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lame.
    Dad stared at me curiously for a moment, and then grinned, saying, “Why sure I can! Hey, Kitty, you want to be tickled?”
    Dad waggled his fingers near Cat’s neck. My sister jumped up out of the sofa, shrieking. Dad got up too and chased Cat around the living room until she took refuge behind Mom’s easy chair.
    “Nothing to it!” laughed Dad, sitting back down beside me. “I didn’t touch her even once, see?”
    I laughed too, but then I said, “Come on, Dad, you know that’s not what I mean.”
    “Well, what do you mean?” asked Dad, still chuckling. “Moving things without touching them... What, like magic?”
    “Well,” I said, knowing there really was no good way to explain it, “not exactly magic, but kind of like this.”
    I focused on a flowerpot, raising it up near the ceiling. I flew it once around the room before setting it down at Dad’s feet.
    This time, it was Dad’s turn to jump up from the sofa.
    “What the... How in... What?!” he sputtered.
    Mom was speechless. Her knitting needles fell silently from her hands.
    “There’s more,” I said quietly.
    I had to take them out to the backyard to show them the blasting thing. This time I demonstrated it on Dad’s beer cans. Even I was surprised at how easy blasting was, considering how little experience I had with it. In the dark backyard, we could clearly see the shimmering streaks of light as they hit the cans, knocking them over and rupturing them, pouring beer all over the picnic table. Cat couldn’t stop laughing, watching our parents’ eyes widen with surprise, amazement, fright, what have you.
    But if it weren’t for Cat, I couldn’t have put on my show. Her support was the only thing that gave me the courage to tell Mom and Dad the next part of my story: the part about the headaches, and the rage. It was a lot for them to take in, but they handled it well.
    “So it’s happened twice?” asked Dad.
    “Yeah,” I said quietly, “and it was a lot worse the second time.”
    Dad picked up one of the ruptured beer cans and examined the hole in its side. “This—this power of yours is what’s causing it?”
    “No! It wasn’t me!”
    “How can you be so sure, Addy?” asked Mom.
    “Because I am! It was from outside. I just know!”
    My voice must have had more than a touch of panic in it. But they had to understand, whatever I was, I wasn’t that monster.
    Dad put a reassuring hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay, Adrian,” he said. “We’ll believe you. Just give us time. We’ve never seen anything like this before, you know. Maybe nobody has. When you said you had a question, I thought we were going to talk about girls.”
    Cat giggled.
    “Addy,” Mom said in a concerned tone, “your father and I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but we’re on your side. You know that, don’t you, dear?”
    “Yes,” I answered glumly. I knew Mom was trying to cheer me up, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something in my life was about to be lost, or had already been lost, forever.
    “And we’re going to find out, Adrian,” said Dad, smiling encouragingly. “Tomorrow. We’ll take you to the hospital. Don’t worry. They’re not going to lock you up. I won’t let them. They’ll just take a look at you, okay?”
    “Okay,” I mumbled.
    “Cheer up! You’ll probably be famous!” said Dad. “They’ll find a way to take care of the headaches. I’m sure of it.”
    That was the last real conversation I ever had with my parents.
    Later, past midnight, I lay awake on my bed in the dark, staring up at the ceiling. Mom and Dad must have either been asleep or pretending. Either way, the house was silent. Tomorrow, I was going to the hospital. Despite what Dad had said, I felt deep down that I wasn’t coming back home.
    This might be my last night here, I thought.
    I didn’t even notice my door open, and I nearly jumped out of my skin when I heard Cat whisper, “Adrian?”
    “Cat?!” I said, rounding on