The 'Naturals: Awakening (Episodes 1-4 -- Season 1) (The 'Naturals: Awakening Season One Boxset) Read online

  Piper leaned back and let out a short breath. “So I’m going to get in line tomorrow night. You coming with?”

  “I’ll be there,” said Linus, “but just for fun.”

  “In line for what?” Marshall said, other thoughts storming through his head. He didn’t snap out of it until he caught Linus’ reproachful frown.

  Linus reached into his pants pocket, pulled out his phone, and sent it sliding across the table. It stopped between Marshall and Piper.

  “Oh,” replied Marshall. “Right.” The new smartphone. They were going to get in line to wait for it to go on sale. “Doesn’t it come out like, the day before school starts?”

  This week marked the end of Summer. School was back in session next week.

  “Yeah,” replied Piper, bored. “So?”

  Marshall was trying to think of a way to remind them that living on a sidewalk for almost a week before school began would be irresponsible, though this wasn’t the real reason he couldn’t go. Marshall never had as much money as his friends did, making for a very uncomfortable subject.

  His brain screeched to a halt. He turned to Linus. Just for fun, he’d said. “Wait. You’re not buying one? That’s a first.”

  “I totally want to,” said Linus. “But my mom says I’m not allowed to this time.”

  “Why?”

  “What happened to this one?” asked Piper, who was fiddling with the one Linus had tossed onto the table.

  “Dropped it in the toilet.”

  Marshall tried not to crack a smile as Piper’s hands recoiled and the phone dropped to the table. There was a long moment of silence as Piper closed her eyes and collected herself. Marshall imagined she was probably trying to convince herself that Linus had washed the thing after its unfortunate encounter with the latrine.

  “When did that happen?” Marshall asked.

  “‘Bout two weeks ago,” said Linus, stating the facts in a clinical, dispassionate manner.

  “How on earth did you manage to—” Piper cut herself off and swallowed. “That didn’t happen. I never asked that question. So why are you carrying a dead phone around?”

  “Mom says I have to keep it on me for the next year, as a reminder of the importance of taking care of my belongings. Especially the ones that cost five hundred dollars.”

  Marshall picked up the phone and looked it over. The glass wasn’t broken but it was definitely fried. The seal was broken on the side, and he found it easy to pull away the rear casing. He gazed at the phone’s insides so hard he almost didn’t hear the shout.

  “Hey, MARVIN!”

  Marshall blinked and looked up to see Dennis Carver carrying his tray through the fast food place’s dining room, looking for a table.

  He and Dennis were among the longest-running attendees of Silverwood High. Most of the others in their class had moved to town in the last five or six years, but Marshall and Dennis had been there since First Grade. That was the year Dennis had given Marshall his very first wedgie—in front of the entire class.

  Sadly, in the years since then, their relationship had never changed. Dennis had gotten bigger—much bigger, in fact—after discovering a love for weightlifting and every team sport known to man. But Marshall had only shot up in height. He was about half a head taller than Dennis, but Dennis weighed considerably more. He’d probably just come from a workout today because he sported a dark tan, a red tank top, gray gym shorts, and white tennis shoes.

  Marshall couldn’t help but marvel at how sweat never looked as gross or smelled as bad on Dennis as it did on himself. Instead, it glistened across Dennis’ bulging body and gave off a pheromone-type odor that all the girls at school couldn’t get enough of. All the girls except Piper, of course. She wanted to be President someday so she could outlaw bullies and build them a prison that orbited Earth.

  Marshall hadn’t seen Dennis all summer, and he’d almost forgotten about the whole “Marvin” thing. It started out as changing Marshall’s name to “Martian.” As in, “the little green egghead guys from Mars,” as Dennis put it. From there, it was an easy jump from “Martian” to “Marvin the Martian.” Which had proven to be too much of a mouthful.

  “At practice the other day,” said Dennis, striding over to their table, “Coach Slater told me we’re going to be gym partners in P.E. this year.” He grinned as he said it like a shark dreaming about fresh, red meat.

