Charlotte Powers 1: Power Down (5 page)

xx48.11.03 / 15:24 / Still Wednesday

It's after school now. The rest of my lunch with Ronny and her group was GREAT and I even kind of enjoyed the afternoon class, it was Literature and we discussed Monster One, I really kind of got into it! It's not, like, my favourite book or anything but it's pretty interesting and definitely a 'classic' and my opinions were listened to! I mean ... nobody was really THAT interested to be TOTALLY honest, the students here are kind of ... what's the word ... 'unresponsive'? It's hard to talk to them. Not like with Ronny, talking with her is so easy, she makes things so 'smooth', even if she and her friends all talk so fast it's actually pretty hard to understand them.

There was one weird thing that happened today, though. After I'd finished writing in the toilet I went and washed my hands just because, and then while I was just drying them I suddenly noticed that I wasn't alone in the bathroom. For me that's REALLY weird, I'm really sensitive about other people being around, maybe from living trapped in a secret base for most of my life? But this girl just, like, appeared from nowhere, I kind of got a fright.

"Perhaps you shouldn't sit with Veronica," she said. She talked in this kind of mumbly whisper, kind of creepy. Maybe I should describe her, since she also LOOKED kind of creepy. She was tall and skinny, but really stooped and awkward, like she was trying to fold herself into a smaller space, and she kept glancing around like she was ... I don't know, like she was checking something, except what was there to check? It was just me and her in the bathroom. She has really long black hair, longer than mine, and she kind of lets it hang over her face and also when she talks she talks to the floor, so you can't really see 'her' at all. She was wearing a dull grey sweater over her uniform—which was a boy's uniform, now that I think back on it—and she had on her black gym sweatpants. Her shoes seemed kind of nice, though. Shiny.

Anyway, after she said that, "Perhaps you shouldn't sit with Veronica", I just kind of stared at her for a bit, so she talked again in that same mumbly whisper:

"If you don't act strangely they'll get bored of you and leave you alone. I've seen that happen before."

"I don't want them to leave me alone," I said, after I found my voice. "I like them, they're nice to me."

The girl listened to me very carefully, even though she wasn't looking at me she had this air of creepy intense concentration about her. When I'd finished talking she kind of nodded and said:

"It's okay. I just wanted to warn you."

And then she left, kind of shuffled out of the bathroom. Warn me! Warn me about what, niceness? Brightness? Friendliness? All things that are foreign to HER, I'm sure! I think she's just jealous, that I'm new and I'm already sitting at the most popular table in the whole school with the NICEST girl in the whole school. Maybe I'll put my hair in a ponytail tomorrow, like Ronny's. It looks really nice, she has blonde hair that's all shiny and pretty, and it kind of 'pulls back' from her face, which is good because she is SO pretty. Lovely skin, sharp eyebrows, deep brown eyes, kind of 'perfect' really.

Anyway! I have homework for the first time ever! Well ... technically I guess ALL of my previous education was 'homework' because I did it at home, but this is my first PROPER take-home homework. After that I'll probably walk into town and buy some groceries, I'm pretty good at cooking even if it's me saying it. I need to stock my fridge! Maybe I'll try to find some decorations and things, too, to make this apartment more 'me'.

Can't wait for tomorrow!

xx48.11.04 / 21:45 / Thursday

Okay so you know how on Tuesday I said THAT was the worst day of my life? I lied. Well, I didn't LIE, I can't LIE, but today was DEFINITELY the worst day of my life, so that kind of makes what I said untrue and therefore a lie. There are only two words that could sum up today's events:

TOTAL DISASTER.

Well actually NO, 'disaster' isn't the word I want even though it was TOTALLY a disaster, I need a more powerful word than that:

TOTAL HUMILIATION.

Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh, I thought I was depressed before but now ... my life is over. I want to die. I'm that down about things. I just spent the last three hours trying to get an outside signal on my Opal, I went for a big walk up the hills behind the school and even climbed on to the apartment roof. Result? Nothing. Local nets only. I WANT MY FAMILY!

Sigh.

