them. It's confusing, especially upon first meeting the girl. All I knew at that moment though, was that she was pissed.

"Chloe...do you want to come for a quick walk with me for a minute?" Kara said.

"No I do not. I know what you're going to say and it's pointless." Chloe said through gritted teeth.

"I don't care." Kara grabbed Chloe and hauled her to her feet. "We're going for a walk."

Everyone else resumed conversation about various things, and I just watched as Kara and Chloe got increasingly annoyed at each other. After a couple of minutes of being calm and level headed I decided I would go over and figure out what the hell was wrong with Chloe. However as I walked up to her, she turned to me.

"You asshole!"

She punched me...Before I knew it I was flat on my back on the floor staring up at her. Seconds later I felt hands touching the sides of my head, and I looked back a bit to see Lisa. The pain from the punch was gone. Chloe reached down and offered me a hand

"Sorry about that...got a bit ahead of myself."

I pushed her hand aside and got up of my own accord. I then felt the burning of everyone's eyes on me, not just from my group of friends, but of half of the student body. I did the only non-violent option, turn around and walk outside.

"Jacob! Wait." Chloe came after me. "I'm sorry...and yes I know...and I know I'm an idiot."

I looked at her puzzled. She knew exactly what she was talking about it, and by the sounds of it also what I was talking about.

"I'm doing both halves of the conversation again aren't I?" She asked. "Okay here's how it works, I see the future. Sometimes like...next week, sometimes next year, but often its a couple of minutes before it happens. You could say I'm not always the most social of people because I know exactly the stupid small talk people are going to have with me and usually I'm bored before they even start it."

"Have you ever thought about letting the other person say the insulting things before you hit them? What was I going to say in there that was so offensive anyway?"

"Wait...so I tell you I can see the future and you just accept it?" Chloe was surprised by my reaction. "No way...that's cool.."

"You're doing it again.." I said, slightly losing patience. I hoped I wasn't this annoying in conversations with people.

"Sorry. It is cool though. So can you tell what I'm thinking now?"

"Not thinking...only feeling. And you're surprised...now even more surprised...now a little bit frustrated..."

"Okay stop! God I now know how people feel when I don't let them say their bits of the conversation."

"Well like I said, maybe you should let them say it?"

"That's boring. Some conversations are crap the first time let alone the second time."

I suddenly felt a tingle. Like someone a little way off was really excited. I looked behind me to see Kara and Lisa peering through a window at us.

"Oh god." Chloe said, leaning against a wall. "That's all I need, the girls thinking they've played Cupid."

"You do realise we can just be friends, just to piss them off?"

"That'd be fun. Plus with our powers, I think we'd want to kill each other withtin a day."

"More like an hour. You didn't answer my question before either."

"I'd like to think you're too nice to say it..."

Psychic Schoolkids Pt5

My laptop is currently playing up. So if it dies there may be some delays in our regular broadcasts. Apart from that, I'm aiming for 3 updates a week (at least while I'm still off my feet) we'll see how that goes though...

6 Months Earlier

We used to be happy. Hell, I used to be happy. Before Emily, before Dane, hell even before Chloe. There was Nathan, Matt, Chris and myself. We were the happy little misfit crowd of guys who sat about talking about some of the most pointless shit, and had fun doing so. Then Chris screwed it up.

“Guys. This is Kara. My Girlfriend.” He had said.

He had sprung it on us while we were having lunch down under the pine trees. It was unheard of for one of us guys to have a girlfriend. Yet here was Chris, who has somehow convinced the Goddess that was Kara to go out with him.

I still remember the first impression I got of Kara. Sure, I’d met her before in various classes, but I’d never actually talked to her until Chris brought her down to lunch with us. She was almost the embodiment of hot. Tall enough that a guy didn’t have to bend his neck too much, but still shorter than the average guy, skinny but not anorexic, slender arms and legs but still a bit of bulk where it counted (ie. Chest and ass).

“So you must be Jacob.” Kara said to me as she sat down next to me. “Chris has talked about you.”

“Only good things I promise.” Chris said hurriedly before turning back to a conversation with Nathan.

“It’s mostly true.” She said. I was amazed at the absolute confidence she had as she spoke.

“It’s odd ‘cause he’s never mentioned you before...” I said.

“Yeah that’s mostly my fault.” She admitted, laughing to herself then lying back on the table. “I wasn’t sure what was going to happen between he and I, and I didn’t want everyone in there” she jerked her thumb at the school building “making a big fuss about it. It’s better to lie low until you’re sure there’s something worth gossiping about.”

“You think Chris is worth gossiping about?” I teased.

“Yeah he’s not. I am though.” Kara laughed. “You guys should come hang out with my friends at some point.”

“Who? Lisa and that other chick?” I asked, trying to remember the ever-changing layout of school social groups.

“Chloe. I actually think you and her would get along. If you’re even half as frustrating and opinionated as Chris says you are then you two will get along like a house on fire.”

“She sounds fun.” I looked over to see Chris staring at Kara and I. Kara followed my gaze and I could tell that was going to be the case. They both had the hots for each other, and not just the little butterflies one. I wondered how long they’d been hanging out without me noticing. “I’ve always worried about that expression though. Have you ever been standing next to a house on fire? It’s not the safest of places to be...”

“I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll stand a safe distance away with a fire extinguisher just in case will I?”
* * * * * * * * * *

At that moment. I was experiencing exactly what a house on fire was like. Well, a sick bay on fire. Thankfully it was its own building, and wasn’t going to take the rest of the school with it. And in complete disagreement with her word Kara was nowhere nearby with a fire extinguisher.
Not that I think a fire extinguisher would help Emily.

Even though she was barely conscious, her powers were kicking in just as bad, if not worse than they had in the science lab. Dane and Chloe just stood watching the Sick Bay burn as the fire trucks rushed into the school and zoomed into action. I then remembered what else was coming. An Ambulance.

