Kid Normal by Greg James

Author:Greg James
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781681199535
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2018-08-22T16:00:00+00:00

The air was so thick with crumbs that it was like a scene from the horror film that cakes would make if they had video cameras and thumbs.

“Expectations managed?” asked Mr. Flash, licking a stray crumb from the eastern branch of his mustache. “Even if you pass the P-CAT and you’re in my classes from next year, your chance of becoming an operational Hero—of joining the Alliance—is still practically zero.”

Mr. Flash was not what you’d call an inspirational teacher.

“Where was I?” he went on in more measured tones. “Ah yes, Natalie’s been developing her Cape—which is technically known as magnetic manipulation.” He picked up the bucket of nails, irritably swatting away a wasp that was buzzing around his head.

Natalie, a neatly dressed girl with dark hair cut in a bob, marched confidently to the front of the class and took up her position in the middle of the scattering of muffin crumbs.

“Right, see how many you can get,” shouted Mr. Flash, flinging the bucket forward and upward so that the nails flew into the air. Natalie screwed up her face in concentration. Murph watched in amazement as the nails stopped in their trajectory, as if a huge magnet was pulling them toward Natalie. Some of the nails closest to her flew to the palms of her outstretched hands and stuck there sideways. Others fell to the ground.

“Now concentrate,” said Mr. Flash. “See if you can get a few more.”

Natalie’s forehead was beaded with sweat. Her eyes bulged as she strained as hard as she could. Murph could see a nail on the ground not far from him begin to quiver.

Suddenly Natalie screamed. The wasp that had been annoying Mr. Flash had flown to her hand and stuck to it, buzzing angrily.

A wasp in the hand, as you may know, is worth really freaking out over—and Natalie was really freaking out. She shook her hand frantically, trying to dislodge the wasp and sending nails flying in all directions, like the world’s most twisted piñata. Mr. Flash’s form blurred as he rushed to her side, grabbed the wasp, and crushed it under the sole of his heavy black boot.

As the class clustered around, Murph turned back to his broom, wondering two things: What was a wasp doing flying about in February? And, more importantly, why had it been attracted to Natalie’s hand?

Was it possible, he thought, to have a wasp . . . made of metal?

On the other side of town, Nicholas Knox bent excitedly toward his central computer screen. He reached out a long finger, swiping backward and forward through the footage from his camera drone.

He watched the large man darting back and forth with superhuman speed as he chopped and kicked at what appeared to be a bakery product of some kind. He watched the girl with dark hair who could apparently attract metal to her hands like a magnet. He looked at the other children in the class.

They didn’t seem at all surprised by any of it, thought Knox.

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