Wednesday 11/1

Today, apparently, is the last day of the quarter and the last day we are keeping these “poetry” journals. When I asked the Colonel why he hadn’t WARNED us about this, he had some lame excuse, like “I have announced it every day for two weeks.” OutRAGEous that he would expect us to remember that.

I’ll definitely have to do something really crazed and keep a personal journal of my own from now on, because I’ve become addicted to writing about interesting things, such as my own life. Which has—you will soon agree—gotten very, VERY, interesting all of a sudden. I believe it was Monday evening when the winds of change started blowing in, pushing up some dust from across the baseball field . . .

We started out with a five-person cheering section at Brady’s game, which included me, Giulio, Tatyana, Noori, and AJ. Well, three people were cheering. AJ and Noori were acting the same as always. (I have forgotten what their faces look like.) Giulio and I got there before the others, so I suggested he sit at the end of a row, and I sat next to him, figuring that would be a great way to keep Tatyana from getting “cozy” ideas. But when she got there, she sat down behind him, which put her in a position to give him an occasional squeeze on the shoulders when she “thought he was looking too tense.”

But other than that, everything was fine, and we were clapping and shouting and trying to help Brady get a hit. Every time the ball came sailing down from the mound it looked SO like she was going to slam the thing, and we’d all be holding our breath (although, AJ and Noori were holding their breath for a different reason), but the ball would suddenly turn invisible—as best I could tell—and the bat seemed to go RIGHT through it. This went on until the sixth inning, when something unexpected happened.

Brady got up to bat, and she missed the first pitch and missed the second pitch (swinging so hard she almost knocked herself down) and then the third pitch reached the plate, and she hit it, HARD. She started to run, and we watched as it just barely hit outside the right field foul line. There was this loud OHHH sound from the team, and Brady, who had made it all the way to second base, started to trot back along the baseline. The ball— because it had so much power on it—continued to bounce and went out of the playing area and rolled up to the feet of someone who was just arriving at the game. It was Richard. And he scooped up the ball, tossed it to the right fielder, and gave Brady (who had stopped and was looking at him with a strange expression) a smile and a thumbs-up.

She sent the next pitch so far over the outfield fence that no one even bothered going to look for it. And the next time she was up: SAME. And last time she was up: SAME.

There was a lot of cheering the rest of the game. AJ and Noori even got into it, yelling and stomping. And Giulio was cheering, but I could tell it made him feel weird that Richard seemed to be the person who had brought Brady the luck. So when the game ended, Giulio left quickly, before she came out of the dugout.

And when she did, she hugged us one by one (which, by the expressions on Tatyana’s and Noori’s faces, grossed them out as much as it grosses me out, thank-you-very-much), and when she got to Richard, she definitely gave him a hug that was longer than the rest of ours.

Which made me feel very PRICKLY, again, because (I figured) it seemed awfully soon after Giulio that she was giving an extended-type hug to another guy. But, of course, I would have done the same, given the opportunity with Giulio, so I told myself to just stop feeling that way, and GET OVER IT. I didn’t really listen to myself, though, because I felt that way right up until the Halloween party last night, when those winds of change organized themselves into a full-blown twister . . .

Tatyana and I arrived at the community center with the other X-Men half an hour after the party started, because they wanted to “make a splash.” Tatyana and I were planning to dance together as soon as we got there, but the song was really slow, so we decided to wait for a faster one. We noticed, right away, AJ and Noori swaying close by (both in cowboy hats and western shirts, and judging by how adorably big these things were on Noori, I’m guessing she’d borrowed these items from AJ).

The next song turned out to be slow, too, and Tatyana decided to go dance with Magneto, so I stood there, doing nothing, dressed in all my Spandex. Then, IT HAPPENED. There was a tap on my shoulder, and Giulio was suddenly THERE, smiling his beautiful, Italian smile. And he said:

“You were right, Delia. It was just culture shock! And I am all better now, and I have realized that I am not in love with Brady. Will you dance with me?”

So we drifted onto the dance floor, and we were dancing slow and close, and he was saying all the right things to me (like that I was incredibly funny and exceptionally gorgeous), and he was just the right height for me and just the right build, and everything was JUST SO RIGHT.

