The Powerless Series: Complete 5-Book Set Page 7

  Mira thought about this question for a moment.

  “I’d say they are lazy and not really all that smart.”

  “So how do you beat someone who doesn’t work hard, doesn’t focus, and doesn’t think?”

  Mira had to chuckle at his point. “But I did think, and I did try. And it didn’t work out at all!”

  “I don’t think you’re using all of the tools available to you. I’m sure you could put together something to help you out. You said before even the teacher doesn’t know what he’s talking about. What is there that you know that could help?”

  It did not take Mira long to realize what she knew that could help her. It was what she spent her free time thinking about and what she sunk all of her creative energy into. A light bulb came on in her mind, grew hot, and exploded, leaving little pieces of excitement and possibility strewn about.

  “OK, I’ll give it another shot. Maybe this time it’ll be different. But do you think I can have today to get everything together?” she asked.

  “That sounds fair to me,” Kevin agreed, getting up and moving toward the door. Before he could close it, Mira stopped him.

  “Thank you, Dad. That helped.”

  “I’ll try not to let it go to my head,” he said with a warm smile.

  Mira spent most of the day in the basement, organizing her materials and drafting plans. She looked at the things she had already built, a drill, little robotic toys that could scuttle about, and flashlights. None of them seemed powerful enough or particularly well suited to her needs. Still, she started developing ideas.

  Heading to the schoolhouse early the next morning, she spent some time repairing the wobble and the crack in her desk. She had just about finished when the other students began to show up. Some of her tools and sawdust cluttered the nearby area, but the desk looked like the best one in the house.

  “Well, look who decided to show up. It’s a good thing too, we could use a good laugh,” Will said as he came in.

  “I suggest that you stop,” Mira said with a severe tone.

  “Why?” he laughed. “Are you going to use your imaginary power on me? Better make it a cool one this time.”

  “No,” she said, “but I promise you’ll regret it.”

  “What? What are you going to do?” he said, blowing unnaturally powerful gusts of air that made her flinch. Fortst arrived soon enough, and Will turned around, thinking he’d gotten the last laugh. But during lunchtime, while the students were making trips to the outpost or eating out in the grass, Mira quickly made a few alterations to his desk.

  From her own desk, she watched the students file in after their lunch break ended. Will rushed in and threw himself into his seat only to have it collapse underneath him. He emitted a girlish whelp and the other students burst into laughter. He got up and started looking around, puzzled.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Mira said, opening her hand and revealing a few nails, “but I needed to borrow these.” The others around them laughed at Will even harder, knowing that the weakest among them had done it. Will grew red-faced and took a deep breath, preparing to generate a great gust, but he stifled it when he realized so many other students sat in front of his target. He had to sit on the floor until they went out for field lessons.

  Mira answered every question she could that day. She gave long, detailed replies explaining the trajectory of projectiles and the forces involved in the physics of throwing. She went on and on with examples, even going into tangents. She didn’t care what anyone thought, and she was sure no one else could really understand what she said anyway.

  “All movement is caused by a force pushing an object over a distance. And all forces work in pairs. So while your arm pushes against the stone you are throwing, the stone pushes against your arm. If you could measure the speed of your arm using the same amount of force, once with the stone and once without, you could identify the force of that stone by how much slower your arm moves. Actually, Dot could probably do that pretty easily.” But she stopped suddenly, again distracted by some pestering mosquitoes.

  It only took a few times for her to realize that the bugs only bothered her when she started speaking. She noticed ants on her shoes too, which she tried to brush away. Some students giggled, and she immediately knew this was not an accident. She started watching the other students, especially while she spoke. By the end of the day she had a good idea as to the source of the problem.

  After school let out, Mira jogged to catch up to one boy walking down the forest trail.

  “Hey, you’re Jeremy, right? What do you do with insects?”

  Jeremy didn’t turn back to look at her. Mira followed close behind, looking at the back of his greasy, dark hair.

  “Whatever I want. Move things around, make them fight, encourage people to shut up. That kind of thing,” he said. He took another step, tripped, and suddenly fell flat on the ground. He quickly wiped the dirt from his face and looked back at his feet. His foot tripped over a wire that extended across the trail.

  “Be careful not to squish any of your friends,” she said, stepping over her wire and smiling.

  She walked away confidently and quickly. She turned the corner at the forest’s edge and began to work her way home. Another student hobbled along the road, and Mira motioned to pass her. She had not yet spoken to this girl, Mary, but she noticed a scrape on her knee with a little bit of blood. It made her look up at Mary’s face.

  “I’m actually still not sure exactly what my gift is,” she said. “But I could tell you are different from the moment I first saw you. Dot’s parents knew what she could do before they could even name her, but I still don’t know. There’s something about you—”

  “That’s nice,” Mira interrupted. She left the girl behind and pushed further on up the road, choosing to focus her thoughts on other peers who needed to be taught a lesson.

  Mira arrived at school the next day to find that her desk had been switched with another. Setting a pencil on the desk, she watched it roll to the side and fall on the floor. She glanced at the legs of the other desks and spotted the new light-brown board supporting the weight of Aoi. It didn’t make sense for someone to steal when it would be so obvious.

