Xander's Powerful Growing Pains

By Gerry Dignan and Maureen Rooney Mitchell

He pulled the door open. He was staring at a pair of feet floating about a metre off the ground. He looked up at his fathers face, which was near the roof, smiling at him in a very gentle way.
Son, I think we need to have a talk.'

With those words, Xander's world was turned upside down.
Should he stay at school and try for the football team, cope with bullies and stick with his friends or go to 'The Institute'? An ultra-secretive, government centre made decades ago to create super-soldiers, but now a school of sorts, for children like himself.
And who are the 'Others'? Who are the rebels from the 'Institute' who are supposedly out there, somewhere in society, watching and planning?
As Xander tries to adapt to his new abilities, and failing miserably, he begins to see 'Others' at every turn, suspecting everyone.
Do they exist at all, or are they closer than he thinks?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Sep 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781467895767

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Xander’s

Powerful Growing Pains

Gerry Dignan

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AuthorHouse™

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Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

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© 2011 by Gerry Dignan. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 08/11/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4567-9211-4 (sc)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only. Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgement

Chapter One: Just Another Normal Day

Chapter Two: A Normal Day

Chapter Three: And So It Starts

Chapter Four: Wonder Boy

Chapter Five: Green Lantern

Chapter Six: ‘Hear’ Comes Trouble

Chapter Seven: Home Sweet Home

Chapter Eight: Fact Is Stranger Than Fiction

Chapter Nine: The Facts Of Life

Chapter Ten: The Others

Chapter Eleven: Alex On Trial

Chapter Twelve: School Or ....

Chapter Thirteen: Where’ve You Bin, Peter?

Chapter Fourteen: A Clever Idea Or Maybe Not

Chapter Fifteen: Ice Cold And Alex

Chapter Sixteen: The Institute

Chapter Seventeen: Revenge Is Sweet

Chapter Eighteen: ‘Pop’ Goes The Xander

Chapter Nineteen: Who Goes There, Friend Or Foe?

Chapter Twenty: Leaving Is Hard To Do

Chapter Twenty One: Downtown Showdown

Chapter Twenty Two: Double Trouble

Chapter Twenty Three: At The Double

Chapter Twenty Four: And The Next Suspect Please

Chapter Twenty Five: Add Another To The List

Chapter Twenty Six: Leanne Makes A Move

Chapter Twenty Seven: Cd Or Not Cd?

Chapter Twenty Eight: Things Can Only Get Better

Chapter Twenty Nine: The Worst Day Ever

Chapter Thirty: Death Of A Friend

Chapter Thirty One: Heroes And Villains

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my beautiful grandaughter, Rachel.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to thank my family, friends and colleagues for their help, support, encouragement and inspiration during the writing of this book.

Margaret Satink, an artist, whose work inspired us to create the covers and for the wonderful cover concept.

Ronald Dignan, for allowing his photograph of Dundee to be used as the backdrop for the cover.

Friday 13th September

About 4.30pm

Xander should have felt scared. He was flying upwards through the air. Alone. If he stopped, he would crash to the ground and most probably die. He could be hundreds of feet in the air. He had no way of knowing how far and had no intention of looking back. He couldn’t afford to lose concentration.

Where was she?

While he waited to see if his plan would work, he thought back to how this had all come about.

Where was she?

Only two weeks ago he had been living as an ordinary boy, with ordinary friends, doing ordinary things. Now? His life was upside down, back to front, inside out and here he was flying upwards to . . . . nowhere, just hoping, wishing that his message had been understood.

Where was she?

He smiled grimly. This scenario seemed very familiar. He had dreamed of this several times before. Back then, it was just a dream. He wished this was a dream.

Where was she?

She would come, wouldn’t she? Wouldn’t she?

CHAPTER ONE

Just Another Normal Day

Two Weeks Earlier

Friday 30th August (about 7am)

He felt the cool wind rushing past his face. High in the sky, he entered a cloud experiencing a strangely muffled quiet, like stepping outside early in the morning to find a thick blanket of snow. Surrounded by a damp mist on his face, he burst out into the clear sky again, the sun strong on his face. Angling his body, he changed direction, swooping up into a loop the loop before heading down to the ground in a steep dive, scattering a flock of birds in all directions. He was sure he saw a startled look of bewilderment on their tiny eyes as this human boy streaked past them. He laughed with sheer joy from the freedom he was experiencing just now.

As the ground raced up to meet him, the sides of his vision blurred with the speed he was travelling at but the images in front of him were crystal clear and increasing in size.

