The Penn Friends Series Books 1-4: Penn Friends Boxset Page 15

  “Not here,” is all she said, starting to walk again, the two of them heading back down the street as if making up their minds that this was going to happen. Penny got to the approach to the park, the spot where that man had flashed her. It still caused her hairs to stand on edge just thinking about it. She quickened her pace as they entered the park. It felt right that she would try this in the very place it had first happened between her and Abbey. The realisation it was with Jack, of all the boys it could have been, just added an extra element of weirdness.

  “Over here,” she said. They snuck off to one side, under some of the trees to be away from the main path, and as much as possible, undisturbed. Her stomach had been flipping loops since Jack first approached, so she had no problems accessing her gift.

  Jack stood ready, watching her, as her eyes bore into him. They seemed to dance with life, as Penny concentrated on her connection between the feeling and the manifestation. Make Jack invisible she thought. Immediately Jack disappeared, clothing and all.

  “Well?” Jack said. He’d apparently nor felt anything.

  “Oh, yeah, you won’t know,” she said, pulling a mirror from her bag and holding it out for Jack. She felt his hand brush hers as he reached for it, and she let him take hold of it and turn it on himself. He swore slowly for a few seconds.

  “Take it,” he said, Penny not knowing what he meant until the mirror, which had disappeared as soon as she’d let go of it, knocked against her hand. She grasped the mirror, which reappeared once Jack had let go. “Watch this,” Jack added, and she could hear him moving around a little, the odd leaf being disturbed in the grass. His t-shirt suddenly dropped to the floor.

  “Ha, very good.”

  “You can see the t-shirt?” he asked.

  “Yes, appeared and hit the floor the moment you obviously let go of it.”

  His trainers appeared as he kicked them off, making Penny jump in surprise and laugh even harder; this was so much fun. She could then hear him undoing his belt. It rammed her firmly back into the past. It reminded her of that night the previous year.

  “What are you doing?” she said. Jack's school trousers dropped into view.

  “Oh, it’s freezing. I should have thought this one through,” Jack laughed.

  “And I can reverse it, you know,” and she did just that. Make Jack visible again. He immediately was visible, standing there in just his underwear. “Very nice,” she mocked.

  Jack scrambled to gather his clothes back together, putting on his trousers quickly and then his top, before finding his trainers. Penny gave him some space and some privacy.

  “That’s not fair. You have to allow me to control when I switch back.”

  “What?”

  “I could have been naked.”

  “I think that was the point, wasn’t it.” She pushed him on the shoulder, the two of them quiet for a moment, no doubt thinking about what they’d just done. Penny had never shown anyone what she could do, yet Jack was taking it in all so naturally. Jack came in close, Penny assuming he wanted to kiss her, but she caught herself. It was all too soon. She left the trees and walked back down to the path.

  “You have to let me do that again.”

  “Why?”

  “Why? Because it’s freaking awesome, Penny! Think of what I could get us.”

  They walked through the park, now just around the corner from home. Penny couldn’t take Jack there; her mother would probably be drunk. The house was a state. She walked towards the newsagents where she worked, instead.

  “Make me invisible. I’ll get something from in there,” Jack said, pointing to the shop. Penny felt guilty for contemplating it, but the thrill was even more compelling. “But you have to give me the power to control it. You can’t make me visible, okay?”

  She thought about that for a moment. She was crazy even to be considering this, but if Jack was willing to go in and try to steal something––and get away with it––suddenly anything felt possible. But to give him the power of control? She’d come this far, she reasoned. She had unknowingly found an ally.

  “Okay, I’ll do it,” she said. Jack’s face lit up.

  “Promise you’ll do what I’ve asked? I can’t get caught coming out of that place with a load of chocolate in my pockets.”

  “I promise,” she said, too excited to think otherwise, too intrigued to see if it would work. She would walk into the shop with Jack––she realised she would have to anyway, otherwise the opening door would give him away. Besides, she had to collect her month’s pay.

  A few seconds later Jack was invisible once more, and she’d given him the ability to control it himself. After a few seconds, he reappeared.

  “You can see me again?” he said, checking it had worked.

  “Yes.” He vanished again.

  “How many fingers am I holding up?” He reappeared, a few steps from her with two fingers showing.

  “Two,” she said, and he vanished, before repeating the request, appearing again, this time with both hands raised and all fingers showing.

  “Ten,” she said. Jack disappeared again.

  “Give me the mirror.”

  “Why?”

  “I need to make sure,” he said. He apparently wasn’t one hundred per cent sure he was disappearing. Penny reached into her bag and passed him her mirror. He swore again, this time with a laugh, and gave it back to her.

  “Okay, I’m ready. You’ll need to go in first,” Jack said, seemingly coming to the same conclusion she had already.

  “I’ll lead the way. Look, I work for them, so don’t do anything crazy. Just something little. I’ll pick up my pay then leave, so be sure to be right behind me when I walk back out. And for goodness sake, don’t knock anything over. Are we clear?”

  “Crystal clear,” he whispered, so close to her ear that a warm shivered went down her neck.

