VANESSA AND CATTY walked across the school lawn. New worry started buffeting her happiness.
“What will I do if Michael tries to kiss me?”
“I don’t know, open your mouth a little, I guess.”
“I’m serious,” Vanessa scolded. “What am I going to do? Just looking at him makes my molecules vibrate. The last time I tried to have a boyfriend, I couldn’t control it. I never even got one kiss.”
“Let your molecules sing,” Catty said. “Maybe he’ll like it. Besides you don’t know it will happen this time. Have you been practicing with your power like I told you?”
One look and Catty knew she hadn’t. “When you’re alone you need to make yourself invisible,” Catty explained. “Visible, invisible. Just like exercises. How else are you going to learn how to control it? You should practice every day.”
“That won’t help me now. What if my molecules go off on their own?” Vanessa wondered. “What if I scare him? Maybe he’ll think I’m a ghost or something evil.”
“You should appreciate your gift more. I mean, just think what you could do with it. I know what I’d do.”
“What?”
“I’d spy on people and copy answers to all the tests. You waste it.”
“All my problems seem to come from what you call a ‘gift.’ I wish we could be like everyone else.”
“Speak for yourself. I like what I can do,” Catty said. “You want a Coke?”
The fact that they were freaks never bothered Catty as much as it bothered Vanessa. Maybe it was because Catty’s mother encouraged her to use her power.
“No, thanks.” Vanessa sat on a cement bench facing a bank of outside lockers. “I’ll wait for you here.”
She looked down at the amulet that hung around her neck. She seldom took it off, but she unclasped it now and studied the face of the moon etched in the metal. Sparkling in the sunlight, it wasn’t pure silver but reflected pinks and blues and greens. Maybe who she was had something to do with this moon charm that was given to her at birth. Catty had one, too. That’s how they had first noticed each other at the park in third grade. They had been playing soccer on opposing teams, chasing the ball down the field. When they saw the silver moon dangling from each other’s neck, they’d stopped running and let the ball go out of bounds.
“Where’d you get that?” Catty had asked, ignoring her jeering teammates.
“I got it as a gift the night I was born,” Vanessa said. “Where’d you get yours?”
“Don’t know. I’ve always had it. I never take it off.”
“Me, neither,” Vanessa said.
The referee blew her whistle and the game continued, but Vanessa couldn’t focus on the ball. She kept turning to look at Catty. Twice she kicked the ball out of bounds, and once she collided with one of her own teammates.
Afterward the two teams went out for pizza. She and Catty shared a double-cheese pepperoni with pineapple and anchovies. They had been best friends ever since. It had taken longer for them to share their unique talents. What Catty called their gifts.
Maybe it wasn’t a gift, but a curse, and if she got rid of the charm, her strange ability to become invisible would also go away. But she felt too uncomfortable when she took it off. She wondered why that was.