Forever Freaky (4 page)

“He thinks you’re not getting enough protein.
He thinks you need to start eating meat again.”

“I can’t do that,” I said.

“I know, not eating meat is supposed to be
healthy, but you don’t really seem that healthy.”

“It doesn’t have anything to do with being
healthy.”

“Then what?”

“Do I have to explain?”

“I wish you would,” she said.

“I can’t eat meat, because every time I touch
it, every time I try to eat it, I have these flashes.”

She frowned. “Flashes? What flashes?”

“I see the animal it came from. I see how
they killed it…. I just can’t eat meat, all right? If Dad is
worried about me not getting enough protein, tell him to get me
some protein powder or something.”

“I didn’t know that,” she said somberly.
“Your grandmother never had that problem.”

“Well, I’m a bigger freak than she was,” I
said.

“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that,” she
said.

“I’m just telling the truth.”

I needed to lie down for a while. I got up
and left my mom sitting there in the kitchen. If I let myself think
of it, I started to feel sorry for her. It must not be easy to be
the mother of a freak. She wanted to make things better, but
couldn’t. How could she? She couldn’t control what I saw, what I
knew, what I felt. Nobody could, not even me.

***************

The next morning I almost didn’t go to
school. There was more than usual I didn’t want to face. Jack would
be looking for me at lunch. He would want to give me copies of
information to help me retrieve Mary Jo Mason, which, honestly, I’d
never wanted to do in the first place. He would ask me a million
annoying questions. I’d have to fully explain yesterday’s freaky
event. Then, worse of all, he would probably thank me for saving
his life. What an awful thing to do!—thanking me for saving his
life. As though I had had any choice in the matter. Something had
simply snapped in my head, and I had acted. It had absolutely
nothing to do with me. As far as I was concerned, he could have
ended up a crushed piece of meat pinned to the light post.

When it was time for lunch, I didn’t go to
the lunchroom. Melody would be looking for me, but I didn’t care. I
went straight outside. It was a warm early spring day. The sun was
bright and the sky was a pale blue. There was plenty of fresh air
to breathe. I sat on one of the wooden benches along the walkway
that snaked through the campus. I had a good view of the student
parking lot. There was only one cop car parked near the front now.
Nobody was around, although people might start straying outside
after they finished eating, to kill time before going to their next
class. It all should have been peaceful, but I sensed a low hum of
anxiety. It had been there, slowly growing, since Mary Jo Mason
vanished. It was a generalized anxiety, not the kind of anxiety I
felt in a single person sometimes. I sensed it the way you sense an
annoying background noise, a tiny persistent buzz you hear
sometimes on a cordless phone. People were concerned and uncertain.
What exactly happened to Mary Jo? Could it happen again? I
realized, then, that maybe I had no choice but than to find Mary
Jo. I had hardly any tranquil moments as it was, but with her
missing, and everybody all nervous, I would never have another
peaceful second. The buzz would probably grow and grow, too, and
maybe, finally, I would pop my cork and end up in Straight Jacket
City.

Then I sensed him, Jack. What a stubborn
tool! He had searched the lunchroom for me—twice. He had passed by
the table I usually shared with Melody, and she—you have to be
kidding me—checked out his butt as he walked away. I couldn’t
figure out what irked me more, that he was so intent on finding me,
or that she actually sneaked a peek at his man cheeks. It was
probably a tie.

Now he decided to wander outside. It wouldn’t
be long now. I waited with dread, counting down…
thirty-seven…thirty-six…
thirty-five…thirty-four…thirty-three…thirty-two… By the time I got
down to one, he was sitting at the other end of the bench.

At first everything was going fine; he didn’t
say I word, and I didn’t have to look over at him and acknowledge
his presence. I looked out at the parking lot, and watched as
nothing happened.

Then he said, “Hey,” which I ignored;
whenever anybody said “Hey” to me, or even “Hi” or “Hello,” I
treated it like a rhetorical question—really, I saw no reason to
respond.

Then he asked, “What are you doing?” which I
found extremely annoying.

