Jeffrey and Gel strolled out together, not speaking yet.

Since Monday’s double period took place just before lunch, he was glad to have the chance now for the two to go debrief. He considered what he might bring up first: his over-attachment to people seen in visions, Gel’s expert dismantling of Peck’s poem (and Friggly’s response), their peculiar meeting with Hunch on Friday, next steps in the Finnel mission…

Very carefully, he brought his attention over to Gel as she pulled slightly ahead. He knew she’d pick up on his focus as it shifted in her direction.

He noticed for the first time how carefully she walked, taking such short steps, with her elbows half-bent, her hands clutching the straps of her backpack as if ready to pull a parachute’s string at a moment’s notice.

“Hey!” called the distinctly prickly voice of Peck from behind. “Wait!”

Gel and Jeffrey spun to find their angular classmate navigating his way toward them through the growing crowd. He looked like a scarecrow clearing a whole crop of corn, showing a sort of rickety agility (if not ease).

“Alright,” Peck began, now close and short of breath. “That’s it! I want to know what your deal is, both of you. How can you know the kinds of things you know about me?”

Gel and Jeffrey shared an unnoticeable, perhaps only inward, glance.

“Like what?” Jeffrey asked, sensing Gel’s displeasure with his question right away.

“Like Cuber!” Peck trembled, stitching himself back together with every breath. “Like the poem just now. You said the person after the war is still traumatized, so they can only think and talk like the lines in the poem. Friggly didn’t get it. I didn’t even get it when I wrote it. But it’s true! How?! C’mon, I need to know! Tell me!” His voice had been rising ever since his approach, and was now at an outright shout.

Jeffrey began to see again the scene featuring the younger Peck at the other school, put down and picked on for so long, the pent-up anger finally cresting over to spark an all-out attack, which would then change everything and could never be undone.

As instantly as the vision had returned, Jeffrey felt his chest begin to shake and heave. He struggled to steady himself, and to breathe as slowly as he could. He fought to hide his fear, having seen what Peck could be made capable of if pushed past a certain point.

“There are many things going on that you don’t need to know about,” said Gel, her tone even, smooth, and soft. “I suggest you let this go. We don’t want to make you upset. We don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“No!” Peck screeched as if to confront and drown out Gel’s calm composure. “You can’t just say things like that about me, and expect me to be cool with it, like it doesn’t matter! How do you do it? You better tell me!”

Fear continued to flood Jeffrey’s whole midsection, though his inner vision changed a little. Now the boy pushed too far had morphed into a vicious animal caught in a deadly trap lashing out with teeth and claws at even those who might help unclamp the metal jaws to set it free.

Knowing Gel must be seeing the same image did enable Jeffrey to at least keep his shaky panic under wraps.

“What’s happening?” boomed a low voice from behind.

Pivoting around . . . and up . . . to take in the sight of Colin Frey, who spired almost to the ceiling on the other side, Jeffrey’s first instinct was to shrink to the floor, draw his knees to his chest, wrap his arms around his head, and just let himself tremble. For if the raging Peck and looming Colin were to choose to join forces against him and tiny Gel, he knew no degree of uncanny awareness would suffice.

Thankfully that first instinct to drop and twitch gave way to a deeper intuition, and Jeffrey began to see Colin standing like some highest-level palace guard sworn to never attack anyone outright, but to only ever give all in defense of his liege against any incoming violence, anger, injustice, deceit...

Jeffrey knew he wasn’t supposed to let himself go on assessing the sort of potential, capability, power, and wherewithal he witnessed there within Colin. But it felt like seeing through a superficial Clark Kent mask to the obvious Superman buried not that deep beneath. Colin was, or would surely become, a legit superhero defender of all those smaller and weaker than himself (everyone).

“I’m trying to get them to tell me how they can know things like what my poem means!” Peck cried. “I bet they knew everything about yours too!” His lingering lack of control showed that his utter desperation would not be deterred even by Colin’s great size.

“I thought your poem was good for the reasons she said, too,” Colin told Peck slowly, clearly feeling out each of his words as he spoke. “Why are you yelling?”

“I’m not!” yelled Peck. “I just need to know what’s going on. It’s not fair someone gets to see that kind of stuff!”

“Some people see things others don’t,” offered Colin.

“But it’s not fair!” Peck insisted.

“Let it go,” repeated Gel.

Jeffrey felt the need to add something, if only just to show he had Gel’s back . . . anything to prove he shared her priority of ending the discussion.

But he found no words to say.

His attention was drawn instead to unseen clocks counting down time, erasing room for the important talk he still hoped to have with Gel.

“No,” Peck pressed. “You’re both freaks. But you can’t just use your freakishness on me like nothing and have me be fine with it. You have to tell me!”

“We see things,” Jeffrey said plainly.

