Rumbled

I can't risk glaring at Sophie, but out of the corner of my eye I see her face fall as she realizes what she just did.

"Oh! Clark, I'm so sorry! I only wanted to help…!" Sophie covers her mouth with one hand, joining me to watch Sabrina for any sign that she saw what happened.

More like she wanted to jump in and pick up my pencil before Sabrina did and wasn't thinking clearly. Obviously, Sophie's dislike of Sabrina doesn't have a whole lot to do with any risk she poses to our secret. That, coupled with the fact that Sophie has the impulse control of a dog in a tennis ball factory means doing something completely risky and stupid without a second or even first thought. Like grabbing my pencil in front of the whole class.

My mind is careening with no brakes. A quick glance around as I stand up tells me the rest of the class have their heads bent over their own work, though most of them are just chatting with each other. That makes me feel a little better. Sabrina, though, is another matter. She was standing right there, and I'd drawn her attention to the pencil by asking her for it. She looks up and spies the pencil with the other stuff in my arms.

"Oh, you got it after all? I was wondering where it went."

I breathe out through my nose, slowly. "Oh, this?" I say, tipping my chin toward the pencil. "It's a spare. Sorry, I must have kicked the other one away while I was trying to reach it."

That's plausible. That's real plausible. Sabrina takes one last glance around the floor, as if to see where the pencil allegedly ended up. While she's looking away from me, I shoot Sophie a sharp glare and gesture for her to jump back inside my body, which she does, curling up in the back of my head to pout. Let's see how she likes being grounded for the rest of the school day.

"Well," Sabrina says, heading for the door with me in tow. "It's good you keep an extra. The lead probably broke when it hit the floor, anyway."

I nod, maybe a little too enthusiastically. "Yeah, nothing worse than broken pencil lead."

The rest of the period goes smoothly. The school library has some books with info we can use for the history assignment. The librarian lets us print out some pictures off the internet that Sabrina can glue to poster board for the visual aid. All the same, my nerves are beyond shot. When the final bell rings, I'm ready to make a break for it and head home where I can crawl into bed with the TV remote and a bowl of ice cream to calm down.

"Hey, Clark," Sabrina says, watching me shove books into my bag with her hands on her hips. "Remember how you promised to help me with cleaning duty before?"

Oh, no.

"You said you'd definitely help, and then you ditched out on me again."

Crap. Not that isn't pretty much exactly what happened, but still. "Oh, uh, about that," I stammer, feeling that bowl of ice cream and brain-rotting TV recede farther away. "I wasn't feeling well, so I..."

Sabrina tilts her head to one side. "So you forgot and left without saying anything to me."

Again, that's pretty much what happened. But it makes me sound like a jerk, so I'm not a huge fan. "Sorry," I say again. "I guess I felt so sick it was all I could think about."

"It happens," Sabrina says, shrugging. "But you're helping today, right? To make up for it?"

Ah. Goodbye, bowl of ice cream. Goodbye, Harry Stinger Show reruns.

I sigh. "Yeah, of course." Defeated, I set my bag back down on the library sofa.

Sabrina brightens, though she looks a bit too smug, like she expected to win this one. "I knew you were reliable, Clark."

"Clark," Sophie pipes up in my head. "You're letting her push you around again!"

"I don't want to hear from you right now," I snap back at her. "Just let me get through this, and don't think we're not going over the ground rules again when we get home later."

Sophie quails and goes back to sulking at the back of my mind.

I turn my attention back to Sabrina. "The job might get done faster if we take opposite sides of the building and meet back here?" If I have to stay late, I can at least feel less on edge if I'm alone. I can talk to Sophie and get that out of the way, too. She meant well, but she can't keep doing stuff without thinking it through. We were lucky this time, but that's not something we can count on.

"Actually," Sabrina says, dashing my hopes for the hundredth time today. "I think it's better if we work together this time. Can't have Blaine giving you a hard time again, can we?"

I'm coming to the conclusion that Sabrina just does the opposite of what I want, no matter what it is. She must think to herself about what would make me feel most like an ant under a magnifying glass, and then do that.

Sabrina and I spend a while cleaning in silence, going from room to room to change the garbage bags, put chairs on top of desks for the janitor, and erasing any stray chalk from the blackboards. The entire time, Sophie pecks at me in my head.

"She's acting very suspicious!" I feel the urge to pace as Sophie rants.

"Can you blame her? You're the one who snatched my pencil right out from under her nose," I fire back, slamming an empty trash can on the floor harder than necessary.

Sophie pouts. "And you're the one who wrecked the gymnasium during your game! You can't blame that one on me," she says, snippy. "I was asleep the entire time. Not everything is my fault."

"Who said I was blaming you for that?" To my annoyance, I catch myself sulking the same way Sophie is. "Look, let's just get through this and go home. We can talk about how to avoid this kind of issue and that'll be the end of it."

