***
If he thought that helping somebody out would give him some sort of reprieve from the teasing, he was sorely mistaken. He entered the lodge and sat with the other kids from his cabin.
There were seven of them in a rainbow of colors and nationalities, from the dark and brooding Matt to the huge, lumbering Wally. Plus Brian Yamagatsu.
They would have been just normal kids, except they’d gone Active. Now all the freckly and pimple-studded, wonky-eyed, buckey or snaggle-toothed weirdos were going Active, and that meant everybody looked like they were ready to put on a singlet and go figure skating in the Olympics. Or flip around on the rings or whatever.
Only Dorf looked a little off, and while Michael wondered why, he would never ask. Michael did not sing songs around a campfire, do cute skits, or join in the reindeer games. His only saving grace was Charlotte.
“Hey Mikey,” Matt said, ruffling his hair.
“It’s the Mikester,” Wally said. “The Mikeroo. Mike-man. Mikemeister. Mikrophonic.” Wally was the other exception to the Active-perfect spectrum. Where the others were lean and wiry, Wally looked like somebody carved him out of a mountain. He took up half a bench around the big square lodge tables.
“Shut up you guys,” Michael said quietly, not looking at them. Mere mortals did not look on the faces of the gods. The lodge was like a junior Mount Olympus. Like, for instance, the way Brian Yamagatsu stared right through Michael, eyes fixed on his face like he was trying to figure out which piece to carve off and eat.
“Oh no!” Wally shouted, and dove to the side. The others laughed. He came up. “Oh... didn't shoot anything, did he? Didn't try to fry my brain or anything? Douse us in purple foam? Michael, you've lost your touch.”
Michael was being all frowny. He probably looked like a toad.
“Lighten up Mikey,” Avery said in his accent. “We’re just joshing you. Ain’t that right, mates?”
“Too roight,” several of them agreed in horrid fake British mockeries of Avery. Michael felt his hopes rise a little.
“Wanted to invite you out, in fact,” Avery went on.
“To a party.”
“You… but you can’t…” They weren’t allowed out of the cabins after dark. There would be a counselor there to make sure they stayed put and fell asleep.
They laughed. “Listen to this one,” Avery said. “Michael, we’re Actives. We do whatever it is we like. So Mikey, I ask you this mate: you want in?”
“I… I don’t know,” he said.
“Only one catch,” Jason said. Michael just looked at him. “You gotta be Active.”
There would be no tears. Michael felt himself grown red, felt the anger course through him, and the helplessness. He found himself looking at Brian Yamagatsu, one of the other students who hadn’t been in Lincolnshire when Michael had ‘saved the day’. But Brian only stared him straight in the eyes, his almond-shaped ones to Michael’s, and said nothing.
“What’s going on here?”
The eight of them looked up at the hooked nose, which looked to have been broken at least once, and greasy black hair cut into a bowl shape. Trent freaking Millickie. The scar on Michael’s hand itched.
They all shut up.
“Michael,” Trent said. Without a hint of emotion.
“Trent?” He’d spent the entirety of his camp experience well away from Trent Millickie.
“These guys bothering you?” Little fingers of lighting crackled outward from his body, zipping around and leaving little char marks on the table, the floor, the ceiling, the benches.
What the heck was going on here?
“Uh… no.”
Trent nodded and turned to leave. Over one shoulder he said, “Hope it stays that way.”
Michael looked around the table just as the others were doing (except Brian, he just kept staring at Michael's forehead like it was about to sprout a vegetable garden) trying to figure out if anyone else had been as confused as he.
Michael hadn't earned some sort of free ticket to be the Batman of the Justice League for what he’d done in February, that was for sure. Trent Millickie hated him. Used to hate him. What the devil?
Half the town’s Actives, kids and adults alike, meandered or sashayed or bounced into the lodge, with Terrence Jackson, stinky jerkface extraordinaire, coming in last.
He was probably always reading Michael's mind, because he turned and stared Michael in the eyes. Michael quickly looked away and shivered.
A brush on his shirt, and he turned just in time to see Charlotte heading to the female side of the huge lodge. She turned and winked at him.
Wally and Avery and the rest of his table carried on a load of uninteresting banter about Zylowski’s love life and the upcoming party. Michael tried to watch Charlotte, but failed. She’d disappeared behind several Olympian gods crowding for seats.
“So, how's it feel to be the only one in twenty miles without a super thingy?” Dorf asked him, as they were well into the turkey and gravy sandwiches. Bits of food sprayed the dishes as he talked.
Avery answered for him. “How do you think it is, it's like being the only seal in the ocean with a hundred sharks around ya.”
“Yeah, all of you are so big. Lot of good it did you against Lansing,” Michael mumbled.
“What was that?”
“Speak up Mumbles.”
“I believe he just emasculated the lot of you,” Brian Yamagatsu said, continuing that disconcerting stare.
“That right? You choppin' our jewels off, Washington?” Matt asked. The room around him began to darken. Bits of Dorf were wriggling around under his skin, like snakes were suddenly about to pop out of his arms and neck. Jason disappeared entirely, with something in his place that was basically a silhouette of bluish energy. Wally looked a little bigger, if that were possible, but Brian just continued staring at him.
“Is there a problem here, gentlemen?” Terrence Jackson was just about brushing Michael's elbow, his unsettling scrutiny sweeping over the rest of his table.
They quickly averted their eyes and mumbled their negatives, as though his mind powers wouldn't work on them if they didn't meet his eyes. Several of them shot venomous glances at Michael. Eventually Terrence drifted away.
“I feel all… like…” Wally didn’t finish his sentence, but shuddered.
“Violated,” Avery supplied.
“He didn’t do anything to you,” Michael mumbled.
“Eh? And how’d you know that?” Dorf demanded.
Yeah Michael, part of him said. How do you know what it feels like to have someone crawling over your brain, doing their psychic thing, rearranging your personality, turning you into a donkey or something? There was no good way to describe how your brain felt while you were crawling around on the floor, itching at your scalp and trying to pull your cerebral cortex out of your ears.
Dorf was still staring at Michael when a glob of mashed potatoes hit him in the side of the head.
“Wha—” was all anybody at his table was able to say before the wave of mayhem washed over them too. Food was flying everywhere. A shadow floated overhead, and Michael looked up just in time to see an entire pitcher's worth of Kool-aid dropping on him.
Everywhere was food. A vat of mashed potatoes came zipping out of the kitchens and stopped to show the astonished face of a speedster holding a big plastic tray. The mashed potatoes continued in their forward momentum though, all over Terrence Jackson. Gravy slapped Wally in the shoulder and head, and he forgot all about Michael in a second. The rest of them leaped away to join the fray. Danny Silverstein was flying overhead, flinging cornbread down on everybody like a B-52.
Brian continued to stare at Michael. Children were howling with glee, pelting each other with ice cubes and green beans, and Avery was squeezing ketchup into Brian's hair. Brian never moved.
Michael was completely creeped out. Creeped out, until Charlotte showed up and put a banana cream pie on top of his head.
“I thought you needed a new hat,” she said, laughing.
“Did you do this?” he asked, and sampled some of the whipped cream. An entire cake flew right past his nose and crashed into Avery, who collapsed in gales of laughter, hugging the cake. She'd done this just for him.
“I wouldn't know what you're talking about at all,” Charlotte said. “Here, try some chocolate sauce. It's fresh out of the kitchen fridge.” She pulled back the neck of his shirt and squeezed some inside.
He shrieked laughter as the cold sauce crept down his spine, then remembered and looked back to where Brian was sitting.
Brian had vanished.