‘Time to slow up and level out,’ he thought to himself with a rather self satisfied smile. He suddenly felt a sickening lurch in his stomach as he realised he no longer had control of his descent. He felt the panic rise as the ground rushed up to meet him and a scream started to emerge but he could not hear himself with the rushing air buffeting his ears.

He reached his hands out and waved them frantically as if he could slow himself down but obviously he couldn’t. He could no longer see any sky as he was now so low, the earth filling his vision. He would hit any second and he put his arms over his face to protect himself.

Strangely, time seemed to slow for a second and he found himself thinking this was a strange way to go. Spread over the ground like strawberry jam on a piece of bread. The ground was now so close, darkness rushed upwards ever faster and in his last second he screamed and felt a sudden THUD THUD??? Is that what dying felt like?

* * *

Alex looked around. For a second he was confused and then he realised he was sweating . . . . a cold sweat and breathing heavily.

Slowly, very slowly, like a snail coming out of its shell, his eyes grew accustomed to the dimness of his bedroom. His arm was resting on his chest of drawers. That must have been what had wakened him up. He was tangled up in his bedclothes with one leg stuck inside the duvet cover. As he tried to extract it he heard a rip. Mum would be really pleased with that! She had just bought it.

Another dream . . . . a very real dream. They were all fairly similar. Usually involved flying of some sort, or saving somebody from a disaster, such as a fire, a drowning or pulling the wrecked door from a crashed car. However, he always woke up just before he was hurt . . . . or killed.

The clock showed that it was 7:27AM. The alarm would go off in only three minutes. So Alex did what every thirteen year old boy would do. He pulled the duvet back over his head to block out the light which was seeping through his curtains and tried to find a cooler part of the pillow. Well . . . three minutes was three minutes, wasn’t it? Why waste it?

All too soon, music blared out from his radio and he buried his head under the pillow. Another few minutes passed before his door creaked open and he heard his Mum’s gentle, soothing voice.

‘ALEX JOHNSTON! GET UP! IT’S TWENTY TO EIGHT ALREADY! MOVE YOUR BACKSIDE OR I’LL BE KICKING IT OUT OF THAT PIT YOU CALL A BED!’ she cooed softly in his ear.

‘All’ight all’ight . . . . ‘m gedding up, jus’ giv’s a mint,’ he mumbled.

‘Just make sure you do,’ Mum said as she retreated from the room, the door slamming shut behind her. Alex believed that was deliberate. It was just another loud noise to help his wakening process. He reluctantly swung his feet round and down to the floor. They landed on a pile of comics. He had obviously knocked them down from the chest of drawers with his flailing arm and as they were each in a separate plastic comic bag they had slid and scattered far and wide. The ones at his feet were cool to the touch and stuck to his soles like cling film did when he tried to use it.

Mum could unroll cling film, lay it out and wrap sandwiches or whatever, without any fuss whatsoever. However when he went near the stuff, he ended up with it stuck to his fingers like glue, or it turned into a metre of plastic string, all wrapped in on itself. The more he tried, the worse it got.

Once, he had ended up with three and a half metres (he’d measured it) of this plastic rope and his packed lunch still sat on the kitchen top, waiting to be protected from the germs and diseases of the world. He could almost hear the sandwich drumming its fingers (if it had any) waiting for Alex to do something. So he did! He ate it! Well, he was going to eat it at lunchtime anyway, so why wait? AND it saved using cling film . . . . except for the three and a half metres he had already used. His mind snapped back like an elastic band.

Alex peeled a comic off his foot with a satisfying, sort of ripping noise. He looked at the cover. Superman was pointing directly out at the reader, a menacing look on his face.

‘YOU’RE GOING TO PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID!’ the caption roared at him.

Alex smiled. He had read that one just last night. It had finished with Superman flying off in anger after seeing the destruction caused by the villain of the plot. Alex would have to wait until next month to find out what would happen. He sighed. That was probably where the dreams came from, especially this latest one.

Stretching, he stood up, yawned and picked his way through the minefield his floor resembled. He headed for the bathroom, tripping over a trainer and nearly slipping on a comic bag.

‘I really should pick them up when I’m finished.’ he thought. ‘They’re valuable, worth money.’ When he returned, washed and dressed, he picked up his phone and slammed the door shut behind him, ready to face another ordinary day.

The comics were still on the floor.

CHAPTER TWO

A Normal Day

Friday 30th August (about 8am)

Alex came downstairs to find his mum pouring out his cereal. He heard the TV in the living room. It sounded like one of those cartoons his younger sister watched constantly, the kind that just annoyed him. They were just too stupid.

He picked up his cereal, forgetting to thank his mum. As he walked through the kitchen door he heard her call out in that sarcastic tone she was so good at.

