Warning: This chapter is completely PG, sorry to disappoint. Mom approved.
They had been joined by two other people before they entered the limousine. A rather too happy seven year old girl with a platinum blonde bob skipped alongside a painfully beautiful twenty something year old woman, hand in hand. The limousine driver, an old balding man of sixty, helped the professor into the front seat and then folded his wheelchair and stuffed it into the trunk. It seemed the driver needed more help than Professor Xavier, but no one made such attempt. Both of the boys sat opposite of the girls. Jackie was forced to wedge herself between the seven year old and the woman.
The first hour of the car ride passed by in an awkward silence. It was the seven year old who first tried at a conversation.
"Do you like tea parties?"
Jackie gulped down her insane need to jump from the extended car and run back to the comfort of Honey's embrace.
"Yeah, tea parties are fun."
The girl's large green eyes showed signs of satisfaction. "Good, because Sean's no fun at tea parties." The ginger scoffed in protest and the blonde boy and woman burst into laughter. "Only goes to further prove gingers have no souls." Joked the blonde. The ginger punched his friend in the shoulder. "You destroyed Jeanie's last tea set so you shouldn't be talking, Alex!" The blonde, Alex, Jackie assumed, held his hands up in self defense. "I told you, Sean, it was Beast! That clumsy blue know-it-all runs into everything!" Crossing his arms, Sean pouted and turned so he faced away from Alex. They both cursed under their breaths weak insults.
"By God! You two sound like my grandparents. I know for a fact you both broke Jeanie's tea set at least once, because I was the one who had to clean it up, so shut it!" Almost immediately the two boys muted. Sean whistled through his teeth. Jeanie made an 'uh-oh' sound. Sighing triumphantly, the woman shifted so she faced Jackie. In admiration, Jackie shook her hand. "Hi, I'm Roxanne, this is Jeanie, and that's Sean and Alex. You'll meet Hank when we arrive at the mansion."
Roxanne, appropriately.
Instinctively Jackie's hand rose to her face, she knew she could be pretty at times but being in Roxanne's presence made her feel downright hideous. Amber eyes shone back at her. Roxanne's golden hair was pinned so it framed her heart shaped face and her plump red lips were pressed together in a line.
"I- uh… I'm Ja-Jackie." She stuttered. Roxanne gave a relaxing smile.
"So what can you do?"
Jackie barely heard the question. Feeling someone tug on her polo shirt-sleeve, Jackie turned.
"What can you do?" Jeanie repeated herself. So Jeanie must have not seen Jackie 'show off her talent'. "Um… well," She wasn't sure how to explain it, "I can turn my body into water and I talk to fish…" The group nodded in approval.
"I like fish." Sean commented.
Jackie blushed. Before she could conjure up anything flirtatious to say, Roxanne cut her off,
"Boy, you'll like anything if it means getting you a date! Now that the newcomer has shared what she can do, why don't we share also?"
Newcomer, Jackie thought to herself, so this is really happening.
"I'm a siren, I sing so I can lure in people and feed off their energy." Alex interrupted the gorgeous blonde, "That's why Chuck won't release you from his sight even though you're twenty-two, you black widow." Roxanne grimaced. "Says the one who the Professor pulled from juvie, you're no better!" She whined rather childishly.
The window separating the professor and the driver from the group of children rolled down. Forty's show tunes and the putrid smell of cigarette smoke wafted from the front compartment. "Quiet back there, I don't even need my ears to hear what you youngsters are babbling about, sheesh!" Shouted the driver. Ironically the professor was peacefully asleep. The tinted window creaked and rolled back up.
Alex scoffed, "Any who, I can shoot laser beams from my chest, Sean has a sonic scream, and Jeanie," The bubbly girl cut into his statement,
"And I'm clar-eh-va-uh-ant!"
Her mouth struggled to form the word, which Jackie found incredibly adorable.
"Clairvoyant, she means clairvoyant," Roxanne corrected her, "Jeanie can see bits of the future." Jackie's mouth feel into a perfect 'O'. Next to their mutations, Jackie felt silly.
Sean, who had been silent since Roxanne and Alex had insulted him, finally spoke. "What's that? You draw?" He pointed to Jackie's sketchbook which was balanced on her knees, her bag at her feet. "Yeah." Without her clearance, Sean snatched up her sketchbook and started flipping through it. "Wow, you're really good, Jackie." When he stopped on a certain page, she knew he had found her drawing of him. Holding up the sketchbook in astonishment, he showed everyone the illustration. Jackie's heart thumped loudly in her chest, heat swarmed to her cheeks.
The sketchbook dropped.
Everyone looked at her in amazement. "Um… Jackie, does your mutation include turning from a pale dark brunette into a tan light brunette at random?" Murmured Sean.
Only when I'm feeling hot, Jackie wanted to say, but words refused to form in her mouth. Roxanne cleared her throat and intervened, ruining the moment. "Oh look, we are here, how time passes." Jackie frowned but she couldn't stay envious for long. When she slipped out from the limousine, all she could do was stop and stare.
Oh my God.
A castle-like mansion loomed over her.
This may not be that half bad.
As the professor, now awake, wheeled passed her, he stopped to give her a charming smile.
Welcome home, she heard in her mind.
Let's do some interactive storytelling! In the next chapter, Jackie gets hurt (emotionally) on the first day of training, but who will be the one to comfort her? Fell free to share your idea in a review!