The sun was high in the sky as Zach rode down the Madrona hillside towards home. Zach rehearsed his arguments during the entire bike ride. It wasn’t like him to be nervous, but he knew Binny could be prickly on this issue, and he wanted to handle it just right.
“Absolutely not!” Binny didn’t even let Zach get through his first sentence before cutting him off.
“Can you please just listen to me before – ”
“You would tell our secret to someone you just met two days ago to find some stray cat?” Binny demanded.
“That’s not what I was saying”. Zach wasn’t even a minute in and things were going even more poorly than he had feared. “I told you, she’s like us.”
“She is nothing like us. She does not have powers. There was only one name in that study. Mom’s.”
“But you know that study didn’t give us our powers. And Penny is the proof.” Zach was using every ounce of his focus to stay calm. He knew from experience that escalating would only make things worse.
“It doesn’t matter. I don’t know where our powers came from. I just know that we’re the only four people that have them.”
“I know what I saw.” Zach said.
“I know what I’m seeing.” Binny said acidly.
“What is that supposed to mean?” Zach let some of the frustration he was feeling creep into his voice.
“You know what it means.” Binny gave Zach a knowing look.
“No, I don’t know. Please illuminate me.” One of Zach’s’ eyebrows rode high on his forehead. His eyes were wide getting ready for whatever blow Binny had to administer.
“Well,” Binny paused looking like she was wondering whether to follow through, “I think you want to include this girl in our group for reasons you’re not admitting.”
“Like what?” The edge in Zach’s voice was now unmistakable.
“Like that you like her.”
Zach looked at Binny hard.
Binny raised her eyebrows in defiance.
“You don’t get to make all the decisions in this group. I can do whatever I like.” Zach finally responded.
“Maybe I don’t get to make all the decisions, but this decision affects us all.”
“I don’t need your permission. I’m older than you.” Zach knew he was on thin ice trotting out his two year age advantage, but he was frustrated and angry.
“You may be older than me, but the older we get, the less that will matter. But my power is better than yours. And that will never change no matter how old we get.”
Some of the color went out of Zach’s face. It was clear that Binny had poked a tender spot.
Binny didn’t stop. “We both know that the most powerful person in the group makes the decisions. Like Superman.”
“Batman makes most of the decisions in that group and he has no powers.”
“Your new friend doesn’t have any powers either. Your crush on her is affecting your judgment.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“No. It’s not ridiculous. It’s the truth.”
“How would you know that?”
“You know how. I can tell these things. It’s not just that I can see thoughts, I can see how people are feeling.”
It was all too much for Zach. He’d been so thoughtful, and so careful. Maybe he did like Zoe. So what. He didn’t even know himself for sure. He knew that he really wanted to make her feel better. Was that ‘liking’ someone? Being nice to them?
What Zach was certain of was that Zoe had a power. His judgment wasn’t off on that issue. And as far as Zach’s power, it was just fine thank you. So what if Binny could read minds. She was so proud of herself. Her power was obnoxious. His was useful in all sorts of everyday activities. Zach tried hard to convince himself that Binny’s comment about his powers didn’t matter. But his heart had started to ache.
Zach lashed out, “I don’t need your power to know what you’re thinking Binny.”
“Oh really? What’s that?” Binny’s hands were in one of their familiar positions on her hips.
“You think you’re gonna get Mom and Dad to get back together. And guess what? You can read every mind in the world and it’s never ever ever going to happen. So stop being such a baby.”
Binny looked like she’d been punched in the stomach.
Zach knew the moment he saw her face that he had gone too far.
Binny burst into tears as if she was made of water and the floodgates had been opened. Hands up to her face, she ran sobbing from the room.
Zach just stood there, shaking in anger, and feeling awful.
§
“After that, I think we should eat lunch at the Space Needle. I’ve never been, but the restaurant at the top spins. I hope it spins fast enough that it makes me throw up.” Penny tugged at a latch on the bottom of the coin bank she was holding as she spoke. The bank had transparent walls so you could see deposited coins sliding around inside until they found the right sized slot in which to descend.
Serena watched her daughter with a slightly strained smile on her face.
“Penny – ” Quincy tried to get a word in.
“And then, I think we should go to the place with the donut robot in the market. I like the ones with cinnamon and sugar. You would think I wouldn’t be hungry after all that lunch, but remember, I’ll have just thrown up cause the restaurant spins.” The latch opened, and dozens of coins spilled out onto the table. “And I’ll buy the donuts. Look, I’ve saved lots of money.”
“Penny – ” Quincy said more insistently this time.
“Of course, we will have to wait a bit before we leave the restaurant to make sure anyone who got puked on isn’t hanging around still.”
“Penny, darling, – ”
Penny finally looked up at her father, “What?”
Quincy took a breath. “Sweetheart, I’m only here for a day or so. I don’t know if we’ll have time for all that on this visit.”
“What?” Penny erupted.