‘Thank you Alex. NOOO, it was no problem at all. I’ve got nothing else to do anyway.’

He grunted some sort of gratitude.

He did feel guilty about not saying thanks in the first place but he didn’t want to back down now completely. Mum had her own job to get ready for, yet she always had their breakfast waiting each morning.

He walked into the living room and sat down on the sofa. He felt comfortable here. It wasn’t perfect. It had too many plants for his liking and although it looked messy and untidy it was never over the top.

Mum had a splurge on the cleaning every month or so and for a day it looked perfect but started to slide pretty quickly. However, as his mum often said, it wasn’t just a house but a home and it felt like a home most of the time.

This morning, however, he was a bit on edge for some reason. Maybe the dream had freaked him out a bit. He looked at his sister lying on the floor in front of the TV, kicking her legs back and forth.

She was nine years old, exactly the right age to annoy a teenage brother and boy, was she annoying him just now. Her favourite cartoon was blasting out, something about a group of kids who had pets who could talk to each other and secretly helped their owners when they were in all sorts of trouble. Usually the pets had caused the problems in the first place. (For someone who hated these cartoons, he was a bit uncomfortable with the fact that he knew so much about the plot lines.)

He noticed that the programme had just finished and called out, ‘Hey Sarah, change the channel to something better, would you?’

‘Say please,’ she said without turning round.

He ran his tongue over his teeth and thought about it. ‘PUHLEEZE!’ he said eventually, with a sickly sweet smile.

‘Uhhhh . . . . NO!’ she replied with a smirk that he knew was there even if he couldn’t see it. She was deliberately trying to make him angry. Once they started arguing Mum would always get involved and end up on Sarah’s side. She would then start lecturing him about responsibility, being an older sibling and setting an example and stuff like that. Meanwhile he would see Sarah looking at him from behind Mum with a self satisfied smile on her face or sticking her tongue out. Feeling angrier than he had right to be, he thumped his bowl down on the coffee table, spilling some milk. He strode over and grabbed the remote from the floor beside her. There was sickening crack. He stared at the cracks in the remote and as he turned it in his hand he realised his fingers had actually punctured the side of the casing!

He froze.

He slowly pulled the remote off his fingers with his other hand and examined it with his mouth open. The batteries fell to the floor and Sarah looked up.

‘MUUUUUMMMM!’ she screeched, snapping Alex (and his mouth) back to his senses. ‘ALEX BROKE THE BUTTONS!’

As he looked at the ragged hole, his mum stepped into the room.

‘What did you do?’ She looked a little annoyed. She stepped across briskly saying, ‘If you’ve snapped the hinge on the back . . . .’ He could see Sarah in his mind’s eye, with a big expectant grin on her face. She loved to see him in trouble. Mum snatched it from him. Then something strange happened. Mum’s anger seemed to fade. Very slowly, her tense face relaxed, the anger slipping away. She looked up, smiling strangely. ‘Never mind, I think I read there was a problem with these. I meant to return it to the shop’ she explained.

As she left, Alex turned and faced Sarah. Her chin was on the floor. He smiled from one side of his mouth, looked her in the eye, raised his eyebrows and sat down to finish his breakfast. Without showing it, he was as mystified by what had happened as Sarah.

* * *

Iain Kelvins came for him at about 8.30am. They usually walked to school together if it was a nice day. This was slightly better than just a nice day. It was Friday. No school tomorrow.

He had been friends with Iain since Primary One. They were an unlikely pair as Alex was short and thin, whereas Iain was definitely on the ‘larger’ side with a rather large mop of wiry pale ginger hair. They had completely different tastes in films and music. Iain didn’t see the point in comics. Alex didn’t understand Iain’s love of Formula 1. Maybe all the differences were the reason their conversations were always so lively. Iain always liked trying to wind Alex up. In fact their one main common interest was their football team, Lawton Athletic. They walked to school complaining about the latest poor result. There had been a lot of those recently.

They were so engrossed they didn’t notice the large puddle at the side of the road from the previous few days’ rain. As they passed it a bus drew alongside causing a large tsunami style wave over the pavement. Alex and Iain shouted with anguish as the wall of water passed over them. All they could do was turn their backs and await their soaking.

After a few moments, most of the water had drained back into the gutter and Iain groaned loudly. He stood there dripping on the pavement, turned and flapped his arms then looked at Alex in astonishment.

Alex was uncoiling from the protective posture he had chosen. He examined himself and found himself completely dry.

‘You lucky sod!’ Iain grimaced. ‘You owe me! I must have blocked it from you.’

