Chapter 7: Now our parents know...

August 31st, 2015

“That was a baaad idea Rick.”

“Well it would’ve been fine if you hadn’t broken that machine-I told you not to touch anything!”

Cadi folded her arms and pouted as she sat on her bed. Rick was standing in her room with his hands on his hips, a stern look on his face.

“Whatever. Just try to get some sleep. We’ve got school tomorrow.”

“You mean today.”

“You know what I mean.”

“But I’m not sleepy.”

“I don’t care.”

And with that, he slammed the door. Cadi scowled and plopped herself back on the bed, feeling bored.

What in the world was she supposed to do all night?

It was then that she remembered that she hadn’t done any of her homework.

So with a sigh, she picked up her bookbag, only to have the strap tear off due to the weight of all the stuff she had tried to take with them on their little adventure. That, and besides the fact that it was kind of old and cheap…

“Aw man!” she sighed, emptying her bookbag and looking at the broken strap disdainfully. Pathetically, she put the strap up next to the rest of it in some mild hope that it would magically fix itself.

Surprisingly, that’s exactly what it seemed to do.

Cadi’s eyes grew wide as suddenly, she could feel tingles in her fingers and bubbles in her stomach. She then watched as the strap reattached itself to the bookbag. But it didn’t stop there. The worn bookbag looked like a time lapse on rewind. Gone was the part where the red power ranger’s face had been rubbed off. Gone was the spot where Cadi had accidentally dropped it into the mud. Gone was the mark across the plastic part where she had been drawing and the marker had gone off the page. All of the cuts and worn parts that Cadi had come to recognize over the months that she had the bookbag seemed to rewind until she was staring at what it looked like when it was brand new.

“RIIIIIIICK!” she yelled, running into her brother’s room with her bookbag in tow. Rick met her in the hallway, a finger to his face in fury.

“SHHHH! You’re going to wake Mom and Dad!” he whispered.

“Riiiiiiick!” Cadi whispered, waving her arms.

“Whaaaat?!”

“Loooooook!”

With that, she held up her bookbag in the dim lighting of the hallway.

“Big deal. It’s your bookbag.”

“But Rick. It broke. And I fixed it.”

Rick rolled his eyes and turned his back on her.

He didn’t understand.

Obstinately, she pushed past him and ran into his room.

“Hey!!” he whisper shouted, running after her.

She knew he still kept his old laptop in his desk drawer. The one that she had broken a couple of years ago. Quickly, she opened the drawer and took out the pieces. It looked just as she remembered it. Smashed. She remembered that day clearly. Cadi hadn’t been allowed to hold a bowling ball since.

“Get out of my room!” he said in a hushed voice, obviously still mad. Cadi brought out the laptop, but before she could try anything, Rick tried to grab it from her, and the two of them were suddenly in a tug of war.

“Just let me see it for a second!” Cadi exclaimed, forgetting to whisper.

“Let go!!”

“No!!”

“Rick Bryson and Cassidy Alise!”

The two siblings froze at their first and middle names and slowly turned to see their father standing in the doorway in his pajamas, quickly putting his glasses on. Their mother stood behind him in her gown and robe, yawning and rubbing her eyes.

“What in sam hill is going on?” their father raged. “It’s three o’clock in the morning! On a school night! We thought something was wrong.”

Rick and Cadi seemed at a loss for words. Instead, they stood frozen, both of their hands still on the broken laptop.

In the silence, something suddenly started to happen to the laptop.

The family watched in surprise as the laptop seemed to heal itself in reverse time lapse just like Cadi had seen with her bookbag. The four of them watched open mouthed as the pieces placed themselves back together and the cracks in the screen vanished. A moment later, Cadi was standing there with a brand new laptop.

“Interesting…” their mother commented, peeking around her husband.

“WHAT WAS THAT?!” their father exploded, his glasses falling askew as he put his hands to his head.

“I can’t tell you cause it’s a secret.” Cadi blurted, earning a death glare from her brother. Their parents looked expectantly at Rick in response, causing him to groan.

“I don’t know what just happened!” he said truthfully.

“I told you I can fix things now.” his younger sister said triumphantly.

“Now is not the time Cadi…”

As their father started to hyperventilate, their mother came forward and crouched down to Cadi’s level.

“You know it’s not good to keep secrets from your parents.” she said sweetly, her long hair draped over one shoulder. “Let us know what’s going on, and we can help you with it.”

Cadi glanced at her brother, who was oh so subtly shaking his head no. She sighed and put the new laptop on the floor.

“Mommy, I can pause time.” she said truthfully, causing her older brother to face palm. Her mother blinked, trying to take in what her daughter just said.

“Can you show me?”

Cadi nodded and set a hand on her mother’s arm.

A moment later, Carlene Wille was circling their frozen father with interest.

“Hmmm. This is quite interesting…” she muttered as Rick sat down on his bed, pouting. “I’ve always believed that super human abilities could be possible, but I never thought it would be in my lifetime…”

Without a word, she took her husband’s finger and stuck it up his own nose, causing Cadi to giggle.

“Ok. We should probably show your father.”

Their father did not take it as well.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next hour was spent in a type of family council as Cadi explained what she could do and how she probably obtained this new ability, and how Rick now seemed to be connected with her. Their parents tried to figure out what to do next.

