Having taken the weekend to properly say goodbye to my friends, I joined my dad on Monday morning for a quick breakfast and we rode in to work. Dad was teaching three courses this summer; Introduction to Blacksmithing, Materials Management, and The Art of Blacksmithing. Each of the courses was designed for a different level of experience and although I knew most of the material for all three, dad only needed my help with the introductory course.
We walked into the work area where the class was to take place. I couldn’t really call it a classroom as it was a big area with a bunch of furnaces lined up on either side with racks of tools between them. Unlike some classes, this one was a hand-on type of class. None of the furnaces were lit now and no one was working, so it was pretty quiet. That would change once we got going.
I looked around and saw that all 14 of the enrolled students were already waiting. That was a good sign. People who care show up early. Dad started his class with his usual spiel about the how vital blacksmithing was in the old days and why it was still relevant these days. I watched the students and tried to figure out which three or four of them would actually enjoy the class enough to keep learning blacksmithing. There are always a few students for which blacksmithing satisfies something creative deep inside and they tend to make smithing a part of their lives.
Dad explained how the course would proceed and how it would be graded and then he introduced me. He moved on to explaining the various tools that they would use, and I dutifully pulled each tool off of the wall and brought it around to the students to see them and hold them. From there dad showed them how to light the furnace and then we focused on safety. Pretty standard stuff. The class passed by quickly and dad took questions at the end for about a half an hour.
After class dad asked me for my first impressions of the class and the students.
“Tyler’s very cute!”
“Which one was Tyler?”, he asked.
“He was the tall guy at the back of the group. Blue t-shirt and jeans. Really good muscle definition. He probably has six-pack abs.”
“Should I fail him now or should I make him suffer until the course is done?”
“I just think that he’s cute. I’m not dating him or anything.”
“I should hope not. He’s at least 19 years old. How old are you again? Twelve?”
“I’m almost 16, dad. Which means that you should be thinking about what to get me for my birthday this month. Besides, a girl can look. No harm in that. It’s not like I’m going to get his number from the student list and call him and ask him if he wants to go out for pizza and a movie.” I liked teasing dad about boys. I don’t think that he quite knew what to do about them. I knew that he was dreading the day that I got a boyfriend.
Dad took the teasing in stride, “University policy forbids employees from getting involved with students in any way. Why do you think I insisted that you become an employee? This way, you won’t be tempted by cute boys.” Dad gave me an innocent smile, then waved goodbye as he went to get ready for his next class. That was a higher-level class and he’s going to start them on some of the more complex pieces for the university entrance gates.
I walked home and took the same route as I did on the day of the ‘bus incident’. While I was talking to Eva and James the other day, I realized that I hadn’t seen my library books in awhile and when I looked from them, I couldn’t find them anywhere in the house. I thought back to when I had them last and remembered looking through one right before the bus came at me, but I had no memories of the book after that. I looked all around the crash site for my “Stock-Picking for Dummies” and “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Trading Stocks But Were Afraid to Ask” books, but I didn’t find them. I’d have to check to see if anyone found them and given them back to the library. I’d hate to have to buy replacement books.
Lunch was followed by more field practice. Today I decided to do some testing outside. Our house isn’t on a very busy street, but we get our share of cars, joggers and dog walkers. I sat on the side of our front lawn, mostly hidden by bushes, and listened for someone to walk by. As a woman pushing a stroller got close, I turned on my field and stood up. The world around me went grey, including the woman, and I walked towards her. She didn’t react to me at all. I paced her for a few of my precious seconds and then I took the plunge and put my hand through her stroller, near the handles. I didn’t feel a thing, just like always. The big test was next. Would the woman feel anything if I put my hand through her? Not wanting to cause any damage, in case something went wrong, I just touched her arm. No reaction at all. Knowing that my time was going to run out very soon, I went ahead and walked right though her. It didn’t feel like anything to me. I quickly headed back to the bushes and turned off the field.
