Joshua Dread (8 page)

Sophie’s smile faded.

“Not that I think you’re a freak!” I added quickly. “You’re very non-freaky, believe me. I was just—”

“It’s okay,” Sophie said. “I know what you mean. Every time I show up in a new town, I think,
This is going to be the place where we finally end up
. But it never is. Sometimes I just feel like … like luggage. As soon as I meet a few people, my dad says we have to pack up and move again.”

Now that she’d mentioned her dad, I was halfway tempted to ask about him. I thought about the crazy rumors swirling around Sophie’s home life. And the way she’d introduced herself in class the other day, like she was still getting used to saying her name out loud.

But Sophie was already backpedaling away from me. “Better get going,” she said quickly. “See you in seventh period.”

She disappeared into the crowded hallway before I had a chance to say goodbye.

E
ver since returning from the Vile Fair on Saturday, my parents had been working nearly nonstop in their lab. It was no different when I got home that afternoon. I heard the quiet
whoosh
of a Bunsen burner upstairs, and the murmur of muffled voices.

Settling onto the couch, I opened
The Handbook for Gyfted Children
to the chapter titled “Practicing Your Powers.” There was a lot of technical advice relating to specific powers. For example, if you had the Gyft of flight, it was a bad idea to practice under a ceiling fan. But the basic idea of the chapter was pretty simple. If
you wanted your Gyft to work, you needed to do three things:

Practice a lot

Control your emotions

Focus your mind

I searched the house for something to practice on, until I found the ceramic lawn gnome that had been sitting in a box ever since Aunt Linda had given it to my mom years before. The gnome had bright cheeks, a pointed hat, and a weird-looking smile. I figured my mom wouldn’t mind if it exploded.

I took the gnome up to my bedroom and sat down next to it on the floor, concentrating on its long beard and its funny grin. I held out my hands, thinking about sparks raining down from my fingertips, trying to imagine the gnome’s little pointed hat combusting. I reached down and gripped the lawn gnome around its chubby ceramic belly …

And nothing happened. The gnome looked just as it had before. Same pointed hat. Same goofy grin. Not even a burn mark.

I closed my eyes and tried to block out all my distractions. But I couldn’t get Sophie out of my mind. It was as if the more I tried to forget her, the more I thought about her. I opened my eyes. The gnome’s expression was starting to look kind of smug, like he knew I would fail.

Gritting my teeth with frustration, I pushed the gnome aside and slammed my fists down onto the carpet.

BOOM!

It sounded like a firecracker had gone off. In the next instant, the carpet erupted into flames.

I fell backward as the fire spread. Smoke billowed up to the ceiling. Scrambling to my feet, I tripped over my chair and staggered into the hallway. I grabbed a fire extinguisher from the closet and charged back into my room.

Behind me, I could hear my parents’ footsteps pounding the floorboards. The smoke alarm was wailing.

Shielding my face with one hand, I lifted the fire extinguisher and pointed the hose.

White liquid shot out of the end of the nozzle, smothering the flames. Seconds later, my parents appeared in my doorway, their faces pale.

“What
happened
?” Mom asked.

My carpet was black and charred. Half my bedspread was ruined. White fire extinguisher goo was everywhere.

“Just practicing,” I said.

Over the next two weeks, I spent every spare moment training. In the mornings, I concentrated on heating up my toast. In PE, I tested my power out on my gym
shorts (
not
while I was wearing them). After school, I went onto the back porch (bringing the fire extinguisher with me, just in case) to try out my spontaneous combustion on twigs, leaves, and clumps of dried grass.

I brought
The Handbook for Gyfted Children
to school with me sometimes, hiding it between the covers of my books and reading whenever I could. When I came across a part that seemed useful, I wrote it down in my notebook. Even though I wasn’t sure how all these notes were supposed to help me in the end, I kept writing them down. Doing it made me feel a little better, like I wasn’t alone.

Soon I could set fire to leaves and cause sticks to explode. Of course, this was small stuff. I still hadn’t tested my Gyft on anything bigger than a lawn gnome.

At least not until I got a chance to try it out on Joey and Brick.

I got to school a little earlier than usual on Thursday. I’d been so busy practicing over the past weeks that I’d pretty much ignored everything else, including school. I was hoping to catch up on some homework before first period. Instead, I ran into Joey and Brick.

They were waiting for me at my locker. It seemed strange that they were there so early. I guess for them, bullying was an extracurricular activity.

“Hey, Dorkface,” Joey said. “We’ve been looking for you.”

The rest of the hallway was empty. Brick began to walk in my direction, Joey following close behind.

“We know all about you,” Joey said. “You’re some kind of freak. You should be in a circus, not in a school.”

