Page 53 of Electricity

W ithout my backpack, I made it to English in record time—but not fast enough. I burst in and looked over to where my desk was. My backpack, with all my notes in it, was gone—and my phone was in the front pocket.

Mr. Young stood there in all his tweed-jacketed English-teacher glory. “Ms. McMullen, my hall pass?”

I handed it out to him, sputtering. “Did you see who took my bag?”

He looked to where I was looking, and understood. “Oh, no, sorry—maybe a friend grabbed it?”

“Yeah.” There was no point in explaining to him that I almost didn’t have any.

I went back into the hall. I knew they’d leave a look-out. What good was taking my stuff, without getting the joy of watching me be upset about it? Sure enough, I saw Andrew across the hall. He gave me a slow nod.

Don’t panic, Jessie. Don’t panic, Jessie. Don’t panic. I walked over to him, hands out like I was placating a feral dog. “Hey, Andrew. Have you seen my bag?”

“Uh, maybe?” He did his best impersonation of someone acting like an idiot. It wasn’t hard, seeing as he was one.

“Could you tell me where?” I asked, with a fake smile plastered high.

“Over there, I think—by the gym.” He pointed, deeper into campus. Waves of kids walked by in the other direction, toward the parking lot. Most people were too busy leaving now to pay any attention to hassling me. I knew Lacey’d be waiting at our lockers, but?—

“Okay,” I said, and started walking toward the back of school.

I made it to the hallway that ran the length of the gym. My bag was nowhere in sight, and neither was anyone else.

The doors of the boy’s bathroom pushed open and Mason came out. “Looking for something?”

I did my best to stand tall. “Yeah. My bag. Have you seen it?”

“It’s in there,” he said, pointing to the bathroom behind him with his thumb.

I knew with every cell in my body that that bathroom was unsafe. “I am not going in there to get it.”

“Oh don’t worry,” Mason said. “Eventually, it’ll come out to you.”

Nathan came out of the bathroom, chuckling. I ignored him. “Mason, this has to stop.”

“Why?” he asked, looking me up and down.

I felt—like a piece of meat—like I had that night at the Shax when Danny’d slapped my ass—three other members of the team emerged from the bathroom, each of them with smug grins on their faces.

It was clear I couldn’t speed this process up and acting anxious would only make them laugh harder at the end of it.

I flickered between anger and civility. I wanted to do something to them—even though we were near the gym, there was still power here, running through the walls, and inside me. But there was nothing I could do until I got my bag back. If I was going to get it back.

Chase finally came out, my bag in hand, giving it over to Mason, and I knew instantly what they’d done—I could smell it.

They’d each taken a shit into my bag.

Mason walked over, holding the bag out like the trash it now was. “This is what you were looking for, right?”

“Yeah.” I knew exactly what was inside. A year’s worth of chemistry notes, and the book itself, gone. My favorite pencil. A note Lacey’d sent me where she’d done a funny drawing that I’d kept with me since the seventh grade.

Electricity flourished around me. I wanted to zap them just as much as I wanted to puke. How could they—my disgust and revulsion showed on my face, and they knew that they’d done.

“Here you go!” Mason said, flinging it at me.

It was heavy, what with the book and the excrement—I danced back and it landed at my feet with an uncouth sound. I knelt down in safe range.

My phone’d been in the front pocket. Did I dare hope—did I dig around in there looking for it in front of them? How would I explain losing my phone to my mom? The end of the school year was coming up—how was I going to afford another chemistry book?

They were all laughing, hard, and I felt the lightning move inside of me, rising like a tidal wave. I could feel it charging, churning, rising up. “You’ll—you’ll be sorry!” I said.

Then the tidal wave disappeared. I stumbled back, feeling its loss. What had happened?

“Oh yeah?” Mason said.

Where had my power gone? It was right here—I turned around, looking for it like it was something physical I’d lost, like a puppy.

And then Sarah saw me. “Jessie! There you are!” She came running down the hall, blonde hair streaming out behind her.

I tried to call my power back again. All it did was strobe, like a car battery that wouldn’t start. And Mason and his friends were still laughing loudly, I couldn’t concentrate?—

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” Sarah said, the second she was near.

“Why?” I asked her honestly.

