Chapter 33

(Mandy)

It was the usual struggle to get up and about come Monday. It seemed like after the weekend getting up was even harder than it usually was. I loaded my PE kit in with my normal school stuff ready for the club this evening. I had my breakfast a cup of tea and was off as soon as D knocked on the door.

Once I was out in the air I began to feel more awake and happy, another day out and about with my friends and then as a treat at the end the club where I could cut loose and use my abilities without someone getting annoyed or scared.

My good mood didn't go unnoticed and D began smiling at me.

"What!" I said after the third such smile.

She shook her head and gave a little chuckle, "I've never met anyone who is so happy to go to school as you are."

"Well I have you and Jane there as well as a few other friends. I get to learn lots of neat stuff, then I have the cubes club. What's not to be happy about?"

"I don't get it, you have loads of enemies there and not to mention bigoted teachers, yet you always seem to see the good side."

I shrugged, "Better to focus on the good stuff."

"I guess so."

"So do you do anything in the club besides admin things?"

"I get to play defence mostly, I've got a good reach."

"Cool, do you ever get to be in attack?"

"Not often, I'm a big target and don't have any compensating powers. I occasionally get a go in practice but not as often as I'd like. Still it's a just fun to be involved at all."

"If they'd had sports like that back at my old school I wouldn't have hated PE so much."

We were approaching the school gates, Jane was waiting and gave us a friendly wave.

"Hey guys!" she said bounding over. "I had so much fun yesterday, we have to do that again sometime. Your sister is great fun!"

"It was a good day out, I know Gwen enjoyed herself as well which is nice I worry she works too much," I replied.

"We'll have to help her let her hair down more often."

We made our way up to our classroom talking about our weekend on our way up we ran into the supers. A couple of Trisha's old guard still glared at me but most smiled at me. At the head of the group was Winston.

"Ah D and the lovely Amanda, good morning to you both," he said with a smug smile.

Jane glared at him for being ignored.

"Good morning Winston," I said politely.

He gave me a very bright smile, "I look forward to seeing you both this evening."

The group of them moved off after Winston gave me a small bow.

When they were gone Jane motioned sticking her fingers down her throat, "Blerg! Those guys make me sick!"

"Come on," said D, "We'll be late for registration."

We made our way into the classroom and took our usual seats, we didn't have any time to chat before our teacher rushed in and took the register. After that it was off to lessons, some English that was reading followed by further humanities where we learnt about various religions. It was all pretty light stuff and a nice morning. At break we spent some time in the library Kitty and Clare were waiting for us like little dynamos of enthusiasm.

"If we could harness that power we could be rich!" joked Jane as the two of them bounced around us.

After break it was some more interesting subjects, Geography and History. We watched a film about the first and second Iraq war in history and then some stuff on various mountains in Geography. It was a pretty good morning and by lunch I was looking forward to some time with my friends. I grabbed some food and was munching away while D and Jane were discussing the supers our brief meeting with them this morning seemed to have put a bee in Jane's bonnet about them.

"Why do they get like that though?" asked Jane waving a fork full of pasta at D.

"I guess they feel special and think that gives them the right to tell the rest of us what to do," she replied.

"But he's got a lot of nerve with all that attitude with Tish!"

My ears perked up, "What attitude? With who?" I mumbled with a mouth full of pie.

Jane gave me a look, "What?" I asked confused.

"She didn't even notice it Jane," said D with a wave of her hand in my direction.

"Didn't notice what?" I asked a bit exasperatedly.

Jane sighed but said, "Nothing."

I shrugged and went back to my food if they didn't want to tell me that was there prerogative.

Jane leaned over to D and whispered probably thinking I wouldn't hear, "How can she not see it?"

D smiled and looked over at me and then gave Jane a knowing look to which Jane rolled her eyes and continued where she had left off, "Anyway that's only secondary, they run around making the rest of us feel like garbage for what? Not having as much power as them? It's just silly."

"Agreed, but it's just the way things are," D replied, "No one said life was fair."

