Chapter 1... or so ish

Slightly Psychic. Yeah, I know, it sounds implausible. Isn’t it one of those things that you are or you aren’t, or perhaps something you think you might be, but you’re actually loony as a, well, a loon?
But I’m not loony. I’m not rambling. Maybe just a little rambling, and my sentence structure could probably use an overhaul, but I’m actually being serious.
Everyone when they’re little wants a super power. They want to be able to fly, or make themselves invisible, or stop time by squinting their eyes and concentrating really hard. Kids spend their entire lives dreaming of saving people, or playing tricks on the bully down the street. I’m different. I actually got super powers, but somehow I think I got the short end of the stick. Can I leap buildings? Nope. Walk through walls? Turn invisible? Twist someone’s arm off with my pinky? Nope again. See the future?
That’s where the word slightly comes in. Last year the teacher next door to me was living with one of his former students. They got into a fight and he murdered her. Then he fled the country. Did I have an inkling about any of this before we got called into the small auditorium for an emergency faculty meeting? Nope. But I did know, beyond a shadow of a doubt that the principal would be wearing a slightly mismatched red power suit with a pink skirt and hideously ugly brown shoes.
That’s what we English teachers call irony.
I also knew that Mike, one of our assistant principals, was about to lose his job. That didn’t take a huge amount of psychic talent. It was written all over his face. He had known about The Events Leading Up To the Incident all along. Mike was in fact a poker buddy of the teacher in question, and very likely knew about the alleged relationship.
“So were you hiding something from me?” Vanessa prompted me as soon as the meeting let out. The hallways were already clogged with students wondering why their teachers were late to class. I gave one student the evil eye as we walked down the hallway. He had been about to stick his gum under a classroom doorknob. Yeah, I know the useful stuff.
Vanessa is my compatriot. We’re close to the same age. (We’re the exact same teacher age.) She’s an art teacher so she gets to wander around in a white lab coat dotted with blobs of mystery colors. Sometimes I think my job would be a lot less stressful if I got to paint all day, though I know that she’s got more on her palate than that. Most of my fellow teachers seem to think I do photo collages and glue macaroni to paper plates all day. We’ve been teaching at Preston for 5 years now, and during a weak moment, I spilled my guts to her. She not only believed me, but took me seriously.
My sister also knows. She even tried one entire summer when we were kids to get the lottery numbers out of me. She wanted a pony. My mom is a nonbeliever. She chooses to ignore the strange things I come up with. My dad? Who knows. He’s inscrutable. Sometimes I think he might be psychic himself, or perhaps he’s got another super power hidden under his mild mannered façade.
I don’t generally go around advertising the fact that I’m slightly psychic. It tends to get more “ooh she’s crazy” looks than I prefer. I usually keep my secret secret, and only discuss it with Vanessa or Laura. Laura’s another topic all together.
“Well?” Vanessa asked as we reached her classroom door.
“No clue. But if Mike owes you any money, get it from him today.” She waved as she let her hoards into her room, and I made my way through the hall to Jerry’s room. The sub was scrambling. She already looked a little war torn and it was only 7:40 in the morning. I guess it was hard being a sub for a suspected murderer on the run.
“There’s no lesson plans. What am I supposed to do with the kids for 90 minutes? I need plans. There’s not even a plan book.” She searched through the mess of papers on the desk. Jerry wasn’t the neatest of teachers.
“This should work for today.”
Being next door to Jerry, I knew exactly what he did for subs. My spidey sense even told me where to find it. I handed the sub the video cassette.
“Here you go. Los Tres Amigos. En Espanol. That should tide you over for a day or two until you get on your feet.”
She thanked me, and I managed to get my class into my room and settled just as the bell rang. I suddenly realized I didn’t have to save the world to be a hero. I just had to locate a video.