Chloe spotted me as I reached them, she knew better than to ask what had happened with Kara.

“She’s getting worse. Dane can’t help her at all, and she seems to be working herself into a state where she just can’t control what her body is doing.”

“And the ambulance will be here soon. They’ll have a field day with her...” Dane said. “Unlike us, one touch and they can tell she’s...out of the ordinary.”

I nodded, and tried to figure out how to salvage the situation. Lisa was going to be no help, even if she could do something she would refuse to. Chloe was too panicked to focus on anything
enough to give us even a glimpse of what was going to happen next, and Dane could put as many walls up inside Emily’s mind as he wanted, but she was so freaked out she was going to break them down again.

“We need to get Emily inside.” I said. “Buy us some time, and get us some peace and quiet.”

“How do we do that without getting burnt, and without her burning or melting whatever she touches?” Dane queried.

“We don’t have time for that kind of logic. Just help me grab her, avoid touching her skin, and we’ll deal with the next part when we have to.”

“What’s the next part?” Chloe asked.

“The part where I find out how much I can do...”

As Dane and I carried Emily back into the building, with Chloe opening the doors and trying to scout a place that wouldn’t catch alight, we ran back into Ms Ellis on her way to her office.

“Oh thank god you guys aren’t in the sick bay. You were the only ones we thought were there.”
She said with relief, before her mind instantly started panicking about a million other things going on. Like her school being on fire. “Come into my office, you can wait for the ambulance here.”

Ms Ellis’ office was actually pretty swanky. She had a huge desk, and a couch, and loads of bookshelves, filled with school books, as well as a few of Ms Ellis’ personal collection.

“Put Emily down on the couch.” Ms Ellis ordered.

“I think she’s probably better on the floor.” I tried to find a way to save the couch besides saying it would burst into flames.

“Nonsense. Now just put her down.” She guided Emily onto the couch...which oddly did not burst into flames.

“Now Dane can you please come with me for a minute, I need to know what happened in the science lab. I think Chloe and Jacob can take care of Emily for now...” She began to leave with an air of authority, something which was odd for Ms Ellis.

“I’ll help her, you guys do good...whatever it is you’re going to do.” Dane said, before bounding out after Ms Ellis.

“Okay Jacob...what are you going to do?” Chloe asked the logical question.

“Well. Her emotions are on the fritz, so she is losing control of her power.” I explained, and Chloe nodded in response. “I’m going to try to help her control it.”

“You’re going to...” Chloe trailed off.

“Yes. I wonder why the couch isn’t burning...”

“Don’t try to change the subject. You remember what happened last time you tried this?”

“That was different. I know what to expect this time.” I reached out to put my hand on Emily’s forehead.

“You said yourself. You never know what to expect.” Chloe grabbed my hand away. “This is stupid.”

“And there isn’t another way. This is our mess and I’m going to put it as right as I can.”

I pulled my hand away from Chloe and put it on Emily’s forehead. I winced at the burn, and tried my best to put it aside and focus before Chloe could stop me.

The world went blank...

People’s heads are weird. I think that goes without saying, and that’s often just based on observations from the outside. From the inside, you get a new perspective. My perspective of Emily’s mind was all about fear. And heat. And anger. And heat. Did I mention heat?

What’s going on? Emily’s voice popped inside my head.

I couldn’t respond. I was trying to get my head around what was happening. It takes a lot of concentration to get into someone’s emotions on the level I was, actually feeling everything in total synch with them as opposed to reading the surface like I usually do. Combined with the burning on my hands I could still feel, it felt like someone was taking a pickaxe to my head, splitting it in so many directions I wasn’t sure which one was the most important.

I’m scared, everything is so hot. Those guys were so mean to me, and it’s just getting hotter and hotter. Oh god I can’t make it stop. I know it’s me making the heat, what if it I hurt someone?

Emily panicked.

I almost panicked with her. Thankfully, I could stop myself before I did, otherwise it would all be a lost cause.

Emily. You need to stop. Stop panicking, stop being afraid, and everything else will balance itself out.

Jacob?

Yup. Now listen and I’ll help you make it stop.

No I can’t. There’s too much heat. I don’t know how I’m doing it and I don’t know how to make it go away...

Stop! Focus on me. Not on the heat, or anything else. Listen to me and keep as calm as you can.

...o...okay.

Good. Now I need you to focus for me on the heat.

As soon as I said it, I felt the heat beginning to overwhelm her and the panic return.

Wait I said Only focus on one tiny part of it. Ignore as much of it as you can, and just look at a small part of it.

I felt her mind cool down just a little bit, and my vision went from a field of flames to a flame small enough to fit on a candle.

Okay, now we need to trace that fire to the part of your mind where it comes from. It should be where the cold comes from too.

We followed the fire through Chloe’s mind until we found it. Two big balls of fire and cold sitting in the middle of her mind, spreading through everything they could with every emotion they could touch. That was the problem, they were sitting around unrestrained, able to influence any part of Emily’s mind of body that they could.

Good. Focus on both the cold and the heat. I need you to keep them as much in balance as you can. Once you cool down I can focus more, and we can try to stop this.

The burning in my hands faded. My ears could vaguely here Chloe saying something, but my mind was too focused on Emily, and the growing pain in my own head, to pay attention.

Now you need to move these to a part of your mind where you can control them. Do you remember our psych classes? Left brain and right brain? I felt Emily’s acknowledgement Well we’re going to do that. Cold goes into the left brain, Hot goes into the right brain. I want you to make a picture of your mind for me, and focus on that for me. Put all of the heat onto one side, and all of the cold onto the other. Then close your mind up to them. Know that you can bring the power back out when you need to, but make sure you do when you want to.

Emily was calming down slowly. What I was taking her through was mostly meditation, but with practice she would be able to hold back her powers enough that she wouldn’t burn down the school with every panic attack. I felt that that was important.

