I used to hate him, and people like him- Clone. I didn’t realize we had so much in common. I was such a jerk, but I was no ordinary teenager.

My name is Casey. I have brown hair that is just a bit long in the back, and blue eyes. I’m only average height but I’m fast and strong for my age, being the athletic type (I play soccer) and I have a great sense of style. I like jeans okay, but whenever the weather is good enough I wear beige shorts that go down to my knees with a belt, and T-shirts. I also believe sneakers are key points to my style. The ones I usually wear are black and probably just a size too big. Why would I want to wear sneakers a bit too big for me? Well…

I used to live a fairly normal life despite the fact that I had magical powers. Then a boy named Clone moved to town, and from the beginning, it was clear that nobody wanted him. He was a loner, and didn’t make friends with anybody.

I hated that kind of person.

Did he think he was better than the rest of us?

My anger was born, partly from misunderstanding, but mostly from a friend of mine named Vice. Vice hated Clone beyond all reasonable limits. No one knew why really, but Vice was one of those select few who, when they said something, nobody challenged their opinion.

So this one day, the day that changed everything, my friends and I, Vice, Viv, Lia, and Kori were hanging out by the lockers when Clone walked by.

Clone had only been in town for about two days, but more importantly, Kori told me she liked my new shirt. (Kori is the cutest girl in school. She has short, red-brown hair, bright blue eyes, cute tops and miniskirts. Every guy dreams of being with her, but she and I have had it going on for years. I think. It’s hard to tell with Kori; she flirts a lot.)

“Is that the new kid?” Vice asked suddenly. He had been leaning back against the lockers as Clone walked by, but now he straightened up, like a fox seeing a rabbit, and stared hard. He has dark, straight hair that falls to his chin, and cold, dark gray eyes that were now sticking so close to Clone’s every movement that I wondered if he could see through the guy.

I glanced at the boy that was removing some books from his locker. Personally, I didn’t find a new kid as interesting as the way Kori was playing with the buttons from my shirt, but I looked, to please Vice.

The guy had wild blond hair, a light but bright buttery-color, and gray-green eyes that were narrow and focused. He wore a black bandana, red muscle shirt and jeans. Don’t tell anyone, but if I had been a girl, I would have thought he was hot, judging by the way he filled out his muscle shirt. I didn’t notice it then, but I was getting weird vibes from him. I began to fear for Kori’s safety.

“Yeah,” I said, in answer to Vice’s question. “He looks dangerous.”

“Really?” Kori said in excitement, my worst fears realized. “Where?” She spotted him and breathed deeply. “Oh my God! He does! Look at that muscle! I think I’m going to faint!”

I wondered if ‘dangerous’ probably wasn’t the right adjective to have used in this type of situation.

“Shut up,” Vice snapped over his shoulder at us. “He obviously isn’t Saint-Anne High school material.”

I found that a bit strange, because our school is a public school and everyone is allowed there.

“I went to school with him last year,” Lia told us, adjusting her glasses. Lia had moved to Saint-Anne only a year ago, but she fit right in. She’s a bit slow, but she’s the smartest of us academically, if you can understand that. She’s pretty cute, too, with those twinkling glasses, longish blue black hair that is usually kept in two braids and a chest width that actually puts Kori’s to shame. Oh well.

“What’s he like?” Vice asked Lia absently.

“Oh, he’s really nice.” Lia said earnestly, “He doesn’t talk much, but I think he’s a total hottie!”

Vice looked at Lia impatiently, as if this wasn’t the answer he was looking for.

“Well, I think he’s a freak,” Vice decided, loud enough for the new kid to hear. Clone looked at him blankly.

“Aw, come on,” Kori pleaded. “You don’t even know him, and I bet he’s a real nice guy!”

“I agree with Vice,” Viv said, unsurprisingly. Viv is sexy enough for a girl her age, I suppose. She’s got long, dark red hair and a body that could make a man twice her age look twice, but she’s a real bossy girl and she goes along with everything Vice says. Remind me not to get on her bad side.

“You guys,” Kori scowled. “Don’t be that way! What do you say, Casey?”

“Huh? Uh…” I stammered, torn between choosing Vice’s side and choosing Kori’s. “I don’t know. Why not just leave him alone? I’m sure he doesn’t want to hang out with us anyway,” I suggested.

Kori gave me a look and turned to walk away.

“Let’s go, Lia,” she said haughtily, and agreeably, the two of them walked off. Vice barely noticed.

I glanced back at the new kid Clone in exasperation, but he had left, under Vice’s scornful eye.