I think I probably need to explain a few more things about my day before the rest of my story makes sense, so I apologize for the heavy exposition up front. I’m one of those people who believe in reality. If we believed everything we saw on television, I’d spend my day drinking coffee and gabbing out in the hallway with other teachers. I’d have perfectly run classrooms where all the students spoke perfect English, completed all their homework on time, and sat in neat little rows in front of a chalkboard.
In my dreams. In teacher talk, I have five preps. That’s five different classes to teach. That’s not ordinary, but neither are my students. When I say I’m an English teacher, I really mean it. I don’t teach literature. I teach students how to speak, read, and write in English. Most places in the world call it ESL. Most places, that is, except the state of California, which must be Different. With a capital D. They call it ELD. Most people in the school haven’t figured out I’m called anyway.
We’re the smallest department, even smaller than special ed. I teach levels one and two, and two classes designed to help Level 2, 3, and 4 pass the California High School Exit Exam. That class in itself is an oxymoron, as those who pass are determined to not need ELD.
I’m getting off on a tangent, as I often do when I start griping, and this is not a gripe fest. This is Explanation.
Maybe you think my attitude towards The Incident is a little cold. I think perhaps I’m still a little in shock, or denial, like a news report I heard somewhere. After all, a girl died by the hands of the guy I worked next door to. I hadn’t known her. Preston was a huge school by any urban standard – larger than some towns. With a population of 4400, I still didn’t even know all the teachers. I was having a seriously hard time imagining Jerry being violent. I’d boxed up the feelings and packed them away somewhere in the back of my closet. I had classes to teach. The kids would have questions and the rumor mill would go berserk.
I was surprised when my class settled down without incident or question and began to work on their opening activity. News had apparently not spread to my students yet. I knew it wouldn’t last long.
“Miss, why is the news man outside?”
Forget it. I knew I was going to have to replan my lessons that afternoon. Learning had been officially sent out the door.
“Sit down. Stop staring out the windows. Miguel, don’t even think of dropping something outside.”
Sometimes it’s a curse to have a classroom overlooking the front of the school. Risking not heeding my warnings, my students gathered at the bank of windows in the back, leaning over the computers, trying to get a better view at the news van that had just pulled up outside.
I now counted three different news crews
“Well, there was an incident.”
“An accident?”
“No incident. It means something happened that the news people want to put it on the news.”
“Did somebody die?”
“Well, yes.”
“It was gangs,” Edgar chimed in. They came and shot up some mean culeros. They hate on Los Mexicans.” The other students hung on his every word. “They pull out their guns and bang bang bang. They shoot my homie dead.”
Finally, one of the other girls caught on. “Mentiroso!” Ana slapped Edgar on the arm. “You tell lies. Right Miss?”
I pondered for a moment as we watched the news crews grow in size. There was no hiding it.
“Mr. Rios killed one of his former students last night. Sara Redman.”
It seems I had manage to stun them. Or impress them. It was hard to tell which. They broke out in rapid fire Spanish, quizzing each other to see if anyone else had more information than they did. And so the rumor mill began.

By lunchtime, all 4400 hundred students at Preston knew that one of their own had been murdered by one of their teachers. I managed to shoo out the last of the lookie loos who thought my classroom would make a good watching post to observe the flurry of news crew activities down below just as Vanessa slipped in.
“You were right. Mike was asked to go home. There have even been rumors that Mike knows where Jerry is. Can you imagine, aiding and abetting a fugitive wanted for murder!”
“We’ve stepped into a TV show,” I said, pulling my lunch out of my mini fridge behind my desk.
“What I want to know is why he did it?” Vanessa looked at me, as if expecting one of my off the cuff psychic answers.
“Hell if I know. Probably the usual reasons. Passion, lust, jealousy, anger. Maybe she was going to press charges for statutory rape.”
“You think a girl who moves in with her teacher even knows what that is?”
I sighed and shook my head. “There’s enough drama in this incident to boggle even the most adept at probing the psychology of the human situation.”
Now it was Vanessa’s turn to shake her head. “You know, sometimes you just really sound like an English teacher.

“This isn’t the probation office, is it?” I looked up from the stack of papers I was grading. A kid stood in the doorway of my classroom peering around at the bright posters on the wall. He looked like the type of kid that would be on probation with his shaved head, large school uniform shirt, and his pants that were as low and big as they could be without being stopped by a vice principal on the way into school.
“Nope,” I said, rather unconcerned. “It’s around the corner on the other side of the stairs.” My room was right next to the police and probation office which is kind of hidden if you don’t know where to look for it. I had a student come into my room by mistake at least once a week. This one was different though. My spidey sense told me so.
“What’s your name?” I asked casually, just as he turned to go.
“Alfonso De La Cruz. Wanna see my ID?” He held up his ID cart defensively.
“No. See you later, Alf.” He gave me a long hard slightly bewildered stare before backing out of the room and disappearing down the hall.
He was probably wondering how I knew his nickname, but then so was I.