As Emily began to get her power safely locked away, I became aware of the pain in my head getting worse and worse. I knew what I was doing was stupid, and was not going to end well, but I had to stick around and make sure Emily was going to be in control.

Okay, now I will help you stay in control and use your power, but I need to leave now.

Don’t go Jacob!

That was the problem. Emily was getting used to having a personal therapist inside her own head. Wonderful for her, but bad for my brain, which wanted to exist separately of someone else.

I focused as much as I could on letting myself out of her mind. As I pulled myself out, I focused on the room around me. The worried look of Chloe next to me...and then the carpet....and then blackness.

Psychic Schoolkids Pt4

Okay so I'm updating a lot eh? I don't expect an update over the weekend...but that may change. I am doing far too much dialogue in this story so if it seems lame or like my characters are doing nothing but standing around babbling and not revealing anything...let me know.

I think I must have looked physically in pain when I saw Lisa. That’s possibly because I was. After the pain and fear and all the shit running through my head after the explosion, the last thing I needed was a hopped up healer slinging her anger at me.

“What. Did. You. Do.” Lisa poked me in the chest with the accusation.

“Umm...maybe you don’t want to jump to a conclusion until you know some of the facts?” I suggested.

“Something has gone wrong. People are hurt. Again. You three think you’re using your powers to help people by interfering in other people’s lives and you’re making a mess because you have no idea what you or anyone else is capable of. No idea.” Lisa ranted. Her head was full of just as much stress and fear as there was anger.

“Umm Lisa. Look at Dane’s hands.” Kara suggested from behind Lisa. Kara was totally calm.

As far as we knew, Kara didn’t have any sort of power. She was as normal as a teenage girl can be. But she has been friends with Lisa and Chloe since childhood, and she had was calm at the worst of times to remind both of them to think clearly, and stop before they threw things at each other. Although she wasn’t always able to avoid the conflict lately.

“They’re burnt.” Lisa stated, looking at Dane and the pain on his face. “This is what happens when you mess around with these powers.”

“Do you maybe want to help then?” Chloe asked. “Or does God not want you to heal the man who is in front of you in pain?”

The slap was loud enough that the noise lingered for several seconds. I winced in the pain that Chloe felt.

“Do not mock my faith. God has given me a power, and I use it responsibly. I don’t play around with other people’s minds.” She looked at me and Dane. “Or their futures.” She turned to Chloe. “More importantly, when I use my powers...” She grabbed Dane’s hands. She took her hands away seconds later, and the burns were totally gone. A handy power to have. “...I use them properly. No one gets hurt, in fact the opposite. I just hope that you realise that no good can come from your powers before someone gets killed. Now if you will give this girl to me, I will take help her and get her to the sick bay in a better condition than you could get her.”

By now Emily was almost fully conscious, which was not necessarily a good thing. Lisa put her hands on her shoulders and began to lead her away. I could feel Lisa’s concentration as she tried to heal the burns Emily had inflicted upon herself. I then felt a stress from next to me, from Chloe, and a second later from Dane. By the time I connected the dots it was too late for anything to be stopped.

Lisa pulled her hands back in a hurry, in pain as Emily collapsed to the ground again, heat searing through her body with the pain of the fall. Dane looked at Chloe and I in fear. Kara was the one that spoke though.

“Dane, what have you done to her. I know you, and I know you’ll have put some kind of walls in her mind.” She said with total confidence.

“Of course he has. Dane sees a mind and he breaks it.” Lisa snarled as she tried to heal her own hands.

“I...I..minimised her fear. It was causing her to freeze things. I don’t understand why she’s burning up now.”

“It’s balance.” Kara said.

I then understood it. Chloe’s power wasn’t to freeze things, that much was obvious. It was to affect temperatures. When we had blocked the cold part of her emotions, the heat was always in control.

“Dane. You need to take away all your walls.” I ordered.

Dane obviously hadn’t caught up with what was happening, I felt the confusion.

“Don’t argue. The walls there aren’t letting her body regulate the temperature Emily is making. If you put more walls up...they will just break. You need to take all the walls down, and we need to help Emily deal with her emotions so she can control things.” I explained.

“Which is what you should have done in the first place.” Lisa stood up and walked towards us as Dane rushed over to place his hands on Emily’s head. The pain was distracting. “You think your powers are always the first solution here? You read emotions. Help someone deal with them, don’t just get Dane to block them away.”

Lisa grabbed Dane’s hands as soon as he had taken them off Emily. I was standing close enough to her that I could feel the heat fading. Once she had done her thing she stormed off, leaving Kara standing with the four of us.

“You know she’s right Jacob.” Kara said. “I know she says it in a mean way, but she’s kind of right.”

“What would you know about our powers Kara?” Chloe said from next to me.

I didn’t need to be an empath to tell that Kara was hurt.

“I know enough that this is three times someone has gotten hurt because you think you can see everything...when you spend so much time seeing a minute into the future to mess with someone’s head that you don’t notice the world falling down.”

“That’s not true!” Chloe tried to protest.

“Then what was the last thing you saw before the explosion? Because I would think that if you’re any good at being a seer you’d notice explosions before they happen...not after.”

With that, Kara turned and walked off as well. I didn’t let her get away so easily and ran after her, leaving Dane and Chloe to finally get a stricken Emily into the sick bay.

“Kara!” I called after her until she turned around.

“What do you want Jacob?”

“You to actually have a civil conversation with me and Chloe again.”

“I’d love to. But things have changed.” Kara sighed. “People got hurt. People I cared about and people you should have cared about enough to help them.”

“I did help Chris..”

“Once the damage was done. I know you had no idea what Dane and Chloe were going to do. But they look up to you, especially Dane. Even now they will do things if you ask them. You need to make the right decisions, or not make decisions at all.” Kara began to walk away again, and I put a hand on her shoulder to stop her.

“How do I know what’s the right decision? If you’d have felt how afraid Chloe was about Chris, about what he could do..”

