Jinny’s simple days turned into weeks. Those weeks rapidly turned into months.

Jinny’s training continued, though at a much more careful pace considering her first incident. Accuracy practice, telekinetic practice, acrobatics, memorization. She was learning to swim, and had several books on various languages to learn from. Japanese was first, since she already had some foundation in that thanks to her parents. Spanish, French, even some very simple Chinese. She absorbed knowledge like a sponge. Her natural talents began to shine – she had an unusually high level of competency with numbers, and she liked to take things apart. 


She also started school, which was an adjustment. Initially, she definitely did not want to go. It was much more fun at home. Slade usually left her to her own devices, with books and toys and all sorts of entertaining things. School, by comparison, was boring. 1 + 1 was boring. She knew more than that. Handwriting was too hard – her letters came out strange and she didn’t like that at all. The only thing she liked was recess, as any child might. Some days were better than others.

Today was not one of those days.

The school bus dropped Jinny off in front of the house, and she came in pouting, nearly in tears. She sought out her Uncle, sat at his feet and promptly began to cry.

“I hate school, Uncle Slade! It’s boring and I have to sit a lot, and all of the other kids are babies, and the only one with powers ‘sides me is a BOY! And he’s mean! I don’t want to go anymore!”

She sniffled and rubbed at her nose with her sleeve.  “Can’t I just stay here with you forever?”