Chapter 6 --- Page 30

                                  Jack takes his massive meal upstairs to his room. He sets up a pillow chair on his bed and begins to read the student manual again. The large book’s pages flip through the air as he hunts for his place.

                   Finding where he left off Jack settles in and reads more about the rules of his new school. After a while he finds himself day dreaming of this crazy academy. What will his room look like? How will he get along with his roommates? What will classes be like?

              Getting lost in the day dream, Jack pictures himself throwing massive fireballs with marksman level precision. Doing back flips and fighting like a ninja. He continues to fantasize, until he hears the loud sound of the vacuum. His mother’s cleaning jolts him back to reality. Jack looks at the clock on his bed side stand to see the red digital letters glaring back at him.

   Two thirty-three. Getting lost in his head, Jack lost almost an hour of the day. Deciding that he has more than refueled his tank, Jack leaves the house and heads back to the park. Stepping outside the front door Jack is joined by his feathered friend.

         “I’m going to have to come up with a good name for you if you keep sticking around here. I’ll work on it and let you know what I come up with. Let me know if you have any suggestions.” Jack tells the hawk as he walks down the street.

       “Great, now I am talking to birds… I’ll be the incredible fiery bird whisperer. A bad tv show idea coming to cable this fall! Hehe.” Jack smirks at his own commentary. Arriving at the park he makes his way through the shrubbery and along the trail.

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Chapter 6 --- Page 29

                 “Huh, huh, huh. That took more energy than I thought. Guess that trick is a bit harder to do.” Jack thinks aloud. Huffing, he sits on the ground for a few minutes, catching his breath. “I need to figure out how to make doing this stuff less of a drain on me.”

            Jack tries to figure out exactly how much energy each feat takes. “I guess I could make a flame, and judge it from there.” A flame the size of one you would find on a candle appears above his hand. Jack slowly increases the size, feeling for the drain. He immediately feels the strength of the tug grow slightly.

                   Shrinking it back to the size of a candle flame, Jack attempts to move it about an inch off of his hand. The tug pulls at him. Jack gauges that it is roughly the same amount as making the flame as big as his hand.

                                 “Okay, so for every inch it’s one hand sized fireball’s worth of energy. Now I just have to figure out how much energy that is.” Jack decides to give himself a break. He starts to leave to back to his house.  Making sure he has everything Jack exits the clearing. Walking back home he notices that the hawk is following him closely behind.

                 Flying from branch to branch his little friend keeps a watch. Jack chuckles to himself.  “Come here you silly bird.” Jack holds out his arm allowing the hawk a place to perch. Gliding down the hawk places himself on his arm. “Strange little bird. I can’t figure out exactly what it is but you’re special. I’m glad you’re on my side.”

               Back at his house the bird flies off into a nearby tree. “Alright, you have fun now. See ya later!” Jack calls back to it. He flies through the kitchen, making himself a huge sandwich with spicy peppers and snagging a bag of potato chips.

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Chapter 6 ---- Page 28

                        I should probably turn that dampener on. I don’t want to burn the house down while I’m sleeping. Jack roots through the survival bag. “Shirt no, meds no, here it is.” Jack feels the cool touch of the obsidian object. Feeling for the switch he turns it on.

                      Jack immediately sways, his head swimming. A moment or two later he feels fine, but different at the same time. Jack feels like there is a small pressure in his chest, almost as if someone is sitting on it. “I guess I’m going to have to get used to this at night. All the more reason to learn how to control this myself.”

                           The next morning Jack wakes to find that he did in fact not burn his room to a crisp, much to his satisfaction. “I can’t believe that worked.” Jack goes through his normal morning routine. He heads out to the small area in the woods. Once there he sees the that his hawk friend is there as well.

       “Well good morning pal. Nice to see you again. Time to start the show up, get ready.” Jack concentrates on making a small flame appear and gets it on the first try. Happily surprised he makes it disappear and reappear several times. With each successful attempt he feels it becoming easier.

       Jack chuckles seeing himself get very excited. Feeling confident he decides to try to move it around again. Jack pulls a small flame out and focuses on it. He imagines that the flame starts to move slowly to the right. Nothing happens at first but, the flame starts to hover out of the center of his hand.

       The flame stops about a foot away from his hand. Jack suddenly feels as if he ran for an hour. His energy gone. Clearly this requires more energy than just summoning a flame. Steeling himself, Jack tries again. He calls the flame back to his hand. After successfully pulling it back he collapses.

