The Player

Chapter Three - Lunch With Teresa And Revelations

~ This took a little longer to write than expected...  Hope you enjoy!  Don't forget to comment and vote! :) ~

About half way through class, Teresa slipped me a note: “Are you sure you’re okay?  You haven’t written anything at all this class.  That’s unusual, especially for you!”

She was right of course.  It was part and parcel of being a Mind: we just loved to learn, we absorbed any new information that came our way, whether we wanted to or not!  But right now, I couldn’t concentrate on Spicer’s string of simultaneous quadratic equations.  And I loved a decent mathematical challenge.  I just couldn’t get Caleb off my mind.

I flipped the sheet over and scribbled back: “Yeah, fine.  My pen’s broken, that’s all…”  Even for me, that was bad.  Hopefully Teresa wouldn’t remember the box of pens I kept in my locker.

Just as I was about to hand her the note back, Spicer turned around to face the class.  Frantically trying to hide the evidence, I dropped the note to the floor.

“Penny!” He barked, “Answer to question three please.”

“Uhm…”  I frantically looked around the room for another Mind who had actually been paying attention.

Up the front of the class sat Jones, hands down the brightest of us all.  “X is seven,” he thought repeatedly, thinking in my direction.

“X is equal to seven, sir,” I said in my most confident voice.

“Okay,” Spicer replied, looking vaguely disappointed.  He’d known I hadn’t been listening  but he also knew that each group of mutants stuck together.  He turned back to the whiteboard, his posture a little less haughty.  He hated it when we did that.

“Thanks, Jones,” I thought.

“Welcome,” he thought back, “But really Penny, are you really gonna zone out in Spicer’s class?  He’s in an especially vindictive mood today, if you hadn’t noticed.”

I didn’t reply.  I didn’t need Jones getting all cocky on me.

The rest of the class dragged by, as did the classes before lunch.  By the time lunch time did actually come around, I was drained and famished.

One of us Minds’ extra little skills that was really handy, was our telekinesis.  It was frowned upon in school (you have no idea of the advantage you get in a food fight when you can move things with your mind!).  So out of sheer boredom and exhaustion, I skipped straight ahead to the till in the cafeteria, with my lunch arranging itself neatly on a tray behind me.  The lunch ladies gave me reproving looks but I didn’t care at this stage.  Besides, it was always worth seeing the Weres stop what they were doing to stare like puppies watching their owner dangle their favourite toy in front of them!

I slumped down into the uncomfortable plastic chair next to Teresa.

“That was a nice save in Algebra this morning!” she grinned.

“Thanks,” I replied noncommittally.

“Who was it that helped you out this time?” she winked.

“Well, it certainly wasn’t you!” I snapped.  But feeling bad, I softened my tone, “It was Jones.  He felt sorry for me not having the answer, especially since, according to him, Spicer was in a bad mood today.”

“Isn’t he always?” Teresa chuckled.  “Say, where’s that gorgeous chunk of Alpha-boyfriend of yours?”

“Dunno,” I frowned, just realizing this fact myself.

“Oh he’s probably off with his oh-so-fiiine team mates being all athletic or something,” Teresa laughed.

“You are such a pervert!” I grinned in spite of myself.

“I do try,” she giggled back, flicking her hand.

Teresa’s southern accent got even thicker when she was being a pervert like that, which only added to the effect.

You see, Avery High School was only one of maybe three schools for people like us in the world.  There was one in North America (Avery), one somewhere in Switzerland and one in Melbourne.  The European one was by far the biggest - apparently the European’s made better mutants!

There were no junior schools for us, so up until the age of thirteen, we were usually home schooled.  However, there were some of us who did try mainstream.  That never worked out well.  Then there was the smallest minority of those who never got an education.  They were the saddest cases.  They were the ones who usually ended up in trouble with the law.  But when mutants got in trouble, we didn’t go to prison.  We went straight to Area-51.  No joke.  There really isn’t such thing as aliens.  Just us.  It’s always been us who were the cover up, until the Big Reveal about twenty years ago.

Teresa scrunched up her wrapper and mind-flicked it into the bin.  She missed, catching some poor Vamp in the side of the head.  He hissed at her.  

“Touchy!” I raised my eyebrows so that they almost disappeared into my blonde fringe.

The Vamp just scowled and edged away, his Thermos of lunch clutched tightly to his chest.

“They are just so jumpy!”  Teresa sighed, “Must be this years theatre production.  I heard it’s a disaster already.  Apparently they’ve lost half the cast.”

“Lost?  Don’t you mean they quit?”

“No, they lost them.  I mean there are ten Vamps that have either gotten stuck as bats or have been staked somewhere cause Director June hasn’t a clue where they’ve gone.”

And with that, the cogs in my head began to whir to life...