“What does it look like?” I asked. “What? I
always have to be doing something more than what it seems I’m
doing?”

He shrugged. “Sorry,” he said. “I brought
those copies.”

He handed me about twenty sheets of paper,
and I didn’t feel compelled to thank him. I scanned several of the
pages.

“This all looks—theoretical,” I said, more to
myself than to him.

“What else is there?” he asked.

“I need something practical—you know, like
practical applications.”

“Practical applications in alternate
realities? I doubt that you’ll find anything like that.”

“Well, that’s what I need,” I said.

“Why?”

I sighed. I felt like biting his head off,
but that didn’t seem enough of a punishment. Instead I considered
doing something much worse: telling him the truth. Sometimes,
especially with me, the truth is a horrible weapon.

“You wouldn’t understand,” I said.

“Try me,” he said, and sounded a bit
cocky.

“All right,” I said. “Mary Jo Mason slipped
into an alternate reality, and if I don’t figure out of way of
getting her back, I’m never again going to have another breakfast
that isn’t heinously haunted by a dead cop.”

“What?” He stared at me, and I savored his
confusion. “I don’t understand,” he finally said.

“I told you.”

“Maybe if you explained it a little more,” he
suggested.

“No,” I told him “You’re curious—I get that.
You like me—I don’t really get that. But here’s the thing: you
really need to leave me alone, okay? I have never been reduced to
begging somebody to leave me alone, but in your case I’ll make an
exception. So, please, please, go away.”

He didn’t give it a second’s thought. “I
don’t think I can.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I just have this feeling I’m not supposed
to,” he said. He was completely sincere, too, I was certain he
wasn’t joking or anything.

I didn’t know what to say. I understood gut
feelings all too well.

“Maybe I can help you,” he offered.

“Help me? Help me what?”

“Find Mary Jo. Maybe that’s what I’m meant to
do.”

“Help how?”

“I’ve read a lot,” he said.

“Ah-hah.”

“I know some spells.”

“Spells? Are you kidding?” I asked.

“They might help.”

“I need to find Mary Jo. I don’t want to turn
her into a frog.”

“Maybe, it’s just time for you to stop being
so alone,” he said.

“I don’t think that’s it,” I sighed. “But for
the time being, we’ll go with that—until I can figure out a way to
get you to leave me alone without having to maim or cripple
you.”

“That sounds fair—Julia Dundee.”

I had never told him my name. He had me for a
second, but only for a second.

“You looked up my yearbook picture, didn’t
you?”

He nodded.

“Nice try,” I said.

He shrugged.

“By the way, don’t call me Julia,” I said.
“I’ve never been fond of the name. I hate Julie even more—probably
because that’s what my parents call me. My friends call me
Jules.”

“Jules, then.”

“We’re not there yet.”

“Then what should I call you?” he asked.

“Call me ‘Hey you.’ I don’t care. We’re
probably not going to know each other for long anyway.”

I got up and started walking away. He
followed—big surprise; I figured he would linger like a bad
rash.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Please, don’t be shy,” I said dismally.

“I’ve studied a lot about, you know, unusual
phenomena. So far I know you can see dead people, read minds, see
the future. What else can you do?”

“If you must know—and I suppose you
must—sometimes, if I concentrate really hard, I can turn on and off
light switches.”

“That’s telekinesis. Anything else?”

“If somebody asks me too many questions, they
tend to burst into flames.”

“That’s pyro kinesis,” he said, and then,
finally getting it, “That was a hint, wasn’t it?”

“Duh.”

“Sorry, you’re just so interesting.”

“There is something seriously wrong with you,
Jack,” I said. “Just leave me alone, okay?”

I got up and walked away down the path that
curved past the parking lot. He followed, of course, a step or two
behind me.

I didn’t know what to do with him. I was not
a violent person. Other girls would have turned on their heel and
clocked him in the head. I couldn’t do that; it wasn’t in my
nature—besides, I probably only would have hurt my hand; Jack would
have remained a persistent dunderhead.

