Chapter 5
Next period, I found myself daydreaming in science class when an announcement came over the PA system. I was still trying to process everything that had happened in French class and trying to figure out when Noah would have learned those other languages and why he didn’t tell me about it. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention to the announcement until I heard my name.
“. . . Jacob Rovert to the office, please.”
Crap! I figured it was only a matter of time before I had to own up to the dent in the classroom door. I gathered my books and headed toward the principal’s office—a route I knew too well—and caught up to Noah who was coming from biology class.
“What do you think this is about?” He sounded confused.
“They called you too?” I shook my head. “I thought it was about me hitting the door in Mr. Meade’s class, but you weren’t even there for that, so I don’t know.”
The secretary ushered us into Ms. Peters' office, making some sort of humorous comment about it being nice to see us again. I quickly noticed Rachel sitting on the window ledge in the back corner. She had an amused expression on her face, which confused me even more.
“Boys, come in and sit down.” Ms. Peters wore an inviting smile and she seemed quite relaxed. I got the feeling it wasn’t going to be a bad meeting.
“What is this about?” Noah asked as he turned to look at Rachel who was now smirking deceptively. Odd girl. Pretty, but odd girl.
“Well, you both know Rachel Riley,” Ms. Peters said in a soft, low voice as she motioned toward Rachel.
We nodded in unison.
“Rachel has come to me with a very interesting theory.” She paused to pour herself a glass of water. “Rachel believes you are both gifted.” Ms. Peters looked up to assess our reactions. Silence. “Noah, I understand you have the ability to understand foreign languages?”
Noah straightened in his seat uncomfortably. “Well, apparently I can understand French, Italian and German . . . and English, of course.”
“Anda dapat memahami saya sekarang?” she questioned him in a language I had definitely never heard before.
“You asked me if I could understand what you were just saying, in Indonesian. And I have no idea how I know that.” Noah’s voice was shaking and I could see the beads of perspiration forming on his forehead.
“Excellent. Very good,” Ms. Peters commended before turning to me. “And Jake, Rachel tells me that you are a fast healer. No scars anywhere?”
“That’s right, ma’am,” I said nervously as I shifted in my seat.
“I wonder,” she said to herself as she opened the drawer to her desk and pulled out a pocket knife. She handed the knife to me and asked me to cut myself. I’m not kidding. Those were her exact words: “Cut yourself, please. I want to see it for myself.”
I don’t know why I didn’t hesitate. I knew what I had to do. I poked the knife through my skin and sliced a three-inch-long incision into the palm of my hand. I probably would’ve flinched if it weren’t for Rachel and Noah watching with such anticipation and admiration.
“Here,” Ms. Peters said as she handed me a towel, “wrap this around your hand. Now I want you to close your eyes for a moment and think about your hand healing.”
I did as I was told. I squeezed my eyelids closed and thought about my hand in its perfect form. No incision. No blood. Of course I knew this was ridiculous because the towel was already soaked in blood.
“Okay Jake, now let me see.” Ms. Peters gently unwrapped the towel from my hand. I turned it over to show her the damage. Or what should have been the damage. There was no open wound, just a bloodstained palm. I looked closer, and stretched my fingers apart expecting to see something. There was just the faint line of what looked like an old scar.
“Now that is cool!” Noah exclaimed.
Rachel clapped her hands together in excitement and squealed, “Told you.”
Noah bent down and started rolling up his pant leg, “Hey, try my leg. I gouged it last night at lacrosse.”
“It won't work on you, Noah,” Ms. Peters began. “Jake’s gift is still in its infancy stage. He’ll need to work on it in order to be able to heal others. That will take time, practise and patience, of course.”
“Work on it?” I asked, finally able to speak. “What do you mean?”
“Are you tired, Jake?” Ms. Peters asked.
My eyebrows creased as I pondered her question, and oddly yes, I felt exhausted.
“You’ll need to develop your gift so that it doesn’t drain you when you use it.” She sat down in her chair. “You’ll need strength as a Gifted One. To help mankind.”
Noah nodded in agreement. I felt I should too, but I was too confused.
“But why?” I asked, hoping for something to clear the fog in my head.
“Gifted Ones work as an elite force with the international police. Interpol comes to us when they reach a dead end,” Ms. Peters explained. “We build clusters of Gifted Ones to work in teams.” She paused and her eyes lit up with excitement. “But this group here is destined to be the biggest force yet.”
Rachel chimed in, “Jake, this is probably a little too much information at one time, but you really do have an extremely special gift.”
I shook my head trying to make sense of it all. “Wait, what do you have to do with this? Who are you guys?”
Rachel and Ms. Peters exchanged a knowing glance as Ms. Peters began to explain, “Rachel is my daughter.” There was a pause as she gave us time to process this new bit of information. “I’m sure you can appreciate why we like to keep this a secret. It wouldn’t do Rachel any good making friends or maintaining our undercover identities.”
“Wait!” Noah turned and pointed at Rachel. “You're the principal's daughter?”
She smiled innocently and shrugged her shoulders. “Sorry I couldn't tell you guys. I had to be sure about you first.”