“Sweetheart, I’m only driving through right now. But I’ll be driving back through in a few days and I’ll be able to spend a bit more time then. And then at the end of the summer, you’ll come visit me and – ”
“A few days? The end of the summer? Visit you?” Penny was shouting now.
Penny’s father continued in a steady tone, “It’s just a few days. We’re going to spend lots of time together. I promise.”
Penny slammed her hand down on the table. “I’m sick of your promises.” The coins jumped. A few started rolling towards the edge of the table. Penny was now standing at the edge of the table clutching the coin bank in one hand. “I’m never going to get to spend any time with you! Why don’t you just leave now.” With that, Penny walked out the front door of the house.
§
The branches that swayed in front of the windows to Binny’s room were especially lovely on summer days. The leaves stretched out as much as they could absorbing every ray of sun as if to make up for the months they spent under a thick blanket of clouds. The sun glinted brightly off some of the leaves, but out of the corner of her eye Binny noticed her best friend Penny sitting on her stoop, pieces to something now broken strewn about her bare feet.
§
“What was it?” Binny was making much the same sympathetic smiling face that Serena had made at Penny a few minutes earlier.
“A coin bank.”
“Where are the coins?”
“My dad gave it to me.”
Binny put her hand on Penny’s shoulder.
Penny continued, “He’s inside.”
“Oh. Let me clean it up. He doesn’t need to see it now. I’m sure we can put it back together with some time.” Binny crouched and started collecting the pieces.
Penny didn’t seem to notice and kept staring forward and out to the lake. When Binny had collected most of the pieces, Penny finally added, “It’s never going to get put back together. Nothing ever does.”
§
“Seems like you’re not feeling good about something, Mr. Jordan.”
Zach thought that Caleb had a way of getting straight to the heart of the matter. It made him uncomfortable. But after his fight with Binny, he supposed that his guilt was written all over his face. Maybe knowing how someone was feeling wasn’t such a difficult skill after all. “I guess not.” Zach replied.
Caleb didn’t say anything as he went about carefully removing a series of weeds from around a wild flower that had grown in the forest.
They continued in silence for a bit. Zach thought about the look on Binny’s face as he’d said those last words. It reminded him of the look on Zoe’s face when she saw the injured cat. Zach said, “I’m not sure how to fix things.”
“What needs fixing?”
“Well,” Zach started slowly, “we found a neighborhood cat with a hurt leg.”
Caleb raised his eyebrow slightly at the mention of we but Zach didn’t notice.
“Anyway, we wanted to help it somehow, but I’m not even sure we could catch it. I’m also worried about scaring it. It’s probably already pretty scared and I don’t want to make things worse.”
“Sometimes animals get into fights with other animals.” Caleb said.
“That’s what I said, but Zoe thinks that this cat was hurt by a kid.”
Caleb stopped what he was doing for a moment and turned to Zach. “Zoe Flowers?”
“Huh?” Zach looked puzzled.
“Zoe Flowers. Young lady, about your age. Sizable hair.”
One of the things Caleb could tell by the look on Zach’s face was that they were talking about the same girl. “So if Ms. Flowers doesn’t think the cat was hurt by another animal, who does she think hurt the cat?”
“Some kid we met in the park. A couple of years younger than us. Very light blonde hair. Seemed kind of angry.”
If Zach had been paying closer attention he would have seen Caleb’s shoulders sag as he processed the information.
“Well Mr. Jordan, you can’t play baseball with one player.”
Zach knew that talking to Caleb was a bit of a bet. Caleb was always willing to talk, but Zach wasn’t always sure he understood what Caleb was saying.
Caleb continued, “Helping that injured animal, and figuring out what happened is not a one person job. You need a team.”
“That’s what I said!” Zach’s words tripped over each other as he responded eagerly. “But Binny wouldn’t listen.”
“You can’t just throw nine players on the diamond who don’t know each other. The players have to trust each other before they can truly play together. They need to be friends first, teammates second.”
“How am I going to get everyone to be friends?”
“Well one thing I know, don’t try and force it. People have to become friends naturally. If you push them, you’ll only end up with more hurt feelings and more sad-faced walks to the woods. And while I enjoy your company, I do have more weeds to pull.”
§
The pieces of the coin bank were laid out on Binny’s desk now. Binny’s head was lowered examining them closely as much to try and see if she could fit them back together as to give her friend some space.
“He said he’s only here for a day. I don’t know why he even bothered to come at all.” Penny said from her prone position on the bed.
“But didn’t he say he’d be back soon?” Binny responded without taking her eyes off the pieces.
“He always says that.” Penny complained.
Minutes passed, Binny gave up on her coin bank investigation and lay down opposite Penny on the bed. Binny was turned the other way so they each had their heads at different ends.
Binny’s conversation with Zach, and watching Penny’s spiral into sadness were a thick gray blanket, pinning Binny in place. Staring up at the ceiling, Binny said, “Maybe you and Zach are both right.”
“About what?”
“Maybe sometimes, things stay broken.”