“And she was wrong. Now I’m alone because of it. Except for Lisa. She might be stubborn and religious but she knows the damage she can do and is afraid of her power because of it! And I know that she will have my back. Without question. Always. She won’t be the one distracting me with childish conversations like Chloe did.” I felt Kara approaching tears. It broke my heart....

“But...” I tried to defend myself, but nothing came of it.

“I know you try to do good, and I know its gone wrong. This Emily girl needs your help, whether Lisa will admit it or not. And not Chloe’s help and especially not Dane’s help. Yours. Like all of you when she loses control of her emotions her power will probably go crazy, but unlike the rest of you if she loses control people will get hurt. Keep an eye on her and try to make sure she stays in control.”

The bell rang. Lunch had started and kids began to pour out of the classrooms. I stood there and watched as Kara walked away from me. Filled with sadness and regret that only added to what I felt...

Psychic Schoolkids Pt3

After a terrible biology lesson, I met Chloe by the tree. Behind all of the classrooms is this oddly empty area of the school, on too much of a slope for portable classrooms and walked over too much for any grass to grow. So there are just a couple of giant pine trees, and a couple of big wooden picnic tables. During breaks the area swarms with kids on their way to the nearby ovals, but during class time, the place is pretty empty. For this reason it was our hangout during spares.

“Is Kara joining us today?” I asked Chloe as she arrived, more out of habit since I already knew the answer.

“Does she ever anymore? Her and Lisa are too cool for us these days.”

“Kara’s not too cool. Lisa just doesn’t approve, and Kara is doing the best thing and following her.”

“I miss Kara.” Chloe said glumly as she plopped down on the seat.

“You just miss the two of you ganging up on people. Like me.”

“You were an easy target. Plus up until six months ago I didn’t realise you were cool. Did I mention you were an easy target?”

“Yes but I feel pain when others are in it, it’s an unfair advantage.”

“You call it an unfair advantage. We called it kicking butt.” Kara smirked. But for once she wasn’t trying to hide her emotions. She missed her friendship with Kara.

When I met Chloe, there was the trio of Chloe, Kara and Lisa. By ‘met’ I of course mean when we started hanging out. Being at school together Chloe and I had been aware of each other’s existence, but always been in different social circles. The six months since we first started talking had been hectic – Dane had come into the picture and Kara and Lisa had made their need to distance themselves from us clear, but Chloe and I had remained a constant.

“Who knows? Maybe Emily will kick some butt with you now?” I tried to cheer her up.

“That girl? I’ve seen her around. Shy as anything and skinny too, couldn’t pick a fight with a butterfly.”

“Skinny? Did you ever look at Kara? She makes some models look plus-sized.” I raised as eyebrow.

“Yes but she carried herself differently, didn’t look like she was going to snap if you poked her too hard.”

I nodded in agreement. There was a moment of silence as we both stood staring at a group of birds picking at various bits of rubbish on the ground. Even though I wasn’t looking at her, I was trying really hard to tell what Chloe was feeling. That’s the problem we both have with our powers, it makes us curious about people, especially each other, where we push ourselves to the limits of what we can do just to get one up on each other.

“Would you just hurry up and ask me out already.” Chloe said.

I put my head in my hands. I had definitely lost this round.

“I wasn’t going to ask you out!” I tried to defend myself.

“Jacob, asking a girl to go see a movie with you is called a date. That’s not a bad thing. You are allowed to do that.”

“You know you have a habit of being intimidating with guys. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“It’s not intimidating. It’s impatient. So are you going to ask me?”

“You’re still going to make me ask you?” I laughed until I realised that Chloe was in fact being serious. “Chloe, did you wanna catch a movie on the weekend?”

Chloe burst out laughing. “Ahh you’re whipped already and we haven’t even gone on a date yet. But yes Jacob, we should do a movie. Like you didn’t know how I was going to answer anyway.”

“It doesn’t make it any easier! Especially when you predict I’m going to ask you!” I objected.

“You’re just not quick enough for me Jacob. Crap power, like I’ve always said.”

Chloe jumped off the table arrogantly, and I sat there thinking for a moment before jumping up directly in front of her and moving in to kiss her. But she beat me to it, putting a hand in front of her mouth blocking my lips.

“Too slow Jakey.” Chloe giggled. “Gotta save something for our date.”

Unfortunately Chloe’s gloating was interrupted by the sound of the world ripping apart. Okay, so maybe that’s a bit melodramatic, but as we looked in the direction of the loud bang, we could see smoke coming from one of the science labs. My reaction was faster than Chloe’s, and I left her shocked where she was standing on the hill and bolted to the classroom, driven by the fear I could feel coming from the entire building as they heard the noise.

As I got closer, I recognised the room. Chemistry lab. The class that Dane had been in. My own fear mixed in with the fear of everyone around me as I worried for his life. Unfortunately, the human body has limits for fear and adrenaline, and the fear of a few thousand people is a very strong thing to feel. By the time I was close enough to see what was happening in the room I had to stop and lean against the walls of the room next door to catch my breath.

Everyone knows what fear feels like, that gripping feeling in your chest, halting your every movement but urging you to run away with every fibre of your being. I was torn between running in the opposite direction and just collapsing in a puddle of tears as emotion begun to overcome me, despite knowing I had to get to that room and find out what was happening. In hindsight, staying away from the room might have been a wise idea, as the fear and panic only got stronger the closer I got to the source. This was also one of those times where I needed Dane, if his face wasn’t burnt off or he wasn’t dead or both.

People began to filter out of the room, no one appeared hurt except for a few cuts, and everyone seemed to be coughing from the smoke pouring out of the room. By this point Chloe had caught up to me, and put her hand on my shoulder with concern.

“Jacob. Get a grip.” Chloe said, worried about me more than anyone else at that moment.

“I’m....trying” I said, trying to get my breath.