“Aw, man,” I sighed, mourning the loss of Kori, “how did this happen?”

“Casey,” Vice said sharply, leaving with Viv. I looked up at him in surprise.

“Stay away from that new kid. You wouldn’t want Kori hanging out with the likes of him, right?” he told me.

“Uh, right,” I agreed nervously, chuckling. I scratched the back of my head. “See ya later, Vice.”

Vice waved the back of his hand at me and left, with Viv at his heels and I sighed deeply. Who’d have thought a new kid could be so much trouble? Well, I certainly wasn’t going near him, not after he had gotten me in trouble with Kori like that. I wondered why Vice was so against him.

That week we put the new kid through hell. It isn’t something I’m proud of, looking back on it now, but at the time it seemed like the thing to do, and if you weren’t a part of it you were a friend of the new kid’s and entitled to the same rough treatment.

Kori stood up for him, of course, but no one said anything against her. She had too high a status to be challenged by Vice or Viv, and a horde of loyal fan boys (like myself) to protect her from insult should such an occasion arise.

I won’t say much about it, but one thing is for sure: no one would have wanted to trade places with Clone that week, even if they were starving and slept in the cold. Even the usual nerds and geeks got in on it, and for a while, Clone’s name was mud, comparable to public exams or nasty swear words.

Anyway, I had pretty much patched things up with Kori- okay, so I hadn’t, but I was trying hard by the time Friday was rolling around. I didn’t find hounding a new kid in school as amusing as some of my friends did. I didn’t like him, but I hadn’t really said anything to hurt him. Of course, I hadn’t helped him either, but the way I saw it, I hadn’t been as cruel to Clone as Vice or some of the others were.

“Hello? Is Kori there?” I asked her mom on the phone. “Yeah? Thanks! Hey, Kori! Want to get an ice cream with me? … Aw, come on, Kori, you know I’m not into that… Why don’t we talk about it over a sundae or something?… Really! Great! I’ll be right over to pick you up! …Okay. See you!…” Click.

I hung up the phone, ecstatic that I had managed to get a date with Kori while she was in such a mood. She must really like me if she was willing to give me a second chance.

“WooHooo!” I yelled, running down stairs and nearly steam rolling my grandma.

“Oh, hi, Nan,” I told her, smiling sheepishly.

“Geezes, child!” She scowled at me. “You’ll wake Saint-Anne!”

“Huh?” I replied, seriously confused.

“Saint-Anne, boy!” My grandma yelled at me as though I were deaf. “The town is named after her! She was a beautiful young maiden who gave her life to protect the people of this town nearly two hundred years ago, when it didn’t even have a name and there were less than thirty people living here. She’s buried on Silent Hill!”

“Oh, that Saint Anne,” I mused, trying to get around my grandma, as my grandpa looked on, chuckling. “We were related to her, weren’t we?”

“She’s your great-great-great-great-great-grandmother,” she informed me. “Your great grandmother inherited her magic from directly from Anne.”

“Magic?” I repeated, forgetting.

“Magic, oh you, impish boy! Your great grandmother, got it from Anne, and you got it from your great grandmother!” My Nan glared at me, frightening in her fury.

“Right,” I recalled slowly. “I’m a light elemental.”

“Just like your ancestors,” Nan said proudly. “These things skip at least four generations, but you’re an elemental, sure enough. Now your grandpa and I are going to teach you a spell.”

“Aw, Nan,” I moaned, “I have a date right now.”

“This won’t take long, child,” Nan assured me. “It’s about time you learned to protect yourself.”

I thought quickly. It did sound like fun.

“Repeat after me, Casey,” Granddad instructed, pulling an old book off the coffee table. “And hold your hand out. No, with the palm facing forward. That’s better. Uh, point it someplace else. Good. Now, channeling your energy to your hand, you must say the words “Burst of Fire”. Go on then boy. Do it.”

He sounded like he was daring me.

Sighing, I felt inside myself for the magic, the untapped resources I knew were there. It was surprisingly easy to draw the energy to one place in my body; it felt as though I’d been doing this all my life. My hand was singing with unspent energy. I felt like I’d had too much sugar.

“Burst of Fire,” I said aloud. Nothing happened. My grandparents looked from me to my hand. I blushed, wondering what had gone wrong.

“Louder, boy!” Granddad insisted. “You have to want it to happen!”

“Burst of fire!” I said more loudly, but again nothing happened. I got discouraged.

“Look, I’ve got a date to get to,” I explained impatiently. “I’ll play witchcraft with you guys as much as you want when I get back, alright?”

