Chapter Five: Colette Peterson's Point of View

Chapter Five: A Twelve-Year-Old Breaks the Law

           

            The look on Violet’s face is hilarious, but also stupid, because who forgets their own birthday? I mean, honestly, turning fifteen is a huge thing.  In Mexico anyway.  You get some sort of quincehoonita or something.  Anyway.  I start giggling which I’ve done maybe twice in my life.  Then I pull the cupcake from behind my back and squish it in Violet’s face, smearing the icing.  She pulls off a glob with cake attached and lobs it at me.  I dodge it – defense being a benefit of my power. 

            “Great.  Just great.  I took a shower last night.  Now I have to take another one and you know it’s not good to wash your hair more than once a week,” Violet informs me. 

            “Actually, I didn’t know that.  And don’t use up the hot water.  We need it to make your cake.”  She stomps up the stairs.  I walk to Scarlett, our personal fashion-and-jewelry designer. 

            “Hey, Scarlett, got anything new?” I ask, tugging on my cartilage piercing.  “I’m feeling like red today.”

            “Nope.  My last red piece is a necklace for Violet.  Sorry,” she tells me.  I sigh.  The scent of bacon and pancakes wafts from the kitchen. 

            “Bacon pancakes again?” I groan.  They get so old.  But they are delicious.  Anyway.  Katie pulls out her notepad – sporting yet another brightly-colored case – and checks her messages.  “Katie, if you don’t mind my asking, why would anyone have messaged you in the night?”

            She waves the phone, screen out, at me.  “Time zones,” she says matter-of-factly.

            “And you have so many friends in different time zones.” I roll my eyes.

            “Actually, there’s one from Australia, one from the Philippines, one from the U.S., one from Austria, one from Mexico, and one from Canada.”

            “O . . . kay . . . ?”

            “There are upsides to being social, you know.”

            “Yeah.  I know.”

            Violet comes back down then, in fresh clothes.  She sniffs the air.  “MY PANCAKES!!!” 

            The air does smell like smoke; I hadn’t noticed.  Violet runs to the kitchen and I hear a clatter that probably means that she yanked the pan off the stove and flung it on the counter.  I walk in to inspect the damage.  “Still edible.”

            Everyone takes my word, apparently, because they’re all up in a matter of seconds.  Breakfast is okay.  Not really. 

            “OH SHOOT!” Scarlett stands up.

            “WHAT?” I ask with equal alarm.

            “We have school!  Oh no!” Of course, the goody-goody school girl says this.  And now Aly will make us go.  She’ll tell us to hustle in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .

            “Hustle, hustle, hurry up, we’ve got to go!”  Right on time.  So we all throw on whatever’s in the tops of our drawers and rush out the door.

            “Happy Birthday dear Violet, happy birthday to you!” Everyone in the cafeteria finishes singing to Violet. 

            “Hey guys,” I say.  “I have to use the bathroom.  Be right back.” I get up and head down the hall.  Except I won’t ever make it.  This is what happens:

            Ryan, that kid we found, is walking to the cafeteria when I get about ten yards down the hall.  He catches my eyes.  He runs towards me. He slams into me.  He kisses me.

            My power is hard to explain.  When I want to hurt someone, a red glare appears around their figure.  The “beam” can go through solid concrete, but it won’t be that strong since I can't see the person I'm trying to hurt.  So when someone is uncomfortably close to me, I can easily make him pass out from the pain.  Key word: him.  Ryan gasps and crumples over.  I start kicking him and punching him along with staring at him.  My friends must hear his screams because they come running to the hallway.

            Scarlett looks appalled.  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

            “He.  Tried.  To.  Kiss.  Me.  No wait, scratch that.  He kissed me in a very uncomfortable manner.” 

            At this point, Ryan is making one, long, agonized sound. 

            Mr. Crow runs out and yanks me away by my arms and ties something around my eyes, so I can’t see Ryan.  I screech and kick.  Who’d have thought a sixty-year-old would be that strong?  I know it’s childish but I just hold my breath until I pass out.

