Free Whispers From the Grave by Leslie Rule Page B

if I’d had any effect.
    My logical side said such a thing was not possible. “What a waste of time,” I muttered aloud. “I should have been doing my homework.”
    As the words left my mouth, the box suddenly teetered on the edge of my nightstand. All by itself, it fell to the floor.
    * * *
    I spent the rest of the night reading about PK. My computer accessed every book and article ever written on the subject. There was a guy with PK ability in the 1960s who was called a “thoughtagrapher” because he could imprint his thoughts on the film inside a Polaroid camera. When it developed, the images he had pictured appeared on the film.
    Another guy fixed broken watches simply by concentrating. And a woman claimed to have actually transported herself instantaneously to another city. It was hard to believe, but witnesses swore it really happened.
    Scientists documented a case of a ten-year-old Idaho boy in 2040 who could transport his teddy bear at will. The article said he put the bear in his closet, concentrated for a few minutes, and the bear appeared on his grandmother’s sofa in New York.
    “The toy’s molecules were apparently altered, rearranged, and transported via the child’s psychokinetic energy,” parapsychologist Abraham Sloan said. “Frankly, we do not yet know how this feat was accomplished — only that it was. I was quite skeptical when asked to participate in studying this youngster, but am now convinced this is no hoax.”
    Other cases documented people who healed broken bones with a touch, made plants flourish through concentration, and “mentally tripped” Olympic runners as they dashed toward the finish line.
    “At first,” Abraham Sloan continued, ”I did not believe mind over matter was possible. But a fellow scientist pointed out skeptics once felt the same way about electricity. They couldn’t see it, so they didn’t believe it existed.
    PK is similar to electricity in that they were both unfocused forces before scientists discovered them. Once harnessed, they can make an impact on more solid substances. If we can achieve a better understanding of PK, we will be able to accomplish many things.”
    Daydreaming of the possibilities, I gazed out my window. Sea gulls sliced through the gray morning sky, their shrieks like tortured souls as they dove for fish.
    I picked a bird and concentrated on it. Could I stop it in midflight—send it gliding in the opposite direction? I focused on it as it dipped and soared and finally landed on the beach, completely uninfluenced by my thoughts.
    I was about to give up when something red caught my eye. It was my neighbor, Ruby, in a bright red cap, out for a morning walk. She picked her way up the hill toward our house, her breath wispy tendrils evaporating around her wrinkled face.
    “Fall, Ruby!” I whispered, and sent my thoughts out to trip her. She huffed along, unaffected. I visualized my mind as a hand with an unending arm. Sharply focused, I reached out through my window, down the paved road, and wrapped my thoughts around her ankle and yanked her off her feet.
    I blinked in shock as Ruby’s small shape lay still, the shells she’d collected scattered around her. “Oh, no!” I gasped. “I didn’t mean it!”
    I bounded from my room on rubbery legs, down our swirling staircase and out the front door. She was sitting up, tears sliding down the creases in her cheeks.
    “Ruby!” I cried, dropping to my knees beside her. “Are you okay?”
    “It’s my ankle,” she moaned.
    “I’m so sorry! Can you stand?”
    “You’ll have to help me.”
    I put my arm around her bony back and hoisted her up. Her tiny, trembling body leaned against mine as I helped her toward her home. “Ruby, I feel awful!” I said.
    “It’s not your fault, dear.”
    But it was !
    I didn’t mean to do it! My PK abilities hadn’t seemed real to me. I was fooling around, testing my skills. I never would hurt someone on purpose.
    “I don’t know what I could