  Marshall’s hands ran quickly across the inner parts of Linus’ phone, tugging on this, pushing on that, moving things around. It was a nervous twitch, and he could feel his heart thudding against his ribs.

  “Okay,” was all he managed to get out.

  “You might want to go out and buy some straws before school,” said Dennis, still smiling. “You’re gonna need ‘em for drinking your meals.”

  Marshall felt like he’d just drank from Alice’s teacup in Wonderland and was now slowly shrinking in his seat.

  Piper glanced up at Dennis, her expression perfectly even, her gaze dispassionate. “I hear steroids cause . . . dysfunction,” she said, glancing down at his shorts. Then she turned back to her friends as if Dennis weren’t standing there.

  Dennis looked around the table, turning red. Turning to go, he spotted Piper’s backpack sitting on the edge of the booth. One of the shoulder straps dangled on the ground, and he looped his foot into it and dragged it just enough to cause it to fall off the seat and spill its contents on the floor.

  “Oops,” he said, his eyes lingering on Piper as he stalked away.

  Piper left her seat and recovered her belongings from the floor. She refused Linus and Marshall’s offers of help.

  Linus looked over at his friend and said, “Why does Coach Slater hate you?”

  Marshall hadn’t recovered from Dennis’ news about P.E. He shook his head.

  “It’s not just him,” said Piper, returning to her seat. “Mr. Slater hates any living thing that won’t do two hours of calisthenics before breakfast.”

  “I am so roadkill,” mumbled Marshall, staring at the table as if it were a mile away.

  “Maybe it won’t be so bad,” said Linus, trying to look for the bright side as always.

  Marshall laughed bitterly. “How is he not going to destroy me? He’s a tank with feet.”

  Piper stood. “Let’s get out of here. You need distracting.”

  Hesitantly, Marshall got to his feet. “Oh, here,” he said, realizing he still had Linus’ phone.

  Linus grasped the phone and stood, then froze. The phone was in one piece again. “Wait, how did you—?”

  Marshall turned and looked. Linus was staring at his phone as if it were a newborn baby. The brightly lit LED screen reflected off of Linus’ thick glasses.

  Even Piper stopped and gaped at the phone. “It’s working?”

  “But it was fried!” said Linus.

  “In potty juice,” Piper added.

  Marshall shrugged again. “Guess this means your mom will let you get a new one after all.”

  Half an hour later, Marshall’s friends had forced him behind the wheel of Piper’s car. Her idea of distracting him from his impending demise at the hands of his new gym partner was to give Marshall a driving lesson.

  He’d protested, fought, and bluntly refused to do it. Futile, of course. Piper and Linus had been after him to get his driver’s license for months—ever since he’d turned 16. But Marshall was in no hurry.

  For starters, his dad kept promising to take him out for some lessons. Of course, that’s all it was: promises. Then there was the negative environmental impact of automobiles in general, which he felt strongly about. He preferred not to contribute to carbon emissions, so he rode his bicycle instead of the school bus or any other motor vehicle.

  That was when Piper reminded him that she drove a hybrid. He had no choice but to concede, but he was determined not to enjoy it.

  So he felt rather vindicated, twenty-three minutes after getting into the driver’s seat, when the car suddenly shuddered and
all the dashboard instruments went off. The gas pedal failed as well, and he was forced to coast the car just off to the side of the road as gray smoke poured from the vehicle’s engine.

  Marshall got out of the car and looked around. No real civilization out here, which meant they’d have to wait a while for a tow truck, or one of their parents. For now, there was nothing but the three of them and the stillness of the trees.

  Piper stepped out of the passenger’s seat, swatted away the still-pouring smoke, and crossed her arms, staring daggers into Marshall. The message was clear: he’d done something to her car, and now she would kill him.

  They were out on the edge of town on a simple, two-lane slab of asphalt that cut through a heavily wooded area. He thought they might be a few miles away from the site of that new corporation that had just built a facility here, bringing more than a hundred jobs to their small town. What was it called, IGT?

