"Calvin's Power" Chapter 1: Beginnings

         What would you do if there was something extraordinary about you? Would you flaunt it? Hide it? Or maybe you'd still feel normal. When the extraordinary becomes ordinary in your everyday life, there is little help for the amount of pleasure you can get out it. Calvin McAllister is a special circumstance when it comes to that idea.
         Like many people Calvin grew up with a mother and a father; eventually having to suffer through their divorce in his mid-teens. Calvin tried his hardest not to take sides; he knew it wasn't his fault for their break-up, but he couldn't help blaming himself for not trying to fix it.
         One night, after a particularly loud argument, his mother fled from the house, unable to stand living with Calvin's father. The final stages of the divorce were done over the phone and through faxes of paperwork. His mother never tried to get a hold of him, so eventually he stopped hoping she'd come home. Her leaving hit Calvin harder than he expected it. Not being able to clear his mind and concentrate, his grades plummeted. The school counselors tried to help him, talk him through his feelings, but he was never much of a talker, especially when it came to what he was thinking and feeling.
         His father needed as much as he could get at home, and since Calvin never really had much of a social life, even before the divorce, he tried to comfort his father any way he could. Many times it just angered his father, causing Calvin to be threatened or else actually being hit. Whenever his father would lapse into one of his episodes Calvin would try to hide himself, sometimes being in small cramped areas away from his father for hours at a time until he thought it was safe to come out.
         It was during one of so many of these episodes that Calvin found out his extraordinary trait. One night out in their storage shed, he was looking around; he hadn't been in there since his mother left. This was understandable, seeing that all the things his mother left behind and never requested get sent to her was stashed here.
         Looking around, he saw pictures of when she was a child, old high school annuals, and some boxes marked "old clothes." Calvin looked around in indifference, not very fond of her since she'd left; yet he still loved her. Throughout the mess it was just a history of good, bad, yet forever gone memories.
         Near the back of the shed was their old bookcase. There wasn't enough room for it in their house so it ended up out here. His mother had bought it at a yard sale, so it looked a little mismatched and shabby compared to most of their things.          Looking through the piles of papers and the rows of books on the shelf he spotted his baby book near the top of the shelf, much too far out of his reach, but he wanted to look through it.
         There wasn't anything nearby for him to stand on, so he ended up having to try and climb up it. The dusty mahogany held his weight on the first shelf with barely a groan. Balancing on the second shelf was a little harder. The old bookcase started to wobble a bit; if he could just reach out really quickly and grab the book, then he could get off onto solid ground.
         Calvin placed his left hand on the shelf right in front of his face and reached out, stretching as much as he could, towards the top shelf. The bookcase was beginning to wobble a bit more, yet Calvin was keeping his weight as far forward as he could.  With a final grunt he stretched just a little further and grabbed the book, just as the shelf he was standing on broke through. He had been so concentrated on getting the book he failed to notice the splintering of the wood.
         Banging his chin on the shelf under his head, he bit down on his tongue. Blood filled his mouth, and pain shot through him like a bullet. Starting to fall backwards, he grabbed onto the shelf he just hit and tried to catch himself. This proved faulty. The bookcase, which was already wobbling from so much weight on the front of it, lurched forward spilling its contents of books, papers, and Calvin onto the ground.
         Books littered the floor all around him and on top of him. Calvin was frozen in fear as the bookcase began to fall forward.
         As with all times of great fear, time slowed down. He watched as the case leaned forward more and more, dumping what was left of its contents to the floor. Calvin had just enough time to shield his face with his arms before it rushed down on top of him. A peculiar feeling rushed through his head.
         This isn't so bad, he noticed. Unless, OH NO! Did I die? Surely not, I'm still thinking, aren't I?"
         Opening his eyes, Calvin saw, right in front of him, not even a foot away from being on top of him was the bookcase, hovering.
         The spell of fear broken, he crab walked hurriedly from under the bookcase.
         WHUMP!
         The bookcase hit the ground just as he was standing up. He walked around it, flailing his hands over the case in hopes that a wire would be there.
