Now You See Me-Gifted 5 (2 page)

Jenna nodded. ‘What I always wondered was, how did he find out about me?’

Neither Tracey nor Emily could answer that. And Tracey was more interested in learning something else.

‘So, how do we block you?’

Jenna grinned. ‘You’ll have to figure that out for yourselves.’

‘It’s easy,’ Emily informed Tracey. ‘I’ve been practising. You get the feeling she’s poking around in your head and you just shut her out. It’s like an instinct or something.’

Jenna gave her a sour look. ‘Thanks a lot. I don’t care, anyway. I mean, it’s not like you two ever think about anything worth hearing.’

‘That’s right,’ Tracey said cheerfully. ‘Besides, we always end up telling each other what we’re thinking.’

‘That’s true,’ Emily noted. And even Jenna had to agree with that.

Tracey agreed too, and she felt pretty good about it. It was
nice
having friends she could be so open with, friends who understood what you were all about. Their parents knew about their special talents, but they couldn’t really understand, since they didn’t have these gifts themselves. That was what made the Gifted class so special. They could talk freely about their abilities and everyone could relate to them. They could be appreciated and respected by each other.

OK, maybe ‘everyone’ was an exaggeration. Tracey spotted someone just a short distance in front of them who’d never expressed much appreciation or respect for any of her classmates.

Jenna saw her too, and groaned. ‘Uh-oh, watch out. The Evil Queen and her Evilettes are here.’

Amanda Beeson was looking into the window of a new boutique, Apparel, with her pals Nina and Britney.

‘Gee, from a distance, they almost look like human beings,’ Jenna commented.

‘Oh, come on, Jenna, they’re not that bad,’ Tracey remonstrated. ‘OK, Nina and Britney are pretty snotty, but Amanda can be OK sometimes.’

‘Yeah? Like when?’

Tracey turned to Emily. ‘Don’t forget, she was the one who saved you when you were trapped in the closet at school with that awful Serena. Remember?’

Emily shuddered. ‘I’m not likely to forget
that
. But it wasn’t Amanda who burst into the closet, it was
you
.’

Tracey shook her head. ‘Amanda had taken over my body, and she was in control. So it was really her.’

‘Oh yeah, that’s right,’ Emily murmured.

‘I don’t care, I think she’s positively despicable,’ Jenna declared. ‘She didn’t do a thing to help Ken in that seance scam, remember?’

It was less than two weeks ago, so Tracey wasn’t likely to have forgotten the event already – they’d been discussing it ever since. Ken’s so-called ‘gift’ was the ability to communicate with dead people. Looking for someone who might understand what he could do, he’d got involved with a fake medium. Amanda had taken over the body of another seance participant. Amanda could only do this when she felt sorry for someone, so this woman must have seemed pretty sad. But even when Amanda learned that the participant was the medium’s partner-in-crime, she’d done nothing to stop the scam from moving on.

‘That was pretty weird,’ Tracey admitted. ‘Especially because I always thought Amanda was into Ken.’

‘Amanda is into Amanda,’ Jenna declared. ‘It must have been really horrible for you, having Amanda in your head.’

‘I don’t know,’ Tracey answered honestly. ‘I don’t remember anything. It’s like I was asleep.’

‘She’d better not ever try to take over my body,’ Jenna declared.

‘I doubt that could happen,’ Emily said. ‘She has to feel sorry for someone before she can take over their body. Why would she ever feel sorry for you?’

‘Because I can’t afford the clothes in Apparel,’ Jenna replied. ‘Not that I’d ever want any of them. And you know what? I don’t buy that business, about Amanda feeling sorry for people. She’s a selfish snob and she never thinks about anyone but herself.’

‘That’s not true,’ Tracey said. ‘When she had my body, she did a lot for me. She got my parents to pay attention to me. She bought me decent clothes, she got me a haircut . . .’

Jenna snorted. ‘Only because she was afraid she’d be stuck being you for ever.’

Tracey wasn’t so sure about that. Even though she hadn’t been aware of Amanda’s intentions when Amanda was inhabiting her body, she couldn’t help feeling the girl might have had some kind motives. She was about to tell Jenna this when she noticed that Jenna was staring at Amanda in a particular way that Tracey recognized.

‘Are you reading her mind?’ Tracey asked.

‘Yeah, she’s thinking about trying on the skirt in the window. Thrilling, huh?’ But then her expression changed. ‘Whoa, wait a second.’