I suppose I should write down what happened. Things started off okay. Morning classes were fine, just more boring than I expected. I keep trying to enjoy them but nobody else seems to want to make an effort, not even the teachers. Boring classes are the least of my problems now, though. Lunchtime was when it all went wrong. I was so excited to see 'Ronny' again and her friends and to sit with them and listen to them chat ... but when I went up to their table and said "Hi Ronny!" and went to sit down she just
looked
at me with this totally blank expression. It was like she hit me, it felt that bad, I don't know why, just seeing her blank face while her seventeen friends all giggled and nudged each other and sneered at me was the worst thing in the world. She waited until I'd recovered a little from the shock and was just really confused and stunned before she talked:

"Nobody calls me
Ronny
," she said.

And then I knew. In that instant I knew, she'd just been playing with me, tricking me, that she'd just pretended to like me, to be my friend, that she'd just been setting me up for this. Like Veronica had just given a signal, all of the other girls started laughing and talking at once, all about how
clueless
I was and how
stupid
, how they'd been insulting me to my face yesterday and I didn't even notice, that they couldn't BELIEVE how far they stretched Veronica's little pretend-to-be-friends-with-Charlotte scheme without me realising that's what they were doing, pretending, and where did someone as naive as silly little Charlotte Powers COME from? The MOON?

That's when the spaghetti sauce got dumped over my head. I didn't see who did it, one of Veronica's cronies probably, it doesn't matter. All that mattered was that I was standing there totally humiliated in front of the whole school and they were all laughing at me again, standing there dripping with tomato sauce, all in my hair and over my new clean uniform and seeping into my shoes.

Worst. Moment. Of. My. Life.

Worse even than when I realised I'd lost my powers. I don't know why, it just WAS.

What followed was pretty bad, too. This guy suddenly appeared, a student but dressed in a different-coloured uniform to everyone else, darker and with a band across it, and he started by telling Veronica off so that wasn't bad, but then he turned on me! I couldn't believe it, I was standing there dripping with tomato sauce and he was telling ME off!

"You might be new here but that doesn't excuse your behaviour," he said. I didn't do anything, though! I haven't done anything bad, just the thing with my guitar which I still haven't gotten back and getting spaghetti sauce dumped over me, what did I do? WHAT DID I DO? Anyway, he wasn't finished telling me off, he went on about me 'causing disturbances' and 'encouraging misbehaviour'.

"I ... I'm just trying ..."

I couldn't get anything more than that out. And before you say anything YES I cried AGAIN, why am I such a crybaby? I'm supposed to be a superhero, even without my powers I should have 'inner strength', right? A will of iron? An indomitable presence of mind? An invincible spirit? I always thought I kind of did but now I know that I don't. I'm not strong-willed or indomitable in ANY way, I'm just a stupid weak girl who cries when she's told off. Just pathetic.

"Trying to do what?" the guy said—he's a head student or something, I don't know, I was too upset for comprehension. "Be a menace to the school? Look, Powers, while you're here you're going to have to do things OUR way. Keep your head down, do your work, and FOLLOW THE RULES. Don't act out, don't rock the boat. The last thing this school needs is another hero. Somebody get her to a bathroom."

So once again I was escorted to a bathroom, my head spinning. What did he mean? What rules? Nobody said anything about any rules! It's not fair to say that sort of thing and not even tell me what's going on! Give me a pamphlet or something with everything written down, otherwise how am I supposed to know how to behave? And what did he mean, 'another hero', how have I acted in ANY WAY heroic since I've been here? Hah, he doesn't have to worry about that AT ALL, if there's one thing I've learnt since I came here it's that I am DEFINITELY not a 'hero'. At this point I wouldn't even make a good VILLAIN. I'm just a no-power nobody, of no worth to anyone.

About halfway through getting cleaned up I realised that the person who was helping me was the creepy girl from yesterday, the one who'd warned me about Veronica. Now I realise what she meant, of course, a little too late.

"Why didn't you tell me!" I demanded—I know it was unfair but I wasn't in a state for reason at that point. She shrank away and I could tell I'd upset her, but to my shame I didn't apologise or say anything, just kept trying to clean up—she'd brought a clean uniform for me but there was a lot of sauce all over me, it got EVERYWHERE.

After a couple of minutes she spoke:

"I did tell you."

That made me feel worse. Horrible, actually. She was just trying to be nice to me and what did I do? Acted like a totally awful person, is what. But ... but I didn't apologise. I should have, but I didn't.

