If I Only Had Some Content...

Psychic Schoolkids - Part 23

2009-04-21T07:40:00.001-07:00

I hate hospitals. I don’t think there are words that quite cover that. I don’t especially have a reason for it – no relative has died in a hospital or anything like that. But I just get creeped out every time I am in one. But everyone was taken to the Sisters of Mercy hospital, and so I went with them.

Emily and Dane were rushed quickly checked over and found to have nothing really wrong with them except for a lot of blood on their faces – the joys of Lisa’s handiwork. She had managed to get to the common room and stop a lot of the damage before anyone else arrived. She couldn’t help everyone however, no matter how hard she tried.

Chloe and I had stayed after everyone else had gone home, looking at the bed where Mr Harding and Ms Ellis were lying. Harding’s entire face was covered in bandages. Lisa had tried her best to heal the cuts that Chris had made all over his face, but had found some sort of resistance against them. Obviously Chris was strong enough to stop his wounds being healed. We had overheard the doctors say that he was never going to have sight again, and that as long as the cuts all healed on his face, he would be fine, but scarred for life.

Ms Ellis’ situation was a bit touchier. She had apparently taken a very bad blow to the back of her head. She hadn’t regained consciousness since we had left the school, which was not a very promising sign. I wanted to ask both her and Mr Harding so many questions – about their powers, about the school, about everything – and it looked as though my chance before I was going to be able to get any of them answered was going to have to wait.

Chris, well we had no idea what had happened to him. They had taken him to the psych wing of the hospital after he broke a paramedic’s hand and had to be sedated. Since Chloe and I were lowly members of the public, we weren’t allowed to go see him. We did however see Chris’ family go in a few hours after we arrived. They hadn’t emerged so we assumed that either he had killed everyone or he was calm enough to see people without hurting them. Or he was tied to a bed and rambling like a crazy person. There were definitely options.

“I’m sorry, visiting hours are over.” A nurse came to us eventually. “I’m going to have to ask you both to leave so that patients can start to get some rest.”

I looked up at the nurse, and then looked at Chloe. She was tired, and I felt not too far behind her.

“I don’t think their condition is going to change by the morning.” The nurse continued. “I think the most helpful thing either of you can do is to get a good sleep. They wouldn’t want you killing yourselves just because they’re in such a bad way.”

The nurse was right in a way, if Chloe and I didn’t sleep even if we got answers to our questions we wouldn’t be able to do much about them. We grudgingly got up and made our way to the front of the hospital. We brushed past the various staff and other visitors bustling around, even bumping into a nun as she rushed to talk to the nurse that had asked us to leave.

We ended up going back to Chloe’s house. Her parents were out of town yet again, and so we figured we both deserved a day off school. By the time we awoke the next morning it was well and truly day time, and well and truly school hours. But neither of us felt like moving. Chloe was still in a crappy place over Nathan’s death. I was surprisingly ambivalent over it. If anything Chloe’s reaction was concerning me more – I couldn’t help but think she shouldn’t be so distraught over the death of an ex who she has long since moved on from.

It was about midday before I emerged from bed, Chloe was still sound asleep, obviously worn out from the night before, or even worse, dreaming about the days to come. It wasn’t looking to be pretty. Aside from the obvious – Nathan’s funeral – the police had appeared to be quite interested in how Nathan had died, so unlike in Neil’s case there was going to be an investigation into the death. I suppose it’s a small kind of justice, but at the same time the last thing we needed was the police poking around. At least we didn’t have to worry about fighting for our lives with the police floating around.

I was about halfway through making pancakes when Chloe stumbled downstairs.

“I’m surprised you know where things are in my kitchen.” She said.

“I did just spend an hour looking for some things. Who the hell puts the saucepans under the sink? And a spatula in a cupboard as opposed to a drawer? This kitchen is not natural.”

“They’re both logical places for them!”

“No, they’re terrible places. Did your parents just put things in weird places to fool any guests who come into your house?”

“Maybe they just didn’t want my boyfriend making me pancakes. Maybe they knew how much of a terrible cook you are and tried to avoid the disaster that ensues.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my cooking!”

“You’re pancakes are burning....” She said.

“I hate having a psychic girlfriend sometimes.” I said.

“I don’t need to be a psychic to tell they’re burning, just have a sense of smell. You should try it some time!” She shouted after me as I ran to try and rescue my feeble attempt at cooking. “Besides, you love having a psychic girlfriend. Who else will inform you of impending crises that will compel you to act all noble, heroic and sexy?”

“I look noble? And heroic?”

“You forgot sexy...” She said.

“Well I know I look sexy. The other two I wasn’t so sure about.”

She just shook her head at me. “Okay well I do actually have a crisis that’s impending. So stop messing around.”

“Is it the kind of crisis you can tell me about while I try to make pancakes that aren’t burnt? Or are you happy with a burnt breakfast?”

“Go cook. I need a wholesome breakfast.” She ushered me back towards the stove.

“Okay so shoot.” I said, pouring more of the mix out.

“The school is going to fall apart.”

“What...metaphorically? Literally?”

“I’m not sure. I just know that things are going to get worse before they get better. Oh and we need to find Matt. “

“Oh that was definitely on my to do list...that weasel.”

There was a knock on the door. Chloe left me to attempt to cook in peace and answered it. A few minutes later Emily and Dane arrived.

“We met on our way here.” Emily said as she sat down at the kitchen table. “We both figured this was the best place to find you.”

“I actually went to school today.” Dane said, sitting down next to her. “It’s a bit crazy there.”

“Crazy how?” I asked.

“Well in addition to teachers in hospital and dead students, just people being all that little bit more on edge. And everyone is avoiding the atrium. It was completely empty.”

“It’s the ghosts...” Chloe said. Everyone turned to look at her with matching ‘huh’ expressions on her face. “Jacob...you said that where the ghosts come from is a room under the atrium right? And Ellis said that the game, all of us fighting, was something to do with who gets to stop the ghosts right? Well no one won that...so maybe that’s what’s going to happen at the school? And everyone there is getting the creepy vibe so they’re avoiding the atrium? It fits right?”

“Plus if Ellis and Harding are gone...they were like the senior people there when it comes to superpowers right? Maybe that’s throwing things out of wack?” Emily said.

“Makes sense.” I said. “Just what we need another crisis...”

“Well, I have news from the hospital.” Emily said. “Chris is getting transferred to Broadleaf.”

“Oh god..” Chloe said.

“Broadleaf? That’s the Asylum right?” Dane said. “That must mean that they don’t think he’s going to get better. And that he’s dangerous...”

“And he is a suspect in what happened to Nathan funnily enough. One of two prime suspects..” Emily continued

“Who is the other?” Chloe asked.

“Harding.” Emily said. “Apparently the fact that he was spending a lot of time with Chris and Nathan raised their attention.”

“Any word on Matt? Either of you?” I asked.

“Nothing.” Emily said. “Except that the cops want to talk to him too...”

“Nothing at the school either, he must be hiding pretty well.” Dane added.

Psychic Schoolkids - Part 22 - The Fight

2009-04-19T07:21:00.000-07:00

I had done all that I could do. I walked into the atrium and found Chloe sitting at one of the tables. She was unfortunately lacking a Lisa, but I wasn’t too surprised. Dane telling Lisa she should be more like Chris wasn’t going to encourage her to be helpful.

“Any luck?” She said to me.

“About as much as you. You think people would be more willing to help us stop people dying.”

“Apparently not. Now we need to move, everyone is wandering around and I think they’re going to run into each other in the common room.”

The common room was a ‘quiet study area’. Which meant that when teachers enforced such a concept, the room was perpetually empty, and when teachers didn’t care it was full of students. However since Mr Harding’s office had been moved next to the common room, the silence rule was enforced. It was probably a beneficial place for everything to go down since there wasn’t likely to be a lot of collateral damage. Chloe and I reached the area at the dramatically appropriate moment, Emily and Dane had just walked in from the doorway opposite to us and Chris, Nathan and Matt were standing in the middle of the room.

“This is going to get ugly isn’t it?” I said to Chloe.

“You have no idea. We need to hang back though. I don’t want to die today.”

The common room was full of tables and chairs, and bordered by lockers. So lots of things for Nathan to throw around when he gets in a bad mood, but also lots of obstacles to prevent anyone getting close enough to touch one another.

“How can we help?” I said to Chloe.

“We can’t. Not yet anyway. We just have to hope that Emily and Dane know what they’re doing.”

We were too far away to hear any exchanges of words, but the concept was pretty simple to understand. Within seconds Nathan had flung tables and chairs to either side, clearing the room between himself and my friends.

“Matt’s going to run.” Chloe said to me. “When he does you can get over there. He’s their weakest link.”

Surely enough that’s what happened. As Emily and Dane approached Matt broke away from Chris and Nathan, retreating to a safe distance at the side of the room. I took this opportunity to make a break for them. I barely got halfway across the room when Dane came flying towards me. Nathan had noticed me and thought my best friend made a good weapon.

“Dane...you need to go for Matt.” I said to him.

“And what about the others?” Nathan said.

“They’re about to get taken care of...” I said, looking across to the room, hoping that I wasn’t being overconfident.

Thankfully, I wasn’t. I spotted the increasingly familiar shadow standing next to Chris and Nathan. A split second later the shadow was a very solid, very human looking Neil. Before either of them realised he was there Chris and Nathan had both been taken down by a very impressive punch and an even more impressive spinning kick.

Dane didn’t miss his chance. He headed towards Matt, and Emily followed suit.

“I already killed you!” Chris shouted at the ghost of Neil. “Obviously I’ll need to do it again.” He reached an arm out, which went straight through Neil’s torso. Neil responded by grabbing his arm and with a loud crack smacking it with his other hand. If it weren’t for the fact that I knew Chris could heal it in seconds I’d have almost felt sorry for the guy.

Meanwhile, Matt had noticed people coming for him and tried to raise a barrier to protect himself. Emily simply touched it and it froze over, shattering seconds later. Before Matt knew what was happening Dane had grabbed him.

Although I couldn’t see exactly where they were, there was a faint movement in the air that appeared and disappeared across the room. Dane had made Matt’s power go crazy. Emily reached out and touched one of the walls. The extent of the barriers became immediately apparent as frozen walls appeared across the room, forming a maze of barriers stopping Nathan from throwing anything at Emily and Dane, and Chris from getting even remotely close to them.

The ice melted seconds later, and instead intense heat began to radiate from the room. I saw Neil hip and shoulder Nathan into one of the walls, and could hear the sizzle of his skin getting burnt. He responded by throwing a desk at Neil, which went through the ghost but hit one of the barriers Matt had unintentionally made. It shattered, and Matt screamed in pain.

By this stage I had rejoined Chloe...just in time to hear her say “Oh crap.”

Chris had recovered enough to reach out again towards ghostly Neil. However he didn’t even try to touch him this time. He just extended his palm in Neil’s direction. This time, it appeared to be working. Cuts began to appear on Neil’s face. The ghost vanished.

Chris and Nathan turned to Dane and Emily, who were making their way through the maze of walls towards them. Nathan threw all the assorted furniture that he could at Emily, knocking down wall after wall until they began to get close to her. As he threw a table Emily stood there, knowing she couldn’t move. She closed her eyes and the table froze, then shattered. She covered her face as shards of frozen plastic pelted her face, leaving tiny scratches and drawing blood as they went.

Nathan looked amazed, but quickly recovered, picking up chairs and throwing them at her. This time she at least had the foresight to dodge.

Dane however, was not faring as well. He had reached Chris, and managed to drive his power crazy. The only problem was that Chris was using his power on Dane. Burns and bruises and cuts were all appearing across Dane’s face, and then healing before they were fully formed. Both Dane and Chris were screaming in pain as Dane’s body and Chris’ mind were being torn up. The end result was plain to see though, unless Dane could do something Chris was going to kill him before he could do anything to Chris.

Then Chris flew across the room, slamming into the nearest set of lockers. I turned to see Mr Harding and Ms Ellis walking down the stairs into the common room. Chris looked up at Harding with disbelief on his face.

“Enough of this!” Ellis said. “This game ends now. You’re all going to stop before you hurt yourselves any more than you already have!”

Unfortunately, Nathan had a different idea about this, pens that had fallen out of one of the lockers were hurled across the room at the teachers. Neither of them flinched though, Harding waved a hand at the last minute and the pens changed course and lodged harmlessly in a wall.

“Really Nathan.” He said. “I taught you how to do that. Don’t think you can use it against me. But Ms Ellis and I have agreed. The fighting stops.”

“You told us never to stop until the game had been won.” Nathan said. “And we are winning. We’re going to be the Champions of this school.”

“You can be, but you’re going to stop trying to kill other students first.” Harding replied.

“I don’t think so.” Said Chris, who had manoeuvred himself next to Harding. He tackled his teacher to the ground. I felt sick as I heard my maths teacher scream, before I saw Chris fly across the room. Harding however, didn’t get up.

Nathan turned his attention to Ms Ellis, who was walking towards him.

“Nathan. Stop this.” Ms Ellis said. A chair that had been thrown at her melted into plastic then dispersed into steam. “I don’t want to hurt you.” A table froze, then shattered, then melted into droplets of water before they hit Ms Ellis. Much cooler than how Emily had done it.

Nathan kept throwing things at Ms Ellis, who calmly walked towards him, melting, freezing and generally destroying anything the increasingly panicked Nathan threw at her. As she eventually reached him, she put a hand out and grabbed his wrist.

“No!” Chloe said from next to me.

The next thirty seconds were some of the most intense emotionally that I had felt for quite a while. Chloe had seen enough of the future to know her ex wasn’t going to make it out of the fight, and she felt so strongly about that that I couldn’t help but feel jealous. Emily and Dane were dumbfounded, as was I to an extent, that our teachers had superpowers too, and were damn good at them. They had stood back from the fight, content to watch the events. They were also terribly exhausted, they had used everything their powers had and that took a toll on their bodies, especially in Dane’s case. Blood covered both their faces.

Nathan, he just felt cold.

That was because within seconds of Ms Ellis touching him, he had frozen solid. Ms Ellis didn’t intend to kill Nathan, or if she did she felt absolutely nothing even resembling remorse, but what she didn’t expect was Matt behind her. He dealt her a terrible blow to the back of her head with a chair, sending her falling forward into the frozen Nathan.

You don’t ever want to see a person shatter. It is one of the most frightening experiences. It is not cool, it just looks like there should be lots of blood, but there is none, because it’s all frozen.

Matt realised what he had done. He was gone from the room within seconds. Chris was sitting in a corner curled up in a ball. Obviously between what Frank and Dane had done to his mind, as well as the blows to his head from being thrown at wall by Mr Harding, had broken his mind in a new sort of way. I wished I didn’t have to feel what was going on inside his head at that moment.

Mr Harding just lay on the floor. He was most definitely alive. I could tell by the pain radiating from him. As Chloe and I approached him we saw why he hadn’t bothered to get up. When I thought that Dane and Emily’s faces were bloodied, they didn’t compare to Mr Harding. While my friends had red patches from minor cuts on their face, Mr Harding’s face was covered in blood.

And the bit that scared me the most was that his eyes were gone. I couldn’t be sure, but from the confusion and fear in his head, combined with his hands over his eyes, I could tell enough. It wasn’t something I wanted to see.

“I’m getting Lisa...she *has* to help now.” Emily said to us, as Chloe sat down on the floor where we stood, and Dane came over to survey the situation.

Chloe had shut down. She was so overwhelmed with everything going on, especially from having to experience it twice – both in her head and then watching it in reality – that she didn’t know what to do. I was in a similar situation. Of my old best friends, one was curled up in a corner, insane beyond recognition, and the other was scattered in frozen blocks across the common room floor. I know how I should have felt, and I was feeling something very different to that.

But at that point, it wasn’t about me. I walked over to Dane, and hugged him and helped him to one of the chairs that hadn’t been flung around in the fight. Then I sat down next to my girlfriend, wrapped my arms around her and stared blankly into space, trying to disconnect from all the emotions around me as she cried on my shoulder...

Psychic Schoolkids - Part 21

2009-04-16T08:18:00.000-07:00

So like clockwork, the musketeers assembled. Emily and Dane came without a moment’s hesitation. Chloe came because she’d seen herself come, and somehow, I even managed to convince Lisa and Kara to come.

“Chris has gone off the deep end again. This game or whatever..it’s coming to an end...soon.” I said to them all.

“Great. We get to finish this.” Dane said.

“It’s not that simple.” Chloe said. “I know you’re happy for this to end in blood Dane. But we’re not.”

“Exactly. He might be my ex but I’d like him alive.” Kara said.

“They’ve tried to kill us. Quite a few times now. They’re going to be out for our heads now too.” Emily said. “What if putting them down for good is the only way to stop them?”

“I want to avoid that if we can. I have something that vaguely resembles a plan if that helps?” I said.

“This is exactly what I said would happen.” Lisa decided this was the perfect venue for an ‘I told you so’ moment. “You get these powers, and you use them, and you all of a sudden decide you can play God with other people’s lives. God gave you these powers to help people, not to settle school yard fights!”

“And that’s great for you to say. When was the last time someone tried to kill you with their power?” Emily said. “You sit back and help clean up the mess when it’s over, which we’re thankful for. But you’re so afraid to get your hands dirty that people are going to get killed just because you don’t act.”

“That’s not fair!” Kara said.

“No it is.” Dane said. “Lisa has the same power as Chris. We’ve all seen what he can do, and Lisa can do it to. She just chooses not to help us.”

“It’s not that simple.” Lisa said. “To hurt people you need intent, anger. I don’t think I’m capable of that even if I wanted to be.”

“You won’t even try! You’ll just let Chris kill us and hope you can put the pieces back together afterwards. Can you raise the dead Lisa? Because that might be the only way you can help me in this...” Dane said. I tried not to be worried at the fact that he was scared shitless.

“Dane. Stop.” I said. “You’re not helping.”

“And you never help Jacob. You just talk.” Dane said.

...okay so that hurt. Probably a little bit more than it should have. I think I was probably glad at that moment I didn’t have Nathan’s power otherwise Dane would have learned to fly. Instead I decided to just be mean in my own way. I could see Chloe wince at the comment, I wondered whether she was wincing over what Dane had said, or over what my reply was going to be.

“Oh grow up!” I said to Dane. “Okay, so people want you dead. This is different to the last six months how? You’re just afraid now because you’ve realised that you’re not as infallible as you thought you were. You’re afraid because all these little walls you’ve been putting in our heads all this time have been falling apart.”

“I don’t...”

“Don’t give me any of your bullshit denials.” I continued, I hadn’t been certain on that accusation but his surprise and guilt told me all I needed to. “We went through this when you first started hanging out with us. You do not use your power on us. You do not get to decide what parts of our mind get blocked off just because you have the power to. Having the ability to do something and the right to do it are two very different things!”

“Then what gives you the right to read our emotions?” Lisa said. “You’re constantly going around our heads, knowing what we’re feeling. You can do it, but who gave you the right to do it?”

“I...” I tried to think of a response that wasn’t hypocritical...it didn’t work as well as I’d hoped.

“I’ve said this all along. You use your powers because you think you’re better than everyone else. All of you do. You use them because you think you have the right to read people’s minds, mess with their heads, and you don’t. None of us do. If you want to make this fight happen, that’s your choice. I’m sick of trying to stop you. Give me a call when it’s over and I’ll heal the broken bones.” Lisa stood up and left. Kara followed.

“She is a little bit right you know.” Chloe said.

“Not now.” I said.

“Let her talk.” Dane said. “You keep acting like you’re the boss of us just because you were here first. Well Chloe has been doing this for just as long as you have, and she can see the future. I want to hear what she has to say.”

“You’re not going to like it.” Chloe said. “Mostly because I know what you did to Jacob. And to me. And to Sarah. Exactly what you put in our heads. And we don’t have the right to do that. Why do you think that I only tell you what I see in the future when it’s something big? Because I don’t have the right to mess with the future like that. And it’s the same for you. You do not have the right to decide what we think. Whether you open up people’s minds to encourage them to like you, or close off people’s heads to stop them feeling, it’s not your right.”