‘What is it?’ Emily asked.

‘She’s got a secret. It’s . . . it’s something to do with, with . . .’ she squinted in her effort to concentrate. Then her eyes widened in surprise. ‘She’s thinking about Mr Jackson!’

Tracey was startled. ‘As in Principal Jackson?’

‘What kind of secret could she have about Mr Jackson?’ Emily wanted to know.

They weren’t going to find out – at least, not that day. Amanda spotted them.

‘Damn, she’s learned how to block me too,’ Jenna muttered.

Tracey laughed. ‘What did you think she’d do? “Hi, Jenna, welcome to my private thoughts.”’ She smiled at Amanda, but all she got back was a blink of recognition before Amanda moved hurriedly away, with Nina and Britney at her heels.

‘She really is a snob,’ Emily remarked. ‘She won’t even speak to us.’

‘It’s just because she’s with her friends,’ Tracey said. ‘She knows Nina would say something nasty to us. I think she’s trying to protect us from being insulted.’

Both Jenna and Emily gazed at her as if she was out of her mind.

‘Why are you always defending her?’ Jenna asked.

‘I don’t know.’ Tracey sighed. ‘I guess I can’t help thinking there’s something good in Amanda.’ The expressions of disbelief on her friends’ faces remained intact, so she changed the subject.

She turned to Emily. ‘Got any predictions to make?’

‘About what?’ Emily asked.

‘Anything.’

‘It doesn’t work like that,’ Emily said. ‘I have to be thinking about something in particular.’

‘Think about me,’ Jenna suggested. ‘Is anything interesting going to happen to me this week?’

Obediently, Emily looked at Jenna in that peculiarly dreamy way she took on when she was trying to get an image of the future. Her eyes glazed over.

‘Well?’ Jenna asked impatiently. ‘Can you see me?’

‘Yes.’ Emily’s brow furrowed. ‘With . . . with a knife in your hand.’

‘Good grief!’ Tracey exclaimed. ‘Is she pointing it at someone?’

‘No. She’s just holding a knife.’

Tracey looked at Jenna worriedly. After all, her friend did have a reputation. When she’d first come to Meadowbrook straight from some sort of place for delinquent teens, she’d been observed with trepidation by students and teachers.

Jenna just shrugged. ‘That makes sense.’

‘It does?’ Emily asked. Now she was looking nervously at Jenna too.

Jenna nodded. ‘I’m fixing dinner tonight, and I’m making tuna salad. I’ll be chopping onions, celery, carrots . . . yeah, I guess I’ll be holding a knife for at least half an hour.’

Tracey immediately felt guilty for having even considered that Jenna might be planning to do something criminal with a knife. Jenna didn’t hang with gangs any more, and even though she retained her tough-girl demeanour, she hadn’t been in any serious trouble. Tracey was absolutely, positively, no-doubt-about-it certain that Jenna had completely reformed.

Still, it was reassuring to know that Jenna’s knife would be used for strictly non-violent purposes.

W
HAT A DIFFERENCE a few months could make, Jenna thought as she strolled into Room 209 on Monday afternoon. She remembered the first day she’d entered this classroom, and how angry, depressed and scared she’d been. She’d just been let out of that place she’d been sent to after her arrest for drug possession. Harmony House . . . a fancy name for what was really a jail for teenagers. She’d been taken away from home and forced to spend three months with thieves, gang leaders, addicts . . . when
her
only real crime had been hanging with people like that.

Not that home was such a great place to be either. Her mother was rarely there, and when she
was
at home, she was drunk. Welfare cheques were spent on booze and who-knew-what-else, and Jenna could recall many nights when she went to bed hungry.

So release from Harmony House wasn’t any great relief. She went back to Brookside Towers, the nasty low-income housing development she’d been living in with her mother for two years. Her mother was still drinking, still partying. The apartment was a mess, her
life
was a mess, and she had to keep that fact a secret from the social workers or she’d be sent into foster care.

By order of the judge, Jenna had been transferred to this school, Meadowbrook, and as if that wasn’t bad enough, she also had to report to a school counsellor every week. But the counsellor, Mr Gonzalez, wasn’t such a bad guy. He didn’t know about Jenna’s ability to read minds, but he must have suspected there was something uniquely odd about her because he sent her to see Madame. Jenna had been furious – she’d been branded as a ‘problem’ again and now she had to attend a ‘special’ class with other problem students.

