Strikeout of the Bleacher Weenies (11 page)

Nothing happened, except his hands got sweaty.

Maybe it has to be electronics.

He found another watch. His aunts and uncles didn't have a lot of imagination when it came to presents.

Marvin stared at the watch for a while. It remained as unexploded as the action figure. Then he remembered that he wasn't just staring at the things that blew up. He was glaring.

He tried glaring at the watch, but that just made his face hurt.
Maybe I really have to be angry.
He figured that would make a difference. Fake anger wasn't very strong.

He thought back to the other watch. He was angry with his parents for not driving him to the movie. But he was even angrier with Todd for not giving him one of the seats in the car.

“You call yourself a friend. You stupid, nearsighted, squinting, loser, fake friend.”

Marvin glared at the watch, making sure not to point it directly at his own eyes. A hum made of frantic clicks rose from his wrist, a slight red glow blossomed over the face, and the watch exploded.

“Awesome,” Marvin whispered.

He grabbed the action figure, worked up a gut full of anger, and blew the toy to pieces. He realized it wasn't just electronics. He could blow up all sorts of things. He could blow up anything at all.

The full meaning of this hit him.
He'd discovered a superpower.
He was always imagining what it would be like to lift a car over his head with super strength, or to knock people off their feet with the power of his mind. But this wasn't a fantasy or a pretend power, like a kid running around with a cape or a plastic sword. This was real.

His body tingled and his mind surged like someone had replaced his blood with electricity.

“I have unbelievable power,” he whispered. He could become an authentic superhero. “Fear me.”

He just had to figure out the best way to use his power. “Don't be stupid with it,” he said. It would be easy to start fooling around, blowing things up. There had to be a smarter way. If he made the right choices, he knew he could become rich and powerful.

I could work for the government!
He could be an assassin. He pictured himself eliminating the bad guys. That was it. He could be a secret agent. Maybe, if sight was the key to his power, he could even blow things up through binoculars or a telescope. He'd be unstoppable, and uncatchable. He'd be the most feared assassin in the world.

“I need a costume,” he said. “Maybe a cool mask. Or a fancy suit, like a superspy.”

He crossed his room and looked at himself in the mirror. He could just picture himself in an expensive suit, like the spies in the movies, gliding elegantly through a party at an embassy, looking for his target.

But I never get invited to parties.

The thought interrupted his fantasy. The thought also led to another, and another, as he brooded about all the times his so-called friends had left him out of parties, movies, or games.

“I hate all of you!” he shouted, glaring at the mirror. “And I'm going to make all of you suffer. I'm going to blow up everything you own.” Forget the stupid spy stuff. He was going to punish the rotten losers who pretended to be his friends, but never really liked him. All the kids who left him out of everything were in for a real surprise. Maybe he'd invite them to a surprise party.

But they'd never come. They'd promise to come, lying right to his face. And then, they'd stand him up, and laugh about it behind his back. That thought fueled his rage. There'd be no party. He'd have to hunt them down one by one.

“You're all doomed!” he shouted, glaring into the mirror.

He was so angry, he didn't even notice the ticking at first. But he definitely saw the red tinge that washed over his face.

“No!” Marvin screamed as he realized what he'd triggered.

The faceplate of the calculator … the face of the watch … the face of the action figure. His anger, his power, worked on faces as he glared at them.

Before Marvin could say anything more, his head exploded. It made a much larger mess than the watch had.

 

THE TALK

A
bunch of different
reactions ran through the class when the announcement was made. Behind me, I could hear Kenny Harcourt snickering. On my right, I saw Mary Beth Adderly whisper something to Kara Chen. Kara blushed. On my left, Tyler Horvath looked up at the speaker with no expression. Next to Tyler, Eddie Moldour was wearing a smug grin.

I listened as the announcement was repeated. “All sixth-grade girls please report to the auditorium,” Principal Sestwick said.

