fear

James Mascia

The lunch room was packed. That wasn't a surprise. It was always crowded at this time. All the kids gathered there; not to eat lunch, but to hang out with their friends. It was their only chance to do that during the school day.

Christine hated lunch. It was too loud in there. Not just from the rowdy kids yelling. It was their thoughts that were too loud. She didn't know how it had happened. But she knew that she could hear everyone's thoughts.

Bryan, with his arm around Angela, was thinking about how much fun he had with Courtney over the weekend. Jen was thinking about how to cheat off Julia during her math test.

It was just too much for her to handle. It was a curse. She did her best to filter it all out. But it had only been a few weeks and she had yet to learn how.

Christine tried to sit as far away from the crowd as possible. She figured that distance might at least muffle the thoughts invading her head.

Carrying her tray, she quickly crossed the room to the back corner where no one else was sitting. It was a little quieter back there. Even though no one was there, she still felt like her head was going to split open.

She slowly began chewing on her pizza. As she did, she thought about how it all started. She was sitting in Mr. Jenkins' class, and he was lecturing about some stupid science stuff. Right in the middle of his lecture, without warning, she heard his voice inside her head.

Jeez, these kids are stupid, he said. Why do I even bother? They don't care and I don't care. I wish they'd all just drop dead. The world would be better off.

She stared in shock at Mr. Jenkins. She couldn't believe that he would say something like that. The only thing was, his lips hadn't moved. And looking around at the glazed look on everyone else's faces, Christine realized that no one else had heard it. Maybe he hadn't said anything at all.

At first she thought she was just tired and hearing things. But then the same thing happened in Mrs. Murray's class. Christine didn't want to say anything to anyone. She was already considered a freak by the other kids. She could only imagine what they'd say if they found out she was hearing voices.

The only problem was, she really was hearing voices. And they wouldn't go away.

Suddenly, a single thought, much louder than all the others, snapped her back to reality: Ugh! Christine is such a loser.

She recognized the voice. It was definitely Samantha, the most evil thing to walk the face of the Earth. Christine looked around the lunch room for the evil blonde cheerleader. She knew the girl had to be close, otherwise she wouldn't have been able to hear her so clearly.

Look at her eating all by herself. It's no wonder she doesn't have any friends. I mean, who wears all black, all the time anyway?

Her anger was already reaching its boiling point by the time Christine spotted the blonde flowing air three tables away. Samantha was sitting with three of her friends. They were the self-proclaimed popular girls in the school. Everyone in the school based what was cool off of what those four girls did.

As she kept thinking particularly nasty things about Christine, Samantha kept glancing over at her. She was busily chatting with her friends, who seemed very amused with all the things she was saying.

It was only when two of them glanced back at her that Christine realized that Samantha was thinking exactly what she was saying. The evil girl was talking about her. Who could be that shallow?

Christine glared at the girl. She wanted to walk over to her table and punch her in the face. But she restrained herself. She didn't stop glaring, though.

As if knowing she was being watched, Samantha looked over at Christine. "What are you looking at?" she spat out.

In that instant, their eyes locked with each other's. Their eyes were only locked for a second. But in that second, Christine's mind was flooded with information.

Christine didn't know what was happening. It was like she was watching a movie of all of Samantha's memories. She saw Samantha wet her pants in first grade. And her thirteenth birthday party in her pool. She saw Samantha's first kiss with Derrick Shaman.

She also saw Samantha covered in rats. Christine knew immediately that this was the girl's greatest fear. She didn't know how she knew that, but she did.

When Samantha broke eye contact, the real world flooded back.

Almost immediately the girl turned back and began chatting with her friends again. She even looks like a boy, Christine heard the blonde think.

That was it. She couldn't take anymore. Christine looked directly at Samantha and wished with all her heart that something terrible would happen to her.

The next moment, the whole lunch room went quiet as Samantha let out a blood curdling scream and leapt from her seat. Everyone stared at her.

The cheerleader was flailing about, trying, apparently, to bat away something no one else could see.

No one else, except Christine. She could see the rats crawling all over the girl's body as she jumped around and tried to hit them. Christine had no choice but to laugh at her. The sight of it brought her such happiness. But that happiness apparently broke her concentration. As quickly as they had appeared, the rats were gone. They just vanished, like they were never there.

All that was left was a severely disturbed Samantha. She stopped screaming and tried to control her breathing. Her heart was racing at a thousand miles an hour. She turned around and looked at the faces staring at her in the middle of the silent cafeteria. Then somebody, Christine wasn't sure who, began to laugh. The laughs were soon joined by more laughter. It grew louder and louder until Samantha ran out of the room with her face in her hands.

For just a second, Christine felt sorry for her. But then she remembered all the awful things Samantha had said and done to her. The guilt quickly passed and a smile returned to Christine's face.

Did I really do that? Christine thought to herself. At first her response was, No! But she knew. She knew she had really done that. Somehow, she knew. No one else could have made Samantha think that rats were crawling on her.

She really had to learn how to control this power. She smiled to herself as she finished her pizza and left the cafeteria.

Maybe this isn't such a curse after all.