The Nobody People by Bob Proehl (manga ereader TXT) 📕

that you needed to find your own way to discovery,” Bishop says. “In my defense, I believed I had more time. I’ve been trying to determine the best way to approach you since the beginning of summer.”

Three ice cubes clink loudly into the shaker. Avi is disappointed with the quality of the ice. He doesn’t know what good ice would look like, but this isn’t it. Within the script for cocktail construction he’s playing out, another thought emerges. Bishop was thinking of approaching Kay in the summer. She was the first choice. He was a consolation prize, the one who didn’t need to be finessed. He measures out the gin and pours it over the ice.

“Your daughter is powerful,” Bishop says.

“Is she going to blow up churches?”

Bishop folds his hands and rests them on the table. “Avi’s talked to you about Owen Curry.”

“That’s his name?”

Bishop nods. “The young man is strong and badly damaged. But the ability to destroy matter at whatever level is something we can manage. It’s within our purview. There’s something different about Emmeline. If we had a scale for these things, I would say she is off it. She is also very young. Do you understand why this combination made me nervous?”

Avi glances over his shoulder and sees Kay shaking her head. He digs through the silverware drawer, looking for a long stirring spoon they don’t have. He can see what one would look like, but they don’t own one.

Try a butter knife, says a voice in his head that doesn’t sound like his own.

“A child is a creature made of will and want,” Bishop says. “The world provides or denies them what they want. Think about a child’s demands for ice cream or television. They don’t respond to reason. They are pure desire butting up against the limits of their own agency.”

“You’re talking the long way around the barn,” Kay says. Avi tosses the ice out of the martini glasses into the sink. He drizzles vermouth into each one and carefully swirls it. It coats the inside of the glass. It’s the residual sugar in the vermouth that does it. This is a thing he knows now.

“Imagine that same child with those limits removed,” Bishop says. “Imagine a child with the power to shape the world into the thing the child wants it to be without ever realizing they’re doing it. The world complies with the way they believe it should be, instantly, with the tiniest exertion of effort. Imagine a world shaped by the whims of an all-powerful child god.”

“ ‘It’s a Good Life,’ ” says Kay.

“I’m sorry?”

“Twilight Zone episode,” Kay explains. “A kid isolates his whole town from the rest of the world, holds them hostage because he can read their minds and turn them into jack-in-the-boxes and whatever.”

“And in the end he makes it snow,” says Bishop. “I remember that one.”

“And that’s Emmeline?” Kay asks. “She’ll be able to read minds? Send anyone she doesn’t like to the cornfield?” Avi stirs the drinks, counting each revolution of the knife in his head.

“No, but I was concerned it could be,” Bishop says. “When an ability manifests in a younger child, it’s important that the child’s home life is stable. We approach the parent the child feels more bonded to so they can be there for the child. A support.”

Avi pauses, shaker over the glass, tilted but not pouring. He was the second choice. Not just Bishop’s. Emmeline’s.

“With the two of you there to support her and with our guidance, Emmeline is going to be something wonderful,” Bishop says. “As a parent, you might feel there’s no place for you in our world. I wanted to create that space. A way for you to be an integral part of Emmeline’s life even as she goes through these changes. I can’t literally make you one of us. But I have a role for you that will make you feel a part of who we are.”

Three olives plop into each drink. Avi takes two glasses and sets them on the table in front of Bishop and Kay. Bishop looks up at him, surprised. “I forgot you were there,” he says. It’s a lie. This conversation is for Avi’s benefit as much as Kay’s. Bishop wants him to know he’s important only as he relates to Emmeline. Even then, he’s not that important. “This is very good,” Bishop says, smiling over the rim of his glass. “Well done.” Always susceptible to praise from the teacher, Avi blushes.

“I’m going to take mine to the living room,” he says. It’s like hearing himself say it. He watches himself pick up the last of the three martinis, the one that poured short, and walk out of the kitchen. He sits on the living room couch and sips the drink. It tastes awful and leaves a cold burn going down. He tries to hear them in the next room, but he can’t. He has no urge to read, to turn on the television. He sits, waiting, like a child put in a time-out. Grown-ups are talking.

He’s finishing his martini when they come out. Kay doesn’t look any happier than when Bishop arrived. Her drink, barely touched except for the olives, dangles from her hand; she’s gripping it by the rim, fingers spread.

“Take a look at the literature about the academy,” he says. “And promise me you’ll think about my offer.”

“You going to make me think about it?” she says.

Bishop smiles at her, abashed. “The work matters,” says Bishop. “The things I said to you in your office, I stand by them. I think you’d be excellent.”

“I’ll think about it,” she says. He shows himself out without saying good-bye to Avi.

Kay sloshes her drink into Avi’s empty glass and heads to the kitchen to wash hers. “Tastes like chilled paint,” she says over her shoulder.

“What did he want you to do?”

“He wants to teach me the secret handshake, like he did with you,” Kay says. “Little late for it.”

“He’s a good person,” says Avi.

“He’s