Elemental: Chapter Two, Part 8

I went on to play my tricks for the next few weeks. The end of my junior year was near and depressing, not to mention dizzyingly busy as teachers threw caution to the wind and seemed to triple our regular workloads. My tricks offered a laugh to brighten my day or a preoccupation to keep me going and refreshed. Drei’s warning about bounty hunters lay buried and forgotten in some distant memory.

Until one day when I was called to the counselor’s office. She said I had a visitor, supposedly a college admission counselor wanting to see if I was the right type of person. It was nothing peculiar, considering this frequently happened; I had probably appeared in their database through purchased test results and they wanted to vet the lead. I traipsed down the hall to the conference room.

The man awaiting my arrival was dressed in a black suit, a pair of reflective glasses tucked securely into his breast pocket. He was bald with forest green eyes and a fat nose. Something about his demeanor reminded me of how FBI agents were portrayed in movies.

“Sit,” he said, a large hand gesturing toward a stiff chair, his dark eyes locked on me. His voice sent a tremor down my spine. Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure this was a routine visitor.

“Sit;” he forced his face into a distortion he must have thought was a smile.

I sat cautiously, every alarm in my body sounding as he sat across from me.

“So, I’m just here to talk with you about college and see if this might be a good option for you,” he said less than believably. He shuffled through some papers before him, all marked with a school name I couldn’t make out but he didn’t hand me any brochures. “Uh…first of all,” he started, “what makes you special?”

“I’m a leader,” I said, though it was true less often than not. It was one of those things counselors tell you to really push since it’s what every college wanted to hear.

He cocked a shaggy eyebrow at my answer. “Why?”

“Because I’m smart and talented…people like me.” I shrugged, drawing on all the flightiness I had accumulated over the years from my friends. My primary concern was if he’d buy into it.

“Can you do any tricks?” he prodded further, leaning forward slightly.

Drei’s warning hit me like freezing water. Bounty hunters, he had called them. This was one of them. I knew it, without anyone having to point it out—I wasn't so hopeless. Part of my mind chided that he could mean something along the lines of cheerleading or extreme sports, but then why had my stomach suddenly gone AWOL?

“What kind of tricks,” I questioned carefully, fully aware of rigidity of his entire body, still pulling out all of the flightiness I could.

He seemed taken aback, as if he had expected me to brag about my freakish powers. My abilities to move anything I so desired. “Moving things,” he said lamely, seeming to doubt the words as they left his thin lips. “An unusual knack for plant work. Uncanny ways of playing with water or fire. That kind of thing.”

I pretended to think for a moment, seeing comedy in the following few minutes. “I can move things,” I admitted slowly, playing at being unsure.

“Good,” he replied, relief settling into his middle-aged face as he set a mug in front of me. “Move this to that corner,” he ordered, gesturing to the far corner of the desk.

My fingers grasped the mug and sat it where he had pointed.

“Without touching it,” he elaborated, slapping it on the desk before me again, his teeth grinding as he tried to hold onto his warped version of a smile.

I grabbed a pencil and slid it across the desk.

“Without using anything but air,” he growled.

“Well, that’s ridiculous,” I insisted, crossing my arms and throwing myself against the back of the chair. “How can a person do that?”

“Try,” he said, a hard edge in his voice.

I did, focusing on pulling the air together but making it seem like strenuous work, like it had been when I first started. I even sat forward and put a hand to my temple. Of course, since I was trying so hard but not really focused on moving anything, the air resisted me. (It didn’t much appreciate being called on for nothing at all, I had learned.)

It seemed a small eternity passed before he said, “Stop before you hurt yourself.” He sounded defeated, and I felt a sense of pride rise in me. I had taken care of it, just like I had told Drei I would. “You’re not right for us,” he said tiredly, slouching forward and rubbing his temples.

As I left the room, I heard him mutter something about rich girls and his own stupidity. Part of me wished I could show him what this rich girl could do, but I knew that to be unwise.