I grabbed my jacket and took off, leaving them there, and couldn’t help but be embarrassed at my own behavior. They were annoying, my grandparents, but they had taken me in after mom and dad had gone to China for a year, working on an archeological dig. Deciding to make it up to them later, I hurried along, eager to get to Kori’s house before the sun set, so I could share the last of the evening light with her.

It was a nice evening. The sky was the deep blue of the coming evening, and there were no clouds to cover the stars that were beginning to appear. The trees were rich with leaves this time of year and wild flowers were beginning to nose their way up out of people’s gardens.

Suddenly I heard yelling from up ahead.

I stopped and watched, a bit fearful and very apprehensive. I started getting weird vibes.

A guy in a white and green Chinese battle costume and a funny Chinese hat was cornering some guy against a high fence. His face was masked, and he was gripping the boy’s wrist tightly, pressing him closer against the wall.

“You think you don’t deserve this kind of treatment?” the man in the mask demanded. “You make me sick. Don’t look at me like that! You don’t deserve to live! You and everybody like you!”

“Fuck off!” the other guy spat.

Apprehensive feelings rising, I studied the guy pressed up against the fence. Clone! My first thought was to leave, but I couldn’t face Kori later after promising to talk about being nice to Clone if I just left him there like that. But what could I do? I glanced down at my hand and prayed my accuracy in sports like basketball applied to situations like this.

“Burst of Fire!” I roared, unprepared for what happened next. I fell backwards under the force of my own attack, and the masked man got it pretty bad. He went flying several feet into the air, but amazingly he managed to upright himself and land on his feet.

Before he could do anything, though, Clone turned on him, bandana billowing out behind him, and braced himself, gripping his freed wrist tightly as he aimed it on his enemy.

“Ice Strike!” I heard him yell, and sharp, glittering crystals materialized in front of him and hurled themselves at the masked man. I heard the sound of cloth tearing and there was a soft moan, then the man leapt into a tree, over the fence and was gone. They guy sure could move.

Stunned that I had just seen Clone use magic on somebody, I just sat there for a moment before getting up and walking over to Clone, who had his palms on his knees and was panting.

“Are you alright?” I asked, feeling a bit drained myself by the adrenaline rush and the loss of magic energy.

Clone straightened up.

“I’m okay,” he assured me. “Thanks.”

It was quiet for a moment. It occurred to me that Clone might tell someone about my magic powers, but before I could say anything, Clone spoke up.

“You won’t say anything, will you?” he asked softly.

“Uh, only if you don’t tell anyone about me,” I agreed.

Clone nodded sharply.

“Who was that guy anyway?” I wondered.

“I don’t know,” Clone admitted. “But whoever he is, he possesses very strong magical powers. We scared him off, but I don’t think he was seriously injured.”

“Not by the way he high-tailed it out of here,” I replied. “So… you have powers too? You used an ice attack. That makes you a dark elemental, doesn’t it?”

“You are well informed,” Clone admitted. “That Fire Burst you pulled off was nicely aimed.”

“It’s the first time I ever used magic,” I said proudly.

Clone started and stared at me in surprise, but then he smiled.

“It was very good for a first time,” he assured me. “I hope we can do that again sometime.”

“It was kind of exciting, wasn’t it?” I laughed.

Clone turned and started to walk away.

‘No good bye?’ I thought to myself. ‘Hey, what a prick!’

Grumbling about ungrateful victims, I went my own way.

“For a guy who’s trying to apologize to a girl,” Kori sniffed, “you’re awful late. Do you have an excuse this time?”

“Yes,” I said happily, feeling that this conversation was going much better than the others we had when I showed up late. “I met that guy you were busting my balls about all week on the way over, and I saved him from some creep with a mask.”

“Okay,” Kori said, stepping outside, “I know you’re making this one up.”

“No joke,” I assured her, glad she hadn’t slammed the door in my face the way she usually does. “You can ask him yourself.”

“Oh, Casey, I’m so proud of you!” she cried, throwing her arms around my neck. “So what did this bad guy look like? Was he tall. Oh! Was he hot? Tell me he was hot!” We started walking down the road, the ocean visible through the gaps of fences and trees.

“Kori,” I scolded. “I’m not even sure it was a guy, but this bully said some awful things to Clone. I would have been really mad if someone said stuff like that to my face, but Clone just shrugged it all off like it was nothing. You know, Kori, he’s alright, for a loner.”

“So you want to hang out with him then?”

“No,” I scowled. “You make it sound like I should ask him out on a date or something. No, I don’t want to hang out with Clone.”

