Team Of Misfits

Mike: The Infrared Kid

    Run, the only thing I can do. It is all I can think of, I know I shouldn’t have left the house, I mean I’m a freak of nature! I’m infamous, “The Boy That Sees Heat” all the headlines read when I was discovered a month ago. But all I did was go to the ice cream truck. Now everyone is chasing me so they can take a picture. Is this how movie stars feel? I asked myself. Of course I’ve never seen a movie, I can’t see through glass. I felt tears streaming out of my eyes. These stupid eyes are why my life is like this.

“WHY CAN’T I BE NORMAL!” I shouted as loud as I could while running. BAM! I hit a wall. Why wasn’t I paying attention? It hurt so much I couldn’t think. All I could feel was the pain, but as the pain receded, I again heard and saw the mob approach. Why they hadn’t caught up to me yet, I didn’t know, but I would make the best of my head-start. I look around for a cool place to hide, because heat means people, and that’s what I wanted to avoid... people. I look around and find a cold, cylinder object. I hit it, it makes a loud clanging noise, I jump thinking I’m found out. No one comes, so I lift the lid and climb in, hoping no one thinks to look in what I now figure is a trashcan. I see the crowds heat pass by and hope that they can’t see me, they don’t.

I make my way towards my house, or I hope I am. Staying in the shadows, and again I think it’s the shadows (it looks cooler). I hear a shout and I start running, hoping to get ahead of the crowd and lose them quickly. But then I recognize my parents’ voice. My mother ran towards me panting breathlessly, saying, “Oh dear God, Mike! We thought we lost you! I was worried sick. Never do that again!” she said pulling me into a tight embrace in which I could barely breathe. My father comes over and says gruffly, “Theresa, let the boy go, he needs to breath.”

My mom lets me go and I can breath again. While I gasp for air my little sister looks up at me solemnly and says in the would-be-cute-if-she-wasn’t-so-serious way of hers, “Big brudder, mommy was really worried. You shouldn't run away.” At times like this I wish I could see my little sister and family. I wished I could see her, my parents had described her to me many times, but I could never imagine what my little sister looked like. I had been born with my “gift” and so I could I see no color, only heat. I could tell how tall my little sister was and the expression on her face, but little else. My parents had said she had brown hair with large lilac eyes; eyes that shouldn’t exist, like mine. Thankfully no ability has shown up, so we believe that that specific trait has passed her by. Aisha squeezed her stuffed giraffe and asked, “Are you okay big brudder? Mommy says we are going to your favurate res-ta-rant for your birfday.” she was so cute with that way she was talking. I couldn’t believe she was five, then again she is only three years younger than me. But did I hear her correctly we’re going out to eat!?

“Shh, it was supposed to be a surprise.” Mom clearly sounded disappointed.

“Whatever, we’re still going aren't we?” I’m so excited I can barely contain myself.

“Now go get your sunglasses so no one will recognise you.” I sigh and reach into my pocket, feeling for my sunglasses. When I feel nothing I frown, worried that I had lost them when I ran. 

Then Aisha tugs my sleeve again and says, “Here, I tink you dwopped them earwier.” she hands me something that looks vaguely familiar, my sunglasses! She continues, “Sowwy, but Patches really wanted to wear them.” 

I smile and put them on, though it doesn’t make a difference. She tugs me along to what I assume is our car. Mom and Dad follow, talking about something. I ignore them concentrating on where to place my feet, the road has many potholes and my sister doesn’t know that I can’t exactly see where I am going. I have managed to keep that one secret from her, however hard it is. As we get into the car Aisha helps me buckle my seatbelt, I smile, she’s always so nice to me. As we drive to the restaurant, we play Eye Spy. She wins every time, I tell her it’s because I don’t like Eye Spy. When we arrive at the restaurant, she “reads” me the menu. When I ‘order’ off of the menu she reads me, it turns out that she actually got the menu right for once.