The Gunpowder Society

5. "Gunpowder University"

The limo wound through the New York streets towards lower Manhattan until it pulled into a garage that looked to be used as a loading area for the building that was overhead.  With the arrival of the new students came a necessary orientation that meant Fr. Maven, Haze and HP couldn’t quite leave right away to collect the rest of the students on the scouting list.

“Peter, Gwen, Bruce?” Fr. Maven called the children’s attention.  They looked up in anticipation, “My school is located on the second floor of this building, and we have to go through the lobby of the building and take the elevator up.  The building’s workers know that they are host to a school, but they do not know about the gifts of its students and their only understanding is that it is a private catholic school for special children under the name of St. Michael’s Catholic Academy.”  The kids looked back at him with peculiar looks, “To them special means rich,” the priest said with a smile.  The kids smiled at the irony.  “But the main reason I am telling you this is because I want to be clear that you are never to discuss the nature of the school, its students nor their gifts.  Do you understand?”

“Yes sir,” was the collective answer, and with this they all exited the limo and stepped into the garage.  HP pushed the door shut, and no sooner than the door had shut the limousine sped away and disappeared as it was consumed by the city traffic.

HP turned to Fr. Maven with a dead pan look of mild displeasure.  Fr. Maven just held his hands up and cocked his head like ‘don’t look at me man’ and then turned around and walked over towards a freight elevator. 

HP turned to Haze and Peter who were still standing next to him and said, “Someday…” Haze and Peter raised their eye brows in expectation, “I’m gonna have a talk with those guys.”

“About what?” Peter asked as he started bouncing his sister in his arms.

“I dunno,” HP answered dejected, “I’ve never talked to them before.”

HP and Haze followed the rest over to the elevator, and Peter stood their bouncing his sister confused.

Haze hit a button labeled ‘L’ and the elevator made an awful noise before it began its accent.  The new students weren’t quite sure what to expect when the doors opened as they really weren’t paying attention to their surroundings as they drove into the garage, but if the garage and freight elevator were in any way indicative of the overall building it wasn’t the Ritz.  However, once the elevator opened their view was a back hallway that looked clean and not half bad at all.  Noise could be heard down the hallway and around the corner, which could only be the main lobby.

Haze stepped out and began leading the group down the hallway.  As the group of new students followed Haze down the hallway and rounded the corner they all stopped in surprise.  Bustling through an extravagant lobby was the well-dress upper crust of society and out the gigantic lobby windows downtown New York could be seen including Times Square off in the distance and down the street a bit. 

Fr. Maven turned to witness the looks on the kids’ faces.  His attention was immediately caught by Gwen.  Her eyes lit up at the sight of everything in front of her.  She tracked the fashionable ladies as they speed-walked through the lobby and out the front doors to the city.  He then watched as she scanned the metropolitan horizon full of shops, buildings and restaurants.  For the first time, he saw her smile.  He was reminded that she was a normal child.  The only difference between her and the next girl was that she had an extraordinary gift.  She was still delighted by the same stuff as all young girls of her age were, and still had the same wonderful wants and desires.  For a split second he began to look forward to having children in the school again. 

Then young Bruce, who had been standing next to Gwen and had an extremely superior ability to blend into a crowd, side stepped and slowly backed up into Gwen’s personal space, placing himself right in front of her.  The young girl’s focus on the outside city around her was snapped.  She looked down at Bruce in front of her taking in all the same images as she, but with elevated heavy breathing.  She raised her right hand and began to place it on the young boy’s shoulder, but she stopped with her hand hovering an inch above.  She paused and starred at her hand.  She then looked back at Bruce and his breathing, and she slowly lowered her hand to his shoulder, witnessed no electrical discharge and firmed he grip.