“Try harder. Fear isn’t going to help.” She held out her hand for me. “Remember how we did this? Focus on me. I’m not afraid, so you shouldn’t be either.”

I grabbed her hand, and closed my eyes. Everything was moving at a million miles an hour, which is hard when things are time-critical. But Chloe was the closest person to me, I was in contact with her. Every bit of fear from every person came through as a noise, drowning out the voice of confidence that Chloe was somehow maintaining. I tried to block out the other noises and focus only on the emotions coming from Chloe.

It’s never a perfect science. Emotions never are, but I felt the tightness in my chest ease, my ability to move slowly came back, and I staggered to my feet and Chloe and I made it to the door of the classroom.

Only two people were left inside – Dane and Emily. Emily’s mind was shouting at me across the room. She was panicking. Within seconds I could see why. She was trying to move around, but everything she touched began to burn, or melt.

“Dane get back!” Chloe shouted from next to me in the doorway.

Dane looked at us to notice, and in that second wasn’t quick enough to step back as Emily tripped over a fallen lab stool and knocked into him. His tie caught on fire within seconds. Thankfully Dane never ties his tie properly, and he was able to rip it off and throw it away before the fire spread to the rest of his clothes. He looked down at Emily, confused about what was happening and frustrated he couldn’t help her.

I took a second to survey the room before I walked in, just as the sprinklers kicked in. Various bits of lab equipment were melted. Glass fragments were scattered around the ground. Emily had obviously made something explode with the heat she was producing. I was distracted from my observation by pain. Emily had touched herself, and a burn was beginning to form on her leg.

“Dane. You said her power was under control.” Chloe shouted from next to me.

“Not the time Chloe.” I said to her.

“Always the time Jacob.” Chloe said in the exact same tone of voice. Then she paused for a second. “Oh shit.”

I looked at the situation and realised exactly what was going to happen as well. Dane had to get inside Emily’s mind, block the fear and the panic, or remove whatever he’d done to stop the cold. Either way, he was going to need to make physical contact with her, especially if he wanted to do it with any efficiency. Based on how the room was looking, touching Emily was going to hurt.

“Emily! If you can hear me, stay very, very still. Dane, take your shirt off.” I said to him as I got next to him.

Obviously, he looked at me like I was a total nutter. I repeated it and then he definitely knew I was a nutter. Or hitting on him at an inappropriate time.

“Look, we don’t have time for this. You need to touch her. She’s going to burn you. At least the less clothing you’re wearing the less chance you have of catching fire.”

Fear swelled up in Dane. He wasn’t used to having to be this brave. He normally got to come in and clean up the mess after everyone else had subdued the dangerous person. He nodded with an attempt at confidence he didn’t possess and took his shirt off. I put my hand on his shoulders, feeling the muscle and sweat as I did so.

“I’ll try to stop it hurting as much, but we need to hurry. For everyone’s sake.”

“Hurry!” Chloe shouted from the door. “Teachers will be here soon.”

Dane looked up at me, and nodded, and then put his hands on Emily’s temples. Pain rushed up through my hand from Dane’s shoulder. I winced and tried to focus on not letting Dane feel as much of the pain as possible. He was going to have to deal with the scars though. I could feel everything else going through his mind. The confusion at what was happening in Emily’s head, and the frustration that he couldn’t stop it soon. There was even the embarrassment about not wearing a shirt in front of Emily.

I could feel the heat from the floor begin to dissipate, and Emily, who by now seemed to have passed out, seemed to be cooling down to a normal temperature.

“Boys! Get out of here now!” Came an angry voice from the door. Mr Harding had arrived.

Dane hadn’t had enough time to totally stop the heat Emily was producing, but he had cooled her down enough for us to touch. We both grabbed her and lead her out of the classroom.

“What were you doing in there? That was incredibly stupid boys!” Mr Harding lectured at us as we got out of the room. “I know you wanted to rescue your classmate, but you could have been hurt or killed.”

I felt another person arriving behind us, one who seemed to be more proud of our heroics than angry.

“Tobias that will be enough. The boys appear to have been careful and this young girl appears to have needed their help.” Ms Ellis scolded Mr Harding. I felt happy deep inside. She then turned to Chloe. “Chloe, can you help Jacob and Dane take this girl to the sick bay? An ambulance and fire truck are already on their way.”

“Of course Miss.” Chloe said, being possibly the most respectful to authority I had ever seen her.

Chloe took up the weight of Emily from Dane’s side, leaving Dane to stare at his hands. I could guess what they looked like, and I didn’t want to see them. Feel the revulsion Dane felt was bad enough. The four of us walked to the sick bay in silence. Emily was silent since she was barely conscious, and the rest of us because we had no idea what to say. I could feel how Dane and Chloe felt though, like they had failed. Chloe had been too busy predicting that I was going to ask her out and missed seeing this properly, and Dane had been too busy being confident in containing Emily’s power to realise this was going to happen.

As we rounded the corner to the sick bay, things got a little bit worse. Standing out the front was Kara and Lisa...

Psychic Schoolkids Pt2

The next day I arrived at school early. I know this sounds like an odd concept, but Dane, Chloe and myself had developed a habit of getting to school that little bit early to catch up before we rushed into the school day. Dane and I had a lot of classes together, so although we had a lot of together-time Chloe chose different subjects, so with the exception of odd spares and breaks, we didn’t get to see each other a lot during the day. And of course when you get a bunch of psychics together, there’s always bound to be a lot of gossip.

When I rocked in at 8.15, well before even the most dedicated of students or the earliest of buses had arrived, Chloe and Dane were both sitting in the Atrium in anticipation. Clearly they both had their shares of gossip prepared.

“Okay I’m late. Catch me up.” I said as I threw my bag down and slid into a chair.

I turned to Chloe first, expecting her to talk first, she was worried. More than she should be I felt. But surprisingly Dane spoke first. He was more proud of himself than anything else, which is probably a good sign.

