Many of the characters within this story, and the universe they inhabit, are the intellectual property of Jason Katims Productions.
Roswell: Re-Imagined
Written by Horatio Jaxx
Chapter 2: The New Junior Class
"Mom, no pickles!"
Isabel Evan's rebuke caught her mother, Diane, by surprise. She quickly looked down at the plate in front of her daughter with an expression of shock.
"Oh, I'm sorry dear. I forgot. I'll eat that one and you can have mine."
Diane quickly retrieved the plate in front of Isabel and set it down on the table where she would be sitting.
"Uh oh," Phillip Evans announced with a grin. "Somebody is in trouble."
"It's not a federal offense," Diane mockingly scolded at her husband, Phillip. "Just hurry up and give me another cheeseburger before she starves to death."
Phillip laughed at this as he scooped a newly cooked patty of beef and cheese off the barbecue grill.
"You know I don't like pickles on my cheeseburger," Isabel continued to admonish with feigned anger. "How hard is that to remember? I mean really, how many children do you have?"
"How can you not like pickles when your brother loves them so?" Diane challenged with incredulity.
"That's easy," Isabel quickly retorted back with a taunting look at her brother sitting across from her. "Max doesn't taste anything. He just swallows his food whole."
Max Evans showed no sign that he took any offense to Isabel's remark. He calmly washed down his last bite of food with some lemonade. He then turned his head towards Diane before commenting on the subject.
"You know, Mom," Max casually called out. "You should make Isabel cook for herself. That way we wouldn't have to endure these bi-weekly food rants."
Phillip and Diane openly laughed at that. Isabel took immediate offense and threw Max a kick under the table.
"Ouch!" Max called out just as the table rattled from the exertion of the kick and his response.
"Okay, no kicking under the table," Diane reprimanded a second before placing Isabel's newly configured cheeseburger on the table before her.
Phillip removed his chef's apron and joined his family at the patio table. He and Diane sat down in chairs opposite each other. It was the 8th of August 2010, and the Evans family was enjoying one of their favorite summer practices; a Sunday evening grilled patio dinner.
"You're both sixteen years old now," Diane continued to softly lecture. "You're going to be starting your junior year of high school tomorrow. It's time to start acting like adults."
"Are we talking about any adult in particular, Mom, or shall I just wing it." Isabel tossed out that wisecrack with a derisive smile.
"Very funny," Diane huffed with a smile.
"Speaking of school and being adults," Phillip quickly intervened. "You need to start preparing yourselves for college."
"Your father is right," Diane quickly supported. "You both have … decent grades. But you're not even trying. I bet if you both put some effort into it you can be "A" students."
Both Max and Isabel felt a sudden need to back away from the conversation. They both felt a need to be less than spectacular in everything they did. But they did not want their parents to know that.
"I try," Isabel defended with a hint of melancholy.
"No, you don't," Diane countered. "I never see either one of you study. It's as if you absorb it all through your pores."
"Your mother and I have been talking," Phillip continued after Diane. "We think that because you find school so easy you don't feel the need to study. And what's happened is you've become accepting of your "B" averages because it's a passing grade. But you need to think beyond just a passing grade. You need to excel. That is what the universities are going to be looking for."
"I know, Dad," Max responded dejectedly.
"We just want you both to be able to get into a good university," Diane urged in a tone heavily laced with sincerity. "And then to go on to have successful lives."
"We know, Mom," Isabel softly acknowledged with a somber expression.
"We'll try," Max added. "We promise."
Diane and Phillip were satisfied that they had gotten their message across. They moved on to a new topic that they hoped would lighten the mood. Both Max and Isabel were happy for that even though the damage had been done. Neither of them enjoyed lying to their parents and both knew they had done just that.
Max and Isabel were the adopted children of Phillip and Diane Evans. They came into their lives and home at the age of two, twin siblings, or so they were told. Phillip and Diane never had a moment of regret about the adoption. Their two charges were all that they could hope for them to be and more. Happy, playful, obedient and affectionate, Max and Isabel were adored by their parents and the feeling was mutual. What Phillip and Diane did not know was that Max and Isabel were guarding a secret that they feared for their parents to know.
