Free Awash in Talent by Jessica Knauss Page A

my reddening face.
    “New here?” She had the shiniest, most beautifully tamed black ringlets I’d ever seen. I had plenty of time to wonder how she kept her hair looking like that through a PE class because I didn’t respond. Nope, nothing normal was going to happen to me that day, and it was time I went with the flow and acted like the freak I was.
    “Where’s your buddy?” the equally well-coiffed blonde sitting across from her asked.
    I hope they didn’t see my flash of bewilderment because of the way my friends have abandoned me since my pyrokinesis manifested. They were all normal, the friends I had before, except that they were unusually afraid of fire and rare Talents. I bet there was a psychic among us, pretending to have no Talent. It would serve them right. But I guess these kids saw the question marks floating over my head because the ringlets girl proceeded to explain that no one was supposed to go anywhere alone on school grounds, for safety purposes. “We use the buddy system,” she said as if she wasn’t sure I could understand the concept. “So, where’s your buddy?”
    I looked down at my tray, the steam from a delectable-smelling mulligatawny soup opening up the pores on my nose.
    “Where’s your buddy, huh?” one of the boys in the middle of the table goaded. Across from him sat another boy, and suddenly all the tables being for two made sense. I was the odd one out. And I was running out of time.
    Were they going to make me say, actually pronounce the syllables, that I had no buddy? Suddenly it came to me: “There’s an odd number of students in my class.” The fib couldn’t last long, but maybe at least I could eat some of this food before they carted me off to liar/firestarter jail.
    “So then, there’s a group of three in your class . . .” said the same boy, calculating.
    His burly buddy stood up, throwing back his creaky metal chair. “You must have escaped from your orientation. Everyone has at least one buddy.”
    I let out a yelp, grabbed a dinner roll from my tray, and made my way to the door as fast as I could through the maze of tables and chairs. The burly guy and his nosy friend were in hot pursuit, but they needn’t have bothered. Instead of fleeing to freedom at the door, I smacked into Ms. Matheson.
    “Kelly?” she said. “Where did you go? We looked all over for you. The other students chose their dorm rooms without you, and three of them decided to squeeze into one room. They’re really only made for two, but you missed your chance to choose your buddy.”
    “Really?” I said after I caught my breath. A long line of students filed by us, picking up trays, silverware, etc. I guess 4:55 is rush hour in the dining hall. “You really think I could have chosen someone to room with? With the rotten egg smell that’s going to accompany me everywhere?”
    She looked puzzled. The police twins caught up with us and one grabbed me by the shoulders.
    “Ms. Matheson,” he panted. “She doesn’t have a buddy!”
    “Because that’s what sulfur smells like. Rotten eggs!” I shouted. The regular din of the eating and conversation silenced.
    “No one’s going to be my buddy because when I get my patches, I’m going to reek,” I continued, holding my arms up so no one would wonder who was talking. I still had the bread roll, and I held it aloft as if I were the Statue of Liberty and the roll, my torch. I wished really hard that I could set the bread on fire for effect, but it wasn’t to be.
    “My kryptonite is sulfur. Anyone who wants to room with me, please apply at the loony bin,” I concluded.
    Security guards arrived and escorted me out of the dining hall, away from both Ms. Matheson’s naïve benevolence and the older boys’ glowering. They showed me to the dorm room that had been left over after everyone else made their pick. It felt like a prison cell, not least because they proceeded to attach an ankle bracelet to me and tell me I had to stay here