Finally I went outside and got our bikes and walked them across the street to the building Kurt had mentioned earlier. I had to ring the doorbell a couple of times before anyone answered. It was a gruff looking man who looked as though he should be a lumberjack. "Yeah?" Was all he said by was of a greeting. "Is Kurt here? Kurt Wagner?" The man seemed to sniff the air before hesitantly replying "Yeah. Why?" At this point a tall teenage boy came over and stood behind the man. He was wearing sunglasses. Sunglasses indoors? I didn't have time to ponder before he said, "Let her in, its ok." Then he addressed me. "I think Kurt is in his room. Follow me." He led me to Kurt's room and knocked. "Go away." "Kurt, Its me can I come in." "Ja, I guess" Kurt was sitting on his bed, but he seemed not to want to look at me. "Kurt, where'd you go? You disappeared so fast, one second you were there, the next gone." Kurt didn't say anything, but looked as if he was about to cry. "Kurt, you can tell me, I'm your friend."
He looked straight into my eyes. There was a small beep and suddenly his eyes went from brown to yellow. His skin had turned blue and it looked slightly furry. His ears and teeth were pointed, and his feet looked strange. He only had three fingers and…he had a tail. He seemed to be waiting for me to scream or hit him or something. I looked back into his eyes and saw what I'd only see the smallest traces of before. Fear, loneliness, and pain looked back out through Kurt's eyes. I smiled and said "So?" Kurt's eyes were once again happy and carefree. He seemed happier than id ever seen him. "You mean it? You really don't care?" "Nope. Actually, um, can I feel your fur?" He laughed. It was as soft as a kitten's.
"You promise you won't tell anyone?" "Of course not." "Then I'll tell you my other secret." He grabbed my wrist with his 3 furry blue fingers and there was a small poof. We were surrounded by the same sulfuric smoke as in Burger King and then suddenly we were on the roof. "Lemme put this back on, lest someone sees." A beep and he was Kurt as I had first seen him that morning. "Hey, I have a better idea then the roof." Another poof and we were on the water tower by the grocery store. The sun was just setting. We watched it for a few minutes. "Look Kurt, it's beautiful. You know, you've been so honest, well, can you take us back and then well go to my house."
We stopped right outside my bedroom window. "Can you take us inside?" "Sure, but I have to look inside first. I have to know where I'm going." He looked in the window and then with a poof we were in. "Wait here. You can read a book while I find what I need." I dug around for my German dictionary. "Ok, for my first trick…" I set the dictionary down on my desk and then sat down on the bed next to Kurt. "I've never really done something this heavy or this far away. Its usually just pencils on a desk." I concentrated really hard on the dictionary and it started very slowly to lift of the desk and drift through the air towards us. It started shaking halfway though and Kurt had to grab it before it fell. He handed it to me with a smile.
"That's not my main gift though. Here's what I usually do. Go ahead and read your book. This'll take a couple of minutes." I started skimming the book, seeming to simply flip pages, but I was actually reading it all. Kurt kept glancing over to see what I was doing. After about 5 minutes I flipped the last page and pronounced "Done!" In German. "Ask me word in German."
Kurt quizzed me for a few minutes before he fully realized that I had read an entire dictionary in under 5 minutes and remembered every word. "So do you now fully understand German? How'd you do that?" "Basically, I remember exactly every word. I wouldn't understand German grammar or conjugation unless I read a textbook. I think the library has some. I think what my power is that I can remember everything I ever see. Or at least that's what it seems like. You see, I can remember every moment I ever lived. You give me a time and day, I can tell you what I was doing.
For example…" I retold a brief part of conversation we had had that morning. "That's cool! So I pick a day, you tell me what happened?" Yup. And, well, I can do one more thing too. Do you mind if I show you?" "Of course not." I put my fingers to his temple, seeing skin but feeling his fur. I could feel my eyes glazing over and saw only white. I concentrated hard and soon scenes were flashing before my eyes and Kurt's too. First there was a farmer and his wife finding a baby in a field of wheat. They recoiled at the site of its blue fur and pointed ears. Next was them begging a circus ringmaster to take "The Thing" of their hands. Then was a very young Kurt pulling back a hood on his cloak to gasps from the crowd as he stood next to a sign reading "Demon Child." Then, later he was running through a forest being pursued by the same crowd carrying pitchforks and torches. Next, he was eleven and sneaking into the circus tent during the middle of the night to practice tight rope walking. He didn't look like he needed much practice. He was running back and forth on all fours. Suddenly a shrill voice rang out "Kurt!" He jumped about a foot off the wire and fell. There was no net below. He disappeared with a bamf and reappeared behind the stands. He seemed shocked and I could hear him whisper, or maybe it was even a thought he'd had at the time "What am I?"
I pulled my hands away and my eyes returned to normal. "Oh, Kurt, I'm sorry" and with that I threw my arms around him in a hug. He seemed dazed by what I had shown him. "What was that?" he asked finally. "I've never really tried it before. I've never had anyone to practice on. I tried my cat, but it just seemed to be what he was seeing. I tried it on myself, but I couldn't tell how much was the mutant power and how much it was my perfect memory. I didn't know it would do that, but I think that was your memories. I think that's what I can do. Read peoples memories."
He looked at me for a moment, still obviously shaken by his own memories. I imagine that he'd worked all his life to forget them. He gave me a hug and said, "That's awesome. We can stick together now, ya know protect each other. And we can practice too. This'll be fun."
