Authors: Adrian Howell
Alia looked up at her, and a moment later Terry laughed, answering, “Oh, so you came down to watch your brother get beaten up, huh?”
Alia laughed too and probably said something back to her.
Terry asked, “Don’t you ever say anything for real, kid?”
Alia shook her head.
“We’re working on it,” I said, though that wasn’t exactly true. I still hadn’t restarted Alia’s mouth-speaking lessons.
“Hmm. Well, okay,” said Terry. “But right now, we’re working on you, Adrian.”
“You could’ve told me you were related to Ralph,” I said, doing my best to keep any hint of accusation out of my voice.
“I don’t know him any better than you do,” said Terry. “In fact, you probably know him better.”
“But he’s your grandfather, right?”
“He’s not my anything!” snapped Terry. “Would you want someone like that as family?”
I laughed a little, and Terry said, “Enough talk. Let’s start.”
“Stay out of the way, Ali,” I said, and Alia sat down on the edge of the gym mats.
Terry and I faced off, and soon I was becoming very friendly with the floor again. My sister watched us silently, half-amused, half-shocked as Terry knocked me down in straight, two-second matches.
Once Terry was through humiliating me in front of Alia, she started showing me what she was doing more carefully. “Like this, but not like this,” she would say, without bothering to name any of the moves as she molded my stance into what she insisted was the correct fighting form. When I tried to do anything, however, I would quickly lose my balance and we would have to start over.
I was right to let my sister tag along, though. It was so quick that I can’t even be sure what happened, but I ended up with a very bloody nose.
The iron in a psionic’s blood, once it’s outside the body and touching the skin, can drain powers just like any other metal. While having a nosebleed isn’t as bad as being touched by a large piece of metal, it still made my legs a bit wobbly until Alia healed me and I wiped my face. But seeing how weak I became without my psionics didn’t stop Terry from continuing to train me at her impossible pace.
My combat instructor seemed to keep forgetting that she was dealing with a complete novice, so she would get totally frustrated when I couldn’t do what was clearly second nature to her. Once her frustration peaked, she would give up and teach me really basic stuff for a while, or get me to work out on the weights and exercise machines while she practiced solo. All too soon, however, she would go back to trying to teach me battle moves I clearly wasn’t ready for.
“Okay, I guess that’s about all we have time for,” said Terry, pulling me to my feet for the hundredth time. “You can take the weekend off, but I would recommend getting out and doing some sports. We’ll have regular lessons from Monday, okay?”
“Yeah, sure, great,” I said, failing miserably to sound enthusiastic.
“So,” said Terry, turning to my sister, “what did you think?”
Alia looked at her, and Terry laughed, saying, “I agree.”
“What did she say?” I asked Terry.
“She said you need practice.”
“Yeah?” I said, turning grumpily to Alia. “Well, so do you! Cindy’s right. You need to learn to speak.”
As we climbed the stairs out of the dojo, I realized that I hadn’t been able to ask Terry anything about her. How was I going to get to know her better if all we ever did was train? I got my answer a moment later.
Stepping into the elevator, Terry asked, “Are you coming to the party?”
“Party?” I asked.
“Sunday night,” said Terry. “The big welcoming party?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, remembering. “Mr. Baker said he was going to introduce me.”
“Well, maybe I’ll see you there,” said Terry, smiling.
Terry got off the elevator at the fourth floor, and I had to listen to my sister singing
“Addy has a girlfriend”
until we got back to the penthouse.
“Oh, good, you’re back,” said Cindy as we opened the front door. “I have to go to another meeting now, but I’m expecting a delivery here, so please stay in the house today, at least until it arrives. Just drag everything into the spare room, okay? Lunch is on the table. Don’t forget to wash up.”
Cindy left hurriedly and, far too tired to play with Alia, I took a short nap on the sofa and spent the rest of the afternoon meditating. The delivery came three hours after Cindy left. It turned out to be a series of large cardboard boxes, too numerous for the deliverymen to bring up at once in the elevator. Many of the boxes were unmarked. Some were long and thin, others wide and tall. One of the boxes was as big as a mattress and, by its weight, I suspected that a mattress was exactly what it contained. Aside from the mattress-size box, there were two other boxes that I couldn’t levitate at all. Both were long and tall, but rather thin, and I suspected they contained a lot of metal. Alia helped me move everything into the spare room.
Cindy returned in the evening with a guest.
“Mark!” I exclaimed, and I’m sure Alia telepathically said the same as she jumped into his arms. I hadn’t seen Mark Parnell since we had arrived in New Haven.
“I brought him along to help with the assembly,” said Cindy. “Did the boxes arrive?”
“Everything’s in the spare room,” I answered, wondering what we were going to assemble.
“Well, dinner first.”
Over dinner, Mark told me how he had been busy helping the new arrivals settle into New Haven, and that he had found a church a few blocks from NH-1 where he could continue his work as a priest.
“Isn’t it dangerous for you to be out?” I asked, painfully aware that I was the one who gave away his identity to the Wolves. Mark wasn’t a psionic, but the Wolves could still target him to get at others.
“Well, the church is still safely inside Guardian control,” said Mark. “Quite a few Guardians have already visited, actually. Stop by sometime if you like.”
“I will,” I said.
