Manipulation High

Chapter 6: the rules

Clay POV.

No creating, destroying or ruining life.

That was an easy rule to follow. I couldn’t wish for somebody to have a child or something, I knew that because I wrote in my parents would have a son, since I always wanted a brother. Sadly though I was only stuck with my annoying sister.

Then I had also written that I wished a girl from my science class would be hit by a car because of how annoying and obsessive she was when it came to me. Unfortunately that didn’t work, and I instead wrote that she just didn’t find me attractive and then the problem was solved.

No inhuman abilities.

This was one of the worst rules. You do not know how much I’d love to live the life of a book or movie character. To have powers like Spiderman or The Flash, to be a wizard like Harry Potter, or to be a god (or even a half god) like Percy Jackson.

No hurting people as close as blood.

This means I can’t write about something bad that happens to family, or really close friends. This is pretty self explanatory. However I can write about good things, like how I made my best friend Sapnap the best football player in the school (after me of course).

No affecting 10 miles away

Another self explanatory rule. Whatever I write can’t affect someone more than 10 miles away from me when I write it. So I can’t write something like ‘I am the smartest person in the entire universe’ or ‘a flood will wash over Egypt’.

Then it said that nobody will know what I am doing when I do it. Which I figured out meant that they would not know if I wrote something unless someone saw me write something and already knew about the powers of the book. It always worked like that, and it always was easy for me to deal with.

That was until George came along. He was different from everyone else. I know that it shouldn’t be that big of a deal if I moved from being the smartest to the second smartest. My grades were still high enough to get me into a good college or university and a good job, but it just weirded me out that this had happened.

My first thought was that the book didn’t affect someone who moved to the school after I wrote something in, which made a lot of sense. But when I rewrote ‘I am the smartest kid in the school’ nothing changed.

We had been sitting in History when I wrote it, talking about the Titanic because we were learning about tragedies that changed the world. Mrs Rogers was asking us if we knew anything about the famous ship. People put up their hands and she asked them what they knew, before writing it up on the board behind her.

Mrs Rogers called on most of the other kids who put their hands up first, and they generally gave bland answers which everyone knew. When it was built, when it sank, how many people died. Stuff like that. I was fine with waiting until the end, since I knew nobody else would be able to say what I was going to say.

Finally after listening absentmindedly to what people were saying for what felt like days she called out my name. I smiled as I began to talk. “The Titanic was one of three sister ships, which were all White Star Line's Olympic class of steamships. The other two were called the Olympic and the Britannic.” I stated.

She gave me a small smile as she turned to write a little bit about what I said on the board as I settled back into my seat in a more relaxed stance. When she turned back to the class she seemed ready to carry on but saw another hand up “George? Do you have something to tell us?”

I looked over my shoulder to see the brunette at the back of the classroom. The new kid who walked in a minute late. “Well the Titanic was believed to be unsinkable.” He began, and I noticed a sweet sounding British accent. He might have moved from the UK like Wilbur and his family did.

“Although the side of the bow of the ship wasn’t strong enough to endure the hit, however, if the ship had hit the ice head on, engineers and shipwrights believe it would have survived.” I found myself staring at him as he explained, since I didn't know what the hell he was talking about which was a first for me.

“Since they thought the ship was invincible they ended up removing a lot of the lifeboats to make it seem more appealing and neat.” He paused for a moment. “There is a theory though that the Titanic didn’t actually sink, instead White Star Line claimed another ship was the Titanic so if it crashed they’d get more insurance on the wreckage, since the Titanic was more modern.”

“Yeah,” I said, realising what he was saying and jumping up without thinking. “People think that the Titanic was replaced with the slightly older Olympic ship. They were both built in 1910, however the Olympic was used before the Titanic, the ships were almost identical, plus the Titanic went through a lot of renovations mere days before it was meant to set sail.”

I hadn’t taken a breath through anything that I just said, and stopped to look at the brunette when I did. We stared at each other for a moment before Mrs Rogers spoke up in her same cruel voice. “Both of you sit down.” She stated, and we did what she said without saying another word.

Then she continued as she turned attention towards me,  “and Clay for disrupting the class and calling out when you weren’t meant to, you will be getting detention after school today along with Mr Soot and Mr Davidson.” My face didn’t change at all when she said that. I haven’t had a detention before and I definitely wasn’t having my first one today.

When Mrs Rogers turned away I pulled the green leather pocketbook out of my hoodie and opened to a random page before writing down. I wrote ‘I did not get detention today’ with a thick black pen. After a moment of thinking I also remembered to put Wilbur’s name down too, since he is one of my closest friends, and I also put the new kid's name down too.

Once I had changed what I originally wrote by scribbling the two other names in front of my own so it read ‘George, Wilbur, and I did not get detention today’ I looked over it to make sure there were no spelling mistakes before shutting the book and pocketing it.

“Dude what the hell was that?” I looked over at my friend who was sitting beside me. “How did that new kid get you all flustered?” He was my best friend, a ravenette who went by Sapnap who was almost two years younger than me. The reason he was in my history class was because I used the book to put him up a couple of grades so we could hang out more.

“It was nothing.” I shrugged him off, leaning back further into my seat. “I don’t see why it’s such a big deal. What’s wrong with another kid being smart?” I questioned, and the ravenette seemed confused, before looking over his shoulder to see Wilbur talking to him.

Sapnap kept trying to question me about the brunette, as if I actually knew about him. He also tried to tell me to invite him to sit with us for lunch. However before he could actually convince me the bell rang, and I headed off to the cafeteria.
_________________________________________
1344 words

While you are here, I recently completed my other story heroes, which you should feel free to check out if you want to read another story.