Lucky Me

Chapter 012


When my days started off well, I knew something bad was going to happen. Okay, not always bad, but it seemed to be an emerging pattern.

Take the day I learned I was a mutant. My day had been going great! I woke up before my alarm, knew what I was going to wear, was having a 'skinny' day (I actually thought nd felt thin), and didn't miss the bus. I wasn't late for homeroom and my first two hours of class were canceled due to our guest speakers...the rest I've already told.

So the day I woke up to get started on my 'flying lessons' I was in much the same frame of mind. There were going to be three separate instructors for various reasons that I didn't pay attention to after learning about one of them. He's the reason I was up early, shifting through my 'training' clothes which did not include that yellow and blue spandex nightmare.

I checked myself out in my mirror, which I normally didn't do, but there was a very good reason. I wrinkled my nose in disgust at what I saw. My normal flesh tone was resurfacing, in large patches; my face looked like I was wearing a black mask. The lower left half was still pitch black, while the rest was a pale ivory. Well, if I couldn't look decent (which I don't think I'm capable of) I decided I might as well be the best in every other way.

And who doesn't, when starting a new class, want to look their very best?

That's how I felt on Wednesday morning, when I woke up I was ready to get this started! Yes, I must admit that I was more eager to see the instructor than start to actual lesson, but no one needed to know that. The actual lessons had been pushed back three days after my first steps so I could regain the swing of things.

It didn't take me that long to get used to walking–running was a different matter completely, but I didn't run so no worries about that. With my shower things in hand and my clothes for after the shower, I double checked the shower schedule. It was made to keep the 'boys' from accidentally walking in on me. Or I them, of course with my luck, I'd run right into Bobby-Jerk.

I still think it was funny, a twenty something year old guy got grounded like a teenager! Ha! And no I didn't walk in on him.

I poked my head out into the quiet hallway, everyone was asleep or not in the hall. Confident that no one was around, I walked quietly to the bathroom which was directly across from my room.

No one was in there either. Though, I must admit, it still made me blush to see urinals in the bathroom. The bathroom, as a whole, was kinda always in a mess. Towels shoved in the corners, dripping faucets, shaving cream suds on the mirrors, cracked floor tiles , and around the sink lips were razors that seemed to never quite make it into the trash basket.

The women's wing bathrooms were much nicer.

Picking a shower, I threw my stuff in the stall and checked the entrance door. It was locked. That was a plus, so far I hadn't had anyone walk in on me, or me on them, but I didn't want there to be a first time! After putting my clothes in the wall cabinet, I ducked into the shower, hung my towel over the door, and started to shower with my flip flops on.

It's a guy's bathroom. I wore flip-flops. End of story.

So there I was, bright and early in the bathroom, almost done with my shower (which was nice to know that the house never ran out of hot water!), when I heard it.

The door opened.

The door I had locked opened.

And two distinctly male voices filled the room.

"Scott has a lot of nerve calling an early morning Danger Room session!" One voice complained, that voice–Bobby-jerk's, got into the stale to the right of me.

"I heard it was your doin', dat dis is some payment for breakin' one of Hank's experiments?" No doubt that was Mr. Remy–to the left of me he went.

My water was still running, and I was about to make a break for it when the door creaked open again. Great.

"Good morning, gentlemen!" Dr. Hank sang out, and then, from what I could tell, started to run water in the sink. My exit was blocked. The other two gave their own acknowledgments; I did the smart thing and remained silent.

Okay, so I was two clicks from screaming out of there like mad rabbit with a towel wrapped around me, but I was too scared to act on it. And the reason they hadn't seen my wings peaking over the was because the stupid things suddenly hugged close to my body.

"And about that–thing, she was the one that did the deed; I was only a witness to it! An innocent bystander!" Bobby-Jerk replied to Mr. Remy. I felt my anger flicker, I was about to shout out that it wasn't me who stole another person's Twinkie!

"Speakin' of, ain't dis de time she's supposed to be in here? Accordin' to Slim's schedule?" Mr. Remy asked, veering of a subject when Dr. Hank let out something akin to a growl.

"So what?" Bobby-Jerk replied. "It's almost eight against one."

Again the door opened just about the time I was wondering if I could dissolve and go down the drain.

