Friday, November 4th, 11 a.m.

Jordan was distracted from the incessant whine of Ms. Essex' lecture by a flicker of movement outside the classroom window. The midnight black SUV made its second pass of the morning, and Jordan couldn't shake the feeling it was following her. Back in New York, her father had tried to teach her how to tell if she was being followed, but she hadn't been all that good at it. She hadn't seen the need for it, because no one had a reason to follow her.

You never know when something could prove useful J.

Sometimes it felt like her dad had been preparing her for something bad on the horizon, but she was never sure what. Jordan wanted to ask, but she didn't want her dad to think she doubted him. Elijah Bryant had been a brilliant man that saw things others couldn't even dream of seeing. She would've followed him to the end of the world if he asked, but he never did.

The black SUV was still making its rounds. It creeped along the road like a predator trying not to draw attention to itself until it pounced. Its large size and tinted windows were perfect for sinister looking aliens in suits, waiting for the perfect moment to slip a bag over Jordan's head and whisk her away to their home planet. Every time her mind took her down that rabbit hole, Jordan tried to reason with herself. It had to be a coincidence, and there was sure to be a reasonable explanation that had nothing to do with Jordan at all.

Every time she'd seen it, Jordan managed to write it off, but she was finding it harder and harder to dispel her suspicions. Jordan saw it for the first when Derek's mom was driving her to school, and that's when her dad's training kicked in. If he had been there, Elijah would've been proud of her, and then proceeded to tell her that had been his plan all along. She wanted to attribute the SUV to her anxiety and the strange events of that morning, but the feeling of unseen eyes watching her made it impossible to ignore any longer.

I need to do something.

◈

Jordan had to wait for the Asian woman to make two phone calls before she could get ready for school. First, Michelle called her coworker to tell him a brief version of what had happened to them this morning, but left out all the parts involving Jordan. The second was to a police officer. That one worried Jordan at first, but all Michelle mentioned was some missing barbed wire next to her house. The reporter offered Jordan a hurried goodbye and reiterated that Jordan could call her anytime if she needed anything.

After the reporter left, Jordan sprinted up the stairs two at a time to check on Derek. She'd avoided thinking about her friend. Since he'd closed his eyes, Jordan hadn't had a spare moment to breathe let alone think about her friend, besides, the thought of Derek lying next to her mother in a hospital bed would've been too much for Jordan to handle.

Derek had been floating a couple of inches off of the ground with his eyes closed the last time she saw him. Now, he lay there motionless, with a faint smile on his face as if he was preoccupied with a pleasant dream. She rushed to his side and shook him by the shoulders. Jordan's parents had never been particularly religious, but in times of trouble, Jordan thought it couldn't help but to offer up a prayer. If there was an all powerful being out there watching her every move, Jordan wanted it on her side.

Derek's eyes shot open, and he sprang to his feet. The boy rushed to the window and let out an audible groan.

"I fell asleep and missed everything didn't I?" He asked.

"Yeah, kinda," Jordan replied, "But it really wasn't that big of a deal."

"You're just saying that to make me feel better aren't you?"

"Yeah, kinda," Jordan smirked at him and gave him a light punch in the arm, "Maybe we should change your superhero name to Sleepy Boy?"

"It's not funny!" He squeaked, his voice reaching an octave that made Jordan's smile widen.

While Jordan understood her friend's distress, she couldn't sympathize. She wouldn't have wished last night's events on anyone, and she worried how Derek would've handled being beamed onto another planet. Actually, she didn't need to worry; she already knew what would happen. Derek would've leapt up and down in unbridled joy until he got vaporized.

"It is too funny," Jordan said sticking out her tongue.

"Nuh-uh! All the cool stuff happens to you," Derek said crossing his arms in front of his chest. His bottom lip quivered and his eyes took on a watery quality.

"Maybe you should try keeping your eyes open next time Sleepy Boy?"

"Stop calling me that! You just watch, next time that violet shows up, I'll show it a thing or two," he replied raising his fists into the air like a boxer waiting for his next fight.

"I'm just teasing you," Jordan said tousling his hair, "Nothing important happened. I'll tell you about it later, let's get to school. Your mom doesn't like to wait."

Derek got dressed in the clothes he'd packed for the evening while Jordan ran a hot shower. 

The puddle of murky water at Jordan's feet felt symbolic, like she was washing off the muck and grime of her alternate life, a life where a power that came from her body had killed another living being, and turning back into an average twelve year old girl. A girl whose only defining trait seemed to be the color of her skin. On another day, this may have darkened Jordan's mood, but now she had Derek, she didn't feel like quite the outsider she used to. Jordan hadn't realized how alone she'd felt before, even with Derek. Now that Derek had experienced the violet light and made it through to the other side, Jordan felt a bond between them that she hadn't shared with any other human.

Unbidden, Jordan thought of the avid curiosity in Michelle's face. The woman's angular and narrow face made her look like a bird of prey. Although they'd just met that morning, Jordan felt an inexplicable kinship, and something told Jordan the feeling was reciprocated.