My first instinct was to run. My second and third instincts were pretty much the same. I could already imagine the consequences of sticking around. Teasing, pushing, punching, locker-stuffing, swirlies, noogies, wedgies, nedgies.

But I had something they didn’t. Spontaneous combustion.

Just a jolt, that was all it would take. Maybe a little fireball, for dramatic effect. Nothing too big. I didn’t want to have to explain to Principal Sloane why two students had exploded before first period.

“How’d it happen?” Joey asked, getting closer. “Didja wake up one morning knowing you were a freak? Or maybe you got bit by a radioactive worm.”

Brick let out a laugh. He was getting really close now.

I thought about electric fences, spark plugs, malfunctioning toasters.

They were five feet away.

Three feet.

I held out my arms, flexing my muscles and concentrating
my energy. I took a deep breath, summoned all my power, and …

Brick threw me into the girls’ bathroom.

The door flew open, and I landed with a thud on the hard tile floor. Fortunately, the restroom was empty. I staggered to my feet. There’d been no shock, no jolt. There hadn’t even been a spark. What kind of a lousy superpower
was
this? All that practice, and when I needed it most—nothing.

My parents had said my power would be difficult to control. I guess that was why they called it
spontaneous
combustion.

Through the door, I could hear Joey and Brick out in the hallway. They were trying to intimidate me. Screaming. Banging on lockers. Throwing things around.

To be honest, it sounded like overkill to me. They had already tossed me into the girls’ bathroom. Why not just punch me in the stomach, hang me by my underwear from the basketball hoop, and get it over with already?

I curled my hands into fists, waiting. But the door stayed closed.

All of a sudden, the noises stopped. No more clanging, no more screaming. Just silence.

Opening the door, I glanced into the hallway. What I saw was beyond anything I could’ve ever imagined.

S
everal lockers had been ripped apart, leaving gaping holes where the doors had been. Books and papers were strewn everywhere. Joey and Brick were lying on the floor, moaning in pain. Four locker doors were curled around them. They were trapped up to their necks inside the twisted sheets of steel, like human burritos.

The screams I’d heard had been screams of
pain
.

Joey and Brick were in shock, staring blankly into space, mumbling to themselves. I almost felt sorry for them. Almost.

I crouched down next to Joey. “Who did this to you?”
I asked. My parents couldn’t have been responsible. They might have been supervillains, but they still had boundaries.

“Never seen anything like it …,” Joey muttered. “Didn’t look human.”

“Who? Who’re you talking about?”

Joey’s only response was a whimper.

Behind me, I heard the steady click of footsteps. Spinning around, I glimpsed a girl walking quickly in the other direction.

It was impossible to be sure, but I could’ve sworn it was Sophie Smith.

A middle school is not a good place to keep a secret. News of what happened to Joey and Brick passed through Sheepsdale Middle School like wildfire.

The story changed each time I heard it. The basic information was all there—the bent locker doors, the books and papers spilled across the hall—but other details had been added along the way. By the time seventh period came around, it was out of control.

“They were hanging upside down with their underwear on their heads!” Milton said.

He was barely able to contain his excitement. We were in our usual desks, near the back of the room.

“Every single locker in the hallway had been ripped to shreds,” Milton went on. “And there was fire too! Lots of fire! You wanna know the best part?”

“What?” I said, trying not to sound too doubtful.

“Joey was crying out for his mama!” Milton burst into laughter.

Everyone was thrilled to see the two biggest bullies in the school get beaten up and humiliated. But no matter how much I hated them, I couldn’t share in this excitement. I needed to know who had done this.

And apparently, I wasn’t the only one.

“Who do
you
think did it?” Milton asked Sophie as soon as she got to class.

She shifted in her seat. “I don’t know. Probably just a freak accident.”

“No way! It had to be someone in this school. And I wanna find out
who
!”

“Anyway,” Sophie said, sounding like she wanted to change the subject. “When do you guys want to work on our project? Our presentation’s next week. I was thinking we could meet up tomorrow.”

“Hey, why don’t we go to the Chilled Grease Diner?” Milton said. “It’ll be fun!”

The Chilled Grease Diner was this place a few blocks from school. It was kind of a dump. But it also served all-you-can-eat curly fries, which meant that it was Milton’s favorite restaurant.

“Wasn’t that the place where some guy found a thumb in his omelet?” Sophie asked.

“Only the
tip
,” Milton explained. “And it wasn’t a big deal. They didn’t even charge the guy for the omelet, so I don’t know why he was complaining.”

Sophie shrugged. “Sounds good. What about you, Joshua?”

Her voice sounded like it was coming from the end of a tunnel. All my attention was trained on something else. Something I’d just noticed. A jagged rip ran halfway down Sophie’s sleeve. It looked as if her shirt had been snagged by a nail. Or a large sheet of metal.