Susan is sitting at her desk in Class One of Saint Sebastian Primary School. She is six years old. Everyone says she looks like her Mummy. She has the same long, black hair, which today Mummy tied up in a plait. She also has the same green eyes. Sometimes the other children at school are mean to her about her eyes, so she just stares at them even harder.

“Stop looking at me!” they squeal and squeak and they run away and sometimes it’s fun and they play a game and sometimes it hurts.

She doesn’t know why the others are scared of her eyes. They are normal eyes, they see just like everyone else’s. When she closes her eyes, though, that is a different story. She can’t ‘see’ at all, but she knows where everything is and how much it weighs. Her closed-eye-sight makes everything all funny shapes, the edges all fuzzy, and she can’t see very far. Some of her friends say they are afraid of the dark and there are monsters in it. Susan has never seen a monster in the dark. She has been looking very carefully, too.

She’s seen many other secrets in the dark. She can see where all the wires go in the walls and in the ceiling. She can see the pipes running away from the loos. She can see when the flush chases the poo and pee along the pipes. She can even see that right now, Tyrone is sitting in the boys’ loo crying for his Mummy again. He goes there to cry everyday. He’s gone there every day since they all started at school in September. Two months and he cries super hard when his Mummy brings him in the morning and super hard when she takes him home. He’s five years old, she thinks. Five-year-olds are babies. Susan remembers how sad she was on the first day. She cried a little bit but when she saw how much there was to do, all the books and crayons and toys and computers, she felt better. She loves Mummy, and Daddy, but she loves school too.

It’s breaktime but today is a cold and wet day. The clouds aren’t stopping as their raindrops fall into the playground, like it’s the clouds that are standing still and the school is a car driving away beneath them. Rain means no playtime outside during the break. The classroom is hot and smelly. Susan is reading a book and she wants to draw on the pages. She isn’t because Miss Jones, her teacher, said it’s bad to draw in school books. Susan likes Miss Jones. She’s younger than Mummy and has short, blonde hair. She always wears pretty clothes with pretty colours and patterns, and today she is wearing her shirt with pink flowers and her pink glasses. Miss Jones had to stop a fight between Andrew and Mo. They wanted to play football in the playground as usual but it was raining. Now they don’t know who is better today. So they argued and arguments between silly little boys mean fights. They aren’t fighting and shouting now. They are crying and hugging themselves.

Maybe they won’t be friends anymore. That happened to Susan and Anna. One day Susan and Anna were playing and Anna started poking Susan. Susan said “Stop it!” but Anna just giggled and started pinching her so Susan smacked her with a colouring book. Anna won’t talk to Susan anymore but Susan doesn’t mind. Anna sometimes smells bad so it’s OK that they don’t play together.

Everyone is watching Miss Jones try to help Andrew and Mo be friends again. Susan puts down the book and picks up her red pencil. It’s short and fat and looks like a hecks-ah-gun on the bottom. The lead goes all the way through it like the words in a stick of rock, just not as sweet. She licked the lead once because she wondered if it tasted of strawberries but no, it was bitter and nasty. She looks over her shoulder. No-one is watching her, good. She puts her pencil on the table and picks up her book with both hands, holding it close to her face. She can’t see the pencil, but she can when she closes her eyes. She thinks about the pencil. She imagines it spinning around on the table, spinning nice and fast the way the hands go round on a clock. Then she hears a little clicking and clattering! She lowers the book to her chest, opens her eyes and sees the red pencil a whirling blur in front of her. A fierce joy burns in her chest. Nobody would believe her if she told them. They’d say she span it with her fingers but she didn’t. She used her mind. She moves lots of little things with her mind.

Susan jumps as the bell rings for the end of breaktime. She drops her hand on the pencil to catch it.

“Now say sorry to each other,” Miss Jones tells silly Mo and Andrew.

“Sorry,” Mo says, wiping his nose with the sleeve of his jumper, leaving a snail trail of bogies.

“Sorry,” says Andrew but he doesn’t sound sorry, he sounds angry.

“Good. Now go and sit down on the rug. Everybody, come and sit on the rug.” Miss Jones goes round to her desk next to the rug, in front of the big computer screen. The screen is really big, bigger than their TV at home, hanging on the wall like a picture. The class hustle and bustle towards the rug, pushing and shoving a bit so they can sit next to their best friend. Mo and Andrew aren’t sitting together. Andrew is glowering at the floor. Miss Jones turns on the big screen when everyone has sat down and is quiet.

“Tomorrow is a special day, children,” Miss Jones says, mouse in hand. “Do you know why?”

A hand shoots up.

“Yes, Crystal?”

“It’s my cousin’s birthday, Miss. She’s nine tomorrow. I’m going to her party.”

“That’s good, Crystal, thank you. But it’s not the answer I need. Any other ideas?”

Lots of heads shake and everyone says no.

“Do you know what a superhero is?” Miss Jones says. Everyone says yes. “Which ones do you know? Hands up!”

All the hands shoot up into the air. Phillip is making ‘ooh! Ooh!’ noises as he tries to get his hand higher than every other hand.

“Naomi?” Miss Jones points to a girl with curly hair.

“Superman, Miss,” the girl says.

