Next Day: Monday.

Liz woke up, before her alarm clock rang, even though she had experimented with her powers deep into the night. But she didn't feel tired at all. She was very excited and could hardly wait to tell Vi about her new ability. And what would Wilbur say? Liz could show them her spoon-deform-trick!
However, the closer school came, the less enthusiasm she had. While she sat in the backseat of the black sedan car, driving to school, she was concerned and looked out the window, lost in thought. What would people think of her if they knew that Liz had a super power? They would surely ask her, how she got her powers - then she would have to explain what had happened. People certainly wouldn't be thrilled that Liz had caused that power blackout. In addition, she should have called the police, because she was a witness and was able to describe the criminals ...
She bit her lip, thoughtfully. Then, when the sedan car landed in front of the school and her robot chauffeur opened the door, Liz made a decision. She would keep her powers secret for now. Perhaps this magnetic effect would disappear over time, so she'd better wait and see how things developed, and by then she would just live her normal life as usual.
Well, even without her magnetic powers, her life was far from normal. During recess Liz went into the cafeteria, and even before she had queued up for getting lunch, she saw Pete sitting alone and sad at one of the tables in the back of the cafeteria. She gritted her teeth. Over the recent events she had totally forgotten to call him and apologize for her rude behavior on friday... Wow, what should she do now? If she would talk with him now, he perhaps would make a scene, right here, in front of the entire school. And the last thing Liz Beckett wanted in her life was drawing attantion. Therefore, she quickly looked away before Pete could see her and sat down with a couple of girls from her class.

Pete, however, noticed anyway how she was obviously ignoring him. He stood up and left the cafeteria, leaving his tray on the table. He put his hands into his pockets and drooped.
Liz saw it from the corner of her eye. When he turned his back to her, she dared a glance. When he was gone, she sighed in relief, but she was still worried. She turned back to the conversation of the girls.

The four girls - Becky, Laura, Nyusha and Molly – were talking about fashion and the new trend to wear shoes as fancy hats.

"I still think it looks silly," said Becky, "It looks like you've mixed up your outfit! Seriously! A Shoe on your head?!"

"But everybody is doing it!" Laura intervened, "It's all the rage in Paris and Tokio!"

"Laura, if all people in Paris and Tokio would jump off a cliff..." Nyusha began, but didn't continue because she was giggling over Laura's offended expression. The others joined her laugh.

"I'm just saying..." Laura said sheepishly, "I think it looks different... you know what I mean? It's original"

"If everybody is wearing it, it's hardly original." Liz responded. The others (except for Laura) giggled.

"I just don't see the use of spending money for a single, extremely expensive shoe for my head, when i can have two for my feet for much less money." Molly joked.

"Your horizon is just too limited to understand this de-functioning." Laura began, and when she saw the confused (ans amused) looks of the other girls, she continued more seriously: "In De-funktionalism objects expand their meaning by trespassing their one limited function. This is very philosophical actually."

There was silence for a while. Then Becky bent below the table and when she came up again, she balanced one of her shoes on her head. It looked totally ridiculous!

"Now, i bet I'm looking like a totally smart philosph, right?"

The others, even Laura, started laughing. At this moment Liz discovered Wilbur Robinson and Violet, who were about to enter the cafeteria. And all of a sudden, her laughter died in her throat. Wilbur... how should she only provide to talk all normally and causually to him here at school? Outside school, it was something else, but here? Would she ever get a better chance than last saturday? Back then it had been so easy to talk to him! But now she only needed to see him from fay away and her heart already began pounding – suddenly, she became extremely nervous! Her mouth got dry and her hands began to sweat.
She was so excited that she was unaware of the hum in her head. She first thought it was a load machine that flew above the school. Only when she began to feel the pressure of the metal in the building, she realized what was happening. The bench on which she sat was made of metal - Liz could feel how it deformed below her! She had to get out of here before all metal objects started flying towards her. The trays on the table were already trembling and rattling, and moved slowly towards Liz! Meanwhile the roar in her skull became louder, her heart raced. What should she do? The other girls looked at each other confused, then they watched in astonishement how the trays were moving – like it was magic.

"Is that an earthquake?" Nyusha whispered.

"Maybe... But I feel nothing at all ..." Becky replied uncertainly. The roar in Liz's head was so loud that she wasn't able to hear their voices. She had to get out of here! Fast!

Liz jumped up, not considering the fact, that the trays would follow her. The trays flew off the table, crashing loudly on the ground, food and drinks splashed everywhere. Also, when she jumped up, the metal bench was stuck to her butt before it crashed to the ground too. The other two girls who were sitting on the bench, complained obviously, but Liz could not hear them – all of a sudden all eyes in the cafeteria turned at her. Suddenly she was taking the center stage. This didn't make the situation any more comfortable for her. She was so nervous about her powers getting out of control infront of all these people - and especially in front of Wilbur – that she was barely able to speak.

