The Ables Page 14

  Before he could sit down a great roar went up from the crowd in attendance. They stood and applauded—some hollering and cheering. It was a little overwhelming. I got goose bumps. Whatever their convictions had been upon entering, the people were won over by the articulate and intelligent young Mr. Crittendon. I was beaming, and I’m sure Bentley was as well. I heard a cry of support from Henry, signaling that maybe he’d come out of his funk a bit. The whole team was clapping and yelling right along with the parents and townspeople. Bentley had rejuvenated our spirits with his rousing speech, and a wave of hope crashed over me.

  If only the hearing had ended right there. If only President Tucker had been just as moved as the spectators. He might have granted the petition and ended the meeting on the spot. And Bentley would have ridden out of the town hall on the shoulders of adoring fans—mine included.

  But it didn’t end right there. And when it continued, the hearing took an abrupt turn for the worse. As it turned out, President Tucker wasn’t quite as moved by the dramatic reading of a twelve-year-old kid as you might have expected.

  When the audience finally quieted down, he took a few moments to let the silence get uncomfortable before responding. “Well, young Mr. Crittendon, that was a whale of a tale, now, wasn’t it? I commend you on your oratorical abilities, which are so clearly advanced beyond your years. You are quite the little spitfire, aren’t you?”

  There was a smattering of nervous laughter. Tucker’s slow and consistent manner of speaking made it difficult to know the difference between sincerity and sarcasm.

  “Unfortunately, my son, the school board answers only to the citizens of this fine city and to the governing board of super-powered individuals—known simply as ‘the board’ to you, no doubt, and the same board on which your father serves, I believe.”

  “Even if we wanted to,” he said in mock-innocence that even I could detect, “we would not be permitted to bring matters of US national law into consideration in these proceedings. We are only permitted to interpret the laws that govern super-powered individuals, and those laws supersede all else. As such, your claim of discrimination on the basis of disability will not be a consideration for this board.”

  A round of mild boos went up from the crowd, as those who had been won over by Bentley’s speech showed the school board their disappointment with this decision. But President Tucker cut them off straight away.

  “I am not going to spend all evening babysitting those of you in the gallery. If you cannot be trusted to remain quiet and polite throughout this hearing, I will have you all removed.”

  The pin-drop silence of the entire room was all the proof he needed to know they had gotten the message. This was President Tucker’s room, and he was very much in charge. I wondered what his powers were and if they commanded respect the way his mere presence did in this building.

  “Very well, then. Now, removing the illegality of the matter from the discussion, we are left to consider whether the prohibition of these young people from the simulation events on the grounds of safety constitutes a breach of our moral code as a society. We will be solely focused on the concept of fairness. Is it fair to prevent these children from participating? Is it fair to the other students to potentially heighten the danger of the event by allowing these young people to compete even without full control of their abilities? These are the questions we will concentrate on for the remainder of this hearing.”

  “Mr. President, if I might, I’d like to suggest that—”

  Tucker interrupted my father without giving him a chance to complete his sentence. “I do believe, Mr. Sallinger, that while adult sponsors are, in fact, required in order for a petition to be filed, there is nothing in our laws of procedure that permit you to argue the case on the behalf of your students. Don’t make the mistake of thinking my affection for your father can be used to undermine these proceedings.”

  It was dismissive and rude—no matter how sweet the tone of voice delivering the message—the verbal equivalent of a slap in the face. He was telling my father to shut up and stay out of it, and it was so obvious that I wondered why he bothered coating the words in sugar.

  I felt a touch of betrayal. The best argument we had going in our favor—that barring us from competition constituted a breach of our legal rights—had just been tossed out the window on a technicality. We’d barely gotten underway and the wind was already gone from our sails.

  I was also insulted by the president’s rather casual implication that our mere participation made the SuperSim more dangerous for the other kids. Like it was already a given fact that disabled people equaled danger.

  The deck seemed stacked against us.

  What followed was a series of questions from the board so bland and harmless that it seemed designed, at least in part, as a mere façade. It was as though they were pretending to go through the motions so it wouldn’t look like they’d already made up their minds—which they clearly had. Like a seasoned boxer, they began to pummel us repeatedly with banality.

  One of them would say something like, “What is your super power?” And then another would say, “And what is the nature of your disability?” And finally a third board member would ask, “How does your disability limit the use of your powers?” And that would be it … next student, please.

  On down the roster they went this way, starting with the row of team members behind us. One by one, the board members repeated the same boring questions—phrased the exact same way—in a coordinated attack designed to wear us down. It was like Chinese water torture … madness via repetition. There was no deviation in their line of questioning, no opening given to any of us to expound on our answers or explain our positions.

  By the time they got to Henry, even the crowd was growing restless. I was waiting for President Tucker to dole out another reprimand to them, but instead he said simply, “And what is your power, Mr. Gardner?”

  “I can read minds.” Most of the other kids—like Freddie and James—had nervously given short but courteous answers like this one. But most of the others had also stopped at that point, whereas Henry was not content to follow the rules, even if they were largely unwritten. “And it’s not remotely affected by my disability,” he added defiantly. It was his own personal little display of stubbornness to tack that last part onto the end there in a bit of civil protest. A show of defiance to what a sham this hearing had turned out to be. “I can do everything that any other mind-reader can do.”