Sophie snorts, not the most ladylike sound. "You should let me scare her the same way I did those boys. Then she'd leave us alone for certain!"

Not this again. "We've been over this, Sophie. You shouldn't have threatened Blaine and his friends. I told you that when you did it, it could have backfired." I nearly pop myself in the face with a chair leg putting it up on a desk, I'm so distracted by Sophie Wrangling. "And it wouldn't work on Sabrina, anyway. She's got a lot more backbone than those guys do."

"Naturally," Sophie says, bitterness making my hands itch. "What gift should I send for the wedding? A new toaster, maybe? Silverware?"

"Don't be like that..."

Sophie retreats to the back of my mind. "I'm not being like anything. I have no idea what you mean."

With the cleaning chores finished, Sabrina and I head back to the library to get our things. I'm relieved to finally be going home, but Sabrina throws one last curveball at me, blocking my path with a hand slammed against the end of a bookshelf.

"Sabrina?"

"Alright, you had all afternoon to come clean," she says, peering sharply up at me. "How did you do it? With the pencil?"

Well, crap. Just when I was sure she hadn't seen anything... "I told you, I had a spare."

"Don't lie! I say the thing move without you touching it. And don't say you kicked it!" She cuts off my response. "Your foot was nowhere near it. I was looking directly at it and it moved up off the floor. I know what I saw. Have some respect for my intelligence, Clark."

It's almost a relief when things get as bad as they can get. Almost.

Sophie's jumping around in my head. "Let me scare her off, Clark! I can toss her up onto the top shelf, or tear a big hardcover in half! Then we make a run for it!"

I don't even have the space in my thoughts I need to tell Sophie to knock it off. All my attention is focused on Sabrina. "Okay, so what did I do with the pencil, according to you?" I cross my arms and hope the sweat stains under my arms don't show through. Sabrina might have us dead to rights, but I'm not going to cave early and do her work for her.

"You're..." Sabrina's eyes dart around for a second, checking for witnesses even though we're alone. Her eyes have a wild shine to them on top of their usual piercing quality. "I don't know exactly, but you're not normal. You levitated that pencil. I saw it, even if no one else did." Her hair flicks back and forth as she looks me over. "Are you a mutant? An esper?" She looks hopeful for a second. "An alien?"

"An alien," Sophie grumbles in my head. "What a nincompoop! I don't know what you see in this girl."

When I fail to say anything, Sabrina's iron posture wilts ever so slightly. "Look," she says, "I know I come on strong, but I'm not someone you need to be on guard against, okay? I kept quiet during class, didn't I? And during gym."

That much is true. Sabrina could have had a huge freakout either time and drawn everyone's attention to me and Sophie. That doesn't mean her intentions are good, though, as much as I'd like that to be true.

"And how did you get to school as fast as the bus did the other day? I kept that to myself, too." Sabrina wrings her hands together. "You're not being very careful, you know? You need someone here to be in your corner and look out for you. Don't you agree?"

That's another good point. And at this point in the conversation, me clamming up only looks more suspicious than otherwise. "So, you're telling me you were hounding me the last few days because you wanna be friends?"

Sabrina nods, her hair whipping along with the motion before settling right back down into place. Even a mild manic episode can't disturb it for too long. "You're perhaps the only interesting person I've met in years. Do you know how boring everything is? Of course you wouldn't," she adds before I can comment, crossing her arms. "I doubt anything in your life is boring, because you're inherently not boring. I'm sure I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but you do realize how rare that is, don't you?"

I blush lightly, even while Sophie still rages in my head. "Of course," I say, trying and failing to think of the last time anyone told me they thought I was interesting.

"If you're worried I'll try to take advantage of you," Sabrina barrels on, "or turn you in to the authorities, I swear on my life I'd never do that." She clasps her hands, blinking away tears. She's crying?! "This is the best day of my life. This is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me, do you understand? Please don't run away or hate me."

Right now, Sabrina could stab me in the arm and I wouldn't hate her. "You're… okay," I say, "Okay. You're a little intense, but I definitely don't hate you. You've just been wigging me out for the last couple days, that's all."

"Then you'll be honest with me? Please?" Sabrina reaches up to wipe her eyes, smearing the light coat of mascara she wears over her cheeks.

"Clark, this is no time to fall for the crying damsel in distress act!" Sophie shouts. I hold her at bay, silently shushing her. She's the reason this all is coming to a head today, so she doesn't get a say in how I handle it.

Slowly, a cold pit in my stomach, I nod. "Yeah," I say, crossing my arms. "I guess it's time to come clean, since you found me out on your own." Well, with some help from Sophie, but I think I can keep her safely out of this. "You're right, I'm an esper." That's like a psychic, right? Like in comic books. Telekinesis, and whatever.

Sabrina lights up like a floodlight. "I knew it!"

"Yeah, you got me."