  She walked in through the front door, the bell ringing and the door opening then closing again. The shop owner looked up, smiled when he saw Penny and came out from the back. He went straight to the till.

  Penny had no idea where Jack was. As they would talk it all through after, as soon as they were in the front door, Jack had gone around to the left, away from the till, moving down the next aisle. He’d then been standing by the rear door as the shop owner had walked past. Jack had been waving his hands in the air––if he was, in fact, visible, the shopkeeper was doing an excellent job at ignoring him. Jack quickly scurried back, making sure not to brush against anything. He felt powerful, the adrenaline running through his veins not too different to those events from last year when he’d got himself sent off the football field, and when he’d overpowered Abbey. Jack let it drop; this felt altogether more controllable. He felt alive.

  Crouching down, he reached for a Mars bar. As he touched it, it disappeared. He placed it silently into his pocket. He then repeated the feat, putting the second one in his other pocket––he wasn’t going to risk them being in contact with one another. He didn’t know what noise that might make. Then he waited.

  Penny was only a couple of minutes, and made it clear she was leaving, saying she’d see her boss again the following morning––Jack had never known Penny had a paper round like he also had––but then he never knew her that well at all. The door opened, Jack now right behind her, his hand touching her back momentarily, Penny doing her best not to react, though that was hard; it all felt so electric.

  A few seconds later, now that they were both back around the corner and out of sight from anyone else, Jack reappeared and handed Penny her Mars bar. They ate it laughing loudly between bites.

  6

  I’d never done anything like that before––never something criminal, as I would deem it, anyway, nor with an accomplice. And it was with Jack Ferguson, of all the people it could have been. We seemed to share a chemistry. I think he liked me.

  But what if I was wrong about all that? Crazy about his feelings for me, the fact I’d let him into my little wor
ld, shown him things I’d never revealed to anyone else before? What if he abused all that, the way he abused Abbey? The way he lost his temper for the school team?

  I wanted to make him forget. Somehow––maybe, I reasoned, it was the fact deep down I didn’t want to change it––nothing would ever work. I couldn’t make him forget.

  Jack carried around that Mars bar wrapper like a trophy, like a badge of honour, for the next week of school. It’s symbolism and meaning lost on the students around him; no one would bother to ask him about it. But he knew. And every time Penny looked over and spotted Jack taking it yet again out of his pocket and holding it to his nose like a toddler would carry a blanket, she knew. He’d often look at Penny, winking at her.

  Penny felt both alarmed and electrified. She didn’t know what to do about it.

  She’d always liked Jack, in that she had loved the year seven version of the boy she didn’t know. She thought he was cute, he was athletic––played a starring role in the school football team––and was one of the cooler kids. She wasn’t in any of those brackets but was a free spirit. So she had liked him from that first week of school. And then she hadn’t.

  As much as she held affection for him––she couldn’t deny, though Penny tried, that some remained, to a certain degree––she loathed him in equal measure, especially after the Abbey incident. Penny couldn’t help but feel partly responsible. Responsible. She would never go as far and admit it, but it had been her who had flooded Jack’s body with testosterone, and though he’d acted out what he thought that led him to do, she knew it’d only happened because of her revenge. How that one had backfired.

  Penny still woke in a hot flush sometimes during the early hours occasionally, her house silent, her room in darkness, and she would hear those leaves being disturbed, the muffled silence of Abbey and the little sound that Jack had made. She couldn’t get those images from her mind.

  In many ways, therefore, Jack Ferguson would always be the monster that raped Penny’s former best friend.

  As lunchtime came, two things would happen in quick succession that would have Penny concerned and alarmed more than ever. The first was a brief encounter with a girl from year seven. Penny didn’t even know her name. But Penny needed to realise she could still make people forget. That she could always control her powers, and though these were not apparently working on Jack––he’d mentioned at least twice the Mars bar incident, as it had become known between them both, that morning––Penny had to be sure they would still work on everyone else.

  Penny spotted her opportunity as she walked along a less used corridor towards the back of the school building; it was a long way from the canteen, which was why it was usually so quiet. Penny didn’t know if she’d ever seen the girl before––it didn’t matter who it was or if she’d even met her, though she just needed a girl––it had to be a girl––for an experiment. She just needed to give someone an extraordinary power; for them to use it and then she’d make them forget.

  Penny had been walking around, trying to think through what she would use. She eliminated a few options, as it might only freak out the student; hands able to produce fire––a girl might just scream that she was on fire. Walk through walls––unless anyone knew they could, would they even try? Fly; again, unless someone told her, why would she attempt it? It had to be something apparent, therefore, and as Penny turned the corner of the corridor in question, a year seven girl had just turned the corner ahead of her, coming towards Penny. There was a long stretch––about twenty metres––of the corridor between them. The year seven girl had seen Penny, so that had given Penny an idea.

  Give that girl in front of me the ability to see through all clothes, so that she sees everybody naked. The two girls were now only ten metres apart, Penny repressing a smile as the year seven girl froze––a girl was walking past her naked! Penny kept walking, before turning around.

