Chapter 7

"Morning Anneliese!" Keisha said excitedly as she ran over from talking with a group of her other friends.

"Morning..." I said, rubbing the temples of my forehead. Today, teleporting from home to school gave me a giant headache. Mom can't feel it herself, but usually when I get a headache from teleporting, it's because Mom's stressed. The one downside to having a teleporting mother.

I understand why she's stressed, though. As Mom told us last night, this week a lot of people were getting laid off at her job so she has to cover all of their shifts on the weekend since it's only going to be her and two other people, one of those people being her boss, some guy named Jodee. The only reason she and the other person aren't being laid off is because they both have some sort of power that can show the customers where exactly they can go for vacation: my mother with her teleportation and her partner with their mind projection. Everyone else working there didn't have powers. She has a lot of work ahead of her. I feel bad that she's doing so much overtime.

"Are you okay?" Keisha asked cautiously.

I nodded wearily. "Yeah. We don't have a car, so my dad and I commute with my mother since she can teleport. She's under lots of stress right now, and not only does she feel that stress, but anyone who teleports with her feels the stress with her through really bad headaches. I just need to get some chocolate in my system."

"Why chocolate?"

"I have no idea. All I know is that chocolate helps stop the headaches."

Keisha looked off into the distance, her eyes glowing for a bit before she blinked, the glowing stopping when she did that, and stared back at me. "The cafe in the library is selling small packages of chocolate covered donuts for a dollar today. Will that work?"

"How do you-"

"I'm a technopath, remember? Just about everyone in my family is one. Technology responds to me. Best part: I don't have to see the object to hack into it. I hacked into the camera on the girl who's working at the cafe today's phone and saw the chocolate donuts. They only bring out those donuts at random times. Usually, they just have the powdered donuts."

"First off, cool. Second off, chocolate covered donuts definitely work." I said, laughing happily. "Thanks Keisha."

"Can Erika and I come with?"

I froze. "Erika?"

"Yeah. Erika Evans. She's in Science Olympiad with me. My partner, actually. She's one of my closest friends. She... Texted me about what you did yesterday. Not that she had to, though. I was about to go deal with it, but then I hacked the security camera and saw the whole thing go down. Thanks. For being there when I couldn't."

"So... Does Erika-"

"No." Keisha bit her bottom lip uncertainly, taking a deep breath. "She doesn't even know her parent's powers. Erika's biological parents threw her into a river a couple days after she was born. Lava Rock and Super Stretch witnessed the event while they were out on a date and adopted her. Erika doesn't like talking about it, though, so please don't tell her that I told you."

"Got it." I said as Erika ran into the building, jumping up and down.

"Keisha, my moms like the statue design, and they're presenting it to the city board!" Erika said excitedly, her brown hair pulled back into a long braid down her back.

"That's awesome, Erika." I said happily.

Erika looked over at me in surprise. "You know Keisha, Anneliese?"

"We have history together." Keisha said quickly. Not a lie, since we do actually have history together, but also not the exact truth since we are in a club together, if you can even call Y.A.K.S. a club.

"Oh... So are we gonna head to the library for our morning cup o joe?" Erika asked happily.

"Yeah. Anneliese is gonna be coming with us. Hope you don't mind." Keisha said as the three of us walked to the library side by side.

"Of course not!" Erika said happily. "Say, Anneliese, did you figure out question 3 on the homework last night? These verifying questions have me super confused."

"Barely. Want me to show it to you once we get in the library?"

"Yeah."

Once we got inside the library, we all made small talk as we got in the long line to the small cashier for the cafe. The library was basically a fancy computer lab. Sure, there were some books on the shelves, but there were mainly just small tablets on the shelves that only had one book on it, the one that was next in line if there wasn’t already a book there, but most of what was in there were tables for group work and multiple computers to finish homework at. Books were a rare commodity since they were so expensive, which is why I was lucky I got my grandmother’s books when she eventually died. They were the most expensive things I owned.

"Morning ladies." Edward said, walking up to the line and standing behind us.

"Who's this?" Erika asked cautiously.

"Edward. He's... uh..." Keisha said awkwardly.

"He's in psychology with me." I lied quickly. "What's up Edward?"

"You free tomorrow? After school?"

"Yes... Why?"

"To... Study for that upcoming psychology exam." Edward said uneasily. I guess he wanted to start training tomorrow.

"Right... The psych test... I'm sure it'll be fine. My house?"

"Yes."

"Got it. I'll tell my family tonight."