“But you said you were going to help me get people to be nice to Clone.”

“And I will,” I sighed, “but I’m doing it for you, not Clone.”

Kori looked like she didn’t know whether to be fed up with me or flattered.

“Look,” I said finally. “I agree that no one should be picking on Clone like that. He doesn’t do anything to deserve that kind of treatment and it’s uncalled for. But that doesn’t mean I want to be friends with him. Not that I don’t like him… He might be an okay guy… But I just don’t believe that he and I could get along… He’s just… He’s such a jerk!”

Kori sighed roughly.

“This is all Vice’s fault,” she declared. “He started all this, and he’s gotten to you, too. Man, I hate that guy.”

“Kori,” I said, shocked, “how can you say that? We hang with Vice all the time, and anyway, you know he’s had it rough growing up; that’s why he can’t help being the way he is, and-“

“Well how do you know Clone isn’t the same way?” she demanded. “How do you know if he hasn’t had it rough?”

I sighed, seeing her point.

“You’re right, Kori,” I told her, to get her to calm down. “I’m sure Vice didn’t mean for all this to go so far and I bet Clone is a really nice guy beneath that ice cold exterior. Now can we ice cream? This is sort of like a date after all, right?”

Kori sighed.

“Okay,” she agreed.

An hour later I had walked Kori home and was headed back to my grandparent’s house when, as I walked under the same tree where Clone had been attacked before, the same freak appeared.

“Oh no, not you again?!” I sighed.

“Yes, it’s me,” the masked man said, standing in a tree branch over my head. “After I changed my sexy battle costume I came back here to await your return.” This time I could tell for sure it was a guy.

“Well, I returned,” I snapped, “so you can just get lost!”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” the masked man laughed. “Not until I have promised to get my revenge.”

“Hurry it up then,” I sighed. “I’m late enough as it is.”

“You’re quite the feisty one, aren’t you?” the guy laughed again. “I would expect nothing less from a light elemental. But I’m warning you, kid, if you stand in my way again, I will tell everyone about your ‘secret’ powers. As for me, I’m going to make this town suffer for what they did, until each and every one of these miserable inhabitants is dead. So if I were you, I’d pick up some change of address forms on the way home. You’re going to want them.”

“Hey, what did we ever do to you?” I demanded. “You can’t just go around killing everyone!”

“Save it for someone who cares!” The guy snapped, and he back flipped over that damned high fence and disappeared again.

“Oh, that does it!” I yelled. I ran over to the gate, unlocked it and marched up the lengthy driveway to the large house in the center of a huge frickin’ yard. I knocked boldly on the door, then saw the doorbell and pushed that too, for good measure. A long moment passed.

Finally, the door creaked open.

“Hey,” I said heatedly. “Did you see some creep in a green and white costume and a mask go back flipping across your yard?” I demanded. “Huh? Vice? This is where you live?”

Vice looked at me. He was sporting a blue bathrobe, and I turned away and stared up at the tree tops to be polite.

“What’s this about some dude in a costume?” Vice wondered. “Do you mean to say there’s a prowler about?”

“Yeah, I guess you can say that,” I told Vice. “I saw him earlier picking on…” I stopped, knowing how Vice would sniff if I said the name Clone. “Picking on some kid, and I drove him off. Now he seems to think he has some bone to pick with me. See any weirdoes around lately?”

“Come to think of it,” Vice mused, putting a hand on his chin, “a few minutes ago some guy did go running across my yard and jumped over the fence. You’d never be able to catch up to him now though.”

“I guess you’re right,” I sighed. “Sorry to bother you.”

“That’s fine,” Vice said politely. “Glad to see someone is fighting crime around here, anyway. Are you going to be a cop someday, Casey?”

“Hm, I’ve thought about it,” I admitted, “or maybe a detective.”

“No, I don’t think you have quite the cleverness for a detective,” Vice informed me. “Stick to being a cop; leave the sleuthing for the quiet guys who don’t speak much.”

“Uh, sure, whatever,” I agreed. “G’night, Vice.”

“Good night, Casey.”

I walked away down the driveway, missing the evil smirk on Vice’s face as he watched me go.

The next day, Saturday, I was making it up to my grandparents the way I’d promised myself I would.

Man, when I volunteered do to ‘extra chores’, I wish I knew before hand what that entailed. After I’d rolled all the coins that had been collected in a giant piggy bank for over twenty years, repotted a garden full of flowers and walked my Grandpa’s Saint-Bernard, Tanner, I was ready to collapse.