“I’m not going to deal with this anymore.” Dane said. “I have done everything because I’ve been trying to help people. Whether you agree with it or not. Hell, in your case Jacob, I even did it because you asked me to. So don’t give me any of that crap. I’m going to go mess with some crazy psychic kids. Put them down for good. If you want to join me feel free.”

Dane stood up and walked away.

“Jacob. I don’t agree with him. But if what Ellis is right, it’s about him and I. I’m not going to let him get killed on his own. Come help us if you find out how.” Emily said, running to catch up to Dane.

“Well. It’s just us.” I said.

“It is.” Chloe agreed.

“What do we do?”

“I’m glad you asked.” Chloe had the cheekiest smile on her face. I couldn’t resist leaning in and giving her a quick kiss. “Okay not the time.” I put my serious face back on. “We need backup. The two of them will be able to put up a good fight, but it’s not enough.”

“What do I do?”

“Exactly what you were planning to do.” She said. “Go see Ellis, she can help you with the rest of it.”

“And you?”

“I’m going to try the impossible...to get Lisa to actually do something useful.”

“Dear god...I thought I had the hard task...”

“Yeah. If I can do this I might be able to convince Ellis to give us a day off once this is all over.”

“Oh a day off...wouldn’t that be wonderful.”

“Dreaming of the future later...saving our friends first...if they are still our friends.”

“Good luck.” Was all I could say to her as we went out separate ways. I felt like there should have been something more dramatic in there. Maybe an ‘I love you’ or something. But...I was too busy being worried about Dane getting himself killed for that. That, and trying to figure out what I would have asked him to block off in my head.

I didn’t knock before I barged into Ms Ellis’ office. Which probably wasn’t the best idea. Harding was in there as well, and he and Ellis were arguing. I stood back for a moment to listen. Everyone loves a good eavesdropping...

“Laura we’re not supposed to do anything about this.” Harding was saying. “We train them...or in your case just give them powers and watch...and they fight it out. It’s how it was thirty years ago and it’s how it is today!”

“But kids are dying!”

“And they normally do! You’ve broken the rules enough by getting Jacob involved in this! What do you think the Shaman will do if *we* get involved?”

“They’ll...”

“They’ll kill us Laura! Or something worse! You know that!”

“But we have to do something! You know Chris is out of control, and that is not something that’s a part of the game.”

“What Dane’s power did is a part of it.” Harding said.

At that point Ellis noticed me.

“Jacob...”

“Jacob what are you doing here!” Harding demanded. “And have you heard of knocking?”

“I just thought you should know that everyone is about to start fighting. And dying. So if you’re going to actually do something. Now might be a good time.”

“And what do you expect us to do?” Harding asked.

“Besides locking people in closets with ghosts and mental patients? Well stopping this entire bloody game could be a good idea.”

“That’s not our choice Jacob.” Ellis said.

“That’s great. But you don’t get it. These kids are going to start dying very soon. Because you gave them powers and just let them run free with them.” I said to Ellis. “And because you decided to lock them in the room with something trying to kill them until they snapped. You’ve taken these kids and tried to fashion them into whatever weapons you can for some completely ridiculous purpose!”

“And what did you do with Emily?” Harding accused. “She’s become quite the weapon since she met you!”

“Because she learned by defending her life!” I spat back. “Now I have to go. If you two are going to lift a finger and actually prevent something from going terribly wrong in this school, now would be a good time. Otherwise, I hope you’re there to see the bodies. And the funerals. And I hope you realise the hell you have caused.”

I didn’t listen to either of them as I left. I didn’t even bother to turn around. Chloe had said that Ellis would have some help for me. She didn’t, possibly because I had done nothing but get pissed off. But I hoped I had made a difference. Regardless, I had one more person to see before all hell broke loose...

Psychic Schoolkids - Part 20

2009-04-13T08:08:00.000-07:00

Okay so I'm bringing the next part of this story to a close...hopefully in the next week or so (since after that I may be away for 6 weeks and unable to post). Once the bullies are taken care of we're on the home stretch of psychic schoolkids! W00! I might actually finish something! Until then here's a decent-sized update to keep things moving along.

“Okay, first thing’s first. Why the hell are Nathan and Chris trying to kill us, and why are there these...ghost things that seem to know your name?” I asked as I sat down opposite her.

“Well you certainly don’t pull any punches do you? The ghosts know my name because they are the ghosts of people I once knew. I’m assuming you know the rest of the protocol for dealing with ghosts?” Ms Ellis said.

“Wait...there’s a protocol for dealing with these ghosts? This happens a lot?”

“Most certainly. I would assume ghosts are an equal problem at whatever site you are from, and that you’re doing your bit here in stopping them.”

“Whatever site I’m from? I don’t know how to stop them! Let alone ‘do my bit’!” I said, making air quotes at the appropriate moment.

“But...that’s impossible. If you have powers you must be charged with protecting a site from the ghosts. It’s...the rules!”

“Well...I appear to have broken the rules. Sorry.”

“Dear god...this changes everything.” She hung her head. “I just...assumed that because you had a power...if I had known I would never had arranged for Emily and Dane to come into your care...”

“Aha! So you made sure we met once they had their powers! I knew it was too much of a coincidence.”

“Yes well, I knew that with Chris, Nathan and Matt they would have a fight on their hands..they would need help. I purposely kept out of the loop so that you, Chloe and Lisa would be involved. But I assumed you knew the rules...how everything works.”

“Well I don’t. I mean...I know these powers are all kinds of cool, and in Emily and Dane’s case incredibly dangerous...but that’s as far as I go.”

“Well, the heart of it is quite simple. This school is one of seven sites in this city that are...special. A lot of activity in a certain area – death, learning, birth, high emotions – create sites where ghosts can make their way through from the other side back into the world. People with powers such as yourself are the ones who put the ghosts back in their place.”

“So because this is a school...lots of learning...the ghosts keep coming.”

“Oh that would be simple. But the people who built this school built it on a sacred Indigenous site. Learning *and* death. This school has the second highest level of ghostly activity in this area. Which leads us to the problem you and your friends are having. Someone a very long time ago decided that just giving people powers and training them here was not enough. They wanted people to have to prove that they could handle everything happening here.”

“By killing people?”

“Well..originally yes. Some of the ghosts possess powers, much like you and your friends, so the people disposing of them were given powers, and then put against another group with similar powers. The team that was able to defeat the others was deemed to be able to handle the challenges of this site.”

“And the losers?”

“Well...they died. Recent games have been less fatal, with the losers being simply stripped of their powers. That was to be the case here...”

“...until Neil got killed.”

“He was sloppy! Showing off his power when he wasn’t ready to use it properly. Chris and Nathan were pointed at him before I could arrange for you to meet him, and there was nothing I could do...”

“You could intervene! You’re supposed to be helping these people! Not me! I spend half of my time being told I shouldn’t be involved. But these are my friends...and...well my former friends! I’m trying to avoid everyone dying here, and people like you who insist on sitting on the side lines are not helping.”

“What do you expect me to do? You’ve shown them how to use their powers. Do you think me telling them not to kill someone will actually help? This situation goes well beyond my authority as a teacher you realise. I wouldn’t be surprised if they simply ignore me. No, I think the best course of action is for me to just...stay out of it. All the cards are already on the table, and you know yourself, this is going to all come to a head quite soon regardless of what I do.”

“Then what do I do?”

“What you have been. Be the voice of reason....oh, and figuring out how your group with relatively meagre powers can beat three incredibly powerful individuals would be good. I’m not much help there I’m afraid.”

“Can you be helpful at all?” I said sarcastically.

“The ghosts. Do not ignore them in this situation, and if you can, use them to your advantage. They have powers just like you guys, and unlike Chris and Nathan, you guys haven’t been pissing them off by plugging their leaks at every turn.”

“And if I need to get rid of a ghost?” I asked, standing up to leave.

“You’re an empath...I would think for you it’s a fairly simple process. Help them accept their own death. Now go, not only is it well past your time to go home, but I’m not supposed to be telling you any of this...”

“Because I’m not supposed to be involved?”

“Precisely. But at the same time, you’re the only reason Emily and Dane are still alive...”

“I can’t believe Ms Ellis has know what’s been going on all along.” Chloe said.

I went straight from my talk with Ms Ellis to Chloe’s house. I could have gone straight home but I felt the need to talk to someone, and I managed to do both that and see my girlfriend all in one.

“I can. I mean, she kept turning a blind eye to what we were doing. Letting us stay back at school, letting us use classrooms...all along she was letting me turn Emily and Dane into warriors...”

“But...if she had tried to help Dane from the start...Chris might not have gone crazy, you guys would still have been friends. Although...Nathan would still have broken up with me.”

There is goes again...she gets sad...I get jealous. It’s a vicious cycle.

“I don’t think I would have stayed friends with them. I’ve been so busy with you guys it almost feels like I was never friends with them to begin with....although maybe that’s also the fact that they’ve being trying to kill me...”

“Either way...we need to figure out what to do. Ellis was right, this is all going to come together soon, and there’s not a lot we can do right now against all three of them. Especially you and me...”

“Ellis said the ghosts might be useful...I’m not sure how yet though. Either way Emily’s really our only weapon.”

Chloe blinked, and then shook her head. “Woah, that was a nice trip. But I think I just figured out what we can do. But there’s a catch...”

“I never like catches...”

“Someone is going to die. There’s a few ways this can play out. Either way people end up dead and there’s not a lot we can do about it.”

“Great.” I said sombrely.

“Okay you need to go, I need to sleep and see what else I can figure out. I will talk to you at school tomorrow.”

“Jacob. Come with me.”

The next morning was English, yet for some reason Mr Harding was out to get me anyway, taking me from class and getting me to follow him.

“You know I haven’t actually done anything wrong yet today...”I said as I followed him down the stairs to the bottom level of the school. The level that was partially underground on our school building that had been built into the side of the hill.

“Oh I’m sure you have, but Ms Ellis told me to take you to room B11, and so that’s what I’m doing.” Mr Harding said. “The fact that I can dream up multiple terrible punishments for you means nothing when the higher power is telling me what to do.” He chuckled to himself.

Room B11 turned out to be directly under the atrium, and was essentially a small room that was almost entirely empty except for a set of shelves and a swivel chair.

“Ms Ellis said she would be with you shortly.” Harding said, guiding me into the room then shutting the door behind me.

Then I hear the lock turn...he had locked me in.

“Oh great. I have to put up with you too?” Came a voice from across the room. I turned around to see Chris sitting on the floor. “I was supposed to be here alone. Why on Earth are you here?”

“Mr Harding told me I was supposed to be here.” I jerked my thumb at the door.

“Oh great, probably another one of his jokes.” Chris said. “Well I would sit down, we have to wait until 11.52 before the ghost appears apparently. This one has been pretty clockwork.”

“There’ll be a ghost here? And you’re just going to stop it? Not try to kill me again or anything?”

“Yeah...sorry about that. Ever since I had someone rip my head open I tend to get a bit carried away. After Neil...well I got a bit carried away. But today I’m perfectly lucid and know that the only people who I may have to kill and Emily and Dane...and even then only as a last resort.”

“Oh...so it’s great to know that you’re only trying to kill my friends but not me.”

Chris shrugged. “I just follow the orders. I get told I have to beat them and I try. Plus they’re friendly competition. It’ll almost be a pity if we have to kill them.”

“I don’t understand why everyone feels so happy about killing people, don’t you guys remember that we’re all people, if we die it’s not some game?”

“Yeah, but I think what we’ve all realised is that this is serious. You seem so convinced these powers are like kids toys that you forgot that this is grown up stuff. These ghosts, the responsibility of these powers, it can only end in death. I guess someone forgot to mention that to you...”

“I disagree.”

“I know. That’s why you can only read emotions and I get to heal stuff. Oh, and unheal stuff. Ever seen if Lisa can do it? It’s pretty fun once you get the hang of it. By the way, you didn’t bring a snack did you? I’ve been locked in here since 8.30”

“Harding locks you in here too?”

“Yup. He’s our trainer...or however you want to call it. Says that locking us away in here is for our own good.”

“Harding is on your side. Makes sense...So this is where he locked you until you learned to un-heal?”

“Yup. I was a boring healer boy until he locked me in here with Carrie. She’s the one you and Emily met in the science lab. It was either get torched or learn to use my power...aggressively. It’s more fun this way though.”

“I can imagine...” I said. I slumped down on the wall.

“You know..I miss you sometimes dude.” Chris said. “We used to be good. Then all of this happened. You could have helped us out...we could have used a brain like yours when we first got our powers...but you were too busy worrying whose head Dane was messing with and what Emily was setting on fire to even notice that we were in trouble...”

“I guess I had to stop caring after a while.” I said. “You guys wouldn’t even talk to me.”

“Yeah...” Chris said.

There was an awkward silence. In fact, about half an hour of awkward silence. I kept looking at my watch, wondering when Chris was going to start slitting my wrists open, or something was going to happen.

At about 11:48, I noticed the shadow. It was the same one as the science lab, the same emotions. The surprise, the fear. Chris obviously didn’t notice it. I wanted to react, but knew if I did anything Chris would start with the decapitating and ask questions later, and I knew this ghost wasn’t out to get us.

“Why do they come here?” I asked Chris, trying to distract myself.

“This is right above the big hotspot. Wherever the ghosts come from, it’s right under this spot. So the ghosts end up in this random broom closet.”

I then noticed two more presences. One, was almost a void of emotion. I knew it was there, because I could feel that it had emotions, but they were emotions so foreign that I had no words that could actually describe them.

“Showtime..” Chris said, pointing to the opposite wall to where my shadow was standing.

Suddenly, where there was previously nothing, there was a boy standing there.

“Ooh, it’s Frank.” Chris said. “We call him that because he acts like a zombie most of the time...like Frankenstein.”

Chris wasn’t lying. Frank just stood there, blankly. But unlike the other ghost, the one I couldn’t see, he wasn’t confused or afraid. He wasn’t even angry. He just seemed, at peace almost, but like he had something he had to do.

“I’ll deal with him Jacob, don’t bother getting up...” Chris said. “He didn’t even react last time when Nathan threw a table at him...”

As Chris put his hand out to touch the ghost, to do something horrible to him I assumed, his hand went right through him.

“That’s new...” He said.

Frank then looked up and Chris, and plunged a hand into his forehead.

“Someone has been in your head.” Frank said. “Making walls where there needn’t be. It’s a very confusing place...a head with too many walls.”

I felt the pain Chris was in, and from what Frank was saying I could tell that it was about to get quite scary for me. Frank was doing to Chris what Dane had done...except now Chris had a scary power and I was locked in a room with him.

“Jacob! Get inside Frank’s head!” I heard a voice shout out. I looked to the other shadow, and for a very brief moment, saw what I was almost certain was Neil.

“Hey!” I said to the ghost. “Stop!”

“There’s too much confusion in here.” Frank said. “I can’t stop til I’ve fixed it.”

“But you’re breaking him!” I said.

Frank looked up at me, Chris’ pain appeared to stop momentarily, but I could still feel his mind falling apart. “Your mind is the same, someone keeps poking around, making you stop feeling things. I can help, that’s what I do.”

“I’m fine...really.”

Frank shrugged. “Your choice, this one is the one who needs my help the most.”

“Why do you need to help people?”

Frank looked at me, confused. “Because...that’s what I do with my power. I take away the walls that other people put in there. It’s how it’s always been. There was a bad man, he made Tobias, Laura and I forget so much. I fixed them, but, I could never figure out how to fix me. But he keeps doing it. I keep fixing people.”

“What if the people don’t need fixing? What if the walls in their heads help them?”

I could feel him beginning to soften a little bit, I was reaching him.

“The walls in your head stop you caring about people. You should always care about your friends.” He said.

I was of course, confused about what he was talking about...but I had to stop him breaking Chris. That was all I needed.

“I do. And he is my friend.” I said to Frank. “And I can feel that you’re hurting him. I need you to stop. I have a friend, he can fix the walls in his head, and he’s alive...he can help him.”

“Someone else...can fix people? I don’t have to anymore?”

“No. I know you feel like you have a duty to people, to help them. But you don’t need to. There is someone else who can.”

“I can...take a break now?”

“Of course...you should leave my friend and take a break.” I said.

I could feel Frank’s emotions begin to fade. Where there had been this desire to help people, there was now, a void, like Frank himself was barely there anymore.

“I think I might. I’m tired.” Frank said.

Then he was gone. The only problem was, the part of Chris that was sane also appeared to be gone. He turned around and looked at me. I could feel the anger in him.

“You’re lucky Jacob.” He said. “I’m not supposed to kill you. But it’s time your friends got what was coming to them. I’m sick of holding back, and now...I don’t have to anymore...”

I felt sick to my stomach. I watched as Chris kicked the door until the lock broke and it swung open, then left the room. I wanted to sink down onto the floor. But I didn’t have time. I had to go and mess with things that weren’t my business and yell at people....two things I’m best at.

Psychic Schoolkids - Part 19

2009-03-30T05:32:00.000-07:00

Half-Update this time...got interrupted halfway through but will continue soon...figured I should jsut post what I have to kill this roll going haha.

The next day, I tried for about the tenth time to see Ms Ellis. My previous attempts had been stopped by a secretary telling me she was in a meeting elsewhere in the school and would be back later. She always seemed to be coming back later.

“She’s in a meeting with the principal.” I was told on this visit. It was the second time the excuse had been used, clearly I was being avoided. That and I could feel that little niggling feeling people get in their heads when they’re lying only because they’ve been told they have to.

“Will she be back later?” I asked, exasperated.

“She said she would be. Although she said that yesterday too.” The secretary said.

“And the day before.”

I left the office and went back to my free period. I went outside to the tree to sit on my own. Even though most of my friends shared my free periods, I was in a solitary thinking mood, and the big tree behind the science block was a good place to sit and be nostalgic and convince myself that I didn’t have to kill my old friends in order to ensure my own survival.

Of course solitude is a great ideal, and one that rarely works, especially at a place where groups of friends used to hang out a lot.

“Needed some thinking time too?” Came a voice from behind me.

I turned around to see Matt walking down the hill. Thankfully alone, but I stood up and almost started to run out of instinct.

“It’s okay.” He said. “I would say I’m not armed but that’s not true. But I didn’t come here looking for a fight.” He sat down on the bench. “I guess I needed to think about things just as much as you did.”

“Trying to think up new ways to get me killed?”

“Hey! I’m not killing anyone. That’s Chris’ thing. I’m just tagging along so I don’t get excommunicated.”

“Yeah I’m sure you’d hate to get the whole ‘you’re still our friend but we don’t want to talk to you or hang out with you anymore’ speech from a crazy person.” I said bitterly.

“Yes, that was harsh. Again, not my idea. But no...I’m not looking to piss Chris or Nathan off right now. Although in case you didn’t notice Chris hasn’t come to school today...you guys did a good job of messing him up last night.”

“He started it.” I sat down on the seat next to him. “So what’s your plan anyway? Just follow Chris and Nathan to that terrible end where everyone is dead and you guys are sitting in a jail cell? Are you sure that’s what you want?”

“Well that’s assuming that I get to live that long and don’t get turned into an icicle. Your friend Emily certainly packs a punch lately. Do you know what it feels like to have one of my barriers frozen? Dear god it’s the worst ice cream headache. And one of these days she’s not going to stop at that...”

“...which is my problem. My new friends are going to kill my old friends. Or get killed by them. And noone’s even sure of why were actually fighting. On my side anyway.”

“Yeah it’s not too clear on my side either. We’re just following orders, playing the game and all. And let me tell you...it sounded so much cooler when we first got the job description. I mean, stopping random ghosts around the school...that’s a cool thing.”

“And now it’s all about beating us and it’s just going to end up with someone dead isn’t it?”

