How do I remember that day so vividly? Aside from the fact that a side
benefit of telepathy is fantastic memory (though there are some things I'd
rather forget, I can tell you), it was also an important day. I learned so
much about Spirit in that one day, and now that she is gone, its
significance is deepened even further.
The following weeks slipped by rapidly, with the usual school routine. Not even a single world-domination plan that the teachers had to prevent disrupted our lives. For a while we were like any other teenagers at a boarding school, becoming fast friends and learning more about each other. Deep friendship is something that is acquired through scattered moments building upon each other, I believe. Many of these events revealed new facets of her personality to me, some I liked, and some I didn't.
I recall an incident very early in that period that impressed the school a great deal. You'd think that SS would hear about the school's most dearly departed on the day she arrived, since a few teachers were still moping, but somehow it slipped by her. In her first class with Mr. Summers, the first occasion she had for me to raise my hand on her behalf was to ask him if he'd like Spirit to act as a go-between for him and the late Jean Gray, whom she had been talking to. She eventually ended up writing letters on Dr. Gray's behalf to all the teachers who missed the former X-Woman. I pestered her to tell me what the notes said, but she refused.
~It's between her and them, and you better not read my mind for it, Spy,~ she kept insisting. ~Even I am trying to forget the messages.~
When word got out of this use of her powers, all the students with deceased parents were beating a path to our dorm. I found this rather annoying, since it was hard to get peace and quiet at the school in any case, but Silent Spirit was always willing to do what they asked.
~Why do you always talk for them?~ I asked her one day when her studying for a test had been interrupted five times. Yes, I was quite selfish at the time.
I couldn't see her eyes, of course, but I knew from my telepathy that if I could, she'd be giving me an I'll-forgive-you-because-you're-my-best-friend look. ~I know what it's like for them,~ she answered simply. ~By the way,~ she added, ~could you find my green sweater for me? I've no idea where it went.~
~In the cafeteria,~ I replied, "seeing" it with my clairvoyance.
She was good at stifling arguments that way. A more peaceful, artistic, and poetic person I had never met. It seemed like Spirit's other best friend was her clarinet. For some reason, playing it was the only sound that she could produce that both she and other living people could hear. According to her, the dead didn't find it too bad either. Spirit was quite a good player, really. She managed to overcome her broken arm by propping it up in the right position, and keeping it very still while her fingers manipulated the instrument. Before her hearing had changed she could play by ear, and she could still play written music. Reams and reams of sheet music she had, as well as what seemed like hundreds of songs by heart. She loved singing as well, even though it was inaudible to everyone alive except herself. Often SS would spend hours writing her own music and lyrics. I enjoyed her playing, but some days she didn't know when to stop, and sometimes would even insist on me listening to one more song. Then I'd get annoyed with her.
I didn't get annoyed with her very much, and usually the irritants weren't all that important anyhow. Most of her faults involved her being oblivious, and rather dismissive, of my own personality problems. A situation was a problem for a while was her getting up incredibly early in the morning. The sounds of her showering always woke me up, and I could never fall asleep again. I have never been a morning person. And Spirit would add insult to injury by being so unbearably PERKY in the morning, fully dressed when I was still in bed. Eventually we agreed that if I kept my dirty clothes from spilling over to her side of the room, she wouldn't shower until I woke up, and would restrain her enthusiasm until about noon. Another point of argument was my affection for telling her about my horror novels.
~Spy,~ she pleaded one day, ~it's bad enough to hear ghosts all the time, I don't want to READ about them as well. Can you imagine having your great- great-great-great grandmother lecturing you about how she thinks a girl should be leaving the books to the boys? Or reading about the Civil War, and getting a Confederate soldier telling you that the history books are definitely slanted against them? No need to make up stories about monsters when you've got fur and bug eyes.~ Bitter? Felt that way to me, too.
It's really hard to argue with a friend who's several inches shorter and at least ten pounds lighter than you, who also has a broken arm. While changing for PE every day, I saw that her ribs were disappearing from view, which I was glad of. She was still tiny, though. Spirit was excused from physical activity by virtue of her injury and still recovering from malnutrition, but Wolverine wanted her to change anyway. While we played volleyball, our unit at the time, she kept score. I was a bit jealous of her skinniness, as I was of every other thin girl in the school. Not that I was fat, but being on the heavier side of average weight is torturous for most thirteen year old girls. When I was moaning about my body-image one day, I discovered that my friend wasn't satisfied with her appearance either. Usually teenage girls refuse to admit that their peers are probably just as dissatisfied with themselves as they are.
