Whenever we're afraid, it's because we don't know enough. If we understood enough, we would never be afraid. -Earl Nightingale
The next morning I wake up feeling, for lack of a better term, weird. I just don't feel quite like myself. Also, everything feels cooler than it usually does. I don't know, maybe I'm just getting sick. That would be me, getting sick in the summer.
I'm starving, so I make my way towards the kitchen. Mom is already there, working, with Molly playing playdoh on the other side of the table.
Mom looks up as I walk in. "Morning, honey. Did you sleep well?"
"Yeah, fine," I mumble sleepily. Mom nods then turns her attention back to her work. When she just wrote for the Quileute Weekly Newsletter, she worked almost exclusively from home. But, as the editor of the now Bi-Weekly Quileute Gazette, she has to actually go to the place several days a week. Still, she spends a lot of time working from home. She claims it's because she wants to be here with us. I'm sure that's part of it, but I think she just wants to work in her pajamas.
"Mom, do we have any waffle mix? I'm starving," I ask.
She barely looks up. "Hmm? Oh, yeah. It's um… in the pantry," she replies distractedly.
I can't cook at all, and I know Mom won't make the waffles for me, so when I see the words, "Just add water!", Aunt Jemima becomes my favorite aunt. Sorry, Aunt Leah.
A few minutes later, I add more mix to the waffle iron to start a second waffle. Then I drench my first waffle in syrup and finish eating it long before the next one is ready. I keep making and eating waffles, and by my fourth, I feel mostly satisfied. But I start a fifth one, just in case.
"How many waffles have you eaten?" Mom asks, cleaning up her things.
"This is my fifth," I admit.
Mom's eyes bug out and her jaw drops a little. "Seriously? You're that hungry?"
"Yeah, I guess," I shrug. She does have a right to be shocked, considering I rarely eat even a second waffle. I don't usually have much of an appetite.
Mom watches me carefully, her eyes stopping at my ankles. "Are you wearing Alex's pants?" she asks, confused.
I look down, and sure enough, my pants are a good two inches short. "No. I guess they must have shrunk in the wash or something," I rationalize. Still, a nagging voice in my head reminds me that these pants were slightly too big when I put them on last night.
Mom's eyes flicker from my ankle to the waffle maker, then back to my ankle. "Okay," she says slowly.
"I swear, Mom, I didn't do anything to them," I promise firmly.
"I believe you," she says, but doesn't stop watching me with that strange, pondering look in her eyes. After a moment or two, she looks back down at her things and casually changes the subject. "Why don't you go ask Alex if he wants a waffle?"
"Okay," I agree, grateful for an escape from my mother's questioning gaze. I walk down the hall and try turning the knob on Alex's door. When it doesn't budge, I knock lightly. Or at least, I thought I knocked lightly. Instead, a harder, more urgent sounding knock comes out.
From inside the room, Alex calls, "What?"
"Can you open the door?" I call back, annoyed. I hate talking through doors.
"Who is it?"
"Brian."
"What do you want?"
"Open the door!" I say, slightly more forcibly than I meant to.
After a good minute, Alex sees fit to open the door. "What?" he demands.
"Do you want a waffle?" I ask as kindly as I can.
"No," he replies shortly, and makes to close the door.
Reflexively, I catch it before it moves much more than an inch. I'm surprised by how quickly I manage that. "Are you sure? Aunt Jemima will be offended."
"She'll live," Alex snaps, pushing the door with both hands. Even with only one hand on my side, I am able to significantly slow his progress.
"Okay, but you're missing out," I add.
"Don't care," he replies. I let go of the door, and without anything to balance his force, the door slams in my face.
Every day I wake up feeling weird. The hem line of my pants creeps up my leg in the night, to the point I start wearing shorts, just to avoid walking around in awkward capri-pajamas. I usually get really cold at night, but lately I've been perfectly warm. Maybe the weather's heating up.
I'm constantly starving, and find myself eating double or triple what I used to. One day I run down to the store, because I ate all the no-cooking-required food we had, and I know Mom will notice and be annoyed. That trip brings another strange discovery- the half-mile walk should have left me gasping for breath. Instead, I jog the whole way and maintain a steady heartbeat.
Other than that jog to the store, I don't do any form of exercise, and am incredibly surprised to notice my arms and abs are becoming more defined. Not that I'm complaining, but still. It's strange. And when I lift Molly, it's as though she's as light as she was when she was a baby. It doesn't make sense.
None of these changes are exactly bad, so I try to ignore the internal questions and enjoy the benefits. Neither of my parents say anything, except for a few passing comments about "eating us out of house and home" and how I'll "need all new clothes when school starts". Still, I know they're watching me. Their gaze gives me an uneasy feeling, as though they're waiting for something to happen. Something bad.
Two nights before Uncle Jake comes for dinner, I sneak out of my room and tiptoe down the hallway. My parents should be asleep, and I'm starving. Again.
"Sarah, I'm sure it's nothing," I hear my dad whisper.
I stop dead in the hallway. Crap. They're still up.
"Seth, he's grown a good foot just this week. That's not normal," Mom hisses back, a slight note of hysteria in her voice.
"Sure it is. He's almost sixteen. It's about time he hit his growth spurt," Dad replies.
"Yeah, but even during a normal growth spurt, he shouldn't grow that much in that little time. Should he?"
Dad chuckles. "And you're a good judge of what a 'normal' growth spurt is? The only teenage boys you watched go through a growth spurt were your brother and me. And we didn't exactly have 'normal' growth spurts."
"I know. But Brian's isn't normal either!" Mom moans.
"Sarah, it's okay," Dad says soothingly.
"It's just too much of a coincidence," she sighs.
"But they won't even be here until tomorrow, and it takes a few days. Or even weeks, really."
"But what if in anticipation-"
"It doesn't work that way," Dad says firmly. "There needs to be an active threat for the gene to be triggered."
"Well what if there are others already here?" Mom demands.
"There aren't." Dad says simply.
"Really? How would you know?" she asks dubiously.
"I may have quit, but I didn't lose my senses."
Mom takes a deep breath before saying, "Seth, don't lie to me. You're worried."
"Of course I am! I don't want this for my son. Yeah, I enjoyed it, but Brian is so much smarter than I was. I want him to be able to focus on school. And he has too much on his mind as it is. He doesn't need that responsibility. But still, logically, there is nothing to be worried about."
Mom laughs grimly. "When has any of this ever been logical?"
"Well, never, but still." There is a moment of silence, broken by my parents laughing quietly like the high school sweethearts they are.
"But seriously," Mom says when she stops laughing. "I don't want to go through this again. It was bad enough the first time." Her voice breaks at the end.
"Hey, hey, it's fine! Don't cry, don't even worry for a minute. I promise everything will be alright," Dad whispers softly.
"What if you're wrong?" Mom sniffs. "And don't say you're not. Seriously, what would we do?"
Dad sighs. "Then we deal with it."
I turn and silently reenter my room. Somehow, I'm not hungry anymore.