Starting with the Prologue and it's first few sentences:
You should never swear on live T.V.! Trust me…your life will suck if you do.
Should kids say that things suck? Well, they do, so get over it.
From Chapter 4:
Making
it to Mr. Green’s office he invited me to have a seat while he propped himself
behind his desk. Clearing his voice, he sternly probed, “So, are you all healed
from your surgery?”
“Oh,
yes. I definitely have a scar—”
“You
know,” he interrupted without a care. “I remember when I had my gall bladder
out. About two years ago. Damn surgeons botched the job. Pissed blood for a
month before going back. Found out they forgot to suture me in a spot. Huh,”
he muttered with a brief laugh. “It was the damn-dest thing.”
Mr. Green has no idea Jimmy is 9 years old since he looks like an adult at the moment. Jimmy can remain an adult for about 8 hours at a time.
From Chapter 6:
Now
that I had my arms bound and my powers disabled, he finally placed Annie on the
ground. Tears streamed down her face with her hair a complete fright. They
planned on binding her with restraints, as well. The commanding soldier signaled
for another restraint, but Annie’s mind devised a stunning quick plan of action.
While his attention was diverted elsewhere, Annie plucked a hand grenade off the
black thick belt one of the soldiers wore. I didn’t know how much she knew
about grenades, but she found the “pin” and yanked it out. As the one soldier
with the restraints approached her, I screamed, “Annie, no!” With an orange
flash the grenade detonated, sending a shockwave of shrapnel everywhere, which
bounced off my face with a "ting." For a while I couldn’t see or
hear anything after the blast and my body flew back a few yards. When the
smoke cleared, I could not see Annie anywhere. All eight soldiers
disintegrated into bits and pieces with arms and legs lying here and there.
I could have deleted the graphic description of the disintegrated soldiers, but I wanted the reader to fear that something dreadful happened to Annie, too. Will she be okay or not?
From Chapter 7:
“You
know, Jimmy, I’m afraid you won’t be able to spend much time with her. She got
sick overnight. She’s been sleeping all morning. I shook her, but she only
moaned. Must’ve had too much excitement, yesterday, I guess.”
“Oh,”
I stood there, hesitantly, not sure of what to say. My desire was to get to
her and convert her back to normal. If she was sick, I could help her with
that too. “Can I go see her?”
“Well,
I don’t know.” She pushed her curly grey hair up higher on her head. “She
really needs to rest. I’d hate for you to get whatever she has. You know,
Colin has been dying to play with you. Maybe you two can do something
together.”
Colin
came bounding out of the kitchen still in his underwear. “Yea! Yea! Yea! I
‘et to ‘o to Jimmy’s! And Annie has to stay home ‘cause she sick!”
Oh,
no! I really could have thought of better ways to spend my day, but he had been
so enthralled that I found myself agreeing to entertain Colin. He quickly
found a red tank top with a grey monster truck on it along with grey shorts
with red trim. Slipping on his sandals, I then waited for him to retrieve his
bike from the garage and away we went.
That
5-year-old boy spent most of his time darting from the trampoline in the
backyard, to dumping out all of my toys—action figures, Matchbox cars and
airplanes, barrel of monkeys, and a large assortment of Legos. Pieces from
board games, including my classic Battleship, were strewn everywhere. Pro
wrestling cards and army guys lay scattered on my bed and carpet. He managed
to create an unrecognizable pile out of all my stuff in under a half-hour.
He
found all my discs for my Wii and he littered the cases all over the floor of
the living room. Within a minute of playing one game, he became frustrated, so
he would pop out the disc, randomly toss it, and replace it with another. He
did this several times. This boy made me dizzy just watching him. “Jimmy,
Jimmy! Wow, I can’t bewieve you have this…oh I have this. Can you get this
Jimmy?” I didn’t know how long I could take him. No wonder his grandma
wanted time without him!
Down
in the basement, he discovered my dad’s pool table so he had to try to play
it. With a cue stick in his hand, he spent more time jabbing the walls or
hitting me in the gut. The only balls I thought he might actually hit were my
own. By 11:20, I had had enough of Colin, so, I told him that my dad and I
were going out to lunch, and he had to leave.
