The 6th Power (9 page)

The funny part, of course, was that it hadn’t been any trouble at all, and had actually been pretty fun. I had made sure that the curtains were closed and Kiki was secured in her highchair, then I turned on the bubbles. It wasn’t long before it looked like our kitchen had gotten stuck in the middle of a carwash. This had the added benefit of keeping my sister totally entertained. I’d hold my hands up to my face, pretend to sneeze, and send a stream of suds shooting up to the ceiling. By the third or fourth bubbles-as-snot gag, Kiki could hardly breathe, she was laughing so hard.

That’s the nice thing about toddlers. They really appreciate sophisticated humor.

When everything was good and soapy, I picked Kiki up and we danced across the room, singing the Bubble-Bubble jingle. There was a hiss and a wheeze and presto, clean kitchen. Kiki was sad to see the bubbles go, but I made her one big sphere to play with until I heard Mom on her way downstairs.

If Mom wasn’t so tired and stressed, she probably would have wondered how I’d accomplished all of this in the time it took her to shower, but she clearly had other things to worry about, what with Chet being in the hospital and all. Dad had taken the day off of work and was camped out in my brother’s room. There was still no word on when they would be coming home.

 I left Mom cuddled up on the couch with my sister, and for once, there was no resentment over her attention to Kiki. It felt good that I had made Mom happy and it was a shame that I couldn’t keep the bubble power for longer than the twelve hours. If I spent every day making sure that the house and everyone in it was spotless, maybe Mom would forget about me needing a tutor that summer. Yeah, sure.

I walked down Rosenberg Street, pretty happy to have a Chet-free day, despite my guilt over the whole sending-him-to-the-hospital thing. It even looked like Robert was going to keep his distance, which was kind of surprising. I expected him to be all, “You hurt my brother, prepare to die!” But with more mumbling. If anything, he’d seemed pretty spooked. Granted, from his perspective, I’d tossed a foam grenade at him, but it’s not like I’d actually hurt him.

Now that I thought about it, I couldn’t remember a time when Robert had ever hassled me without Chet being there, taking the lead. Huh.

In any event, Chet was going to come home at some point, and when he did, he’d come after me, and he was going to come after Hannah. I needed to warn her, and after what she’d gone through in Mr. Magellan’s yard yesterday, I needed to make sure that she was okay.

Hannah lived in a white house. The siding was white. The shutters were white. There was even a white-picket fence. But there was no sign whatsoever that a kid lived there. No bikes, no toys, no nothing. Weird.

I wanted to go up and knock on the door, but I also didn’t want to. Hannah was probably still mad or totally freaked out about what had happened. She’d probably yell at me or laugh at me or start crying or breathe fire and melt my face off. Who knew? I had pretty much zero experience with interacting with girls. But I needed to do this. I don’t know why she thought it was her place to try to save me from the twins, repeatedly, and part of me still thought she was kind of nuts for getting involved, but I was grateful. And I admired her bravery. And I was ashamed that a girl without powers was willing to stand up to my brothers while I’d basically been cowering in fear for years, which I knew made sense since Chet could squash my head with one hand if he wanted to, but still, if Hannah could do it, why couldn’t I? Of course, I had done it yesterday. I’d stood up to Chet when he tried to hurt Hannah, even before I’d realized that I could make him boot. I mean, what’s that all about? The twins had hassled plenty of kids who’d made the mistake of trying to be my friend and I’d never tried to stop them before. What was different about yesterday? Was it the powers? Was it Hannah’s example? Was it because I was finally getting sick of all of this? Was it…?

Enough! My head was starting to hurt with all of the questions.

With a sigh, I went through the gate, walked up to the door and raised a hand to ring the bell. The door opened before I got the chance. A man stood there, looking me up and down. From the expression on his face, I could tell that he wasn’t too impressed with what he saw. He had short blonde hair, slicked back, and gold glasses perched on the tip of a long nose. His clothing matched the house. He also looked nothing like Hannah. He held a rolled-up newspaper in one fist, and I was a little worried that he was going to smack me on the nose with it, like I was some dog that had strayed into his yard.

“What?” he said in a tone that sounded like he was yelling, even though he hadn’t raised his voice.

