Now, I handled things very calmly. Maybe a little too calmly. All things considered in my past, a grandson in a state of unconsciousness is rather small on the scale of freak-outs. I calmly made the peppermint mocha for Junk, even upsized him and gave a little whipped cream and chocolate shavings. No cost.
“So, what was that again?” I said as I place the beverage before him.
“He won’t wake up,” Junk calmly stated while staring into the coffee beverage like a man seeing water after coming out of the desert.
“Because of Pirates?” I clarify.
“Yup.”
“And you’re here because…?”
“Isn’t he your teacher or sensei or whatever?” The ‘whatever’ got muffled as the whipped cream engulfed his mouth and he nearly fell into the cup. As he lowered from his first large gulp, a pristine mustache was the only remainder and he had no recollection it was there.
“He means a lot more than that to me,” I admitted. “I should ask, who is watching him if you’re here?”
“Oh, I think Aria is sitting with him.”
Granted, I never really got to know any of the orphans, as Mo and I call them, but I don’t think I’d remember any of them if I saw them again. As I began wondering just how many kids David had taken under his wing, Junk began gulping the rather hot latte as if it was water. He seemed rather high strung to begin with, I’m not sure liquid jitters was the best medicine.
“Junk, you came out here over a thousand miles on your own?”
He swallowed the last remaining drops in his cup before answering. “No, my sister is here too. She drove us from Lincoln.”
And as if he had signaled a cue to walk in the room, the door chimed and in she came. Already, I know I am going to get into trouble with Mo later because this was not someone who goes unnoticed. She was tall, had long red hair and even longer legs. The curls in her hair elongated with each step and then snapped back into place showing her movement and gave another emphasis to watch. As slender as she was, she seemed to command her legs to move and plant themselves with a force I could almost feel across the room.
My main goal right now was to try and find as many flaws about her to remember so when Mo meets her for the first time, she doesn’t immediately question my loyalties. So, far, I am unfortunately finding none.
“Dude, what in the hell?” she asked while surveying the bodies lying in heaps around her. Another minus for me, her voice was strikingly similar to Mo’s except for the slight emphasis on her L’s. Maybe that could become annoying?
“What?” Junk asks while trying to finger the whipped cream out of the bottom of the cup that hadn’t been given the time to melt yet.
“Oh, Jesus-fish. Tell me that is hot cocoa,” this time she is addressing me with the statement / rhetorical question. Then I start to actually feel as if I had done something wrong.
“Is he going to turn into a Gremlin soon?” I said in dry sarcasm.
To my surprise, she actually smiled. “Not unless it’s after midnight.”
Well, crap. This girl is really making me nervous now. She understood a historical movie reference and has a smile that could melt butter in a cold pan.
“Is he allergic to coffee?” I skip the ogling in order to not find this girl any more attractive.
A strange twist on her face rested somewhere between apologetic and frightened. “Not exactly. For whatever reason, large amounts of caffeine tend to make my brother a little…unstable?” As my brain tries to formulate an unstable Junk running around, she decides to clarify. “His ability is enhanced.”
Enhanced? “Enhanced?” Yeah, I repeated it.
“Well, you see what he can do when he shushes people. If he did it again, they’d be asleep probably until the weekend. And they don’t wake up until it’s over.”
I’m failing to see the evil behind it or the danger. As my confusion portrays through my expression, she adds, “Junction’s ability is triggered by the way ties the ‘sh’ sound together. Most of the time he has to concentrate and then it releases the subconscious dam he has blocking the telekinetic part of his brain. With coffee or soda, any word with those sound combinations will trigger it automatically.”
Okay, the cogs were turning now. If Junk gets in a Tourette’s attack and starts yelling shit a bunch, people will start taking naps. My curiosity has to ask a few things, some of which being, “What’s your name?”
Her smile returns as she answers, “I’m Rook. You’ve met Junction. And you’re Carter, right?”
“Yeah,” I’m really wondering how they got their names now.
Junk is busy licking the porcelain off the inside of the cup, but he raises his hand up as another hello.
Rook starts to take notice of the time by swinging out an old fashioned conductors watch from her pocket. The action made me wonder what time it was also. Junk said the patrons and bullies would be out for around 10 minutes and I had a feeling the time was drawing near.
“We should set these guys up at a table or something before they are fully awake,” Rook states while simultaneously looking around for an empty table.
Now, the next thing I did was not really out of necessity, although I could later justify it as one. I teleported or flashed, as we call it, out from behind the counter to where the pile of bullies was heaped. I laid one hand on the top person of the dog pile and flashed him over to a table close by. I proceeded to do so with the remaining three mongoloids and each one landed with a forceful impact as their rears hit the chairs and their faces hit the table. Not my most graceful flash, but I haven’t had a lot of opportunity or freedom to do so in the past months.
“Wow, that was like the coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time,” Rook admits as she looks at me like a celebrity. Which, sadly I was going for in some way. Impressing her was not really something I needed to or should have done, but I guess it was my way of breaking the ice.
Then it donned on me, Ally was still in a heap somewhere in the back room. “Crap sandwiches!” I exclaim as my own personal Eureeka! while making my way to her. As I open the swinging doors and witness the destruction of cups sprinkled around in little bits of porcelain confetti outlining Ally’s sleeping body.
Now, putting those ruffians at a table was one thing to shrug off, the expensive devastation and co-worker was totally something different. Before I could say anything, Rook was standing behind me looking over my shoulder. I wasn’t sure what her perfume was, but it was tempting me to inhale it deeply and I fought against the desire to do so by remembering the wonderful woman of mine working at my dream job this very moment.
“You have a spot back here that you can prop her on?”
I looked over at the pile of large economy coffee sacks we have stacked in the corner. I place a hand on her and flash her to the corner, much more gently than the previous persons. The only thing now concerning me was the cups.
“Ally is going to get blamed for this, even if we clean it up,” I said aloud more as a white flag of defeat.
A small smirk from Rook and she pushed up the sleeves on her designer shirt as if she were ready to get some serious work done. She picked up an unbroken cup that made it through the crash unscathed and rotated it around like she was looking for a price tag. She placed the cup in her left hand while seeming to aim her middle finger and thumb together at the debris below.
Snap!
In the blink of my eye, all of the broken pieces reassembled and formed back into perfect little mugs. My mouth stayed open enough to fit a small bite of food in while I admired the creationism.
“Neat huh?” Rook asked.
Took the words right out of my mouth.
See?! No April Fool’s. Check back next Tuesday for more Carter and the gang!
Please Share and Comment
Jonas Lee 