  The students waited patiently for Fortst to arrive, but they became nervous when he showed up with a suspiciously nasty smirk. His pants and shoes were dirty and had red splotches all over them.

  “Today, we’re going to have a field training day. Just wait and see what I have in store for you. It’s gonna be a blast!”

  Coming out from behind his lectern, he waved his arm and beckoned for the students to follow. Striding so quickly that even his coattails had trouble following, he led them out into the forest.

  “You see, we’ve got to simulate some intensity, some stress. The most important thing I can teach you is how to keep your head on your shoulders when things get a little crazy. Better be careful and better be quick, or you’re gonna end up a big mess.”

  Climbing over fallen trees and avoiding spider webs, they drew deeper into the forest. Less light filtered down through the colorful leaves and small animals scurried in the undergrowth. The landscape dipped suddenly, and Mira wondered if they were close to Cloud Cottage.

  “Are we there yet?” Dennis droned.

  “You’re in for a long day if you’re already tired,” Fortst retorted. A cool breeze shot through the trees, blowing down a few leaves. The students began to make out unnatural formations among the trees in the distance.

  “What did you make?” Vern asked, trying to match Fortst’s pace.

  “I’ve been working on this for a while. My goal is that you won’t be able to get out of bed tomorrow.”

  Vern, deflated, slackened his pace.

  The students’ jaws dropped when they saw the strange creation before them. Toppled trees clumped together in haphazard fashion, forming piles and divots in the earth. Red footprints criss-crossed the course and led to mostly empty cans of paint lying along the e
dges. They spotted ropes and planks, chains and sheet metal. All together, they formed a jagged and unstable conglomeration.

  “Did you have to knock over so many pretty trees!?” Mary moaned.

  “Your goal is to make it through the day wearing as little red paint as possible. Just follow the arrows. The three students with the fastest times and the least paint will be captains for the Team Trial, the second competition of the year, which is not as far away as it seems,” he said. “OK, let’s get started. Are you ready?” he called.

  “No,” the students responded, still carrying their packs and not entirely out of the forest.

  “Tough! Go!” he laughed.

  Everyone threw down their bags and scampered out into the uneven, perplexing terrain.

  “Oh, come on!” Dot howled, her foot sinking into a hidden hole and coming up covered in red paint. Fortst laughed heartily.

  “You’re only a few feet in! That’s not a good start.”

  The students kept a vigilant eye on each step as they ran through the short grass to what appeared to be the start of the course. Mira struck a comfortable stride and allowed herself to feel optimistic about the day’s challenge. Everyone would have to rely on their legs and their hands to get them through. Carefully dodging another pitfall, she even started to think about the possibility of being a team captain and how nice that would be, considering her dreadful performance in the tournament trial.

  The ground became sandier and they came to the first imposing obstacle—the bottoms of several overturned trees blocked their vision and reached up just over their heads. Red paint covered some of the roots leading up the wall.

  Kurt led the bulk of the students to the overturned tree’s base. Dennis and Chucky were already lagging far behind. Leaping at the roots, Kurt struggled to make his way up, eventually grasping a painted root to avoid falling back down to the ground. He wiggled and clamored his way up over the mound’s top only to let out a loud cry once he left sight. The next wave of students, Mira among them, peeked above the precipice and saw Kurt muddling his way forward with a sandy, red arm. They kept to the edges to avoid the deceptive looking sand between the tree trunks.

  The space between the parallel tree trunks looked like a pool of paint. Balancing themselves on the trunks, they navigated around branches that got in their way. Many of them already struggled for breath and slowed down.

  The sound of forceful air caught Mira’s ear and she turned back to see Will blow Jeremy into the trough. Splashing, Jeremy leapt at the other trunk but not before his legs and arms were covered. Glowering, he sent centipedes and moths erupting from the log to latch onto Will, who flailed wildly at them and barely avoided slipping into the pit.

  The scene struck her with alternating sensations of optimism and fear. Jeremy seemed to be the worst casualty thus far, but the threat of powers reminded her that the field was not as level as she thought. Noticing Aoi only a few paces behind her, Mira moved with a new urgency. Disappointed and spiteful wails came from the pack as more students struggled to avoid the red paint.

  After making it through the tops of the fallen trees, the students came to a mountain of rugged plant matter. Chains held trunks of various sizes together. Kurt, still in the lead, scrambled up the disjointed heap. Trees shifted under his weight as he hopped from log to log. About to disappear over the top, he suddenly couldn’t muster any forward momentum. He strained to hold himself in place, and looked back in anger. Struggling against Vern, his fingers grasped the exterior of a tree. When the bark gave way, Kurt fell through the heap rather than back down it.

  Attempting to find stable footing, the next group of students peeked through the cracks to find Kurt waist deep in paint. He searched the perimeter for a space to crawl out. Vern, Roselyn, and Rowland pushed themselves up. Mira opted to scale a single trunk that led diagonally up toward the top. She put her weight on it, and it seemed to hold firmly. Her eyes on the closing gap between the first group and herself, it startled her when the log beneath her suddenly shifted.