“Uh, hi!” I said. “Is, uh, Hannah here?” Yeah, I was sounding like a blithering idiot.

“Yes,” said the man. I waited for him to say more, perhaps offer to go and get her, but nothing. He just stood there, staring at me. 

“Well… could I speak with her? Please?”

The man sighed through the nose. “No, you may not. She’s practicing.”

I realized that I could hear music coming from somewhere in the house. The cello. “Okay. Could I just, you know, leave a message or some…”

“No,” said the man, already shutting the door in my face.

I stood there awhile, staring at the shiny doorknocker. Wow. “Rudeness” hardly seemed like a sufficient enough word to describe what had just happened. Scholars would have to create a new word for this guy. “Mega-rude?” “Ultra-rude?” “Apoco-rude?”

Not to mention that Hannah had to live in the same house with Rude-asaurus Rex. Man, maybe my home life wasn’t so bad after all.

It was a funny thought, but it occurred to me that maybe her home life really was just as bad as mine. I worried every day about what the twins were going to do to hurt me. Did Hannah have the same worries every day about this guy?

I had a sudden urge to kick down the very nice door in front of my nose. I supposed that it was a good thing that I didn’t have super strength at that moment.

Instead, I turned and headed back down the sidewalk. The house next door had a hedge that wasn’t quite as monstrous as Mr. Magellan’s, but it was still respectable. I figured that Mr. Friendly was peeking out his window to make sure that I’d gone, so when I was out of his line of sight, I ducked down, slipped into the neighbor’s yard and crept back along the hedge until I was under Hannah’s window.

I could tell that it was her window because it was open and music was pouring out. I stooped behind the hedge and waited, giving Mr. Chuckles time to forget that I existed and sit back down with his newspaper. While I waited, I listened. I had no idea what Hannah was playing, and I didn’t know if she was playing it well, but I’d never heard anything quite like it. It was beautiful and sad and awesome, all at the same time, and I don’t even like classical music.

Eventually, she stopped. I picked up a small rock and, checking first to make sure that no one was looking, tossed it towards Hannah’s window. I meant to hit the window pane. Instead, the rock sailed through the open window and I heard Hannah say, “Ow!”

Man, I am lame sometimes.

She appeared, looking around, rubbing the side of her head. I gave serious thought to just lying low, waiting until she was gone, sneaking out of the yard, sneaking out of town, joining the Peace Corps. But then I remembered Chet. I stuck my head up and waved at her.

“Hey,” I whispered. “Sorry about that, I was…”

“What are you doing here?” she hissed, her jaw tense. She looked behind her, probably listening for Mr. Fluffy.

“I, uh, just wanted to make sure you were okay,” I said. My face was starting to get warm. “You know, with what happened yesterday, and all.”

Hannah stared at me, then sighed and rolled her eyes. Her eyes were blue, I noticed. Really light blue. Almost white. “I’m fine, other than you giving me a concussion. You’ve got to get out of here.”

“Okay, yeah, sorry,” I said, babbling. “I just wanted to see how you were, and uh… oh yeah! I wanted to warn you. You should keep out of Chet’s way for, you know, ever.”

She actually smiled at that. It was only for a moment, then her eyes widened. “Shhh,” she hissed, waving a hand at me and ducking back inside. I ducked too, and could hear Mr. Cuddly in Hannah’s room.

“Why have you stopped practicing?”

“Was someone at the door?” Hannah asked.

“No,” he said. Creep. “Why have you stopped practicing?”

“Just taking a break.”

Pause. “You have another thirty minutes of practice, then you can take a break and empty the dishwasher.” Jerk.

Another pause. Hannah said, “All right.”

I hated the tone of her voice. She sounded way too much like I sounded when I talked to Chet.

Then the music was back. If possible, it sounded even sadder. I sat there, listening, feeling warmth that had nothing to do with solar radiation or enhanced memories.

When she finished the piece, I started to creep away, not wanting to get Hannah into any more trouble. Before I’d taken two steps, however, she was back at the window.

“Thanks for the warning,” she whispered as she kept plucking the strings of the cello. “I’m going to be at the park tomorrow morning at seven. Playing basketball. Come by. If you want.” She frowned, and before I could tell her that I’d be there, she was gone again.