  “Something wrong?” Penny asked, turning around and facing the girl, who just stood there mute, shaking her head from side to side as her eyes scanned up and down Penny. “You sure?”

  “You’re…” she started to say, as footsteps could be heard behind Penny, someone else approaching from the same direction that the year seven girl had just come. Brilliant, Penny thought.

  Better still, it was a male teacher, and he casually walked past the two girls as if they weren’t even there. Penny knew the girl was waiting for the teacher to spot Penny standing there naked––she was watching and waiting for the altercation––yet it didn’t happen. And worse still, the teacher, too, was nude. Penny had nearly burst out laughing when she spotted that realisation dawning on the girl’s young face. Job accomplished, Penny turned around and carried on. Undo that girl’s ability to see through clothes she quickly said before adding and make her forget she ever could. Penny counted to five, before turning, spotting the girl walking back down the corridor. Penny reached for a packet of polos in her pocket.

  “Hey,” she called back down the corridor after the girl, who turned, a little alarmed, even more so when she spotted the much older girl closing in on her. “Did you drop these?” Penny asked, in a gentle tone, aware that the girl had seemed afraid.

  “Oh, no, I didn’t,” she said, matter-of-factly, no sense of embarrassment, no recollection at all of Penny in her expression.

  “Have we met?” Penny had to be sure.

  “I don’t think so,” she replied as if thinking for a moment and being sure that she hadn’t seen Penny before.

  “No worries. Enjoy your day.” Penny backed away, clear she hadn’t lost her ability to make someone forget. She headed back for the canteen.

  As Penny sat down five minutes later, a drink in hand that she’d just purchased, she pondered what it all meant. It had been exciting to have done what she did. Penny felt a freedom she had never known before––the ability to make others see things they didn’t think they could, didn’t think they should. The thought that dropped in next, however, she tried to ignore––what made her any different from that flasher who’d done the same to her? That incident had left Penny feeling violated, abused. At least she’d made the girl forget. She would have no reoccurring memories of the incident––or so Penny thought. Little did Penny know back then that every action produced a change. Even undoing something, it was as if scar tissue remained, some evidence that the subject had changed. These were usually untraceable, usually having little bearing on the individual, but they had all changed. They had all been affected.

  “What you up to, Black?” Jack sat down next to Penny. He’d got into the habit of doing that more and more over the last week, his cockiness growing increasingly. He dropped the Mars bar wrapper in front of her. “Want to have some more fun?”

  That wrapper––the reminder that she couldn’t make Jack forget, despite how much she wanted to––represented everything at that moment. Why was it different with him? The question, the absence of an answer, was beginning to drive Penny crazy.

  “I told you, we aren’t doing that anymore.”

  “So you keep saying,” and he pulled his bag onto the chair between them both and proceeded to open it as if he had illegal drugs in there or something. It was full of sweets.

  “Where did you get these?” Penny said at once, though even as she was forming the question, she knew the answer before he said anything.

  “Where do you think? You said we weren’t doing it anymore, but that doesn’t mean I can’t.”

  “It’s wrong!”

  “What is?” he said, coming in closer, leaning over his bag full of stolen food items so that he could whisper into her right ear. “The fact I’ve been stealing things again, or the fact you can make people disappear?” He sat back in his chair, a smugness about him that wasn’t becoming. Abbey walked out through the doors at that moment, right next to their table, glancing briefly over but leaving them both there. As far as Abbey cared, Penny could have Jack––maybe they were a perfect match.

  Penny
sat in silence, not sure what to say. Jack had her; she knew that. And she could do nothing about it. She’d tried to take away his ability to be invisible––despite their agreement that she wouldn’t––and it wasn’t working, just like her efforts to make him forget it all.

  He got up from the table, closing his bag again and raising it to his shoulder.

  “If I can do this by myself for chocolate,” he said, his voice calm, “think what we can achieve working together. Think.” He said no more, walking away before Penny had turned to look up at him, realising what he was suggesting.

  The temptation was real. If Penny was able to help Jack––opening doors for him, generally being on the lookout, they could get into almost anywhere. They could be rich. She knew it was wrong. She knew she shouldn’t be thinking like that, but to stop was too hard. She’d never had much growing up, her parents never the means to spend money, neither had they possessed the motivation, either. Life was a simple existence. She got up early each morning to work a paper round––up when only loons, it seemed, would walk the streets. She’d met her fair share. She did that, despite the drawbacks, to have money to get her through school. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.

  In Jack, she had an accomplice. Someone who would carry out the crimes himself. Was Penny just...just? She didn’t know how to answer that. She was more than just a lookout, more than just a civilian. She would be as guilty as he was. They were in it together. She already felt bad enough stealing that Mars bar from the newsagents from where she worked her paper round. No, she couldn’t be involved in anything more. And she wouldn’t let Jack, either. She didn’t, however, have a single idea how she might be able to stop him.

  7

  Even then, I feared I’d unleashed something in Jack that I would soon regret. And I had, and I would, but that’s a story for another day.