My name is Amelia, but everyone calls me Mel. My friend Claire jokes that it could stand for "Mellow." That's me, quite and easygoing, pleasant. The trouble with being mellow, though, is that it also makes you invisible. As in, no one notices you. It's already October, and each teacher STILL has to ask me what my name is at least twice a week. The record (per month) is twenty-two times.

But all that is about to change, when the first traces of my secret power begin to show up…

It's the twentieth day of October. In exactly one day, twenty-two hours, and forty three minutes, I will turn fourteen. I was born at exactly 7:00 AM on the twenty-second of October. It is currently 8:17 AM. The bus leaves at 8:22, and I'm still at home.

"Mel! Hurry up! The bus leaves in five minutes!"

Yeah. As if I need another freakin' reminder!

I zoom downstairs and grab a banana, only stopping to slip on my flats. I'm running down the corner, backpack in one hand and banana in the other, when I see the bus pull up to the stop. At the same time, my cellphone dings in my pocket. This causes me to stumble.

I can see the bus driver looking at his watch. I pick up my pace, and arrive just as he starts to pull away. He comes to a halt again, and lets me on, annoyed. There are about twenty other kids already on this bus, and I can feel my face start to warm. Luckily, I can see Claire waving at me from the back. I quickly walk down the aisle, conscious that my hair is in my face, and slip in next to her.

She's about to say something, then takes a look at me. Seeing my expression, she opens up her book and starts reading. That's the thing I like about her. If I want to talk, then she will talk with me, but if I want to remain silent, she will too. However, whenever she gets mad, she can hold a grudge for weeks on end, and I have to practically get on my knees and beg for her forgiveness.

The bus arrives at 8:45, twenty minutes before the start of school. I go to my locker, and twist the lock until it opens. As I rummage through the books, a slip of paper falls out of the open door and rests at my feet. I pick it up and unfold it.

Just then, the warning bell rings. I have five minutes before first period, and our Language Arts teacher is NOT very lenient. I quickly gather my things for first, second, and third period and shut the locker door closed. I rush to my seat and plunk my books down at the desk. I look around, and there's no one watching. Good. I open up the piece of paper.

Meet me in the library at 11:50. I know your lunch period starts at 11:45, so no excuses. Tell no one.

CIZ

Huh. Claire's initials are CAM, Claire Alice McAllister, so it couldn't be her. In fact, no one in our class, that I know of, has initials CIZ.

I wonder if I should go when I remember that today's lunch is meatloaf. Ugh. That decides it. Anything is better than the cafeteria's soggy meatloaf.

I sit through first, second, and third period, but I'm itching to see who could want to see me. Finally, the bell rings, and I'm the first one out of my seat. I rush to the cafeteria, ask for a hall pass, using the excuse that I feel like I'm going to throw up, and rush to the library. I arrive just as the clock turns to 11:55.

I hear a male voice whisper, "Psst!" I look to my right, where the sound came from. A boy and a girl who look the about the same age as me are peeking out from the nonfiction section. I hurry over to join them.

"Is one of you CIZ?" I ask.

The boy says, "I'm Matthew, but everyone calls me Matt. I think we have the same science class. I'm not CIZ, she is." He nods to the girl. She looks Asian, with strait black hair and tannish skin. She narrows her almond-shaped eyes at me. "I'm Caroline Iris Zhang. Before you ask, I'm Chinese. The stupid looking blond boy next to me who I call Matthew but everyone calls Matt is half Danish, half Scottish. I'm in the other eighth grade homeroom, so you haven't seen me around."

"Oh come on, I don't look stupid. Do I, Mel?"

Caught off guard, I stammer, "N-no, of course not." Come to think of it, those words weren't a lie. He was pretty good looking, though his ears stuck out way too much. He used to wear glasses, but then he got contacts and got a new haircut, which looks way better on him. He has smallish downturned eyes, so it looked like he was always squinting, but in a good way. He had a longish face (look, I'm not good at describing people, ok?). He was on the pale side, but wasn't what you'd call pale.

Caroline's voice brings me back to the present. "Are you going to stop staring at each other like idiots?" She turns to Matthew, "Are you going to tell her what we're here for?"