“Our ice-girl’s name is Emily.” He said. “In between the crying last night it seems like she’s never done any kind of snow cone tricks up until yesterday. Another newbie...like me.”

“She’s trouble though.” Chloe said. “She’s not like us, poking about in people’s heads or time. She can hurt people, and clearly she has no idea what she’s doing.”

“I put walls up in her head.” Dane said. “She was afraid, and her fear was generating the cold. I stopped her being as afraid. So when she left last night she was only radiating a minor chill. The walls I put in her mind will hold for days though, until she gets a bit better grip on what she’s doing and thaws out.”

“Because your walls are perfect?” Chloe raised an eyebrow.

Dane sat up from the slouch in his chair. “They’re always accurate at least. Not sending us off on wild goose chases or telling us people have powers when they don’t...”

And with that I felt Chloe flare up next to me. It’s very discomforting sitting next to angry people, especially people like Chloe whose anger burns like a bonfire.

“Okay Chloe. No.” I said, restraining her from beating Dane over the head and trying to force her back into her seat. “Dane. I’m sure we’ve had this talk. We do not allocate blame over Chris. Otherwise we have to talk about how everyone screwed up. So let’s get back to ice-girl.”

“Emily. She has a name” Dane said, fuming with guilt and annoyance all at the same time.

“Sorry. Emily.” I turned to Chloe. “Did you see anything last night?”

Chloe’s anger dissipated as I asked that. The worry was back. She closed her eyes to try and remember.

“There was fire. Lots of fire. There was a big chalk circle in the middle of the atrium filled with blood. Lot of blood. There was a girl in a yellow dress. There was a kid with cuts all over his in the locker room. I’m not sure if he was dead or not. There was a clock displaying 11:52.There was a woman in hospital, covered in bandages. And there was that Emily chick standing in a room where everything was covered in ice. Oh and there was lots of death.”

“Lots of death?” Dane asked before I had the chance to.

“It’s hard to explain. In dreams things aren’t quite as clear, they’re more symbolic or pictures of what’s going to happen. The death wasn’t so much people dying as...there being a presence of death. Like ghosts but even then not quite...”

“Wow....vague.” Dane scoffed.

“Well if you want me to be not vague about the future you’re going to have a black eye at the rate you’re going.” Chloe threatened. “But I know it’s nothing helpful, but there’s a lot there and it’s all not quite connected but at the same time it is. I don’t even know the order it happens in, but one thing that was totally clear was Emily in a frozen room. I couldn’t see if there was anyone else there but if she freezes a classroom and someone else was in there...”

“...it wouldn’t be pretty.” I finished for her. “Okay so Dane, you’ve actually had a conversation with this girl. You need to keep an eye on her. We can point her out to Chloe and between the three of us we can keep an eye on her.”

“We shouldn’t need to, her freezing seems tied to her emotions, and I’ve held back most of the emotions strong enough to stop her doing anything that large-scale.” Dane objected.

“You stopped her feeling strong emotions? Is that even ethical?” Chloe said from next to me. Dane and I ignored her.

“Okay well you seem to like her, so be friends with her anyway. Keep an eye on the walls in her head just in case, because I don’t want to be a Snow-Jacob. Maybe even try to help her keep a handle on her powers, since Chloe may be right in that we don’t want to stop her from feeling emotions for the rest of her life.”

“She’ll get the hang of it. I mean I did.” Dane said as he fiddled with the tie around his neck, loosening it.

Next to me Chloe gave a cough that sounded oddly like Chris, and I tried to suppress a laugh. After having a little giggle to herself, Chloe regained her serious face.
“Well I’m going to look into this blood and fire and death. Since I don’t like any of it. Plus I had to do babysitting duty for the newbie last time, it’s a terrible job.”

“On behalf of that newbie hey!” Dane said from across the table. I could tell from where I sat he was nervous about having to keep an eye on Emily. Whether he was going to admit it or not, he knew that if he was wrong people could get hurt. More importantly, he knew that he could be one of those people getting hurt.

“Although I don’t know why we need to do this all the time Jacob.” Chloe said looking at me. “I mean we’re not the only people in this school who can do things, and we’re not the only ones who know either.”

“Yeah ‘cause Lisa and Kara are going to help us with anything.” Dane said with mock laughter.

“I know, it sucks. But we’re probably in the better position to help ice-girl-“

“Emily.” Dane interjected.

“- with her power” I kept going through the interruption. “Plus it could be handy come summer. No more melting ice-creams.”

And now for something completely different

Yes kids I know...Andrew has left you for too long. I've been busy! And I got distracted from my gay boys and have instead gone back to my other reliable source of writing inspiration...psychic schoolkids. So enjoy something which has absolutely no relation to what you have been reading but it hopefully equally enjoyable...

Psychic Schookids!

High school isn’t a very relaxing place. In fact, I very rarely get a chance to relax while at school, and when I go home, there’s homework and parents and trying to have a social life. But somehow, in the middle of English, with Ms Anderson rambling about Jane Austen, I managed to find a moment of peace.
Granted, to the casual observer, I would look asleep. My arms were crossed on the table in front of me, and my head was using them as a comfortable pillow (that’s what three layers of clothing will do for you), but I was definitely awake and listening to what the teacher was saying, even if I wasn’t necessarily paying attention.
The entire class seemed to be fairly relaxed too, which is an even rarer occurrence on a Monday morning. But I wasn’t complaining; instead I just chose to take the moment I could to relax, listen to a discussion on Jane Austen that I had absolutely no desire or need to remember, and think of happy things like clouds and puppies.
Until I felt the anger rising up like a snake ready to strike.
“Jacob Miller would you please wake up and pay attention!” Ms Anderson’s voice cut into my head sharply, ruining my moment completely.
“I’m not asleep.” I said, jerking my head up and looking to everyone as though I was well and truly asleep.
I looked around the classroom for support. Dane, my best friend, sat next to me with an even sleepier look on his face. If I were a betting man I would think he had been sleeping too, just in a better position so that he didn’t get caught.
“Well if you were paying attention what was the last thing I said?”
This is a terrible situation for a student to ever be in. If they repeat what the teacher said, they make the teacher look like an idiot and end up in trouble for showing up their teacher. If I were to pretend I didn’t know what the teacher said, then I would get yelled at for not paying attention. Either way, I’m going to have to face the wrath of Ms Anderson. Good start to the week I think.
Unfortunately, I had spent so long trying to decide which was the lesser of two evils that Ms Anderson had made the decision for me.

