“It’s inhumane,” Jessa said, shaking her head vigorously.

“I agree completely,” Maggie sighed. “It’s practically cannibalistic. I mean, it’s a deliberate separation of the weak from the strong.”

“I think you might be exaggerating,” Tonia shrugged. “I quite like dodgeball.”

“Yeah, because you’re good at it!” Maggie exclaimed.

“That’s true,” Tonia neatly tied up the laces on her white pumps.

“How are we doing in here?” Ms Jordan poked her head into the changing room.

“Ms Jordan, we really don’t want to play dodgeball,” said Maggie. “Please can we do something else? Tennis maybe?”

“Sure, if you want to go out to the courts in Winsbury Square Park, that’s fine with me,” the young teacher smiled. “I’ll come out and check on you in a little while.”

As soon as she’d walked away, Flynn appeared in the doorway with his hands over his eyes. “Are you decent?”

“We don’t just get naked in here, you know,” said Jessa.

“I don’t know what you all get up to in your own time,” he peered through a parting in his fingers, “girls are weird.”

“I’m pretty sure lounging on the court isn’t legal in official tennis rules,” Tonia said as Jessa splayed out on the ground before even making one serve.

“I’m too tired for sports,” Jessa replied.

The rest of them joined her on the ground.

“Do you think it’s possible for us to learn the kind of powers he has?” she said thoughtfully.

“You mean evil powers?” said Tonia.

“Parapsych power is neither good nor evil,” said Flynn. “It’s up to the individual to decide how they want to use their abilities.”

“Any power can make people do horrible things,” said Maggie. “For instance political or financial power.”

“It might not be that the power made them that way,” said Flynn. “They might have already been inclined to do bad things, and that’s what made them seek out the power.”

“Silas is both,” said Jessa. She plucked at the square holes of her tennis racket. “He was powerful, but nobody believed it, which made him want to do evil things, so he got more powerful and now wants to do even more evil things.”

She positioned the tennis ball above her palm and let go. It levitated two inches above her skin. Flynn walked on his knees to get closer to Jessa. He moved his face close to the ball and made a gentle twisting motion with his hand. The ball began to spin on its axis.

“Do you think everyone at the Agency has those super-abilities?” Maggie asked.

“Probably,” Jessa broke her concentration to answer, and the ball dropped onto the ground. “If Fletcher’s anything to go by, that is. He still won’t tell me anything about his psych abilities, though. He keeps saying it’s not important that I know.”

“He’s right,” said Maggie. “It’s not really any of your business.”

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“I think it is my business; we’re supposed to be on the same team. We’re working together to bring Silas down.”

“Silas aside,” said Tonia, “it would be cool if we learned how to do some of the things they’ve told us about. Imagine if we could combine our abilities like they do. We’d be much stronger.”

“Well, why can’t we?” Flynn looked at them. “Nobody ever told us it was possible, so we never tried. But we should try.”

Jessa pushed herself into a cross-legged position.

“I don’t know,” Maggie looked concerned, “what if something goes wrong?”

“Like what?” said Tonia. “We could just try something simple.”

“What about this,” said Jessa. “My telekinesis is strong enough to hover the ball if I physically place it in the air and let go. But if the ball starts on the ground, I can’t lift it upwards. So why don’t we try just lifting it up into the air?”

The four of them sat facing inward. Knees touching knees, hands connected. Jessa placed the tennis ball into the middle of the space and re-joined hands with Maggie beside her. They all breathed gently and deeply. Eyes relaxed, gaze softened, concentration focused on the fuzzy yellow ball.

It didn’t move.

“It’s not working,” said Tonia. “Maybe we’re not strong enough to do this after all.”

“Wait,” said Flynn. “At the Agency, when the others combined their powers to try and heal Annora, they didn’t all touch hands. Sue was the main healer, and the others, sort of, gave her their power, remember? Maybe we should try that.”

“Matt helped, he must be a healer too,” Maggie said.

“Flynn and Jessa are the best telekins, so let’s have the two of them try,” said Tonia. “And Maggie and I will be the… I don’t know, the givers? Whatever you want to call it.”

Jessa and Flynn nodded and took hold of each other’s hands. Maggie and Tonia moved behind them just as the Agency members had done. Again, Jessa and Flynn focused their attention on the ball while Maggie and Tonia closed their eyes in deep contemplation.

The ball started to move. Not upwards, but shivered slightly from side to side as though it were trying to carry out their wish but just couldn’t make it happen.

Flynn turned his attention from the ball and onto Jessa, joining Maggie and Tonia in their assist. He placed both of his hands onto her shoulder. Tonia took his lead, and moved her hands from their position on Flynn’s back to Jessa’s.

Jessa inhaled sharply. The other three of them opened their eyes to see the ball moving upward through the air, higher and higher. One foot, two feet, three feet up, above their heads.

“Stop,” Jessa said.

The ball stopped.

“Spin.”

The ball spun.

“And what are you dumb fucks up to, then?” The ball dropped and incrementally bounced to a halt as Cecily stepped in front of them. “Wow, guys. Lifting up a tennis ball… I’m impressed. That’s going to really gonna help you in life.”

“I don’t know, Cecily,” Jessa stood up, “it’s probably more useful than your tingly-finger fire trick, and you seem to have found plenty of uses for that.”

“If you must know, Jessamine, I now have a few more tricks up my sleeve.”

“Oh, really?” Tonia said. “Please demonstrate, because we’d just love to see that.”

“Don’t worry, mongrel, you’ll all see exactly what I can do.”

“Presumably one of the things you can do is ‘play truant’,” Maggie said, looking up and down at Cecily’s outfit.

“No, Mags,” said Jessa, “one of the things she does is ‘do P.E. in prostitute boots’.”

“You all think you’re so funny,” Cecily sneered.

“We’re pretty funny,” Tonia said.

“I wish I could see all your faces when it happens,” Cecily said quietly. “Did you know that it’s possible to kill someone and actually take their parapsych power from them? I read that recently. Interesting, don’t you think?”

“Wait, Cecily. Hold up,” Jessa said, “you read a book? Are you feeling okay?”

“Oh, Jessamine, you have no idea how good I feel,” Cecily swooped back her mane of silken hair. “I feel strong, and rested, and positive. And I’ve found someone who understands me, you know? I’m just so done with these pathetic boys. I’m only interested in real men, now. Not that any of you will ever know what a relationship is like, unless, I don’t know, maybe you’ll get lucky and the adult retard club will have speed-dating nights or something.”

“What do you want, Cecily? Why don’t you just leave us alone?” Flynn crossed his arms.

“Chill out, hobo, I’m on my way out. I have more important business to attend to than to stay at this ridiculous excuse for a school.”

“Great. Have fun with that,” he waved sarcastically. “See you around.”

“See me around? Yeah,” she said, “you will.”

“Always a pleasure, Cecily!” Tonia called out as Cecily walked away.

“What a nutjob,” Jessa tutted.

“Do you think she’s really been reading about that sort of thing?” asked Maggie.

“Of course not,” said Jessa. “It’s all an act with her. Look, we can’t get sidetracked by Cecily. We have more important things to concentrate on right now. Let’s try this thing again, but this time we’ll do the racket.”