“Exactly. I mean we weren’t even supposed to kill Neil, just scare him. But then that kid could fight, like Chuck Norris only not quite as awesome, and then Chris got a bit too excited and bam...there’s a corpse and blood. And it’s the same with you guys. That night in the locker room, it started off as Chris just trying to cover his ass, and then it became this thing, we can beat you guys so we’re going to. Of course I don’t think they expected you guys to fight back, so everyone’s just trying to get stronger to beat each other...”

“Yup that’s how I read it. It sucks doesn’t it?”

“Why are you even doing this though? I mean, you’re not supposed to be involved. Hell, I don’t think they knew about you and Chloe and Lisa until that night in the locker room. You could just walk away from this. I’m stuck here, I got put on a team and I’m Mister Invisible Wall and if Nathan and Chris go down I go down with them.”

“What’s to stop you running away? Like, skip town for a few weeks, let this blow itself over?”

“Dude, I have parents. They would flip if I suggested that. And even if Chris and Nathan understood, this thing is bigger than them. I don’t want to know what would happen if I try to leave this. I’m stuck being the guy who can’t really hurt anyone, but can very much be hurt.”

“At least you can do something...”

“Yeah, I used to think you had this cool thing you could do. Same with Chloe. But it seems like you guys got the short psychic straw. I mean, telling how people are feeling is a pretty neat party trick, but...I can do forcefields, and Nathan can float stuff with his mind...”

“And all these wonderful powers are the reason that you guys are all killing each other. I think it would all be nice and simple if you had these lovely passive powers. Couldn’t hurt a soul. Hell, I’d give you a week with my power in a situation like this and you’d be a wreck, feeling all the anger and pain and shit...but I think as crazy as she is Lisa’s got it right. The less we use our powers the better off things are.”

“HA!” Matt said. “She’s just an idealist. Plus you can’t exactly use your power less. You’re stuck with it on full all the time, knowing exactly what these people are doing. The only upside is you can’t actually do anything to anyone with your power...Plus Lisa can do a lot more than she lets on. I’m sure if she was stuck in a confined space with a ghost who could rip her eyes out her power would end up like Chris’...”

“Chris couldn’t always do that?” I said.

“When he first got his power. He was our healer. Our first few ghost fights were pretty rough, but Nathan and I could handle them. Until they locked Chris in a room on his own. He screamed and banged on the door to be let out...and then...he was doing what he can do now. He says sometimes he’s just bringing old wounds back out, re-opening scars, and other times...he can feel he’s making all kinds of new hurt on a person. At first he hated the feeling...but now...”

“Wow...okay so who the hell is doing this? Who locked him in a room with a ghost? And who the hell told you guys about them in the first place? I just keep bumping into them and no one has locked me in a room with one..”

“We started not long after we stopped talking to you guys. And as for who’s in charge...you really should have that conversation with Ellis...”

The bell rang, Matt got up.

“Well...was nice chatting. At least I know you’re not trying to kill me.” He said. “Look...I’ll try to have your back, make it so you don’t get killed in this mess. But Emily and Dane just put Nathan and Chris through a world of hurt...so I don’t know how far they’re going to go..”

“Same on my side. I don’t want anyone to get killed, but I’m not the one making the decisions when the time comes...”

I know it might be considered stalking by some people, waiting a safe watching distance from the door to their office to see when they go home for the night. I like to think of it as affectionately following. It took a good few hours after school finished, but Ms Ellis finally left her office.

“You’re avoiding me.” I called out to her as she went to leave the building.

I could see her shoulders sag as she recognised my voice. “I was doing a good job of it too.”

“Which is odd considering how much you could help me. Apparently you know what’s going on here.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She said, and then looked at my expression. “Dear god, they were right. You empaths are a pain in the ass. Human lie detection...”

“Well at least you know what I can do. It’s a good start. Know about anyone else being able to do things?”

She sighed and started walking back to her office. “Come on, you should sit down for this, it might be a while.”

Psychic Schoolkids - Part 18

2009-03-29T06:31:00.000-07:00

The bus ride to dinner was...exhilarating. The three of us left the school in a whirl of excitement, taking off as much of our school clothing as was appropriate and getting changed as we walked.

For the first time we had had a fight with Chris, Nathan and Matt and won; and this time it wasn’t a win by the skin of our teeth like the science lab, or where we had ran away battered and bruised. We had walked out of the room with one of them injured, and most importantly I hadn’t suffered any blows to the head after being thrown against solid objects by Nathan.

I don’t think it hit any of us that every time we got into a fight with the Trio (authors note: who need a much catchier name than that), our lives were at stake. Poor Neil could attest to that, but there was something...powerful about being able to kick ass with our powers in the way we were. Okay, so *I* wasn’t personally kicking ass, but Emily was, and more importantly, Dane was. And I was vicariously living through that. The joys of being an empath.

It was when we sat down on the bus that it first sank in. The three of us in our typical youth style sat up the back of the bus, where we could look down on the other passengers and were as far away from the driver as possible.

“We did just win didn’t we?” Emily said. “Like...they ambushed us and everything and we came out on top?”

“Did you see what I did there. I just went ‘POW’ and Nathan’s power started to go crazy. That was awesome!” Dane said.

“Will it last forever?” I said. “Cuz...that would be cool if he was stuck moving things around with his mind for a while. Would solve our problem.”

“I don’t know to be honest. Depends on how quickly he can rebuild all those little walls in his mind that stop him from randomly moving objects. Could be a few hours, could be a few weeks.”

The three of us sat back on the bus and exhaled. I leaned back and wrapped my arms around the backs of Emily and Dane’s seats. I think I felt closer to my friends at that moment than I had before. They were both so...different since I had first met them, and I couldn’t help but feel responsible for some of the change.

But as I sat there, with Emily and Dane going over all their cool moves frame-by-frame. I realised how much I wanted Chloe to be there with me talking it all over. And then I felt that terrible guilt for not even thinking about her before then. I guess things just felt more...comfortable with Dane and Emily. They didn’t have anywhere near as much personal baggage invested in this. Every time I was with Chloe and we talked about Nathan I felt that little flutter in her heart, and the remorse because she knew exactly where our confrontations with them were escalating.

I don’t know what’s worse...feeling how much your girlfriend has it in for her ex or knowing how much it’s going to hurt her when...

“Jacob, are you even paying attention dude?” Dane said, waving a hand in front of my face.

“...does it make me look bad if I say no?” I replied.

“We were just saying how we hope Chris isn’t getting up from under that pile of desks any time soon. But if he can heal...can he heal himself? Can Lisa heal herself?” Emily asked.

“I don’t think she’s ever needed to...but, if Chris is dead or something...that means we’re responsible. Can we handle that we killed a guy?”

“Well...he tried to kill us. It’s only fair really.” Dane said.

“And he killed Neil.” Emily added.

“But, they’re kids. Just like us. And they have these powers and they don’t know what to do with them. They just have someone pushing their buttons and turning them against us...But they’re probably just as confused and scared about what they can do...just like us.” I said.

“I’m not confused or scared anymore.” Emily said with a scary level of confidence. “I mean, you’ve seen what I can do. I fought off that ghost girl with total control, and I can freeze anything I can touch now. I know exactly what I can do...”

“And I know my limits...exactly what I can do to a person without driving them crazy...” Dane said.

“But what if you get it wrong? And you scar someone’s brain for life? Or Emily...what if you freeze a person solid? These powers...especially yours...they can hurt people. If we kill the Trio, that’s got consequences outside of anything else. Sure, the cops can’t exactly arrest us for freezing someone to death with our bare hands, but we have to live with killing people...”

“I think I already mentioned this....but...they started it.” Emily said.

“Lighten up Jacob. You’re starting to sound like Lisa.” Dane said.

“Oooh...we’re here.” Emily said, her and Dane bounded up and headed for the door.

“Maybe she is right...” I said, following them out the door.

“Hip hip”

“Hooray!”

Kara managed to blow out all the candles in a single breath. The entire restaurant clapped with applause. Some out of politeness, some to join in, and some because they actually had a bit of pride for the girl they didn’t even know who was turning 17.

I sat next to Chloe, holding hands under the table as subtlety as we could manage. Our late arrival had given us brief scolds from the girls who had all arrived earlier and significantly more dolled up than we were, but our explanation had earned us redemption from all except Lisa, who simply glared at us.

“For the record. You’re at least partially right.” I said to Lisa, who was on my opposite side.

“I normally am, what about?” Lisa said.

“Our powers. This is going to end badly.” I said. “Chris and Nathan keep on coming, and Emily and Dane are getting strong enough to take one, or all three of them out.”

“Well I would say I told you so....but instead I’m going to ask how you think I can help.” She said, I had a feeling she knew I could feel her smug indignance as she said this.

“I don’t know. I don’t even know what’s going to happen. I just know that one day soon we’re going to give our head of school a very stern question session so we can find out why our little Carrie ghost was screaming her name.”

“Well that part is easy. What if the Trio have other ideas? What if they kill someone? Or worse...you kill someone.”

“I don’t want it to come to that...”

“You’re their leader Jacob. You’ve always been the leader of this little power posse, even if you don’t want to admit it to yourself. It’s up to you to stop this becoming an even worse mess than it already is.”

“Jacob.” Came Chloe’s voice from behind me. I turned around to be greeted by a kiss. “Stop talking shop and spend some time with your girlfriend.”

“If you need me Jacob. You know where I am.” Lisa said, getting up and going to get another round of soft drink from the bar.

I wanted to speak to Kara as well, but I felt her birthday while she sat surrounded by her parents wasn’t exactly the best venue for conversation on her now homicidal ex-boyfriend, so I figured that too would have to wait for another day. The waiting game was beginning to do my head in.

“I’m going outside for some air.” Chloe announced to the table from next to me. “Come for a walk Jacob?” She said to me.

You don’t need to be a psychic to know that when your girlfriend wants to go for a walk outside that you’re in trouble. But it definitely helps.

As we sat on the bench out the front of the restaurant, I could feel that little edge of annoyance in her.

“Jacob, do you know what yesterday was?” She asked.

“Thursday?” I ventured. As soon as I said it I knew it was the wrong answer.

“It was our three month anniversary...”

“I didn’t think we were going to celebrate three months..” I said. We had pre-agreed on several anniversaries that were going to merit celebration, I know because I had marked them in my phone so I wouldn’t forget them.

“We weren’t. But...some kind of acknowledgment of it would have been nice.”

“I was a bit...busy yesterday.” I said.

“I know. You’re always busy lately, running around trying to get yourself killed.”

“Okay...I’m not trying. It’s other people trying to kill me. And I thought you weren’t afraid of them?”

“I wasn’t. But this is getting too big for us Jacob.” She said. “They can hurt people, Emily and Dane can hurt people, and you’re still that same kid who can read people’s emotions...”

“...and you’re still that girl who can see the future. Is that what this is about? What did you see?”

“What didn’t I see. Why do you think it took me so long to come up with anything useful in my dreams? Because the more I focus on Chris and Nathan the more I see every outcome of what could happen to us because of them. I see what might have happened if we never met Dane.” There it was again...that old flame for the ex, but I decided this wasn’t the best time to mention it. “And then I see what happens when you become a killer, or a thousand different ways you get yourself killed.”

I wrapped my arms around Chloe in a big hug, as tears started to stream down her face. I almost started crying out of sympathy.

“I wasn’t afraid of anything, ever. And now all I see in the future is pain to the people I care about.” She stood up, full of anger, tears still running along her cheeks. “I care about you too much Jacob to lose you to this world full of powers and ghosts. You need to stop. We need to stop. I want it to be just us again, the guy who can read what’s going on in people’s heads and the girl who can tell what’s going to happen a few minutes in the future.”

“You know we can’t...” I said.

“I know, and I hate it. You don’t get it. I can now see that little bit further into the future. I’m not a sentence ahead in conversation anymore, I’m minutes or hours or days ahead. Sometimes it’s days where you’re here, or sometimes it’s a day when I’m attending someone’s funeral. I don’t know how much time we have together before something happens to either one of us, and what I hate is that whatever we have left before Nathan throws your off a bridge of Chris rips my heart out is going to be spent with you running around trying to fight them.”

“Someone has to fight them.”

“No. You don’t. Haven’t you been paying attention? It’s not about you. “It’s about the three of them, and Emily and Dane. Let them all sort out their own issues and fight their own battles. You know that you can walk away and yes, people might die but you’ll be okay and I’ll be okay and we can be happy together.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but Chloe just put a finger in front of my mouth to silence me, and then stood up on her toes to kiss me.

“I know what you’re going to say. Just...give me some time. It would be nice if you could remember four months...even if we don’t do anything.” She wiped her eyes. “Why did I have to date the guy who wants to be the hero?”

“Because you needed someone to rescue you..” I said as I ushered her back inside.

Psychic Schoolkids - Part 17

2009-03-27T05:02:00.000-07:00

Previously on Psychic Schoolkids

Jacob is an Empath. He reads people's emotions. He has many psychic friends such as Chloe (his premonitive girlfriend), Dane (his best friend who messes with the walls in people's heads), Emily (a girl he met in detention who freezes/melts things). He also spends lots of quality time with former friends Lisa and Kara (Lisa can heal people)...as well as his brand new frenemies Chris (Kara's ex...he unheals people), Nathan (Chloe's telekinetic ex) and Matt (the wimpy guy who makes forcefields). They also have a principal whose name mysteriously appeared in Chloe's visions, and a Maths teacher who is out to get them. Also...there may be something to do with ghosts.

And now for our next installment...

Sometimes I don’t entirely understand the point of birthdays. Okay, so they are a reason to get all your people together, and get presents, but do we really need to celebrate being a year older? So many people get so very excited about it, but it seems that the older people become the more they don’t seem to give a damn about it anymore.

In fact in the case of Mr Harding, he seemed pretty bloody pissed off about his birthday. We only found out about it by accident, when we overheard Ms Anderson congratulating him on his advancing years, and from then we couldn’t help but giggle every time we saw him. The glares we got in response only served to make me giggle a little bit more when I felt his combination of anger and shame.

However if we were smart little psychics, we would have remembered the double maths that we had at the end of the day. If we’d had the foresight, we’d have baked a cake. Mr Harding however, had the foresight to be extra angry at Dane, Emily and myself as we sat down in the classroom.

“You three! I want you sitting on opposite sides of the room today. That way you might actually get some work done.” He shouted at us, herding us across the room from each other.

Okay, so that’s not too terrible, as much as I would like to talk to my friends, I could live without them.

“Now everyone, I have a present for all of you. Suprise quiz. I hope you’ve all studied...”

Note to self: Do not piss off vindictive maths teacher. I almost wanted to misbehave and get sent to Ms Ellis’ office, but Ellis was either avoiding us or incredibly busy because when Chloe tried that earlier in the day she got to spend 20mins with the school chaplain telling her that God encouraged us to turn the other cheek when people start fights and not punch them in the face. Normally I would agree, but when dealing with Nathan turning the other cheek would only serve to get you thrown across the room again, and punching him in the face would be much more fun.

The quiz was hard too. I think some of the stuff he was testing us on he hadn’t even covered yet. Knowing Harding it was the test that every other class would be doing at the end of the chapter, and he was giving it to us halfway through as a part of his three-quarter-life crisis.

The only upside to such a Maths class was that it was missing Chris and Matt, who normally sat in the chairs next to where I had been placed. I couldn’t help but think that Mr Harding was trying to get me killed, something which had thankfully back fired.

Twenty minutes of class passed. The test I was certain I had not passed. In the end I just started punching random numbers into my calculator and guessing that at least randomly generated numbers would be closer to the answer than empty paper.

Then the unthinkable happened.

Chris saved me.

“Happy Birthday Mr Harding!” He shouted to the entire class as he burst through the door.

Matt trailed behind him, grinning ear to ear and holding a huge cake in his hands, complete with sparklers and candles and even a little wax figure standing on his own in the middle of the cake. I felt a little bit happy that even if I hadn’t decided to bake a cake, my former best friends had performed the vindictive act for me.

Mr Harding was not so impressed. He slammed his fist down on his desk, sending random stationary items to the floor.

“As much as I appreciate the well wishes boys...”

But it was too late, the class, spotting weakness in a teacher and knowing that he couldn’t put the entire class in detention, had begun to sing “happy birthday” at the top of their lungs. It was a sight that with my happiness, combined with that of the entire class, almost made me shed a tear of joy.

“THAT’S ENOUGH” Mr Harding shouted. The singing stopped.

“Chris, Matt, you will be staying back incredibly late tonight for detention.” He said much more calmly. The day was getting better. “Jacob, Emily, Dane, you will be joining them for disrupting the class with your terrible singing.”

...okay so maybe not. I suppose having fun has to have his price.

Of course the three of us didn’t want to stay back that late. Through some miracle we’d all been invited to Kara’s birthday party, which was dinner somewhere fancy and then a movie. Detention would make us late for a fancy dinner, something which Kara would not enjoy. What scared me was the feeling that Mr Harding knew this somehow, and was deriving extreme joy from the thought of it.

Although what scared me equally was the idea of being stuck in a room with Mr Harding, Chris, and Matt for an extended period of time.

The crappy thing about detention after a class you’ve just been in is that there is no escape. You can’t just not show up and hope the teacher forgets. You can’t wait for the teacher to be the traditional ten-fifteen minutes late and have your detention time cut in half...you have to just wait in the classroom and watch everyone else go home.

At least we had cake?

“Okay boys...Emily. I’m going to be marking papers in my office. I want you all sitting at your desks doing work. My office has a lovely window into this room, so if you try to slack off, I will know. If I hear any of you talking, the amount of time you will be here will be increased by fifteen minutes. Don’t try my patience either, I have a lot of papers to mark...”

“Umm sir.” Chris raised his hand. “I miss the start of that last maths lesson, could you tell me what I missed so I can catch up.”

“Chris, open the book, start at Chapter one. We’re on Chapter Nine. Since you haven’t done any work all year so far, you have a lot more catching up to do than that last lesson.”

Dane and I exchanged glances. Did Mr Harding just make a joke? It was a mean joke so it might have just been a dig at Chris, but if it weren’t for the crushing feeling of doom I probably would have laughed at it.

Harding then retreated into his office, leaving the five of us in a mostly empty classroom with our maths books and the expectation of silent work.

“So Jacob.” Chris started talking as soon as he felt the coast was clear. Not wanting to invoke the wrath of Harding I didn’t respond. “It’s okay...his office is pretty sound proof, as long as we don’t yell he won’t hear us.” Now I just wasn’t responding because it was Chris talking. “I hear you and Emily had a bit of a ghost problem in the science lab the other day?”

That got my attention, and Emily’s.

“Yeah that one has been giving us a lot of grief lately. She shows us, tries to set people on fire, and then vanishes. Even when we try to stop her, she keeps coming back. Would have been nice if she’d finished you off for us, it would have been all legit and everything.”

“I could’ve taken her.” Emily said.

“Yeah Nathan showed me the burn you gave him. Pretty nasty. Of course it took about five seconds for me to heal but since you guys have Lisa doing the same for you I think we’re pretty even.”

“And if I freeze you solid can you heal that?” Emily was taking his bait

“And if I cut you arm off does it grow back? Do you really want to play that game with me? The only reason you could even touch me last time is because we didn’t get told what power you had.”

“She hurt Nathan without even touching him though Chris. I’d be careful of her...” Matt said.

From where I was sitting, the room was interesting. Chris was confident. He felt that he was completely in control of everything, and that whatever he wanted to do was going to happen. Emily felt pretty much the same. Which was kinda scary. A few months ago she would have been hiding from her power. Now, she was embracing what she could do and how much people couldn’t touch her. Matt was scared shitless. Which was good, he might be able to put walls up, but he knew there was nothing he could do to Emily.

Dane was just waiting for his moment to speak...which he took.

“Even if you stop her Chris, I’ll pull your mind apart.”

