Post 4

After cleaning up the lawnmower and putting it in the garage, Peter went into the bathroom upstairs to wash up. As he was getting his hands wet, he glanced briefly in the mirror and thought he saw a mustache on his face. Impossible! While he does shave now, he doesn’t have a mustache. His hand went reflexively to his face as he did a double-take. Instead of finding hair on his upper lip, his hand pulled back red with blood that was dripping out of his nose and clinging to his face.

He finished washing his face, then his hands, and dried them on the light green towel when he felt a trickle of blood trying to roll down his face again. He grabbed some toilet paper from the roll and plugged his nose with it, hoping that it would stop the bleeding. He couldn’t help but think that the nosebleed was related in some way to the incident earlier, but at the same time, he felt like he had a lot of energy left.

With a couple hours to go until dinner, Peter grabbed his baseball and glove and went back outside into the yard to throw some pitches at his pitch-back. He set the metal frame at the familiar angle and made sure the net was connected to all its springs along the edge. He made sure the tape marking the strike zone was not falling off, and walked to the mark he made in the ground, 60 feet 6 inches away. The grass around that spot was worn through by him standing in the same place and going through the same motions over and over.

After stretching his arm a little, and rotating it in a quick circle, he set up for his first pitch. He focused on the mesh across the yard from him and got into his pitching stance. Lifting his leg, he began the motion of throwing a pitch. With his arm all the way back, he was ready to throw, focusing on delivering the ball right into the strike zone.

The energy of his pitch surprised even him, as the ball flew across the yard somewhat off target. The pitch hit the upper-left corner of the pitch-back frame with a clang, and the pitch-back was knocked into the air. The ball ricocheted, sailing through the air towards the house as the pitch-back fell over backwards. Peter saw the trajectory of the ball. It didn’t take calculus to realize that the ball was headed straight for the window over the kitchen sink. He winced and prayed as the ball arced through space, and covered his face with his arm as the ball made contact with the window with a thud.

Peter peeked around his arms to survey the damage, but there was none. The window held, and the ball rolled harmlessly away. Looking at the window, he saw his mother, who was undoubtedly in the kitchen working on dinner. She stared back at him with a stern expression and pointed a finger at him accusingly as he trotted over to pick up the errant ball.

How hard had he thrown it? He didn’t get the sense that he threw it that hard, but to bounce the way it did and knock over the pitch-back, it had to be a hell of a throw. Maybe even a Major League throw!

He set the pitch-back up again, and stood back on the bald patch in the yard, ready for another throw. This time, he took an extra breath while he set his mind to throwing the ball at the target. Releasing the held breath slowly, he never took his eyes off his target. He cocked his leg and hurled the ball.

This time, it was a near-perfect strike, right in the center of the rectangular strike zone. The ball rebounded with as much speed as Peter had thrown it, hurtling straight for Peter’s chest as though it had been hit by a batter. Even after the pitch-back had taken some velocity off the ball, it was traveling fast enough to cause Peter to have to react to catch the ball before it slammed into him. His glove hand reacted and was in place to catch the ball just in time. He heard and felt the impact of the ball against the comfortable, worn leather. His hand stung for a moment, but he held onto the ball. “Whoa,” he thought. “That was fast.”

At first he wanted to tell his father what happened, but then thought better of it. He didn’t want his father to think he was abnormal, having gained some strange ability overnight.

Dinner was normal. Mom made chicken parmesan, and Sarah pitched in by making stuffing and green beans. Peter ate quickly, barely taking part in the dinner conversation. He left as quickly as he could to go up to his room and turn on the computer. He brought up a browser and clicked on a search engine. In the box, he typed:

gray animal spirit

He didn’t see anything that really applied to his situation. Next, he tried:

floating spirit cloud

There was one reference but the web site it linked to was nothing more than a poem someone had written. He went on to try many different combinations of words that would describe what he had experienced, but each search brought him no usable results. That could mean only a couple different things. Either his new gift was unique in the world, or the others in world who had the gift were keeping it to themselves. Peter decided to agree with the latter and just keep it to himself for now. He saved is search, though, and requested to get an email if any new hits turned up.

It had gotten late while he was searching the web, so he brushed his teeth, put on pajamas and went to bed. While lying in bed, he stared up at the ceiling, replaying the events of the day over and over in his head. He worried that Laura would not talk to him, or that she would say mean things about him to their classmates, or that it would get all over the school that he had killed a squirrel in her yard. He didn’t look forward to going to school the next day.

In the morning, Peter noticed that the extra energy that he had the previous day had left him. He felt utterly normal, but at least he felt healthy. He got dressed, threw his books into his backpack and went downstairs. He drank some orange juice and grabbed some toast on the way out the door.

At school, he didn’t see Laura until after lunch. She was standing at her locker as he was walking from the cafeteria to go to his chemistry class. She closed her locker and turned towards Peter to head to her own class. Their eyes met, and her eyes widened. She waved to him, lingered a moment and looked away to walk towards her class. He was disappointed, but if he didn’t get moving, he was going to be late to class.

After school, Peter and Laura found each other just outside the door to the main parking lot. “Hi, Peter. Do you want a ride home?” she asked.

“Sure!” he answered, knowing this would give them a chance to talk about what happened yesterday.

They walked across the parking lot to Laura’s car without saying much, then got in. She started the engine, then said, “My dad told me what happened. I honestly don’t believe I didn’t connect the blood on Knickers’s face with the squirrel. I’m sorry you had to go through that. He has been after those squirrels ever since we got him. That’s why he was tied up.” She was speaking fast, as she was definitely nervous.

Peter said, “That’s okay. I’m glad your dog is okay. I had no idea what happened at first when I ran over his leash.”

Laura drove him to his house and dropped him off. Along the way, they talked about school, what teachers they had, what classes they had, and that they have never had a class together. Peter was mostly in advanced placement classes, while Laura took the usual academic path. She played tennis for gym while he played baseball. She agreed to call him later.