Okay, Annie's little brother is a hyperactive ball of destruction. If you are male and this kid has an object in his hand, such as a cue stick, your "guys" are at risk. Jimmy found this out the hard way, almost. Jimmy may be indestructible, but he feels pain.
From Chapter 11:
Later
that evening I had just finished my dinner, when suddenly I heard a crash from
down the street, followed by hysterical screaming and the sound of a child
crying. I kneeled on my couch, peeking out the picture window through the
drapes to ascertain the cause of the commotion. At first I couldn’t see
anything, but a crowd of neighbors seemed drawn to a house down the block.
Sirens began blaring in the background, and so I went out to do my own
rubber-necking.
Then
I heard, “Annie. Colin. Are you all right? Oh my gosh, Kathleen!” I parted
my way through the crowd only to stop at Annie’s yard where a man lay covered
in blood amongst a sea of glass in front of the maple tree. I did not
recognize him, but a big bloody hunting knife rested near his head. Both sides
of his face had bubbly patches of skin with a trail of white liquid dripping
from his closed eyes.
Bleeding
profusely, Annie’s mom thrashed frantically around before collapsing on the
driveway. Jimmy, you gotta help my mom, Annie said telepathically.
Her grandma continued squawking as her daughter slumped on the ground, “Oh my
gosh! Oh my gosh!” Mrs. Marshall caught sight of me approaching her daughter’s
crimson-coated body. “Jimmy! No! Go home! Oh my gosh!”
Quickly,
I knelt down next to Annie’s mom. Kathleen hemorrhaged blood by the gallon, so
it seemed, engulfing every inch of her. She had six deep stab wounds—four in
her abdomen and two in her arms. Then, I touched her, immediately stopping the
bleeding. Her injuries began to mend as she quickly regenerated new cell
tissue along with fresh blood, which flowed through her body. She opened her
eyes and regained consciousness. No stab wounds were even visible, although
she still looked like a waterfowl caught up in a scarlet oil spill.
The
police arrived as did a set of paramedics from the fire department, trailed by an
ambulance with EMT’s at the ready. All the neighbors joined with Annie’s
grandma with “Oo’s” and” Ahh’s” and “I can’t believe it” after the healing they
had witnessed. The paramedics and the police checked out Annie’s mom. They
determined that her medical condition was good, but insisted she get herself
checked out by a doctor within 24 hours. After attending to the man on the
ground, the police grilled Kathleen with questions wondering who he was and
discovering he had an outstanding warrant. It turned out this was Darius, her
estranged abusive husband. From my perspective, it looked like he went through
Mrs. Marshall’s front picture window with the glass pane completely shattered.
Mrs.
Marshall drifted towards me, baffled. “I can’t believe what you did. You
healed her. How?”
Trying
to change the subject, I asked, “What happened?”
“I
don’t know, really. I was down in the basement doing laundry. I came up and
found my window completely smashed and Annie’s mom was bleeding. But, you…”
Annie
came over to help with the explanation. “I’ll tell you what happened. Darius
found where we lived. Found my mom. I was in my room, and then I heard my mom
scream, ‘Darius, No! He has a knife!’ I ran down and saw him stabbing my mom
in the living room. Colin ran down the stairs and cried out, ‘Daddy, don’t hurt
mommy!’ So, I grabbed his arm, I mean Darius’ arm, not Colin’s, and held it so
he couldn’t stab her anymore. He slapped me with his other hand and called me
a ‘little b.’ Then, I spit in his face and I heard a sizzle on his cheek. He
held his face screaming. I was so mad at him. I was hoping he would go flying
through the window. All of a sudden, he did. He flew backwards through
the window.” I looked over at the injured Darius who was a very large man
about 6 feet 6. Every so often he would stir, grunting, but alive. Mrs.
Marshall, who was in earshot of Annie, was so baffled by me that she was
oblivious to her granddaughter’s fantastic retelling of the whole incident.
Another graphic scene, but one where Jimmy's healing powers could come to the rescue. This is when Annie not only discovers her power of telekinesis, but she now has an acid spit. It's how all Lifetime movies should resolve domestic violence.
Well, that's all for now. I'll include more excerpts in the next post. Be good to yourselves.
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