I spent the next little while not being run over repeatedly by a car, two trucks, and a bicycle. I walked through many more people and I had a football thrown through my head. Even dogs couldn’t sense or smell me. I had a great time scaring my neighbor’s cat by shutting down my field just a few feet away from him and popping into existence out of nowhere. I’ve never seen a cat jump backwards and race off so fast.
All that practice made me tired and I went inside to take a nap before I went to Uncle Magnum’s school. I woke up to the sound of my phone alarm buzzing and I got out of bed. I felt refreshed and hungry. A quick snack fixed the latter problem, and I got dressed for Kung Fu. It wasn’t far to class, only about a mile or so, and the late afternoon walk warmed my muscles up. I always enjoyed my walk to Uncle Magnum’s. I’d gone back and forth so often that I could simply let my mind wander, without noticing the change from residential neighborhood to commercial streets. I passed by shops and waved to a few people that I recognized, but my mind was still on my abilities and what to do next. I seemed to be doing two things with it right now. I was trying to hold onto the field for longer periods of time and I was testing to see what it could do. The former just needed lots of practice, and so wasn’t an issue, while the latter needed thought. What was the next step? I needed to use my imagination and think up different things to try. Even failures taught me something. What were the rules of this ability? What were the limits of the field? Well, let’s start with limits. I knew that the field surrounded me and my clothes, but what if I was holding something or if I had on a coat? How many layers of clothing would go with me? What if I had a backpack on? What if I was simply holding a gym bag? Does the field surround those things when I phase into the grayness? Could I take someone with me? Some of this would be easy to test out later tonight or tomorrow and I set a few vague reminders on my phone. I never got too specific on anything on my phone that I didn’t want anyone else to find out about. James was a bit of a conspiracy guy and he got me all paranoid about how phones are a lot less secure than you might think. Since I didn’t want anyone to know about my ability, I was making sure to only refer to it in extremely mundane fashion. My notes consisted of “try on backpack” and “try on coat” and “take a walk with dad”. I wasn’t actually going to try taking dad into the field, but his name was a good placeholder for the reminder. I didn’t think that I’d be taking anyone ‘for a walk’ for quite awhile.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Having made my notes, I continued coming up with more things to check. It was important to me to explore this new ability. About a year ago, I read a sci-fi book about a guy that developed the power to read other people’s thoughts. I looked forward to seeing what he would do with it, what funny things could happen, how he would grow into the ability. Unfortunately, the author didn’t go in that direction. He had the character become a miserable wreck because he couldn’t stand all the noise and he had the sadz because he didn’t like what his friends were thinking about. What a waste! In the entire book, the author didn’t have his character spend even one line about trying to learn to use his ability and control it. I think that the character eventually passed away in an overdose of the drugs that he used to suppress his ability. I remember being so disappointed with the story. What kind of a person gets an unusual ability and then squanders the opportunity? I spent weeks thinking about what I would have done differently. I would have learned to control it; practiced until I could shut it out whenever I wanted. That way, I wouldn’t listen in to my friend’s thoughts, if they bothered me. Then I would have started experimenting with how far I could listen in and how deep into people’s thought I could go. Learning to fixate on who I wanted to listen to would be important too. Once I’d figured out the power, I would have listed out the possible careers that I could go into and make the best use of my mind reading abilities. Detective, psychologist, negotiator, diplomat, spy, mystic. There were so many options, yet the character in that book did nothing. I felt nothing for him, except scorn. I knew that I would never be so stupid and now that I had an ability, there was no way that I wasn’t going to use it.
Uncle Magnum’s school was a two story, stand-alone building one block off of Fleming Street, our main commercial center, and just on the outskirts of the industrial park. Uncle Magnum owned the building and he was the only tenant. The lower floor of the building had four main rooms; two were classrooms, one training and conditioning room and the last was a gym. There were also bathrooms and changing rooms for each of the classrooms and small store to purchase uniforms and practice weapons. The upper floor was Uncle Magnum’s home and I had my own small room there for when I stayed over.
