Free Sage's Eyes by V.C. Andrews Page B

love column for the school newspaper,” she said. “What’s in store for me, oh great romance guru?”
    I knew what was in store for her. Someday she would start dating her older brother’s best friend, Russell Lowe. I saw that when they came to pick her up after school one day. But that romance wasn’t going to happen for at least another year.
    I closed my eyes and pretended to shape a crystal ball in front of me. “Oh, your future is easy to see. Many broken hearts left in your wake,” I said jokingly.
    â€œMy wake?”
    I opened my eyes. “You know, trailing behind you like car exhaust.”
    â€œThat I believe about her,” Ginny said. Laughter returned, but none of them could take her eyes off Darlene and Todd for long.
    After lunch, we learned he had asked her out for Friday.
    â€œDon’t stop wearing red,” Mia told her, “or he won’t take you out again.”
    She laughed, but I knew she wasn’t going to stop wearing something red, at least for a while.
    In a school as small as ours, developing a reputation for something was not difficult, and usually when you had, it was nearly impossible to change it. Mine was shaping up quickly. Occasionally, I overheard one of the others in our knot say something like “She seems older than the rest of us.”
    â€œI don’t mind her giving me advice,” I overheardGinny whisper to Darlene. “But it just feels funny. It’s like I’m listening to my mother or someone like that.”
    â€œI know,” Darlene replied. “It’s like she can see through stuff or around corners.”
    For a while after that, I really tried to keep my mouth shut and just listen, even though I was dying to say something to help one of them. As if she knew something like this was going on, my mother was constantly asking me about my relationships with my new friends. She seemed to want to know the details of our school chatter. I tried to keep it all sounding innocuous and didn’t tell her about giving my friends advice. She would surely come back with “How do you know what advice to give?”
    Otherwise, my experience at the new school was going very well. For the first few weeks, my grades were all either As or A-plusses. Nevertheless, I was very nervous about my parents attending the teacher conferences. Obviously, I wasn’t afraid that my teachers would have anything negative to say about my behavior or my efforts to do well, but I had some disturbing feelings. It was like static on a radio. When I saw my parents afterward, I thought everything was fine and breathed with relief, but the moment she had the opportunity, my mother told me about a comment Mr. Leshner, my history teacher, had made about me, a comment that obviously troubled her, although I didn’t understand why it should.
    â€œHe says there have been many times when he could see you anticipating his next question. Your hand is always up before anyone else even thinksof raising theirs. He thinks you’re remarkable. Do you always know what he’s going to ask, Sage? Your other teachers didn’t say that exactly, but they implied it. So?”
    â€œI read ahead,” I replied. “That’s all.”
    She wasn’t satisfied with my answer. Later, I heard my father and her discussing it. He said, “Ordinary people can enjoy some second sight, Felicia. It’s not unheard of. Ask Wade when he comes to visit next week.”
    â€œShe’s too much like I was when I was her age,” my mother replied. “And you know in your heart, Mark, that she’s just like you were, too. She’s developing rapidly now. It won’t be long before we discover to what end, and I hope it’s not bad.”
    That seemed to end the discussion but not my curiosity. What was I developing? How was I developing? She wasn’t talking about my physical development. Was it simply my intellectual