Special Boy // phan

-1-

"Hey Dan. Pizza?" PJ asked as I sat at the lunch table, tossing my bag to the ground. I nodded excitedly, and he slid the paper plate toward me with a grimace. I could understand his lack of enthusiasm at the food; if you had been creating it your whole life, you're bound to grow to resent it. But I took an inhumanly large bite out of it, and PJ chuckled.

"Maybe your power is eating pizza," he mumbled, stabbing his plastic fork into his salad as though he was trying to murder it. I rolled my eyes as I did every time he mentioned anything about powers.

"It's not." I took another bite, some of the grease dribbling out of the corner of my mouth. "That's Anthony Padilla," I said, mouth still full. "You think you could do less grease next time?" He groaned, and took my paper plate as I finished the pizza, pressing his hand against it. Before my eyes a slice of pepperoni pizza grew from his finger tips, growing larger and larger until the point dipped off the plate. I grabbed it back and held it by the crust, testing the grease.

"You pass," I accepted, and took another bite. Chris, another one of my classmates and really the only other person that speaks to me, joined us, tissue box in hand as always.

"Hey," he greeted. He turned to PJ. "Hit me." PJ looked up and groaned loudly.

"I'm starting to suspect you only keep me around because of my power." But he grinned as he took my paper plate, my slice already gone, and made one for Chris, who accepted it quickly. He took a bite, but then froze suddenly, mid-chew. PJ and I were used to this, and continued our conversation.

"Well, maybe Anthony Padilla is only good at cheese," PJ argued, raising a forkful of salad to his mouth as if he was going to eat it, then put it back down. I rolled my eyes.

Chris jumped back in action, pulling a tissue from his box and holding it behind his head to the girl walking by behind him, who accepted it with a confused look. Chris held up three fingers, then two, then one-

The girl sneezed loudly into the tissue, sniffing, then turned to Chris with a grateful smile. She obviously didn't know who Chris was, but figured out very quickly that that was his power, because she thanked him and walked away. Chris slumped and crossed his arms.

"She could have Traded me," he grumbled, picking at his pizza crust. I raised my eyebrows.

"That's Jenna Mourey," I said, incredulously. Sometimes I forget people don't have the same obsession with powers as I do. I wiggled my fingers. "Sponge hands." Chris rolled his eyes.

"She still could have given me a credit."

"Ah, yes, that seems like a fair trade. A credit for a tissue," PJ snorted, finally taking a bite of his salad. Trading is what people call it when you do someone a favour, with your power, in exchange for something. PJ gave a lot of people pizza, and Chris gave out these things called "credits", essentially money, owing someone a favour with your power, which can be cashed in, or, more often than not, traded to someone else. You have to use credits for bigger things, like houses and cars, so PJ couldn't buy a boat with his pizza. He could get other kinds of food with it, but Chris and I had to fend for ourselves.

It was almost impossible for me to earn credits myself, so Chris and PJ were constantly spotting me. If they hadn't stopped keeping track of how many they let me borrow over the years, I'd be in deep, deep debt. My parents also gave them to me, after earning them with their own powers, so I wasn't taking too much from my friends. But I was 23; pretty soon I'll have to start figuring out how to make my own credits.

It's really hard to not have a power in this world.

Most children show signs of their powers around three or four years old, when they are unable to control them. Around that time, the kindergartener would take about a year off of school, perfect their power, and come back, ready to show off their new skill. I never showed signs of any sort of power. I tried, too. Toasting bread- nope. The control over plastic string- yeah, didn't think so. I even tested out some Big powers; flying, telepathy, telekinesis. Not that I was really expecting to have one. Bigs are one in a million; there's only a few of the desirable kinds of powers. I figured I was much more likely to be a Bad, a power that could be used for evil; body manipulation, lock picking, or Influencing, the power to change people's thoughts and emotions. There's lots of variations for those, and rarely do people who get them actually use them for evil. That's probably what people assume is my deal; I have some sort of terribly evil power that I prefer not to let everyone see.