Spark (11 page)

Dani and I have been best friends since the second grade when she ran, huffing and puffing, all the way across the playground, right up to me as I stood there, hands jammed in my pockets, waiting for Kenny Beck to get off the swing.  I really didn’t care much about swinging, but I didn’t have anyone to play with, and I wanted on that swing.  I wanted it bad.  You know the feeling when you’re standing in line at the girl’s room in kindergarten, hopping from one foot to another, just hoping you’ll make it in time?  I was intent on having that swing because I didn’t want to stand there like a big, friendless dork in front of the whole school.   

Kenny Beck looked at me with a sneer and hooted, swinging higher.  He wasn’t planning on getting off that swing anytime in the next century. 
Jerk
, I thought. 
Little dorky twerp.
  My mind raced with all the names I could hurl at him, but I was too shy to utter a single one, so, I just stood there, shoving my hands deeper into my pockets.  I pulled out a gum wrapper from one of them and looked at it for like nine hours. 
At least,
I thought,
it looks like I’m busy.
  Reading a note, from my best friend.  Yeah. 

I looked up as Dani bounded toward me, her eyes like saucers.  At first, it made me wonder.  What did she want with me?  Dani wasn’t the most popular girl in school.  Then again, neither was I.  I was just as much a loser as she was, technically speaking.  I couldn’t decide what was worse, standing there with the class geek or being branded a loser for all eternity.  There was a distinct possibility I’d be labeled a loser either way.  I started to turn away, but then all I saw was that mouthful of metal, grinning at me, so it didn’t seem like such a big deal.  So I decided to smile at her.  Going to Loserville was bad enough, but going
alone
was a fate worse than death.

“I LOVE your shoes,” Dani said, pointing.  “So cool!”             

They were an old pair of sneakers that had been handed down from my cousin and I didn’t even like them, but I thanked her anyway and told her I’d bought them in Chicago last year when my dad took me for a Cubs game, which was a total lie.  Then I made up some story about some swanky department store that had a comb for sale for three hundred dollars, just to make myself look cool.  “A
comb
!”  I said.  “Who buys a three hundred dollar comb?”

Dani just looked at me skeptically and shrugged.  “I dunno,” she said.  “The President?”

“The President doesn’t make that much money,” I replied.  “My dad said so.  Oprah makes ten times what the President makes.”

“Ok, so Oprah then.  She’d buy a three hundred dollar comb.  She’d buy ten of them, I bet.”

We both snickered and looked in opposite directions.  Then, we looked at each other and broke into a giggling fit.  I was laughing because such a stupid story had actually turned into a worthwhile conversation.  I don’t know what she was laughing about.  All I know is, we were friends from that moment on.

             
Pretty much, Dani was my best friend ever.  My only friend.

So anyway, back to what I wanted to tell you. 

Believe me, I don’t even want to say this out loud, or put it out here for all eternity, but if I don’t, no one in this stupid world will ever really know who I am.   And that would be the worst thing that could happen.  Ever.

So here’s the thing:  I float. 

I know what you’re thinking. 
So.  Everyone floats.  I learned that when I was five years old.  In swimming lessons.  First year. 

But listen.  I float
on air. 

You weren’t expecting that, were you?

I’ve never told anyone about this, but if you want to know the truth, I’ve always
really
wanted to.  But I’m a big chicken when it comes to stuff like that.  Being a freak is bad enough, but being a freak that floats—well, that’s just too much.  I’m like nine feet tall, too.  Well, not really, but I’m the tallest kid in class—maybe the whole school—maybe even the world.  Am I ever going to stop growing?  My parents say that all the time, with a smile, of course.  They don’t think I’m weird at all, but I guess that's because they're my parents and it's not really their place to think I'm weird. 

But being a ridiculously tall girl who
floats
?  Now that’s just weird.

I’m guessing that right about now you're trying to decide whether to believe me or not.  You are all but ready to close the book and put it back on the shelf.  You are thinking about all the things you know, all your experiences, all the scientific facts, weighing them against the likelihood of anything I’ve said being true.  That’s fair.  I’m not so sure I believe it myself.  But right now it doesn’t matter if anyone believes me.  What matters is that by the time I finish this story, I will have decided, once and for all, if I am real.  I will know the truth.  And you can’t argue with the truth.

