Chapter 6 Carpe Diem

Michael’s next class, Science, was pretty uneventful. His lab partner and probably only friend Jeff Burns could sense Michael’s need for solitude and did not press him for any details. Michael was glad of this because he really didn’t feel like talking just now. His teenage mind was still trying to come to grips with everything that had happened. He had known Jeff since grade seven, when Jeff’s family moved to the suburbs. Both boys were loners by nature and found in each other a companion who would respect each other’s privacy and still lend a hand when needed. When the bell signaled the end of the class, Jeff turned to Michael, patted him on his shoulder and left. Michael desperately wanted to tell Jeff everything that had transpired over the last several hours, but just couldn’t put it into words.

Michael walked to his next class, which was in the Gym. All along the hallway, he slowly became aware of some stares and guarded whispers. He could almost feel the questioning looks and the pointing fingers. It was, he realized belatedly that his new senses were starting to kick in automatically. Without even realizing, he was using them as if he were using his eyes and ears. It certainly gave him a unique perspective!

“Is that him?”

“Yeah, that’s the guy who whipped Mark and his buds!”

“He’s just a little kid! Look at his scrawny arms. It’s gotta be a joke!”

“No joke! Mark has a concussion, and Tony and Butch both have broken noses!”

“Shit! He must be on drugs or something!”

“Shhh! He’s getting closer!”

“Man, there he goes! That’s one scary dude!”

“Hope he didn’t hear us talking about him!”

Out of all the hushed whispers, Michael had to smile at that last one. If they only knew what he could hear now! Obviously, someone had witnessed the fight in the forbidden corner and word was getting around the school. He was positive it wasn’t Mark who was talking, and fairly certain it wasn’t Tony or Butch. However, sooner or later, word was going to get back to Mark and he’ll be gunning for revenge.

In the boys’ locker room, everyone gave Michael a wide berth. He didn’t care. Nobody ever really talked to him anyway. The only person he got along with was Jeff, and Jeff wasn’t in his gym class. Glancing around the room, Michael suddenly wished that Jeff was there. At least he wouldn’t be so alone! All the boys had friends, and they tended to group together. Birds of a feather flock together, thought Michael.

Michael was the last one to finish changing. Before heading out to the gym, he had a sudden thought.

Wait a minute! Mark, Tony and Butch are on the football team! Some of the guys in this class are also on the football team. Mark was a real asshole but the football team tends to look after its members. I bet they’re going to be gunning for me today. I’d better be prepared!

Looking around for inspiration, Michael spotted a power socket over by the mirrors. He walked over and examined it. It was just a standard power socket with two small flat vertical holes and a round one below them.

There’s no way I can get my fingers into those holes! Hey bro, got any ideas?

Big Brother was strangely silent. Probably wants to see how I handle this! This is probably another one of his learned not taught lessons!

Looking around the countertop, he spotted some paperclips that someone had carelessly left lying around. He grabbed two of them and bent them straight. He held them in his hand and mentally prepared himself.

I hope this works!

With that thought, he plunged the straightened paperclips into the power socket. Despite his mental preparation, the sudden jolt of power flowing into him was a surprise. Power was flowing into his body faster than he had expected. It was faster than with the sun and faster than with the batteries earlier. His body went from cool to hot in a split second. His body kept getting hotter and hotter, and it soon felt like he was about to burn up! Summoning his willpower, he pulled the paperclips out of the power socket. Instantly, the flow of power stopped. However, his body still felt very hot.

Holy crap! What was that?

<<That, young one, was too much power too fast! If you had kept that up, you would have surely died! Remember what I said earlier? Absorbing too much energy, more than your body can handle, and you will explode! Although, being such a young Shiza-haran, you would not have made much of an explosion. More of a small POOF!>>

So, what was I supposed to do?

<<You should have prepared yourself better and shunted some of the power away from yourself. You should only absorb what you can handle! Otherwise, I am impressed once again. You recognized the danger signs without my prompting.>>

Danger signs? It felt like I was about to explode!

<<If you had held on a little longer, you would have!>>

So how do you fight then? You said that you could absorb energy from Valean weapons. How do you do it without burning up?