"Y'all seen the new kid? Ah was told to come get her for Warren, but she's not answerin' her door."

"Probably already down there," Bobby-Jerk answered.

The door closed, Sam was gone, and at least there was one male who wasn't taking a shower. I was having difficulty remembering exactly why I wanted to take a shower about this point. I was standing stark naked, except for flip-flops, with less than an inch worth of wall on either side of me from a completely naked men.

I was thankful that the space between the bottom of the shower stall wall and the floor was also an inch or so. I doubt any of the men own flowery pink and orange flip flops.

"Bobby, you got some shampoo? I ran out." Mr. Remy asked, as I heard the door open again and someone, quietly enter.

"Yeah sure," he paused, "Comin' at ya!" I saw a purple bottle fly over the top of the divider and into my stall. Oh crap. I bent down quickly, bumped the door with my shivering wings, picked up the bottle, and noticed that the door had become ajar.

Did I happen to mention that there is a full-length mirror on the back of the closet? Did I happen to mention that I could see clearly any image in that mirror because of what stall I had chosen?

For this reason I dropped the bottle.

I slammed the door shut, and started to feel lightheaded. The shampoo bottle was still in my hand as an image of me passing out, falling forward, and lying unconscious in nothing but wings, a waterproof watch, and shoes in the men's bathroom while occupied with men. I felt sicker, but there was no way I was going to let that happen!

Oh yeah, Sam had come back. I wasn't going to be able to look at him for a month. Apparently there was no shame in walking around in the nude in front of other guys. I got an eyeful of his backside in the mirror when I had accidently opened my shower stall door.

"Any day now!" Mr. Remy sang out, I looked toward the small shelf in the shower, and threw my bottle over instead of Bobby-Meanie's. "T'anks!"

"No prob!" Bobby-Jerk answered, not even phased about the shampoo's prolonged journey. Thankfully, he killed his shower shortly afterwards. "Just get it back to me later, Cajun."

"Sure t'ing, mon ami." And with that, another sink started up. Good gracious, they take forever! And they complained about women taking too long in the bathroom. Ha! Well, maybe it wasn't as long as I thought, but the fact that I was stuck in the shower stall while there seemed to be a revolving door to the bathroom might make it seem like eternity.

Mr. Remy finally left five minutes later but the main door opened about twenty billion times in those five minutes. I heard the voice of every male occupant in the place at one time or another, Dr. Hank was singing, and there were even some sounds of a playful fight going on. I didn't think any of them knew I was in there and I gave them until ten (it was, like seven past six according to my watch) to clear out or I'd fall asleep.

Everything was going kind of okay, slow as Christmas to a five-year-old, but then Mr. Luke? Logan? Louis? Whatever, the hairy guy that stinks of cigars came in.

He grunted something and was going to leave but someone stopped him. "There's a free shower over there."

I could have died.

"No thanks, kid. I don't like co-ed showers."

Oh crap.

"Co-ed?" Sam questioned, I knew it was him because his voice near cracked at the word, and his accent got thicker.

What was I going to do? I was stuck in the shower, caught somehow by this short hairy guy who stunk of cancer logs. No one in my family or any of my friends from Acola would have guessed what I did do.


"What took so long?" Mr. Angel asked when I came into the gym twenty minutes late.

"I–got held up in the showers," I explained my blush still present from before.

To this, thankfully, he only raised a blonde eyebrow but didn't say anything else about it. "Just make sure you're on time from now on." And then we got started.

What we started was nothing I really considered 'flight' lessons. My feet never left the ground, in fact he told me to get on the balance beam, which after a few tries, he finally agreed to assist me up on it. From there, he stepped backwards without even looking and then spread his white feathered wings.

They didn't seem so big scrunched up against his body, but they grew by the second. Massive feathers on the bottom, tiny ones on top, and all sorts of sizes in between made up his bright white wings.

"Try to spread your wings," Mr. Angel commanded.

I thought about it for a second, sighed, and then attempted to do what he asked. But truth told I had no idea how. They (the wings) weren't a voluntary muscle to me; they kind of hung back there lifeless and useless.

"I can't," I muttered, embarrassed because I so didn't like looking pathetic in anyone's eyes.

