Getting to know Chloe (D2)

I recoment for everyone to read the first part of the story “The girl with the blond ponytail (D1)” before this one.

But if you want you can get a taste here first, feel free to do so. I’m a farly new writer with english as his second language, which doesn’t mean my stories are any less good but it does mean that I’d like some feedback. Please consider leaving some …

Scene 1

Daniel is sitting on his bike in front of her house. Today he woke up next to the one girl that he just can’t quite figure out. Maybe, that’s what he likes about her so much. Who knows, he certainly doesn’t. But who cares, nobody has ever made him feel so … ordinary. But in the same way special. His powers don’t work on her and I mean, at all. Some people are just hard to crack, but at least he gets something from them eventually. With her it’s nothing.

He looks into the sky. If he had to describe what he sees he’d say it’s depressing. Gray clouds everywhere. The weather reminds him of a rainy day in fall. Compared to yesterday it’s pretty shitty. At least it’s still warm and the rain hasn’t started, yet. Better hope it stays that way for another 30 minutes. He and Chloe still have to go to school and it would suck if they’d be soaked for the first class.

The sound of the front door attracts his attention. He looks down and sees that Chloe is finally finished. And as he looks at her, he realizes what took her so long. She is back to her usual ponytail, there is also the change in clothing and it seems like she has put on some subtle makeup. All in all, she looks pretty formal for a regular day at school. As much as he’d like to think that she tried to look good for him, Daniel suspects that there is another reason.

He can’t do anything else than to stare at her as she walks down the driveway.

“Better close your mouth before we get going unless you want some more protein this morning.” She says teasingly.

He almost missed the big mouth of hers. Up until now, she was pretty quiet, probably not a morning person. “Oh, don’t worry about me. As long as I’m in front of you I should be fine. But what about you? Getting all formal for our Math class today?”

“Why, you don’t like it?” Chloe spins around so Daniel can see the whole beauty of her.

“I love it. But seriously, do you know something I don’t know?”

Chloe laughs, “Probably.” Daniel gives her a face that says, that’s not what I meant but can’t hold back a grin himself. “No,” Chloe says, “I’ve just remembered that we’ll have a guest speaker today at school. Something scientific. A local company that sends a speaker so we can find an interest in working for them after school. We’ve had a few over the year. They are pretty informative. I’m not really interested in the one we hear today but that doesn’t mean that I can’t dress nicely for it.”

A guest speaker. Probably some boring old man that tries to prove that math isn’t as boring as everybody except him thinks it is. But from what Chloe said it shouldn’t be that bad. Let’s see. “I think we should get going.”

“You’re scared of getting detention in your first week?”

“And being a whole evening with you in one room? Seems like torture to me.” He says. She hits him playfully but gets on her bike and drives of.

Of course, she wouldn’t let him lead the way after the comment from earlier. Guess the race is on …

 

Scene 2

He tried to sit with Chloe, but she was already cornered by her friends. As she saw him, she raises her shoulders as if to say ‘I’m sorry, next time?’. The presentation is held in the school gym. The whole grade has to attend. Daniel is lucky that he got a seat next to his new friend Steve. He is all right. It seems like he is one of the more popular kids at school, especially around girls, but somehow, he doesn’t care about that kind of stuff. Steve is a good guy; Daniel can tell. And he is nice to hang with.

The principal has some words upfront but tries to keep it short. At least that’s what she said five minutes ago. Daniel doesn’t care how long she takes. With his abilities, he’s not really under pressure to get a job anytime soon. For him, it’ll probably be just another boring hour at school. Also, nobody was able to tell him what the speech was about. Everybody just said something about science. Pretty specific.

“I’m very proud to tell you …”

The principal still goes on as Daniels gaze drifts of to the side of the stage. He is surprised that he finds a familiar face. Can it be? It’s Karren and there is no one else around. Is she …

“But let her speak for herself, Dr. Carter!”

The crowd starts clapping, as Karren enters the stage. Daniel is stunned. It seems like he is in for a real treat today. Yesterday he helped her to get rid of her ex that had thrown a tantrum in front of her apartment, had hot sex with her afterward and now she is giving a speech at his school? Not to mention that she is the only person Daniel could find that believes in something that could even remotely explain his condition. The topic of her research. Traces of thought.

He had looked her up and tried to get in touch with her. That’s what brought them together in the first place. As the official way didn’t bring any results, he tried to speak to her after work on her way home. Luckily, he was there that day because her psycho ex was also following her but with not so nice intentions. Daniel must have left a good impression. She called him immediately when she got in trouble the next time. (which was yesterday evening)

Dr. Carter introduces herself again. It seems like our principal made some mistakes announcing her, and Karren tries her best to politely correct her as she goes on. She was just about to lead over to her research as she spots the boy with the brown hair sitting in the crowd. For a moment she stops and keeps looking at Daniel. He just smiles at her. The whole thing lasts for less than a second. Karren goes back to being the professional speaker she is and starts talking about an experiment she did a few years back.

“You know her?” Steve asks. You can say what you want but this man sees everything. I doubt anyone else even noticed Karren stop for this split of a second.

Daniel whispers back, “I tell you later. Yeah, I know her.”

 

Scene 3

Daniel already knew most things Karren, Dr. Carter, mentioned in her talk but it still wasn’t as boring as expected. In the end, they had some time left, so she encouraged the students to ask some questions. Most were pretty wage or have already been explained somewhere in the speech. Daniel can see, why Karren doesn’t like talking to students. The questions are shameful.

Daniel whispers something to Steve who raises his hand afterward.

“Yes, the boy right there.” They bring Steve the mike.

“At first I want to thank you that you’ve taken the time to come here today. You mentioned that there are irregularities in electromagnetic waves after they went through the human brain. You also said that you measured the brain activity of the subject and found that there was not only a correlation between the number of irregularities with the waves and the activity of the brain but it also played a role what parts of the brain were active.

Hypothetically, could it be that every thought produces a unique trace and if you knew what each trace meant could you literally read someone’s mind?”

Karren knows, that it’s probably been Daniel’s question. Then, why again wouldn’t he ask it himself? Well, at least it’s an intelligent and interesting question.

“At first I should make clear that my research is nowhere near to proofing the things you talked about. But I guess you are aware of that. I just wanted to clarify for the rest here. But you asked me a hypothetical so, yes it could very well be possible that every thought has its unique way of interfering with an electromagnetic wave and if you knew how each thought manifests itself you could think your way from the pattern of interferences back to the original thought. But let me tell you that with the technology of today it’s impossible. Some people argue that the things I’ve measured are nothing but measuring errors, but they add up if you consider many of them.

So, if you keep thinking the same thing for an hour or so, I could tell you when you stop thinking it and to some extent when you changed what you thought about.” Karren faces Daniel, “Good enough?” she asks.

Daniel nods and Steve says, “Thank you, mam.”

 

Scene 4

After the principal spoke her last words and dismissed the students some of them stayed in the gym and formed little groups.

“What was that about?” Steve asks Daniel.

“Well, I can’t tell you much. In respect to her, but I met Karren, eh Dr. Carter, a few days ago and we had some dinner together. Nothing fancy, just the next best fast food restaurant. Yesterday evening she was in some kind of trouble and I helped her out.”

Steve searches for clues in Daniel’s face but he gives nothing away.