Excerpt: SEMI-PSEUDO-SUPERHEROES
When we got to Divine's,it was brightly lit. Usually Divine's wasn't open after the dinner hour, but Angelamade an exception for the start and end of the school year, and during Christmasshopping season. She had hung lights on the wrought iron fence that ran along thesidewalk. They looked like strings of Christmas tree lights, until we got closeenough to see something spinning slowly inside the tiny glass globes. Stars andcomets and planets.
The gate hung open, andas I started up the flagstone walk, the front door swung open. A couple people noticedthere was no one visible in the doorway, and they made "Huh?" and "Whoa!"and other sounds. Nobody freaked out. Maybe they were such movie geeks, so usedto special effects and watching behind-the-scenes specials, they just assumed thatwas another special effect.
Nope, just Divine's Emporiumwelcoming the new students. I took that as a good sign. The door probably wouldn'thave opened automatically like that if there was even one person in the group whodidn't quite fit with the spirit of Neighborlee.
I was relieved when thereactions of the people spilling through the doorway into Divine's and immediatelyspreading out through the rooms were completely positive. No freaking out. No muttersor frowns of disdain. No one giving the telltale signs of discomfort that meantthey were already getting hit with the subliminal "go away, you don't belong,we don't want you here" message. Divine's Emporium liked these kids.
The best sign? No oneflinched or got wide-eyed or even blinked when Angela just seemed to appear fromnowhere. One minute the area behind the counter was empty, the next she was there.Maybe they just assumed she had been behind the counter, bent down and working onsomething.
Looking back, the signsthat everyone belonged should have been a warning. Angela sensed something unusualabout us, and I can't fault her for not warning us of impending trouble. All shesensed was the potential, and she spilled out the welcome from Divine's. At thatpoint, the very first day we were all in the dorm, everything was potential andpossibility. The choices we made going forward would refine our path for the restof the year.
"Aren't you supposedto be busy with college activities?" She stepped up and rested her arms onthe thick marble counter.
"All moved in andfree for the evening." Zach fluttered his eyelashes at her and made his good-doggy-begginggesture, with his hands curved up under his chin.
Angela laughed and reachedback for one of the enormous old-fashioned candy jars, where Zach's favorite candywaited. Semi-hard diamonds of salted black licorice. Yeah, sounds kind of yech,doesn't it? I finally gave in and tasted some. Surprisingly good, but still an acquiredtaste. That broke the ice. Angela got everyone's name as they stepped up and spotteda jar of the candy they liked the best. In all the noise and laughter and chatter,nobody noticed when she reached for a jar before someone asked for it, or knew someone'sname before they told her. She asked a few questions and directed people to variousrooms where "you might just find something you'll like."
"Very interesting,"she commented as she settled down at the little bistro table with me and Clariceand Tyrone after about twenty minutes.
Voices rang through theshop, people calling out to each other that they just had to come see something.I was positive at least one new room had appeared since the last time I was at Divine’s,a week ago, looking for a really cool backpack for going to class. Of course I foundit, a combination of army surplus olive canvass with colorful embroidered patchesall over it, looking like I had been all over the world. I had the hope that itwould turn out like Mary Poppins' bag and hold everything I wanted and needed toput into it. Hopefully with the added benefit of not being any heavier.
"Do I want to knowhow you gathered so many like spirits in just a few hours, before orientation evenofficially started?" Angela nodded her thanks as Tyrone took over to emptythe tray of our floats made with caramel ice cream and cream soda.
"They're all on thesame floor with us," Clarice said.
"Really? What arethe odds of that?"
"Pretty big odds,"I said, meeting Clarice's gaze. She nodded. As if I really needed permission totell Angela?
I went on to relate whatPop had learned from Mrs. A, and shared with me, because I had a right to know whatpeople were doing to me and my classmates. Even if that knowledge might skew theresults of whatever research the psych professors were doing. Maybe lab rats didn'tknow what was happening when they ran through mazes and suffered through all sortsof tests and experiments, but we weren't lab rats.
Our club members amongthe freshmen had discussed the experiment, whether it was weird or dangerous. Ithought about pretending to be an anonymous tipster and let the Neighborlee Tattlerknow what was up. We agreed not to tell anyone before school started, because honestly,what could anyone do about it? Demand to change floors within the dorm? Try to getinto different dorms? We basically, and vaguely, agreed to wait to see what happenedwith the people on our floor and in the dorm before we said anything.
However, this was theperfect time to take the conundrum to Angela. As a guardian of Neighborlee, I hada responsibility to take questionable circumstances to her, or at least presentthem to other known guardians. Just in case weird things happened from fiddlingwith demographics, and I was too close to the middle to notice.
"Okay, now that wecan see what they did to us, it's kind of weird," Tyrone said. "They sureweren't putting us together with the other geeks and nerds to be nice, so what dothey think will happen? Why not other statistics or similarities or whatever youcall it? Other than the art and drama kids, we're not grouped together by our majors,like on the other floors and the other dorm. Is it just me, or do you feel likewe're being singled out?"
"If you are…"Angela's gaze went unfocused and her eyelids half-lowered.
I could almost hear thatsound I sometimes caught just on the edge of sleep, or when it got very quiet insideDivine's Emporium.
Sometimes it was the hintof wind chimes playing in some incredible, vast garden in the very core of the house,as if the walls were thinner than paper, thinner than air. If I turned at just theright angle, I might finally see the garden, and wind chimes made of incrediblejewels, with sunshades made of tapestries woven to show otherworldly, ancient scenes.Other times, like now, I had a sense of music being played somewhere far away, justbelow the audible level, on instruments I had never imagined. This was basicallythe sound of Angela thinking very hard, and the magic of Divine's Emporium cominginto play.
"I must believe that if anything is to come of havingso many similar, imaginative souls gathered in one place," Angela said slowly,"then Neighborlee itself might be very glad that several of our own are amongthem."