At the age of six, Max and Isabel learned that they were not like other people, or at least no one that they knew of at that time. They discovered that when they touched one-another, they could communicate through their thoughts. For them it felt like a natural ability, one they instinctively employed. The only thing they felt to be unusual about it was the fact that they could not feel the minds of anyone else when they touched them. Their parents, their neighbors and other children, all seemed to be devoid of a mind. From Max's and Isabel's perspectives everyone else was an alien species.
That opinion was never vocalized by Max and Isabel. Exceedingly bright for their age, the twin siblings had no trouble rationalizing the sensation that screamed at them to never divulge their ability. Driven by a need to be obedient to that compulsion, Max and Isabel lived secret lives that not even their parents knew of. To hide their difference, they blended in with the other kids. Being exceptional was against the rules. Being part of the norm was the blueprint that they lived by. They thought they were alone in this deception until the age of seven. That is when their minds first brushed against the mind of Michael Guerin.
Max's and Isabel's mental auras had quadrupled in size between five and seven years of age. They could not be within a few feet of each other without feeling the presence of the other in their minds. Everyone else moved about them like miniature black holes in space. To each other their own minds radiated like miniature suns, minus the heat. When Michael Guerin came to within five feet of Max and Isabel, on the first day of school as second graders, all three jumped with a start. That shock quickly turned into excitement at finally meeting someone like themselves. A bond was quickly formed between them, and the trio became fast friends.
The connection between, Max, Isabel and Michael did not seem out of the ordinary to adults. They were kids and kids formed friendships. The trio laughed and played like the other kids. The only difference was that they tended to be exclusive between themselves. That might have briefly caught the attention of a teacher or two, but it was never considered significant enough to apply any real concern. The activities between the three were, in appearance, no different from those of the other kids. The trio rarely communicated with their thoughts. The process of doing that was far too tedious for them to do on a regular basis. They could feel the presence of each other's mind, but they could not forcibly access each other's thoughts. To telepathically communicate with one-another they had to project a thought out for the other to absorb. Max, Isabel and Michael found it far simpler to just speak, and so they did.
The trio shared the same compulsion to keep their unique abilities a secret. They guarded their talents zealously and bonded all the closer because of that shared predisposition. By the time the trio had reached their freshman year of high school, the strength of their minds had grown thirty times what it had been in second grade. They could feel the presence of each other's mind at fifty yards distance, and they were discovering new talents that they had not before considered.
For Max, Isabel and Michael, the seemingly vacant brains of the others were suddenly open books. Where the strength of their own minds shielded them from the intrusion the other, the absence of that kind of strength in individuals who were not like them made their thoughts accessible with just a modicum of concentration. They also discovered that they could lift nearby hand hold-able objects twenty feet into the air with a little concentration. These discoveries came on gradually and, subsequently, were of no great shock to learn. What did send a shudder of astonishment through them was the next ability that they discovered.
The discovery that they could push thoughts into the minds of others who were not like them sent a shock wave of trepidation through the trio. In their minds nothing validated their dissimilarity from everyone else like that did. It took no great leap of logic for Max, Isabel and Michael to conclude that they were the alien species. They had no knowledge regarding how this came about, but all three understood that their abilities, ages and situations were too comparable to be a coincidence. That analysis coupled with a repetitive dream that all three of them were experiencing continued to reinforce in their minds that they were linked by some abnormal means.
"You guys ready for another year of act dumb and smile?" Michael queried Max and Isabel in a tone laced with sarcasm.
Max had just parked the jeep that he and his father restored over the summer. Isabel was in the passenger seat. Michael crossed the school parking lot to deliver his query just as the two Evans were climbing out.
"Hi to you too, Michael," Isabel countered with equal sarcasm.
"Cheer up, Michael," Max quietly urged. "You have your own place now."
"I don't have my own place," Michael testily retorted. "I have an attic above a garage."
"It's not an attic," Isabel peevishly corrected. "It's a loft."