<<When a Shiza-haran fights, it is all about balance. We generate a shield to block what we cannot absorb. The Valean’s usual tactic is to try to overload our shield and our bodies. When we cannot absorb anymore, we usually explode and destroy anything that was in our immediate area as well.>>

But since I’m so young, I’ll just poof, eh? I’ll keep that in mind!

Walking out into the gym, he immediately saw what was planned by the members of the football team. It was to be a game of dodge ball. There were thirty students in his class. Ten of them were girls. Of the twenty boys, ten of them were on the football team. They were all on the same side. It was to be a game of “shirts and skins”, and the jocks had already stripped off their shirts, brandishing their muscles for the girls to see. The other boys were members of either the chess club or photography club – the so called “nerds and geeks”. The battle lines had been drawn. The fantastic four were all on the same side as the jocks, as well as one other member of the cheerleader squad, Marcy Gray. The rest of the girls looked at the boys on their team and many shook their heads in disgust. They already knew who was going to win this match!

Not if I can help it! I’m tired constantly losing to these jock jerks!

He quickly joined his team. He looked at their grim faces and realized that nothing he said was going to make them feel any better. They had already resigned themselves to their fate. Most of them were probably not going to try and instead were going to just stand there until they were hit. The most they were hoping for was that it wouldn’t hurt too much.

Mr. Clark, the gym teacher, was also the football coach – which probably explained the way the teams were created today. He had everyone line up against the far boundary line and placed fifteen red rubber balls in the centre of the court. He gave the jock team a quick thumbs up and grinned evilly at the nerds. Holding his whistle to his lips, he blew it.

There was a sudden flurry of activity. Just as he thought, the boys on his team didn’t even try to go for the balls. Why bother when the other team was going to get there first? The girls though, totally surprised him. They beat their cheerleading counterparts to the balls and threw them before the cheerleaders could backpedal out of the way. All five cheerleaders were out before they knew it. Michael was not far behind them and grabbed a ball just before the jock opposite of him could. He quickly backpedaled and looked for a good target. Nine balls flew from the jock court and nine nerds walked off the court. Michael dug into his new reservoir of power and using his telekinesis to augment his strength and his aim, he whipped his ball across the court. It hit the jock whom he had beaten to the ball high in the chest. The jock had a surprised look on his face that quickly turned to pain.

“Shit! That hurt!” exclaimed the jock. That ball had stung! Hanging his head, he walked off the court.

Now there were nine jocks on one side and five girls and Michael on the other. Emboldened by their success in eliminating the cheerleaders, the girls on Michael’s team picked up five balls and threw them at the jocks. The jocks caught the balls easily and all of a sudden, Michael was alone against nine sharpshooters with a grudge.

Just the way I wanted it!

The jocks waited until all nine had picked up a ball each. In a concerted effort, they all whipped their balls at Michael in one huge volley. With his new Shiza-haran senses, Michael could tell exactly where the balls were coming from, exactly where they were headed, and how fast they were traveling. Moving his body like quicksilver, Michael dived and rolled his body to a point where he knew no balls were headed. The smirks on the faces of the jocks turned into scowls. They had expected him to be hit with all nine balls and be battered and bruised by them. Instead, he emerged completely unscathed and had a ball in each hand. Michael whipped both balls in quick succession, one from each hand. On the other side of the court, there were two cries of pain, and two jocks walked off the court, rubbing a bruised chest where a ball had hit them before they could even think to duck.

Hey, when did I become ambidextrous?

The remaining jocks looked frantically for more balls. They found five balls that had rolled into their side of the court. Mr. Clark walked to the edge of the court, and nonchalantly kicked a couple more in. Seeing this, Michael seethed inside.

He’s supposed to be an impartial teacher! Yet he’s always favouring the jocks. One way or another, he’s going to pay!

Seven balls came arrowing in at Michael. Once again, he ducked and rolled out of the way. He picked up two more balls, and fired them back across the court. Once again, there were two successive cries of pain, and two more jocks walked off the court, sporting bruised chests. Michael was suddenly aware of a strange sound. It was the sound of cheering and clapping. Glancing back, he could see his team cheering for him. For him! Encouraged, he turned back to his task. He had only five more opponents left. Once again, Mr. Clark casually kicked three more balls into the court. Five balls came arcing over at him. Instead of ducking and rolling, he caught two balls out of the air, and weaved his body to avoid the other three. Two jocks walked off the court, disgusted that a wimp had caught their balls, but glad that they didn’t have bruised chests.

