Kaleidoscope (discontinued)

Chapter 2 - Jay

I laid on my back on the floor staring up at the ceiling. A few feet away from me, balanced atop a pile of what most people would call "clutter" sat my popcorn bucket-shaped Bluetooth speaker loudly playing songs out of my YouTube nightcore playlist. 

Though I was trying to relax, at the same time I was mentally kicking myself for giving in to Kaitlen and her stupid fire. I could beat her in a fight anytime, and couldn't believe I'd agreed to watching this new kid so quickly.

I was trying to focus on the noise that was coming through the speaker when I saw someone coming down the hallway. I sighed, and hit the volume down button on my phone. The girl eventually stopped in front of my door, and after hesitating for a few seconds too long for my short patience, I called out "Are you gonna just stand there, or are you gonna walk in?" The kid jumped, and I sighed, sending the door swinging open. The door clipped her shoulder on its way to hit the other wall. "I'm going to assume that you're Alyssa?"

"Yeah." Alyssa cleared her throat, nervously entering the room. "Yes I am."

"Ok." I reached up to gestured towards the right side of the room. "You can stay over there. I don't care what you do; just don't touch my shit, alright?" I dropped my arm back to the floor. 

"Ok...." She sat down on the bed I'd stolen from Len, who was currently out of town. Hopefully he wouldn't figure out it was me. "So, you're Kaitlen?"

I stifled a laugh, then explained. "No. I'm Jay. Kaitlen dumped you on me. The only reason I agreed to this is because she threatened Butters, and I'm pretty sure she'd follow through with it." I tilted my head slightly so that I was looking up at her. Remembering that the door was still open, I closed it. She jumped slightly at the noise. 

"Who's Butters?" she asked. 

"Cat." Not wanting to continue talking to her, I hit the button on the phone so that the music was audible. 

"Can you turn down the music?"

"I can." She seemed to be waiting for something to happen, so I continued with, "but I won't."

She glared at me, and pulled out her phone. "What's the wifi?"

"DeathToTheDouches," I let her know. I waited as she scrolled through the long list of Wifis from the other rooms in the building for the inevitable question of what the password was. 

"...thanks. What's the password?" she asked predictably. 

"TrappedinaP0RN0 - the 'T' is capitalized, 'P0RN0' is in all caps but the 'O's are zeros. No spaces." I responded, my voice a steady monotone. 

"Lovely." She logged onto the wifi, and proceeded to do whatever she was doing on her phone.

I continued to stare at the ceiling, and listen to my music as I tried to figure out if the insanity was finally settling in. I couldn't take care of a kid. I could barely take care of myself.  "Are you going to unpack?"

"Later." She hastily responded.

"Cool." I nodded, and quietly sang along to the lyrics the speaker churned out. I started to think more about the circumstances that left to this timid girl to end up here in the first place. All I knew was that her mother was in a hurry to get rid of her. It made no sense. Alyssa was at least eleven or twelve. She's obviously had whatever ability she has for years. Why did she have to come here now?

Many songs passed before I reached out with my mind to tap the button on the side of my phone to turn down the music so that it was simply just a soundtrack in the background.  "So. What can you do?"

"What?" she asked, wide-eyed and surprised at my sudden words. 

"You must be able to do something if you ended up here." I sat up, and scooted around on the floor so that I could sit with my back against my bed. My legs were splayed out in front of me, and I leaned my elbows against the mattress behind me. 

"Right back at you." Alyssa retorted shakily in a weak effort to deflect the attention back on me.

I shrugged. Feeling around the room, I moved the giraffe. It walked over to sit down next to me. It looked back and forth between the two of us before returning to where it had been previously resting.

"Telekinesis?" she asked, staring at it.

"Obviously. What about you?"

She didn't answer.

"You're a quiet one." I stated, sighing. I wondered if I could get Kaitlen to watch her. Doubtful though. 

She shrugged and looked away.

What was I going to do tomorrow? What do little kids like? Wait. According to my classmates, I'm basically a young child. So, she'd probably like doing things I like to do, right? Ok, probably not video games, but maybe, yeah. "Do you like rides?"

"What?" she asked again, this time actually confused.

"Every year, I go to the amusement park the weekend before school starts, do you wanna come with me?" I clarified. 

"School started a week ago." She said, giving me a weird look.

"True. That won't stop me from going. Who would I be if I let something like homework prevent me from having fun?" I asked rhetorically.

I didn't get an answer to that, which was actually to be expected.

However, it was annoying that they didn't give a response to the first question. "Do you want to go to the amusement park tomorrow or not? I have a season pass, and still have the friend pass they give you when you buy it." I felt around the room, grabbing my wallet out of the air once I found it. I opened it up, and looked through it. Though I found my glossy yellow season pass, I couldn't find the friend pass. It took about a minute of searching the room to find it buried under a pile of DVDs. 

"Sure." She answered distractedly. "Why not?" She was looking around, her expression one of a person in deep thought. "Where do I put my stuff?"

"What do you mean?" 

"There isn't a dresser in here." Alyssa said, stating the obvious. "Or a closet."

"True." I thought about it for a moment. I'd never really had the need for one. I could just find whatever it was that I wanted to wear, mentally remove any dirt from it, and I'd be fine. "I guess you'll have to find one yourself."

"What?" This girl was big on the 'whats' wasn't she.

"At a yard sale or something." I suggested, picking up my phone to check the time. I realized that I hadn't been charging it, so I sent it across the room to the outlet to charge. I reached around and grabbed my bed to pull myself up into a standing position. 

I looked over to Alyssa, then turned around, turning off the lights as I did so. Smiling slightly at Alyssa's startled cry, I caught an oversized t-shirt out of the air, and peeled off my skinny jeans and binder. Falling into bed, I could see a dim light coming from Alyssa's phone. 

I rolled over slightly, only my face visible from underneath a pile of blankets and watched as she quickly changed into a pair of pajamas, found the outlet so that she could charge her phone, then climbed into the bare bed on her side to go to sleep. 

We were both drifting off to sleep when I felt a furry presence outside the window. I sleepily reached out to remove all the dirt and burrs that had gotten caught up in Butters's fur, then opened the window for the cat to come inside. 

"What was that?" Alyssa jumped at the sound of the window slamming shut. 

There was a loud "MEOW" from the cat, and she seemed to understand what had happened and settled back down. The cat jumped onto my bed and curled itself around my feet to sleep.