Invisible

Project Zero:  File 6-25-2008, Subject Tess Turner

I have a feeling that you might know what it feels like to float.  You ever get so busy trying to do something and it’s just not working out, so you feel like crying all of a sudden?  Your punching what you think are all the right buttons, but the darn machine just won’t do what you want it to?  That’s what floating is like.  Frustrating beyond belief.  Makes you want to cry.

For one thing, no one recognizes me.  Once I floated right by Mr. Graves, my science teacher, and he didn’t even blink.  Which was fine with me because I had a secret crush on him, and it would have been majorly embarrassing.  But, what if I’d
wanted
him to see me?  What if, by some crazy notion, I’d wanted to be noticed?  Even if I’d wanted it, I couldn’t.  It was completely and utterly out of my control. 

Secondly, floating is all I know how to do.  Sure, I know how to play Mario Brothers, and make crochet, and peel an orange, but it’s the only thing I know how to do that’s different.  No one else, as far as I know, floats.  It sort of makes me feel special, in a weird kind of way.  And I spend a lot of time doing it.  I lose all track of time. 

This is where it gets interesting.  I have started imagining things, and most of it is bad, like floating over a sea of flames—nothing but fiery waves as far as I can see, a sky full of angry black clouds.  Scary things.  Broken things.  And for some strange reason, Dani is there with me.  And did you know my heartbeat speeds up just thinking about it?  Fear from nothing.  Mind over body.  How crazy is that?  My imagination takes over.  I want to turn if off so badly.  I’d stop floating forever for one day of simply ZERO—nothing in my head except cells and neurons and all the other biological gobbledygook in there.  A tropical vacation without the beach and palm trees.  Just silence and wind.  Quiet calm.  But of course, all I can do is imagine it.  Because really my brain is going haywire. 

Sometimes, I wonder what would happen if someone suddenly saw me.  And believe me, it’s a scary thought.  Even though I know it’s probably not going to happen, I can pretty much scare myself silly with these things.  I can come up with complete scenarios in there.  Enough to write a stupid book.  My heart skips a little when I imagine being caught floating.  People would point and stare.  Laugh, perhaps.  Some might even run in fear.  Mass chaos. 

              I have already decided that someday I will stop floating, but I know it’s not going to be easy.  Don’t ask me why or how, but I will do it.  Because sometimes, I feel like I’m wasting my time.  Even though no one seems to mind. 

Here’s a wild thought:  What if I'm
invisible
?  What if that’s what this is?
 
Let me think about this.  Invisibility:  The quality or state of being present, but unseen; i.e., undetected.  I don’t think anyone sees me.  And if no one sees me, I must be invisible.  And do you know what that means?  Invisibility would qualify as a super human power—a practical, useful, and therefore
unreal
state of being.  So, maybe this is not real.  Maybe none of this is true after all.

I do this all the time… second guess myself.  And all it does is depress me.  And when I get depressed, there is the lightning.  I float into a big, wide open field and the sky is alive with light, a fluttery red glow behind a veil of clouds.  The shape and color of my life, thrown like random sparks, skid marks in the sky.  Somewhere I’ve never been and never seen, everywhere around me.  And I just stand there.  I stand there staring and I can’t believe it.  I made this—this crazy scene. 
Me. 
Or my mind, rather.  No one told me how.  It just
happened. 
What the heck?

              The truth is, I know how to do lots of things.  And I know it has something to do with the lightning, but I can’t tell you why.  In fact, I think that’s where all my problems began.             

But none of that matters now.

From a Dream

Project Zero:  File 6-26-2008, Subject Tess Turner

So back to this floating thing. 

I think it was the first thing I ever really did on my own.  I mean, something more meaningful and complex than tying my shoes or making my bed.  It started simple enough.  I floated out of sleep, right through my room and into the night.  I didn’t even say goodbye to my parents.  I hope they forgive me for that. 