  “Okay, I have to pee,” said Linus, rising out of the tiny backseat. “Um, where do I pee?”

  “Turn toward the trees and walk straight,” said Marshall, nodding at the woods on their side of the road.

  Linus’ shoulders sagged. “I’m allergic to the woods,” he whined.

  As Linus shuffled off into the forest, Marshall looked back at Piper. But she wasn’t watching him anymore. She was looking just over his shoulder, her eyebrows raised slightly.

  Marshall turned and found himself face-to-face with a scraggly man with a long, unkempt white beard and bushy white eyebrows. He wore tattered clothes over his filthy skin and smelled like a hot dumpster.

  Marshall jumped back and swallowed hard. He hadn’t even heard the man approach or seen him walking along the road when they pulled the car over. Maybe he’d marched out of the woods.

  The old man leaned on a single crutch, but his big eyes weren’t focused on Marshall. He was studying the ground as if he’d dropped something and was trying to find it.

  That was all he wanted, Marshall told himself with a calming breath. He needed help looking for something. The other crutch, maybe. Probably had terrible eyesight.

  Or, he had come to knock the three of them out with his crutch, drag them back to his hidden shack in the forest, and eat them for supper.

  “Ain’t good,” the man said. “It ain’t no good.”

  “Um, what’s that?” asked Marshall, trying not to get too close but still keep an air of friendliness.

  “The weather,” the man barked, still not looking up. “It ain’t lookin’ good.”

  Marshall looked up. It was a sunny, seventy-degree day, with an uncharacteristically clear, blue sky. More perfect weather was impossible to imagine.

  “I don’t see any clouds,” he said.

  “Not the weather in the sky,” said the man. “Can’t you feel it coming? Foul, foul weather. You best get ready, ‘cause the weather’s about to change.”

  Marshall sighed, fighting the urge to roll his eyes. “What weather?”

  The man finally looked up at him. “The silver!” he croaked. “The weather is going to change! Won’t ever be the same again.”

  Now Marshall really did roll his eyes, glancing back at Piper, who stood on the other side of the car. The old guy had lost it. Probably escaped from a nursing home or a mental institution.

  “Okay, sir,” he replied at last. “We’ll get ready for the weather.”

  The man nodded and then wandered down the road, still staring at the ground.

  “The silver?” Piper repeated, after he was out of earshot. “The silver that doesn’t exist?”

  They both knew the story of the veins of some silver-colored mineral running under their town. The old urban legend claimed that Silverwood was built on top of these strange silver deposits that stretched beneath the ground in veins, like the roots of a massive tree. Only it was nonsense. Just an old wives’ tale, as his mom described it. Some scientists had dug underground a good while back and found nothing. Besides, there was no naturally occurring mineral that appeared in silver-colored, veiny deposits.

  Marshall sighed and returned to the problem at hand. Piper was reaching into her pocket for her phone.

  He walked around to the front of the car. “Can you pop the hood?”

  “What, because you’re going to fix it?” she retorted, standing her ground. “I’m calling Triple A.”

  “Fine, I’ll pop the hood.”

  Piper crossed her arms again, still holding her phone but not dialing.

  Once the hood was up and he’d waved away the mushroom cloud of smoke that erupted from the opening, Marshall looked down at the engine. He immediately got lost amid its pipes and nozzles and wires running this way and that.

  Piper approached and coughed at the smoke, watching him instead of the engine. “Have you ever even looked under the hood of a car before?”

  Marshall shook his head, still glaring at the engine. He’d never had any interest in learning about cars or how they work.

  But this engine was wrong. It bothered him, and he couldn’t explain why. It was just not the way it was supposed to be. He saw the problem, it was plain to him. He coughed and waved away the smoke again.

  Piper sighed loudly, spun on one heel, and returned to the passenger’s seat of the car. A few minutes later Linus emerged from the woods—sneezing and wiping his nose on a white handkerchief—to learn of their predicament. He offered to call for help on his newly working phone, but Marshall shouted “Just wait!” from behind the hood, causing Linus to shrink into the backseat again and wait with Piper. Neither of them spoke for the next ten minutes. But Piper was fuming so hard Marshall could practically feel the heat coming off of her. He ignored it.