I distinctly remember, one day, SS saying, ~You look fine to me, Spy. At least you've got, well, you know, a chest.~ Her good arm tugged at her sweater with loathing. At the time we were lounging in one of the living rooms of the mansion. Various other teens were playing board games, flirting, chatting, etc., but naturally our conversation was just between the two of us.
~Aw, c'mon,~ I protested, ~you're just growing slowly. You'll look fantastic by the time you're sixteen, I'm certain.~
Unconvinced, she replied, ~How on earth would YOU know?~ I could feel her black eyes boring into me through her sunglasses. Before thinking my statement out clearly, I told her, ~To start with, you know that the Professor is helping me to see bits of the future. And secondly, you look just like your mom, except for your coloring, and she looked great in her picture. Whoops.~
That was the first time that I found out that Spirit's fur would bristle when she got angry.
~YOU WENT THROUGH MY STUFF???~ she screamed mentally, whacking me with a sofa cushion. Everyone else in the room of course didn't know why I was being attacked with pillows, but first the guys, then most of the girls, considered this an excuse to begin a giant pillow fight. It was quite fun until Spirit's glasses were knocked off.
~Spy! Tell them to stop for a second, please! Too bright too bright too bright too bright!~ Her thoughts whirled around like a spinning top. I caught a glimpse of her in the tumult. She was crouching on the floor with her eyes squeezed shut, and her right hand alternating between groping for her glasses and covering her eyes. Her silver hair looked like the proverbial hurricane had passed through it.
I took a deep breath and yelled, "STOP!" at the top of my voice, not expecting them to listen. They did, however. Froze, in fact. "I need to get SS's glasses, everyone," I announced. "Her eyes can't stand this much light." I concentrated on their shape and location for a few seconds. "They're under the T.V," I said. "Could somebody on that side of the room hand them over?" A boy about 14, I think, handed them to me. I couldn't place him for a moment, but then I remembered that he was a shy, quiet guy, known as Techie. He was a new kid with the ability to manipulate all machines in really sophisticated ways. Typical computer nerd type. Sort of person who could program an alarm to play "Happy Birthday" BEFORE his powers manifested, if he wanted to. I don't mean "nerd" as an insult, being a weirdo bookworm myself, when I say "nerd" it's a compliment.
"Um, these are them, right?" he mumbled.
"Yeah," I confirmed. "Thanks a ton." I returned them to Spirit. ~Here they are,~ I informed her unnecessarily. She took them and put them on, her tension relaxing. Seeing that nothing else was going to happen, the others went back to their previous activities. "And Spirit thanks you too," I added. Techie was still there.
"There's, um, a dent in it," he said with much effort, "I can fix it if she wants."
"She'd rather not," I told him after asking Silent Spirit, "normal daylight is too much for her eyes to handle. If you cared to at midnight, sure, but not now."
To my surprise he took me seriously, even a little eager. "I could do that. On, um, a weekend night, I guess."
I laughed. "I was joking! But thank you for offering." Spirit and I sat down again, even though the cushions were all over the place. My friend was busy putting her hair into a state of decency. I detected enormous embarrassment from Techie as he sat down next to me. He looked at his shoes.
~Spirit, I'm sorry I went through your wallet. You know I'm nosy,~ I apologized to my ruffled friend.
She did a sort of half-smile. ~Because you got the pillow fight to stop for me, I forgive you. But you need to work on minding your own business more. You know I prefer to keep some things private.~ Her right hand stroked the cast on her arm. Spirit still ignored all my questions about how her arm broke, something I found maddening. I hadn't realized that it annoyed her when I asked, since she usually guarded her emotions so well. Except about touchy subjects, such as her family. After she had told Nightcrawler about them, not a word on the subject since.
"Er, why did, um, SS start the fight?" I heard a voice. I turned around and realized that it was Techie, who was now pushing his glasses up his nose for about the sixth time.
"Oh, you know her name?" I asked, feeding the conversation to Spirit the whole time.
He turned pink. "She's, uh, very recognizable. And you're called Spy, right?"