  Looking back, Mira saw Aoi had the log in her hands. She began shaking it back and forth, which caused Mira to slip and clutch the log with her hands and legs.

  “Stop, please!” she yelled. Aoi rotated the log until Mira was on the bottom with nothing but a pool of paint beneath her. The log shook up and down, forcing her hands to lose their grip. She hung helplessly, legs wrapped around the log, staring down at the end of her hopes for being a captain. She struggled to keep her arms and hair out of the paint.

  But her legs held and Aoi soon began to scramble up herself. She passed Mira, still dangling from the log.

  “I thought you’d look good in red,” she taunted.

  Mira eventually pulled herself up. Seeing Will and Jeremy, fighting their way to her, she frantically scaled the hill. At the top, there was no safe place to go except into the branches of a large, still-standing tree. She leapt into the thick branches that the others had used before her, which now featured red streaks that stained her fingers.

  Climbing up, she looked for a suitable place to cross over to the next tree. She paused and glanced back at those behind her. A few students neared the top of the heap, though they looked exhausted and worn. The students who straggled before now sat on the fallen tree trunks and rested. One student in particular seemed to be covered in a slick, dark substance. Mira looked ahead to Aoi some ways above her. The prospect of passing Aoi seemed slim, but she remained hopeful.

  She swung among the tree branches, listening to the sounds of those in front of her and not to her tired arms and legs. The ground was covered in paint, and so she hopped from branch to branch, tree to tree. Farther along, the ground became safe to walk on, and Mira lowered herself down. She dropped onto a narrow path, just avoiding prickly brambles on either side.

  Looking back again, she spotted a group of students, led by Kurt, who had elected to sacrifice their shoes and lower legs to the paint in order to save the time of climbing through the trees. Startled, she took off down the path at a break-neck pace. The trail swooped left and right, back and forth for much longer than Mira thought it would. Settling into a more sustainable pace, she pushed along the seemingly endless path. From her place on the trail, she couldn’t see anyone in front or behind her. The only paint here came from odd footprints.

  Seeing only a few spots and drips on her, Mira hypothesized that she must be close to the best in that respect. She’d kept a strong pace, and so she had to be gaining on the leaders, who possessed no special endurance to her knowledge.

  Swinging around another bend, the trail suddenly split into three. Arrows pointed down each of the three trails. Stopping cold, she strained to figure out which was the correct trail. She quickly noticed that the trail on the left had no paint, the trail in the middle had some, and the trail to the right had paint on every surface, dripping from above, and covering the brambles and ground. Only a few stepping-stones appeared safe.

  Pressure swelled inside of her and her heart raced. “Which way?” she said aloud. Tracks led off in each direction. If she chose correctly, she could overtake one of her classmates. She tried to think about what Fortst did. “He wouldn’t have wasted much time putting paint on a trail that wasn’t the right one, would he?”

  Satisfied with her logic, and hearing footsteps behind her, she went for the painted trail on the right. She hopped from stone to stone, unavoidably getting paint on her shoes. She almost lost her balance once, and so she had to reach out and put her hand on a bright red tree trunk. It felt disgusting, both because it made her fingers stick together and because it hurt her standing.

  She heard students at the intersection behind her. They, too, puzzled over which direction to take. She turned back and called to them.

  “It’s this way!” she hollered, thinking it better to have them behind her than possibly pick the right trail if she were wrong. They took to the painted trail, which proved more difficult for them to navigate because only one student coul
d fit on a stepping-stone at a time. Almost nearing the end, Mira heard an argument break out amongst them. If it led to a scuffle, they would surely be out of the game.

  Hopping over the last stretch of paint, she resumed her frantic pace. The trail turned to the left and immediately rejoined with the other splits in the path.

  “You can’t be serious!” she groaned. She took a quick but longing look at the paint-free left trail that she could have taken. Pushing down the path for another ten minutes, she felt as if she were running around the trails in the woods behind her home. Feeling comfortable on the terrain, she picked up speed and felt like she could hold it forever.

  The trail straightened out and she saw Vern and Aoi in front of her. Please start fighting, she pleaded in her mind. Farther down the trail she could see Fortst and the finish.

  Mira sprinted after them as fast as her legs could carry her, but they were just too far ahead. As she closed on the finish, she saw that Roselyn had finished first, and she watched Vern and Aoi pass Rowland in the final stretch.

  Crossing the line, she took a few hobbled steps and gasped for breath. Fortst seemed impressed with her finish though, and he gave her an encouraging cheer. Mira started scanning those who finished before her for paint to see if she might actually be ahead of them. Rowland had a fair amount on him, but the others seemed almost clean.

  “Mr. Fortst, did you say you would measure how much paint people had at the end of the race or the end of the day?” she asked.

  “We’ll do all that when we get back to the schoolhouse after lunch,” he said.

  A few more students made their way down the final stretch, and all those who had finished, except Mira, came over to cheer on their friends. Some of those coming in had red paint covering every inch of their bodies. After finishing, they tried to wring it out of their clothes. Slower students started coming in, those who were dead tired and those who had spent more time fighting than running. Dennis and Chucky came walking down the final stretch long after everyone else.