  They both jumped when Marshall slammed the hood down. He ran to the driver’s seat and got in. Piper and Linus stared at him like he’d contracted leprosy; he glanced down and saw that his face, clothes, and hands were all black with soot.

  He grabbed the keys and gave them a twist.

  The engine came to life with a purr. A very satisfying purr.

  Piper’s eyes widened so far they nearly popped out of her glasses. “What did you do?” she demanded.

  Marshall put the car into gear and jammed his foot on the pedal. Piper’s hybrid car roared, and sped down the old road.

  “Fixed it, apparently,” he replied. He couldn’t remember why he’d disliked driving so much. This was the most fun he’d had in ages.

  “But . . . how?” said Linus in the backseat.

  Marshall glanced at him in the rearview mirror. If Linus held his seatbelt any tighter his knuckles would break through his skin.

  Marshall considered the question. It had felt so natural, his hands going over the car’s components, connecting one thing to another, making this and that work again.

  “I don’t know,” he finally replied. “I just . . . I knew how it was broken, so I fixed it.

  “That’s impossible,” was all Piper could say.

  Piper and Linus said very little as Marshall drove them back to town. But he caught them staring at him sidelong every few minutes.

  Why were they acting like this? Were they worried about him? Or afraid of him? He didn’t want that.

  Marshall had no idea what was happening to him, but he knew one thing.

  He liked it.

  HAILEY

  by K.C. Neal

  Episode Three

  HAILEY STARK LOVED THE smell of fresh cut grass and the give of the soft turf under her soccer cleats. She knew without looking that she was positioned slightly to the left of center between the goal posts to compensate for her slower left-side reaction. An opposing player dribbled past Hailey’s defenders, planted, and sent a rocket shot at the goal. Hailey leapt up and to the right, stretching her arms out so far her left shoulder pinched in protest. The soccer ball smacked hard against her fingers and stuck to her gloved palms like iron to a magnet. She kicked the ball away, and waited until everyone was looking downfield before circling her left shoulder back, and then for
ward.

  On the sideline, Coach Stanley blew her whistle and frowned, scrunching her forehead the way she always did when she got absorbed in practice or a game.

  “Hailey and Amanda, switch!” Coach shouted from mid-field. “Hustle, ladies! Just ten minutes left in this scrimmage.”

  Hailey jogged to the sideline, picked up her water bottle, and turned to the other end of the field. Amanda Babcock, Silverwood High’s second-string goalie, jogged down the other sideline as far away from Hailey’s trajectory as she could get without leaving the field.

  “Awesome stop, Hailey!” Penelope Perez called from her mid-field position and clapped a couple of times as Hailey passed.

  “Thanks, Penny.” Hailey gave Penny her auto-smile. She raised her chin and pulled her shoulders back, and broke into a jog, her blonde ponytail swinging back and forth in rhythm with her measured steps. She stared ahead, but saw in her periphery her teammates’ heads turn to follow her as she made her way to the other end of the field.

  When she reached the other goal and dropped her water bottle next to the net, Kristin DeLaney backpedaled from her position on defense until she was almost even with Hailey.

  “Coach Manly is seriously going to need Botox,” Kristin said. “Like tomorrow. You see those worry lines across her forehead? I’m getting my own worry lines just worrying about hers.”

  Hailey scanned the bleachers. Where was the tall man with the clipboard? Not looking her way. Hailey grinned and snorted a laugh. “Remember how mad she got when you called her Manly last year? You had to run about a hundred extra laps.”

  “Whatever, it’s not my fault she has a square jaw and broad shoulders,” Kristin said.

  “Be nice,” Hailey said, and tried to look disapproving.

  “Nice is not really my thing. That’s more your department, Miss Perfect.”

  Hailey rolled her eyes and smoothed back the flyaway hairs that had escaped the elastic holding her hair back. “Oh, stop.”