I look around the principal’s office, trying to find something to count.  The divots in the ceiling, the pencils in the numerous cups on his desk, the number of papers strewn everywhere.   Ryan is in the nurse’s office, being treated.  My power is an illusion, it can’t physically harm someone, but people say I have a strong kick.  Hmph.

            “Miss Peterson.  May I ask why you were attacking Ryan?”

            “I had every right to do this.  He kissed me, in a rather disgusting way.”

            “Oh.  This is different from what he told me.  He said he ran into you by accident.”

            “Hah.  Check the security cameras.  I swear, I’m telling the truth.”

            “Whatever you say.”  He clicks some buttons and goes to the camera in that hallway.  Sure enough, you see me walking down, then Ryan breaking into a run, then kissing me in a way that two people kiss on their wedding day.  “You may go now.  But you are suspended for three days.  That violence was unnecessary and unwanted.  If this happens again, I may be forced to expel you. 

            “But what about him? Kissing isn’t allowed till we’re twenty-five,” I point out.  “He broke the law.”

            “So did you.  Were you not kissing him?”

            Gasp.  “Heck, no!  I was just standing there.  I didn’t even close my eyes.”

            “He is suspended, too.  For three days.  Go.”

            I sigh and walk out of the office.  On my notepad, I send a message to Katie about why I won’t be back in class.  She writes me back in a matter of seconds. She says okay.  I tromp back to the cabin and plop onto my bed.  I pull out my knife sharpening kit and my knife collection, even though all the knives are sharp enough to cut you by touching the blade.  I make plans for the next three days that are sure to be boring.

Chapter Four: Violet Dremeriquai's Point of View

Chapter Four: Uninvited Guests

           

            “Um . . . actually, it’s a trick of the light . . . um, there is wire, it’s just very, very hard to see. . . .” I stammer.  Aly, who came in when Scarlett squealed, is blabbering into her radio to a voice that sounds a lot like the head soldier’s. 

            The man in blue looks at his female comrade questioningly.  She replies, sounding like this with her weird accent: “Ze couch vas not soospended on vires, eet vas floateeng, I svear.”  Sort of like Aly’s, and I’ve heard this accent in the outside world.  (Yes, we’re that isolated, that even in Russia, the tiny part in Europe, the Russian accents sound strange.)

            “O . . . kay?” says Colette.  “Whatever.  You can leave now and never say anything about this again, or you can stay, and never say anything again, period.”

            Just then, a group of guards push through the two blue-suits and turn on them, guns loaded.  The man in front barks something in Russian and the officers sprint to their car and floor it, from the sound. 

            A siren wails for sixty seconds, then cuts off sharply, giving way to another sound.  The authoritative tone of Mr. Hitler’s fill-in’s voice tells us, “We are on lockdown until nineteen hundred.  Everyone is to lock their cabins and do not leave until the designated end of lockdown.  All entrance and exit of our property is forbidden.  The doors will be closed.  If anyone is found outside their cabin, they will be arrested.  We are turning off our INS for lockdown, as we do not want to be tracked.  Please remain calm.”

            As usual, (actually this is only the second time in my fourteen years that we’ve had lockdown) the reason for lockdown isn’t given.  Aly locks and bolts our door and we hook up our notepads to the device in the lockdown storage area, which is where we put all technology when on lockdown.  Then we plop down on the “magical” couch and do various things common for outsider fourteen-year-olds, which includes drawing, writing, reading, and, in my case, sewing.

            “Remember that first lockdown?” asks Colette.  “When we were six, and that crate of gunpowder fell through the school’s roof?”  We laugh at the memory.  We were all in kindergarten then, and one moment, we were singing the alphabet, and the next we’re sitting around a huge crate with a hole in the ceiling.

            “And the look on Mrs. Ristrova’s face?  Hilarious!” I add.  “Who wants a necklace?”  Everyone, apparently.  Oh well.  Something to do in the guaranteed boring hours ahead. 