We finished off our meals in relative silence. Jane seeming to fume about the supers. D just calmly thinking her own thoughts. While I trying to work out what Jane had meant and drew a blank.

After food we retreated to the library to get some of our homework done, our favourite cheerleaders Kitty and Clare were already waiting for us. Sitting with them was Helen which surprised me a little. It seemed Kitty and Clare had adopted Helen as a fellow cheerleader or something after they had learned that she went for help when I was being attacked. The ex-pure looked a little uncomfortable sitting between the two little hybrids though I think it was more their unstoppable energy that was worrying her than their MORFS survivor status.

She brightened when the rest of us joined them.

"Hi Tish!" chimed Kitty.

"Hi Tish!" Clare repeated.

"Hi," said Helen a little more quietly with a shy smile.

I greeted the three of them and sat down opposite Helen.

I noticed as I worked on my homework that Helen kept giving me looks while I was looking down and then glancing away blushing when I looked up. I kept my face down but looked with my other senses feeling her emotions, the lust I had felt before from her was there but stronger tinged with something else.

I thought to myself about Helen. Did I feel anything for her? Maybe I did, but I was still very confused. I wished I could look at my own emotions using my empathy and make sense of them. I decided to try and talk with her see if it would make things clearer.

"So ... what did you get up to at the weekend?" asked.

Kitty taking this as an open question jumped in, "Me and Clare had a ballet show!"

"Yea," said Clare with a brief flash of a smile.

"It was awesome we were in the front row and my mum came and so did Clare's we got lots of applause!"

"Sounds great! I bet you two were wonderful," I said my two little friends beamed at that. "How about you Helen?"

"I ... I went to church," she said haltingly looking terribly nervous to be talking.

"Cool, like to do brass rubbings or something?" asked Kitty.

Helen turned to look at the girl, "No ... t ... to worship," replied Helen.

"Oh!" said Kitty looking confused, "We don't have that in our house. I read about it though."

"What's it like in the church when they worship?" piped up Clare.

"Well there are readings and hymns," answered Helen.

"Like a sing song?" suggested Kitty.

"A little," said Helen looking uncomfortable with the subject.

"Ah," said Kitty as if that answered all her questions. She turned to me, "What did you do Tish, did you do sing songs too?"

"No I don't go to church any more, I haven't since I changed. I went to D's house on Saturday and then out shopping with D, Jane, and my sister on Sunday."

"Sounds like fun!"

"Yeah it was, we even managed to go see a movie too."

"Which one?"

"The new Brad Jones film."

There was a collective sigh from the girls at the table, all bar myself and Helen. Something that everyone else but the two of us was too busy to notice. Helen looked at me for a short while then looked thoughtful.

"My mum says I'm too young for his films," said Kitty looking annoyed, then sneaky, "course she doesn't know that I sneaked into her study and borrowed her vid collection."

"Hehe!" giggled Clare covering her mouth. No doubt she was involved in the hijinks.

Then the bell rang breaking up our fun we waved goodbye and then headed off to humanities. That lesson was really boring droning on about something or other, I was glad when it was over. In English Literature I had to do more reading in front of the class but I was getting better at it. I didn't hesitate so much and got through the thing without too many mistakes.

Once that was through with it was the end of the day. I practically jumped for joy, not only was school out but it was time for the club to start. Jane couldn't stay and was very annoyed about having to miss my first full session. She was taking her cheer leading role very seriously, but said she was having some trouble thinking of things that rhymed with Tish.

D and I made our way over to the changing rooms, we waited till the last class of the day cleared out and there was room for us to go in. A couple of the other club members waited with us exchanging the odd friendly nod or hello.

Eventually we got into the changing rooms and began getting on our kit for the games ahead. The captain Hannah came striding in greeting everyone as she went. She even remembered my name which was nice.

Once kitted out we went down to the gym and I followed directions for what I needed to do to set things up. When Mr Roberts got in he divided us up into teams. Me and D were on the same team which was nice. We also had Winston, who for some reason had seemed very keen to get on the same team as us. He was a very difficult person to read his supreme self confidence and arrogance seemed to eclipse all other emotions.