“Oh yes. Dane. That worked so well for everyone last time. You broke our little friendship group into tiny little pieces. And of course you made me a little bit crazy. Even though Lisa did a bang-up job of putting everything in my head together again, there’s still all these little bits missing. Like the bits that tell me to stop when the screaming starts.”

Of course in all the dramatic posturing over who would win in a fight, I couldn’t help but notice that Dane and Emily were missing a few important points.

“Who told you about the ghosts? And that Emily had powers?” I asked.

“Oh wow...it is true. You guys are going solo. Noone to point your smoking guns and tell you what’s going to happen next. That must suck. Although we keep getting told it’s none of your business anyway Jacob so I’m not sure why you’re even asking. At best you should be stopping the ghosts that cross over and let these two wackos get on with the game.”

“This is a game to you?” Emily asked.

“Oh it’s not just a game to me. This is a game to many people. The fact that you don’t even know you’re playing just makes it a bit harder. I mean with no Neil your team is already one man down even. Now if you don’t mind...our backup has arrived.”

We looked behind us to see Nathan standing outside the classroom window.

“At least a detention is easy to fake.” Just got to get the teacher out of the way.

We turned around and saw the blinds on Mr Harding’s office window fall down. Matt had his eyes closed too, which I had a feeling meant even if Harding wanted to leave his office, he wouldn’t be able to.

“God you’re crazy.” I said. “This is the middle of the afternoon. Every teacher is still here.”

“And it won’t matter once Emily and Dane are no longer around. We’ll have won. Everything will be back to normal, the ghosts will go away.”

“Yeah we might have something to say about that.” Emily said, standing up. Dane stood up next to her.

“I don’t think you guys get it. There are three of us with spiffy killy powers. You might be the ice queen...or the burns queen depending on your mood. But you’re still out gunned. And I’m betting that Dane isn’t going to be doing a lot except drive me crazy. Which really...too late!”

He lunged forward, his hand almost touching Emily, who moved away from it. The door swung open with Nathan who charged in. This time I had the presence of mind to move that little bit out of his line of sight and not get thrown against the wall. Dane did as well. Where I failed was that I ended up walking into an invisible wall. I turned to see Matt grinned at me.

Nathan didn’t care about me though, I felt his focus on Emily as he flung her against the wall. However before Chris could get to her helpless figure Dane grabbed Nathan’s hand.

“Let’s dance.” He said, and closed his eyes.

I don’t think I had ever felt more proud of Dane than at that moment. His power was, at best a tool for helping people’s problems, and at worst a way to totally destroy people. Yet somehow...he had turned it into a weapon.

Well..as much as he was going to. Objects begun to fly themselves across the room. The chairs, tables, all started zooming around. Nathan looked at his hand with absolute horror.

“Don’t you just love how we build up all these walls to stop our powers going crazy?” Dane said. “and how wrong things go when those walls go away.”

Of course, Dane was too busy enjoying his moment to notice Chris had trained his sights on him though. Thankfully, Nathan had, which in his current state meant two desks and half a dozen chairs zoomed into Chris. My skin crawled at the crunching noise that they made, but at the same time I had no sympathy for Chris, since he’d just be healing himself...if he could get up.

“Right so I think we’ll be going.” Emily said. Dusting herself off and walking towards the door.

“Umm...” I turned to look at Matt. Emily walked into a wall in front of the doorway. It lasted about three seconds before it became icicles on the ground.

“We have a party to go to don’t we?” Dane said.

I closed the door behind us, leaving Matt to deal with the crush of furniture that was Chris and the object flinging mess that was Nathan. I even poked my head to look through the window to see Harding asleep on his desk (he was breathing...unfortunately).

“So do we need to wear a tie to this thing?” Dane said as we left.

“I’m wearing a dress...so yes, dress up so I don’t feel out of place.” Emily replied.

“Yeah I wear a tie at school, no tie for Kara I think.” I said.

“Well I barely know her. So I’m dressing to impress.” Emily said in her best posh accent.

“I think you’ll need all the impressing clothes you can get” Dane said. “Her first impression of you is you setting a science lab on fire, we’re going to be late, and you’re showing up with me and I’m definitely her least favourite person on account of me brainwashing her boyfriend.”

“Yet she invited you and not him...which shows you’re at least a step up from a homicidal maniac in her books..” I said.

“Do you think she flipped a coin or something to decide who to invite?” Emily said to me.

“Definitely...” I nodded.

Psychic Schoolkids - Parts 15 + 16

2009-03-21T04:54:00.000-07:00

Yes...I am lazy with updates. Yes...I know it has been two months. Shush. I've been busy and unmotivated and didn't know where I was going with this story. Well actually...I knew exactly where I was going I just hadn't figured out how I was getting there yet. To cut the long story short...Big update! Two whole parts long...and yes I know a "part" is an arbitrary segment designator that has thus far varied from 500 words to 3000 words but I feel this contains enough stuff to think about for 2 parts. Plus it ends on a cliffhanger so if you have to wait 2 more months for another installment you can be on edge. It's like Battlestar Galactica but nowhere near as cool...Oh yeah...update!

“You’re not going to like this.”

Chloe put a notebook down in front of me.

“What this time?” I sighed. There had been too much bad news lately.

“I’ve been dreaming like you said. This time I at least had the foresight to have a pen handy for when I woke up...this is the results.”

I looked down at the page in front of me.

“This is the results from your maths homework. You really need to work on your trig.”

Chloe snatched the book away from me.

“Quiet you. Or we’ll start bringing up history assignments. Cosimo de Medici was a cat? Really?”

Chloe flipped through her book and put it down in front of me. The page was covered in writing, which was pretty shaky and not always the right way up. It was also unique in that it made absolutely no sense at all. There were barely words, let alone sentences.

“I was scribbling.” Chloe explained. “And some of it seemed to come out better when the book was sideways.”

“What’s happening?” Dane slumped onto the seat next to me. “Ooh one of those puzzles.”

“I wrote down my dreams.” Chloe said.

“Sometimes even sideways” I added.

Dane shrugged. “Whatever works.” He peered closer to the page. “I’ve solved it. Hurry up Jacob.”

“Solved it?” I asked.

“Yeah. It’s like one of those word find things. Where the letters are all jumbled and the answers are in the mixed up letters.”

“I don’t think that’s what this is...” I started.

“Let me see.” Chloe took the book off me. “Got it!”

“You wrote this! Shouldn’t you know what you were writing?”

“It was a moment of vision, I’m clearly much more of a genius than I know. Now hurry up and solve it.”

The downside to this is that I’m hopeless at puzzles. So rather than sit at the table for twenty minutes with Chloe and Dane giggling I put the book aside. This was quite difficult, since one of my pet hates is people knowing things that I don’t and being able to gloat about them. And of course both Chloe and Dane were radiating gloat. I would have sulked if it wasn’t going to give them even more satisfaction.

“Okay. Moving on to a place where I’m not embarrassed. Dane, did Sarah give you any help?”

“Not really. You know I’m really beginning to doubt whether she actually did any research into the whole Wicca thing before she decided she could cast spells. Apparently what we do is not possible without long hard hours of communing with spirits...and I don’t think she even meant the alcohol kind...in addition to being born on the right day and finding some kind of magical artefact.”

“In other words, a load of crap. From Sarah. What a surprise. Next you’ll tell me that Mr Harding is handing out candy to people and that my ex boyfriend isn’t trying to kill us secretly.” Chloe said snidely.

“Well at least the Neil incident managed to pass by fairly quickly. I mean, the cops were here for what, a day? How do you think Ellis managed that?” I asked Dane.

“I asked her. She said they thought it was likely someone just dumped his body here, so the police weren’t suspecting students or anything. She didn’t mention anything else about the night though, us-wise I mean. Just that her and Harding were in a meeting and heard noises and came to find the body.”

“At least that gets us off the hook. Not that we did anything...if only it got Chris and Nathan on the hook..”

“Like it’s going to be that easy.” Chloe said. “I don’t think the police have any way of convicting people who can slice people open with their minds. Or throw them against lockers. I think right now we’re relying on us to figure out a way to stop them. And by us a mean Emily...cause...the three of us aren’t exactly going to be doing a lot in a fight with them apart from bleeding.”

“Oh shit.” I said, looking at my watch. “I was going to meet Emily about ten mins ago.”

“Jacob, you’re supposed to be my boyfriend, and you’re going to spend your lunch break with another woman? Should I be getting jealous?” Chloe said, not being even remotely jealous, but enjoying the thought of pushing my buttons.

I kissed her on the forehead. “Shut up woman and get back into the kitchen so I have something to eat when I get back.”

Dane just sat back and laughed. With no response to that I headed off to meet Emily in one of the empty classrooms.

***********

Emily had managed to convince one of the science teachers she had work to do during her lunchbreak, which meant that she had free reign of a lab full off all kinds of things that freeze and go boom. Probably not the safest place to be playing with fire in the literal way...but it gave us a good, relatively private venue to test her limits.

“I think I’m taking too long.” Emily said. She had perfected freezing water, but her latest goal was to try and freeze things that weren’t completely moisture. Her latest target was a chair.

“I don’t think freezing plastic chairs is something that can be done quickly.” I said, sitting with a stopwatch in my hand. That had been Emily’s idea.

I watched as a coat of ice slowly began to form around the top of the chair. The legs were already frozen. The stopwatch was up to about three minutes though, which I didn’t need to point out wasn’t going to be useful. I also didn’t have the heart to point out that being able to freeze a chair in any period of time is probably not going to be a priority when we’re being thrown against lockers and having bits of us cut off.

“That took too long.” She said, as she was done. She put her hand back on the chair and the ice melted into a puddle on the ground.

“At least you melted it quickly?” I tried to sound encouraging.

“It’s not hard. Once I stop freezing it, things go back to normal. I just need to give it a push and it goes back a bit faster.”

“How is melting things going anyway?”

“I would show you but I don’t think I’m allowed to break any more chairs.” She pointed to a small stack of chairs at the back of the classroom that looked slightly melted and deformed. “Still can’t set anything on fire though. I really didn’t think fire would be so hard...”

“Well you cool things down and heat them up...you just need to find things that will burst into flame when they get hot enough. Or just...have a spark and transfer the heat over...and whoosh...flames. You can always control the fire without starting it right?”

“Yeah but when I went all out of control...with the burning and the freezing...that was real fire, and that was without any effort at all on my part. Shouldn’t it be easy now?”

I looked at her for a few minutes, thinking things over to myself. “Okay no, there is no way I can say this without sounding clichéd. Power is easy, control is hard. You could probably set everything on fire if you wanted...the only downside is...you would be setting everything on fire...probably even yourself. What you can do right now...that’s you, 100% Emily with no emotional outbursts or people running away screaming.”

“It’s not going to be enough in a fight though...is it?” She asked.

“Not by a longshot.” I said, with a straight face. I scared her far more than I had meant to with that statement.

The lights in the room flickered. Behind Emily I could see..something. It looked like the shadow I had seen the night we had found Neil.

“Jacob? Are you okay.” Emily asked, waving her hand in front of my face.

“Yeah I’m okay...just...flickery lights...and I think there’s someone else in here.”

“Umm..the lights haven’t changed. And it’s just us here.” She said, looking around.

“No, I can feel someone else behind you.” I pushed her aside gently and started walking towards
the shadow.

“Jacob...that’s a wall.”

The shadow looked exactly like that...a shadow cast by the light. The only problem was, there was no person casting it. I stood next to it and looked as hard as I could, but my eyes couldn’t see anything except the shadow that wasn’t there. But my mind could see something else there. A bundle of feelings that should have been a person but wasn’t.

“Woah.” Emily said. “Is that...an extra shadow? Why is there a shadow and no person?”

I reached my hand out. Knowing it was a bad idea but at the same time drawn by a terrible sense of curiosity to find out what was going on. As soon as I hit where the person should have been, emotions started pouring in. And it was different to normal emotions. Normally, I feel things, and they’re just feelings as though I was feeling them, but they were coming from somewhere else. This time they were almost pictures, as though someone was sending me all these emotions just so I could tell what they were feeling without having to feel it myself.
They were confused, and trying to be calm because they knew if they weren’t something would happen.

“Is someone there?” I asked the space. “Are you a person? Did you make yourself invisible or something? We’re not going to hurt you...we can help you.”

“Oh god, invisible people. That’s all we need.” Emily said, slumping into a chair. “Woah, Jacob. We have more company.”

She pointed to another shadow of a person that didn’t exist that was across the room from both of us. She got up and walked towards it. I felt panic from the person in front of me, they were worried by the other person.

“Emily be careful...” I said.

“It’s fine. Invisible people can’t be too bad.”

And in tradition of famous last words, the invisible person became visible. It was a girl, about the same age as the rest of us. She was different though, a little bit more greyed out than is natural in a person. Then I felt the heat.

“Laura...I’m not going to lose!” She said.

“Emily look out!” I cried out, as flames shot from the girl in the direction of Emily.

Luckily, Emily was fast enough. The air around her began to shimmer with cold. The fire that made it to her went around her, but didn’t set anything on fire.

“Okay that could have hurt. Not polite.” Emily said, closing her eyes.

I felt emotions fading, as the invisible person standing next to me simply...vanished. I would have cared more but I was too preoccupied with Emily’s attempt to beat back the flames, which was going much more successfully than I had thought was possible.

“Jacob...I think I might need a hand here. Because trying to freeze things while I’m pissed off at this girl is hard.”

I moved to help but was distracted when the door, which by all rights should have been locked, burst open, and Nathan and Matt walked in.

“Woah.” Was all Matt could manage as he saw the fire coming from the scary little grey girl and the cool air surrounding Emily.

“Guys, this is a bad time to try to kill us. Can you get in line.” I said, trying to distract them from Emily, who really didn’t need to be flung across the room at that point in time.

“Jacob..we’re not here for you.” Nathan said.

“That great. Unfortunately Emily is a bit busy, so you’ll have to..” My speech of making a stand was interrupted as Nathan flung his arm and I was thrown against the nearest wall. Ouch.

“Tobias.” The scary grey girl said as she looked at Nathan. “I should have known you and Laura were my opposition.”

The fire aimed at Emily promptly stopped, and the girl raised a hand. The coolness Emily was focusing on the girl turned into ice, and flung at Nathan’s face. Nathan managed to stop a lot of the tiny icicles aimed at him, but tiny scratches appeared across his cheeks where he failed. The girl made a run for the door, which was still open.

“Don’t let that bitch get away.” Emily shouted.

The girl didn’t get far. As she reached the doorway she slammed into something, almost as though the door was still closed. I felt a sense of satisfaction and looked over to see Matt looking pretty impressed with himself. I guess that answers the question of whether Matt had a power or not.

The girl stood up to turn around, only to run into another wall. For a minute or so she tried to run in different directions, only to find the walls she was running into getting closer together. I felt sick to the stomach as I watched, and felt Matt’s joy as he trapped the girl. Even though she had tried to burn me to a crisp, I didn’t want to wish the squishyness that seemed inevitable to her to happen to anyone.

The squish didn’t happen though, as the walls got to a certain point...the girl simply...vanished. It was just as quickly as she had appeared, and really quite strange.

“Did you get her?” Nathan asked Matt.

“She’s contained again.” Matt said.

“Okay you guys are really going to explain what just happened.”

“Oh shut up.” Nathan said, raising a hand in Emily’s direction.

Before anything could happen though, there was a sizzling noise and he looked at his hand. Even from where I stood I could see the burns appearing.

“No.” Emily said. “I do not appreciate people trying to throw me against things. Or burn me. Or making invisible walls.” She held out her hand in front of her and stepped forward, a sheet of ice slowly began to form in front of her. Good to know invisible barriers still get affected by temperature.

“We were just doing our job.” Matt said. “Like you should have been.”

“Like I should have been?” I asked.

“Not you. You’re not even supposed to be involved in any of this.” Nathan said. “She’s supposed to be stopping them. Until we stop her anyway.”

“What the hell?” Emily asked.

“Oh god. Clearly you missed the rules at the start of the game.” Nathan said. “I would have thought Chloe would have told you by now.”

He and Matt turned to walk away. Emily stepped forward, the ice in front of her shattered.

“Don’t push your luck. Chris isn’t even with us. Go talk to my know-it-all ex.” Nathan said snidely. Dear god I wanted to punch him.

“What exactly do we ask her?” I said.

“Clearly you missed our little friend talking about Laura? She always does....that might be a good place to start” Nathan closed the door behind him.

Emily sat down, exhausted. I sat down at the desk with our books in front of him.

“You were awesome.” I said.

“That was exhausting. Please tell me I’m not going to have to fight like that often?”

“I would love to. But...you burned him without touching him?”

“I was angry. And the air was warm from little Carrie over there. I’m not counting on being able to do it again.”

“Okay, well next time you can get thrown against a wall. At least it’s making me fairly bruise-resistant.”

“Once we’re not exhausted from things trying to kill us, should we go talk to Chloe.”

“Probably.” I said, putting my head onto the table, using the book in front of me as a pillow.

It’s amazing how with word puzzles, when you stop trying you find the answers. I had been looking at Chloe’s writings while I had watched Emily work, hoping to solve the puzzle that Dane and Chloe had figured out so quickly. And I had. In the jumble of letters there was one word, which was even repeated a few times just to hammer in the fact that I fail at word puzzles.

Laura Ellis.

Psychic Schoolkids - Part 14

2009-02-02T00:27:00.000-08:00

"Would you stop treating this like a game!" Were the first words I heard when I started to come to.

"Would you stop pretending you are above all of this!" Came after, from Emily I think.

"Would you two stop fighting!" Came from Kara.

"Would you stop interfering!" Chloe added into the fight.

"Would you all stop yelling so loud. I'm trying to sleep." I groaned from the floor.

"This is real now." Emily said. "Someone is dead and we can't do anything about it. The police will find the body, and who knows what they're going to come up with, but I don't think the police are going to be able to convict a guy who can slit people's wrists for them."

"I still don't believe Chris could do that." Kara said. "Like I know he's changed, but he would never hurt a fly back when I was dating him."

"Yes but Dane changed him." Lisa added. "He messed with his head and look what kind of monster he's turned into."

"Hey! I didn't mess with Nathan's head, and he was throwing people around the room like they were ragdolls" Dane said back, with a much more indoor voice than the shouting going on.

"Okay definitely awake now, can we stop trying to break my head though?" I said from the couch I was lying on. Everyone was still too busy pointedly yelling at each other to notice.

"Yes but let's face it, Nathan was an asshole since he broke up with me." Chloe said. "But our powers didn't do this, clearly Chris and Nathan got powers somehow and decided they're going to hurt people with them. It's not our fault."

"It's not, and we are probably the only people who can stop them." Emily agreed.

"And how many people will get hurt in the mean time? That kid in the locker bay is dead, and if you want to get into a fistfight with powers I'd imagine I'm going to have to try and heal more than a few cuts and bruises." Lisa said.

"Plus what can you do? Kill them? If you want to be just as bad as they are you can go for it." Kara added.

"I can take out all the walls in their minds...put them in a mental institution for the rest of ever." Dane tried to add helpfully.

"Yes because that worked so well with Chris! You've probably made him worse after what you did." Lisa yelled.

"Plus, people with no control over their minds and the kind of abilities they have? Not such a good option." Emily said.

"So what do we do about it then?" Chloe asked.

"We find another way." I said from the couch. This time loud enough so that people could hear me.

"Jacob! You're alive." Chloe rushed over to hug me.

"I'm guessing you're the one I have to thank for the lack of bloody cuts on my arms?" I asked Lisa.

"You might be an idiot. But I'm not going to let you die." Lisa said. "I think you've bitten off more than you can chew with these guys though."

"We'll just have to get some bigger teeth then." I said.

"How? I mean...we can only fight them in certain ways and most of them are pretty bloody." Kara asked. "From what you guys have said Chris isn't exactly going to respond to being asked nicely to stop hurting people."