“How am I supposed to handle this?!” their father asked, clutching a white paper bag that he occasionally had to breathe into. “There’s no books for parents on what to do if your child tells you that they suddenly have powers! All of those teen self help books for parents are now useless!!”

“Charles, calm down.”

“Our children could be radioactive or something!”

“I’ll take them to the doctor tomorrow to get them checked on. I’m sure they’re fine.”

“If it was teen rebellion we could actually get help…”

“Charles.”

“Do we sue these scientists? Force them to reverse it?!”

“Charles.”

Cadi and Rick watched as their parents bickered back and forth. Their father wanted to confront these so called scientists, and their mother wanted to take it to the authorities.

They decided they would decide the next day.

The next morning, their father went off to work, taking the paper bag with him, and their mother took the two of them to the doctor, where everything checked out fine.

Nothing unusual happened until they got home.

There was a note waiting for them on their door.

Don’t tell anyone.

Please.

It’s for your own safety.

-T

“Who do you think T is?” Cadi asked, standing on her tiptoes to read the letter again. Their mother also read it again, looking worried.

“Wait… so… are we in danger or something?” Rick asked, glancing down at his little sister. “Is-is that a threat?”

At that moment, their mom turned the piece of paper over and then the three of them froze as they saw that there was more writing on the back.

And no. It’s not a threat Rick.

“What the heck?!” Cadi exclaimed. “How did they know you were going to say that?”

Rick looked over at his mom, who looked rather pale. Usually things didn’t faze her that much, but this did.

“I… I need to think about this… and show your father when he gets home…” she whispered, folding the note with shaking hands and going off to her room. “Or… maybe I should just call him now…”

Rick and Cadi watched as their mother left the room.

“Hmmm…” Rick continued to stare at the door.

“Hey! Watch this!” Cadi exclaimed, holding up a pencil with a smile. He watched as she put her concentrating face on, and then suddenly, the pencil time lapsed forward as if it was aging, then backwards until it was a stick. He watched in awe as Cadi made it go like that back and forth.

“How are you doing that?”

“I’ve been practicing whenever you guys aren’t watching.”

“But what are you even doing? How-.”

“Well, you know how those scientists were saying stuff about the time stream? It got me thinking. When I fixed my backpack, I think I was rewinding time on it. I think I can rewind and fast forward time on specific things.”

Rick stared at her.

“But… if you can do all of that, then… what does that mean? What else can you do?”

Cadi shrugged. Rick thought for a moment.

“Can you… pause time on a specific object then?”

“I don’t know.”

The two siblings looked at each other and then ran outside into their fenced in backyard. Cadi looked around to try to see what she could maybe pause.

“Cadi! Try that squirrel!” Rick exclaimed, pointing. The eight year old closed her eyes and concentrated.

The first few times, it didn’t work. She kept accidentally pausing everything, but then, finally, she opened her eyes to see that time was still going, but the squirrel was now frozen.

“Woah!! Cadi! That’s amazing!!” Rick said with wonder, making his sister feel proud of herself. “Imagine what you could do with this!”

“What do you mean?”

“Here-let me try something…”

Rick ran into the garage and came back out with some planks of wood.

“Here. I’m going to throw one of these up into the air, and you try to pause it.”

“Ok!”

For the next hour or so, the two of them spent time together outside, trying to see what Cadi could do and trying new things. She found that if she paused something in midair, that it would stay in place-even if she jumped on it. She had to keep focusing on it though, otherwise they would fall. Her older brother commented on how it was almost like telekinesis, but Cadi simply shook her head, cause she couldn’t make objects go wherever she wanted. She could only control the time of an object.

After a bit of practice, Cadi could soon pause time on multiple things in the air. By doing this, she was able to jump on the planks of wood that Rick had thrown in the air and get a frisbee off the roof that had been stuck up there for months.

They also found that she could do other things too, but they had their limits. For instance, she could make water quickly turn into ice, but only if the area around it was cold, like in the freezer in the garage where they stashed their emergency supply of frozen pizzas. But then she couldn’t quickly turn the ice into a liquid again unless it was in a warmer area, so the two of them decided that the environment definitely mattered.

Cadi couldn’t believe how much time they were spending together. Rick hadn’t even touched his phone once, and he was actually smiling and laughing with her. It was everything she had wanted for months and months and months.

At one point, they got a little hungry, so they went inside to grab a snack.

“Oh gross! This banana has freckles on it!” Rick said with disgust.

“I can fix that!” his little sister said happily. With that, she closed her eyes and concentrated.

But for some reason, it hadn’t changed when she peeked.

This time, she stared at it hard and willed the bubbles to come into her stomach. She watched as one freckle disappeared, and then another, and then-.

“Woah woah woah! Cadi! Stop!” her brother said, sounding alarmed.

It was then that she realized that blood was trickling out of her nose and her head was now throbbing.

“I… think that’s enough for today…” Rick said slowly, putting the banana back into the bowl.

“But we were having so much fun!” she whined as he got a tissue and handed it her.

“Well, yeah, but I don’t want you to hurt yourself. These powers are new, and I don’t want you to stretch yourself too thin.”

Reluctantly, she had to agree that he was right.

At least he was being nice to her now...