It was nothing more than a hunch, but Jordan suspected the woman had also experienced the violet light. Jordan was still disoriented from going to the alien's home planet, but something about the way Michelle had carried Jordan to safety niggled at the girl's mind. The distance between Jordan's house and the drive-in was not a small one, but Michelle had covered it in a matter of moments while carrying a teenager.

Could she have gained an ability like mine?

A blaring car horn startled Jordan out of her thought process. She dried out her hair and put on new clothes in a mad scramble, so Mrs. Spencer wouldn't leave her.

Derek's mom seemed more dour than usual as she drove the two of them to school in silence. Derek's customary small talk and running commentary on everything they passed by had been substituted with a pensive stare out of the window. A look Jordan hadn't thought him capable of.

Mrs. Spencer drove them through the loop to drop them off at school. Derek leaned over the middle console to give her their usual kiss before school, but his mom didn't seem to notice; her eyes were fixed on the digital clock on the dash. Jordan had been too preoccupied with the car that had started following them to realize how late they were.

Jordan gave Derek a hurried goodbye and departed to her first period class. The first class periods of the day passed without incident, but all that changed in history class with Ms. Essex. The room's two plastic windows gave the room a clear view of the road, and an inconspicuous black SUV.

◈

The rest of Ms. Essex's class eked by as if Jordan were locked in a stasis chamber. Orange and brown Thanksgiving decorations had already been plastered over the walls with pictures of children and their families with oblivious smiles, and Jordan couldn't help but wonder what any of them had to be thankful for, except for blissful ignorance. Life as they they knew it might be coming to an end, but Mrs. Essex's shrill voice still droned on, needling at Jordan's frayed nerves. The frivolity of the situation was driving her nuts. It took every ounce of Jordan's willpower to not have a nervous breakdown and storm out of the classroom.

I went to an alien planet last night and possibly stopped an alien invasion, and now I'm forced to sit through history class like nothing ever happened?

Jordan decided right then and there, that inaction wasn't an option. Throughout her entire life, Jordan let herself become a passenger of fate. She'd sat back and let things happen to her as a silent bystander, but that no longer was an option. The people she loved and cared about had already suffered enough for Jordan's indecision, and she wouldn't stand for it a minute longer.

But I can't do it alone.

After what seemed like an eternity and a half, the bell interrupted Ms. Essex mid-sentence, and the entire student body charged out of their respective classrooms like a pack of starving hyenas. Jordan waited for the ensuing panic to cool off before she set out into the hall. Ms. Essex wordlessly watched Jordan with an arched eyebrow as if she were waiting for Jordan to slip up and do something detention-worthy.

Jordan walked down the hallway to Mr. Kinghorn's in a wide-awake daydream. The halls of Lancet Falls middle school were inconsequential in the big scheme of things, and something about them no longer felt real, like there was another equally real world lurking beneath the surface of her own. Normally, the halls were choked with humanity, and Jordan's slender form was bumped and jostled by the unthinking masses. Today, students flowed past her as if she were a pebble in a stream.

The office ladies, Mrs. White and Mrs. Weaver waved at Jordan as she entered the office. Jordan exchanged greetings with a perfunctory reply, and disappeared into Mr. Kinghorn's office.

Her second best friend in the whole world's face stared at his computer screen through his spectacles perched on the end of his nose. Instead of pushing them back up, Mr. Kinghorn had a habit of leaving them on the tip of his nose, so he'd have to tilt his head backwards to see through them. This affectation magnified his two times their normal size, that mixed with his bony frame, and head devoid of any hair made Mr. Kinghorn look like a pale, praying mantis with a button up shirt and tie.

Jordan's stomach rumbled with an insistent urgency when Jordan saw the brown paper sack sitting on the corner of Mr. Kinghorn's desk. When the principal had seen that Jordan brought a microwaveable lunch every day, he declared that simply wouldn't do, and his wife had taken to packing Jordan a lunch.

In the chaos of the morning, Jordan had foregone breakfast. Mrs. Kinghorn had packed Jordan's favorite, crunchy peanut butter with homemade raspberry jam. Before Idaho, Jordan hadn't even known that crunchy peanut butter existed, and she vowed to show her mom when she woke up.

But that was before I took her to the hospital.

"What's wrong kiddo? Mr. Kinghorn asked without taking his eyes off the computer screen, "You look like someone who accidentally destroyed a winning lottery ticket in the wash."

"I look that good huh?" Jordan replied.

Something in her voice must have worried him, because he swiveled away from his computer screen to look her in the eye, "What's eatin' at ya?" 

"I'm going to sound crazy."

"You're talking to the principal of a middle school, crazy comes with the job."

His words bolstered Jordan's will and gave her the strength she needed.

"I need to show you something first," Jordan said. 

He motioned his hands as if urging her to continue, "You have to promise not to freak out."