            Seven multicolored necklaces later, Mallory disappears upstairs and comes down with a pack of cookies and eight bottles of root beer.  We usually go to the store every night for the dinner ingredients, but since we’re on lockdown, we make do with some potato chips and brownies.  Finally, seven o’ clock rolls around and one of the soldiers makes the brief announcement that we’re free.

            We head down to the square, since, after four hours of being cooped up inside, they’re bound to do something exciting.  Besides, it is Monday, which is square night.  At the square, glow sticks have been tossed into the fountain making the water greenish yellow.  Musicians play and, along the edges, people sell popped corn, spun sugar, and ice cold cola.  Aly buys us all pink spun sugar and we munch on it while we watch bad karaoke. 

            Isabel and her friends Whitney and Tiffany walk onstage and make sounds with their mouths that are closer to dying humpback whales than girls.  We all laugh and mimic their dramatic expressions.  After they finish wailing, Vickatecht – drunk as usual – stumbles onstage and utters a bunch of gibberish that is supposed to be to the tune of the music.  We laugh harder, until our sides hurt, but then the curfew bell rings – it must be eleven.  Aly takes us back to the cabin where we dig out our electronics and head to bed. 

            Colette – the reader – pulls out her e-reader and plops on her bed with her jeans still on.  Lois turns some Ella Fitzgerald on and curls up on her bed.  I take my sketchbook and colored pencils and work on my latest drawing – all eight of us standing in our cabin doorway, the day after the Ceremony.  It’s a real picture, I’m just copying it.  I start on Mal’s face, but I can’t get the shape of her eyes right, so I groan and scrub her head out with my eraser.  On the next page I draw random shapes and swirls and fill it in with neon colors.  I tear it out and tape it to the wall behind my bed, struggling to find an empty space.  It’s taken me so long to draw this that everyone else is asleep.  I flick my lamp off and focus on the background music in the song that’s playing and drift off.

            “Violet, Violet, wake up,” I hear Lois say.  “Can you hear me?”

            “No.”

            “Very funny.  Wake up!  We need help making bacon pancakes.”

            “Fine.”  I slide off my bed, stunned to find myself in the jeans I was wearing last night.  I walk to the kitchen and turn the burners on while Mallory and Katie make the pancake dough and Scarlett fries bacon.  Bacon pancakes are quite simple – chop some bacon up and put it in pancake batter and make pancakes.  It’s a strange taste, but everyone’s used to my strange cooking.  Colette, who is a late riser, clomps down the stairs moaning “food” over and over again. 

            Lois giggles.  “You look like a zombie.”

            “Thank you,” Colette retorts.

            Aly walks in from the den.  “Has anyone seen Luna? She wasn’t in bed when I got up.”

            “Yeah.  She got up early.  Went to see family, she said,”  Scarlett answers.  Aly nods. 

            “Oh, guys, guess what I got!” Aly demands.

            “Donuts?  Cake?  Asparagus?  A car?  A horse?   A unicorn?” Lois, Katie, Colette, Scarlett, Mallory, and I guess. 

            Aly shakes her head.  “Nope.  I got pizza making stuff!  Guess what you’re having for lunch!”

            We’re excited.  Pizza is a treat, because there are exactly three Italians in our little haven.  At about the same time they say it, I remember. 

            “Happy birthday, Violet!”

Chapter Three: Violet Dremeriquai's Point of View

Chapter Three: We Find a Recruit

            Once we’re parked, the bus driver uses his intercom to tell us which schools we’re to search.  Mallory, Scarlett, Colette, and I are assigned to a sixth grade class in a middle school near the parking garage. 

            “Don’t, under any circumstances, take out your notepads.  The normal society hasn’t even developed computers yet,” he instructs us.  “Make sure the children you recruit are agitated, because the Balanced can easily be confused with the gymnasts.  Good luck, and meet back here in an hour.”

            We walk to the school, trying to map out how exactly we’re going to break it to some new recruit that we have magical powers.

