Chapter Two

My eighth birthday came and went that summer without any word from any distant relatives. I played thought transfer games with Mom in the car a lot.  It was good practice and I was gaining control and range.  My brothers thought I was just getting weirder and weirder when I would suddenly just laugh out loud for no apparent reason.  Controlling my reactions was another challenge that would need practice. 

Sometimes I would put thoughts into my brothers' heads just to make Mom laugh.  Once I had Darius tell Mom that he was in the mood for tuna casserole for dinner, a meal he would not eat even if his life was at stake.  Mom knew what I was doing but played along.  She asked him if he would like crab cakes for dessert, my absolute favorite, and it would snap him out of it.  The poor boys were the victims of so many of my childish pranks that summer and they never had a clue. 

My brothers are Darius and Derrick, ten year old identical twins.  They have light brown hair like Dad and they wear it long and wavy. All the little girls think they are so cute with their dark green eyes. They are ok as far as brother go, but thankfully they are so into each other they rarely have time to bother me.  They are really into designing  and constructing toy buildings, and constantly have some type of building set scattered all over the house.  I have been caught sneaking into their room numerous times after screaming out in pain, stepping on those horrible torturous toys.  Maybe they do it on purpose. 

I know they get a little frustrated with me because I understand their homework before they do.  Long division didn't seem so hard.  Every day I would hear them whining about their impossible homework, so as soon as they weren't around I peaked at their math books. When I tried to show them how to make the problems easier, they lost it!

"You're just a baby, you don't know what you're talking about!"  They screamed at me. Insult after insult they raged.  I pretended to be hurt just to make them stop, but inside I was smiling. 

Later, when I showed Mom their math problems she told me I had gotten them all correct.  She also told me not to let on how easy school was for me, but I could tell she was intrigued.  She showed me some cool problems with letters in them.  Those were fun too. Somehow all those numbers and letters just made sense to me.  They were like a puzzle, and I loved puzzles.  I discovered I wanted more of a challenge.  All they did in my class was practice adding and subtracting. 

Mom got a funny look on her face when I told her that I like to draw during math.  While the other kids werre counting on their fingers I would pretend to be working in my workbook. Truthfully, I was sketching.  I had some cool drawings in that workbook, hidden way in the back.   I like to draw weather events, uncontrolled power unleashed on unsuspecting souls. I liked hurricanes and tornadoes the best. I loved the power a storm generated.  The inevitable destruction it would cause was fun to try to put on paper.  Sometimes I would see a storm raging in my mind and I could barely draw fast enough to get all the details on the page.  Thankfully, I got my math problems right so my teacher never looked at the other pages.  Mom, however, asked to see my workbook, and when I showed her, her eyes got really big!

"You did these?" She sounded so shocked.

"Yes, we never get cool weather like that here, so I have to draw it to see it." I explained.

"These are really detailed," she stated. "How did you know how to draw them?"

"I'm not sure, they are just in my head.  Even though I know I haven't been anywhere like this, it just seem like I have.  Like drawing a memory." As I explained this, Mom started to look a little uneasy. 

"I think we need to think about homeschooling you.  You are too advanced for your age and someone is bound to start asking questions."  She looked scared, actually, she looked terrified.

"Is it bad to be smart Mom?"I stammered. I wasn't understanding this at all. Should I pretend to be slow so as to not draw attention.  Would my whole life be a constant hiding of who I am?

No, honey, it's not bad to be smart. If there were more of our kind it would be normal.  Here, with all the humans, you stand out.  I don't want anyone looking too closely at you, you dont' have the maturity to hide you feline ways sometimes."

As she spoke I happened to be extracting my claws. It felt so good to do that, like a good stretch, or a back crack. She looked at me and my claws with a smirk.  I looked at her sheepishly, "ya, I get that. Sorry."

"You shouldn't have to apologize for just being yourself. But people fear what they do not understand.  Werecats are just legends, creatures for comic books and movies.  Humans have no idea how real we are, or werewolves, vampires, or dragons." She said. 

"So basically, I'm a scary movie to them?" I ask.

"Exactly!" I thought she would have disagreed. She went on, "and when humans are afraid they do some pretty dumb stuff."

"What kind of dumb stuff?" I asked, I perked up a little at this news. How bad could it be?

"There are plenty of times in history when a group of people became afraid of another group.  Either they are led by a crazy leader, or the just develop a mob mentality but it usually ends with one group trying to get rid of the other group." I could tell she was leaving a lot out.

"Like a war?" I asked, trying to get more information.

"Sometimes wars have been fought because the humans in power wanted to get rid of whatever group they thought threatened their way of life." Mom wasn't making any sense.

"Have they ever caught a werecat?" Trying to make this relevant to my situation.

"No, dear, and we want to keep it that way. There are so few of us left anyway." With that Mom got up and turned off the light, ending this conversation.  I was going to have to pay more attention in history to find out what she was taking about.  

"Please find our relatives Mom'" I said to her retreating back, "I don't want to be the only one!" I was crying now, this was hard to hear.