Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 62262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 208(@300wpm)
I made a point of staying focused on my walk home. It was fairly easy to control my power, unless my mind wandered. When that happened, all bets were off.
In a few minutes, my neighborhood came into view. A garland of red lanterns was strung across the street, beneath a banner that read, “Welcome to Chinatown, Proud Home of Donny Wang, AKA Captain X-treme.”
That always made me roll my eyes. In the hierarchy of superheroes, Donny was solidly a C-lister. It wasn’t like he was out saving the world or anything. He’d simply been graced with the power of superhuman strength, which wasn’t even all that impressive. Mostly, he used it to land endorsement deals and to show off at public appearances. If I had to see one more photo of Donny flexing his muscles with one arm while holding up a car’s front end with the other, I was going to gag.
My street was just starting to wake up as I reached the compact, yellow apartment building that I’d called home all my life. My mom had inherited it from her great aunt, and she tried her best to maintain it to Auntie’s standards, right down to the cheerful, blooming flowerpots framing the red front door.
To our left was a corner market, and our neighbor was rolling out the carts of produce that lined the sidewalk year-round. When I called, “Good morning, Mrs. Wu,” she scowled at me and went back inside. I always got the same reaction from her, but that didn’t stop me from trying to be polite.
I jogged up the steps and almost dropped both the coffee cup and the flimsy bakery box as I unlocked the door. The cozy lobby, with its potted plants and small seating area, always smelled faintly of cinnamon. Six mailboxes lined one wall, with a slender table beneath them. As usual, the table was strewn with junk mail left behind by our tenants. I gathered it up and deposited it in the recycling bin before climbing three flights of stairs to the top floor.
After once again fumbling with the cup and box while I unlocked the door, I let myself into our apartment. My mom and her girlfriend were still asleep, so I tried to be quiet as I headed down the long hallway. Along the way, one cat after another joined the parade. They rubbed against my legs and meowed at me, and I told them in a whisper, “It’s not breakfast time yet. I’m just up early.”
Needless to say, the cats weren’t interested in my excuses. They grew louder and more demanding as I reached the sunny, yellow and white kitchen at the back of the apartment. I tried to hold my ground while I put the box on the table and finished my coffee, but they were so insistent that I finally gave in and fed them.
At the sound of kibble hitting the bowls, more cats came running. Approximately seventeen of them lived here. It was hard to get a precise count, because some of them came and went. I was convinced three or four pretended to belong to more than one family, so they could extort meals from multiple households.
Obviously, the goal had never been to own that many cats. But every time I accidentally summoned them, one or two decided to stick around. We always made every effort to find their owners, but quite a few had gone unclaimed, and we didn’t have the heart to kick them out.
While the cats munched on their breakfast, I went and took a shower. Afterwards, I crossed the hall to my room with a towel around my hips and jumped when someone said, “It’s so cute that you laid out your outfit, like it’s the first day of school.”
I turned to my best friend Moira, who was lounging on my neatly made bed and reading one of my comic books. She was dressed in pink flannel pajamas with her long, dark hair gathered into a messy bun, and she was holding my plastic Godzilla in the crook of her arm. The Liu family had lived in the apartment directly beneath mine all our lives, and we’d been using the fire escape to visit each other since we were six years old.
As I opened my dresser, I asked, “Why are you up so early?”
“I set an alarm so I could come and check on you. I figured you’d be nervous about the first day at your new job.” She tossed aside the comic book and sat up. “Did you already go for a run?”
“Yeah, and I accidentally set off my powers, because I was distracted.”
“Oh no. Rats again?”
“Raccoons.”
She flashed me a smile and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Well hey, that’s better than rodents, right?”
“Marginally. I ended up ducking into a bakery so they didn’t catch up to me, thank god. But then the guy behind the counter recognized me from the fiasco at our high school graduation. I can’t recall his name, but his brother Joey was in our grade.”