“That’ll be detention afterschool tonight Mr Miller. Hopefully it’ll be a lesson that you need to pay more attention to class in future.”

“But Miss I –“ I started to rebut...but was cut off.

“That’ll be all Jacob, if you want you can go back to sleep now so that people in this class who are actually interested in learning and doing something with their lives can be spared you interruptions.”

I slouched back in my seat against the weight of Ms Anderson’s frustration. Next to me I could feel the sympathy look from Dane burning a hole in my shoulder. There was nothing I could do about it though, and in acceptance of that I did exactly what my teacher had told me to do – tuned out from the rest of the class and let my thoughts wander.

* * * * * * * * * *

So getting detention probably isn’t the best way to start a week off. What possibly makes things worse is that Maths directly follows English lessons on a Monday. Maths is taught by Mr Harding. Although it may appear that Ms Anderson is a total bitch...she is normally quite pleasant, and is the patron saint of kindness in comparison to Mr Harding and his teaching methods.

Even the atmosphere of the classroom is different to any other room in the school. Most classrooms feel devoid of most emotion, and just full of knowledge from lessons being repeated over and over. They’re not happy places, but they’re definitely not depressing places.

In contrast to Mr Harding’s classroom, they’re amusement parks. As soon as I walk into the room, whether the teacher or other students are there or not, I want to give up. Not entirely surprisingly, I’m also failing maths this year.

“Okay class...today is chapter 8a. Quadratic Equations. I expect it to be done by the end of the class. Any questions read the book, and I want silence while you work through this!” Mr Harding announced to the class as the last few people sat down. Figured out the problem with him yet?

I opened the book in front of me. I then opened my exercise book, which funnily enough was already filled out with the correct answers to the entire of chapter 8a. Thank you Chloe I thought to myself as I then set about pretending to be doing some work when really I was just copying out the correct answers and working that Chloe and myself had worked out the night before.

It might seem like a waste of time, spending a maths lesson copying out the answers. But in my defence, I did actually do most of the working out on my own, and without having to rely on Mr Harding’s non-existent teaching in order to get by. More importantly because I had the answers already done, I was guaranteed to avoid Mr Harding’s practice of keeping students who did their work slower back through recess; a fate which was often suffered by Dane, who struggled to get his work done in the best of classroom environments.

As I copied my work out I could feel Dane getting frustrated next to me. So I looked over at his work and casually wrote down a couple of steps of correct working out on his page while Mr Harding was busy berating a student who had made the mistake of asking him how to work out a question.

Dane reached across and wrote THANKS at the top of my page, but failed to notice Mr Harding watching him as he did so.

“Dane, what do you think you’re doing?” Mr Harding began to march across the classroom towards us. I hurriedly hid one copy of my answers as Harding looked at my page. “Writing notes in class? I think you’ll be spending some time with Ms Ellis tonight in detention. Your work should also be your own...so I’ll be taking the work both of you have done so far, and you can get it done individually...”

Mr Harding held out his hand and watched as Dane and I ripped out a page from our book and gave it to him.

“By the way you shouldn’t have ripped exercise books boys. You should get new ones.” He said to us over his shoulder as he crept back over to his desk.

By this point I was angry. Dane was certainly angry. I think about a third of the class wanted to throw their pens at Mr Harding in the hopes that one would break his skin and give him ink poisoning. OF course they were all too smart to try such an option.

I was however satisfied when at the end of the lesson, I was able to show Mr Harding my completed exercise with full working out, and feel a little flame of annoyance in him. It’s not total revenge, but a boy’s gotta take what he can get sometimes.

* * * * * * * * * *

After a mediocre day of classes, Dane and I made our way to our detention. The tiny room they used for detention had only two other occupants upon our arrival. A girl from our year level whose name I couldn’t remember sat at the back of the room, a bobble of brown wavy hair with her back towards us.

Ms Ellis was the other occupant. She was the head of senior school, and although she was incredibly strict, she was also a lovely person when you dealt with her when she wasn’t in her disciplinarian mood.

“Dane, Jacob. Please sit down at opposite ends of the room. There will be no talking. Do any work you need to and I’ll let you know when you’re allowed to leave.” She said to us as we walked in.

It’s always a little bit funny when Ms Ellis gets serious and teacher-like. She is one of those rare teachers who is fun to talk to outside of a classroom, and who admits that her job stresses her out just as much as our homework and exams stress us out. But at the same time she takes her job seriously, and when she needs to be a teacher she isn’t afraid to pull out the big guns, even if you can tell she’s still a big softie inside still.

I took up a seat at the back of the room next to the other girl, and Dane moved up to the front of the classroom, sitting directly in front of Ms Ellis. I couldn’t see his face, but I could almost swear that he was winking at me from where he sat. I suppressed a grin. Dane had a plan. Normally this would be a worrying concept, since Dane doesn’t tend to think as quickly as some people, but Dane and Ms Ellis got along rather well, so with luck we would be able to escape detention early.

While the girl next to me was scribbling things down in her book, I plopped my bag on the ground next to me and stared out the window of the classroom. We were up on the second floor, just above the Atrium. Whoever had designed my school had planned for there to be very few places to hide – the upper floor of the school was one big circle, with windows facing the inside and outside of the circle. Because of this you could look across the entire floor of the building from one side and see who was at the other side. The only walls were the ones that separated the classrooms.