Michael shot both balls at his opponents. This time they had tried running back and forth, creating moving targets that would be harder to hit. However, with his Shiza-haran senses, Michael was able to predict where they were going to be. One of the targeted jocks tried to duck and the ball hit him in the face. The other jock tried to jump at the last second, but the ball ended up hitting him in the family jewels. From his high pitched scream, it was obvious he wasn’t wearing his jock strap! One jock walked off with his face in his hands, the other limped off the court doubled over in pain. Now it was one on one. Michael had selected this last person very specifically. Dan Harper was the up and coming quarterback of the football team. He was tall, blonde and very good-looking. He had all the girls on the cheerleading team swooning over him, but if the rumours were true, was actively trying to woo May Li. Dan had a ball and desperately threw it at Michael. It wasn’t even a hard throw. He had seen the looks of pain on his teammates’ faces as they walked off the court. There was no way he wanted that! He was hoping Michael would catch the ball and let him off easy. However, Michael was in no such mood. He easily avoided the ball and prepared for his final throw. Dan was sidestepping back and forth across the court. He was hunched down, trying to present as small a target as possible. Michael waited until Dan had sidestepped to within five feet of Mr. Clark and then let fly. The ball raced over the court and hit Dan on his right shoulder and immediately rebounded and hit an unprepared Mr. Clark square in the face.

Michael’s team erupted in cheers. Grateful boys and girls who were busy thumping his back and hugging him instantly surrounded him. Mr. Clark looked angry. The right side of his face was red and his eye was closed. He would be sporting a shiner for the rest of the day! Dan stalked off the court holding his right shoulder.

Mr. Clark blew his whistle for another game. This time, the nerds were eager to get into the game, and the jocks were wary. Five of them were sporting large red targets on their chests. One had a red shoulder, another one was still limping slightly, and the last looked like a mirror image of Mr. Clark. As before, the two teams waited at the end zone of their respective sides. Mr. Clark lined up the balls as before. This time, when he blew his whistle, Michael’s team raced towards the balls while the jocks lagged. The end result was that the nerds were in possession of all fifteen balls. Michael looked around. They were all looking at him expectantly.

“Pick a target, boys and girls, and let ‘em have it!” he cried to them.

With a roar of approval, fifteen balls flew over the court to the other side. When the action stopped, five jocks were eliminated. One of them was sporting a new bruise on the centre of his chest. Michael was not done yet with the jocks! He looked at his team. Five members of his team were also eliminated when the jocks they were targeting caught their balls. Some of the balls had bounced back into their court, and his team raced to pick them up. The jocks were also armed with balls of their own now. What followed were several seconds of furious action. At the end, five more jocks walked off the field, and the last unmarked jock had a new bruise on the centre of his chest. Michael’s team was down to just him and the girls, again. Trying to finish the game as soon as possible, Michael raced for a ball that was near the centre line. He scooped it up, preparing to throw it at the first cheerleader he saw. Instead he found himself looking into the liquid brown eyes of May and he hesitated. May’s ball hit him solidly in the stomach and he was out of the game. Dejected, he walked off the court. His fellow teammates patted his back and congratulated him. Let the girls battle it out!

Back on the court, the girls on Michael’s team had won again against the cheerleaders. They were screaming with joy, and jumping up and down. As one, they ran over to Michael and enfolded him in a group hug. Mr. Clark ended the festivities by blowing his whistle again.

“Alright, break it up and hit the showers!” he growled.

Glad that the torture session was over, the jocks headed off towards the showers. The nerds hoisted Michael onto their shoulders and paraded into the dressing room, victorious.

In the change room, the nerds were still congratulating Michael. The jocks were all glaring at him. Instead of taking a shower with the rest of the guys, Michael begged off, saying that he had an appointment. When you had gym during the last period, showers were optional. If you headed home all smelly and sweaty, that was your own problem.

Michael got changed quickly and headed out. He picked up his bike and headed home. It had been a strange and exciting day, full of surprises. He had woken up with a new body, discovered that an alien entity had taken residence in his head, seen his first real live nude woman, won his first fight, and now had completely humbled the junior football team. Michael considered his day well and truly seized!