"Right. I know that your code name's Techie, but what do you like to be called?"
"You can, um, call me Jim if you want." The poor guy looked poised to flee. "My name's Jeremy Withers." Spirit let out a giggle as loud as a silent laugh could get. That had the effect of tongue-tying him completely when he saw her shaking.
~Sorry,~ she thought to me, ~I really feel sorry for him. It's just he's so flustered about talking to you!~ I had been thinking along similar lines.
"Look," I said bluntly, "you can stop blushing and stuttering. Spirit and I am not going to bite you. And we're happy to chat with you. Relax! I know you're still getting adjusted to the school, but you're going to have a very hard time making friends here if you're so shy. I didn't even have to use my telepathy for me to know that you desperately want to have a conversation, but you'd rather sink through the floor right now."
Jim's eyes widened. "I didn't know it was that obvious," he said lamely. I couldn't help it, I laughed. Spirit laughed, too. He realized that we were laughing with, not at, him, and joined in. "I'm sorry," Jim eventually apologized. His voice was much firmer than it had been before, with less mumbling and uming. "I can't talk to girls."
"You are now," I retorted. A huge grin crossed Spirit's face. ~What are you so happy about?~ I asked her.
She linked her fuzzy, unbroken arm with mine. ~Isn't it great? We moaned about our appearance, fought, then made up. We laughed together. We're hanging out with a new student. Like any other girls our age. Any other girls. I wish the "Mutant's Are Dangerous" activists could see us now.~
Our three-person conversation continued, but I made it telepathic so that I didn't have to repeat everything Spirit said, just pass the dialogue directly from mind to mind. By the time it ended, we were friends with Jim, who turned out to be quite a nice guy.
I didn't think about Spirit's statement again for a long time. When I did, though, I realized its deep significance. Most mutants, like me, enjoyed at least twelve years of relative normality. Even later on, we could still walk down the street without arousing suspicion. But Spirit wasn't allowed to BE normal, like the few mutants that looked the part. Normality is a blessing that teens have always seemed to feel left out of, and mutants at the period of time were denied. The school was the only place she had ever felt normal, along with several other students.
Unfortunately, the events that followed soon after that day forced her to be different and set apart again. For the weeks of peace was only yet another deep breath before a plunge.
The following weeks slipped by rapidly, with the usual school routine. Not even a single world-domination plan that the teachers had to prevent disrupted our lives. For a while we were like any other teenagers at a boarding school, becoming fast friends and learning more about each other. Deep friendship is something that is acquired through scattered moments building upon each other, I believe. Many of these events revealed new facets of her personality to me, some I liked, and some I didn't.
I recall an incident very early in that period that impressed the school a great deal. You'd think that SS would hear about the school's most dearly departed on the day she arrived, since a few teachers were still moping, but somehow it slipped by her. In her first class with Mr. Summers, the first occasion she had for me to raise my hand on her behalf was to ask him if he'd like Spirit to act as a go-between for him and the late Jean Gray, whom she had been talking to. She eventually ended up writing letters on Dr. Gray's behalf to all the teachers who missed the former X-Woman. I pestered her to tell me what the notes said, but she refused.
~It's between her and them, and you better not read my mind for it, Spy,~ she kept insisting. ~Even I am trying to forget the messages.~
When word got out of this use of her powers, all the students with deceased parents were beating a path to our dorm. I found this rather annoying, since it was hard to get peace and quiet at the school in any case, but Silent Spirit was always willing to do what they asked.
~Why do you always talk for them?~ I asked her one day when her studying for a test had been interrupted five times. Yes, I was quite selfish at the time.
I couldn't see her eyes, of course, but I knew from my telepathy that if I could, she'd be giving me an I'll-forgive-you-because-you're-my-best-friend look. ~I know what it's like for them,~ she answered simply. ~By the way,~ she added, ~could you find my green sweater for me? I've no idea where it went.~
~In the cafeteria,~ I replied, "seeing" it with my clairvoyance.