"I ... gotta go!" she cried, and tried to speak quietly, what she didn't manage quite well. As soon the words had left her lips, she ran off, without further explanation. It was harder to get out than she thought, because the magnetism that emanated from her was affecting all metal objects in the area, so it felt like heavy weights were hanging on her. She didn't know exactly where she wanted to go, after all, how could you hide from magnetism?

As she ran through the side exit, she collided with a person. She wanted to run off, when she saw it was Wilbur. That was just what she needed last! ... She froze, her heart skipped a beat in fright before it sank into her boots.

"Hey Liz! Wanna eat with us?" Vi said kindly. Liz couldn't hear what she said, however. She just stared extremely stressed at Wilbur, who smiled at her charmingly. Liz panicked! How the hell should she get out of this situation without making a complete fool of herself?!

Suddenly all locker doors behind her jumped up! All persons around startled in shock. Paper flew through the korridor, and one boy got a door right into his face and was almost knocked out.

"What was that?!" Violet cried surprised, and it costed her quite an effort to not make herself invisible and activate her force field.

"Uhng!" Wilbur moaned annoyed, "Just another stupid joke of the Seniors!" he added contemptuously. Then he turned into the cafeteria and shouted "Lame!"

But the seniors had nothing to do with this incident. The doors were made of metal and moved according to the strongest magnetic impulse in their environment ... and that was Liz.

"Excuse me," Liz reeled, trying to speak softly, "I still gotta, ya know, do stuff... urgently..." she continued, backing off. She hoped no one noticed that the locker doors were moving with her. Wilbur and Vi looked after her in surprise.

"See ya!" Liz cried abruptly before Vi could say something. Then Liz turned around and ran off. A little further she ran around a corner, but she took the curve too tight. She touched one of the lockers with her upper arm - then it happened. Her entire body was attracted by the magnetic forces. Suddenly she stuck on the lockers, as if she was in a spider web. Her feet didn't touch the ground anymore. Now she was hanging there and had no idea what she should do.
She was completely out of breath. Apparently she had totally lost control over her new ability. Fortunately, the corridor was empty, but it wouldn't take long until somebody came by and saw her in this state. She had to do something!

Liz had to regain this clarity with which she could easily control magnetism - but how? Previously this clarity had always kind of activated on its own, she couldn't control it. She closed her eyes and tried to somehow get to this clarity by meditation, but she was so stressed that she couldn't think straight.
Then she suddenly heard steps - or rather, she felt magnetically that a metalobjekt was approaching. It was small – it must be a ring, a belt buckle or a wristwatch. She needed to get off this wall as quickly as possible before someone discovered her! This magnetic feeling came closer.

Well, that was it with her secret... Somebody would discover her, then the questioning would start, people would regard her as a freak, she would be excluded from society, perhaps she would even imprison her for scientific experiments – in this very moment, when she accepted the situation, instead of fighting against it, this clarity overcame her again!

Now everything was so simple. She was aware of all magnetically responsive materials in the building, for example, she knew that it was a ladies watch by Fabiani that would come around the corner at any moment. She had to get off this wall now, quickly! It occurred to her that she could manage this by inverting the magnetic polarity. That would repel her from the wall. And so she did...
Unfortunately Liz still underestimated the power of her abilities. When she reversed the polarity, it didn't loose her gently from the lockers, as she thought, no, she was violently thrown away! She slammed painfully against the lockers on the opposite wall, bounced off and fell hard on the ground, where she remained lying motionlessly. The impact was so powerful that her head had left a visible dent in the locker. That was so totally not the way how she imagined having super powers would be...

At that exact moment Megumi Tategami walked around the corner and stooped short, perplexed, when she saw Liz lying on the floor in pain. A very confusing picture, because there was no indication what might have happened with the blonde, shy girl.

"Are you okay?" Meg asked confused. She didn't really want to deal with any trouble. She wore tomboy-ish clothes, as usual, and held a couple of music magazines in their hands, which she wanted to read in class. Around her wrist she wore a silver watch by Fabiani.

"Yepp, everything's alright! Just... hanging out!" Liz squeezed out of her compressed lungs, between her clenched teeth. It was more like a whisper, since she couldn't breathe properly.
She did her best to stand up, to show that she was okay. Meg shrugged unmotivated. Then she passed Liz, but not without throwing a skeptical glance at her. Liz looked back with a smile. Megumi had hardly disappeared, Liz fell back to the ground. She could hardly breathe!

"This will be a lesson to me," Liz thought as she lay on the ground, holding her aching forehead. Next time, when Wilbur Robinson showed up somewhere, she would disappear as quickly as possible. At least until she had her powers under control.


Author's Note: Oh gosh, I don't know what happened! While thinking about, what the girls could be talking about, I randomly invented a completely new philosophical paradigma... which is complete bullshit! Don't believe what I'm saying!

References this time: Terry Gilliam's „Brazil" of course! ;-) Megumi Tategami is Vstriker's character! I love her, so I wanted to give her a little guest appearance. And she's wearing my watch :D