“We're still unpacking,” Victoria said apologetically, gesturing to the empty bookshelf in the huge living room and the piles of boxes lining one wall. “Come up to my room. It's cozier.”
I nodded. The living room wasn't exactly inviting.
Victoria's bedroom was at the end of the upstairs hallway. She opened the door and stood back to let me go in first. I stepped inside and looked around.
“What do you think?”
The room was certainly smaller, but I wouldn't have called it cozy. A neatly made-up bed, a dresser with a hairbrush lying on it, bare white walls. It had the same not-quite-lived-in look as the living room. I tried to keep my expression the same. “It's nice,” I said. “I guess maybe you haven't quite finished yet?”
Victoria glanced around the room and shrugged. “We've moved three times in four years. It doesn't seem worth going to a lot of trouble fixing up my room if we're only going to leave anyway.”
A new worry twisted in my stomach like a cold fist. “You won't move again, will you? You won't leave?”
Victoria's eyes were bloodshot and her nose was pink from crying. She tucked her hair behind her ears and said nothing.
“You can't move,” I said. “I don't want to go back to having no one to hang out with.”
“You'd have people to hang out with,” she said.
I snorted. “Like who?”
“Joe, for one.”
“Joe! What are you talking about?”
She giggled. “He likes you.”
My cheeks were on fire. “He does not!”
“When we had to do that debate thing, remember? The one about whether it's better to live nowâ”
“Yeah, yeah, I remember. So what?”
She giggled again. “Joe was in my group, and he asked me about you. Well, he asked if I knew where you got that T-shirt you were wearing.”
I sighed with relief. “That doesn't mean he likes me.”
“Sure it does.”
“Victoria! Cut it out. It does not.” I remembered what we'd been talking about before she decided to totally embarrass me. “Anyway, I don't want you to move.”
“And I don't want to move. I hate moving. But we always end up moving.” She took her glasses off and turned them around in her hands. Without them, her eyes looked bigger and bluer.
“Why? How come you move so much?”
“I don't know. My parents always think that everything is better somewhere else. And when Rick starts hanging around, things always get messed up.” Victoria rubbed her hands across her eyes; then she put her glasses back on. “Usually Dad lends Rick money, and Mom gets mad. Last time we moved was because Dad kept missing work, trying to bail Rick out of some problem, so he got fired.”
“Do you think they know Rick's in town?”
She groaned. “I don't know. I don't even want to think about it. They're not fighting so much right now, but if he starts hanging around, they'll start fighting again. They always do.”
“Yeah, wow.” I stared at her, trying to imagine what that would be like. My parents drive me crazy sometimes but they don't fight, ever. Or at least if they do, they never do it when Ben and I are around. “Are you going to tell them Rick's here?” I asked.
“I guess I have to,” Victoria said hesitantly. “Mom thinks he's dangerous. Don't you think I should tell them?”
I shrugged, trying to look like I thought it was no big deal either way. “Sounds like it just causes problems.”
“I couldn't stand it if everything got all messed up and we ended up moving again,” she whispered. “I know he's my brother and I guess this sounds awful, but I just want him to stay out of our lives. And I hate changing schools.” She looked up at me. “Especially now that I've found somebody to be my best friend.”
Somebody, thumbuddy. I felt a twang of guilt. What if Rick really was dangerous? I was being about as good a friend to Victoria as Chiaki had been to me. I opened my mouth to say that maybe she should tell her mom after all, but before I could speak, Victoria shook her head. “No, I won't tell them. It's better not to say anything.” She looked at me with a forced smile. “So, now what?”
There was a weird, hot, gnawing feeling in my belly. I ignored it and changed the subject. “Are you going to teach me how to start moving things or what?”
First, Victoria made me do the exercise she had taught me before. I wasn't too hopeful about it working. As I sat on Victoria's bed and placed my hands together to begin gathering energy, I calculated that I'd probably practiced this exercise at least a hundred times since she'd showed it to me. Once or twice I'd thought that I might have felt something happening: a sensation of warmth between my hands, a subtle pressure. Way too subtle.