"This might be an odd question. But wouldn't people have noticed Nathan and Chris by now?" Dane said. "I mean, with Emily and myself, when we first got our powers we did some pretty big things, and it was only because of you guys we didn't get noticed. They're powers are a lot more...well...obvious. I mean how can you practice cutting people open with your mind or throwing people around without someone noticing, especially if you don't have control over it?"

"Could they have had their powers since birth, like you guys?" Emily pointed to Chloe and I. "I mean, you guys have never had any issues because you like...grew up with your powers."

"I'd have known if Chris could do something like that." Kara said.

"And I'd have known about Nathan. This is new." Chloe agreed.

"So we're still kinda back at...what do we do?" I said.

"What can we do?" Lisa said. "I mean no offence Jacob, but you just got your ass handed to you. You have a neat little power and all, but in a fight they're just going to walk all over you. Chloe and I wouldn't fare much better."

"I can take them." Emily said. "Well...once I can get freeze them from a distance...I think."

"Not the most encouraging of options." Lisa said, rolling her eyes.

"What about Matt?" Kara said. We all just looked at her. We'd been too busy worrying about Chris and Nathan to care about him. "I mean...you guys said he was there. What was he doing?"

Emily, Chloe and I looked at each other.

"No idea." I said
"Standing around?" Chloe suggested.
"Watching?" Emily added.

"So you don't think he could be hiding some kind of power too?" Kara suggested. "I mean, our group appears to be pretty lousy with the superpowers, why wouldn't he have something too?"

"Would make sense." I said, sitting up properly as opposed to leaning on Chloe's shoulder. "I think they said something about him holding people off. Like someone was coming."

"Harding and Ellis." Dane said. We all just looked at him. "I was watching...I hung around for a little bit after you guys left."

"So the police will be involved by the morning." Lisa said grimly. "That could get messy fast."

We all just sat back and thought about the idea.

"Okay so here's my thoughts." I said. "We sit tight. If Harding and Ellis saw anything we'll know...since we'll have cops onto us. That can be okay though, since Chris and Nathan will be dealing with the same thing, and even if they get past the police, Harding and Ellis will be watching them so they can't get up to too much chaos. We need options though."

"Like what?" Lisa questioned.

"I don't know." I looked at her. "Look, if you say God gave us these powers, or the Devil or whoever. It's for a reason. They're not going to put us in a fight we can't win. We need to know more though." Everyone nodded.

"I'll talk to Sarah." Dane said. "She's into that whole magic thing, she might know something about our powers."

"Okay good starting point. But be subtle. She pisses me off enough without her knowing I can read emotions. I don't want her to start thinking she can talk to me."

"Or me." Chloe added.

"Speaking of you Chloe. I need dreams. I know it's not always easy but we need to know what's happening next, who Nathan and Chris will be talking to, anyone who might be helping them. Everyone else, we just need info. Anyone else who might have a power we need to know about. They went after Neil because he had a power, no idea what he could do but that's beside the point, I don't want there to be any other targets for Chris and Nathan we can't at least try to protect. Who knows, there might even be someone who can stop them."

"So that's the plan? We do nothing?" Dane said.

"We can't do much else." I said. "I want you to work on your power though. No hurting people, but something that might stop them if push comes to shove. Same for you Emily. We want to be able to stop them before they cut us to ribbons or throw us against lockers."

"Jacob, what if we come up with nothing?" Chloe asked.

"We deal with that if we have to." I said. "Until then, we do what we can and most importantly, stay out of their way as best we can."

"Just hope they stay out of yours Jaocb." Lisa said. "One day I'm going to be around to save you."

"Well if you pray that that day doesn't come anytime soon it would be appreciated." I said to her.

Psychic Schoolkids Pt13

2009-01-23T05:18:00.000-08:00

Before I could even get back on my feet I was lifted off the ground and sent slamming across the locker bay again. My ears rang from the impact, but this time I was facing the entrance. Chris stood there, his eyes wide with excitement, and next to him stood Nathan and Matt. Nathan was filled with the same hyperactive emotions as Chris, a mix of excitment and fear and anger. Matt seemed just...afraid. Of getting caught, of something going wrong. None of the excitement that the others felt but equally as strong.

"You look a bit beat up Jacob." Chris said, stepping towards me.

I raised my hands as fists in a vague attempt at self defence. Behind Chris, Nathan waved a hand and my wrists were pinned to the locker behind me. Chris wasn't the only one who had gotten a power in the last few months.

"But I suppose you always had to poke around, and you always had to get hurt because of it. And here you are, wandering onto a crime scene and sticking your nose out were it doesn't belong. Do that too much and your nose will get broken." Chris pressed his hand against my chest.

I screamed. I'm man enough to admit that I screamed. Because when Chris touched me, my nose broke. It's not a pleasant experience, and definitely not one I would reccommend to anyon else, and however Chris was doing it, I'm sure he was making it as painfully as he could.

"So you see you guys thought you were cool. With Chloe seeing the future and Dane messing with people's heads, and even Lisa being able to heal people. That was helpful, since she tried to put my head back together all nice and pretty like. But...and here's the bit that works for me...and not so much for you. She missed a spot. Somewhere along the way I got a power too. And like all good laws of opposites...Lisa can heal any wound." Pain shot through my body...I looked at my wrists and saw cuts beginning to appear along them. "And I can make any wound."

"They're coming." Nathan shouted from across the room.

"I'm busy here Nate." Chris said, taking his hands off me for a moment. "Making a perfect murder/suicide scene requires a bit of finesse. Get Matt to hold them off for bit so I can have some peace."

"Why...did you?" I tried to make out through the pain.

"Why what? Did I kill Neil? Am I killing you?" Chris said, pacing in front of me. "Well it's a long story...but you were there for all the bits that involved you. And Neil here...he was a bit too special to hang around. I mean didn't you hear? The shaman wants blood."

"That's so lame." Came a voice from across the locker room. Chris and I turned to see Chloe and Emily standing there.

"Oh god." Chris said. "Matt! Can't you do anything right!!"

"I'm a bit busy here." Matt shouted from the edge of the locker bay.

"Yes well we have company and it would be rude to leave them here with nothing to do." Chris shouted back.

"I'll play with our guests." Nathan walked over so that he was facing Chloe. I felt the pressure on my wrists relax. "Chloe...long time no see. I like the new look."

Chloe was terrified, and not very good at hiding it either. I think because she saw what was coming. Nathan waved an arm and she was flung out of my line of sight.

"Now forgive me if I don't know you name yet." Chris said, as he advanced towards Emily. "It's just that this is a very tense time and introductions take so long."

He reached out to touch Emily, and she reacted by grabbing his arm. The air around it wavered a bit and then froze. Emily withdrew her hand as Chris' arm sagged until the weight of the ice.

"I'm Emily. Nice to meet you though." She smiled and pushed Chris to the side. As he fell he smacked his head against a locker, which disoriented him for long enough for Emily to get to me. I was able to move again, but for some reason I was finding it hard to do so. In fact, even looking around made me kinda woozy. I took a step forward and almost fell.

"Okay Jacob. No walking for you without some help. Which is a pity, because I think we need to be running before we get our collective asses kicked." Emily started to walk me away.

"They're through!" Matt yelled as he ran through the locker bay to the exit that Chloe and Emily had come through. Who 'they' were I never got to find out, as Emily and I stumbled outside and quickly moved to behind a building. I never saw what happened to Nathan and Matt, but Chris was left slumped on the ground with a very wet arm near Neil's body.

"Oh god! Jacob!" Chloe said, utterly panicked at my state. Which wasn't suprising as I looked down at my arms which were now covered by bloody. That explained the woozy.

"Okay we need to get Jacob somewhere safe. Like your house Chloe. And we need to call Lisa." Emily was oddly taking charge. The confidence she had when she had yelled at Lisa was back.

The words began to get a bit woozy, but I felt another person arrive who was just as scared and panicked as Chloe was. Dane. I took a second to wonder where he had been during the fight, and whether Lisa would actually stop me from dying...and nefore I was able to finish the thought...I embraced what was becoming a habit and passed out...

Psychic Schoolkids - pt12

2009-01-21T01:18:00.000-08:00

Three Months Earlier

"I don't care what kind of intentions you have, you do not mess with my head." I said, outraged.

"How else am I supposed to get your friends to like me? You're all so closed off! The only reason you even want me around is because it makes you feel like less of a freak." Dane spat back, and reached out to touch me again. I took a step back.

"Don't touch me! I know what that means. You have poked around inside my friends heads enough...I can tell when you're doing it to me! I spend my entire life separating what I'm feeling from how other people are feeling, I can do it with you as well."

"So what? You just want me to go back to being a loner? You show me I can do things and then you tell me not to use them when I can help myself?" Dane sat down.

We were in Chloe's kitchen. She had gone upstairs to spare Dane her involvement in the argument that was taking place. I would have tried to sit down myself, but I was too involved in my own indignant rage to care about trying to relax.

"These people can be your friends, but the best way to make friends is not to try and bend them to your will. That is not going to help you, and that is definitely not going to make us respect you for it."

"I can make you respect me for it..." Dane grumbled.

"No you can not!" I could feel my own anger building up and mixing with all the emotion Dane was feeling. It was giving me a terrible high but also a feeling that I could lash out at Dane. I tried to calm myself. "We are not your toys, and if you want to people to respect it you can do it by being helpful, not by just messing with us."

Dane just hung his head. I think by now I had communicated how angry I was.

"Now you will fix everything you have done to people like Kara and Lisa, you will make an effort to be nice to them and win their friendship the old fashioned way, and if you even so much as try something like this again....well I will think of something suitably threatening at the time."

I stormed out of the room. I wasn't sure how much notice Dane would take of my rant. I did actually like him on some level, even if he was weird, but at the same time I knew that was how I felt, not just how he was making me feel. The idea of him stopping people hating him or encouraging them to like him was....disturbing in a way. Not something I was comfortable with.

I walked into Chloe's room to find her on the bed with Nathan. Normally, this would lead to be awkwardly walking back out of the room, but they were both just as angry as I was feeling. Anger is not the most pleasant emotion at the best of times, so being in a house full of anger is not my idea of a picnic.

"It's done Chloe." Nathan said. "I think it's best we both just...move on and deal with trying to have some sort of friendship."

"You can't break up with me!" Chloe shouted. Jumping to her feet to face Nathan.

"Why? Because you didn't see it coming? Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to date you? You yell at me before I do things, or have entire arguments with me where I don't even get to say anything! I can't deal with it! Mel is nice...and normal..."

"You want normal! I'll give you a girl who reacts to her boyfriend cheating normally!" Chloe grabbed her pillow and threw it at him. Nathan braced himself. "I will throw a girly tantrum" She grabbed a soft toy Nathan had bought her and threw it out her window. "I will break things" She threw a photo of them on the ground. "And in general, I will be a bitch. Now get the fuck of out my house and I never want to see you again...."

Nathan turned to leave and saw me, and the look on my face.

"She's all yours to have now dude." He said to me as he walked out. I almost chased him down and punched him in the face. Instead I went to Chloe.

"Why?" Was all she said to me. I didn't even bother with responses, I just hugged her. "It's all falling apart. Nathan has left me, Dane is messing with our heads, Chris is going to try to kill us... I don't know if I can deal with this anymore Jacob...I keep seeing things coming but all these other things sneak up on me and I'm not ready for them."

"It's okay...we can get through it all. One thing at a time." I tried to sound reassuring. I wasn't confident in what I was saying though.

Despite the fact that Chloe and I could do some cool things, at the end of the day, we were normal people if it comes down to a fight. I couldn't follow my threat through with Dane, because frankly, I had no way of stopping him. What was I going to do? Read his emotions to death?

"How? Even if Dane listens to you, and Nathan realises he's a tool for getting with Mel, how will that help us? You haven't seen what Chris becomes....he's...a monster. He will be able to do things that we can't and you know that we can't stop him."

"We will find a way. We're far too cool for the world to let us die. Okay?"

"Anybody home?" Came a call from downstairs. It was Lisa's voice.

The downside to Chloe's house being empty most of the time, was that it was a place for everyone to go when they had nothing better to do. Lisa had decided she had nothing better to do, and it was a safe bet to guess that Chris and Kara were with her.

"Should we just make ourselves at home on the couch and wait for you guys to get dressed?" Chris called from downstairs.

"Nathan isn't here." I yelled out in reply.

"And your point is?" Kara replied. She clearly knew all to well my feelings for Chloe.

I stood up to go downstairs to greet them and saw Dane, standing in the doorway. People really need to check the door before they have arguments. I also saw the look in Dane's eyes - he had heard everything, and was all of a sudden very determined.

"Oh god...he's headed for Chris." Chloe said from the floor. She had noticed him too.

"Shit..." I said, and ran from the room.

Dane might have been little, but he could run, before I even got to the door, I heard screams from downstairs. I wasn't even sure whose they were. It might have been everyone's. My head exploded as I made it down the stairs to the lounge room.

Dane sat on the floor at one end of the room, looking exhausted. Chris sat at the other...his eyes closed. Kara and Lisa just watched in horror. Then Kara jumped forward with a kick to Chris' stomach.

"What did you do?!"

"I...stopped him.." Dane said.

"Stopped him from doing what? Relaxing on the couch?" Lisa had stood up and focused her attention on Dane too.

"Chloe said...he was going to turn into a monster...be able to do bad things...I stopped him."

"I don't care what Chloe said you undo whatever you did. You're the only monster right now. Chloe told us what you did...messing with our heads."

"Dane...what did you do?" I said, walked over to the scene.

"I...found all the doors in his head. Everything that had something locked away behind it. I opened them all."

"You did what?!" Kara screamed.

"Oh god.." Lisa sat down in horror.

"Okay. Dane...not cool. Fix it. Now." I said.

"I can't. I don't think I can even move right now." Dane panted.

"Good." Kara kicked him in his stomach.

From across the room, Chris groaned. I didn't even need to look at him to tell that his head was an absolute mess. Even standing near him hurt in all kinds of new ways, I wasn't going to be able to do anything to help him.

"Okay Lisa...can you try to heal him?" I said, thinking as fast as I could.

"Umm...his problem is mental, not physical. I have never even tried mental healing before." Lisa protested.

"Jacob, this could go bad.." Kara joined in the disagreement.

"We don't have any other option. I can feel what's happening to me. We need to do something and we need to do it now or there isn't going to be a Chris left to help. So stop arguing and we can make this not be the end of the world..."

"I don't like this..." Lisa said.

"He's right." Kara said. "Lisa...I'm sorry. But I need you to do what you can. I love him. I can't have him be broken..."

"Okay..." Lisa took a deep breath and moved towards Chris.

Psychic Schoolkids - Part 11

2009-01-20T16:23:00.000-08:00

The four of us had taken to staying after school. Teachers didn't mind, we were old enough to be left in a study room unsupervised, and I am yet to meet a teacher that is discouraging people to study in their own free time. The fact that we didn't actually do any studying was irrelevant.

Emily sat on the table, a candle sitting in front of her.

"I can't do it." She said. "I can make it warm, I can even start to melt the wax." She gestured to the dribbles of wax running down the candle. "But can I make the thing catch on fire? Nope!"

"Maybe you should touch it? That helps with everyone else's power." Dane suggested from his position by the window. He was watching the sun fade into the distance.

"I don't think touching will help when the point is to make something catch on fire." I added, from the other side of the room where I was looking down at the teacher's offices. All the teachers were gone except for Mr Harding, and unsuprisingly, Ms Ellis, who was almost always at school later than us, and would usher us out on her way home if we hadn't already left.

Ms Ellis had always supported us hanging around at school, and so despite Mr Harding's protests, we were allowed to spend some time in one of the free study rooms provided we didn't burn it down. That would have been okay except for what we were trying with Emily...

"Maybe I don't need to heat things." Emily said. She reached over and picked up a cup of water and took a drink. "I can freeze things okay." The cup and the water inside turned to ice.

"That is pretty cool." Chloe said. "Maybe..."

Chloe kept talking, but I had stopped paying attention. There was something else across the school. The room opposite us was dark, but there was a shadow of a person clearly outlined in the window. I wasn't sure if I was imagining it, whether I was just seeing an odd shadow being cast. Then I felt the panic and the pain.

It was more intense than anything I had ever felt from another person, it was stronger and more overwhelming and before I knew it, I was running.

"Jacob!" Chloe shouted a second before I started to move, but it was pointless, my feet were moving whether I wanted to or not.

The time between noticing the shadow and being at the door to the room I saw it in passed like a blur. Our school isn't small, so it must have taken a few minutes to make it over there, but time was behaving oddly. I flicked the light switch, but there was no response. The lights stayed dark and the shadow stood by the window.

I tried to speak, to say something comforting, since helping the thing would hopefully quieten the screaming in my head, but I couldn't think of anything to say. All there was was pain, and confusion, and I could barely think, let alone come up with something insightful.

"It's different." Came a voice, from what I assumed was the shadow. But it felt like it was more in my head than an actual sound. "Everything is different from the other side..."

"The other side?"

"I know you...you're Jacob." The shadow continued, like it had something it needed to say and wasn't going to waste time answering questions. "You're not supposed to be involved. But you were supposed to find me."

The confusion was gone, the panic was gone. I felt calm, an eerie kind of calm you don't expect.

"I could do things. Strange, wonderful things and I didn't even know how. I was supposed to find Dane, and Emily, and then there would be three. That's how she said it was going to happen. That's why I was here tonight. But they found me first...and now...I think things are different."

"Who found you? What could you do?" The questions came out before I realised that I wasn't actually communicating so much as listening to something, like it was pre-recorded.

"Something is playing a game with people's lives Jacob. They didn't count on you though - you and Chloe weren't a part of their plan. I just hope you can stop them..."

"Okay I'm sick of this cryptic nonsense. Who are you." I walked forward and put a hand on the shoulder of the person. It was straight through, something which I know shouldn't have suprised me but did anyway.

I stopped running again. I don't even remember starting to run, but I was now at the locker bays. I didn't even know you could get to the locker bays at night. Slumped in front of me was a body. Covered in cuts that were thin but looked deep...almost like his body had been slowly ripped apart. His name had been Neil...I think that was all I knew about him except that he was quiet, and I wish now I'd seen enough to know what had happened.

Chloe had been right though...a body in the locker room.

"Well..well...well. If it isn't Jacob coming to snoop about." Came a voice from behind me. Not the kind of voice I wanted to hear either.

"Bit late for you to be at school isn't it?" I replied.

"Things to do, teachers to see. I don't think we'd ever stayed back late like you and your wondergang do."

"Things change." I shrugged, still not wanting to turn around.

"They certainly do." Came a second voice.

I felt myself fly off my feet and slam into a locker. The pain rang through my head. But now I felt the need to turn around before my nose started to bleed and I couldn't manage some kind of heroic face.

"Learned some new tricks have we Chris?"

Psychic Schoolkids - Double Dating

2009-01-18T04:00:00.000-08:00

It is an age-old ritual among people that when the process of pairing off begins...a double date must occur. It had happened with Chloe, Nathan, Kara and Chris - which was an awkward enough experience for me when I wasn't involved. Going on a double date is a different experience in itself.

Especially when it means you have to spend time with someone like Sarah. Chloe didn't like her, I wanted to be able to exchange my power for Emily's so I could set her on fire, and for some inexplicable reason Dane actually liked her. I didn't even pretend to understand his reasoning for that, so I stood by my theory that the only reason that he was dating her was because not a single other girl had asked him out in his 12 years of schooling.

"I really think our school needs to teach more religious acceptance." Sarah was telling us over dinner, standing on her soapbox for what felt like the fourth time of the evening.

"I agree." Dane agreed. Again.

"I mean I know we're a religious school, but teaching religious education from a solely Chrisitian viewpoint closes off so many avenues of religious discussion."

Chloe and I sat there silently, glad that our food gave us a chance to fill our mouths rather than have to reply. We had already tried arguing, discussing, and even agreeing, only to be told we were wrong every time. I was almost ready to become a born-again Christian and go to church with Lisa every Sunday just because that would put me as against Sarah as was humanly possible.