"Whatever," Michael countered a second behind.
The three of them were just about to make their way across the parking lot to the school when they were stopped by Kyle Valenti's 2007 Red Mustang GT convertible. He slowly drove by and parked his car a dozen spaces down and across the driveway from the jeep. Michael and Isabel were ready to continue toward the building as soon as he passed, but Max held fast in his stance and watched Kyle park his car. Isabel and Michael followed his example and his stare with far less interest.
"It looks like somebody's dad is proud," Isabel snidely commented.
"Yeah, well who cares?" Michael huffed back.
Both he and Isabel were ready to proceed on after their remarks, but Max's continuous study of the car caused them to balk and turn their attentions back toward Kyle for a second time. At first, Max's interest in Kyle Valenti had Isabel and Michael confused. A few seconds later their confusion was gone.
"Oh no, not her, Max," Isabel complained dryly.
After Kyle parked his car, the passenger door to open and Liz Parker stepped out of it. Liz was a junior at Roswell High and one of the prettiest girls in the school. These were distinctions that Isabel shared. Another distinction they had in common was Max's devotion to them both.
"Come on, Max," Michael urged an instant after stepping in front of his stare. "We can't get involved with them."
"I know," Max reluctantly agreed.
Max stepped around Michael and made his way across the parking lot into the school with an obvious pretense that he was not jealous down to his core.
Max, Isabel and Michael were leery of getting too close to anyone. Their phobic need to stay hidden from others made the idea of a romantic attachment a nightmarish scenario. They all suspected that this shared sense of terror had an unnatural origin, but they did not have the strength of mind to negate its control over the decisions they made concerning their secrets. For Max, Liz Parker was the greatest temptation to just such a rebellion.
Liz Parker was the daughter and only child of Jeff and Nancy Parker, the proprietors of the Crash-Down Café. Max's familiarity with Liz went all the way back to kindergarten. They had never had a close association. Most contact between them was generally something that was made in passing. Beginning in their middle school years, Liz developed a suspicion of his fondness for her, but that was something she gave no great import to. There were several boys that she knew who had this affinity for her.
Because of his reserved behavior, Liz categorized Max as a shy boy. That had no effect on her opinion of him. She thought him good looking, nice and far superior to most of the boys that she knew. What impeded her from having any designs on Max Evans was the fact that she only recently began giving boys serious thought.
Liz Parker was an academic competitor with ambitious plans for her future. A straight "A" student, Liz seldom participated in the social conventions of her age. It was only through the urging of others around her that she came to entertain Kyle's advances.
"Liz, he's perfect for you," Maria De Luca ecstatically insisted. "You're a straight "A" student and destined to be our class valedictorian. He's an "A-" student, a quarterback on the football team, probably the next captain after this year and he's everybody's bet for Prom King this year and next. And oh, did I forget to mention that he's gorgeous. … You only go through high school once. If you want to be his queen, Liz, then you have to pin him down now before someone else snatches him up."
Liz openly argued that she was not particularly interested in being anyone's queen. However, in the back of her mind she could not help but be amused by that prospect. Liz knew that she would soon be facing the situation of having to acquire a date for the prom, and she saw Kyle's pursuit of her as an easy solution to that task. She and Kyle began dating halfway through the summer and pleasantly so by her estimation.
Kyle was equally pleased with the association. Liz Parker was, by his estimation, the ideal girlfriend for his junior and senior years. She was at least as pretty as any girl in the school and academically superior to them all. Liz Parker was his equal when it came to personal aspiration, and for Kyle that was of crowning significance.
Kyle was not particularly upwardly mobile in his makeup, but he was very competitive. For Kyle Valenti, high school was one long competition. He was not interested in trouncing his competitors, but he was determined to make the most of his opportunities. His grades were an occasional struggle due to his interest in all sports. The only time he would push himself academically was when his test scores threatened to demote his overall grade down to a C. His primary goal was his design on an athletic scholarship. That was the prize that he sought outside of the admiration of his father, Sheriff Jim Valenti.