Until I got another tap on the shoulder, and it was Brady. And she said, “I’ve changed my mind, Delia. I need Giulio back.”

And I shook my head and said, “Nooo,” and she nodded her head, and said, “Yesss,” and we went back and forth with this for a while, and then she started wrestling me, and we accidentally knocked over a spotlight that was lighting up the dance floor, and it burst into flames, and soon the entire ROOM was on fire, and, and—

Okay, hit the pause button.

As IF I would let things end THAT way. Come on!

For the MEGA-TRUE-ENDING, rewind to the part where I’m standing alone, after Tatyana goes off with Magneto . . .

Prof X rolled up next to me (having found a wheelchair, it seems) and asked if I would like to dance.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“I have telepathic powers,” he said.

“That’s really cool and all, but it’s not YOU, it’s the wheelchair,” I said. “It’ll kill my shins.”

Shakita appeared at that moment (in a Hillary Clinton mask) and began scolding me for discriminating against the handicapped.

“But he’s not handicapped,” I said.

“Then why is he in a wheelchair?” she asked.

“I’m paraplegic due to an accident involving the alien, Lucifer,” he said, rolling off in a huff.

“Being paraplegic is definitely a handicap,” Shakita said to me.

Luckily, we were distracted then by the arrival of a short guy who walked like a robot and parked himself directly in front of me. He had a Star Trek T-shirt on and was wearing Dr. Spock ears.

“You’re a Trekkie!” Shakita said to him. “My dad’s a Trekkie!”

“I am Gorkon,” he said.

“Gorkon!” I repeated.

“I just found out about the party 2.6 hours ago, IMing with Brady. As it turns out, my personal coordinates are very near. However, I did not have time to get a costume,” he said, still standing exactly in front of me with the top of his head about at my chin level, and the tips of his pointy ears at my, eh, chest level.

“Hm,” I said, trying to slowly slide away from him, unnoticed.

“Which is your favorite Star Trek episode?” Shakita asked him.

“Number 306, Spock’s Brain,” he said.

“I LOVE that one!” she cried. “Come on, you’ve got to dance with me!”

And she pulled him off to the dance floor, and I was alone again, so I went to the snack table to do some munching. There, I found Giulio. He was sitting on a stool and was wearing a long black cape that was dramatically bunched up on the floor around him, and he had a paintbrush behind one ear and was drawing in a sketchpad.

“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re a Renaissance artist.”

“Yes, that’s right,” he said, and I noticed his sunny, Italian smile had returned. “I want to thank you, Delia, because I am feeling so much better after the things you said to me. I am glad we are friends. I will not be having any more American girlfriends, because I need to be working hard on my art now.”

I stood, waiting to feel the impact of this news. A garbage truck dropped from ten stories up and landing on my head is the sort of feeling I expected, so I braced myself.

Tatyana wandered over to the snack table while I was waiting for the truck to hit me, and she peeked over Giulio’s shoulder at his sketch pad. “Oooh! You are good,” she said to him, doing that shoulder-squeezing-thing again. “Can you draw me?”

“I will be delighted,” he said.

And Tatyana sat on a stool and looked very pretty in her black and silver gown, and I watched all this and waited to get crushed to a yellow pulp, but you know what? It never happened. I wasn’t upset. Even when Tatyana said something about feeling very “cozy” there, I WASN’T upset.

Then that “Magic Carpet Ride” song started, and I looked out at the dance floor. My eye immediately landed on Brady, who was dressed in her baseball uniform (washed, thankfully), and she was dancing and talking with someone in a football uniform (also washed, thankfully), and I was peering at them to see which one of my teammates was there at the party, and that’s when I saw that it was Richard. And I got that PRICKLY feeling again, only it was MAJOR this time, like I’d just been wrestling with a porcupine.

And I realized at that moment why Giulio had not been the garbage truck. It was because RICHARD was the garbage truck. (Speaking metaphorifically.) And I also realized then that I had a brand new problem, and it seemed to be, actually, the exact same problem I’d had to start with.

