Crushing Butterflies and Gift-wrap
Chapter 1

I’m a freak. A fifteen year old freak.

Scratch that, I mean… my age doesn’t really matter, does it? My friends don’t seem to think so, anyway – I was born a freak, according to them. Then again, they’re not really my friends; I prefer to call them my ‘classmates’. I tell my parents that I have friends, just so that they don’t have to worry. If they found out I didn’t have any friends, they’d either send me to a psychiatrist or to another school. To not have any friends… well, the only possible conclusion is that there must be something wrong with me, right?

Does a hamster count as a friend?

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if I wasn’t around. My parents wouldn’t have to worry about me, my classmates wouldn’t have to bother even acknowledging me, they could save their breath by not having to insult me every time they caught sight of me. Then again… how would they entertain themselves if I wasn’t around? Their source of amusement would be gone, and I wouldn’t want them to choose another target – I’d be to blame for their misery. I’m not sure I could cope with that on my conscience. I’ve coped with it all my life, and it’s just about bearable for me. To someone who was getting bullied for the first time… they wouldn’t be used to it, they wouldn’t be able to ignore it, like I can.

There is a time when all of this started, despite my classmates happily telling me that I was born a freak. It’s probably the truth, but I’m not going to give them more ammunition by confirming their taunts, am I? Since I can remember, I’ve had the power to communicate to, and heal, animals – but I can’t remember anything before the age of about four. It could have developed, I could have been born with it – we’ll never know. I don’t think my classmates have quite grasped the concept of me changing. Anything they can’t understand, they pass off as alien. You can’t develop a power like this, so I must have been born a freak. Unfortunately, that also means that they wouldn’t understand me not having the power – changing into a normal person. That’s what I’ve tried to aim for, but in their eyes, I will always be a freak. There’s really no point.

The day I first realised I was different to the other children was my first day of school. Before that day, I had always spoken to animals as though they were my friends, and once I’d actually been able to heal a family pet – though my parents believed it had just been a coincidence, of course. My parents thought that it was just a phase I would grow out of – they even encouraged me when I was younger, clapping their hands and exclaiming how cute I was when I started chatting about the weather to the family hamster. Other children had imaginary friends, thought they were fairies or something – I spoke to animals. And when I stopped, I let them think they were right, that I’d grown out of it. In truth, the bullying had started.

At the end of my first day, I skipped happily into the playground, only to be confronted by a very large black dog, which bared its yellow teeth at me and snarled menacingly. Any other child my age would have stayed well away from that beast – no matter how naïve they were, it was obvious a dog like that was not meant for petting or cuddling. But I stepped beyond that, and started having a full-blown conversation with him. I must have appeared to be pretty… weird to my friends, but they were young. Some of them still had their imaginary friends – and so when I miraculously did not get attacked by the dog and said goodbye to him, they just stayed well away from me. They didn’t have the courage to verbally attack me… yet.

That moment came when I was older – around ten years old. I think my classmates had the same thought as my parents, that I’d grow out of it. So when I introduced myself to the new teacher and told her, in front of the whole class, that I could talk to animals, they quickly realised that I wasn’t someone to be scared at – I was someone to be laughed at… a freak. Up until that point, I’d thought that talking to animals was normal, that loads of people did it. However, as I stood in that room full of children, being pointed at and laughed at, I swore I would make myself change. I would make myself grow out of it.

Of course, ignoring my ability hasn’t made it go away, but the last time I tried to speak to the family hamster, I found that it seemed to have faded. It had been slowly disappeared since that fateful day, but now it seemed to have come to a halt – in fact, the only communication I received from the hamster had been an outline of his emotions – the fact that he was happy. He didn’t tell me why, like he would have done a few years ago. I’m proud of myself for making it fade, but frustrated that I can’t make it disappear completely. I suppose it doesn’t really matter – my classmates would never believe that I had changed, that I wasn’t a freak anymore.

Christie Adams, the freak. It’s very basic, but it’s the name that I’m known by at school. They can’t seem to come up with anything original, it’s all the typical insults. Freak, weirdo, alien, E.T. Take your pick.