Chapter 4

Jake concentrated on the paper plate which had formerly held Zack's dinner.

Maybe if I can just concentrate hard enough...

Jake was interrupted by the sound of laughter in his head.

"I didn't know cats could laugh," said Jake, with a slightly irritated tone.

<Neither did I. But you're pretty comical. Maybe one of your talents is to make people laugh at your sheer stupidity. You see, I told you this didn't feel right, > replied Zack.

"You're not helping. Besides you said I'm said I'm supposed to be intelligent now. How was I supposed to know if I had Super-man's laser beam vision or not," said Jake.

<I'm just kidding, although, I would have given up after staring at that damn plate for an hour. But you bring up a good point, you are intelligent, or at least capable of being intelligent at times. But not just now. I think you probably have always been intelligent. Back in the woods, you told me that you always had had racing thoughts, but that now those thoughts weren't as, uh, loud I guess.>

"Yeah, and until I got here they had been getting louder. Wait, I see what you're getting at. Since the racing thoughts were getting worse at the time of my pubertal changes, perhaps they're related to my abilities," Jake said.

He started pacing rapidly back and forth, which caused Zack to start laughing again. The room was so small it caused to Jake turn around every couple seconds. Zack wondered if Jake were going to fall down from dizziness.

"So what does it mean? They seem like random jumbles. Ah hell, I'm probably just grasping for straws in my blindness," said Jake.

<No, somehow this feels right. Let's think about this for a second. Until recently you hadn't been able to maintain your train of thoughts.>

"Correct, well almost, I could do it for short periods of time if I concentrated and nobody was around," replied Jake.

<So, maybe if you concentrated on these racing thoughts, you might understand them and they might actually mean something. In fact, since it's worse when there's more people... >

"Maybe that means I'm reading other people's mind. But what about you and your thoughts? Why isn't your thoughts causing my thoughts to become muddled," said Jake.

<Like I said, I think my intelligence is derived from yours, so I'm like part of you, but not. I'm a special case. Besides, I'm a cat, I'm sure my thoughts would naturally be less confusing, > Zack replied to Jake.

Jake stopped his pacing to look at Zack.

"Okay, let me lay on the bed and try to concentrate on those thoughts," said Jake.

Zack moved away from the center of the bed to allow Jake to lie down. Jake laid himelf down face-up and closed his eyes and attempted to concentrate. Meanwhile, Zack yawned and decided to cuddle with Jake by curling up next to his head.

Sarah sat on her bed wondering what had happened in the kitchen. She had originally planned to study the book on trigonometry she had borrowed from the library. She had always had a fondess for math, and besides she also wanted a head start on everyone else at school, even if she weren't going to be studying it in school until her junior year, and this was only going to be her freshman year. Besides, she reasoned that if she worked on her studies during the summer, she would have more time to socialize in school. Unfortunately, events in her life were distracting her. What had happened with Jake wasn't making any sense to her, and she always liked to know what was going on.

What the hell? How does vegetable boy suddenly gain the ability to talk like a normal person? And why was he smirking at me like I'm the idiot. Okay, maybe he had a laugh on me. What was that crap about the cat preferring to be called Zack? Was that his idea of a joke? At least he didn't tell Mom and Dad about me leaving him in the woods. Was that dumbness routine an act the entire time? No, he couldn't have been faking, there's no reason to, especially when he reveals that he's not a total idiot. What happened to change him then? Exactly how smart is he?

Sarah decided her ponderings weren't going to help her figure anything out. So she decided to do some investigation.

First, I'll surf the web, thought Sarah. There's probably something in medical journals or texts on his condition. Didn't Dad say something about an anxiety disorder? Then I'll have to simply observe him to figure out smart he is. I still doubt that he's anywhere close to being in my league though.

"Ugh. This is giving me a headache and I'm not getting anywhere," said Jake after trying for over forty minutes to focus on the thoughts that had been racing through his head.

<You humans give up so easily when the going gets tough. I don't understand how your kind ever became the dominant species. Why, I once spent a whole day hunting down a rabbit. It was well worth it too. The taste as I bit down into it's throat was incredible, it was- >

"Gross, you're going to make me puke," Jake interupted Zack before he got into the gory details of the rabbit's evisceration.

<My point, you rude beast, is that you might have to try harder. Don't give up yet, it feels like we're almost on the right track. Pretend this skill would be as cool as the superman laser beam vision.>

"Okay, Mr. Intuitive what do you propose I do? I tried longer with the laser because it didn't give me a splitting headache, not because it was cooler." said Jake.

<I don't know exactly, I tried monitoring your thoughts, but I can't hear any of these background thoughts you talk about. But it still feels like we're close.>

"All right already, I'll give it another try, but tomorrow. I need to think about this and not just attack this problem randomly, and, besided my head feels like a well used percussion instrument."

<Well, I'm going to take off. There's a hot little calico I've seen hanging around lately who might be lucky enough to be graced by my presence.>

Zack headed out of the room and down the stairs and proceeded to let himself out by jumping up and pushing the handle on the kitchen screen door, which caused Nancy to stare in wonder.

Jake found that his exertions had caused him to tire, and though it hadn't turned completely dark outside, he fell asleep for the night.

Sarah spent most of the night looking at various psychiatric and psychological web sites and found little to answer her questions.

As she took her morning shower, she considered the possibilities she had discovered.

Maybe he suffered a traumatic experience, or maybe he had some really weird upbringing, or simply had bad genetics. Well I think somebody would have mentioned an experience that would have traumatized him that bad, so that probably rules out number one. Uncle Trey and Aunt Linda seem normal and have always treated Jake well, so that rules out number two. Nobody in dad's family has had weird diseases or disorders. I don't know about Uncle Trey's ancestry, but I've met his immediate family and they seem fine. So, although option 3 might be possible, it seems unlikely. Maybe I'll hang out with Jake today, and figure out what's up that way, thought Sarah as she turned the shower off.

"Oh, hi Blacky. How did you get in here?" asked Sarah of Zack as he curled himself around Sarah's feet, purring loudly, the whole time, while he stared Sarah up and down. If Blacky weren't a cat she would have sworn that he was checking her out.

"Or is it Zack?" Sarah jokingly asked the cat as she remembered what Jake had said about Blacky preferring to be referred to as Zack.

"Meoowr," Zack suprisingly replied to Sarah.

Oh, he can't really understand me. He's just responding to my voice, thought Sarah.

"Can you understand me, kitty?" Sarah asked of Zack.

"Meoowr," Zack replied again.

Obviously, somebody, maybe Jake, has trained the cat to respond to certain intonations in people's voice. I wonder if Jake is listening in the hallway, hoping to get a big laugh out of this? Bastard! I'll call his bluff.

Sarah cracked the bathroom door open and called out, "Hah, hah Jake. If your cat is so smart that it can understand me, if it runs in a circle around me three times and meets me in the kitchen on top of the microwave, I'll give it a whole can of tuna."

Normally, Zack would have considered Sarah's demands demeaning, but he had eaten tuna once before, and it was taste he would never forget.

Sarah watched, nonplussed, as Zack ran around her three times, stopped a second to look up at her and then ran out of the bathroom.