My Chameleon Day

A chameleon’s tongue launches at ridiculous speeds, capturing bugs before they even know they’ve been targeted. Chameleons can also blend in with their environment to such an extent that people use their name to imply someone disappears. Their mucus literally acts like glue to capture their prey.

Even so, many extraordinary varieties are on the verge of extinction.

Is it any wonder that I’m struggling in seventh grade? I mean, I’m a teenager with spina bifida who can barely walk with braces. That’s why, for my entire life, I’ve been praying for the very same thing.

Praying.

Wishing.

Dreaming.

My body sucks, obvi, so I deserve to be the one who first achieves the next stage in human evolution: telekinetic power. I’m not sure if the first chameleon just wanted really, really badly to change colors, or if it was an act of God, but something had to give at some point.

“Persephone, are you doing it again?” My mom’s smirk as she peers around the doorway is the same as always.

I roll my eyes.

“You are.” She’s smiling now. It’s a little less annoying. “You know, it would actually be good for you if you took a break from the rowing, stood up, and leaned over to press the button.”

I’m good at exactly one thing.

Reading.

It also happens to be the one thing I love. My parents know that, and they use reading to lure me into doing my torturous daily physical therapy. They’ve always given me a generous book budget, and I use every last dime of it each month, disappearing into worlds that are notthis one. But with as fast as I whip through the pages, it’s annoying having to stand up from my modified rowing machine to click the page turn button.

Sometimes, maybe more often than I should, instead of doing it, I stare very, very hard at the right side of my Kobo Clara. It would take just the slightest pressure from my mind for it to change pages.

I did it once.

I’m sure of it.

One time, as I stared, without anything touching it, the page turned. I know it was because of my mind, but I haven’t ever replicated it, and my mom insists I made it up.

“There isn’t a button, Mom.” I huff and tremble as I haul my stupid, broken body forward, and tap on the screen. “I just tap the screen.”

Mom’s still smiling. “Well, this may be disappointing, and maybe you’ll refuse it, who knows. But, your dad and I thought you might like. . .” She steps forward and whips a tiny black stick out from behind her back.

I frown. “What’s that?”

She steps closer still, and then she presses the button. “Voila!”

The page on my book changes again.

My jaw drops. “You got. . .what is that?”

Mom’s smile widens. “A remote.” She brandishes it at me, like it’s a tiny sword. “So now, you can spare your gorgeous brain all that straining and simply turn the pages over with the click of your finger.” She holds it toward me.

“So in your mind, I’d be holding this the entire time I’m rowing?” I sound annoyed. I mean to. Because just thanking her feels. . .pathetic.

Maybe it’s my ‘teenager’ kicking in. Mom says that happens a lot, but a normal girl wouldn’t be thanking her mother for a remote for her ebook reader, because a normal girl could just stand up and tap the screen.

“You know.” Mom folds her arms, the magical remote disappearing. “If you don’t like it, I can still get a refund.”

I nearly fall forward on my face, I lurch toward her so fast. “No, I mean, thanks. I guess, since you already bought it.”

Mom’s smiling when she hands it to me, so I know she sees right through my teenage grump. “The tiny button reverses the page I turned.” She winks, and then she ducks out.

For the first time since I started doing this cursed rower, trying to strengthen my arms so I’m not so tired when I walk with my horrible braces through the halls at school all day, I read two whole chapters. It’s not a long tongue or color-changing skin, but it’s at least as cool as sticky spit.

The next day, when I pack stuff up for school, I slide it into my pocket. I doubt I’ll need it, but you never know.

Especially with school. It’s unpredictable at a baseline.

There’s this scene in the start of Rango where the chameleon’s knocked out of the car and suddenly his whole world just implodes. His skin sheds off, and he’s all alone in the desert. That’s how it felt when I went from being homeschooled my whole life to starting junior high.

It’s my second year, and I still hate it.

But Mom says we hate things that are good for us, and usually she’s right, so here I am, lurching my way through the halls, trying to avoid being hit or run over by rushing teens and pre-teens, and trying to avoid attention. Of course, it doesn’t always work.

I’m almost to math when the edge of the rubber stop on the bottom of my elbow crutch catches on something, or rather, someone. The girl trips, almost crashing into the lockers. “Hey.” She spins around, glaring. “Watch it, freak.”

I never have good luck with this kind of thing.