As the discussion of religion made its way back to with burnings and persecution, I took my leave and fled to the toilets. I took as long as I could, and then walked out to head back to the table, only to find Chloe.

"Can we kill her?" she said. The scary thing was she was almost serious. "Like I know I said we should do this to be supportive because Dane has a girl who finds him attractive and stuff. But dude...any boy who ends up with her needs his head examined."

"Is now the part of the conversation where I say that I told you so? Or do I have to wait a bit longer for that."

"Okay gloating will not help. It will make me feel bad, you'll then have to feel my badness and then we'll both be even more miserable. We need an escape plan."

"Ooh...we can do that thing...where we get someone to call us and pretend they're having an emergency and we have to leave."

"I think you need to organise that beforehand. Plus, I don't think that has ever worked, even on bad tv shows."

"We could just run away? Or see a movie...they're quiet and so we won't have to listen to her talking for a good hour or so."

"I think she would talk through the movie." Chloe looked nervously back to our table, where Sarah was looking at us while she talked...and Dane was watching her and nodding. It was a scary sight. I felt like Sarah was going to shoot laser beams at us. "Okay. We are two very clever, highly psychic individuals here. We can figure out how to bluff our way out of a double date that can only end in mass murder."

"I agree, but I think in the mean time we need to like...go back over. Before Sarah sends her winged monkeys after us or something."

We walked back over to the table, Chloe whistling the Wicked Witch of the West tune from Wizard of Oz until we were within earshot of Sarah...

About ten minutes later, we left the restraunt, with the intention of fleeing to a movie, where Chloe and I could at least try to block out the whinging of Sarah by distracting ourselves with cinema. As we walked from one place to another, we spotted Emily walking along in the other direction. Chloe and I quickly bounded over to her, leaving a confused couple behind us.

"Emily!" Chloe said excitedly.

"Save us!" I said in the same tone of voice.

"..huh?" came Emily's confused reply.

"Long story short, we are on a double date with Dane and Sarah..." I started.
"...who we both now want to murder in a slow painful fashion..." Chloe added
"...and we need to escape in a way that is at least vaguely subtle..."
"...so if you could help us we would love you forever..."
"...and Chloe will buy you a pony.."
"...I will?" Chloe looked at me.
"Well it's an added incentive...and I certainly can't afford a pony." I shrugged.
"Good point...so can you help Emily?"

Emily was still confused. Possibly because Chloe and I had said quite a lot very quickly, and without making much sense.

"We'll take that as a yes...I'll be back." Chloe said, and bounded off.

"Did someone give you guys red cordial again?" Emily asked me. "Cuz I've heard stories about what that can do to you..."

"No. Chloe had rasberry soft drink but I think it's less of a sugar high and more of a 'oh-god-we-might-get-to-escape-Sarah' high."

"Ahh. Important difference. What's so bad about her anyway? She seems to like Dane, and she is nice..." Emily asked.

"She is nice. In the way that she is never wrong about anything. And I still don't understand why she even wants Dane....he is so out of her league."

"Or you're just less happy you and Chloe are no longer the flavour of the month couple?" Emily tried a level of insight that was quite good for someone without psychic powers.

"...maybe." I said quietly.

"Okay. We are able to escape this date." Chloe squealed with joy as she came back. "Sarah is going away. We are hanging with Emily if she doesn't mind...okay good we are hanging with Emily. I think somewhere nice and quiet like a park is a good idea."

Psychic Schoolkids pt9 - Dreams

2009-01-08T04:29:00.000-08:00

4 months earlier

Things had changed.

They hadn't entirely changed for the bad, but our little group of four nerdy guys had transformed into this big group. There were girls, and there were couples, and there was Dane.

Dane's addition to our group was met with mixed emotions. The psychics - myself, Chloe and Lisa - were happy to have another one of us in our midst. The rest of the group, particularly Chris and Nathan, were less that happy about Dane hanging out with us.

"I don't know why Jacob, but he gives me the creeps." Chris said to me.

We were sitting on the back lawn of Chloe's house. Her parents had gone away and in high school tradition there was a party. Or as we had called it to our slightly naive parents, a "sleepover". This gave not only the impression that the girls would be pillowfighting in their underwear, but also that there would be no booze or adult content. Our poor parents.

"I know that vibe too. But the guy needs some friends." I tried to stick up for Dane, but found it a little bit hard. Although a guy with powers was fun, Dane and I had very little in common apart from that.

"Why do those friends have to be us? I mean I know Chloe and Lisa think he's the new black, but the guy's a total loser, and he looks at me weird. And people always seem to act weirdly after they've spent some time with him. Like Kara was totally against him at first, and then after a couple of minutes with him she decided she was neutral on the subject."

Great, that had the smell of Dane using his power all over it. I made a mental note to slap him across the back of the head when I got back inside.

"Okay I agree, that's odd. But I mean, Chloe's not exactly normal either, nor am I for that matter."

"Yeah but you guys are just good at reading people. I mean we're all so predictable to Chloe she knows what we're about to say half the time, but you know Kara, she's stubborn as anything. Like remember when her and I went on a double date with Natahn and Chloe? Twenty minutes to pick a movie just cuz Kara wouldn't budge, and I'd imagine she's just as bad when it comes to people."

"I think you're over-reacting." I tried to appear rational and not angry. "I mean you can just avoid the guy if he creeps you out."

"I try but he's always hanging out with us these days. I don't know why you and Chloe even started talking to him anyway. Pity is best reserved for getting people laid on new years."

"We...had our reason. Chloe seemed to think he was cool, and as you said, she's good at telling what people are gonna do."

"Well let's hope she knows what Dane's gonna do. I hope he doesn't go stalker on us all...or worse. Serial killer. I don't think Kara would still want to date me if I was in bite size pieces."

"Boys. You're sitting out here all alone." Kara said as she walked out the door accompanied by Chloe. The pair of them plopped down on the grass next to us.

"And without a drink!" Chloe handed us both beers.

"So how's my boy doing tonight?" Kara rubbed a hand up Chris' arm. "Apart from being cold! You're not gonna get any hugs tonight unless you warm up."

"I thought you would help warm me up..." Chris said, leaning in to start making out with Kara.

Chloe and I briefly gave each other a look. "And on that note I think I see something inside we should look at."

"Yes." I agreed. "Like a blank wall that is in no way sickeningly coupley."

"Don't let us keep you." Chris said as he came up for air.

"Oh trust me you won't." Chloe said. "Just don't go screwing on my lawn."

Chloe and I walked inside.

"Nathan has gone to bed." Chloe said to me as we walked inside. "He's so weak. Reckons he had a bad night's sleep last night. He was home all night!"

"Well you did decide to date the laziest boy on the planet, I don't know what you expected there." I shrugged and smiled.

"Don't push it boyo, or I'll get all depressed and make you have to feel it all."

"Oh I'm threatened." I said in my best impressed/scared voice. "Besides, it's probably better he's gone to bed, with Matt gone and the wonder couple distracted outside, that just leaves us four psychics to have some fun."

"That was the reason for this get together. And yes, I have the book!"

We walked into the lounge room where Lisa and Dane had been chatting.

"I'm still not sure about this." She said to us as we walked in. "It seems very...devil-worshippy. I'm pretty sure God frowns upon it."

"God frowns upon reading minds and seeing the future, so Jacob and I are already screwed there. Might as well push the envelope a bit.."

"Umm..what exactly are we doing?" Dane said.

"Jacob, you explain, you'll actually let them ask the questions. I'll go get some stuff." Chloe bounded upstairs.

"Okay, well Chloe has been reading. Stop and marvel at the concept for a second."

"I head that!" Chloe yelled from behind me as she walked away.

"She's been reading about dreams, and how people can see the future in their dreams."

"Can't Chloe already see the future though? Isn't that the point?" Dane asked.

"She can only see a few seconds in. It's enough to help her out short term...but doesn't give us a lot in the long term."

"Which is exactly how it's supposed to be. Noone should have the power to see that far." Lisa interjected.

"Her theory is we try this...meditation thing. It's supposed to help clear her mind and let her see further, and at the same time it should help clear our minds too and...boost our powers a little." I explained, ignoring Lisa as best I could.

"Umm...I'm pretty sure I can heal anything right now, so why am I here?" Lisa yawned and sat back on the couch.

"Because it's supposed to work better with four people, and I figure for the first time at least, we want to be as efficient as possible." Chloe returned into the room with a CD, a piece and a candle.

"Okay I have meditative music...a point of focus." She lit the candle and put it on the floor. "And a circle." She drew a big circle on the floor with the chalk.

"Do I really have to stay up for this or can I go to bed? I'm tired." Lisa said.

"I'm pretty wiped too. And...staring at a candle doesn't seem like fun." Dane said.

I looked at Chloe, she gave me a look too.

"Fine. Go. Be boring. Just don't interrupt us and keep the wonder couple away." Chloe fumed. "I think we can make this work as a pairs thing. Unless you wanna flake on me too?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world. Plus the more we can find out about...certain people....the better I think."

Chloe looked at the closed door then moved in to whisper. "You mean Dane?"...she then paused for a few seconds, meaning I didn't have to reply. "I agree. Nice, but creepy. Even the power is a bit creepy."

"Plus I think he's using it...on us even."

"Lisa and Kara have been a lot friendlier to him lately...like their annoyance at him is blocked off...it'd make sense."

"Exactly. So let's do this and find out what's in store."

A few minutes later the music was playing, soft waterfall sounds were filling the room, and the only light in the room came from our tiny candle. It was almost romantic. I even felt Chloe feeling the same way, which was re-assuring in a weird kind of way.

"Okay so the theory is...we link hands, focus on the sound and the candle...and..listen to what's going on in our heads. In your case pay attention to feelings...both yours and everyone's around...and for me whatever's about to happen. Then once we've meditated...we sleep, and that's when our powers awaken a bit..."

"Are you sure about this?" I checked one last time.

"Well it's from a Wiccan book. There isn't exactly a lot in any library on psychics like us so I had to adapt it a bit...but the theory is sound. Now shush, hold my hands like a big boy and we'll get started."

We sat down inside the chalk circle and held hands. I could feel Chloe focus on the flame and everything else inside her...and I tried to do the same. The problem was that I as I tried to focus on what Chloe was feeling, I ended up just focusing on other aspects of Chloe. So I changed my focus so try and feel what the other residents of the house were feeling. Unfortunately, there was this strong sexual tension coming from outside which was even more distracting.

So I sat there like a good little boy, totally unable to focus on anything but knowing that Chloe's mind was completely tuned in to what was going on. I also wondered why I had to be there, or whether Chloe had just wanted someone else there for company so she didn't feel awkward sitting in a dark room staring at a candle. Again, definitely not the calm, meditative thoughts I was supposed to be feeling.

About fifteen minutes later, which is an enternity in candle-staring time...the music stopped and Chloe snapped out of her trance.

"Okay bedtime! Just let me clean up the chalk."

Since Nathan had taken Chloe's bed, and Kara and Chris were sharing Chloe's parents' bed on the condition they didn't have sex in it, that left Dane, Lisa, Chloe and myself on the lounge room floor on various mattresses and sleeping bags. I was in between Chloe and Dane, with the slim frame of Chloe on one side contrasting with the warm bulk of Dane. I felt a bit less angry at Dane for messing with our heads, which a part of me almost thought could have been Dane messing with my head too, but I think I was always a bit hesitant to get angry at Dane. After all, he was new to the psychic thing, and was playing with his power in the safest way he could...but still...not so fun.

I slept rather restlessly, I think in part due to sleeping next to Chloe. She was dreaming, and feeling instense emotions as she did. I was feeling everything she was and it was creeping me out a little bit, so I could only imagine how she felt. In the end I had to get up and go for a walk just to have my head be my own for a bit...

Psychic Schoolkids pt8

2008-12-30T05:40:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-22T04:26:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-17T05:36:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-16T06:00:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-11T07:19:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-10T06:08:00.001-08:00

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

2008-12-09T21:57:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-08T05:19:00.000-08:00

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.

Matt pt 1

2008-10-17T05:32:00.001-07:00

Retail is a horrible, soul sucking workplace.
No really. I’m allowed to say that though. I work in retail, selling expensive pretentious clothes to even more pretentious fags. It has its upsides though, namely the fact that it allows me to live in my pretentious Commercial Road apartment through its pay, and that sometimes the pretentious fags buying clothes are incredibly pretty.
For the most part though, it’s just about the money. I go to uni, and so one day I will be doing a highly paid career that will earn me many squillion dollars and be able to drink martinis and reminisce about the days where I worked in retail.
However in the meantime, that dream is just a dream. I have another year at least of being a sales-pleb while I finish my degree. Day after day of stocking shelves, swiping credit cards and doing my ‘customer service’ smile whenever it’s required.
One important thing about retail though, especially when upper management is in the store, is that you always look busy. A broom or a duster is all that is required to make it always appear to a casual observer that you are doing work. This is why Katherine and I had spent an entire morning sweeping and dusting the store, so that no matter who looked at us, we both looked incredibly busy.
“So tell me more about Matt! Was he good in bed?”
It also gave us both a chance to gossip about our weekends.
“Amazing! Angry sex can be so good sometimes”
Katherine didn’t reply immediately, instead she took a moment to stare at the ceiling with a very happy look on her face as she considered this prospect.
Katherine is a Class B Fag Hag. Which although is probably quite a scientific distinction, it is probably also quite accurate.
The Fag Hag is a strange yet vital facet of the gay community, and they come in many shapes and sizes – ranging from the overweight fag hag who goes clubbing because it’s the only way she gets male attention (Class D Fag Hag), to the fag hag who sleeps with the drag queens at your local gay bar (Class A Fag Hag).
Katherine had at one point been this last category, however after a blessedly brief affair with Jacinta Glitter she swore off gay clubbing and instead decided to live vicariously through the dramatic sex lives of gay men – a perfect example of your Class B Fag Hag. I think this second option is completely preferable, because being friends with the woman sleeping her way through the cast of the Commercial’s drag show is an awkward position for a gay man to be in.
“Okay so tell me more.” Katherine said, returning to reality.
“What do you want to know?” I said, not looking up from spending a lot of time sweeping a small section of hardwood floor.
“How big was he?”
“You do not need to know that.”
“Okay so either really big or really small. Based on everything you’ve said about him he’s hot...so you would think that well hung would follow from that, otherwise you’d be at least mildly disappointed.”
“We’re not having this discussion Katherine!”
“C’mon! Give a girl something!” Katherine pouted at me, and then realised how little information she was going to get out of me. “So did you have to deal with Xander the next morning?”
“Unfortunately. Travis sent him off for the walk of shame while Matt and I were having breakfast?”
“Toast or pancakes?”
“Pancakes.”
“Interesting...you only make them pancakes when you like them again....so when are you seeing him again?”
“Well...I didn’t get his number or anything...”
“WHAT?!” Katherine hit me with her duster. “You idiot!”
“I was a bit distracted by trying to kill my housemate with the power of my mind! And since when do I only make pancakes when I like them!?” I poked her with the end of my broom in retaliation.
“Do not make me start listing. I was there when you met Xander, and Brett, and...”
“Okay...I get the point...pancakes.”
At that point, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a customer entering the store. Katherine bounded over to him first, which was good since I was too busy hanging my head in pancake related shame. About twenty seconds later, I felt a tap on my shoulder and turned around.
There was Katherine, looking so horribly pleased with herself it wasn’t funny, and standing next to her, was Matt.
Fuck, it wasn’t just the dark light of the club or my angry feelings the next morning that made him hot. We’re talking total package...arms, chest, face, everything is pretty. After being a deer in the headlights for a few minutes I actually realised that this was a situation where I was expected to make words...not strange grunting noises under my breath.
“Matt! Hey!”
“Hey. I didn’t get your number the other night, and I remembered you saying you worked here, so I figured I would come say hi. I hope that’s not too stalkerish for you..”
“No that’s totally cool.” I tried not to laugh, as Katherine bounced about behind Matt doing a happy dance and giving my thumbs up. There was then a somewhat brief pause, which Katherine felt was too long, so she jumped over next to me.
“Colin was just telling me how he made you pancakes. And how he has nothing to do tomorrow night.”
I had a facepalm moment. Katherine could not be even remotely subtle sometimes.
“Well that works since I was planning on asking Colin out for dinner tomorrow night.” Matt said to be. Katherine shrunk away, her work done.
“That could be really cool.” I said. “What time?”
“I’ll pick you up from your place at about 7?” Matt replied, digging into his shirt pocket to grab a card. “Here’s my phone number by the way. Call me if you have any trouble, or if you get bored or anything.”
True to form, I just stood there a little dumbstruck. This wasn’t improve when Matt leaned in and gave me a quick kiss.
“Okay! I’ll let you get back to work. I’ll see you tomorrow? Wear comfortable shoes.”
And just like that...Matt was gone. I also had a date with a really pretty boy. Definite improvement on the morning. Katherine was so incredibly happy with the situation you would have thought Matt had asked her out. If only Travis and Xander didn’t exist (especially in such close proximity to each other in a sentence), my problems would be solved...

Update

2008-10-05T04:17:00.001-07:00

What's that you say? It's been over a month with no update? Yes I know shush....I've been busy. I have however written three handy new chapters to my ever so fun tale of gay sex and drama. I am kinda screwing with my own continuity a bit here....and some of the chapters should no longer exist in my mind (ie. the Justin chapter in my last post)...but I will at some point re-organise it all...until then...enjoy a new chapter of Justin-themed fun!

Justin
There is a fine line when you first meet someone, the line between friends, and “friends”. Although quotation marks don’t appear to make a great distinction between the two concepts, they are the difference between a friend who you go shopping with and do social activities with, and a “friend” who you go on dates with and shag.
Ben was 23, worked in the office building across the street from me, and despite having an unfortunately common name among the gay population, also had the unfortunate problem of sitting somewhere on that line between friend and “friend”.
Because although there are activities that fall firmly into one category or the other, there are those that could be construed as either one, depending on your vantage point. For example, in the last week Ben and myself had gone underwear shopping (normally a friend activity, but underwear leads to the expectation of seeing it which is more of a “friend” thing), had dinner at a cafe (we split the bill, which is more friend, although he offered to pay which leans toward “friend”), and had coffee on our lunch breaks three times, each time mostly being spent whinging about work (a friend activity, but the regularity is definitely on the “friend” side of things).
All in all, I was rather confused that although I was spending quite a large amount of time with a very cute boy, I had no idea if I was making my way into “friend” territory, or whether I was going to be relegated into that awkward zone of friendship.
“So your housemate drunk himself silly after getting dumped?” Ben asked, sipping a glass of water
“Basically – as much as he liked to pretend he didn’t have feeling for Xander, I think the drunken stupor indicates otherwise”
“Your housemate dated Xander? Poor guy...”
At that awkward point in the conversation our food arrived, which delayed my response.
“You know Xander?”
“From St Kilda right? Yeah I dated him a while ago for like...twelve seconds. Total skank, and felt that the best thing to do after we broke up was for him to try and shag his way through my friendship group.”
“Oh...” Was the best I could reply.
This is the problem with the gay world sometimes. There isn’t a huge population, and there is the inevitability that when you meet someone, you will be able to hear something that they have done wrong from someone else. It can really ruin some guys when you hear they’re the “shag and run” kind, but then sometimes, such as now, you hear how horrible a person is *after* they’ve screwed over your friends.
Even more unfortunately for me, was the fact that Ben had dated him. I’d met Xander, and in terms of looks and personality he was very different from me, meaning I probably wouldn’t be considered to be Ben’s “type”. There was also the fact that Ben had sunk to the low of dating someone as despicable as Xander, but that’s the kind of food-for-thought best considered after the second date.
“By the way...” Ben continued, apparently oblivious not only to my flirting but also to the fact that my mind had wandered into a new train of thought. “...did you want to catch a movie on Tuesday night? I have some free tickets to use.”
Back we went to that line....dinner and a movie is the archetypal first date, a very “friends” activity, but of course sufficiently close friends could also go to the movies again, especially with free tickets. It was the kind of thing that Colin and I did all the time, and neither of us were under the delusion it was anything more than killing time. I just had to wonder whether or not Ben and I had reached that point in our friendship.
“That could work, any idea what you want to see?”
“I haven’t even looked yet...how about I check times and everything and give you a call on Monday night?”
And just like that, Ben and I had plans for what might have been a date. The only way to find out really was to go on it and hope I didn’t get stuck watching a boring chick flick...