The old man chuckled, and for a second, it reminded her of her dad. Her dad always laughed at little things Jordan said, like he was the only one who understood the joke, but not in a way that made Jordan feel self-conscious, just warm. It was such a great laugh.

"Trust me kiddo. In twenty years of education, I've seen it all."

It was Jordan's turn to laugh at that, "Just watch my right hand."

Jordan retrieved the rubber red ball out of her pocket and deposited it into her left hand. Closing her eyes, Jordan concentrated on The Surge. She worried about it going horribly wrong and potentially setting the school on fire, or worse, but if she could control it on an alien planet, a principal's office should be no problem.

The particles in the air grew excited at Jordan's call. She could feel them in Mr. Kinghorn's computer and desk lamp. At Jordan's behest, they ceased their frenetic capering and rushed en masse into her right hand. The power rushed into her faster than it ever had before. Jordan opened her eyes, and found a light that glowed a magnificent lavender traveling down the length of her arm, lighting up her extremity as it went.

Jordan jammed the rubber ball into the palm of her right hand. Smoke and the smell of burning rubber wafted into the air. The ball looked more like melted Play-Doh than a stress ball, but she felt like she got her point across.

Mr. Kinghorn had removed his glasses and was rubbing them against the hem of his white dress shirt. He put them back on and scanned from the burnt ball, to Jordan, and then the rest of the room as if he were looking for some strange lights display or smoke machine or heat ray to explain what he'd just seen.

"I stand corrected," he said.

"There's more," Jordan replied, "I'm going to need your help. I don't know what to do."

The principal smiled at her again, but his lips seemed to waver in uncertainty or discomfort. She couldn't tell if he was scared of her or of what she was about to tell him, but the time to turn back had already passed. 

 Jordan plunged into her story. She had planned on just telling him everything that happened after the violet light, but she found herself telling him about her dad disappearing and her mom's mad escape to Lancet Falls, Idaho. Jordan kept waiting for looks of disgust or horror to cross his features, but the man's seemed to have steadied. Mr. Kinghorn listened with rapt attention, nodding occasionally to prompt Jordan to finish her story.

By the time her tale was complete, Jordan was panting in deep, uneven breathes. Once she'd gotten the ball rolling, she'd started recounting the tale in a manic ferocity that had taken on a momentum on its own where there was hardly time to do something as simple as take a breath.

Jordan expected the man to ask her clarifying questions or try to wrap his mind around the reality-shattering revelation Jordan must have unloaded on him, but her friend's response surprised her.

 "I'm sorry about your family Jordan, I didn't know," he said, "There's an open bed at my house with your name on it until we get this all sorted."

A smile that touched all the way to her ears lit up Jordan's face, but she got it under control and replied, "I don't want to be a bother."

"Oh please, you want you see a bother? You oughta meet my daughter Jessica." 

 "What about my stuff?"

 "The whole Kinghorn clan is going to help move you in, and that's that," he stated in a way that left no room for discussion, "As far as our other problem? I'm hopelessly out of my depth on that one, but I think my nephew in law Christopher might be able to help us. I'll invite him over for dinner tonight, and we'll see if we can't mash our heads together and figure this one out."

Jordan felt the weight of the world lift from her chest at the man's words, and she changed the topic. Jordan was eager to share her opinions on Among Others and why it was her new favorite book. It was like the author had been writing to Jordan and telling her to hang on, there are others like you somewhere. She knew the difference between fiction and real life, but it made her feel good nonetheless.

A for Effort.

Jordan felt like she was floating as she left Mr. Kinghorn's office. It was hard to believe that it was the same morning Jordan had almost lost hope for good. She would finally get to live in a home, not just a house. If she ever had a chance of figuring everything out, it was with people, friends, by her side. It was asking too much to put the fate of the universe in the hands of a twelve year, and she felt confident she made the right choice.

"Excuse me! Pardon me!" a loud voice shouted over the din of the chaotic hallway. 

Derek.

Jordan shook her head. The boy was bumbling his way towards Jordan from the other end of the hall, apologizing to every kid he bumped into.

"Jordan!" He called out, "I have to tell you something top secret!" 

Jordan put her palm to her face, but couldn't help but smile at his antics. She beckoned him to follow her, and she led him into an alcove that was an eddy of sanity in a river of madness. Derek looked like he was going to spontaneously combust with excitement. Jordan motioned for him to calm down, and said, "Shhh, we don't need a middle school crisis on our hands."

"But Jordan, I have a superpower!"   

SaintCole at it again,

The last chapter, my WP on my phone was being a bugger, so I wasn't able to do my standard Author's Note. I've been very excited to get back to Jordan and Derek. Derek's levity boosts me up as well. I personally enjoy Mr. Kinghorn too. He is a mix of two of the most influential educators I knew. 

Guys pretty please vote. It makes me a happy writer.

So I want you all to guess what you think is going on as far as Derek's abilities are concerned? What did we think of our conversation with Mr. Kinghorn? Did I manage corny old man alright?

Thank you for reading this far! I'm currently six chapters ahead and I'm excited for what's to come!