She was good at stifling arguments that way. A more peaceful, artistic, and poetic person I had never met. It seemed like Spirit's other best friend was her clarinet. For some reason, playing it was the only sound that she could produce that both she and other living people could hear. According to her, the dead didn't find it too bad either. Spirit was quite a good player, really. She managed to overcome her broken arm by propping it up in the right position, and keeping it very still while her fingers manipulated the instrument. Before her hearing had changed she could play by ear, and she could still play written music. Reams and reams of sheet music she had, as well as what seemed like hundreds of songs by heart. She loved singing as well, even though it was inaudible to everyone alive except herself. Often SS would spend hours writing her own music and lyrics. I enjoyed her playing, but some days she didn't know when to stop, and sometimes would even insist on me listening to one more song. Then I'd get annoyed with her.
I didn't get annoyed with her very much, and usually the irritants weren't all that important anyhow. Most of her faults involved her being oblivious, and rather dismissive, of my own personality problems. A situation was a problem for a while was her getting up incredibly early in the morning. The sounds of her showering always woke me up, and I could never fall asleep again. I have never been a morning person. And Spirit would add insult to injury by being so unbearably PERKY in the morning, fully dressed when I was still in bed. Eventually we agreed that if I kept my dirty clothes from spilling over to her side of the room, she wouldn't shower until I woke up, and would restrain her enthusiasm until about noon. Another point of argument was my affection for telling her about my horror novels.
~Spy,~ she pleaded one day, ~it's bad enough to hear ghosts all the time, I don't want to READ about them as well. Can you imagine having your great- great-great-great grandmother lecturing you about how she thinks a girl should be leaving the books to the boys? Or reading about the Civil War, and getting a Confederate soldier telling you that the history books are definitely slanted against them? No need to make up stories about monsters when you've got fur and bug eyes.~ Bitter? Felt that way to me, too.
It's really hard to argue with a friend who's several inches shorter and at least ten pounds lighter than you, who also has a broken arm. While changing for PE every day, I saw that her ribs were disappearing from view, which I was glad of. She was still tiny, though. Spirit was excused from physical activity by virtue of her injury and still recovering from malnutrition, but Wolverine wanted her to change anyway. While we played volleyball, our unit at the time, she kept score. I was a bit jealous of her skinniness, as I was of every other thin girl in the school. Not that I was fat, but being on the heavier side of average weight is torturous for most thirteen year old girls. When I was moaning about my body-image one day, I discovered that my friend wasn't satisfied with her appearance either. Usually teenage girls refuse to admit that their peers are probably just as dissatisfied with themselves as they are.
I distinctly remember, one day, SS saying, ~You look fine to me, Spy. At least you've got, well, you know, a chest.~ Her good arm tugged at her sweater with loathing. At the time we were lounging in one of the living rooms of the mansion. Various other teens were playing board games, flirting, chatting, etc., but naturally our conversation was just between the two of us.
~Aw, c'mon,~ I protested, ~you're just growing slowly. You'll look fantastic by the time you're sixteen, I'm certain.~
Unconvinced, she replied, ~How on earth would YOU know?~ I could feel her black eyes boring into me through her sunglasses. Before thinking my statement out clearly, I told her, ~To start with, you know that the Professor is helping me to see bits of the future. And secondly, you look just like your mom, except for your coloring, and she looked great in her picture. Whoops.~
That was the first time that I found out that Spirit's fur would bristle when she got angry.
~YOU WENT THROUGH MY STUFF???~ she screamed mentally, whacking me with a sofa cushion. Everyone else in the room of course didn't know why I was being attacked with pillows, but first the guys, then most of the girls, considered this an excuse to begin a giant pillow fight. It was quite fun until Spirit's glasses were knocked off.
~Spy! Tell them to stop for a second, please! Too bright too bright too bright too bright!~ Her thoughts whirled around like a spinning top. I caught a glimpse of her in the tumult. She was crouching on the floor with her eyes squeezed shut, and her right hand alternating between groping for her glasses and covering her eyes. Her silver hair looked like the proverbial hurricane had passed through it.
I took a deep breath and yelled, "STOP!" at the top of my voice, not expecting them to listen. They did, however. Froze, in fact. "I need to get SS's glasses, everyone," I announced. "Her eyes can't stand this much light." I concentrated on their shape and location for a few seconds. "They're under the T.V," I said. "Could somebody on that side of the room hand them over?" A boy about 14, I think, handed them to me. I couldn't place him for a moment, but then I remembered that he was a shy, quiet guy, known as Techie. He was a new kid with the ability to manipulate all machines in really sophisticated ways. Typical computer nerd type. Sort of person who could program an alarm to play "Happy Birthday" BEFORE his powers manifested, if he wanted to. I don't mean "nerd" as an insult, being a weirdo bookworm myself, when I say "nerd" it's a compliment.