“What can he do?” A picture of Superman appears on the big screen, big and handsome, blue suit with red underpants on top and flapping red cape and big letter S on his chest.

“Ooh! Ooh!” say Phillip and all the boys, hands held high and twitching, like a cat’s tail when it’s happy to see you.

“He can fly,” Naomi says, “and he’s strong and he sees through walls and he has laser eyes and he’s Clark Kent.”

Susan thinks Superman is boring. She can see through walls and all Superman does is fly around and hit things, like the boys in class except the boys run around and hit things.

“Very good, Naomi, thank you,” Miss Jones says and Naomi smiles a big, happy smile. “Are there other superheroes? Ok, Phillip.”

“Spiderman, Miss!”

Superman disappears and Spiderman replaces him. His suit is also blue and red, but it looks like a spider’s web. He has a funny little spider in the middle of his suit and you can’t see his face because of his mask.

“Spiderman is your favourite, isn’t he? Have you got your Spiderman socks on today?”

“No Miss! They’re dirty and Mummy didn’t let me wear them.”

“What can he do?”

“He can do anything a spider can! He can make spider webs and swing on them. He climbs on walls and he’s strong!”

“Good answer, thank you. Now, where do we see Superman and Spiderman? Are they real people?”

No hands this time, only frowns of concentration.

“Do we see them in cartoons and comic books?” says Miss Jones.

The children all chorus yes.

“Are there any real superheroes?”

The children descend into the silence, their brains searching for an answer. Zak, the smallest child in the class, sends his hand trembling upwards.

“Yes, Zak?”

“Red Line is strong and he can fly like Superman,” Zak says.

“Is he a superhero?”

Susan’s hand shoots up.

“He isn’t a superhero. He’s Talented,” she says. Miss Jones clicks her mouse and a picture of Red Line appears. Red Line is tall and is wearing a shiny black suit of armour and a black helmet which covers his face. A thin crimson line runs from the top of his head down his mask and armour along the midline of his body.

“Excellent answer, Susan. Red Line is Talented. His Talents are flying and strength. Talented are like superheros, but they are real. What other Talented are there?”

“Zeus!”

“Pyro!”

“Brute!”

“Perfume!”

“What can Zeus do?” Miss Jones says. “Zak?”

“He shoots lightning from his hands, Miss.”

“My Dad says all he does is shuffle paper,” Anna says.

“What about Pyro? Ellie?”

“He makes things hot or cold.”

“That’s right. And Brute? Anna?”

“Brute’s the biggest strongest man in the world and he’s bad!”

“Thank you, Anna. What about Perfume? Tous?”

“She can smell like anything she wants, Miss.”

“You’re right! There are lots of different Talented, aren’t there? Did you know there are four different kinds of Talented?” Miss Jones says.

Most of the children are shaking their heads. A few are gazing at the walls or the screen. Miss Jones presses a button on her computer and Red Line vanishes and a word pops up. Physical.

“Can anyone read this word? No? It’s a difficult word, isn’t it? Can we spell out the letters?” she says.

The class chants the letters, some voices more hesitant. Susan says them all as loud as she can.

“And that spells physical.” Miss Jones pauses as the children try out the word.

“It looks like puh-hi-zi-cal, Miss,” Mo says.

“That’s true. How can we say p-h, Phillip?”

“Fffffff!”

All the children giggle.

“A Physical is a Talented whose body can do things better than a normal person. Being extra strong is a Physical Talent, or being able to hear very quiet things or see very far away things.” Miss Jones clicks and a new word replaces Physical. Sensitive.

“Anyone?”

“Sensitive!” chirps Adaolisa. The children echo her.

“A Sensitive is a bit like some kinds of Physical. A Sensitive can see or feel things normal people cannot. Some Sensitives can see heat and cold. Some can see sound, like a bat.” Another click, another word.

Intrinsic. None of the class can say this word. Susan joins in when Miss Jones practises it with them. She enjoys the way the ‘in’ and ‘trin’ sound alike.

“Intrinsic Talented are very interesting. They can change their bodies to be lighter or heavier or hotter or colder. Red Line is an Intrinsic, that’s how his Talent lets him fly. Also, all Intrinsic Talented are Sensitives too. Perfume can make any smell she likes, but she can also smell everything.” Click, word.

Extrinsic. Miss Jones helps the class spell and say the word.

“Extrinsic Talented are the most unusual and the rarest. Extrinsics can change the world around them. When Pyro makes a fire disappear, he’s taken away the heat and the fire goes out. When Zeus makes lightning appear, he’s taken electricity from things around him and sent it out from his body. All Extrinsics are also Intrinsics for that thing they do, and Sensitives too.”

Some of the children’s mouths have formed little O’s.

“So I said tomorrow is a special day. Now can you tell me why?”

Phillip’s hand is ramrod straight in the air.

“Pyro is coming to the school!” he bursts out.

Miss Jones laughs. “Maybe he is, Phillip. Maybe it will be someone else. Because tomorrow, a Talented is coming to see the whole school!”

Susan sits silently while the rest of the children leap and cheer. She watches Miss Jones tell them to calm down and take their seats. Now Susan has a secret she can keep with the others, although this one is bigger and better than the rest. Susan knows that every day a Talented comes to the school, because it is her.