"Okay," he seemed to have a quick thought, "Stretch out your arms in front of you, like this." He stuck both strong arms out in front of his body, fingertips pointing to me.

I did the same, thinking that unless my arms sprouted feathers, this was really pointless.

"Now out to the side."

I did this; my face must have been funny looking, the lighter half still holding a pink tint from my memories that kept haunting me about what I had done less than a half an hour earlier, but also my eyes probably had a 'bored' look in them.

"Easy right?"

Duh, "Yeah."

"It's the same with your wings," Mr. Angel said, pointing at his set, then mine. "They work just like an extra set of arms; you command them much the same way, only that instead of in front of you, they're in the back."

I tried to get the stubborn things to obey me again and again they twitched in amusement. If felt funny to have the muscles try to stretch that I hadn't been born with, heck they weren't there two months ago! Sighing in frustration, I crossed my arms against my chest.

"It's okay if you can't do it, Kerry." Mr. Angel gave a short laugh and shook his head, "I was just hoping that you'd be strong enough to."

Ouch, talk about a slap in the face.

"Don't look discouraged," I wasn't discouraged, I was upset. "All this means is that we have to build up your wing muscles before you can use them."

"Then what?" I asked, watching him close his wings and hop down to the floor mats.

"And then," he helped me down, I did a little less gracefully but recovered in enough time not to take him down with me. "We see if all your feathers have come in, and try your wings in the air."

From that point on, he became a Scott wanna-be. Telling me to get on my stomach and lift my wings, Mr. Angel (unlike Scott) helped me lift the stupid things because they were just stubborn.

Wonder where they got that from?


About noon, as I was in my room, still trying to get the soreness out of my backside, I heard a stampede start. I was only on this side of the mansion for three days, but I have learned some things. Like the bathroom door lock was broke and when a bunch of noisy guys are heard at a decent time of the day–it was mealtime.

Since I wasn't brave enough to laugh off what I had done in the bathroom, I waited until it was all quite on the other side of the door, and then left my room. I know, I know, 'what the heck happened in the bathroom already!' Don't worry, all news traveled fast in this house. I found out just how fast when I came into the dining room, and Mr. Remy was relaying the events to Miss Rogue.

"No one knew what de heck Logan was talkin' about, den she flings open the shower stall, towel of course where it needed to be, and calmly walks out of de shower." Mr. Remy chuckled, still not noticing I was right there. "And so, of course we were all dumbfounded, didn't even know she was dere, and den she said 'The bathroom is all yours' and den walked out of de place"

"Kerry wasn't upset?" Miss Rogue asked, okay, was I invisible? Last I checked in a mirror, I still could be seen (especially with my stupid diet)!

"Shut the door to her bedroom and let out one hellava scream," Mr. Logan informed, studying me with a humorous eye.

"So that's why she was late," Mr. Angel added, I really shouldn't have come down.

"Cool, Kerry," D-M gushed, popping a chicken nugget into her mouth. "You actually have a backbone!"

I found my hands suddenly interesting where they sat in my lap. D-M had gotten good at those stupid backhanded compliments. Soon the conversation changed topics after the laughter died down. And just to make matters worse, I should have picked my seat more carefully, Scott sat right next to me.

Think that's bad, he tried making small talk. I guess it was his attempt at reaching out to the quiet girl who he stole cookies from. Everything Scott asked, I answered with the multi-purpose answer of 'Fine.'

"How is your training with Warren going?" I guess that's Mr. Angel's name.

"Fine."

"Settled in your new room all right?"

Besides strutting in front of the entire male population of the mansion everything was, "Fine."

"How are getting along with everyone over there?"

"Fine."

"You think Scott is?"

"Fin-hey!" Bobby-Jerk was listening to us, and slipped in the last question, the meanie head. Scott looked over at the other man, and smirked. It seemed to take forever for everyone to eat and leave, though I was still pestered by Scott with small talk, apparently Mrs. Jean was visiting with some old 'friends' of the X-Men. Something about seeing if they're willing to come back. I got to admit for a starched shirt, follow the leader, cookie-nazi, he could actually be tolerable. Now I had to go shoot myself.

