Table of Contents
For Charlie Panek
formidable opponent, wonderful son
PART ONE
Chapter One
LUNCH ME AT AND THE CHINAMAN
On the night before his first day at his new school, in the small, squirrel-colored living room of his great-aunts house, Duncan Dorfmans mother warned him not to show anyone his power. Whatever you do, Duncan, keep it to yourself, she said. If you dont, Im afraid something bad will happen.
He had no idea why she was so worried. It wasnt as if people ever paid that much attention to him. In his last school, Duncan hadnt stood out in any way. Hed made a few friends, though no one who would particularly miss him now that hed moved away. Besides, it wasnt as if the thing he could do was even useful.
Its not a power, Duncan told his mother as they sat in the living room that night. She was laying out his clothes for school, which embarrassed him because he was twelve, not five. A power, he said, is when you can lift a car off a baby, or save the planet from destruction. That kind of thing.
Then what would you call it? his mother asked. She smoothed the creases on the ugly mustard-yellow shirt she had bought for him with her employee discount at Thriftee Mikes Warehouse.
I dont know. What did you call the thing he could do? It didnt have a name. But he didnt want to upset her, so he promised that whatever the thing was, he would keep it to himself.
A week earlier, the two of them had gotten on a bus in Michigan with several suitcases and taped-up cartons, and then they had traveled for nine hours. At some point the bus stopped at a bad-smelling rest stop, and Duncan and his mother got out and bought French fries that seemed to have been cooked in oil left over from an ancient civilization. And then they got back on the bus and both of them gratefully closed their eyes, their heads knocking together occasionally in sleep.
Finally they arrived in Drilling Falls, Pennsylvania, the town where Duncans mother had grown up. There was nothing exciting about Drilling Falls, and she had said she didnt have many happy memories of growing up there, but they had nowhere else to go. She had lost her job as the manager of a gift shop in Michigan, and when his great-aunt heard this, she had invited them to come live with her.
Aunt Djuna was a box-shaped old woman who wore a green sweater over her shoulders, and who, as she liked to tell people, never ate anything with a face. You would walk into her front hall and a yam or bean aroma would hit you, the same way that the smell of brownie mix or roast chicken would float your way in other houses.
His mother often said, We should be very grateful to Aunt Djuna. We should kiss the ground she walks on. She gave us a home, and found me a job.
Thanks to Aunt Djuna, Duncans mother now worked at Thriftee Mikes Warehouse, a superstore with bins of random items like double-A batteries and pig-shaped staplers. Though very few people had spent any time with Thriftee Mike himself, he was a real, thirty-year-old man named Michael Scobee, who lived in the rich section of Drilling Falls. Duncan had heard him described as an eccentric millionaire who wore high-top sneakers and ate junky cocoa-and-marshmallow-flavored cereal for breakfast. No one really knew much else about him, because he only came to the store once in a while, very late at night, when no one was there except the security guards. He wasnt supposed to be good with people, and so he stayed away during the day.
Thats fine with me, Duncans mother had said. I dont need to see him.
The employees at Thriftee Mikes wore red smocks with name tags that read, IM THRIFTEE SUE or, IM THRIFTEE PETE. Or, in Duncans mothers case, IM THRIFTEE CAROLINE. Caroline Dorfman was a nice person, pretty, blond-haired, and funny, but she worried all the timemostly about Duncan. Shed raised him all by herself, because his father Joe Wright had died of a rare disease called panosis before Duncan was born.
It was very sad, she would say quietly, but she didnt like to say too much else about it. All Duncan knew was that his parents had been young when he was born, and that they hadnt been married. That was about the extent of his knowledge.
Duncans mother got migraine headaches when she was under stress. Usually, right before the headache came on, her vision would be clouded with a silvery light she called an aura. The next thing Duncan knew, she would say, Oh no, another aura. Im sorry, Duncan, Ill see you later, honey, okay? Make yourself a PB&J for lunch. And we have plums! Then shed go into her bedroom and lie in the dark until the migraine passed. Over the years, Duncan had brought up the subject of his father less and less often, because he knew it really upset her.
Just like now, when she asked Duncan not to show anyone his so-called power, he knew he should do what she wanted, or else she might get agitated. The only reason Duncan had shown it to her in the first place was that it had taken him by surprise. He had been in his new bedroom two days earlier, sitting on the bed flipping through an old booksomething dumb about a kid named Jimmy who builds a rocket ship with his best friend, a gopherwhen suddenly Duncan discovered that he could do the strangest thing.
It had shocked him, so hed gone out into the hallway, where his mother was unpacking boxes from the move, and hed said to her, Mom, check this out.
That was his first mistake.
Shed looked up, distracted, smiling, a mermaid lamp in one hand. Hed showed it to her, and in her astonishment she dropped the lamp to the floor, cracking off a piece of the mermaids tail. Oh my God, Duncan, shed finally whispered, you have a power.
No I dont, he said. Duncan Dorfman wasnt that kind of person. He wasnt powerful in any way at all. He thought of himself as ordinaryless than ordinary. He was a little thick-chested, wavy-haired, and, these days, nerdshirted. He wasnt good at sports or science. He couldnt tell a joke well. He didnt know everything about every dinosaur that ever existed, or every rock. He didnt have any passions, let alone any powers.
Well, I think you do, she insisted. And its the kind of thing that could get attention. Thats the last thing we need while were starting from scratch here in my old town. Please dont show it to anyone else, okay, honey?
Okay, Duncan said, though her fear didnt make sense to him.
No one, said his mother.
What shouldnt Duncan show anyone? Aunt Djuna asked as she came into the hallway with an armful of root vegetables that poked out like the snouts of strange little animals.
Oh, nothing, Djuna, said his mother, shooting him a keep-quiet look.
There were other secrets in this house, too, Duncan thought. Just the night before, when he was lying in bed, he had heard his mother and Aunt Djuna whispering together in the living room. As he fell asleep, hed heard fragments of what they were saying:
... I realize its not perfect, his mother said.
And his great-aunt said, He deserves better...
I know, I know, said his mother.
In the morning at breakfast, when Duncan asked her what they had been talking aboutwhat wasnt perfect, and who deserved bettershe said she couldnt remember. Im sure it wasnt anything important, she said, and he let it drop.