Kids in junior high fall into three categories. There are the ones who don’t look at me, pretending that if they don’t see me, I don’t exist. I call them the Glossers, because they gloss over me whenever they can. Then there are the Starers. That one’s pretty self-explanatory. Sometimes they have lots of questions, but usually they’re sympathetic once they’ve gotten their looking out of the way. That’s probably my favorite type of teenager.

But this girl, Bliss is her name, believe it or not, is one of the third types. A Glarer.

“Sorry,” I say. “I—” I swallow. “I’ll be more careful.”

She tosses her head once, glances around to make sure no one’s watching her, and huffs. “Yeah, do that. Cuz if you make me fall and I hurt myself and have to look like you?” She spits. “I’d rather die.”

She spit on the floor in the middle of a building.

On the tiled floor.

Forget dying, my mom would kill me herself.

Luckily, as I whump and thump my way into class behind her, she doesn’t turn around again or say anything else. I breathe a heavy sigh of relief as I settle into my chair. My friend Lucy’s here, and her eyes are wide enough I assume she saw the whole thing. My first year, I might have been sad she didn’t stand up for me. But now I get it.

Junior high’s a jungle.

You’re just trying to keep from being eaten. You don’t have time to fight other people’s battles.

“You okay?” Lucy’s face is white as she whispers.

I nod. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

But when we turn toward the front of the class, something odd happens. Something delightful. Instead of our normal math teacher, who’s fine, but you know, he teaches math, there’s a round-faced woman with white hair.

We have a sub.

When I turn toward Lucy, she’s already grinning.

“Hello, class,” the woman says, standing. “My name is Mrs. Michaels, and I’m not much for math, I’m sorry to say.”

We all cheer.

“So I thought today, you could maybe work on homework?” She holds up a stack of paper. “Your teacher left this worksheet he wanted you to do for homework, but if you did it in class, you’d be all done long before you ever got home.”

I love Mrs. Michaels already.

Ten minutes later, Lucy and I are done with our worksheet, and I pull out my Kobo Clara. I’m almost done with a book about a stallion-shifter, and I really want to read the end.

“You’re such a nerd,” Lucy says. But her eyes are bright. I can tell she means it in a nice way.

“You can copy my answers,” I say.

“Wait, really?” Now she really looks happy.

“No,” I say. “Come on. I told you the day we met. I can barely walk, I love to read, and I never cheat.”

She sighs. “I know, I know.”

I’m at ninety-three percent when Lucy hisses at me.

“Hey, nerd.” This time, the person saying it isn’t Lucy, and she isn’t happy, either. It probably wasn’t her first time trying to get my attention. “Hey, psst.” It’s Bliss, the girl I almost knocked over earlier.

I consider ignoring her. She knows my name. She could use it. But when I see how hard she’s glaring, I decide not to antagonize her. “What?”

“You tripped me. You owe me.”

Oh, boy. Here we go.

“Lemme see your worksheet.” She tosses her head at Mrs. Michaels, who appears to be snoring on the desk. “Hurry.”

I clench my hand and unclench it. I should just tell her no. I should tell her to stuff it, but she’s mean. She’s been mean for a year and a half. I doubt she’ll stop being mean, but part of me hopes, just a little bit. If I break my own rule, maybe she’ll forgive me for bumping her. Maybe she’d ignore me.

“Seph,” she finally says. “C’mon.”

Seph is what the dumb kids call me. They can’t remember Persephone, so they just say Seph. Which is fine. When they struggled with it, I told them to call me that. Even so, every time I hear it, I think, wow. They can’t actually remember a classic name.

“Sorry,” I say. “I don’t ever cheat.”

Bliss rolls her eyes, hard. “Cheat? It’s not even for a grade.”

“It’s a completion grade,” I say. “And what are you going to do on the test next week if you copy off my paper now?”

“You know what’s sad?” Bliss arches a carefully shaped eyebrow. “You know what’s truly pathetic?”

I glance toward Mrs. Michaels, hoping maybe the talking woke her up. No luck. “What?” I frown in anticipation of whatever mean thing she’s about to say.

“There are some people in life who have everything, and there are other people who just can’t get anything right. It must really suck to be you, huh? Is that why you’re so mean, tripping me and refusing to even help me out with a few homework problems?”

I’m not a mean person. I’m really not. So I’m not sure what gets into me, or where the words come from, but they just fly out. “At least I’m not fat.”

If a dozen bored kids hadn’t been watching us, and if I hadn’t tripped her earlier, I don’t know. Maybe this wouldn’t have gotten so ugly. But now it’s too late.