"I wasn't staring!" he sputters, but his reddening cheeks and averted glances betray him. Eventually he clears his throat, and states, "We called you here because you have a AGAAC. Short for, "A Gift and a Curse." I must have looked pretty confused, because Caroline nudges him, and he continues, "that's because it's both, in our experiences."

"What are you talking about?" I ask.

"Well, it's basically like the superpowers you read about in books, but much more complicated," the girl says. "The power emerges on your twelfth, thirteenth, or fourteenth birthday. Some of the powers are simple or generic, like flying, invisibility, super speed, etc. Others, like being able to decode any coded message, or to know how many times a person has spoken a certain word just by shaking their hand, are less common."

"So, wait, are you saying that in two days I'll get a… an AGAAC?"

"Basically."

"Do you guys have them?"

"Yes. We do. I can tell you whether you like someone, and how much you like them, and whether you're romantically interested in them, as well as whether anyone likes you, by taking your hands and squeezing them three times. I tried it once. The person wouldn't talk to me for a year."

"Who was it?"

"Matthew." Matthew looks furious, but he restrains from making comments. She continues, "Matt has the stupid and generic power of flying. He can also pick you up and fly you somewhere, if you're light enough."

"Wait, what did you find out about him?"

Now Matthew is twitching and his knuckles have turned white. Caroline smoothly says, "He considers that confidential information, but what I will tell you is -" Unfortunately, I didn't get to find out, because suddenly Matthew tackles her. The librarian looks up to see the cause of all the noise, but luckily a crash is heard from the other side of the library. She hesitates, then heads over there to see all the commotion. I'm relieved, because a chair was blocking the fighting. If she had moved even one inch, she would've been able to see both Matthew and Caroline.

As soon as she is out of earshot, I hiss, "Quit it, you two! She almost came over here!" They unscramble themselves pretty quickly. "So, what is my Gift/Curse?"

"Oh, you won't know what it is until you get it. In fact, no one will. However, from previous experience, you will discover it pretty soon, on your fourteenth birthday."

"How can you tell that I have one?"

"Oh, that's because I've been specially trained. Trust me, you don't want to know the details. Also, you've seen Grayson around, right?" I nod. She continues, "His gift is the ability to sense others with gifts. He's also able to detect your mood at a given moment by making eye contact with you, so make sure you're happy when you see him! He works with us pretty extensively."

"Who else has gifts, besides me, you, Matthew – I mean, Matt, and Grayson?"

She looks thoughtful. "In our school? Brian from the sixth grade, he has the power to guess your age by touching your shoulder, Jackie, also from the sixth grade, she has the power to grow anyone's hair by braiding it and then touching your eyebrows, Kenzie from the seventh grade, who has the power to make paper appear when she touches a pencil – useful if you left your notebook at home, and Walker from the seventh grade, who can turn his eyes any color."

My eyes bug out. "THAT MANY?!" How did I not notice?

She smiles. "It's not obvious. We do our best to hide it. Soon, you will too."

I sigh. It looks like this is going to be a tough year.

The next two days pass by both too fast and too slow, until my alarm sounds at 6:55 AM on my birthday. I groggily sit up, then I remember what today I supposed to be, and I stiffen. The alarm now reads 6:57. I brush my teeth. 6:59. I then spend a minute having a staring contest with my clock until it turns 7:00. Suddenly, a pain so sharp that it causes me to fall to the floor seizes me, and that's where I am when my mom finds me.

"Er, Mel? What are you doing on the floor? And why is your room so messy? Why do you do this every morning?" She says. Except it sounds kind of muffled. Maybe she's speaking into a handkerchief. It also sounds kind of like a robot. Huh. I must be having problems.

"I... was searching for something I dropped. And my room is not messy! I don't do this EVERY morning, just most of them!"

"Huh?" I swivel around to see my mother with her hand on her chin. "Did I ask that out loud? I was sure thought that..." She says in the same staticy voice. Except her mouth's not moving.

"Have you become a ventriloquist or something? And you must've, because I heard you, clear as day..."

"What?!" My mother is shaking now. She calms herself down with a few deep breaths. "Are you all right? Maybe I'm delusional. I haven't had my cup of coffee yet.." Her voice fades as she retreats down the stairs.

I haven't realized it yet, but my hands are shaking. I feel... drained. Is this my AGAAC? Could it be... I CAN READ MINDS?!