Red Shoes Pt 1

2008-08-14T19:10:00.000-07:00

Travis

I was about three blocks away from where I’d intended to be. Why? Well as I wandered along Swanston St, pondering what to do with my day, I encountered a distraction. And what a pretty young distraction he was. He wore red shoes. This was probably the most prominent detail about him that stood out, that and he had a really nice ass. So for about ten minutes I followed that really nice ass around the city.

With a day off, I had nothing of great important to do, and so spending a portion of that day with something really nice to look at wasn’t exactly a bad thing. He was gay too, I was sure of it. Although even if my highly tuned gaydar was wrong, it’s a known fact that the difference between gay and straight is somewhere between six and eight beers, and I wasn’t adverse to the idea of getting such a boy drunk beforehand.

I eventually had to stop following Red Shoes, as he went inside an office building. Following a person around the streets of Melbourne is fine, but as soon as you follow them into a private building that crosses the line into stalking. And I was the kind of person who got stalked, not the other way around.

So with my entertainment for the morning gone, I wandered down to Bourke St, where I figured there were very few better ways to spend an afternoon than spending money on new clothes while flirting with sales assistants. Sales assistants at a lot of the stores in Melbourne could be quite fun, as could the change rooms – I have some very interesting tales I could tell you about the change rooms in David Jones..

While I walked through Myer, shopping equally for new jeans, several new pairs of underwear, and a new boy equally, I spotted him.

The first thing that I recognised was the shoes. It’s a funny thing about colour – red always stands out and draws your attention to it. Of course everything that he was wearing was black – black jeans, a black t-shirt. Colour aside, his clothes were actually really plain – his jeans showing off his ass only when you knew what to look for, and his t-shirt hanging off his body so loosely that it was impossible to tell the kind of muscle definition that the body beneath it possessed.
I was however appalled, because in his hands Red Shoes was holding the most horrendous jacket. It was the kind that a grandfather would wear to the Sunday markets. It was woolly, and a weird green/brown colour. It wasn’t even the kind of jacket that would feel nice, looking like it was made from a horrible coarse material that would irritate skin instead of the smooth material that a truly hot jacket is made of.

To make matters worse, Red Shoes was buying this ugly jacket.

Don’t do it!! I mentally screamed. You’re hot, don’t give in to the Dark Side of fashion...don’t buy the horrible jacket!

Then after purchasing the ugly jacket, Red Shoes put it on. The effect that happened was amazing. I own several clothes that achieve a similar effect – that look ugly when in a wardrobe, but once a person puts them on they draw attention to all of the right places on a person’s body.
In the space of a minute Red Shoes had gone from a guy in plain black clothes to absolute hotness, as the jacket made him appear to have a nicely toned body, broad shoulders and muscular arms. This combined with the ass I had followed halfway across Melbourne almost made me drool all over the pair of jeans I was holding in my hands.

I then realised how much I was staring at him. Not just the vague into space staring that people sometimes do, but the obvious “oh my god I’m looking at you staring” Red Shoes caught my eyes and I was quite worried. If he’d seen me earlier on in the day he’d have remembered me – fluro pink shirts aren’t very common in Melbourne, although it’s not stalking if they keep ending up where you’re going is it? Then he smiled, which I think freaked me out even more.

The smile was one of the hottest I had ever seen, and I walked away, simply because if I didn’t I would have given in to the overwhelming urge I had to throw him into a change room, rip his clothes off and have my way with him. Although normally I wasn’t adverse to such an idea I was hesitant for a few reasons.

Firstly, he might have been smiling for another reason, or at someone else, an oddly un-self-involved thought for me on a Wednesday afternoon. Or he might have had a crap body that was just made to look shaggable by a really good jacket. Most importantly though, the change rooms at Myer, although amazingly roomy, weren’t especially soundproof, and the things I was imagining doing to Red Shoes would hardly have been quiet.

So in something very much unlike me, I got into an elevator and left Red Shoes and his hot jacket to his own devices. I pushed a button in the lift, saw him walking vaguely in the direction of the lift, and had the momentary fantasy of him walking into my lift, and us having amazing sex in an elevator, but then Red Shoes turned a corner and was gone from my sight.

The elevator doors closed, and I was alone in the elevator.

I decided I would eat my sexual frustration, and headed to my favourite cafe in Degraves St, which was perfectly situated to watch the hot young things in suits walking about on their lunch breaks. On my way there I walked through a little arcade I often walked through, and past a little shoe shop.

In the window, there they were, the exact same red shoes that Red Shoes wore, with several big signs underneath them

“SALE!!” “WONT GET THEM LIKE THIS AGAIN!!”“THEY WON’T BE THIS CHEAP FOR LONG!!”

I’m not the most open minded person, I’ll admit them. Fate and destiny are a load of crap for people who are determined to be less lonely, and soul mates are for straight people. Despite this, I’m willing to recognise a sign when I see one. According to the sign, Red Shoes was cheap...just my kind of guy. This combined with my complete lust for the boy meant that I assured myself, and the pair of shoes in the window, that if I were to see that boy I would jump his bones.
About half an hour later, I was sitting in the cafe eating a salad, alone. Suits are an amazing invention, and they are capable of making some of the most plain men look incredibly attractive.

Since the majority of people who work in the city wear suits, this ensured a constant stream of eye candy as I sat there. Then I saw him again. After seeing the shoes on sale I was sceptical, since the chance of running into the same person three times in one day in Melbourne aren’t exactly very high.

But there was no doubt it was him – the shoes were Red, the hair was black and messy, the jacket was ugly, and woolly, but made his body look amazing, and his ass was still one of the best I had seen in recent memory. All the good things were there, and so I decided it was time to fulfil the promise I had made to myself and the little shoe shop.

I flung some money at the waiter, enough that my food was covered and he would get quite a nice tip. The waiter was pretty hot too, so I was happy to give him a generous tip. I then sprinted down the crowded street as fashionably as I could, following Red Shoes as closely as I could, although the sheer number of people made it quite difficult.

He went down the steps into Flinders St Station...I followed him with about ten people between us.

Just as I lost sight of him through the tunnel, I tripped over something and landed on the ground. I then had a shoe’s-eye view of the station, and I saw the red shoes walking up the ramp to a platform.

I was on my feet again within moments and dashed up that same ramp, and caught up with him on the platform, grabbed him and turned him around.
My heart sank, the bulge in my pants instantly vanished as I saw his face.

The red shoes were the same, but the boy I had grabbed was not my Red Shoes. I was too busy focusing on the shoes as I ran up the ramp I hadn’t bothered to check the other essential details, and clearly someone else in Melbourne had decided to buy the shoes in that shop window.
I didn’t bother to apologise, I was too depressed, too shattered that I’d now completely lost the boy I’d ended up spending the entire day lusting after. I bolted down the ramp again and the confused face of the boy who wasn’t my Red Shoes vanished into the crowd...

I spend the next little while wandering around the station. Oddly enough, I had absolutely no interest in most of the boys there. Sure, some of them were hot, but they lacked that something, there wasn’t that absolute hotness that Red Shoes possessed.

It was an odd feeling for me. I’m accustomed to feeling lust for people I’ve never spoken to before, and often I’m able to satisfy that lust pretty quickly too, but I’d never known myself to become so consumed with the thought of someone that I’d actually run after them through a train station. I wasn’t going to fall prey to romantic notions like saying I was in love with Red Shoes, but I was certainly going to miss the excitement that he had bought into my day if I was never going to see him again.

Giving up on it, I decided it was time to head home. I made my way to my platform, and sat down and waited for my train, oblivious to most of my surroundings save the pigeons hopping around in front of me.

The train arrived, I got on and stared out the window until we started going through a tunnel.

The outside of the train became total blackness, turning all of the windows into mirrors, reflecting all of the people inside the train.

It was there I saw them, next to the middle-aged woman in heels to high for her and the hot guy in the suit.

The Red Shoes.

Justin

2008-08-14T19:08:00.000-07:00

By midday the next morning, none of the boys had surfaced from their bedrooms. I had heard some yelling coming from the rooms the night before – which was to be expected considering that Travis had gone home with Xander, and Colin had gone home with the guy that had rejected Travis only hours before.

I had gone home alone, in what was the standard fair for me, and I woke up fairly early, and expected there to be a couple of Walks of Shame across my lounge room floor at some point in the morning.

Although there weren’t, and so just before midday I decided to make pancakes, with the theory that the smell would attract the boys.

Surely enough, within minutes there they all were...Travis and Xander, and Colin and his little blonde thing.

The scene was especially awkward – Travis and Colin weren’t speaking to each other, and they simply ushered their boys out of the house as soon as they could before putting in requests for pancakes and heading to their rooms.

Once I’d finished making pancakes I called them both out of their rooms. I was almost tempted to take my food into my room and let them fight it out in the kitchen, but as Travis came out he had something in his hands – Colin’s jacket, which had been left behind by Xander in his hurried rushing out of the apartment.

Colin took it quietly, accepting the peace offering, but Colin was the kind of person who would let the anger about something like this building up for a while, until Travis did something else wrong. In the short term it was an effective strategy, although the frequency with which Travis did things wrong meant that Colin’s anger would be unleashed at some point soon – and I think that Travis understood he had stuffed up and his reprieve was only temporary at best.

So the three of us sat there, in relative silence, eating out pancakes.

“So Justin, I’m guessing you didn’t feel the need to do your hair this morning?” Colin broke the silence.

“Or even put like...proper clothes on, as opposed to those weird pyjamas?” Travis added.

Typical fags, even if they’re at each other’s throats, they still have time to insult other people’s hair and clothing...I just let them go for it and ate my pancakes.

Travis

2008-07-31T18:45:00.003-07:00

So I had a day off, and stumbled out of bed at around...4pm. I lead a glamorous life but hey! When I got home and 8am I got my solid eight hours sleep still! Colin was passed out on the couch, looking a little bit hungover and quite horrible. So I dragged him back to his room while he mumbled something about a jacket. He looked quite cold so I got a jacket out of his wardrobe and put that on him. It didn’t seem to help but I thought I’d be quite maternal.

It wasn’t until Justin got home and went to talk to Colin that it made sense. Xander had dumped Colin, and wanted back the jacket he had lent him, and Colin missed his borrowed jacket. I think that’s what they were saying anyway. It’s really hard to eavesdrop sometimes when they insist on whispering. I mean, I’m going to find out anyway!

It was my turn to cook dinner, and so I felt that since Colin was feeling crap I would get KFC.
Honestly. So we sat like civilised people eating out big bucket of chicken and I got told by Colin about how horrible men were and how I should never date. Xander had dumped him, at least they were finally telling me things.

Clearly Colin wasn’t paying attention to me though, since I have like, no intention of dating. Ever. I’m quite content with going out, picking up and going home with a guy who I may/may not call later that week when I’m bored. It sounds harsh, I know. But how many guys are going to object to a free lay? They might object afterwards but of course if they’re not calling me I don’t hear it.
So it doesn’t count.

Being a Friday night, and more importantly a Friday night where I wasn’t stuck behind a bar getting tips from ugly people for taking my shirt off, we went out. Justin, Colin and myself are pretty damn cool sometimes. Like the Three Musketeers, or the Three Amigos or something.
We all walk into a club and we’re so fashionable that everyone stares at us. Well, mostly at me, because I’m fashionable, but you know what I mean.

Colin wanted to spend most of the night sitting down, I think because the bottle of Vodka he’d been drinking the night before was still getting to him a little bit. He was also drinking soft drink, which is weird because I think anyone who has just been dumped is in need of at least as much alcohol as their body can tolerate, if not more.

Speaking of dumped, it was as I was dancing around on the dance floor with Justin, that we spotted Xander. Justin ran off to play therapist to Colin, or at least try to avoid letting the poor boy see his ex skanking it onto a new boy, and I ran to the bar to get another drink, mostly just because my current drink was running out.

“So how’s Colin?” Came a voice from behind me.

I turned around, and there was Xander. I had been spotted. Damn.

“He would probably be better if he didn’t see you.” I said, turning back to my drink.

“Well I could leave now...if only I had someone to leave with.”

I just turned and looked at him. The music at the club was loud but I was sure I hadn’t misheard what he said. Yup....my housemate’s ex was coming on to me. Great.

“Well there’s a forty year old virgin over there, have fun Xander.” I put a straw in my drink, took a sip while giving Xander a cheeky grin, and then moved away as quickly as one can with a
full drink.

It was then that I spotted what might be the hottest guy on the planet. Okay, so there’s a few obscure actors who are hotter, but he was without a doubt the hottest guy in the club that wasn’t me. A match made in heaven.

He was blonde, a natural-looking one too, not the bleached crap. Wearing a black singlet that showed off everything just enough, dancing enough that he didn’t look too reserved but not so much that he looked like he was on drugs. Ticks in all the boxes. I bounced over to introduce myself.

As is tradition in gay society, the first way of introducing yourself to a guy, especially one you find hot, is not to walk up and talk to them, but to simply walk past, grab their ass, and then wink at them. I did this and about twelve steps later had my arm get grabbed and was pulled back to face black singlet boy.

“I’m Matt. Wanna dance?” He asked.

“Sure.”

He never asked for my name. I don’t think he really cared.

We spent the next four drinks and few hours dancing, and making out, and generally showing ourselves off. People generally get sad when they see two hot people hooking up, it reminds them that they can only get people on their level. Matt was a lot of fun though, everything was going well for me to have a good night. I had no idea where Justin and Colin were, and frankly, I didn’t care too much since Matt was right there in front of me with big blue eyes and being the world’s greatest kisser.

Another few drinks later, Matt and I somehow ended up in the toilets. The toilet stalls at a gay club are not often used for people to actually go to the toilet, and it is definitely not uncommon for guys to be coming in and out of toilet stalls in pairs. It definitely takes some adjusting to seeing the first few times, and it’s not something I would normally do, but I was in the mood for a taste of Matt before we went back to someone’s house.

Just as I was getting started though, Matt’s pants were coming back on, and he just shook his head and looked down at me.

“Wow....you give crap head. How disappointing. I thought stooping to pick up an ugly, pretentious guy would have paid off tonight...”

And just like that, Matt was gone.

I however, didn’t quite know what to do. I sat in the toilet stall for a few minutes, wondering what the hell had just gone wrong. Thinking was happening quite slowly after so many drinks I’d lost count, but I was pretty sure I’d been called ugly. And conceited. I’m neither of those things.

I walked out of the toilet stall with only one thing on my mind. Getting a hot guy, and getting him in to bed. I didn’t need Matt, and hot guy would do to prove to myself that I was neither ugly nor stuck-up. As I walked across the dancefloor in search of prey, I felt myself pushed up against the wall and kissed. By someone who was quite a good kisser too.

It was Xander.

Xander was actually a pretty hot guy, wearing a *really* hot jacket and he was interested. Instant ego boost. And so we left the bar basically that instant, and about twenty minutes later we were in my bed having some really amazing sex.

Then the door opened. I was in a position where I couldn’t see who was at the door, but Xander was.

“Colin?” Xander said

“Xander?” I heard Colin from the door.

“Colin?!” I pulled myself out from under Xander and sat up.

“Travis!!?” Colin basically shouted.

The bedroom door slammed again.

Colin's Long Walk - Part 4

2008-07-31T18:45:00.001-07:00

COMING SOON

Colin's Long Walk - Part 3

2008-07-11T22:30:00.000-07:00

The upside to my dark, lonely apartment is that being a house belonging to a group of males under twenty-five, it contains quite a vast supply of alcohol. Even more importantly, the couch is within arm’s reach of the fridge.

So while I sat, drinking vodka out of the bottle and watching episodes of TV shows where people get broken up with, I came to a rather depressing realisation. It wasn’t that I was single and alone – that one had sunken in on the way home.

The realisation was that I was actually kinda sad about it. I’d been so busy making myself be annoyed about my jacket (although in fairness, it was a cool jacket), that I’d neglected to actually realised that I was just trying to keep myself angry since that way I wouldn’t have to be depressed. Deep I know, but that’s the kind of self-reflection only obtained by half a bottle of vodka and that episode of Will and Grace where Grace has been dumped and lies in bed depressed all day as everyone fruitlessly tries to cheer her up.

I mean, Xander and I had been dating a little over two months, which when you convert into gay-relationship time, was really more like six months. You see, gay relationships for some odd reason tend to function differently to the relationships of straight people. While a straight relationship will quite commonly last for six months, and this is considered a milestone, and a year onwards is quite common once a relationship has hit this boundary, the average lifespan of a gay relationship is under three months, and so a relationship that makes it to a year is considered to be something akin to marriage.

So two months, although it doesn’t seem like a long time, was actually quite a while. Two whole months of petrol and spending money on soppy things like dates and presents and giving up nights that I could have spent doing productive things like getting drunk and watching TV in order to spend time with my significant other. Well at least tonight I was back to the productive things.

So productive in fact, that at some point in the night the combination of the alcohol, the tiredness, the depression, and the sheer comfiness of our couch combined, and I passed out.
Unfortunately, heavy drinking and emotional exhaustion are horrible if you let them associate with each other, and so at some point the next morning I woke up to pain. After I attempted to open my eyes a few times, only to decide that closed was a much better position for eyes because the light couldn’t hurt them as much that way, I then tried to figure out what the pain was.

Oh yeah, hangovers. Man’s best friend.

After about ten minutes of lying, wallowing, feeling sorry for myself, I was finally motive to attempt movement by the overwhelming urge to pee. But this worked out, since the toilet is close to the shower, and after a night of drinking there is nothing that feels better than sitting down in the shower and just letting the hot water make everything feel just a little bit better while you’re waiting for the painkillers to kick in.

About twenty minutes later, I emerged from the bathroom now resembling something that although not completely human, could be considered to be one of mankind’s early cousins.

Definite improvement.

I then grabbed my phone and set about arranging a lunch date with something that is essential for the survival of almost any gay man in a modern world – the straight woman.

There are many different kinds of straight woman that accompany the gay man in his journey through the world. There is the one that lives vicariously through the adventurous sex lives that gay men often have, relishing the scandal that takes places. There is the attractive woman who goes to the gay clubs where no one can hit on her, and then there is the unattractive and slightly large woman who goes to the gay clubs because then she actually will get some male attention as the drunken gay men feel her up. There is also the straight woman who for some unfortunate reason, keeps falling in love with gay men.

Emma, my straight woman, fell mostly into this last category. Although she did love the scandal of gay sex that was my life and friendship circle, she also had fallen hard for several different gay men. She had slept with at least two gay men, dated three who had decided they were gay not long after dating her, and she had dated a drag queen. Twice. We never asked her why or how such a relationship worked, since we were afraid of the answer.