Still when he was picked for our team he turned to me and said, "When we are together nothing could stand in our way."

I nodded and looked away concentrating on Mr Roberts who was detailing the setup for today. For a brief moment I felt a tiny twinge of annoyance from Winston then it was gone.

First up we were defending something I had never had to do before. I watched what the others did and tried my best to imitate them. Pretty soon I had the hang of it. You had to tag the people as they made their run, to do so I could use my powers and skills to hide or distract. Staying invisible was quite good when I could see them coming, it didn't work so well up close as they had a chance to blast past me. My grip proved useful allowing me to traverse the multi-levelled environments faster than most.

After that we had a bit of a break, Winston congratulated me on all the tags I'd made.

While we waited I got to watch the acrobatic Hannah in action, for someone that had no physical enhancements or powers she could really move. She was graceful and fast moving like she was liquid, slipping past people without seeming to move much at all.

Next turn we got to be attackers this was more familiar territory. D was at a bit of a disadvantage here, but I wondered if we could use that. Winston and myself were obviously the ones who would try for the cake but maybe we could use that.

I explained my plan to Winston and D. D grinned like an idiot, Winston said, "Your wit and brilliance are matched only by your beauty."

I smiled and said thanks wondering what he was on about then we got on with the plan.

Winston and myself forged ahead taking up all the attention we could. D slipped along in our wake using our distractions to get along. The two of us distractions grabbed the cake and I pelted back to the end zone passing D. As I passed I threw the cake to her but then established an illusion of it in my hands and dodged back as if the throw had been a feint.

I raced along dodging defenders as best I could back towards the end zone. They focused completely on me not noticing D making her way up the side of the cube with the cake held against her leg to make it less obvious. Eventually my solo run was caught.

"Ha tagged you, put the cake back and back to the start!" shouted the opposition player triumphantly.

"What cake," I said and allowed the illusion to disappear. The way the guys face fell was priceless.

Realising the jig was up D ran as fast as she could for the end zone with Winston flanking so she could pass if she needed to. Luckily our deception was so good no one realised what was going on until it was too late.

We scored, the opposition argued it for a bit but the judges decided it was a legitimate tactic. I hugged an over the moon D who picked me up and carried me around for a bit. She had never scored before and was really blown away by my plan making it possible for her.

Winston began making some flowery comment about my brilliance or some such but D told him to put a sock in it and hugged me some more till I thought she'd squeeze the life out of me.

After that we had a few more wait sessions. D talking to me non stop about how awesome I was and how good it had felt to be able to score for a change.

We got a few more goes but nothing that had quite the same impact as the first go at attacking. We scored a few times I managed it once and then Winston picked me up and carried me around on his shoulders for a bit. I realised he had very muscular shoulders as I clung on for dear life.

Whenever I made some contribution or gave some idea he would congratulate me in some poetic manner.

But all good things come to an end. So tired, happy and a little hungry, we made our way up to the showers. D still gushed about her win. Most of the other girls were grinning at her repeated descriptions of my plan and how amazing it was.

After showering drying and dressing we made our way out into the cool night air. I found Winston had waited for us to come out rather than say anything he gave us a wave then turned and left.

As we walked out the front gate I turned to D and said, "Winston's been acting really weird today."

"You still haven't twigged," said D incredulous.

"Twigged what?"

"He's been dropping hints the size of double deckers and you are still none the wiser!"

"What hints?"

"Ah never mind, did you see how I made that run. It was amazing, you handed me the cake I slipped it back and followed along the far wall. I knew I had to be ready but couldn't draw attention to myself so I tried to keep up without looking like I was in position for a pass so they wouldn't think me a danger."

She regaled me with more tales of how she had pulled off the score of the century eventually she stopped mid exposition about how she had fooled the whole defence and looked at me sheepishly, "Sorry, I got a little carried away."

"Hehe, I thought it was fun. You were so over the moon about it you didn't even make a face when Winston called you a woman to shine through the ages."

"He wasn't calling me that."

"Eh?"

She stopped dead still in the street, "You really don't see it do you?"