Brenda looked over her shoulder as she stepped in the door. "I could have sworn I heard something."
"Probably a squirrel," said a young man with brown hair, who was carrying a Game Boy in one hand. The light glinted off a pair of sunglasses, their ruby lenses hiding the color of his eyes. "Hi, Brenda, I'm Scott."
"Hello, Scott," she said. "You e-mailed me, didn't you?"
"That's right, I did."
"Do you really have to wear those all the time?"
"Yeah." He explained to her the extent of his powers and the need to keep them under control.
"I see." Brenda was impressed. She'd never met anyone who could shoot fire out of their eyes before.
Ororo tugged on her arm. "Come and meet the others."
They went into another room where a long table had been decked with food: a huge sheet cake, cookies (left over from the Scout fund-raising drive), some of Kurt's mother's special cakes, a host of sandwiches, chips, and snack foods the likes of which she'd never seen before.
On the wall behind the table, there were balloons and streamers, and a banner which read WELCOME BERNDA.
"Who's Bernda?" she asked.
Ororo sighed and rolled her eyes. "Kuuurrt . . ."
"Vas?" Kurt Wagner appeared out of thin air with a pop, and flopped onto the sofa.
"You really need to work on your spelling."
"Vhy?" Then he looked up and noticed the banner. "Ach! Sorry!" He pulled the banner down and popped out of the room again..
Brenda was staring after him. "How does he do that?"
"I'm not sure," Xavier said. "It may have something to do with his molecular structure. I've never done any tests to find out for sure."
"What do you do?" A girl wearing blue jeans and a pink sweater popped up beside her.
Brenda nearly shrieked in surprise. Another teleporter? "Where did you come from?"
"Downstairs. The computer room. Kurt's fixing the banner for you." The girl smiled and offered Brenda her hand. "Like, welcome aboard. I'm Kitty."
"Hi, Kitty. Do you teleport too?"
Kitty laughed. "Oh, no. I can walk through walls. And floors, and ceilings, and even people sometimes—though that's really gross."
"Sounds like it." Brenda made a face at the thought of actually passing through a person.
A dark-skinned boy with blond hair joined them. "Hi, Brenda, I'm Evan," he said.
"Hello," she said.
His thoughts jumped out at her: She's pretty! I was kind
of expecting Quasimodo or something.
"Did I mention," she said, "I'm a telepath?"
"Uh oh." Evan blushed with embarassment. "Sorry."
"It's all right. You can't help what you're thinking. I don't snoop around in people's heads all the time, but sometimes there are thoughts so loud I can't help overhearing."
"Does that happen a lot?"
"Not all the time, but a lot of it. Especially if I don't have my shield down."
"Your what?"
Brenda explained how she had learned to erect a mental shield to protect her from the babble of background thoughts. "It's especially bad in public places, but once I learned how to shield myself, I could manage. I'd go mad if I didn't."
"Yeah, I can imagine."
Scott looked at them both and said, "Has Brenda seen the Danger Room yet?"
"Danger Room?" Brenda wasn't sure she liked the sound of that.
"It's our training facility," Scott explained. "Where we run
different battle simulations. We usually train for about an hour a day, every
day except Sunday."
"Sundays we train for two hours," Kurt said, reappearing with the corrected
banner. "And it feels like three!"
Brenda could tell he was joking by the gleam in his eyes. "Well, a little hard work never hurt anyone."
"See," Scott said, "that's what I keep telling him."
Training? Brenda "asked".
That won't come till a bit later.
"Why don't we get you settled in?" she said out loud. "I'll show you to your room so you can put your stuff away."
"Thank you," Brenda said, following the older girl upstairs. "I really appreciate you all being so nice. I haven't had that many friends until now."
"That's a shame," Kitty said, joining them. "Wait till you get to Bayville High and meet the other kids. Some of them are real jerks, but most of them are nice. I'll introduce you around—I think we might even be in some of the same classes."
"Well, thank you," Brenda said.
They went up the stairs, down the hall, and into a room that stood open, waiting for her.
Brenda looked around. "Is this it, then?"
"Well, it is a bit small," Jean said, "but Professor Xavier thought you'd be more comfortable by yourself than sharing a room . . . "
"Small? It's at least twice the size of my room at home! Maybe three times!" That might even have been modest, as Brenda's old room, an average Sister's cell, was about the size of the closet here. She wondered how she'd fill it up.
"I don't think we have anything smaller," Jean said. "Why don't you try it for a while and see how it works out? Maybe you'll get used to it."
Brenda opened the closet door and stared at the empty hangers inside. Hanging on the end was a tiny blue bathrobe. "Whose is this?"
"I don't know. I don't believe anyone's had this room before."
Brenda touched it, then lifted it off the hanger and held it up. It was too small to belong to anyone but a child. But there were no children here—at least, not ones small enough to fit into this. "How odd."
"Why don't you unpack your—" Jean broke off as Brenda opened the big suitcase, which was full of books. "Where are your clothes?"
"Oh, they're in the smaller one." Brenda opened it and showed her her entire wardrobe: her spare gray dress, three pairs of knickers (underpants), several balled socks, a football jersey Nick had lent her and then forgotten about, and a blue scarf. Also in the carryon bag were her toothbrush, a bottle of perfume, two hair ribbons, and a comb.
No personal items, none at all.
"Don't you have any pictures of your family or anything?" Jean asked.
