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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.”
    I burst out laughing again, as Jack gave me a
sour look.
    “Oh, come on,” I said. “That was funny. You
got me laughing—I’ll give you that much. At the moment everything
is not so bad. I’m cutting class. I’m sitting in this diner.” I
paused to look around at the place, at the scattering of customers
sitting at other tables. “There isn’t a single spirit in here. Wow,
the food here must be awful—even the dead people won’t come in.” I
pulled one of the menus out from behind the condiment holder, and
started scanning the meals.
    “I was being serious,” Jack said.
    “I know. That’s what makes it so funny. Hey,
are you buying?”
    He nodded. He looked pretty glum.
    “You should, really—since you made me cry. I
think that should be a law: whenever somebody makes somebody else
cry, they owe that person a free lunch. The world would be a better
place.”
    I studied the menu. It seemed all the meals
had meat. Dead cow.