“Most people can’t even do one of the things
you can do,” he said.

I ignored him, and kept walking.

“I figure you have to be pretty rare.”

I kept walking.

“I don’t see why you don’t think it’s a good
thing.”

I kept walking.

“You’re special,” he said.

It was starting to get to me. It was as
though he was rubbing my nose in how different I was from everybody
else. That was supposed to be a good thing. He was so clue-less it
was actually sad.

I stopped to sit on another bench, where the
walkway ran near the parking lot, where landscapers had recently
planted new trees to border the lawn. I put my elbows on my knees,
and rested my head in my hands. I felt a sick burning in my chest.
You never truly realize how much of a freak you are until somebody
points it out to you. I felt like crying, but I couldn’t cry—I
never cried, not even when I’d been a little kid and hurt myself.
Something inside me prevented me from letting go, prevented my
emotions from blooming to normalcy.

“Have I ever done anything to you?” I asked,
not looking up at him, the burning in my chest growing hotter and
hotter. My closed eyes saw globs of faded orange that whirled
around and as they whirl darkened to blood red.

“No,” he said innocently.

“Then why are you tormenting me?” I asked, my
voice starting to crack.

“I didn’t think I was doing that.”

“Just—just stop talking about me.”

“But you have gifts.”

“Don’t call them gifts.”

“That’s what they are.”

“Stop.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Just stop.”

“I’m just trying--”

“Stop!” I screamed, jumping to my feet.

And something invisible erupted from me, like
heat shimmers over desert, erupting outward, away from me in all
directions, knocking Jack to the ground, bending two of the
newly-planted trees at strange angles, setting off the alarms of
just about every car in the parking lot.

Jack looked dazed as he got back to his feet.
Car alarms were honking and hooting and whistling.

I grabbed him by the arm, and we ran.

We didn’t stop running until we reached the
street that was buzzing with midday traffic. Then we walked at a
fast pace down the sidewalk, away from the parking lot.

“What the hell was that?” Jack asked.

“I don’t know. Nothing like that ever
happened before.”

I was scared. The only time I got truly
scared was when I experienced some new weird experience. It’s like,
Well, what’s that all about? Why did that happen? What next?

I ran my finger under my eye, and it came up
wet. It was probably just a couple tears, not much, but more than
ever before. I realized I wasn’t just a freak, but that I could be
a dangerous freak if I didn’t control my emotions. It was
frightening, more frightening still that I felt so good after I’d
released just a little bit of everything that had always been
pent-up inside me.

I stopped and turned on Jack.

“You can’t do that,” I told him. “You can’t
press me like that. I don’t know what could happen.”

“Sorry,” I said.

“Stop being sorry,” I snapped. “If somebody
tells you to stop, then—you know—stop.”

“I was just trying--”

“I know what you were trying. You think I
don’t know? You’re trying to say I should embrace my weirdness. I
should be who I am. You think I never tried that. I gave up on that
when I was ten years old. I knew it would never work. How can
anybody embrace what they hate? And what I hate most is what I am.
You think you know me? Well, you don’t.”

I turned and walked away, leaving him
standing there in the street. I must have given him something to
think about, because he didn’t run after me—not right away,
anyway.

***************

I was laughing so hard my side hurt. It felt
strange. I wasn’t used to laughing—not much in my life seemed
funny.

“Let me get this straight,” I said, after I
caught my breath. “You think I should use my powers for the benefit
of mankind. Am I getting this right?”

We were sitting at a table in a greasy-spoon
diner a couple blocks off campus. I didn’t know what class Jack was
cutting. I was cutting English. After what had happened, how could
I go to English class and listen to people reciting creepy poems by
Edger Allen Poe. To me, creepy wasn’t only fiction.

“I’m just saying,” Jack said carefully, “that
you seem to lack focus. Maybe if you could focus on some
purpose…”

“Wait a second,” I said gravely. I reached
out one hand and waggled my fingers in the air. “I’m looking at
you, and I’m getting a message. I see a M. I see an O. I see an R…
O…N. I see a MORON.”