Tonight’s first class was with the 8-12-year-olds. With camp having started, the class only had ten students and Uncle Magnum had me warm them up, while he spoke with a walk-in who wanted some information on the adult classes. Warm up for the kids was similar to that of the adults, but horse-stance was only one minute, and plank was for two minutes. At least that was how I ran the class. I actually looked at the clock on the wall and followed the time. Uncle Magnum has a habit of ‘going by the feel of his muscles’ and one minute always seemed to magically become two or three minutes. I’d never grown to appreciate some of Uncle Magnum’s humor. I led the class in forms once everyone was warmed up and I stopped by each student correcting one aspect of their form. Uncle Magnum joined us and we started working on kicking drills, followed by punching drills.
After class, I made sure to keep a close eye on the waiting room. Sure enough, Jeremy’s aunt had shown up to pick him up after class and Uncle Magnum casually strolled over to talk with her. I smirked and made my way over to the next class; this one was the 5-8-year-old class. It looked like Uncle Magnum would be showing up late to this class as well. I would definitely tease him about it, especially since Jeremy’s aunt was gorgeous. He had mentioned last week that he had a ‘hot date’, but he didn’t emphasis the hot part enough. Based on Uncle Magnum’s height, I’d estimate her to be around 5’8” with brown hair to the middle of her back. She wore a knee length pale pink skirt with a white blouse. She wasn’t wearing much make-up, as she didn’t need it. My guess would be that she’s in her late 20’s or early 30’s, which puts her at least 10 years younger than Uncle Magnum. Her face lit up when she saw Uncle Magnum and I could tell that the attraction was mutual. I really hoped it worked out for them. Uncle Magnum deserved to find someone to share his life with and he was getting on in years. I liked to tease him and tell him that he needed to find someone fast because he was no ‘spring chicken’.
The evening passed quickly, and we were just finishing the last class before Uncle Magnum and I had a chance to talk. The final class was the advanced class and I got to participate more as a student in this one as there were only seven students tonight and Uncle Magnum took over all the teaching. After a half-hour of forms, we spent the rest of the class sparring. With most of the students being at a lower level than I was, that meant that I was focusing mostly on staying relaxed, keeping my movements as small as possible, and going slow so that they wouldn’t tense up. The point wasn’t to hit them hard and fast, rather it was to let them work on their techniques and gain fighting instincts. They needed to see the hits and get used to blocking them.
Uncle Magnum closed up for the night and I went upstairs for a quick shower, after which he drove me home. It wasn’t a long way and I could have walked home, but Uncle Magnum always insisted on driving me. Since the abduction, almost twelve years ago, he’s been especially protective of me. Sometimes it bothers me a bit, but not tonight. Tonight, it gives me a little time to tease him.
“Jeremy’s aunt picked him up again today. I guess pizza and a movie did the trick.”
“Her name is Margaret. Maggie for short. We had a lovely time, thank you very much.”
“What movie did you see?”
“Something with a guy and a girl and there was talking, and they had a dog.”
“Well. That’s pretty specific. Must have been really good. I’m sure it’ll win an Oscar.”
“Smart ass. We only stayed for half an hour and then we went out for coffee instead.”
“She’s not just a pretty face then?”
“It doesn’t hurt that she’s pretty. Don’t judge. A good book can have a cool cover, you know.”
“Oh my, Uncle Magnum, I think you’ve finally been caught. Are you seeing her again? Besides at pick-up?”
“I already saw her again. We went mini-golfing this past Saturday and on Sunday we met up for brunch.”
“I like weddings in early fall; when the leaves change color and it’s not too hot.”
“You’re a little snot, you know that, right?”
“Payback for the horse-stance, that’s all it is. When should I expect to see Marge in the beginner class?”
“Maggie, never Marge. She says that she’s not Homer’s wife. As to class, she might try the introductory class sometime this summer. I’ll let you know, because either you or Charles will have to teach her. I don’t think it would be a smart idea for me to teach her.”
We said our goodbyes as he dropped me off and I walked into the house, changed, brushed my teeth and fell asleep within minutes of laying down on my bed. It had been a long, but satisfying, day and I couldn’t wait to see what wonders I could do with my new ability this summer.