Chapter 12

H
er song kept playing over and over again in my head. The song with no name and no words. No, that wasn’t true. The words of Hannah’s invitation kept repeating along with the music. “Come by. If you want. Come by. If you want.”

I walked, not really paying attention to where I was going, listening to the memory. She had invited me to come play basketball. That kind of thing didn’t happen to me. It wasn’t like she had invited me out on a date or anything, so I didn’t know why I was smiling so much. It wasn’t like we were even friends or anything. Or were we?

My steps slowed and my smile fell. No, we probably weren’t friends. I mean, why would Hannah want to be friends with me? Every time I was around her, she was getting hurt or threatened. If she was smart, she’d stay far away from me. And going to see her at the park was a really bad idea. If I stayed away from her, maybe Chet would just focus on me when he got back home. Plus, if I had to take another pill to defend myself, I didn’t want Hannah getting caught in the cross-fire again. I should just forget about her.

Of course, at that moment, forgetting wasn’t something that I was able to do.

The smell finally woke me up. I blinked, looked around, and realized that I was in front of Mr. Magellan’s house. Didn’t even realize that I was going there, but I still needed to track Mr. Magellan down and find out about the pills. You know, the whole possible side-effects thing.

But I also had another concern. I only had one pill left and I really hated the idea of running out. Sure, I’d been freaked when I’d first started taking them and sure, having superpowers brought even more drama into my drama-filled life, but I couldn’t go back to the way things were before. Terrified of the twins, defenseless, and maybe worst of all, feeling like I was stupider than everyone else. I wanted to keep being able to remember stuff, just like a normal person. Or, you know, better than a normal person. I didn’t want to lose that.

Did that make me a junkie? I shook my head. Of course not.

The street was quiet. I walked up Mr. Magellan’s driveway and into the yard, pressing a hand to my nose. It was purely awful. Everything that the twins had spewed was still there. Time and early-June heat had done nothing to improve things. Grass and greenery were wilting under the assault of stomach acids. Dad had tried to call Mr. Magellan the night before about the mess, but he couldn’t get ahold of him. There was a lot of that going around.

I looked around, making sure that I was hidden by the hedges. There was a good chance I was going to faint soon, so I held out my hands and said, “Foam on!” Jets of purple bubbles shot out, covering the crusty brown vomit in waves of suds. Slowly, the stench disappeared, replaced by that grapey-bubble-bath smell. I walked along the path of the puke, making sure to cover every speck of it.

To be honest, it was a lot of fun.

When everything was good and soaked, I sang and the Bubble-Bubbles went down the drain, taking regurgitation with them, leaving behind clean grass. It was dead grass, but at least it was clean. I looked around, making sure that I’d gotten it all, killing time, not wanting to do what I was about to do.

Finally, I decided to try the direct approach. I went up to the front door of Mr. Magellan’s house and rang the bell. Nothing. I tried to look in the windows, but his curtains were thick and I couldn’t see a thing. I looked around again, then hesitantly put my hand on the doorknob and tried to turn it.

So much for the myth about nobody locking their doors in a small town.

With a sigh, I headed around to the back of the house. Mr. Magellan had a thriving vegetable garden back there. I knelt down beside a tomato bush and pushed my fingers into the black soil. It was damp. We hadn’t had rain for days. Someone had watered the garden recently. Mr. Magellan or someone else?

I stood up, bubbled away the dirt off of my fingers, and walked up to the back door of the house. I knocked again. Nothing again. I sighed, shook my head, and reached for the doorknob.

It turned.

I pulled my hand back, half expecting a burglar alarm to go off or a bolt of lightning to smite me down. I may have been kind of a screw up at home and a moron at school, but I’d never actually tried to break the rules. I didn’t talk back to teachers. I didn’t swipe candy bars from the Stop-n-Sip. I hadn’t even ever had an overdue library book.

But if I walked into Mr. Magellan’s house when he wasn’t home, I was committing an actual crime. I could go to jail. Or get sent to my room for the rest of my life. So it was crazy for me to even think of opening the door and going inside. I should have just walked away, gone home, and waited until the old man showed back up at the shop. But who knew when that would be?