Colin's Long Walk Pt2

2008-07-01T06:33:00.000-07:00

It was only upon reaching the door to the apartment that I had the world’s slowest realisation – that my keys were in the jacket that I had hastily left slung over Xander’s desk chair. There was an obvious problem involved with this. I could ring the doorbell to my heart’s content and Justin would be none the wiser, having been trained to be a heavy sleeper after months of living in a bedroom next to Travis. Travis of course was probably going to be out all night, which left me in the horrible predicament of sitting looking very lonely out the front of my apartment, or walking up the road and going clubbing.
Neither of these were particularly attractive perspectives, and although, as is the case with many newly-single people, I had a very strong urge to drink quite a lot of very strong alcohol, this was something that is best done in the privacy of one’s home with people who care about you and are able to call you an ambulance. If I was to attempt such a practice at the Commercial up the road...most likely I would end up being ‘taken care of’ by a man in his mid-thirties who was more than willing to have his way with me in my drunken state.
Faced with such a situation I did what many better and lesser men would do, I sat on my doorstep and cried. Not my finest moment; probably enough to top the moment of vomiting in the park after excessive drinking – although that is a different story that is best saved for another time. My saving grace of such a situation is that unlike the time in the park, there was no one around to look at me, and take photos to post on Facebook. I consider this to be a good thing.
But it was definitely one of those situations where life just gets too much – where you want to totally give up on men as a species, turn straight, marry a moderately attractive and slightly older woman and live in a sexless marriage with an ill-conceived child and a Labradoodle. Possibly I have given this concept too much thought.
It was at this moment, where, inevitably, things got worse.
“Forgot your keys?”
Xander had arrived. With an incredibly disgusting smirk on his face that I would have found attractive a couple of hours earlier, holding my apartment keys, complete with TinTin keyring, in front of me.
And wearing my jacket.
In this situation I was faced with four possible comebacks. There is the horrible prideful step of pretending I was okay, and refusing the keys in order to prove to him that I don’t need him. This would still leave me out in the cold however, so it probably isn’t the most successful option.
Next there is the simple idea of taking the keys, storming inside without so much as a thank you, and pretending that I never saw him and that he barely did me a favour. Tempting, since it both gets me out of the cold and still keeps my pride – mostly.
Options three and four involve hugs and pretending that all is well, or making a smart-ass comment about my jacket.
Naturally, I take option four.
“I also forgot my jacket, did you happen to see that anywhere...such as being worn by my recent ex-boyfriend?”
“No I didn’t see your jacket. Do you like my new jacket though? I got it last week.”
Smug bastard.
As much as it pained me, I had to say goodbye to my beloved jacket. You know that a break-up has gone into a strange place when the loss of a jacket merits more depression than the loss of the boy, but since a conversation with my newly created ex wasn’t at the top of my to-do list, especially while I was tear stricken, cold, and outside my apartment. So I reverted back to option two. I snatched the keys out of his hand, turned and went inside and closed the door behind me.
I then did something that was probably quite immature considering the situation, and I’m not entirely proud of either.
I stuck my tongue out at him.
I know, classy. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and I felt that it avenged the loss of jacket even just a little bit. I then climbed the many stairs up to my very dark and lonely sounding apartment.

Colin's Long Walk - Part 1

2008-06-23T05:21:00.000-07:00

Contrary to popular belief, the date is not dead among gay people.

Rest assured its existence is by no means safe, or common, but the date does exist. It is hard to maintain such a thing, in a community where sex on the first date is considered to be a norm, but there are those of us who still try to have a proper date, where you do romantic things and it’s not all just a big night of foreplay before getting into the bedroom.

Unfortunately, I chose to date someone who doesn’t subscribe to these same beliefs, and so my “date” with Xander turned out to be meeting him for the world’s quickest alcoholic beverage before having the world’s quickest walk drive back to his place followed by the world’s quickest sex. Those who maintain that romance isn’t dead need to take a look at Xander...as fun as the guy is, would it kill him to actually spend some time in conversation that isn’t just taking place on the way to and from the bedroom?

I know...I’m asking a lot. The fact that I put out at every turn doesn’t help me champion the cause of romance either does it? But hey everyone is human and unfortunately male hormones are something that are incredibly hard to overcome when faced with attractive men offering to do dirty, dirty things to you. At least I think about saying no...which counts for something?

Anyway, it was after the eggtimer went *ting* and Xander had finished the world’s quickest, least, satisfying sex ever had by people who weren’t lesbians or involving a man with a penis less than 4 inches big, I decided it was time for bed. It is a well used strategy of men in relationships to simply pretend to be asleep not long after sex, in order to avoid having conversations about the quality of the sex, or worse, other non-sex related topics. Contrary to what had happened while I wasn’t wearing any clothes, this was the point where I chose to be the man in the relationship.

Xander however, knowing this trick employed by many men, including him at least twice over the previous two weeks, decided this would be a good point to initiate at least three different types of conversation, the most exciting of which was.

“Colin, let’s break up?”

Here follows the world’s quickest breakup, the world’s quickest punch to the face, the world’s quickest “I hate you and never want to see you again” speech, the world’s quickest getting dressed, and the world’s quickest storming out of the house. The Guiness Records people must have been busy if they were following me around tonight.

So as I walked rather quickly along the street in the dark, turning corners at random intervals just in case Xander had decided following me in his car was an intelligent idea (it wasn’t, I’d picked up some rocks from his neighbour’s garden), I realised quite a few things.

Firstly, I was single again, and despite the many perks of the deal, I kind of hated being single.
Next came the sudden feeling of loneliness, despair and need for alcohol. This was followed by remembering I had left my jacket at Xander’s house, and a jacket is really handy when it’s freezing cold. Then came the wish that I had driven to Xander’s house in my car and not his, because I was actually quite a ways away from home, and walking the length of Chapel St at night can sometimes be a dangerous prospect.

I also really wished I had that jacket. It was a nice jacket. Went with everything. And was bloody warm too. A jacket like that is probably harder to get than a boyfriend.

About three or four blocks into my walk I calmed down. After all, it’s very hard to walk quickly in the freezing cold as an emotional wreck, where as a calm person is able to walk quickly and with purpose and contemplate the meaning of warms jackets in peace. So this is what I did.
Chapel St is one of those odd roads. While Commercial Road is hip and happening in fag-land,

Chapel St is a centre of straight “get drunk and/or laid” culture. From one end of apartments, through to paint shops and then cafes and then shops and then clubs and bars, it is one long stretch of entertainment pretty much non-stop. And while Commercial Rd is a fairly short street, quickly disappearing into Malvern Rd not long after it begins; Chapel St stretches either way far beyond where it is cool to be.

Of course the cool part of Chapel St is incredibly long, and just before midnight on a Thursday, not very much excitement is happening. What’s worse, is that there are so many food shops, all of which serve incredibly good food, and all of them are closed. Dinner was such a long time ago, and sex, anger and walking are all activities that use up quite a bit of energy. It is at times like this when a 24hr Hungry Jacks across the road from your house comes in handy.

With the thought of chips in mind, what was beginning to feel like an endlessly long walk becomes shorter and shorter as the glowing fast food sign can be seen in the distance. Plus, all the walking would have worked off whatever I was going to eat, so no matter how much I buy I’m still going to be healthy.

Oh, and I’d been dumped less than an hour earlier. If a boy needs an excuse for junk food, that is in the top ten.

Prologue - Part 3

2008-06-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

By the time Colin had actually gotten himself ready, it was well past nine o’clock. You would think it would take a boy less than an hour to get ready when he’s just off to see his boyfriend wouldn’t you? Yet somehow Colin manages to stretch the process out for no apparent reason. I couldn’t help but wonder about the lateness of his visit to Xander’s house though, so I felt the need to ask the question.

“Booty call or date?”

Colin just laughed. “Does it matter? Either way I’m getting laid?”

And with a cheeky grin Colin bounced out the door, leaving the house rather quiet. That’s the only problem with having housemates like Colin and Travis, they bring a lot of life to the house.

The downside to this is the life often comes with noise...whether it’s the Xbox or that repetitive banging against a wall or even just loud drunken phone conversations, my weekends often don’t involve a lot of sleep.

I walked through the lounge room, around the now clean armchair, and my gigantic brown leather couch which looked so dull compared to the rest of the room, yet I’ve been told is the comfiest couch to sleep on this side of the Equator, so I feel the colour co-ordination can suffer in lieu of comfort.

The other thing I love about my apartment, is the window. From the lounge room you can look out on Commercial Road. The tram line, Prahran market, if you squint you can even see all the clubs in the distance. You have no idea how much such a view costs, since every fag and his dog wants to live on Commercial Rd. It’s not the world’s busiest street, nor is it the biggest or brightest, but so much happens on that small stretch of road. Not all of it is important, most of it is really quite funny, especially because it’s happening to other people. But for quite a lot of the gay population of Melbourne...their lives revolve around Commercial Road.

After a noisy tram rattles past, I decided that I should try to end up comatosed before one of the boys gets home. I headed to my bedroom, gave the room one quick scan to make sure everything was clean and switched off, then I turn off the light and go to sleep...

Prologue - Part 2

2008-06-15T06:09:00.000-07:00

Following dinner Colin and myself went on a cleaning spree, since Travis wasn’t home to mess things up or complain we were making too much noise and he couldn’t hear the TV over the vacuum. The pair of us tackled the dirt and dust of our household as efficiently as we could, with Colin attempting to be manly with the mop and vacuum as he tried to clean the floors, while I was given the feather duster and was cleaning ever shelf, table or mantelpiece I could find.

“So it’s Simon’s birthday this weekend? Have you got him a present yet?” Colin asked as we cleaned.

“I was planning to, but I’m not a talented present-chooser, so I was hoping that someone such as yourself would just buy something and then I’d give you money for it. His party is just down the road isn’t it?”

“How did I know you would try to foist present duty on to me? I’m so going to lie to you and make you pay more!”

“That’s fine, I can afford to, unlike some people in this house.”

“Ouch. But it’s true...daddy can pay for you to get a lot of things.” Colin said, quickly moving to avoid a swing of a feather duster aimed for his head. “And yes, the party is at the Commercial. Travis is working as per usual so guess who is on the door list and getting free drinks?”

“I’m not sure but I’m guessing a boy who is about to have dust in his hair?” I swung again with the feather duster, this time with a bit more success. Colin’s hair turned a shade greyer.

“Do you mind? I’m supposed to be seeing Xander later on! I don’t want him thinking I’m as old as you are!”

This comment served only to have the duster aimed at him one more time. Colin, thinking quickly, blocked the duster with the vacuum. What ensued was a miniature swordfight with cleaning implements, which only served to redistribute the dust and dirt back around the room.
This was especially the case when Colin got overzealous with his vacuum usage, and lifted the entire unit off the ground, opening it up and spraying dust and dirt all over the lounge.

This is the problem when you buy fancy, overpriced cleaning devices...they were never intended to be used for sword-fighting. If only manufacturers were more considerate.

Colin and I just stopped and stared as a cloud of dust covered not only us – ruining my pyjamas, but also half of our lounge suite. Travis’ favourite chair copped most of the grime, and Colin no longer looked like an old man, instead some sort of crazy dust bunny. We then looked at each other, and the state of one another’s clothes, and burst out laughing.

After what seemed like an hour of laughing, in which we both ended up sitting down – Colin in Travis’ now dirty armchair and myself on the coffee table, which was probably cleaner at the start of the night than it was at this point.

“By the way...I shotgun the shower and not cleaning this up! I have a date to attend to!” Colin said.

Before I could protest this...he had run out of the room. I would follow but he was aiming for the shower, which would mean nudity. I think seeing a housemate nude is something that doesn’t sit very high on my to do list, so I decided the safer option was attempting to salvage my lounge room from the mess we had created. At least my TV had remained safe from the dust attack...

Prologue - Part 1

2008-06-07T04:15:00.000-07:00

You would think living across the road from a tram stop would indicate not needing an umbrella, wouldn’t you? But it’s winter, it’s pouring with rain, and as always I’m forced to dash across the road to the apartment whilst trying to minimise the damage to my suit...and my hair.

I own and umbrella. In fact between the three of us we own four umbrellas. But they all sit next to the door in the umbrella stand. None of us are really sure why we even have an umbrella stand; it was probably obtained in a frivolous trip to Ikea, and it, like the coat rack next to it, sit there more for decoration than for actual use.

Of course on days like today, the thought of an umbrella is comforting. But carrying an umbrella around with me all day is annoying, and half the time I would leave the umbrella at work in my haste to get to the tram.

Plus it doesn’t match my suit.

As always, the mail hasn’t been checked. I’m the last one home for the day, yet somehow the mailbox always seems to remain ignored as everyone else makes their way home. Anyone would think I live with lazy people. Or at least people who don’t care about thinks like bills and speeding fines.

Speaking of bills, included in today’s batch is an internet bill – second notice. Colin was supposed to pay this about a month ago. Clearly he saw better things to do with his time. At least climbing the stairs to the apartment allows me to take out some of my frustration.

As I get into the apartment though, everything is almost forgiven. Either pre-empting my anger or simply because he was motivated for a change, Colin is cooking. I have no idea what it is but the smell is to die for. I just hope that he’s made enough for two...

EDIT 8/9
“Before you start nagging...it’s been paid already.” Colin shouted from the kitchen. “And if you can de-business yourself in ten minutes dinner will be ready.”

Colin is unfortunately perceptive. It’s a frustrating when I’ve prepared a rant, only to have it cut off before I can even begin.

Colin then dashes into the living room to get something from the fridge and looks at me, standing in the doorway, dripping wet still, with an expression on my face that I feel is somewhere between confused and angry. He just pokes out his tongue and returns to the kitchen.

“I wasn’t going to nag!” I shout out at him. “By the way...”

“The rent is on your bed. With a towel. You’re dripping on the floor and it’s my turn to clean the floors this week. So if you wouldn’t mind making less of a muddy mess on our doorstep it would be appreciated.”

Sometimes you can’t win. Although I can’t help but smile; it’s probably the one day a month when Colin is actually being thoughtful, so it’s often best to go with it, laugh, and then enjoy the moment. Of course enjoying the moment requires walking very slowly through the lounge room, taking care to drip as much as possible as I do.

After drying my hair, re-doing my hair twice, then deciding that no one important is going to see my hair and giving up on it, I return to the lounge room. By this point more than ten minutes has passed and Colin is sitting at the dining table with a bowl in front of him. I stop at the fridge on the way for a beer and join Colin.

Having the fridge in the lounge room is both a curse and a blessing. The reason for such an occurrence is a combination of my father going ‘here...take the credit card and buy a fridge’, and my choice of a huge double-door fridge that unfortunately doesn’t fit into the alcove in the kitchen. The end result is a fridge in the lounge room (great for getting drinks while watching tv, a pain to run to while cooking), and an empty alcove in the kitchen which is used to house a plant, and a stolen standee of Orlando Bloom. Needless to say, Pirates of the Caribbean and a house plant makes for an interesting feature, and a lounge room with a fridge in it breaks new ground for interior decorating.

“Let me guess, Travis won’t be joining us for dinner tonight?” I ask as I join Colin at the dinner table.

“Well since you’re eating his dinner, no. He ran out of the house for a date about ten minutes before you left. I think it was another Ben this time...or maybe a Brad.”

So that explained the dinner. I always suspected that Colin being prepared was too good to be true. But dinner is dinner and it’s best not to complain about such things until after the meal.

“This is where my ‘don’t even bother trying to remember their name until the third date’ rule comes in handy. It’s best just to call them all Steve and be done with it.” I replied.
“Why Steve?”
“Well I figure it’s generic enough, and it’s more polite than giving them numbers or basing their identifications on the article of clothing they leave behind.”
“But I always through blue g-string was a nice guy...”
“I think the less said about that incident the better. I’m sure blue g-string was a nice guy, although hearing him all night every night for a week wasn’t as exciting as it sounds.”
“It’s not my fault you want Travis in the bedroom next to you!”
“I wanted him in the bedroom furthest from the bathroom. At least I know you don’t spend half an hour in there every morning waxing, plucking and straightening.”
“Says the man who just spent fifteen minutes trying to resurrect his hair following it getting rained upon?”

At this point I felt that the English language had failed me in terms of witty repartee, and so I responded by throwing a convenient piece of stir-fry at Colin. Who said maturity was my strong point?

2008-05-21T00:02:00.000-07:00

Firstly,

http://kotaku.com/392252/rich-nerds-want-to-build-a-utopian-city-in-the-ocean-andwait-a-minute

Secondly,

I am better than my mother at Wii Fit.

Wii Fit does not tell me I am fat...this is also cool.
However it tells me every day that I have gained weight..I don't know if I support this notion.

We now return to your irregular broadcasting.

Holidays

2008-04-28T06:15:00.000-07:00

So apparently my neglect of this blog has reached the attention of some readers, who believe that my will to post has faltered following my second post, and that, like many blogs out on the interwebs, two posts is as far as the blog will go.

This is a lie! I will have at *least* three posts!

So the main reason for my lack of posting is mostly just that I don't want to whinge about life...so here is an update on my life in four dot points.

- Work sucks
- I'm sick
- With tonsilitis
- Again

Okay and yes those are dash points but still. So of course the fun part is that I get sick again the day before I fly to Perth to visit my wonderful friend Jamie. So I have spent the last 3 days passed out on a couch/bed in perth, briefly moving around to do actvities before crawling back into a bed/couch to rest. In other words not fun.

I did however find my clone in Perth, although he doesn't look identical to me, in terms of his mannerisms etc. he is very much like me. it is both odd and scary. and i know that the punctuation in this paragraph has gone to the shit and i very much don't care. and i know that if he doesn't look like me technically he isn't my clone.

Anyways work tommorrow. I was going to call in sick but instead I'm doing a halfday then taking the rest of the week off. I feel I win in this arrangement.

Night Children.

Allergic Reactions

2008-04-18T01:44:00.000-07:00

Ladies and Gentlemen, I fear I may be allergic to penicillin...you may now commence panicking.

...you may now drink some vodka.

Okay now that that episode is over (and even if you weren't panicking, I hope you drank vodka), I will explain. So as a short yet sweet whinge at the end of my last post revealed, I had tonsilitis, was on some fun antibiotic drugs to make things better, which is what happened..and tada! Healthy tonsils. However side effect ahoy in the form of a lovely rash, which according to my friendly doctor indicates I'm either allergic to penicillin or have glandular fever. I have a feeling it's option A though.

So, that annoys me. The more severe of my gripes is work related. You see, for several months now I have asked work for more hours, so that I can facilitate moving out of home without a relocation of workplace, and they have declined because apparently there's no money. Our full timer (our sole full timer) in the paint department just quit. Instead of like...promoting their next most senior person (ie. me), they have decided to find two new people...and train them up. I would of course me training them...would I get trainer wages for this? I think not! So umm...there will probably be words had.

In addition...they feel I should work 35hrs a week...when I'm getting paid for 24. You see, Bunnings has this amazing overtime system...where when we work over our contracted hours, it goes into a "bank of hours"...which means that if we work less than contracted hours...it comes out of there. It works in theory...because time off yay! Except there will be no way for me to get this time off..cuz there's noone to replace me *now* let alone when our full timer goes. So stress. And Anger. And Illness.

Peace Out

Introductions

2008-04-15T02:20:00.000-07:00

So in the shameless spirit of copying I have now created a blog, in copying of Luke. Why? Because I miss blogging. And also because I'm bored. Now some of you may (*cough*) may think to point out that in fact there has been a niche in the market for myself to create a blog for quite some time, and I should have hurried up and copied them earlier.

I have no defense to such a claim.

Anyways, for those of you wishing to keep tabs (which is none of you)..I'm Andrew..21..live in Sunny (or wet/windy/cloudy/boiling hot depending on what time of day) Melbourne...where I am a paint monkey at Bunnings while I slave away writing my English thesis on a video game.

Yes you read that correctly, I am writing a thesis on a video game. Why? Mostly just because I can, and also because I feel that if I have to endure 15,000 words of writing on something, it should be something I enjoy. Can you imagine writing 15k words on Shakespeare without wishing to give yourself a lethal papercut? I think not! Therefore Bioshock it is.

I warn you now, when I get creative in the production of my grand Thesial work, the chances of notes/chapters of Thesis spontaneously appearing on blogspot are rather high, and although many of you won't give a damn, I will be satisfied in my creation of another rather lengthy post that serves a double purpose.

Anyways children! This concludes our first episode of "If I only had content". I promise a greater lack-of-content in further updates. I expect the next one to be me whinging about tonsilitis (which ive avoiding whinging about so far (until now - tonsilitis sucks!))