            “How about, ‘Hey dude!  I’m Colette and I have magic powers and so do you.  Come back to our technologically advanced society and train with us!’?” Colette jokes.

            “Nope.  That’ll never work.  Let’s be all serious, like, ‘you’re gonna die if you don’t come with us.’” says Scarlett.  We all crack up at our worthless jokes.

            At the school, I use my Hypnosis powers to convince the teacher that we have been students all year.  We climb on top of the monkey bars to get a better look at the class.  There’s a boy being harassed by some bigger kids.  The boy scampers up a tree and almost falls, then expertly balances on his very tiptoes.  The bigger boys start throwing rocks at the one in the tree, and he leaps out of his tree and scales the building.  The other boys go away to pick on other people and we go to the side of the building.  I use my power to get him down.

            “I’m Violet,” I say.  “and this is Colette, Mallory, and Scarlett.”

            “Ryan,” says the boy.  I once again use my power to get him on the bus, where he is shown a short film about the Seers and who we are, et cetera. 

            We make it to school in time for lunch, and even with our constant joking, Scarlett just stares at her salad with a perpetual blush.  She doesn’t do much of anything. 

            “Hey Scarlett, what’s the matter?” I ask.

            “Oh, nothing . . . it’s just . . . wasn’t Ryan so . . . dreamy?” she asks. 

            “Ooh!  Someone’s sweet on Ryan!” Colette says in a funny voice.  Everyone starts laughing their heads off.  Scarlett stands up, an indignant look on her face, and blasts us all with water.  We just laugh harder.  Then it becomes a full-out battle of the elements, with me throwing fireballs, and random people growing vines and shooting lightning bolts and throwing pizza.  Then Vickatecht stands up on his table and screams.

            “STOP THIS RIGHT NOW!”

            Everyone freezes.  The room is completely silent.  “WHAT IN THE WORLD ARE YOU DOING?”

            Lots of people just shrug and look around, since the cause of this fight is only known to four of us.  Vickatecht gets off the table and grabs me and Colette’s wrist in one hand and Mallory and Scarlett’s hands in his other.  He walks – pulls – us to the headmaster’s office. 

            Mr. Crow sits at his desk.  He has a pile of detention forms in front of him and a pen in his hand.  I brace myself for what’s about to come.  Instead of lecturing us, his face breaks into a huge smile.

            “That was a wonderful use of your talents, ladies!” he praises.  We are all shocked. 

            “Aren’t you going to . . . give us detention or something?” Mallory asks him. 

            “No.” – he shakes his head – “That sounded like great fun, and I heard Miss Scarlett mastered water jets.  I’m a Current myself, and I know that those are very hard.  Congratulations!”

            Colette and I exchange a glance.  Scarlett shrugs.  Mal just stares.

            “Well, go along to your cabin.  I’m giving you the rest of the day off to cool down.  Great work, girls!  I hope the security cameras captured that one!” says Mr. Crow.  He waves to us as we walk out. 

            In the cabin, we tell jokes and make fun of the commanders, especially Vickatecht.  Before we know it, two hours have passed.  Katie, Luna, and Lois walk in the door.

            “Why are you guys here early?” Lois says, her eyes yellow, meaning she is confused.  “Oh,” she answers herself, having heard someone’s thoughts.

            Katie scampers off and comes back with seven cans of soda.  We each take one and Mallory, Scarlett, Colette, and I plop down on the couch.

            “Flying couch please?” Colette asks Luna.  I feel the couch rise.  We all relax and we tell the story from up on the couch.  Just as we’re about to tell the part about Mr. Crow, the couch slams into the ground and Scarlett shrieks.  Lois’s eyes are straight black.  She’s scared.  Luna’s eyes are locked on something in the doorway.  Katie has somehow ended up on the wall.

            In the doorway are two men, both wearing blue hats and uniforms.  The outfits are unlike any I’ve ever seen before.  They have clubs in their hands and pistols in holsters on their belts.  We stare at each other for a good five minutes before a man says something.

            “Was that couch just floating?”