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Chapter 6 --- Page 27

        The Jack concentrates on the flame, nudging it hoping to have it move around. A few minutes pass before Jack wills it out of existence. “I should be able to do this. I can make fire appear and reappear at will. I can control how much of it too. Why can’t I do this, what’s wrong?” Jack pulls another flame into existence. Playing with the size Jack makes it shrink and grow.

   “It’s pretty cool. Even if I can’t get all of the fine tuning down in one day, I can at least do some cool stuff. How many people can actually say fire obeys them, or that they are suddenly burn proof, or have super human attributes.” Jack gets a semi-cocky smile on his face. Even though his life is changing somethings will be very fun, very, very fun.

       Jack continues to make the fire change in size and makes it appear and disappear. The little game entertains him for a while when, suddenly an idea pops into his head. “What if I tried to make the fire appear somewhere besides above my hand…. Like just floating in the air a couple feet away.”

                   Reaching for the mental switch that Jack has for the fire he pictures it hovering in midair. A flame flashes into existence, but sputters out.  Jack tries again, only to receive the same results. “UGggggggggh, I guess not tonight. Oh, well tomorrow, then.” He then calls it a night deciding that even a limited control is better than nothing. Jack crawls into bed.

                            Just falling asleep, Jack is awakened by the smell of smoke. Jack jolts upright to find that his sheets are starting to smoke. Stamping them on the ground he keeps the blanket from burning altogether. Jack opens the window to o have the nice cool breeze take the smoke out of the air.

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Chapter 6 --- Page 26

Chapter 6

      

 “Wow, that’s a pretty big surprise. I can’t believe that you are going to be gone. This year is going to be really different without you. Why didn’t you tell us about you leaving earlier?” Jessica replies slowly. The calm look on her face barely hiding the sadness in her eyes.

                   “I just found out yesterday evening. I have been figuring it out since then. I will be gone soon though.” Jack tells his friends. “I am late, I gotta head home. I will miss you guys a lot and I hope you have great trips.” Jack gets up and brushes the dust from his pants. Everyone gets up and forms a makeshift line to give him a goodbye hug.

        Walking home Jack can’t help but feel a bit of remorse. Though the school will give him many opportunities, he will also lose his current set of friends. People that he has known for a very long time. Memories start to boil up in his mind. Playing on the field, goofing around in class, video game sessions, and more.

                 “I guess it’s time for a new adventure. I’ll miss this though. The amount of fun I have had here, it’s awesome. But, it’s time to take part in the new chapter of my life. Starting with heading back to that secret area. I need to get a hold of this before school starts.” Jack arrives at home and after a few minutes of family time he goes up to his room.

                             Jack sits down on his bed. “Ugggggh! Let’s try this again.” Jack holds his hand out, flame whooshes out. A small flame floats above his hand. Reaching out with his mind Jack tries to move the flame. At first nothing happens.

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Chapter 5 --- Page 25

                        “HUHH, HUph, Huph, good game guys” Tom pants out. “Anyone doing anything for the last week of summer? My family and I are going to Hawaii tomorrow. I won’t see you until the first day.” Plopping down on the ground along with everyone else, Tom explains his exciting plans.

       “I am going to go see my grandparents in Ohio. I don’t really want to go, they live on a farm and there is NO WIFI! I mean how can you live like that? But, yeah that’s what I’ll be up to.” Jessica complains.

                    And so all of Jack’s friends listed off the adventures that they would be having to finish the summer. It all seemed so simple compared to what he was going to do during the school year and with the last week of his summer. “I’m going to be trained to protect the world and they will be learning how to identify where commas go in a sentence. I can’t believe this. I’m going to be a hero and they will never know…” Jack realizes that his friends suddenly will be a very small and unimportant part of his life. The people he has grown up around, they  will no longer be trusted confidants ,but people he must hide his life from.

                        “Jack, earth to Jaaack!” Tom slugs him in the arm.

 “What was that for? Why’d you have to hit me, I was just thinking. I’m not doing anything for the rest of summer. And I guess that this is the last time that we will see each other this summer. I am going to go to a boarding school this year. I won a scholarship and well I’m going…. I will miss you, obviously but I really want to go.” Jack shrugs an expression of worry on his face.

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