I float everywhere, wobble clumsily through the air like a human balloon, my arms and legs outstretched, and do you know what I think about?  I think about how the world is just way too big for a floating girl.  I’m keep thinking I'm bound to disappear at some point, float away where no one will ever find me, right?  Wouldn’t
that
be interesting?  No one can analyze a missing person.  A missing person cannot, by definition, be weird or strange or anything for that matter, except not here.

I have to tell you this, even if you think I’m the fruitiest pancake in the pan.  I have to tell you because my life depends on it.  See, I’ve pretty much figured out that telling someone makes me real.  Even if it hurts.  Even if it’s not really who I want to be.  Because if I ever
do
float away and disappear, at least someone will know who I am.  And if someone knows who I am, she’ll know where to find me.  Because I really, really need to be found.  Pretty simple logic, right?

But the problem is that simple logic just doesn’t work on someone as complicated as I am. 

Don’t get me wrong, I think floating is really, really cool.  But it scares the heck out of me.  Because being real means being who I am, and I don’t know if the world is ready for me. 

See, I think I came from a dream.  I mean, I think someone dreamed me up.

Have you ever dreamed you were flying?  Imagine:  You are weightless, soaring through trees, over lakes, rivers and valleys?  You feel like you can see the whole world up there.  And then you wake up, and for a split second, you wonder if it was real.  It doesn’t take long for you to realize it was just a dream.   See, that’s the thing about dreams—they’re tricky. 

I have heard that dreams are just your mind thinking back over things that are happening in your real life, but I don’t believe it.  That would make them nothing but imagined pictures, which would mean they are not real.  And let me just tell you:  They are real.  There’s more to it than that.   Things imagined are like fiery, electric currents, lighting up all sorts of places I didn’t know were in there.  Things I don’t really want to see.  Things that make me who I am.  Things that make me feel even more different than ever. 

Floating feels like a dream, but I know better.  Because in my case, I really
am
floating.  If I were brave or stupid enough to tell someone about it—which I’m not—they would probably tell me I’m crazy.  Who am I to think I can float?  

Freak central.  A poster child for it.

But you know what?  It only takes one person to believe in me.  See that’s the funny thing about life.  You can be a total circus case and if one person believes in you—it changes everything.  The dream becomes a reality.  Somewhere out there, someone believes in me.  Believes me that I have some kind of special power, that I was born with a super human ability.  “You are an exceptional case, Tess Turner,” they would say.

But I’m not so gullible.  After I’d recovered from the ridiculous image of myself in tights and a cape—Tess Turner, Superhero—what do you think my response would be?  What
the hell would someone accomplish by floating
?  That’s what I’d say. 
What purpose would it serve
?  After all, if God decided to bestow powers on people, it only makes sense that they would be useful to
someone.  Super-human strength or speed, for example.  Now those would never be real because they’re too good to be true.  But
I am just an enormously tall kid who can float.  And that, as far as I can tell, is about as useless as anything could be.  Pointless. 

And, therefore, real.

I know what you’re thinking, so let me be clear:  I am not an angel or a demon.  I’m not a vampire, an alien, or a ghost.  I’m not even a wizard.  Good.  Now I have your attention. I am none of these things . . . I am something else.  I am just Tess Turner.  And by the time you finish reading this, you will know way more about me than you thought you would.  I might even tell you way more than you asked to know. Because I have a lot of time on my hands right now, and anyway, I’m bored out of my mind.

Dani

Project Zero:  File 7-2-2008, Subject Tess Turner

When I found out we were moving, I just knew Dani was going to freak out when I told her.  Believe me, I did
not
want to tell her.  I was anxious enough as it was; I didn’t really want to deal with her, too.  I wondered how long I could just avoid it before I’d have to come up with something. 

Picture Dani:  Short, spunky Dani with her pink jeans and blonde hair hanging in a ponytail over her left shoulder, walking up to me after school with that enormous purple butterfly backpack of hers (what does she keep in that thing, anyway?), a big, dorky smile on her face.  Braces.