"Ja, hey do you want me to show you around some more?" "Yeah, that'd be fun." He transported us back outside and we got on our bikes. I took him to the town's waterfall. It was about 6 feet tall, but it was wide and really pretty from the right angle. We started to talk about school.
I hated going back, because summer was freedom for me, but for Kurt, school was exciting. "I've never been to school before, because I didn't always have my watch. Well, I did go one, but it was a disaster. My adoptive mom in the circus made me go. It was before I had my image inducer.
Why don't you use your power to see?" I gave him a look that said "Are you sure?" and he nodded. I put my fingers to his head and felt my eyes roll back. Soon the pictures started. There was the same woman as before. Kurt looked about 7 or 8. "It was 3rd grade." I nearly jumped out of my skin. My eyes snapped back. "What?" he asked. "I just didn't know that you could talk to me while I was reading your memories." "I was only thinking it." "Sorry. Lemme try again." The woman was telling Kurt that she wanted him out of her hair. "We've found a school that will take you. You have to go now." "But they'll see me like this. They'll hurt me. And I don't know much French." "We were in France at the time with the circus."
She grabbed him by the arm and dragged him off. She put a long trenchcoat on him with an oversized hood. "There, now no one can see you." She then pushed him out the front door where a man took him and shoved him into a car. He was driven to the school and pushed out onto the curb in front of it. He looked at a piece of paper in his hand that must have told him where to go because he took off without looking at anybody. He sat quickly in his seat when he found his class. The teacher began taking role call, looking at each student when they responded.
Kurt gave a very timid answer to the sound of his name and the look she gave him was particularly penetrating. "Mr. Wagner, if you are going to be in my classroom, you must remove your coat." "But, I need it." Kurt was starting to act panicky. "No coat. Now, or the principle's office." Kurt seemed to give one more glance around him before letting the coat fall to the floor.
The teacher fell over from shock, as did many of the students. "What is that thing." Yelled one of the boys. Kurt sat down and put his head on the desk, trying to keep the comments from hurting him. Soon, some of the students had recovered, and were screaming out insults at him. "Freak." "Animal." "Devil" Were among what I caught. A girl shrieked. "Look it's got a tail." A twitter of laughter went around the room. It seemed to be too much for poor Kurt.
He ran from the room, tears streaming from his eyes. "It's not over yet." Present day Kurt had spoken that time. Young Kurt had arrived home and was telling his adopted mother what had happened. "I don't have to go back, mother, right?" He said with a sniff. "I'm sorry Kurt, but you have to. I'm supposed to help put up the new tent and I can't be always watching you. I'm sure no one will do anything about it."
I heard a faint "Yeah right." But I couldn't tell if it was from the memory or not. Kurt was dropped off outside the school and he tried to make a break for the door without being noticed. But a couple of boys from his class were waiting for him. He tried to run, but they grabbed him by his tail and dragged him into an alleyway. They started punching and kicking him and Kurt didn't even have a chance to get up. The boys were distracted by shouts from someone and he took it as his opportunity to leave. He ran for the school and made it inside the building before they realized he was gone.
He was gasping for breath and clutching his chest in pain. He tried to walk again, but nearly collapsed. He limped a little ways to the boy's bathroom and hid in one of the stalls until the bell rang. Then he limped the 3 miles back to the circus. The sky in the memory was dark by the time he reached home.
As he approaced the circus, he noticed a large crowed gathered outside, demanding "the beast". He quickly hid up a tree but they must have heard him because one of them shouted, "There it is dad." It was one of the boys from school. Kurt jumped from tree to tree and managed to get ahead of them before falling when a branch broke. He continued on foot, which was one of the memories of his I had seen before.
They had reached some apartment buildings and Kurt jumped in the shadows and seemed to disappear. While the crowd seemed to wonder what had happened to their prey, Kurt had snuck off and hid in a drainage pipe.
I pulled my hands away. "Kurt" I threw my arms around him again. "I won't let that happen to you again." I felt something wet fall into my hair and roll down the side of my face. Kurt was crying. So was I. Once we had both calmed down, I asked Kurt how he had disappeared if he hadn't gotten his powers yet.
"You might soon find that out. I tend to disappear in the shadows. Then I just kept in the shadows until I reached the drainpipe and hid there until I heard Mother coming to look for me. She didn't find me for 2 days. I had 3 broken ribs, a broken ankle and a whole lot of bruises." I gently touched his arm and got a brief image of young Kurt with his face black and blue. We then noticed that it was nearly sunset. Kurt did seem to be blending into the shadows a bit. "If I didn't have my watch on, you'd hardly be able to see me."
As we rode home Kurt seemed to disappear more and more. Then, when we were crossing a street, a driver ran a stop sign and didn't even seem to notice Kurt or me. Kurt didn't seem to notice the car and continued, lost in thought. "Kurt!" I screamed, and road my bike towards him as fast as I could go. He seemed to come out of his thoughts and I reach out my hand towards him, trying to push him faster.
It was a split second before the car would hit. The driver just seemed to have seen us and slammed on his breaks. Kurt grabbed my outstretched hand and then we were gone, leaving behind a very confused driver. We ended up right outside my window again. We were both panting hard.
"Kurt, you saved me. I threw my arms around his neck and quickly gave him a small peck on the cheek. I waved goodbye before running in the house. He seemed to stand there a second before getting on his bike and riding away.