"No," Brenda sighed. "The Sisters are my family, and Sister Maria says that vanity is a sin. Personally I think she just doesn't photograph well . . ." They shared a laugh at that. It felt good to have someone to laugh with.
"What about your parents? Do you have any pictures of them?"
"No. I never knew my father, and my mother died when I was born. I don't have anything of hers anymore, not since the flood last year. We had four feet of water in our basement. Ruined everything."
"That's, like, so sad," Kitty said. She was looking at some of the books. "You like Harry Potter?"
"Doesn't everybody?"
"That's true," Jean laughed. "There was a two-week waiting list for the new book at the library. Someone always had it out."
"I know. There was at home, too. God bless Nick, though: he special-ordered it for me."
"Nick?" Kitty asked. "Who's he? Your boyfriend?"
It was Brenda's turn to laugh. "Oh, no! He's just a friend. He works at the book shop in town. I've known him for years. He's older than me, anyway. Starting university this fall."
"Ooh, older guy," Kitty said. "Any pictures of him?"
"As a matter of fact . . ." Brenda dug through her purse until she found a battered Polaroid. "That's Nick with Craig Charles at the Red Dwarf convention last year. He went with some mate of his."
"What's Red Dwarf?" Kitty asked.
"A television show," Brenda told her. "Nick turned me on to it, actually. Have you seen it?"
"Is it that disgusting thing with the slime beast that sucks emotions?"
"Oh, you've seen it, then."
"Just that one. Kurt was watching it. He thought it was funny."
"Not your cup of tea, eh?"
"Nah. I'm more of a Buffy fan."
Scott called up to them. "Jean, where's the ice cream?"
"Did you look in the freezer?" Of course not, she
thought, and Brenda picked it up. Why should he look in the obvious place?
He's such an idiot sometimes!
"Yeah, it's not there!"
"I hope Kurt didn't eat it already," Kitty grumbled.
"What kind of ice cream was it?" Brenda asked.
"Chocolate, I think," Jean said. "Why?"
"In a plastic bag?"
"I think so."
"I saw it by the door when I came in. I hope it isn't melted by now."
"I'll go get it," Kitty said, melting through the floor again.
Jean muttered something about boys who'd lose their own stupid heads if they weren't attached. "Can you get this away by yourself?"
"I think so."
"Good. I'll meet you downstairs."
After Jean was gone, Brenda sorted all her books on the top shelf of the closet. This wouldn't do. She'd have to see about getting some proper bookshelves for her room.
But that would have to wait for another day. She went downstairs to rejoin the party.
Toad, meanwhile, was wandering around town looking for an excuse not to go home.
He couldn't stop thinking about that girl. Just seeing the sunlight glinting off her hair made him want to touch it, to smell it, the sweetness of her . . .
He didn't want to lose that good mood, so he didn't go right home. He started out at the arcade, but the guy closed up shop at eight. Eight o'clock! How could any place close that early? It was practically the middle of the afternoon!
Then he took his remaining money (most of it swiped from the change jar in the kitchen) to the movie theater. He didn't care what was playing, really; he paid his money, went in, and sat in the back row.
While he waited for the previews to start, he closed his eyes. He was still feeling kind of lousy. Maybe he could take a little nap before the movie started, and he'd feel better. Maybe he'd even dream of her.
He sat back in his seat, closed his eyes, and the next thing he knew an usher was shaking him awake.
"Excuse me, sir, you have to leave now."
"Huh? What?" Toad nearly jumped out of his seat. Then he stared up at the blank screen. "It's over?"
"The closing credits finished more than ten minutes ago. I tried to wake you up three times, but you just rolled over and said something about golden hair."
"I did?" Todd blinked.
"You have to leave now, so we can clean up in here before the next show starts," the usher said.
Looking slightly embarrassed, Todd asked, "What time is it?"
"It's almost ten past eleven."
"Aw, no! I gotta get home!" Toad fled the theater as if Satan himself were after him. He got home in about twenty minutes . . .
. . . just in time to see Mystique waiting up for him, an angry look on her face.
"Where have you been?" she demanded.
"I went out." He tried to get past her, but she stepped to the side to block his way.
"You're not supposed to be out! You've been out of school the last two days, and this morning you were coughing your lungs out!"
"Well . . . I felt better, so I went for a walk."
"For four hours?"
"I . . . got lost?"
Mystique looked at him dubiously. He should have known she wouldn't buy it. But he couldn't tell her the truth—not yet, anyway.
"I think you need to take your medicine," she said, an angry edge to her voice.
Todd's eyes widened in horror. "No! Please! Anything but that!"
"Cut the amateur theatrics." She sat him down in a kitchen chair and rummaged in the dish drainer for a spoon.
"C'mon, I hate that stuff! It makes my stomach hurt!"
"What's going on?" a sleepy voice asked.
Todd and Mystique turned to see Blob standing in the doorway, staring at them both.
"Now you've done it!" Mystique said.
"Done what?"
"You want to wake the whole neighborhood up too?" Mystique chided Todd.
"What?" He blinked in confusion.
"Are you in trouble?" Blob asked.
"Go back to sleep, Fred," Mystique ordered him. "I'm handling this."
Todd hoped she'd forgotten all about the medicine, but when he turned around he faced a spoonful of the foul stuff. "Can't I just go sleep it off?" he whined.
"Stop being such a baby!" Mystique forced the spoon between his lips.
He swallowed, and almost gagged. It was horrible. He sat there, trying not to throw up.
"Good night, Todd," Mystique said, and turned out the kitchen light, leaving the boy alone in the dark.