The week after Alex came back to school, was probably the most settled time of my life. Now that I knew I wasn’t crazy, I easily slipped back into my old lifestyle. Kids at school still looked at me weird sometimes, but now that I was no longer doing crazy stuff and no longer the center of attention, the general school populous forgot about me. It’s amazing how invisible you can become when you’re no longer popular. My parents and psychiatrist however had better memories. I spent a great deal of time trying to convince them that the voices were gone. I could tell that they didn’t completely believe me, but at least I wasn’t going to be sent to the nut house. The doctors said that they would monitor me for the next few days and observe my improvement. In the mean time, I spent my days poking in other people’s heads and finding out what they were thinking. I found out that my brother was actually cheating on some of his tests, that my dad was insecure and that Mr. Victor was a fan of Marvel Comics. It was fun practicing my ability, and as an added bonus, my headaches disappeared. By the end of the week, they were completely gone. The only thing that concerned me was my mom. When I was having a tough time, she was there for me, but now, she was once again cold and distant. Anytime I tried to read her mind, I only got trivial useless thoughts. It worried me for some reason. But I tried not to let it bother me.
There is no worse way to start the week than with Physics. It just sucked all the drive out of you. Alex took his usual seat next to me and scanned the room. He blushed as his eyes met Erica’s and he gave her a small wave. I could hear his mushy emotional thoughts flowing out like a river. For some reason, I felt slightly jealous. Back when Alex was a nobody, he may have been annoying, but at least he was all mine. Now I’d have to share him with Erica. Not that I liked him the same way that Erica did, but it was just the feeling of losing the familiar. “Wow. You must really like her.” I said to him.
He spun around and looked at me. “How do you figure that?’ he asked.
“Because, when you think of her, your thoughts are all sappy and muddled.” I replied
He gave me a serious look. “Stay out of my mind please.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t need to read your mind to know that you two have chemistry. I just needed to read hers.”
His eyes opened large “Allison, how dare you…”
“And I also know that she’s dying for you to ask her to the dance two weeks from now.” He was going to say something but stopped. “Now there was a useful bit of information.” I heard him think.
“See, now I bet you’re happy that I read her mind.”
“No, I’m not. You’ve seen enough Saturday morning cartoons to know that you shouldn’t use your powers for evil.”
“I’m not using it for evil.” I answered, somewhat sheepishly. “I’m just practicing to use my power. I bet you practiced a lot when you found out you could make snow cones.”
He gave me a smart aleck look. “Yes I did, but this is different.”
“How so?”
“Because making snow cones doesn’t violate someone’s fundamental right to privacy.”
I was just about to come up with a witty response when Mrs. Havelock called the class to order. “Well now,” she said, “I hope that you all have finished doing on your laboratory practicals, because there’ll all due for tomorrow.” The entire class groaned. “Yes, I know, I’m excited too.”
I snapped my fingers. “Aww, those. I forgot about that. Well I could just copy them from Alex.”
Alex slowly raised his hand. “Um, Miss Havelock, I wasn’t here for all of these labs.” I felt a cold lump settle in my stomach. This was not good.
“I’m aware of that Mr. Peterson, but when you came back from your little excursion, I do remember asking Ms. Dagger to take them to you. You did do them, did you not Mr. Peterson?”
“Yes…yes, I did” he stammered.
“Well you shouldn’t have a problem tomorrow.” She turned to address the rest of the class. “The lab would be open after school for a few hours after school for all those who haven’t finished. Failure to submit them would result in a loss of 50% in your term grade, as well as your partner’s. Now then let’s get on with today’s class.” He turned and looked at me. I didn’t need to ask, but I did anyway. “Did you do them?” I mouthed. He shook his head slowly. I felt like I was in a sinking life raft. “She’s gonna kill me.” He thought.
After class, I waited back and pulled him aside. “You had a month of doing nothing. You mean you didn't come to school a couple of afternoons and do them?” I asked him.
He didn’t answer. I probed his mind. “I spent most of my afternoons practicing to use my power.”
“You spent your time playing with your powers? Is that it?”I questioned indignantly. “What about last week?”
“I forgot.” He replied ruefully replied. Then his face looked up.“But here’s how I figure it. You’ve done them right. You can give me your reports and I’ll copy them over. I’ll change it up a little so that it won’t look like I copied.”
I didn’t answer him. My whole plan had just backfired. “You didn’t do it either, did you?”
“No,” I replied. “I thought you’d do it so I could copy them from you.” A sudden stab of pain hit me, causing me to wince. Alex looked at me with concern.
“You still have those headaches?” he asked.
“No. They went away when I learnt to control my power.” Honestly, this was the first time I had gotten a headache since I learnt to control my ability. “More importantly,” I said, trying to change the subject, “what do we do about these reports?”
Alex shouldered his satchel. “Well I guess we have a late afternoon later.” he said as he walked out of the lab.