From the second floor you could look down on the Atrium, filled with tables and chairs where everyone would relax during lunch breaks, and where there were currently hundreds of students milling around waiting for buses and parents on their way home. No such luck for me.

I looked around the room I was in to see Dane beginning to strike up a quiet conversation with Ms Ellis, and to see the other girl smiling at me. I gave a smile back but said nothing, not wanting to break the silence of the room. I then felt a blip coming from the other end of the classroom, as Dane started talking to Ms Ellis and mentioned something that upset the teacher. I trusted Dane to know what he was doing, but also realised that by looking away so quickly I’d snobbed off the poor girl sitting next to me.

I make a point of knowing a lot of the people in my year level, even if it’s just their name and who they hang out with, but this girl I recognised, but could think of nothing else about her. Except she seemed so...nervous about being in detention, and as I realised I had ignored her I felt a kind of sadness emanating from her. I shivered a little bit, and then looked over at her.

She looked exactly the same as she had a minute earlier, her head pointed straight down at the table, he hair falling down that little bit, and her pen frantically scribbling across the page as it wrote something down. Except her pen was what drew me attention.

It was a clear ballpoint pen. Or at least it was a minute ago. Now, it was covered in white.

I was curious, and unafraid of being a little bit rude I reached out and touched the pen. The white was frost, the pen was cold to touch. I looked up at the girl and her eyes met mine. She was shaking with fear, and with good reason I felt. I pulled my hand away, trying not to do it too quickly, and as I did, my hand brushed up against hers. I instantly wished it hadn’t, or at the very least that I had whilst wearing gloves.

I stuck my finger in my mouth in an attempt to warm it up, and stared the girl straight in the eyes. I don’t often look people directly in the eyes for long. Often, it’s because they can’t look at me in the eyes for long, but it always ends up being a decidedly creepy process. This time was no exception. The girl was a wreck inside; she was afraid, and because of that her thoughts began to get colder, which only made her more afraid and took her brain and body even more sub zero. I shook my head to try and snap out of it, I could feel my own body getting colder the longer I looked at the poor frightened girl. But there was nothing I could do about it.

Thankfully, at that moment Ms Ellis stood up, on the verge of tears, mumbled something about letting us go home early, and bolted out of the room.

I looked at Dane, who just smiled at me as I gave him a ‘what did you do?’ look

“It was nothing she couldn’t deal with.” He said, and then looked at the girl next to me. “Is she okay?”

The girl looked up at him, by now I could see little webs of frost forming on the end of her fingertips. Within seconds Dane was on the floor next to her. He’s always been a sucker for a pretty girl who needs him.

“Look at me.” He said, staring up at her. “I’m going to help make it go away...”

* * * * * * * * * *

By the time Dane had gotten the girl back to normal temperature, the school was basically deserted. Confident that she was okay and in the capable hands of Dane, I left our mystery girl, who was yet to utter a word to either of us, and headed home.

As I approached the bridge between our school and the road to my house, I spotted a familiar face leaning against the rails tossing a ball into the air and catching it.

“Let me guess Chloe, you knew I’d been getting out of detention early?” I said to her as I approached.
“Well it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Dane’s going to make Ms Ellis unravel a little bit to get out of class early.” Chloe said, pushing herself off the rails and moving towards me with an air of cockiness about her.

“Predicting the future doesn’t help at all either?” I asked.

“It certainly doesn’t hurt. I’ve never known you to complain about knowing the math questions for the next day?” Chloe tossed the ball in her hands to me.

“And you never complained when I warned you that Nathan liked you beforehand.” I rebutted, and passed the ball back as we walked down the path towards our houses.

“You could have warned me when he was going to cheat on me to.”

“Hey I can just tell you emotions. Thinking about cheating is a different kettle of fish. You’re the one who can predict the future; you should have seen it coming.”

“Okay okay, sore spot. Where is Dane? I thought he’d have been coming home with you?”

I explained to Chloe about the girl who had been with us in detention, and how she almost froze my brain out.

“Wow I didn’t see that one coming.” Chloe loved to make that joke. It was still kinda funny after the millionth time too. “So our tiny high school now possesses both of us, a girl who can see the future, and a guy who can read people’s emotions, as well as a guy who can get inside people’s heads, a girl who can heal, and now it seems a chick who can freeze things. What’s next? A guy who can move things with his mind?”

“You never know. Well, normally one of us knows, but that’s beside the point. This was weird though. I mean, you and I have barely ever had trouble with what we can do. This girl didn’t seem to be have any control over it, and she didn’t even seem to know what she was doing.” I reached out at a bush as we walked past and grabbed a leaf out of boredom, and began pulling it apart as we walked.

“Yeah but Dane kinda just...started doing his thing, maybe this girl is the same? One day she wakes up and wham! Freezing pens for a party trick.” Chloe had put her ball away by now, and was instead jumping up to tap her hands on every overhanging tree branch as we walked under them.

“At least Dane didn’t hurt anyone though.” I tossed the discarded remains of the leaf to the ground and grabbed another one from the next tree we passed. “This girl seemed like she could do some damage if she put her mind to it.”

“Dane didn’t hurt anyone? Don’t forget Chris?”

“Okay so there was that incident, but it wasn’t too bad. Dane could at least put it right again. If this girl freezes someone solid how do we defrost them without them dying?”

“Sigh, I’m going to be making myself dream tonight aren’t I?” Chloe said, knowing exactly where our conversation was headed.

“Yes because it’s a terrible chore knowing what’s going to happen in advance. At least we don’t have maths tomorrow, so you don’t have to tell me that.”

By this point, we had reached Chloe’s house. She walked up the steps and unlocked the door.

“Well It’s 8d for Wednesday. He’s trying to keep everyone on their toes again.”

“Good to know. Seeya in the morning I guess?”

“Not if I see you first.” Chloe said, bouncing inside and closing the door. That girl has far too much confidence sometimes.