Gel’s gaze fell to the floor.

“Like what?” asked Colin, hints of curiosity not really competing against his stoic strength.

Jeffrey tried to catch Gel’s eye, but she wouldn’t look up. “Nothing,” he began, then paused. “Ok, everything.” He left more space as if to let his contradiction sort itself out in the open air. “We just kind of know how people are, that’s all.”

“So, it’s like psychology?” queried Peck. “You know what people are likely to do, so you can work back to what probably caused it? Like, me having a dog as a kid, or someone being in something like a . . . a war…?”

“No,” Jeffrey belted like punching a buzzer fast to beat another team . . . but then, upon thinking, finding he had nothing to follow up with.

“It is like that,” said Gel, her eyes still aimed only down. “That’s all it is. Now can we please get going?”

“Do it again!” Peck jittered. “Tell me something about myself. Or, do it with Colin.”

“Ok,” said Gel, causing Jeffrey to lock his eyes on her in disbelief. “You have a stepmother. And she doesn’t really like much of the things your father likes. She doesn’t like his music. But you didn’t know that, did you? Guitar music. Acoustic guitar. Lot’s of guitars playing together.”

Jeffrey saw and heard it too: Peck’s broomstick father sprawled out, alone, across a couple wicker chairs atop a raised porch-patio beneath a long stretch of starlight, listening to a musical conversation taking place between several string-twang voices.

“Yeah,” uttered Peck. “You got the music right. Ok, what else? Do it again?”

“No,” Gel answered, her tone flat enough to leave no room for further questioning.

“You do it,” Peck gestured at Jeffrey like a fly twiddling its limbs.

“Your dad…” Jeffrey started.

“No,” repeated Gel to Peck, interrupting. “We’re not here to perform. Leave us alone.”

“Leave them alone,” Colin agreed, adding significant figurative weight behind Gel’s sharp command.

“Tell me!” Peck almost roared.

Jeffrey said nothing, though the vision continued. He saw Peck’s father still reclining out on the patio when a ringing phone cut short the jovial guitar sound. The man rolled his eyes, but answered the call.

Jeffrey picked up only one side of the conversation that ensued: “Maggie? No. No, I can’t. It’s not my week, that’s why. Well, he can stay with you then. No. No, I don’t care if… Well, that’s what we came up with, and you can’t just… No. No, he can’t, Maggie! Because we’re busy. You can bring him next week, then we’ll talk about it. No, we’ll talk about it then. We’ll talk about it then. I gotta go. Gotta go. No. I gotta go. Bye.”

The music picked up immediately where it had left off, and brought to mind a band of smiling companions all sharing a happy tune as they travelled arm-in-arm, in peace, through mellow places.

“Don’t say anything,” Gel basically whispered, her dark eyes rising to meet Jeffrey’s.

“Don’t say anything about what?” Peck pronged, lifting to the balls of his feet as if it would make him any more intimidating next to the colossal Colin.

Jeffrey said nothing. He now saw a version of Peck sitting in homeroom looking from left to right, wishing for someone to talk to and be silly with . . . not just a new person to orbit near (and then away from) based on some joint amusement over classroom happenings, etc. Jeffrey felt Peck literally longing for a real friend to spend recesses and lunches with, someone whose house he could get dropped off at on a Friday after school to play videogames and spend the night.

This was an odd sight for Jeffrey to behold, he realized, because it represented a hope or wish so totally unlike any of Jeffrey’s own: someone else to make decisions about which content to consume, how to spend time, what to think about…

“I’m gonna find out!” the Peck back in the hallway warned, working to pack sufficient threat into his words.

“It’s not a secret,” Gel assured. “We see things. Others feel things, or understand things. There are all sorts of different abilities here at this school. But we’re not going to tell you everything we see. That’s not the point of it.”

“Yeah, that makes it sound like such a lie!” Peck hissed. “Like, I bet you just know psychology or whatever, like you said! And you know how to make it seem like you have this superpower. But that’s so convenient for you to say you can’t really show it. I mean, c’mon!”

“I don’t think they care if you believe it or not,” Colin stated, his massive face still quizzical and deeply intrigued.

“We don’t,” Gel confirmed.

“Why?” Peck demanded. “If you see something that could help me, why wouldn’t you tell me? Why wouldn’t you want me to know? Why have a power if you can’t even use it?”

“We do use it,” responded Jeffrey, again regretting speaking as he spoke. “We have to use it for something.” He met Gel’s stare, and shivered.

“It will help everyone,” she added in a tone which felt to Jeffrey as if she’d grown tired of always having to save him from drowning in the same old lake.

Peck fired more questions like bullets from a gun: “But not me? It won’t help me? It’s not for me?! I’m not good enough?!”

“You are,” said Gel. “And it will.”

And with that, she turned and walked out toward daylight.