“Because,” she said, with a nod encouraging me to get with the program, “We’re going home together today, remember?

I’m your ride.” She gave me a smile just as fake as the one I’d worn earlier with Andrew, swooped down, and helped me stand.

She glanced around and gathered what was happening with everything else in a heartbeat.

“Good-bye, gentlemen!” she said, cheerful, as always, even though I felt her hand claw into my arm.

“Yo, Jessie!” Mason shouted. I turned without thinking, just in time for him to hurl my phone at me, and I caught it on instinct. “It’s more fun for us if you keep this. If you got a new phone, you might change your number.”

I looked down at it wondering what he’d done to defile it, too. If he’d somehow managed to stick it up his ass, I hoped it’d hurt him. I turned it off before I could read any of the horrible things on it that I’d missed.

“Come on,” Sarah muttered, hauling me away to the sound of their laughter.

She pulled me around corners and down halls until we were in front of my lockers, where Lacey was waiting. “Oh my God, are you okay?”

It took me a second to realize she was worried about me. This was not how this was supposed to work. Although I was worried about me too—why had my powers deserted me? Where had they gone?

“You’re okay, right?” Lacey repeated.

“Yeah,” I lied.

“Talk in the car,” Sarah said, pushing us both along. “It’s not safe here.”

That was an understatement.

“What about you?” Lacey asked her.

“Ryan’s my ride. I’ll go out to practice like always. I’ll be fine.”

“You’re sure?” I asked.

“It ain’t Thanksgiving yet,” she said. “Go,” she commanded.

We did as we were told, looking nervously over our shoulders.

“What happened in there?” I asked Lacey once we were safe outside.

“Sarah found me while I was waiting for you, getting worried. She told me to stay put and went searching.” Her hand found mine. We practically ran to her car, and when we got inside she locked the doors. “What happened?”

I told her, and when I got to me facing Mason down in the hall she smacked my shoulder. “You were supposed to play it safe today, Jessie!”

“I know—but I got distracted. The west hall bathroom—in the last stall.” I wished I had had my phone, so I could’ve taken a picture. “Someone wrote on it—Danny is.”

“Danny is ,” she repeated, leaving the rest of the sentence left unsaid. “It’s new?”

“Has to be. And there’s more comments underneath. Saying that they know, that everyone knows.”

“About me?” her voice rose in panic and I spoke quickly.

“No no no. About him.” I was starting to calm down, trying to be rational. “We knew there were others. This is just another confirmation.”

“And to think how alone I’ve felt, ever since it happened.” She bit her lower lip. I was watching my best friend find out she was part of a not-very exclusive club. “I just can’t believe he’s gotten away with it for so long.”

“The entire school’s behind him. And he doesn’t even have to do his own bullying—Mason’s his fucking lapdog.”

“But what if one of them had tried? What if they’d stopped him before him and me?” She turned to face the steering wheel, clenching it in her hands. “I didn’t have to—it could’ve been different.”

“Hey—hey hey hey—” I said, unsure what I’d follow it up with, just trying to catch her before she spiraled.

“It could’ve, but it wasn’t,” I said gently.

“There’s no Santa Claus, and there are no alternate time-lines.

” If there were, a different mom or a better dad would’ve totally manifested inside my closet or under my bed by now.

“We can’t change the past. All we get is what we have right here. ”

“And the future.”

My mythical college-future that I’d been holding onto for so long. “Sure. That too.”

She took a few more turns in pensive silence. “He’s already in at State, you know.”

“Of course he is,” I said with heavy sarcasm. A year from now I’d have to fill out embarrassing forms with my mother’s income or lack thereof on them, while all Danny had to do was smack a stupid ball. And if I was lucky, I might get into the same college as him. Hooray.

“How would anyone there know?” Lacey said, mostly to herself.

“They won’t. Unless we win the lottery and can afford an advertising plane.”

Lacey pulled to a stop in front of my trailer. “Something has to change, Jessie.”

“I completely agree. Only I have no idea what that something is.”

“I think I do.”

“What?”

Her gaze behind her glasses was cloudy. “Let me think about it. One more day.”

“K.”

She exhaled like she was blowing out a candle—or blowing dangerous thoughts away—then looked around. “Where’s your bag?”

“Don’t ask.”