“Okay,” said Victoria. “Can you feel the ball of energy between your hands?”
“Umm, I think so? Maybe?”
“Okay, now focus on that energy and bring your hands to your chest. Imagine that energy flowing into your body.”
I felt a rush of warmth in my hands and opened my eyes, startled. “I felt it! Wow. Oh, wow, I think maybe I really felt something.”
Victoria was smiling and nodding at me like crazy. “That's great. That's a good sign.” She placed her school binder, closed, on the bed in front of my crossed legs. On top of it, she laid a small white feather. “We're going to start with something light. I want you to focus all of that energy on this feather. Imagine the energy flowing toward it. The energy is like an extension of you: you can direct it and use it like you would use your own hands⦠Keep breathing.”
I let out my breath. I hadn't realized I was holding it. Nothing was happening to the feather. I squinted at it. Maybe if I blew on it ever so slightlyâ¦I just wanted to see the stupid thing move. I sighed and tried to focus on the energy.
After a few minutes, Victoria interrupted me. “That's enough, Cassidy. It's going to take time and practice, I guess.”
“Can't I try something else?”
“You'll give yourself a headache. Anyway, I just heard Mom come in.” She frowned. “Don't tell her about this, okay? She'd flip out.”
“Sure, no problem.”
“Seriously,” she said. “Promise me.”
I nodded, surprised. “Okay. I promise.” A thought popped into my headâa nasty, disloyal thoughtâand I tried to push it away quickly. But it was too late. The thought wouldn't leave, and I could tell already it was going to hang around and pollute everything with doubt and distrust and endless questions. What if Victoria wasn't telekinetic at all? What if the real reason she didn't want me to say anything was because her parents would laugh and wonder what I was talking about? What if this entire thingâRick, the telekinesis, all of itâwas just a big dramatic story?
Victoria's dad walked in the front door just as we arrived at the bottom of the stairs. He raised his eyebrows at me. “Hello. You must be Cassidy.”
“Hi,” I said, feeling suddenly shy. Shyness isn't a problem I usually have, but for some reason I was nervous about meeting Victoria's parents.
“We've heard lots about you,” he said.
I nodded and looked away. I don't know why people say that. It always makes me uncomfortable, knowing that people have been talking about me.
Victoria's mom appeared in the doorway. “Oh, perfect timing. Dinner's just out of the oven.” She nodded at me as she ushered us all into the dining room. “Hello, Cassidy. Good to meet you.”
At my house, we usually ate in the kitchen. Even when Dad was home and we had proper dinners instead of take-out, we just sat around the kitchen table. And we didn't set the table, exactly. I mean, obviously we used plates and forks and all that, but we usually got our own utensils or else someone plunked a pile of cutlery and maybe a roll of paper towels on the table.
Victoria's house couldn't have been more different. The table was set with salad bowls and plates and cloth napkins, not to mention a bewildering variety of forks and spoons at each place. I sat down and hoped I wouldn't embarrass myself too badly.
Victoria's mother dished the salad and filled our glasses with water. Then she turned to me. “So, Cassidy,” she said, “tell us a bit about yourself.”
I squirmed. “Not much to tell,” I said. I glanced around the room, hoping for inspiration, and my gaze fell on a pair of portrait-style photographs sitting on the sideboard. One was a toddler, a little girl with brown hair and a slightly anxious gummy smile. Victoria. The other was a boy around our age, with freckles and a wide grin. Rick, maybe?
“Uh, so how do you like it here?” I asked.
“Well, it seems very nice. I've been pretty busy. I'm taking some classes at the college.” She smiled at me. “Computers, you know? I need to bring my skills up to date. It all changes so fast.”
I nodded. Grownups always complained about that. “Who are the pictures of?” I asked, nodding toward the photographs.
Victoria looked at me; then she looked down at her plate.
Her dad shoveled a forkful of lettuce into his mouth and chewed silently. Her mom smiled again, but a little stiffly. “That's Victoria, back when she was two. Cute, huh? And the other picture, the boy, that's my stepson, Rick.”
