Chapter Four:

Afraid of Heights

Jean knocked on the door to the one-story blue house. The lawn was over run with weeds and needed to be mowed and there were rusty lawn chairs sitting on the concrete ramp to the door.

A man in a blue work shirt opened the door. Jean cleared her throat and opened her mouth.

"Excuse me," she said. "Is this the Jordan residence?"

"Yea," the man answered.

"Is Opal home," she asked. "I'd like to speak with her."

"Yea," the man repeated. "Opal!! Get out here!" A young woman entered the living room. She had dirty blond hair that fell past her shoulders and she had blue-green eyes. "I'm going out." The man continued and pushed past Jean. The girl looked at her in uncertainty.

"Hi," Jean said with a pleasant smile. "I'm Doctor Jean Grey. May I come in?"

"Yea sure," the girl said and pushed the door open for her.

The house smelled of cigar smoke. The walls were stained gray and it seemed an all around filthy place and, being a doctor, Jean was used to things being white and clean, and she couldn't help but cringe.

"Is your mother home," Jean asked. The girl shook her head. "Where is she?"

"I don't know," Opal replied. "Probably out protesting something. She'd like a professional hippie or something." The remark was funny but Jean couldn't laugh, and Opal hadn't wanted her too.

The young woman held on to things as she moved across the room. It made her movement choppy and unnatural. It was as if she were afraid of floating off into space, which, Jean reminded herself, she probably was.

"Do you want to sit down," Opal asked politely. Jean sat on an old chair and felt it groan under her weight.

"Listen," Jean said. "I was sent by a Professor Charles Xavier. He wants you to come study at his school for mutants in Westchester, New York."

The girl that sat across from Jean looked surprised. "I don't want to lean about my powers," she began. "I want them to go away."

"I don't think that's possible," Jean explained. "But you'd be safe at the school. Some mutants are proud of their gifts, you know."

"It's not that I don't want to be a mutant," the girl said quietly. "It's just. I'm afraid of heights." Jean let her head fall into her hands with a sigh. This was soooo not worth it.

"How did I qualify for this," she asked, changing the subject.

"The Professor enrolls students who have the highest possibilities of manifestation of the mutant gene," Dr. Grey explains. "And that includes you."

"It sounds nice," she said. "I'd like to go, but if I told my dad I needed tuition to go to a school for mutants, he's totally flip out."

"There's no cost," Jean explained. "Think of it as a scholarship."

"Even still-" the girl continued.

"Listen," Jean explained. "If you don't learn to control your powers you'll become a danger to yourself and others. You have a great gift; you need to learn to use it properly. And for a girl who's ability is to defy gravity it is very important that you lean to manage your benediction."

The girl bit her lip and drummed her fingers on the table. Pictures began to float off the coffee table. Jean managed to set them back down with her powers. Finally the girl sighed and nodded.

"I'll get packing."