Marilyn Kaye - Gifted - Now You See Me

But if Amanda wasn’t the spy, then who was? There was still one person she considered to be capable of treachery — Charles. Now was as good a time as ever to check out his private life. So, just before the Gifted class, she ducked into the bathroom.

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and conjured up an image of her former self, friendless and lonely. She dredged up sad memories of isolation, alienation, feeling worthless and unimportant. She concentrated intensely on the emotions she’d known back then and the sensation of not being seen. She visualized herself fading away, and then she started to feel it. The sensation of being weightless, lighter than air. .

She opened her eyes and looked at the mirror over the sink. There was no reflection. She was getting better and better at this! Pleased with herself, she left the bathroom, went upstairs, and positioned herself outside Room 209, where she could hear what was going on.

There wasn’t much to hear, though. Apparently, Madame had set them to work on some sort of writing assignment, and her classmates were industriously scribbling away in silence. So she amused herself by roaming around the building, dancing in front of oblivious hall monitors and peeking through classroom windows. She considered going to the office and checking out Mr Jackson’s activities — but there was always the chance she might inadvertently reappear. She couldn’t risk it.

She came back to Room 209 just before the bell rang. When the door opened, Charles was the first to emerge. That wasn’t unusual — he could make that wheelchair go very fast, and the others stepped aside to let him pass. Tracey was never sure if that was because they were trying to be kind or if they were afraid he’d run them over. She suspected that Charles would prefer the latter reason.

Ken was right behind him. She thought she might tell him what she was up to. It was comforting to know he could hear her when she was invisible, when no one else could. But Ken brushed by her so quickly, she didn’t have a chance, and Charles was moving in the opposite direction.

People jumped out of the way as his motorized chair tore down the hall to the lift. As far as Tracey knew, he was the only student permitted to use it. She hopped in with him, and rode down to the main floor.

She’d never paid attention to how Charles got home. Today, for the first time, she noticed the white van parked just in front of the exit. A man stood by the vehicle, and when Charles appeared, he opened the back door. A ramp slid out, and the man pushed Charles’s chair up into the van. Tracey stayed close behind, and got inside just before the man closed the door.

It wasn’t until the van pulled away that she got a look at Charles’s face. It was red, and she wondered why. Was it from the exertion he’d expended, hurrying out of school? Or maybe he was embarrassed by the van and the assistance he’d needed to get into it.

Funny how she’d never thought about how Charles might feel, being unable to walk. She didn’t even know how the situation came to be — if he’d been in an accident or something like that. It dawned on her that she’d never had any sort of private conversation with Charles. She didn’t think anyone in the Gifted class knew much about him. She doubted that anyone had ever been invited to his home.

It was a very nice house, all on one level but large, with a fine, freshly mowed lawn. At the end of the drive she saw a couple of bicycles leaning against the garage wall, and a basketball net hanging over the door. She remembered Madame saying something to Charles about having brothers. Hadn’t Charles said that they were ashamed of him?

The man pushed Charles out of the van and started wheeling him up the drive. ‘Beat it!’ Charles growled. ‘I can do it.’ The man released him and Charles took control of his chair. But instead of continuing up the drive he turned the chair so it rolled over the grass, making ugly tracks on the lawn.

‘Charles!’ Tracey exclaimed, forgetting for a moment that he couldn’t hear her. Not that it would have made Charles move back on to the drive. He had a tight smile on his face that made her think he was messing up the lawn on purpose.

The woman who opened the front door obviously thought so too.

‘Charles!’ she cried out. ‘Stop that! Look what you’re doing to the grass!’

Charles rolled himself up the ramp and right past her without a word of greeting or apology. Then he turned to the right, accelerated, and sped into what looked to Tracey like a very formal living room with a white carpet — over which there were now streaks of brown and green from the wheels of Charles’s chair.

‘Oh, Charles!’ There was a note of resignation in the woman’s voice, which led Tracey to believe this wasn’t the first time Charles had pulled a stunt like this.

Charles stopped in the middle of the room and looked at a fancy vase filled with flowers on a pedestal. The vase rose up, moved towards Charles, then fell and broke, sending flowers and shards of glass all over the floor.

‘Charles, why are you doing this?’ the woman wanted to know.

Charles ignored her. He crossed the room, raced down a long hallway and turned into a room. The door slammed shut before Tracey could reach it.

Astonished, she looked back at the woman to catch her reaction to this little performance. At first, she’d presumed this was Charles’s mother, but now she realized she must be someone who worked here. Probably the person who would have to clean up the mess. She wondered what would happen when the woman reported Charles’s behaviour to his parents.

She couldn’t get into Charles’s room now because he’d closed the door. The front door was still open though, so she went out to check if she could look into Charles’s window and see what he was doing.

But something else distracted her. A couple of boys were now on the carport, shooting baskets. As she moved closer, she saw the family resemblance. Both boys had Charles’s red curls and freckles. They were close in age, maybe fifteen and sixteen.

She wondered if they were both on the basketball team at the high school. Tracey didn’t know much about basketball, but they looked like they played pretty well — most of their attempts sent the ball through the basket.

But then one of the boys threw the ball towards the basket and it veered off in another direction. The other boy grabbed the ball, tossed it, and it went straight up in the air, so high that it disappeared. Then it came down so fast both boys scampered away to avoid getting hit on the head by it.

They both looked annoyed, but not surprised. ‘Charles!’ one of them bellowed.

That was when Tracey noticed an open window, and Charles looking out of it.

‘Charles, knock it off,’ the taller boy called out.

‘Make me!’ Charles responded. To Tracey, he sounded like a five-year-old.

The other boy moved towards the window and spoke calmly. ‘Why don’t you come out and play with us?’

‘Yeah, I’ll run around and chase the ball like you,’ Charles said sarcastically.

‘You can play in your chair,’ his brother said. ‘You know there are whole teams who play basketball in wheelchairs. I’ve seen them on the Sports Channel.’

‘If I can’t play like a normal person, I don’t want to play,’ Charles replied.

The boy sighed. ‘OK, don’t play. But you don’t have to mess up our game, OK?’

Charles uttered a word that would have sent him straight to Mr Jackson if he’d said it at school. The ball flew up from the ground and settled on the roof of the house.

‘Thanks a lot, Charles,’ one of the boys muttered. Charles’s window slammed shut.

Maybe he’d be coming out of his room now, Tracey thought. As she started back towards the door, a car pulled into the drive. The boys got out of the way and the car went into the garage. A few seconds later, a nice-looking woman with a shopping bag in her hand emerged.