"Great!" Edward said, taking out his pair of black earbuds and sticking one in his ear. "I'll see you later, then."

"Yeah. See you later..." I said awkwardly as Edward walked to a silent corner of the library, sat down on the ground, and grabbed a random tablet out of the wall and started swiping through something.

As soon as he was gone, Erika's eyes went wide. "You actually know him?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"It's just... He really doesn't talk to anyone. Like... Half of the girls in our grade have a crush on him, but he barely talks to anyone. It's... Kinda weird that he's giving you so much attention." Erika said as she stepped up in line, ordering her drink as she was handed an empty cup. "Maybe he has a crush on you or something."

I rolled my eyes, grabbing a package of the chocolate covered donuts. "I doubt that highly."

"Then why are you two hanging out together?" Keisha asked cautiously.

"Again, to work on the psych test. He saw me out in public on Sunday when my dad was trying to help me with my psych stuff while my mom was in a meeting with some of her colleagues, and he saw me... Lose my mind because I wasn't understanding anything. We talked for a bit, and he agreed to help me with it." I said cautiously. Keisha seemed to understand my coded message as she just nodded.

"So he thinks he can help you?"

"Yes."

"Oh no..." Erika said exhaustedly as Keisha and I paid for our breakfast, her head hung down in disappointment.

"What?" Keisha asked curiously.

"Our normal table is taken over by the cheerleaders and football jocks." Erika said, pointing to a table in the corner where Becky and Trayvon were sitting with a couple other people, laughing at something the girl at the head of the table said. I recognized the head of the table as one of the girl's Zelena was hanging out with yesterday: the red haired girl.

Keisha nodded, glaring at Becky slightly as she pointed to a group of beanbags by the window. "Over there."

As Erika ran over to the beanbags to save them, Keisha groaned. "I can't believe her..."

"Who?"

"Becky! I get that she's the captain of the cheer team, but come on! She knows that Erika and I always take that table. Next meeting, she is so getting it..."

"Isn't she your friend?" I asked cautiously, opening up the package of donuts and taking a bite. From what little I knew about her, Keisha didn't seem like that violent of a person. The sudden rage towards Becky surprised me.

Keisha scoffed. "My friend? Please, like I'd be friends with someone who condones Gretchen Griffin's behavior! Rebecca Sanchez thinks that she's entitled just because she gets to wave pom poms in the football guy's faces, and so do all her little cheerleader friends. Why would I be friends with someone like that?"

"I’m confused. I thought that everyone in Y.A.K.S. liked each other." I stated, noticing Callum all the way across from the library, talking with the two other drum majors and practicing some part of the show. They probably had one of their phones on the table, quietly playing the show music.

Keisha rolled her eyes. "Something you'll learn about us all rather quickly is that Callum's the only one who keeps us all together. We're more like coworkers, really."

"Why though? Wouldn't you want to be near people kind of like you?"

Keisha laughed. "Heck no! You and Callum are already at the bottom half of the social ladder because you two are drum majors and in hand in what not, Edward is at the very bottom because he's a loner, I'm slightly above you guys because I'm a science nerd and the Student Council President, and Becky and Trayvon are all the way at the top because they're a cheerleader and football player respectively. If we all started hanging out together outside of Y.A.K.S., people would suspect that something was going on."

"But I'm hanging out with you and Erika."

"Because you don't know the social order yet. Trust me, if you knew what was best for you, you wouldn't be hanging around us." Keisha said sadly, looking outside the window as she took a sip of her coffee, sitting down at a beanbag as she did so. "You'd be hanging out with Callum."

"That doesn't make it right." I said, sitting down next to Erika. "This whole thing seems very High School Musical."

"Very what?" Erika asked cautiously.

"Not important." I said, nervously biting one of the donuts. Somehow, something about this whole situation didn't feel right.

"Jill Jenkins isn’t that bad, but she’s not the worst person to exist." Erika said gently.

"Who’s Jill Jenkins?" I asked, giving Erika a confused look.

"The other black haired girl who was bullying me yesterday." Erika explained. "Things haven’t been easy for her since her parents died, so I think that she’s just acting out."

"You’re just looking to defend all of them. She was pretty nasty before her parents died too." Keisha said bitterly.

"I wouldn’t judge a book by it’s cover, Keisha." I suggested. "You never know a person’s full story unless you just talk to them."

Keisha didn’t say anything, knowing that I was using this as an opportunity to teach something about her getting along with Becky. At this rate, it would be lucky if I survived the semester with Y.A.K.S.

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