         Nothing. Nothing at all.
         How could that be? It had clearly stopped before it hit him. He'd seen it. Did he do it?
         Thinking aloud, "What was going through my head when it fell?"
         Remembering the strange feeling he got which he had thought was the case falling on his head.
         "Was that it?" Calvin asked nobody in particular. "Did I do that?"
         Calvin was too shocked and scared to move anymore. He just stood there thinking about how he did that.
         Starting out with small things such as pieces of paper lying in their attic crawl space, he soon was able to make things move on command. Calvin was telekinetic. He could interact with his physical surroundings without physically touching them. The mind has always been said to be a powerful thing, and that we have never been able to tap the potential within it. As soon as Calvin realized what it was he was doing he found out all he could about it. It turns out many people have been able, or claim to have been able to do what he could. This gave him a feeling of normalcy.
         If other people could do it, he would think, then why would anyone consider him special for it?
         In any case, he hid it from the world. Many of the people that he read about were made fun of by non-believers. Even if they showed proof that they were what they were, people still disapproved of them. He would practice with it for hours on end, writing his homework by controlling the pencil. Growing stronger and stronger with his power. Control was one thing he prided himself on. If he became angry or scared he never let any power take over him and act instinctually.
         During his senior year in high school Calvin was in his back yard while his father was at work. Having finished his homework and chores rather quickly, he grew bored and wanted to have some fun.
         He set up a sort of obstacle course throughout his back yard, made up of his old jungle gym he had put together with his parents, orange traffic cones and two old pieces of nylon rope set up to form a road.
         All put together and ready to roll he found a Tonka dump truck in his garage and put in a G.I. Joe that he found nearby. Placing it at the start of the course he sat down so that he could see all of the obstacles clearly and started to push the toy with his mind.
         Peculiar, that's how Calvin described the feeling of moving things with his mind. If someone were to ask him what is was like he would probably tell them it was like the feeling you get when you have a head cold and try to blow out your nose, but all that happens is pressure building up and trying to push out of your head elsewhere. It was almost exactly that feeling, but in the middle of his head. When he told it to turn it would turn, putting more pressure on that side of his head.
         As many times as he had done it, Calvin was no longer afraid that his power hurt him in any way. Although sometimes when he would use it for long periods of time he would get a dull throb in his temples like he had been sitting too close to the television for too long.
         On this particular afternoon as he was racing the Tonka truck around his yard as best he could, he heard a gasp. He whipped his head around quickly to the source of the noise and saw the top of a person's head drop out of sight behind the fence to the neighboring house's yard.
         He knew exactly who it had been. He jumped up quickly and sprinted through his house and over to the Evallon's house.
         Calvin knocked.
         The door was ripped open.
         Standing there, in a bathrobe, brown, tousle-haired, Gordon Evallon looked frightened near death. His complexion was a pasty white and his bottom lip was quivering.
         "Wh-what d'y-you w-want?" Gordon stuttered quickly. "I h-haven't seen any-anything y-y'know!"
         "Well then why do you look so scared?" Calvin asked anxiously.
         "Was watching a scary movie is all!" he stated pointedly.
         "Listen," Calvin explained, "I know you just saw me in my yard. It isn't anything like you think it is though."
         "You were making that truck move on it's own!" Gordon shouted. "And now you've come to kill me since I've seen your secret. Just like you killed your mom!"
         "Well maybe it is what you think..." he said with a trace of a smile. "What is this about my mother though?"
         Gordon laughed nervously and said, "Y-your mom, sh-she's disappeared, and everyone knows that you've h-had something t-to do w-with it."
         "My mother left my father and I when I was thirteen, I haven't killed her. She left and I've never heard from her since." Calvin told him.
         "Then you're not going to kill me?" asked Gordon hopefully.
         "Of course not. I'm not a monster," Calvin said matter-of-factly. "I'm just a freak, I suppose."
         This time Gordon laughed a little more freely.
         "I can't have you going and telling everyone about me though. Do you think you could keep this between us?"