"I'm Charlotte."

That was her, a couple of minutes later. Her name is Charlotte, too. Charlotte Crescent.

"That's my name," I managed to mutter. She half-gasped.

"I'm sorry, I've offended you—"

"No, you haven't—why would that offend me?"

She shrank back again and clasped her hands together in front of herself, kind of wringing them together.

"I don't know," she said, her voice small. "I'm glad I didn't."

I should have said something, I should have smiled at her, I should have done ANYTHING except just walk out of the bathroom—I was clean and changed then—leaving her to deal with my sauce-covered uniform.

After that I couldn't really face anything except coming back here to my apartment and taking two showers and then hiding under my bed with Opal set to 'search'. Then after school was out and the grounds were pretty much deserted I went for a signal-search walk. Nothing, though. Nothing at all.

You know something, though? Even though today was awful and horrible and definitely the worst day of my life, right now, as I write this, I kind of feel ... clear. Like I can think properly for the first time since I teleported here. Maybe I've been suffering some after effects of the teleportation, a kind of brain-scrambling or something, and that's starting to wear off—which might mean that my powers will come back too! Oh, PLEASE let my powers come back. Then I could just ... just run out of this place. Just
flee
.

Maybe I should try that anyway. Start walking and don't look back. Or take the first bus out of town, at least until I get an outside signal for Opal.

That sounds like a good plan, actually. Tomorrow is Friday. Then it's the weekend, which means no school. I probably wouldn't even think about going back except for the other Charlotte, I feel so bad about how I treated her, or didn't treat her, or whatever, I wasn't good and I need to make up for that. Besides which I kind of ... I kind of just want to see her again, she's creepy and weird but she helped me when I needed it, she tried to warn me against Veronica and in my worst moment she was the one who guided me to a bathroom and cleaned me up and oh my goodness I was so totally awful to her. I didn't even say thank you, that's pretty much unforgivable.

Okay. So that's my plan. Go to school tomorrow to find Second Charlotte and apologise, then on Saturday I get a bus out of this stupid town, get an outside signal on Opal, and call Mum and Dad. They'll know what to do.

xx48.11.05 / 07:57 / Friday

I spent an hour this morning trying to make my hand go out-of-phase. Result? Nothing. No sign of any of my powers coming back. I didn't have much hope, but last night I kind of felt ... I don't know. I don't have my powers, that's a fact I'm just going to have to live with.

Also spent a ridiculous amount of time this morning trying to find out what kind of shoes Charlotte Two was wearing, I don't know why but I can't get them out of my head. Maybe it's because she wears such weird dull clothing otherwise, but such nice shiny shoes. The local nets are a bit limited, but based on some images and descriptions I got from the local KnowledgeWeb I think they're Derbys (Derbies?) or Brogues—boy's shoes, even though she's definitely not a boy. They didn't LOOK masculine, though, they were rounded at the toes and they had a strap across her perfectly white socks—you know, the more I write about this the more strongly I feel that they're not Derbies (Derbys?) or Brogues at all. Maybe I should just call them 'school shoes' and be done with it. I mean, look at how much I've written about them already, it's probably unhealthy to obsess over someone else's footwear this much, especially when the owner of said footwear isn't even particularly important to you.

Still, she's the only person here who's really spoken to me, apart from stupid horrible Veronica and her stupid horrible friends.

I'm already kind of late for class. I should get going.

xx48.11.05 / 12:54 / Still Friday

No sign of Charlotte II all morning, and she's not in the lunch room. Disappointing. Less disappointing is that there hasn't been any sign of Veronica or any of her cronies either. Actually, now that I look around this lunch room is pretty deserted, not even half the tables have people sitting at them. This place was packed the other days, what's going on? Is there some special Friday event I'm not aware of? Maybe I should ask someone.

...

Well THAT was no help. I asked three people and none of them were helpful in the least. They just kind of shifted and mumbled and then told me to go away. "Go away, Fumbles", actually. Apparently I'm still stuck with that stupid nickname, and no closer to an answer about why half the students are missing. There were a lot of empty desks in class, now that I think about it. Morning classes were even more subdued than normal.

I'm starting to think that there's something weird going on here.