Ms. Peters continued, “Rachel and I are also gifted. There are more of our kind around the world, and we often seek out others with such talents, to train and assist them in helping with our cause.”
“You are gifted too? Rachel, you can heal? Understand languages? I don’t get it.” I could feel my face getting hot. I wanted it all to make sense.
“Yes, we are both gifted, but not with the same gifts that you have. Rachel has the gift of Prophecy; she can see the future. I have the gift of Wisdom, which is the ability to retain any and all information I’ve ever read or heard, and also to lead or sway a crowd with my voice.”
That explained why I didn’t feel the need to question her, and how I somehow knew that what she was saying was right.
She continued, “There are many different gifts that one can be blessed with. Rachel can speak a few languages, but only because she has learned them through study.” Ms. Peters stood and crossed the room to the window, and then continued, “Rachel had a vision about Jake and someone close to him, and their potential for making an amazing difference in the world. She wasn’t sure until today that it was Noah. This is part of the reason we came here—to seek you out.”
I wasn’t sure how I felt about knowing that we had been “spotted and hunted.” Kind of flattering; mostly creepy.
Noah decided it was his turn to speak. “So, wait. You said something about us helping your cause. What does that mean? What is your cause exactly?”
Rachel hopped off the edge of Ms. Peters' desk. “Our cause is to keep the peace. Get rid of the bad guys; help the good guys. That sort of jazz.”
“And how are we supposed to help you do that?” Noah stared back at Rachel with curiosity.
“With your gifts, of course. The gift of healing is very rare, and extremely important. Imagine the power it will give us to have Jake on our side. To heal us whenever we are injured. To heal the innocent. The victims.”
Ms. Peters joined in. “Of course Rachel is right about Jake. However, Noah’s gift of translation is also invaluable. We often deal with othe
r nationalities so it will be advantageous to have him on our team as a spy, so to speak.” She moved back to her big leather chair and sat down carefully. “Of course, there will be a lot of training involved. Your talents are still raw.”
I looked down at my hand, where the scar was even more faded than before. I was pretty impressed with my gift just the way it was. But the idea of being able to heal other people was intriguing.
“Wait a second,” I said, turning to Rachel. “So this is why you were so interested in me?”
Rachel laughed. “Did you really think I had a thing for you, Jake?” She scoffed as if that wasn’t possible.
I couldn’t decide whether I was more angry or hurt. I decided I was angry, given the fact that she had caused Anna so much frustration because of it. “I’m sure there were other ways to find out more about me. You didn’t have to go on acting like you wanted me,” I said.
Rachel tilted her head. “If you’d like me to keep pretending for the sake of your little Anna, I can do that.”
“Leave her out of this,” I snapped.
“Fighting like siblings already.” Ms. Peters shook her head in disapproval. “Let’s get back to business.”
I returned my attention to Ms. Peters since she was the one who made me feel calm and rational. “So what’s in it for us?” I asked.
She smiled slightly and leaned in to lower her voice, “I thought you might ask.” She reached into her desk and pulled out a folder containing a stack of paper. “We’ll have to get your signatures on some documents, and we will take care of the rest. As for your studies, I will ensure your grades improve to put you near the top of the class. We need your full attention on training. You can’t be preoccupied with extra help or tutoring.”
Fantastic! That was a big enough perk in itself. I controlled my excitement in an effort to hold my bargaining position.
Ms. Peters continued, “Also, I will have to pull you from some of your classes to do training during the day. We’ll call it tutoring, since that’s essentially what it is.”
An uncontrollable grin was creeping across my face at this point. Our homework would be done for us, projects would be a thing of the past, we would be able to skip classes during the day . . . it was all too good to be true. I was in!
“But most importantly,” Ms. Peters began, “you cannot, under any circumstance, reveal your gift or your new purpose to anyone.” Her controlled stare, combined with the gift of mind control, made it very clear that she was more than serious.
We nodded. “Understood.”
Ms. Peters kept us out of class for the rest of the day, citing in-house suspension. She gave us background information on the secret society to which we now belonged. By the end of the day, we were brought up to speed on the “need-to-know” information and finished signing all of the convoluted contracts, which bound us to secrecy and had us consenting to assume responsibility and liability for any future harm that might come of us. More importantly, the contracts also gave us assurance that our school work and alibis would be taken care of.
As we were leaving the office, Ms. Peters caught my arm. “Jake, I will speak to your parents this afternoon and tell them that I have you on an extensive tutorial program here at the school which will help improve your grades, and I will make sure they don’t hear about your incident with Mr. Meade yesterday. As a result, they should be more lenient with you, which will give you time away to train, and to be with your friends.” She nodded toward Rachel and Noah who were waiting for me in the hallway.
“Thank you, Ms. Peters. I really appreciate that.” My thoughts immediately went to Anna and the weekend trip to Wentworth.
“And go have fun on that Wentworth trip. Rachel will be there. You two can chat some more, if you have further questions.”
“Again, thank you.” I shook her hand and caught up with Noah and Rachel. I was excited about Wentworth and the good possibility that I would now be allowed to go. For some reason, I needed to spend the weekend with Anna. I needed to finally hear what she had been trying to tell me earlier.