We knew what that meant. It was time for
The Talk
. Even though the guys were left out, it was no big secret to us what would happen. They'd get the girls together and explain stuff about puberty and growing up. It was also no big deal—for guys. We had it simple and easy.

“All sixth-grade boys please report to the gym,” Principal Sestwick added.

“Great,” I said, turning around toward Bobby Mussleman. “Maybe we'll get to play dodgeball while they talk to the girls.”

“That sounds good,” Bobby said. “Wouldn't be fair if they made us sit here and work.”

We got up and headed to the gym, while our teacher, Mr. Mercante, made a few halfhearted attempts to keep us from running, pushing, or talking too loudly. At the gym doors, we merged with the boys from the other three sixth-grade classes.

I expected to see our gym teacher waiting for us. Instead, Principal Sestwick came in and went over to a microphone that had been set up at one end of the gym.

“Sit down, boys,” he said.

I grabbed a spot on the floor, next to Eddy. “What's up?” I asked.

“No idea,” he said.

“In the next few years,” the principal said, “you'll begin to notice some changes.”

Next to me, Eddy squinted at his hand, then, in a fake scream, he whispered, “I've got hair on my knuckles. Oh no, save me! I'm changing!”

I choked down the laugh that was threatening to explode out of my mouth. It was a good thing I wasn't drinking milk—the spray would have shot three or four feet from my nose. “Cut it out,” I managed to say when I'd gotten back in control.

The principal was still talking, even though Eddy and I weren't the only ones who were horsing around. “In the beginning, some of this might frighten or confuse you,” he said, “but please keep in mind that everything that happens is perfectly natural.”

He paused and looked across the crowd, then went on with The Talk. “The first signs might be very small. One day, you'll find yourself reading the newspaper. And not just sports and comics, but also the news.”

“What's he talking about?” I asked Eddy.

“No idea,” Eddy said.

“I read the paper,” Tyler said.

Someone behind him said, “Who cares?” and smacked him on the head.

“You'll find yourself keeping track of your money,” Principal Sestwick said. “You might even make out a budget. Eventually, you'll consider opening a checking account as a first step toward establishing credit.”

Principal Sestwick took a deep breath, then went on. “As these changes occur, you'll even find yourself looking at insurance policies, as well as…”

He kept on talking. I was almost too shocked to listen. Around us, I could see kids staring at the principal with amazement. The stuff he was talking about …

“These are things our parents do,” I said aloud as the realization struck me. “He's saying we're going to do them, too!”

“Not me,” Eddie said. “I'm never doing any of that. No way.”

A wave of revulsion rippled through me. “But our parents—”

“Shut up.” Eddie cut me off. “Don't talk about it.”

I had to agree with him.
Not me,
I thought.
Never.

A few minutes later, The Talk was over. We all got up, rising like zombies, stiff and stunned and dazed. We'd been pelted with terms like
annuities, compound interest, and comprehensive coverage
. On the way back to class, we ran into the girls. They were mostly looking pretty giggly. A few of them looked embarrassed but, all in all, they looked a lot better than the boys around me.

Kara caught my eye. She was more mature than the other girls, and she didn't seem embarrassed to be coming back from the girl's version of The Talk.

“What did you boys do?” she asked.

“Dodgeball,” I said before I even had a chance to think.

“Lucky you,” Kara said.

“Yeah. Lucky us.”

 

SAME BIRD

Isabel and
Avi were
hiking in the woods with their parents. Isabel and Avi's parents thought hiking was a wonderful family activity. Isabel and Avi thought otherwise, but they didn't dislike the great outdoors enough to complain about the situation. They were quite familiar with the phrase, “Pick your battles,” and quite expert at applying that wisdom.

Avi knew that if he complained about the hike, his parents would be less likely to pay attention to him when he tried to convince them to switch to a better Internet service provider.

Isabel knew that if she complained about the hike, she'd have a harder time arguing with her parents for a later curfew when she went out with her friends on Saturday nights.