It’s not every day that walk into the office of the new vice principal to find a man wearing a kilt topped with what appeared to be a Preston High School polo shirt. I nearly bowled over in a fit of giggles. His back was turned but I could see he fairly fit with some nice calf definition. I managed to suppress my giggles just as he turned around.
Then my urge to laugh died completely. Every ounce of humor leaked out of me as I stared, slack jawed at the sight before me. I was not stupefied by his amazingly handsome features, though after time to process him he definitely leaned into the Colin Firth line of looks. No, it was something more shocking and awe inspiring than mere looks.
Never before had my psychic powers painted such a clear and undebatable image for me to take in. Like a neon sign shot straight from the heavens, the words The One were emblazoned on his forehead.
“Hi.” He said simply. I barely registered the silly grin on his face below the glowing golden letters.
“Hi.”
“Can I help you with something?”
“Yes.”
He paused, his smile still not fading.
“With what can I help you?”
“I forgot.”
And I had. Any link to my reason for entering his office had flown completely out of my head.
“Oh. Okay. I’m sure you’ll remember in a minute. I don’t think we’ve met.” He walked around the chair and held out his hand. “I’m Jack Mackenzie.”
His hand hung out there for a moment, waiting for my brain to process the information.
“Oh,” I said, finally kicking into gear and extending my own hand.
“I’m-“
Holy Crap! I blinked in surprise. I’d completely forgotten my own name. How in the hell did that happen?
“I’m. I’m. Mackenzie. No Mitchell. Yes, that’s it. Mitchell. Kate Mitchell. Kathryn Lynn Mitchell.”
“Right.” He looked down to where I was still holding his hand.
“Sorry.” I let it go like a hot potato.
“It’s the kilt? Right? It tends to throw people. There’s a perfectly good explanation.” He ran his hands down the sides of the blue and green tartan, then he scrubbed at his forehead with his left hand. He must have noticed my awkwardly long stare and determined he had a mark there.
“I… um… yes.”
Without further explanation I retreated from his office and practically ran back to my classroom. I did not however fail to notice the golden glow of a simple band on his left hand.

“The One? That could mean any number of things.” Vanessa shrugged as she examined her students’ lopsided sculptures.
“No. I know it. I know exactly what it means. He’s The One. My One. My only One.”
“That’s if you believe all that soul mate crap about there only being one perfect guy for each girl.”
I didn’t. At least I didn’t until the moment I’d seen the sign glaring back at me. How could it be possible with ten billion people on Earth that you were only meant for one of them? And if he was the only one for you, how could that possibly guarantee that you were the only man for him. Apparently not.
“He’s got a wedding ring on. I can’t do anything about that. I’m not going to go in and make scene and tell his wife. Sorry Chickie, you’re being replaced by the newer, better model. Who says I am better?”
I’d never been considered a sex kitten. I leaned more towards the geeky cool teacher that everyone liked, not the low blouse, high hemmed bombshell that had every male student jacking off at night. Which considering the current school climate, was a good thing. Everyone seemed to have their eye on everyone else, waiting for the next killer teacher to be revealed.
“You are better if you’re The One.”
“Oh, and I’m just supposed to walk up to him and say, ‘Hi. My psychic abilities told me we were soul mates. Would you like to leave your wife and move in with me? How about Saturday? Is that good for you?’”
“Fine,” Vanessa said as she propped up a sculpture that had fallen over backwards. “Let me take a look at him first. Get the lay of the land. Feel him out. You know, drop some hints to see if he’s happily married. Then we can work on a strategy to get you into his bed.”
I blushed right down to my toes. “Don’t you dare mention this to anyone.”
“That we’re going to seduce the vice principal for you?”
“I mean it.”
“Right. Mums the word on Operation Scotland.”

My sister and I have never really gotten along. People tell me as they get older, they get closer to their rival siblings. Mary and I? Well, it’s still cats and dogs. Ever since the Summer of the Lottery, Mary takes every chance she gets to push in a little dig.
Family Dinner Night can seriously suck for this reason, among others, but the guilt trip for not attending one was worse than the two hours of torture (two if you were lucky) that you had to endure every other Friday night.
“So I hear you’ve had a bit of excitement at school,” my mom opened the discussion as she dished out the mashed potatoes.
“I’d tell you to give him my card, but I don’t think he could afford me on a teacher’s salary.”
“Well, that’s rather a moot point, as he’s probably already way inside of Mexico.”
My sister fancied herself a high powered criminal defense attorney, even though she’d just passed her bar exam a year ago. I knew beneath the smooth veneer of her tailored designer shirt that she owed a boatload of student loans.
Mine were already paid off.
“God. That must be an awful life,” she continued. “Can you imagine wandering from one dirty little town to another, begging for work.”
“Actually, I think most of his family is still in Mexico, and their pretty wealthy. He’s probably sitting back in his chair drinking margaritas.”
“Maybe he’ll turn himself in. It was probably all a big misunderstanding,” Mom said as she scooped another spoonful of green beans onto my plate. I bit my tongue and let mom live in her little fantasy bubble.
“I don’t care whether he’s guilty or not. My firm could get him off, no time served.”
“He’s guilty,” I said.
“And how do you know.” I gave her my look. “I know.”
She shook her head and rolled her eyes at me, but at least she began to eat dinner.