So the first time she entered this classroom, she was in a very bad mood. The so-called ‘Gifted’ class could only make her already wretched life even worse.

But then things began to turn around for her. Aspects of her life started to improve. Her mother went into a rehab programme, and now she’d been sober for over a month. She’d got a job too.

Even her home was better. The residents of Brookside Towers were demanding long-overdue improvements to the estate, and the local government was actually responding.

And the Gifted class turned out to be nothing like what she’d expected. Her classmates weren’t ‘problems’ – not in the traditional sense. They had ‘gifts’ too. And despite her usual efforts to remain aloof and disagreeable, Jenna found herself fitting in – and even making friends. It wasn’t in Jenna’s nature to show her feelings or admit them to anyone, but deep in her heart she knew she was as close to being happy as she’d ever been.

Not that she was great friends with
all
her classmates. She glanced at Martin Cooper, who sat over by the windows. He was looking at her right now with fear in his eyes.

‘You’d better not be reading my mind,’ he said to her in an accusing tone.

Jenna shook her head wearily. The little wimp couldn’t even figure out how to block her. He was the eternal victim, always expecting to be picked on and bullied. His only satisfaction came when he was teased so much that his gift emerged – and an incredible physical strength made him capable of causing serious damage.

‘Out of my way,’ barked a voice behind her. Jenna stayed right where she was, knowing full well that Charles Temple could easily manoeuvre his wheelchair around her. She wondered if being unable to walk was the reason he could be so aggressive and argumentative. She assumed it was the source of his gift – telekinesis – the ability to make things move with his mind.

Sarah Miller was already in her seat, of course. Jenna always thought of her as ‘Little Miss Too Good to Be True’. How else could she criticize someone who was always sweet? It was still hard to believe that Sarah had potentially the most dangerous gift of all of them – the ability to make people do anything she wanted them to do. Not that Jenna had seen much evidence of this amazing gift. For some mysterious reason, Sarah didn’t want to use her talent.

Ken Preston looked up and caught her eye. ‘Hi,’ he said. The greeting wasn’t expressed very warmly, but Jenna was just pleased to be acknowledged by him. She and Ken had experienced some conflicts recently, and she didn’t want him to hold anything against her. He wasn’t a close friend like Emily or Tracey, but she thought he was an OK kind of guy. Also, since that seance experience, he was pretty down on Amanda, and any enemy of Amanda’s was a friend of hers.

She plunked down in the seat next to him. ‘Hi. What’s up?’

‘Not much,’ he said. ‘You?’

‘Nothing special,’ she replied. They both fell silent. Jenna tried to think of a way to keep the conversation going.

‘Heard from anyone interesting lately?’ she ventured.

He seemed to be considering the question. ‘Well, there’s this lady who was watching some series on TV before she died, and she’s always asking me to find out what’s happening on it. So I started watching the show, but it’s really stupid and I hate it.’

Jenna shrugged. In her opinion, Ken was just too nice to the dead people who communicated with him. Of all the gifts, Ken’s was the one she’d least want to have. ‘So tell her to leave you alone.’ She turned away from him, and pretended to gasp. ‘Hey, what’s Carter doing?’

Ken’s eyes widened and he turned swiftly to look at the boy who sat at the back of the room. ‘What are you talking about?’

Jenna grinned. ‘Gotcha.’

Carter Street was the mystery of the Gifted class, a mute, blank-eyed boy who seemed to be more of a robot than a human being. He did what he was told to do, but he never responded or took any initiative, and his expression was always the same – empty. No one knew his real name or where he came from, or if he had any kind of gift at all. Jenna wasn’t even sure what he was doing in the class.

Emily and Tracey came in, but Jenna couldn’t say anything more than ‘Hi’ because Madame was right behind them, and the bell rang. Madame took her usual place behind her desk at the front of the room, and she gave them her usual smile of greeting – but the smile looked a little tense to Jenna.

Her eyes scanned the room. ‘Where’s Amanda?’ she asked.

Nobody responded, and Madame frowned. She was big on punctuality.

‘I’ve got a task for you today,’ the teacher continued. As usual, there were a couple of groans, and as usual, Madame ignored them. ‘I want each of you to make a list of all the people who know about your gift. Include parents, and any other family member who is aware of what you can do.’