  “Except walk,” Tucker said patronizingly, not missing a beat.

  “Who cares if I can walk or not,” Henry said sharply in retort, losing his cool a bit, if you ask me.

  “Well, I do, young man,” the old man said, his words dripping with sarcasm. “I’m concerned about an event of danger wherein you are unable to escape in time due to your mobility constraints. I am concerned only with the matter of your safety and the safety of those around you.”

  “I’m faster in this wheelchair than most humans using just their own legs,” my friend shot back quietly but plenty loud enough to have been heard. And it was true. Henry was one with his wheelchair and had pretty much mastered its use. I had no doubt he was as mobile as any kid his age, short of confronting a staircase.

  Tucker didn’t seem swayed in the least. “And what if the enemy lies at the end of a dirt road or on the beach? How will you reach him to read his thoughts, Mr. Gardner?”

  Looking back on it now, it’s easy to see why my father was so upset at President Tucker after the hearing—and he was livid. The man was openly mocking Henry’s disadvantage from behind the thinnest of veils and doing so from a position of authority. No amount of country charm could disguise the condescension behind his words.

  “I’ll get my friend James to teleport me there,” Henry nearly shouted. It was shocking to hear, despite his reputation for speaking his mind. This was a kid so desperate to hang onto a dream that he was willing to talk back to one of the most powerful people in Freepoint in fron
t of a huge audience.

  Finally, Tucker shut Henry down. “I think you’d better reevaluate your tone of voice, young man, or you can spend the rest of the hearing outside in the hallway.” It was the trump card the school board president held that had loomed over the entire hearing. He had all the power in this building, and we had none. He had only to flex his muscles to get the rest of us cowering.

  “I think you’d better reevaluate your attitude, you sour old crank!”

  I gasped but managed to cover my mouth immediately. As Henry’s words sunk in, I was struck with the oddest sensation. I suddenly knew that he hadn’t actually said what I had heard. Not out loud, anyway. It’s hard to describe to a sighted person, but my ears were just very well trained. And the voice I heard lobbing that insult back at President Tucker had not come from Henry’s mouth. There was something different about the way his voice sounded, almost like he was far away.

  I looked around to find no one else reacting in shock to Henry’s backtalk.

  In total, it only took about two seconds for me to realize that I had just heard Henry’s thoughts.

  And it only took a couple seconds more for me to realize what that meant—Henry’s powers did work both ways! Bentley was right!

  Henry must have been so agitated with Mr. Tucker and this sham of a hearing that he just stopped concentrating on his powers—he had said they tended to activate on their own during times of stress. That was the only explanation I could think of for why I’d just heard his thoughts. Maybe he’d been trying too hard the night before.

  And I suddenly had an idea. Without thinking things through, and before I could stop myself, I leaped to my feet and shouted, “Your Honor—Your Grace … Mr. President, sir, may the petitioners have a moment to confer?!” My mind was already three steps ahead, and I struggled to spit out the words without trouble.

  I felt Bentley lean in closer on my right. “Phillip, what are you doing?”

  “Sit down, Phillip,” Henry snarled softly out of the corner of his mouth—this time actually speaking.

  “I know what I’m doing,” I reassured them, despite the fact that it was most certainly not true. “President Tucker? Will you grant the petitioners a moment to discuss things in private?”

  I had no idea if this was allowed. I’d seen enough legal shows on television—or heard them, at least—to know that these kind of requests were common in a court of law, but this being my first school board meeting, I wasn’t sure the same ground rules applied. I just knew I needed to talk to my teammates right away because I’d thought of a way to prove to the board that we were just as capable as the non-disabled students.

  “I suppose so,” President Tucker said with a sigh. “I don’t see any harm with it. You have three minutes.”

  “Thank you, Your Honor, sir,” I said graciously, putting an arm around both Bentley and Henry.

  “He’s not a judge, Phillip,” Bentley reminded me as I pulled him in closer. “You don’t have to call him ‘Your Honor,’ you know.”

  “Shut up,” I said as politely as possible, knowing that time was of the essence.

  We huddled together in private, just the three of us, as I rapidly explained how Henry’s thoughts had found my brain just a moment earlier. I then laid out my idea for turning this hearing from a loss into a victory. They were skeptical—especially Henry, who did not yet trust his powers to come through in the clutch. But both agreed the hearing was a total loss to this point and that something dramatic was required in order to get the board’s attention enough to sway their opinion to our favor.

  I stood up out of the huddle, too nervous to be excited and too excited to be nervous. I felt my father’s hand on my shoulder. “You sure you know what you’re doing, big guy?” He spoke as my father, not our official petition sponsor.

  “Yeah, I think so,” I said. I’m sure he could tell I was faking confidence. “But it’s not like things were going all that well to begin with, you know?” It had to be obvious to anyone with half a brain that the entire hearing had been a farce. Even if my idea constituted a parliamentary Hail Mary, it was the best shot we had against an otherwise certain defeat.

