บททั้งหมดของ Have Power, Must Travel: บทที่ 1 - บทที่ 10

IvaFailure is the first lesson of life. Every living creature fails in small ways, big ways, and everything in between. And that is okay because failing is often the best way we learn. Sometimes, though, failure is the worst. As I stood in a downpour on the outskirts of my hometown of Portal, facing down a tornado, this thought played on a loop in my mind.Before being dragged to this tornado-killing field, my soccer practice had been winding down because of the dark clouds that had been chasing their way to my high school. Just as my fingers touched the ball to keep it from flying into the goal, my power came alive and tugged on my guts. Feigning stomach cramps, I begged off practice, grabbed my backpack, and ducked into a bathroom stall. My power teleported me to Osterman Park, a favorite local picnic spot where I had spent my fair share of lazy afternoons sprawled on a quilt. The park stretched out for at least a mile and shared a small lake with an adjoining forest, where a torna

KennedyI had been gazing at my transforming face in a mirror for almost eighteen years, bewildered by the reaction it provoked. Sure, my eyes were an uncommon shade of green, but that didn’t make me a goddess. And most people never noticed that my eyes were too big and set too far apart. I wanted to put that feature in the exotic department, but mostly, it made me resemble a bug-eyed alien. Yet everyone still felt the need to fawn over my looks. It all made me feel like a coveted trophy with whomever I dated or, worse, Redford’s boring, perfect girlfriend in The Way We Were. That my family was filthy rich made it even worse. This created a unique group of people who resented my wealth and beauty. As if my life was perfect, and I floated along on a fartless, sweet-smelling rainbow. I know, poor, beautiful, rich girl. God, even my internal complaints were mundane and bordering on narcissistic. I pulled the brush a little harder than necessary through my hair and sighed in disgust at my

IvaEverything turned very dark, and unexpectedly, I was back in the park I had blown apart. The ground, now made of chalk, swirled around me in mini-tornadoes. Instead of a drenching downpour, the rain came down in slow-motion droplets. The water and the chalk made a sticky paste that trapped my feet. When I looked at the trees in the distance, they swayed strangely as if they were two-dimensional paintings, not yet complete. A giant tornado, much bigger than the one I had faced, twirled in the distance away from the painted forest. And above the tornado flew long, nearly invisible white ropes.As I looked up at the ropes, I saw a shadowy figure draped in flowing cloth, or mist, so dark it made the gray sky seem almost white. Suddenly, lightning lit up the sky, and thunder crashed in an echo all around me. This seemed to cue the figure into action because it began a terrifying dance with the ropes. The shadow person reeled out the tornado in my direction, and the chalk paste held me

GrantI followed the hospital sign that pointed in the direction of Iva’s room. An hour earlier, my sister Kennedy had called me and asked in a not-so-pleasant manner to hurry to the hospital and investigate what that “deranged bitch from hell had done to herself.” I knew it was a bunch of guff because she was worried, but, by the end, the decibel level reached a range only werewolves and bats could hear. When I located the room, the door was already open.I knocked and called out, “It’s Grant.”A few seconds later, a female voice told me to come in. As I walked through the short hallway past the bathroom, my nerves gave a jolt, unsure of what condition I would find Iva. I couldn’t get any details from Iva’s mom when I called earlier to find out if Iva was still in the hospital, and my dad had taken none of my calls.As I rounded the corner, I saw Ms. Galen sitting in the recliner by the window, typing furiously on her laptop. No surprise given her workaholic nature. Where Iva was tal

IvaThey discharged me from the hospital on Saturday with painkillers and an unnecessary cast. This would require me to endure approximately six weeks of itching and using trash bags to wrap my left hand every time I wanted to take a shower. When I walked into the mudroom from the garage, my little brother Dean nearly knocked me over with excitement. Since he’s my absolute favorite person on the planet, I didn’t mind. The entire world could rot, and I felt somewhat ambivalent about that, but as long as he was in it, I’d do my part to help keep it spinning for him.The babysitter, a freshman from the neighborhood, collected her fee and rode off on her bicycle. I knelt and put my arms around Dean. He gave the best hugs. But this time, he didn’t linger; he was too excited about my cast. In that non sequitur way all toddlers do, he explained that his friend Jacob had a cast, and his whole pre-K class got to draw all over it.“Iva, I drew a dinosaur, and Roxy drew a flower. She said hers w