"Don't forget, you get to do the dishes." Scott reminded as he left the dining room. Okay, forget it; he's not a nice guy. It's all a disguise. Jerk. I stuck my tongue out at his back since no one else was in the room at this time.

I knew this was my punishment, but dang it, this was a blessing compared to what was going to happen.


Later that night, while the wrinkles were still on my finger tips from the dish water, I was getting ready to type another e-mail to my mom and sister. I logged on to the Internet, and then onto my e-mail account, my heart stopped.

There was a message from my sister.

I knew it was long because of the amount of memory it took up in my mailbox. I wanted to read it, I was about to click on it, the little white arrow hovered over the blue underlined text, but I just couldn't get my finger to push down to click on it.

What if it was something about how much they both hated me because I was a mutant? What if it said that they were going to move away so I could never find them in a million years or something like that?

A pesky, optimistic voice decided to make its opinion known in my mind because then a new line of questions appeared in my thoughts. What if they want to make up? What if my sister missed you and didn't care what my mother said? What if they wanted me to come home? What if they had gotten pass the shock and decided a mutation wasn't something worth losing a family member over?

I let go of the mouse and ran my fingers through my hair. This was so not right. I got an answer to my prayer, but I wasn't sure I wanted to read the answer. This was a total flip from the girl who had paraded out of the men's bathroom in nothing but a towel this morning.

Nothing like drawing out the boring part right? Right. Anyway, I was sitting there, almost in a fit of tears from not knowing what to do, when my room was bathed in light.

"What are you doin' in the dark?"

"Practicing being a bat, I've got the wings, why not the cave?" I answered, not even thinking about it. Yes, I have a smart mouth when I'm not careful, no I usually didn't use it on adults. And again, no this wasn't an adult, this was Jubilee.

"Uh-huh," she answered, popping her gum. I didn't even look back at her, but I did pull up another screen so she couldn't see what I was doing. "Whatever, I came to get your list."

"My list?"

"Yeah, ya know the list of things ya want the 'shoppers' to get at the store." Seeing my clueless look, she furthered her explanation. "Shampoo? Conditioner? You know the basic things? Where'd you think they came from?"

"I dunno. Mrs. Jean just handed some to me. I didn't know anything about a 'list'."

"Well, now you know, so do you need anything?"

I did a mental rundown of my supplies; it wasn't a thorough list because I wanted her out of my room so I could go back to contemplating the letter. "No, not that I can think of."

She beamed at this answer, and left, almost slamming my door as she did. I'd have to ask about the 'list' business. Glancing at the clock on my computer, I nearly moaned with irritation. It was almost three o'clock, and that meant it was time for my next 'class' with Professor Xavier.

I really didn't want to see him, knowing he's a telepath, and me having all that mental anguish over my letter. I sighed, got up from my chair, left my room, and started to make my way across the house to his office. All the time, my mind played over the last evening I was at my home.

I wonder what my mom told my sister, Darcy Elizabeth D'mon (I think my mom was going through her Jane Austin obsession at the time) about me not being there anymore. Did she let her down easy? Tell her the truth? Of course Darcy told me she couldn't talk to me anymore 'cause I was the scum of the earth mutant as mom had said.

But this wasn't the time to think about that, I made up my mind that as soon as this nightmarish session with the Professor was over, I'd read that e-mail!


Someone up in heaven is laughing at me, I just know it!

The session wasn't anything big, just a talking thing mostly. He asked about my family (wonder why) and how I was adjusting to life here. I told him that a few of the men didn't obey the schedule, and that the bathroom door's lock needed to be fixed. Professor mainly just kind of gave this caring glare, if such a thing existed.

This wasn't why the person upstairs was laughing at me, oh no. I made up my mind that I was going to read the e-mail from my baby sister, and I was about to log on when Sam popped his head in my room.

"Whatcha doin'?"

I was feeling like a smart aleck, but it was a feeling I was well trained to contain. "Trying to get on the internet."

"Ya can't." I shot him a questioning look over my shoulder, "They're updatin' the firewall since we're gettin'–uh–younger people again." This caused him to look down and kick at something.

"Who?" I asked, being a complete moron at this point.

"You and Daisy, not to mention some of the older guys need to learn to keep–" he stopped there, and said a few other random things and then left.

Great. Just when I get my nerve, something like that just had to happen!