"Um, these are them, right?" he mumbled.
"Yeah," I confirmed. "Thanks a ton." I returned them to Spirit. ~Here they are,~ I informed her unnecessarily. She took them and put them on, her tension relaxing. Seeing that nothing else was going to happen, the others went back to their previous activities. "And Spirit thanks you too," I added. Techie was still there.
"There's, um, a dent in it," he said with much effort, "I can fix it if she wants."
"She'd rather not," I told him after asking Silent Spirit, "normal daylight is too much for her eyes to handle. If you cared to at midnight, sure, but not now."
To my surprise he took me seriously, even a little eager. "I could do that. On, um, a weekend night, I guess."
I laughed. "I was joking! But thank you for offering." Spirit and I sat down again, even though the cushions were all over the place. My friend was busy putting her hair into a state of decency. I detected enormous embarrassment from Techie as he sat down next to me. He looked at his shoes.
~Spirit, I'm sorry I went through your wallet. You know I'm nosy,~ I apologized to my ruffled friend.
She did a sort of half-smile. ~Because you got the pillow fight to stop for me, I forgive you. But you need to work on minding your own business more. You know I prefer to keep some things private.~ Her right hand stroked the cast on her arm. Spirit still ignored all my questions about how her arm broke, something I found maddening. I hadn't realized that it annoyed her when I asked, since she usually guarded her emotions so well. Except about touchy subjects, such as her family. After she had told Nightcrawler about them, not a word on the subject since.
"Er, why did, um, SS start the fight?" I heard a voice. I turned around and realized that it was Techie, who was now pushing his glasses up his nose for about the sixth time.
"Oh, you know her name?" I asked, feeding the conversation to Spirit the whole time.
He turned pink. "She's, uh, very recognizable. And you're called Spy, right?"
"Right. I know that your code name's Techie, but what do you like to be called?"
"You can, um, call me Jim if you want." The poor guy looked poised to flee. "My name's Jeremy Withers." Spirit let out a giggle as loud as a silent laugh could get. That had the effect of tongue-tying him completely when he saw her shaking.
~Sorry,~ she thought to me, ~I really feel sorry for him. It's just he's so flustered about talking to you!~ I had been thinking along similar lines.
"Look," I said bluntly, "you can stop blushing and stuttering. Spirit and I am not going to bite you. And we're happy to chat with you. Relax! I know you're still getting adjusted to the school, but you're going to have a very hard time making friends here if you're so shy. I didn't even have to use my telepathy for me to know that you desperately want to have a conversation, but you'd rather sink through the floor right now."
Jim's eyes widened. "I didn't know it was that obvious," he said lamely. I couldn't help it, I laughed. Spirit laughed, too. He realized that we were laughing with, not at, him, and joined in. "I'm sorry," Jim eventually apologized. His voice was much firmer than it had been before, with less mumbling and uming. "I can't talk to girls."
"You are now," I retorted. A huge grin crossed Spirit's face. ~What are you so happy about?~ I asked her.
She linked her fuzzy, unbroken arm with mine. ~Isn't it great? We moaned about our appearance, fought, then made up. We laughed together. We're hanging out with a new student. Like any other girls our age. Any other girls. I wish the "Mutant's Are Dangerous" activists could see us now.~
Our three-person conversation continued, but I made it telepathic so that I didn't have to repeat everything Spirit said, just pass the dialogue directly from mind to mind. By the time it ended, we were friends with Jim, who turned out to be quite a nice guy.
I didn't think about Spirit's statement again for a long time. When I did, though, I realized its deep significance. Most mutants, like me, enjoyed at least twelve years of relative normality. Even later on, we could still walk down the street without arousing suspicion. But Spirit wasn't allowed to BE normal, like the few mutants that looked the part. Normality is a blessing that teens have always seemed to feel left out of, and mutants at the period of time were denied. The school was the only place she had ever felt normal, along with several other students.
Unfortunately, the events that followed soon after that day forced her to be different and set apart again. For the weeks of peace was only yet another deep breath before a plunge.