So I stood there, alone again in Spandex, and watched some couples who seemed to be having a good time—Shakita and Gorkon (a perfect match, but for no reason that makes any sense), AJ and Noori (the only people I know who can slow dance to a fast song)—and I wished I were them. Well, not exactly THEM, but people with other people they really like, you know? And I was feeling all sorry for myself, and my head was saying these sorts of things to me:

Richard?? How did this happen? And WHEN did this happen? Well, it happened NOW, of course, but how did I not see it coming? RICHARD??

Luckily—before the voices took over completely—Magneto appeared in front of me, the shiny medals that covered his chest all glistening in the light from the disco ball that had started spinning at the beginning of the song. “Let’s dance,” he said.

In my weakened state, I followed him onto the dance floor. When we found a spot in the middle, I guess I reached out to grab his hand (as normal people sometimes DO when they’re dancing), but he jerked it back and said, “Don’t touch!”

“Uh, sorry,” I said.

“It’s your powers,” he explained.

“I have powers?” (This was news.)

“Rogue absorbs the strength of others,” he said. “So you have just taken a bit of my magnetic power from me with that touch.”

“Whoa,” I said.

“I’m sorry to inform you in this way,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were clueless about that.”

“CLUELESS, yes, that describes my situation well,” I said, seeing the back of Richard just a few couples away from us. Brady was whispering something to him. And then she was smiling and laughing and whispering again.

“You can be very dangerous,” Magneto said. “And you should know there is more—”

But he was interrupted then by Brady, who suddenly appeared in front of him and began dancing.

“Let’s switch!” she said, and I got pushed in the direction of Richard, which caused me to run right into him.

“Sorry!” I said, stepping back, laughing (snorting, actually) and trying to continue dancing, all casual-like. “I just absorbed some magnetic power, and I guess I don’t know how to use it yet.”

“Yeah, you’re Rogue,” he said. “I know what you can do to a person.”

“You do?” I asked.

“I was really into X-Men when I was a kid. I was a major game geek.”

“I remember that. You used to come to my house.”

The song stopped right about then, and the next one started. It was “Imagine” by John Lennon, which is the slowest song known to man. You can imagine (hehe) the discomfort I was expecting over this particular dance situation, what with all my new-found feelings for Richard, and not knowing yet the details of his status with Brady. But then Richard—very boldly, and un-Richard-like—put his hands on my hips (er, Rogue belt). So I put my hands on his shoulders (er, shoulder pads).

“You do know,“ I said, trying to sound very cool and calm, but my voice insisted on coming out a little too high-pitched, “that by the end of this dance you could have NO physical strength at all?”

“I believe that,” he said, laughing. And I could feel his laugh against my ear, which is a most sensitive place, and so my head found itself nestling rather comfortably against his neck. (Not my fault—obviously the magnets I’d just absorbed.)

“You know why I used to go to your house?” he asked me.

“I have wondered that,” I said.

“Well, it was because I was so in love with you when I was little. Brady told me I should tell you about that.”

Figuring it might be part of some clearing-the-air-to-start-going-out thing between the two of them, I said, “True confessions, huh? Anything else I need to know?”

“Yeah,” he said (and I could feel that body-temp-spiking he gets, which suddenly seemed a not-so-unattractive quality). “I still feel that way. Actually.”

And then, the magnets I’d swallowed (or whatever it was I did with them) got suddenly, uncontrollably strong, and I could feel myself getting closer and closer to him.

“That’s why I joined the football team,” he went on. “I figured, since you wanted to be the manager that you like that type of guy.”

“Oh, I don’t,” I said.

“Oh,” he said.

“I mean, I thought I didn’t like the football type. But I guess I do now. Or one in particular. Tu.”

“You like two in particular?”

“No, one.”

“But didn’t you just say two?”

“Tu is Italian for ‘you.’”

“Me?” he said, and his voice cracked in a very cute, shy, deer-Richard-ish way.

“Coach is NOT going to be happy about this,” I said. “What with this power I’ve got and all.”

“What really worries me is your OTHER power,” he said.

“I’ve got another power?” I asked.

“Yeah, when Rogue kisses someone, he dies.”

And then (cue end of song) we stood looking at each other until I said, “Bummer for you,” and—

Oops! That’s the bell.

Arrivederci!