I couldn't tell if there really was a sudden chill or if it was just my imagination.
“Well,” Victoria's mom said brightly, “I hope you like tofu and spinach casserole? It's one of Victoria's favorite meals.” She dished a pile of steaming green slop onto my plate. “Victoria tells me that your mother is an artist. That's very interesting.”
I nodded. People always said it was interesting when they totally couldn't relate.
“I was thinking about taking an art class,” she mused.
Victoria's dad raised his eyebrows. “And when exactly would you fit that in?”
She shrugged. “Maybe if you actually cooked a meal or helped clean up the house occasionally, I'd have time to do something that actually interested me.”
He didn't respond. We all ate in silence for a few minutes. I stared down at my plate. I wasn't crazy about vegetables, especially green ones. The food felt like grass in my mouth. Hot chewy grass. I forced down a few mouthfuls.
After a while, Victoria's parents started talking to each other in strained polite voices about her dad's day at work, and whether the car needed an oil change, and how much longer winter was going to drag on for. Victoria and I kept catching each other's eyes, and for some weird reason I had an awful urge to start giggling. It was a relief when dinner was over and we could finally retreat to her room.
Victoria wanted me to keep practicing telekinesis, but I couldn't forget my earlier doubts. All those questions were still tumbling around in my head like clothes in a dryer. I kept staring at the feather and wondering if this whole thing was real or not. I wanted it to be real more than anything. It was my one chance to escape being so ordinary.
After several more attempts, the little white feather still lay stubborn and unmoving. I couldn't concentrate. I hadn't felt that surge of energy again either. I gave an exaggerated groan. “I am never going to get this! Isn't there something else I can try?”
Victoria shrugged. “I don't know. I've never tried to teach anyone this stuff before. And I never had to learn it. It just happened.”
“I really thought I felt something, before dinner,” I said. “I guess I just imagined it.”
“Maybe you should go back to practicing that exercise. You know, see if you can get that feeling again and then try to capture that energy.”
“Mmmm.” I stared at the feather, blinking back tears.
She looked at me helplessly. “I'm sorry. I know you really want to do this. Maybe it's not something that can be taught.”
We sat in silence for a few minutes. Downstairs, I could hear Victoria's parents cleaning up the kitchen and washing the dishes. I thought of my own chaotic house. I'd rather have that chaosâthe take-out pizzas, my mom distracted and busy, my dad off in the Middle Eastâthan the tension and silence in Victoria's show-home.
“Don't give up,” Victoria said suddenly. “Please don't give up. I've never known anyone else who could do this stuff, you know? I'd love to not be the only one.”
“Yeah, well, I'll keep trying.” I studied her face and wondered if I was making a complete fool of myself. I still had absolutely no idea if she was lying to me.
Back when we had Mr. McMaran, English classes had been deadly boring. All we ever did was take turns reading aloud from the textbook. It was different with Ms. Allyson. She never said so, but I was pretty sure she didn't think much of textbooks. We had just skimmed three chapters in five minutes and now she wanted us to do something she described as warm-up exercises. I had visions of the whole class doing jumping jacks and wondered what exactly she had in mind.
“All right,” said Ms. Allyson, “get into groups of three. Quick, quick!” She was perched on a stool, swinging one foot back and forth, wearing red leather cowboy boots which almost matched her hair.
Ms. Allyson sure liked to make us work in groups. I glanced across the aisle at Victoria, who quickly scooted her chair over to join me. We needed a third. For some stupid reason, I found myself looking over to where Chiaki sat. She had already joined Amber and Madeline. Maybe Joe? Then Felicia turned around to look at us. She hesitated; then she got up and walked back to where we sat.
“Do you think I could work with you two?” she asked in a low voice.
I hesitated for a second. Hanging out with Felicia was only going to make Amber despise me more. Then I felt a flush of shame for even thinking that way. I pushed the thought aside and smiled at Felicia. “Sure,” I said. Then I laughed. “All those tormented by the Amber-Madeline alliance are welcome here. We're going to form our own alliance and take over.”