We spent three long, hard hours experimenting with the supposed wonders of the physical world. We tried to work as quickly as we could, but by the time the janitor came to lock up, we still had a third of the experiments to do. Alex picked up his stuff and walked out of the class. “You see,” he said while we were outside, “we had absolutely nothing to worry about.” He obviously wasn’t keeping count. I shook my head. “We still have eight experiments to do. That’s about a third of our grade. We are so going to fail.” Another sharp stab of pain hit me. I winced and rubbed my temples. I could feel another migraine coming on. I instinctively reached for my aspirin. It wasn’t there. I had left them at home. I thought that I was over the headaches and didn’t need them anymore. I guess I would just have to wait this out. Alex looked at the lab and the looked back at me. “We could always go back.” He said, with a smile spreading slowly across his face.
“When?” I asked. “The reports are all due for tomorrow.”
He looked at me and gave an evil grin. A thought floated out to me. “We could always break in.”
“Oh no.” I answered firmly. “We are not going to break into the lab. That my friend is a crime.”
“Failing physics, that’s a crime as well.” Alex replied. I didn’t see the logic behind that, but I didn’t ask. “You think we’re gonna get away with this?” I asked. “There’re security cameras and alarms. How are you going to get past all that?” Alex walked back to the main breaker and froze it by just placing his hand in front of it. Power went out throughout the entire school. “And you were telling me about using my power for evil.” As I spoke, the power came back on. “Oh well, we tried.” Alex seemed undeterred as he proceeded to towards the door of the lab. “What, are you crazy? We’ll get caught for sure now. They’ve put on the generator.”
“When they put on the generators, they take off the security system.” he responded
“How do you that?”
“Last time I got put in detention, they made me work with the janitor. Now do you, have any other questions?”I held back on a response. This was a dark, calculative side of Alex that I had never seen before. Despite my distaste for the whole teenage rebel crusade, I had to admit, I sort of liked how he acted. He reached out and froze the lock on the door. He easily snapped it off. “You are digging yourself into such a deep hole.” I said, following him into the lab, “Do you know how this would look in your permanent record?” Pain seared through my head causing me to almost fall. I grasped the door frame to keep from falling. Alex spun around. “Are you ok?” he asked in concern. “You know I could do this and e-mail, the results to you.”
I shook my head. “I wouldn’t worry about me if I were in your position.” I followed him into the lab, and began taking out the apparatus. My hands were shaking. My vision was getting blurry and my stomach did feel all that awesome. Maybe I had gotten the flu somewhere. Let’s hurry up and do this.” I moaned “I don’t feel that great.”
“Well it would go a lot faster if you would help me.” Alex retorted, taking out the beakers. He reached over and put his hand on my forehead. “You have a temperature.” He said. “You sure that you don’t want to go home?”
I shook it off. ““I’m already committed. Let’s get this over with.”
Alex opened his folder, “Well then,” he said, “Here we…” his voice trailed off. I couldn’t hear what he was saying anymore. It was like a fuzzy cloud had surrounded my brain. My skin felt warm. I was shaking. The room was spinning. I felt something just on the edge of my consciousness. I turned my attention to it…and suddenly something reached out and assaulted my mind. I still don’t know how to explain it. It was as if someone had stuck their hand into my mind and was leafing through it. Call it mental rape. My very thoughts were being ripped from me. “Stop!!! Stop now!! Please! Stop!” I was crying and screaming. The pain was unbelievable. I was fighting with all I could but I couldn’t stop it. I was helpless before whatever this was. I was on the verge of going crazy when I felt something cold. I don’t know where it was coming from or what it was. All I knew was that it felt good. The assault was stopping. I could feel my mind returning to normal and whatever consciousness had caused this was departing. The last thing I heard was a voice. A woman’s voice. All she said were two words that chilled me to the bone.
“She’s ready.”
The next thing I remembered was Alex kneeling over me with his hand on my forehead. “Well, guess we’re not doing any work tonight.” I heard him say. An abrupt knock on the door of the lab surprised me. “Security, open up!” a voice yelled. “Security?? No it can’t be…” My head was still spinning. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. I felt someone grab my shoulders and the next thing I knew, I was lying on something soft. I raised my head so that I could see what was going on clearly. I squinted hard. I could just barely make out the pink of the curtain in my room. Wait, my room? Wasn’t I just I the lab? I rolled over to see I was lying on my bed. My mind was sluggish. Just what was going on here? The ringing of my cell phone bought me back to reality. I picked it up slowly and answered it. ““Allison?” I heard Alex ask on the other end.
“Yeah, I’m here.” I replied slowly
I heard him sigh in relief. “Where are you?”
“I’m home,” I answered, bewildered, “In my room.”
“How did you get there?”
“I don’t know. I was lying in the lab and I felt someone grab me. Next thing I know, I’m here. What about you?”
“Same thing.” he answered. He was silent for a moment. The he said. “Get some rest. We’ll figure this out in the morning.”
“Ok,” I replied weakly. “Good night.”
“Good night.” I dropped the phone on my dresser and fell asleep right there in my uniform, the troubles of the day melting away an almost drugged slumber.