Static

CHAPTER TWO

*Flea pictured above*

        I'm not really sure why I got cursed.  It just- happened.  I do remember the day though, very vividly.  It was the last day of 7th grade and I was riding the bus home from school.  Little 13 year old me was staring out the window while my best friend, Mia, was talking to some redhead girl across the isle.  I remember getting off the bus at my house and watching it speed away, kicking up a huge cloud of dust from the road since it hadn't rained in days.  I recall walking up my stone driveway and having to go through the garage since the front door was locked and nobody came to unlock it when I knocked.  I had thrown my backpack on the floor beside the door like I always did and kicked my shoes off right next to it. 

       I'd called out for Charlotte, my older sister, who usually got home an hour before me from her high school.  When she didn't answer I started looking for her.  I didn't think it was odd that mom and dad weren't home, they often didn't get home until late because of their work. 

       I walked up the stairs, thinking she might have her door closed and her music playing too loud that she couldn't hear me.  But, when I went to open her door, the one right next to my own, I didn't hear music.  I heard voices.  So, I pulled my hand away from the knob and eavesdropped in on the conversation happening inside.

       "-seen enough proof."  A voice said.  I didn't recognize who it was then, but I found out soon enough that it was Connors.  I also didn't know it then, but Jennings and Charlotte were both in there as well.
      "I can tell you this for a fact, Imogen is a perfectly normal girl, there is no way she is one of the freaks you are describing."  Charlotte sounded somewhat panicked.  And being the younger sister that I was, if my older sister was panicked, I assumed that the situation was bad enough that I needed to be scared too.

     "Look, we understand you might not have seen what we have so that may be why you deny her being what she is but miss, I'm afraid we have orders to take her and we must follow those orders."  Jennings spoke up.  I was very, very confused at this point. I didn't know what these strangers were doing in my house, talking to my sister, and I didn't know why I was the subject they seemed most interested in discussing.

     "What've you seen, then?  What makes you so sure that my sister has been exhibiting this- behavior?"  Charlotte said impatiently.  It was Connors who spoke next.
    "She first demonstrated her abilities last month, at her school at around 2:45 P.M.  The government had instructed all school staff across the country to report any suspicious acts that can't be explained.  Young Imogen's art teacher let us know what happened."  As he spoke I tried to recall what had happened last month in art class.  Had I done something wrong?  Were these people here to take me away to be punished for some serious crime I didn't know I had committed? 
       "He told us that at this time, Imogen was asking him a question, and he noticed her green eyes turn purple.  He thought it must be a trick of the light but he realized it was not when other children in the class asked her how she had changed her eye color.  He too asked her and she seemed like she did not understand what he was talking about.  At the same time he approached her with the question the lights flickered out."  I was starting to remember this moment.  It had been yet another exhausting Monday, only, this one had a particularly harder bite than normal.  At lunch the table of boys behind me and Mia's table had started mocking me for some reason. I had tried to block out their snarky comments and laughter.  Also, more and more homework had begun to pile up in my todo box than usual.  Not to mention I had tripped over my own feet and dropped everything in my hands all over the floor giving everyone in my immediate vicinity yet another reason to laugh at poor, pathetic me.

        So, by 2:45 I was so fed up with the way things were going that it did not help when some kid named Marcus Andrews had started making fun of my artwork.  Also, my peers in my art class had been staring at me really weird and kept asking me how I changed the color of my green eyes to purple which of course I did not understand at all so I thought they were all pulling some practical joke on me.  Then I had gone to ask my teacher, Mr. Schneider if I could go to the bathroom.  What I really wanted to do was let off some steam and take a break from everybody but I didn't tell him that part.  He too then commented on my eyes and I got so mad that the other kids had got him in on this sick prank too that I- I don't know really, I guess I just, went off.  Like a bomb.