So they suffered, moderately, in a silence which they dotted with quiet sighs and rolling eyes. Sure, nature was grand and beautiful and majestic. But it was also highly repetitive. It might be true that no two snowflakes were alike. But it was also true that pretty much every snowflake was really really really similar to every other snowflake when viewed without the aid of a microscope or magnifying glass.

At least it wasn't snowing. That wasn't a big surprise, since the family was hiking a trail in southern California. Adding to the irony, Avi and Isabel's parents owned a flower shop, which meant they were doing a very bad job of escaping from work by heading for the great outdoors.

“What's that?” Avi asked as he spotted something that was not green or brown at the edge of the endless brown trail lined with an endless expanse of green plants and brown-limbed trees.

“A feather?” Isabel suggested.

Avi glanced ahead, to make sure his parents weren't watching. His mom seemed to think that certain items carried enough germs to instantly sicken, cripple, or kill the healthiest kid. Bird feathers were very close to the top of that list, bested only by rat corpses, anything festering in a public trash can, and Stinky Minkowitz, their one neighbor who seemed clueless about basic hygiene and sanitation.

His mom was talking with his dad about adult stuff involving taxes. Avi picked up the feather. It was large and red, with streaks of silver. No, not silver. As Avi looked closer, he decided the color was more like steel than silver. He swiped the feather in the direction of his sister, to see if she shared their mother's aversion. She didn't.

“Peacock?” Avi guessed, naming the only large bird he could think of that had colorful feathers.

“In the woods?” Isabel asked, giving her voice the medium-high-level tone of mockery she reserved for absurd questions that came from people she was, at times, somewhat fond of.

“Good point.” Avi decided he didn't need to know immediately, or maybe even ever at all, what kind of bird the feather came from.

“What's that?” Isabel said, a short while later. She bent and plucked something from the middle of a bush.

Avi looked at the feather his sister held. “Same bird,” he said.

“Yeah,” Isabel said. “Same bird.” On this, they could agree.

They found five more feathers in the next hundred yards. Each time, Avi said, “Same bird.”

Each time, Isabel nodded, and said, “Same bird.”

Ahead of them, their parents hiked, talked, and cast the occasional glance back to make sure they hadn't lost the rest of their family.

Soon after that, Avi found an entire wing.

It took him a moment to gather his wits and say, “Same bird.” It was a large wing. But the red and steel feathers left no doubt.

“Let me see.” Isabel took the wing and examined it. The bit of flesh and bone she could see at the severed end also had a metallic shimmer. “Yeah, same bird.”

They found a foot and a beak before they found the second wing.

Eventually, guided by their basic knowledge of bird anatomy, gained mostly from the rotisserie chickens their parents bought when neither of them felt like cooking dinner, Avi and Isabel were fairly certain they'd found an entire bird. That was good since they'd reached the limits of their carrying capacity. Their arms were loaded, and both of them kept dropping pieces. In its current disassembled condition, the bird remained unidentifiable by either of the kids.

“Let's see if we can put it together,” Avi said.

“You can't put it together,” Isabel said. “That's a really stupid suggestion.”

Avi replied with a glare. He wasn't stupid, and his sister knew it.

“Sorry,” she said. She took a wing and pressed it against the side of the bird body.

Click.

The wing snapped into place as if the pieces were magnetized.

“Told you,” Avi said.

He handed Isabel the second wing. She put it on the other side of the body.

They knelt, spread the remaining pieces in front of them, and began reassembling the bird.

“Hey, what are you kids doing?” their dad called.

“Stop dawdling,” their mom called.

“Hurry,” Avi whispered, turning his back to his parents. There weren't a lot of pieces left. He wasn't sure what he and Isabel were going to do with the bird once it was assembled, but he knew he'd have a better chance of doing what he wanted with it if they got the whole thing together before their parents realized what it was.