Lost and Found

by Orson Scott Card

“The walking dead,” said Short Grade-School Girl. “I like that. Much better to call them ‘the walking dead’ than ‘idiots.’” “Are you stupid or what?” asked Ezekiel. “Hard choice, but I’ll take ‘what,’” she answered. “You know that I’m the school leper. Why would you walk with me?” “I’m not walking with you. I’m walking inside your shunning bubble.”

Two odd people with something in common.

“How about this,” said Ezekiel. “You walk inside my ‘shunning bubble’ and I walk slowly enough that you don’t have to run or jog to keep up. But you don’t say anything.” “Ever?” she asked. “You got it.” “Starting when?” “Yesterday,” said Ezekiel.

LOL

“Are you poor, or is your dad working class, or what?” “My dad’s a butcher at the Food Lion here in Downy.” “And your mom?” she asked. “Dead,” said Ezekiel. “Cancer?” asked Beth. “Bad driving,” said Ezekiel. “Not hers. Guy who hit her got six months in jail. I was four.” “Were you in the car?” “She wasn’t in a car,” said Ezekiel. “What about your dad?” “He’s probably alive. Somewhere. Couldn’t deal with how tall I wasn’t at the age of eight. Or else he found somebody he liked better than Mom. If I ever see him again, I’ll ask.” “Now we have shared our deepest pain,” said Ezekiel. “Can we please shut up now? For the last fifty yards before we enter Downy Soft High School?”

Funny pair sharing sad life stories.

“Since we have a couple of new members today,” said Dr. Withunga, “I’m going to take a couple of minutes to re-explain our purpose here. This isn’t therapy and the last thing we want to do is interfere with anybody’s, uh, micropower.” Ezekiel memorized this so that on the way home, he could say to Beth, “I’d rather be in a group where the last thing we want to do is have everybody get ripped to shreds and tubes and hair by a herd of feral cats.” And then she’d tell him three better collective nouns for cats than herd.

Micropower

“Why is she here?” asked College Girl. “She doesn’t even have a micropower.” “She has the micropower of seeing up people’s noses,” said Dahlia.

LOL mean girl

“She wasn’t going to chase us,” said Beth. “Is that your micropower? To know who chases and who doesn’t? “It’s not a micropower, it’s hearing my mom talk about stuff. The girl has huge boobs and she isn’t wearing a bra. No way she’s going to sprint barefoot down a sidewalk. She’d blacken her eyes and maybe break her nose within ten steps.”

Observant LOL

Micropowers could be cool, sure, but whenever you used them in any obvious way, like leading the cops to the place where a kidnap victim was stashed, it made other people, especially stupid people, feel threatened because their picture of how the world worked was officially out of order.

He seems to want some sort of recognition that he's the hero or does he just want Beth to acknowledge it.

“If we don’t find her in time,” said Shank, “you will absolutely know that you did everything you could. Your micropower helped save one girl. That was good. But your talent isn’t a superpower. It’s small and limited. And Beth’s situation might just be outside those limits. That’s not your fault, and it wasn’t your choice.” “I’ll tell myself that if the time comes,” said Ezekiel. “But you’re not a therapist and I don’t need counseling about how to deal with her death, not until she’s actually dead. Is it OK if we make that a rule in our future conversations?”

Good points he's going to hard on himself if they are too late.

“Please tell me there are no spiders in this car,” said Shank. “There are no spiders in this car,” said Mitch. To Ezekiel, Shank said, “He’s lying, isn’t he?” “Probably,” said Ezekiel, “but it’s a kind lie, don’t you think?” “And this car doesn’t stink, by the way,” said Shank. Dahlia laughed. “Well, not now that Lanny’s in here.”

LOL micropowers Damn I just yawned

“Are you a medical professional?” asked a uniform. “I’m a butcher at Food Lion,” said Father, “but I didn’t think it was right to say that she had scraped up her brisket.” Shank couldn’t keep a smile from playing across his lips.

LOL brisket

Shank shook his head. “I thought I made it clear. Nobody knows I’m with the Bureau—I’m here undercover.” “You went undercover as a cop?” asked Father, incredulous. “I went undercover,” said Shank, “because the guy we picked up out in the field there is on the force in Downy.” “You knew he was—” “We believed that the buck kept stopping in Downy, North Carolina, and somebody on the job was running interference for these bastards. The State Bureau of Investigation wanted to send in a team to conduct a big open investigation, but kidnapping is a federal crime and I bigfooted them into getting out of my way and helping me create my cover.” “So you’re not coming out of your cover yet?” asked Father. “One of them got away,” said Shank.

Undercover as a cop to catch bad cops

“Like having somebody spot you at the gym,” said Skunk. “Like you’ve ever been inside a gym,” said Jannis. “The best-smelling gym in the whole world,” said Skunk. “It about wore me out before I left.”

Good one Stinky!