  “Mr. President,” I began.

  “Are the young lads ready to continue again?” he asked, sounding like an impatient man who regretted having allowed us a brief conference.

  “We are, sir,” I replied dutifully. “And with the board’s permission, I believe we can demonstrate that our disabilities do not impede our ability to use our powers.”

  He took a few seconds to contemplate my suggestion and then replied, “I assume this demonstration involves the use of super powers, son?”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, “it does. But only briefly.”

  There was a great pause, and I could picture the various board members, hands over their microphones, whispering and muttering amongst themselves.

  Finally the man in charge announced, “Very well, then, Mr. Sallinger. But you’d better be on your best behavior here. This board does not look kindly upon your generation’s brand of funny business.”

  I knew what came next in the plan, but I still needed a beat to compose myself … and to say a few quick prayers in the hope that God was somehow real and would forgive my general ambivalence toward church up until this point in my life.

  “President Tucker,” I began, “I need you to choose an object near you. Like your gavel, for instance.” I was shaking, and I gripped the table’s edge between my fingers to try and steady my balance. “Would it be safe to assume I’ve never seen or handled your gavel prior to this evening?”

  “It would, young man. I keep my gavel with me in my office whenever we’re not in session. No one spends time with the president’s gavel without also spending time with the president,” he said with the charming precision of an oft-repeated campaign promise. Throughout the entire evening, from his opening pleasantries to his surprising reprimands, the speed of his sentences never increased. His Southern drawl remained steady.

  “Very good, then, sir,” I continued. “And … as you may know, I’m a telekinetic, sir. But I’m also blind. Which means that I can’t see the things I need to see in order to take advantage of my abilities. I have to have spent time handling an object in order to be able move it with my powers.” I swallowed, knowing there was no turning back. “And my good friend Henry, here, well … he can see just fine. And he’s also telepathic.”

  “Young man, I do hope there is a point to all this, and more specifically, I do hope you’ll be getting to it sooner rather than later. This board doesn’t have all evening.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said deferentially, momentarily distracted by the interruption. “We’ve … well, we’ve experimented a bit here and there with the possibility that Henry’s form of telepathy might go in both directions. Well, sir … I guess what I’m saying is … that by combining our powers …”

  “Mr. Sallinger,” the old man warned, clearly losing patience with my rambling.

  I cut the rest of my backstory and went straight for the big finale. “Sir, please pass the gavel to one of the other board members—it doesn’t matter whom, just do it quietly and don’t tell me who has it.” My knees began to wobble, and for the first time, I started to worry that I might not pull this off.

  “Okay, son,” he said, letting me know he had done as requested.

  “Okay, then,” I said, probably sounding as crazy as I felt. I raised my right arm in the air, my hand open and facing the board members.

  And I waited for Henry to show me something.

  And waited.

  But nothing happened.

  “Mr. Sallinger, have you fallen asleep?”

  “No, Mr. President, I have not. Just … one second, please! I turned and kicked at Henry’s wheelchair with the side of my foot and let out a hushed plea, “Henry, go!”

  “I’m trying,” he whispered back at me.

  “No, you idiot, don’t try! Stop trying! Think about something else.” I won
dered if the board could hear us—they were several yards away, and we were whispering, but the room was awfully quiet.

  Henry started to crack under the pressure. “Like what?!” It sounded as though he might cry.

  And then an unexpected inspiration hit me. “Think about what an idiot you are, you big idiot,” I snarled at him with fake anger. I remembered how upset he was at Mr. Tucker when he’d managed to send a thought to my brain and figured it was worth a shot to try and get him riled up again. I was out of options anyway. “Never mind, you stupid fool,” I snapped. “I should’ve known you couldn’t do it!”

  I was no saint, mind you, but saying mean things to friends wasn’t something I was practiced in. I winced inside at my own words, regretting them as soon as they’d come out of my mouth. But only for an instant.

  Because my needling had worked. Suddenly an image flashed inside my head … a clearer picture than any image I had ever created from my own dreams or imagination. I saw a long wooden desk with the board members seated behind it. It was raised on a platform several feet above the floor, and they were looking down on us.

  For only the slightest moment, I was tempted to just sit back take it all in, drunk on the very notion that I was technically “seeing”—it was the very first time in my life I had seen something not invented in my own mind, and it was beautiful! You’ve heard people talk of mountain vistas or life-altering sunsets, I’m sure, and this felt every bit as gorgeous to me, because it was … live. It was real. It was happening at this very minute, and I could see it.

  But I knew there would be time for that later.

  “I’m losing patience and interest, Mr. Sallinger.” I got the feeling this would be my last warning.

  It’s tough to explain the picture I received from Henry. It wasn’t like video. I wasn’t able to see movement. He wasn’t transmitting a live video feed to me but was sending something more like a simple still photograph. But I could still sort of hold Henry’s image in my head for a while and search it for the one thing I really needed it for. I found the gavel in the hands of Mrs. Billings—I could see her nameplate, too. She sat three positions to the right of President Tucker and held the item in front of her face loosely with both hands as she peered down at me behind her bifocals.