Bliss’s face flushes bright red.

The kids around us murmur and point.

And Bliss finally stands up. “I’m on a diet,” she says, her eyes narrowing. “I started it last week, so pretty soon, I’ll be thin. But you?” She scowls. “You’ll be a freak your entire life.”

She’s right about that. No matter what I do, my life will always suck. I hate seeing that every single person I know agrees with her, though. It feels. . .depressing. And it makes me very, very angry.

“A freak who has telekinetic powers.” I must be possessed today. What on earth am I doing?

“Yeah, right,” Bliss says. “A compulsive liar, you mean?”

I look at my Kobo Clara, lying open still on my desk. “Not a liar,” I say. “My power is small now, but it’s growing.”

Bliss snorts and rolls her eyes.

I slide my hand into my pocket. “Look.” I toss my head at my e-reader. “You probably don’t read much, but if you did, you would know that’s a Kobo Clara. It’s an e-reader, and there’s a book on it I was reading, a really good book. To turn the page, you have to touch the screen.”

Bliss’s brow furrows. “What?”

“Touch it.” I toss my head again, this time at Lucy. “Touch it and show them.”

She looks nervous, almost scared, but she does it. The page changes, the letters reappearing in different configurations.

“So?” Bliss looks around, and she sees that everyone who was watching is still watching. The whole darn class, really.

“So.” I swallow. “Normally, you have to touch it, but I’ve been honing my powers for a while, and now I can make the page turn with my mind.”

Everyone starts laughing, Bliss loudest of all.

“I can prove it,” I say softly.

My mom taught my little brother and I that to speak softly is more powerful than yelling. The other people in the room have to be quiet, or they can’t hear you. It works.

Everyone shuts up.

“Then do it, freak show.” Bliss purses her lips, because she knows I’m lying.

Only, I have a trump card in my pocket. I lean forward, narrowing my eyes slowly, and I scrunch up my face, and I grunt. All of that is just for show, of course, to keep them looking at my face.

Then I press the button on my new remote.

Praise Kobo, it works.

Everyone freaks out.

“No way,” Lucy says. “That’s badass. Holy sh—how did you do that??”

Bliss’s face drains of all color. “You—you really did it.”

“Do it again!”

I’m not sure who said that, but I do it three more times. Then I decide that I might blow my cover—it’s really only a matter of time before someone realizes what’s going on if I keep pressing my luck—and I say, “I’m too tired to do it again.” I press my hand against my forehead and collapse against the back of my seat.

But for the rest of the day, instead of the freak show, I’m the freak who can do things with her mind. It’s a nice feeling. Even if it’s not real. I’m sort of dreading telling my mom what I did, but she’s probably the only person who can navigate a path out of this mess I’ve made. She’s running late today—she texted to warn me—so I have plenty of time to think about how to tell her as I painfully make my way toward the front of the school.

I’ve just made it through the door when I see Bliss.

I freeze, not wanting another run-in with her today. The door closes, shoving me half a step forward.

“—stupid, fat cow.”

The door is open, and Bliss looks like she’s about to get in, but I can’t see the driver. I can see the set of Bliss’s jaw, and I know just how that glare looks from having it aimed at me. “You promised not to call me a cow.”

“Oh, shut up. You’re the most tiring person I know. I’ve been working all day, which you know nothing about so just get in for once.”

Wait, is that her mom calling her a cow?

Bliss shoves her backpack through the door and onto the seat, and then she turns to get inside.

I leap back, hugging the side of the door so she won’t see me, but even so, I see the telltale glisten of tear tracks on her cheeks.

“God, have you lost even a single pound? I swear, you look just as big as you did last month. Are you even dieting?” Her mom’s voice, as Bliss closes the door, is so loud I can even hear it over the loudly idling old car. I can’t help watching with a grimace as the run-down tan car drives off.

My mom doesn’t get to the school for another few moments, but that gives me time to think. Bliss has been, well, the opposite of her name in my life. She’s been misery, really.

But I never thought about why.

And today, when she was rude to me, I called her fat. In front of everyone. I may not have gained the power of telekinetics, like I wanted, but I gained another power, one I never wanted but desperately needed.

The power of insight.

Maybe Bliss and I aren’t as different as I thought—we’re both hurting from things we can’t control. I add one more rule to my list. I can barely walk. I love to read. I never cheat. And. . . I never hurt other people just because I’m hurting myself.

It may not help me disappear or capture my prey, but it feels like a super power anyway.