I wasn’t a regular church-goer, having been raised in a family of agnostics. But I liked Mark Parnell a lot, and I thought it might be fun to visit him from time to time, even if it was at his church. He was very different from my image of a preacher. He didn’t try to force his beliefs on anyone. He was quiet and subtle, and he hadn’t given even the hint of a frown when I first told him that I wasn’t a believer. Mark actually reminded me a lot of my own father, and Alia seemed to regard him as a father figure as well.
Once we finished our dinner, Cindy said, “Well, I guess we should get started.”
We gathered in the spare room and started opening the boxes, starting with the biggest. It turned out to be, as I had suspected, a mattress. The other boxes contained the headboard and other bed parts, and I helped Mark put everything together. The instructions were pretty straightforward, and I probably could have built the bed myself, but with Mark there, it took much less time. When we finished, I saw that the two boxes I couldn’t levitate were still leaning against the wall.
“What are those?” I asked, pointing to them.
“They’re your birthday presents,” said Cindy. “A late birthday present for Alia, and a really early one for you.”
They were bicycles. We opened Alia’s first, which was, not surprisingly, a violently pink single-speed with bright yellow handle grips that had frilly red and white tassels coming out of them.
As grateful as I was for a bike, I couldn’t help feeling a bit apprehensive as I bent down to open my box. Knowing Cindy, my bike would probably have tassels too.
“I picked yours out,” Mark said with a wink, and I whispered back through the corner of my mouth, “Thanks, Mark.”
It turned out to be a military-green mountain bike.
“Oh, thank you so much, Cindy!” I said as we adjusted the handlebar and tightened the nuts.
Cindy smiled, saying, “You’re welcome, but your early birthday present comes with a price.”
“Mouth-speaking for Alia?” I asked apprehensively.
“That’s a given, Adrian,” said Cindy. “You also have to teach her how to ride.”
“Sure.”
“And both of you promise me you won’t break your necks.”
“No promises,” I said, and shrugged as I added, “but I think we’ve survived greater dangers than possible death-by-bicycle.”
“That’s why it would be so tragic if your life ended on a two-wheeler. Please just be careful, okay?”
“Oh, come on, Cindy,” I said playfully. “You know me. I'm
always
careful.”
Cindy rolled her eyes. “Don’t I wish!”
The next day, Cindy had another meeting to go to right after breakfast. Packing lunches, Alia and I spent Saturday morning in the nearby park, which had several jogging and cycling paths snaking through it. After trying out my new bike on and off the asphalt paths, I began teaching Alia to ride hers. Considering my sister’s age, I was determined not to let her even start with training wheels.
For Alia, learning to ride a bike turned out to be a far greater challenge than learning to swim. I held onto the back of her bike while she pedaled, steadying her balance in the same way I remembered my father had done for Cat and me when we learned to ride. When my legs got too tired to keep pace with her, I stopped running and tried using my telekinesis to keep her steady. It worked, but it wasn’t helping her learn to ride. As soon as I stopped assisting her, she toppled over sideways. My sister made little progress, but she was clearly enjoying the attention I was giving her.
Alia was tired out by noon, so after we ate our lunches, I took her back to our building. Locking our bikes in the basement parking lot, I walked Alia to the elevator, but made her go back up by herself.
Turning away from the elevator door, I looked toward the car ramp that led up to the street. If I was going to survive Terry’s combat training from next week, I would just have to get used to her pace. Even though I knew that Terry wasn’t entirely malicious, some of the things she had said during the last two sessions had really stung me – probably because she was right.
“Can’t even run five miles. You’re unbelievable, Adrian,” I muttered savagely to myself as I jogged up the car ramp and out of NH-1.
I started doing laps around the block, deciding that, this time, I wouldn’t cheat by using my telekinesis to push me. I managed about one mile before having to rest and catch my breath. As I continued jogging, I did my best not to rely on my power, but I often caught myself using it unconsciously. Furthermore, being unable to separate my power from my body meant that, to some extent, I was always being helped by my psionics. Unfortunately, there was nothing I could do about that until I learned to balance my power.
Though I had to take increasingly frequent breaks, I made sure I did just over five miles before heading back into the NH-1 lobby. I hadn’t timed myself, but I knew I was slow. I didn’t care, though. I had completed my mission. I even stopped my finger a second before pressing the button to call the elevator down to the lobby, choosing instead to take the stairs back up. This time I walked, but I did manage to climb the entire forty floors without stopping.
As I approached the front door to the penthouse, I heard Alia laughing and shrieking like crazy from inside the living room. Opening the door and stepping inside, I immediately saw the cause of her hysterics.
Alia was lying face up on the living-room floor, and straddling her as if riding a pony was none other than Terry, who was mercilessly tickling her in the armpits. Violently shaking her head from side to side and beating her heels on the floor, Alia started to shout into my head,
“Help me, Addy! Help! Help!”
“It’s a long story,” said Cindy, seeing me enter. “But you might want to go rescue your sister first.”
“Oh, I want to hear the story first,” I said to Cindy, chuckling. “Besides, what makes you think I can rescue Alia from Terry?”
“Addy!”
Alia squealed into my head while her mouth was busy laughing up a storm.
“Hi, Adrian,” Terry said calmly as she started drumming her fingers on Alia’s tummy. “You see, I ran into Ms. Gifford just after her meeting with Mr. Baker, and she invited me over for tea. We had a very enlightening conversation. Then Alia came home, and we got better acquainted. But I just couldn’t believe this kid actually had a voice. She’s always
so
quiet! I had to hear it for myself.”