Mr. Johnson's Academy For The Superbly Strange~ Book One Of The Ultimates Series

Chapter 2: Power Studies

I started my new school of my new life in a class called power studies. The name is pretty self-explanatory. It was in room 405, right across from room 455, power testing, which I was not excited for.

My teacher, Mr. Howe, gave us assigned seating. Mr. Howe was a redhead with hair standing on end and a crazy orange mustache. His hair was graying at the temples. He was very twitchy, which I'm guessing was the result of too much coffee.

I was seated in front of a guy with slick black hair and blue eyes.  He had an abnormally large nose.In front of me was a girl with long brown hair and deep brown eyes. Both of the kids seemed about thirteen. I assumed that was my age.

"Derek Patton, you will be seated in the far right corner." A kid with blonde hair moved to the back of the classroom.

"Hey kid." I heard the guy behind me say. I assumed he was talking to someone else.

"Kid!" He whispered again, more harshly this time.

I turned around, "What?"

"What's your ability?"

"My what?"

"Your power. What is it?"

"Mr. Henson, Mr. Bryan, is there something you'd like to share with the class?" He look down at a clipboard to remember our names. He had a nasally voice.

"No Mr. Howe." We said in unison.

"Good, then with everybody situated, we can start our day. My name is Mr. Howe," He pronounced Howe like How, as in the famous hockey player, "I will be teaching you about your powers, abilities, mutations, whatever you want to call them. Before we proceed with our lesson, I've arranged a little way for everyone to get to know each other. First, you'll state your name, where you're from, what you like to do, and what your power is. I'll go first. My name is Mr. Howe, I'm from Houston, Texas, I like to golf, and, like all teachers here minus Mr. Johnson, I have no power." I found that strange. Whywould Mr. Johnson have non-powered teachers teaching a school for powered kids?

"Now Ty will go, then we'll wind around the classroom."

Ty, who sat in the top right corner of the room, stood up and faced the class in the manner of a motivational speaker about to give a speech to a hundred people.

"I'm Ty Fruger, I was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. I like to hunt, and I have the ability to make any living organism suddenly pass out."

That earned a couple of gasps, so Mr. Howe questioned, "And I'm sure you're not going to be using your power in my cl-" Mr. Howe fell to the floor. Ty was smirking. The class burst into a fit of laughter.

"That was not funny!" Mr. Howe struggled to get up from the floor, "The next person to show that kind of behavior will be sent to Mr. Johnson's office immediately!"

"Yessir."

Next was the girl in front of me, "My name is Danielle Lawrence," She said in a very soft voice, "I was born in Montréal, Québec. Québec is in Canada, by the way." She didn't seem to say that as a snarky remark, just a little note in case anybody didn't know, "I like playing my guitar, and I have the ability called telepathy." That brought up a lot of gasps. I could imagine that telepathy is a pretty extreme power, even among these super powered kids.

The next kid, Carly Hyde, went, then the next, then the next, until the person next to me went.

He introduced himself as Rick Watson. I didn't hear much of what he said. I was extremely nervous about my turn. What would I say? I knew my name, but nothing about my power. I didn't even know if I had a power.

"-and my power is telekinesis." Rick finished as a few pencils on his desk levitated off the desk. It was officially my turn.

"Uh," I started, sweating as if the sun were right on top of me, "I'm Steven Henson, I... erm... don't really know where I'm from," Gasps. This was a very gaspy audience, "and I dont... um... exactly know my power yet." The class erupted in noise as if somebody had just pressed an invisible unmute button.

"He's a manni!"

"Why is he here?"

"He doesn't belong here!"

"He's going to ruin the school!"

"Everyone, calm down." Mr Howe attempted to make his voice heard over the complaining children.

"I can't go to school with a manni!"

BE QUIET! A female voice boomed. All the kids, including me, covered our ears. I noticed that Danielle wan't covering her ears. In fact, she was kind of smirking.

"Thank you Ms. Lawrence," Mr. Howe thanked. Danielle nodded, "I bet Steven here is just a late bloomer. Did you get yourself tested?" Mr. Howe asked. My brain felt like it was having a staring contest with the sun.

"I don't really remember much about anything from before two days ago."

The kid next to me, Bonnie Green, saved me and stood up. I sat back down with a bad feeling in my stomach. After all the kids had their turn, the bell rang.

I really didn't know how I could survive the rest of the day, much less a year.