Alex laughed unconvincingly. ‘Yeah, that must have been it.’ However, in his mind he knew that as the wave had approached, in what had seemed like slow motion, he was NOT behind Iain. He should have been as wet as him. Even if Iain had moved in front of Alex in a heroic fashion, he wasn’t that big . . . . Alex would have been splashed to some degree.

They continued on their journey, Iain grumbling under his breath while Alex made light of the situation as he usually did with anything that happened. However this time Alex had the upper hand and could make fun of Iain. It was usually the other way round. Underneath the banter, Alex’s brain was spinning.

The dream the remote and now this. He hoped it was all just a coincidence and the rest of the day would be normal.

It wasn’t. Not by a long shot.

* * *

‘HEY! Watch it! What are you trying to do?’ Stu shouted. He was rubbing a spot just above his right eyebrow. ‘You could have taken my eye out,’ he groaned.

Alex was gobsmacked. Stu had asked for a loan of his eraser and he had put it on his thumb and simply flicked it over. Instead, it had shot out of his hand like a bullet from a gun and had ricocheted from his head and then shot across the classroom and hit Leanne on the back of the head. She was looking round, glowering in his general direction. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged, pretending he didn’t know what had happened. He always believed if you did something with enough conviction people would believe you.

She mouthed silently, ‘Who did that?’ . . . . It had worked!

Well it would have worked if Stu hadn’t leaned across and punched him in the upper arm.

‘Stuart Matheson! Quiet! And keep your hands to yourself or you’ll find yourself with a detention. Some people are trying to work. Something you wouldn’t know about,’ sounded the authoritative voice of Miss Haddow.

Alex saw Leanne’s face change from one of puzzlement to one of understanding. Then her eyes blazed something which he guessed was‘You’ll be sorry later.’

Alex looked away covering half his face with his hand and turned. Stu was staring at him. It wasn’t a happy face either. It was more like ‘first you try to blind me and now I’m in trouble for it’.

Alex lifted one side of his top lip, lifted his shoulders, held out his hands, palms up, as if to say sorry.

‘Now if we are all quite ready, we’ll get back to work,’ Miss Haddow announced. She was a small woman but very tough. She took no nonsense but had a good sense of humour if you kept on her good side.

This was Alex’s second year at the high school but he had been told of a senior class a couple of years ago, who had dressed an inflatable figure in a school uniform and sat it at one of the desks. It had been ten minutes before she noticed. Apparently the class were unsure how she would react. In fact she had walked up, pulled it from the desk and proceeded to give it CPR and the kiss of life. After a moment or two she had stood up with the dummy in her arms and wailed, ‘What a waste! Had she lived, her results would have gone through the roof.’ She had pulled out the stopper and it had sailed upwards towards the roof with a loud rasping noise. He didn’t know how true it was, or if it had happened at all, but it was certainly a great story.

He kept his head down and the rest of the lesson passed without incident. By this time Stu seemed to have forgotten all about being hit. In fact, as they left, Stu grinned and said, ‘You’ll need to teach me that one, Xander. How did you do that? It was a cracker.’ Using the nickname ‘Xander’ released Alex’s tension and he smiled.

‘Just natural ability and a finely honed physique,’ he replied, before breaking into a couple of strongman poses and making one of those faces that they make. You know, the kind that looks like you have a severe case of constipation. His mood changed as he walked out laughing and bumped into Leanne. She was glowering and definitely was unimpressed by his fooling around. She just pursed her lips and stared.

Xander gulped and waited for something to happen. Leanne leaned down, (she was taller than him) and said slowly, deliberately and very, very menacingly, ‘Try that again and that eraser will end up someplace where the sun don’t shine.’ She straightened up, smiled serenely, flicked her long blonde hair back, turned and walked out. Xander stood still and watched as she left. Strangely enough, as he watched, her walk seemed to slow down as if in slow motion and he noticed how her long blonde hair swung slowly from one side to the other, like in a hair shampoo advert.

Stu leaned over his shoulder and whispered with a chuckle, ‘Think she fancies you.’ That did the trick. He snapped back from his daydream. Laughing, they both walked to the next class.

At the back of Xander’s mind was the worrying thought. ‘How DID I do that? What exactly had happened? And why, through all that, was he carefully watching a girl who had just threatened him?’

Life was certainly changing.

CHAPTER THREE

And So It Starts

Friday 30th August (Lunchtime)

‘Xander! What’d you do that for?’

Xander looked at the burst ball in anguish.

‘In fact, how DID you do that?’ said Connor, screwing up his face. He held up the ball as if he was holding some sort of dead animal. It wasn’t just deflated. It had a rip in it.

‘Must have been one of those cheapo balls,’ Xander said hopefully.

‘Don’t be thick! It’s a Mitre! An Ultra! They’re