SUNSHINE POUR THROUGH THIS CAR WINDOW

Sydney Kovarsky

7th Grade • Gwendolyn Brooks College Prep

“Cal!” some lady screamed. I suddenly bring my head up and shake my desk noisily from shock. My vision is blurry but the bright shining sun light spilling through the curtains strains my eyes. I wipe my eyes and as my vision clears, I see that I’m in class, in my desk in the middle of the room, everybody’s eyes on me. I look straight ahead again as the teacher’s body is blocking my entire vision. I look up to see my teacher Ms. Weingate in front of me, a sour expression on her face as she pushes her tan glasses up. She was wearing a black skinny dress with her brown hair up in a bun.

“Hey, Weingate,” I said drowsily. My eyes were still squinted from still adjusting to the light. “How are you?”

“It’s Ms. Weingate to you.” she said sternly.

“Well, potato potah-to.” I shrugged off. She narrowed her lips and her purple, sapphire eyes. Suddenly, she lifted her hand with her palm facing the ceiling, and strained her fingers. Green vines slowly started to flow out from the middle of her hand and gracefully pointed themselves to me. I got up from my seat and rolled my eyes. Her vines wrapped around my body and restricted me tightly, her face clearly annoyed.

“How many times is this going to have to happen?” she called out. “Not everybody is afraid of you.” Her vines lifted me up

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from the air, varying in wild different sizes and different color tones of green.

“I’m not saying anybody is afraid of me. I’m just tired.”

“That’s not my problem. You’re going to treat me — your superior — with respect,” she said. A little pink flower appeared on the vine on the right of my head. I look over to her desk in the front of the class to see text on her name plate presented in the front:

Daisy Weingate

Special Ability: Can create vines from her hands. The more flowers that appear, the shorter time she’s allowed to hold them before they disappear.

“Ok I get it, can you just take me to the office now?” I said, rolling my eyes again with a slight sigh in my throat. She was angry. This wasn’t the first time, however. She started walking towards the door, the vines still held onto me, my feet dragging onto the floor, causing a squeaking sound. She walked out the doorway, and extended her vines to grow down the hallway until I reached the door to the office. She let go of the vines connected from her hand, and its last tail wrapped around me and I’m let down to the floor, still wrapped from the chest to my waist. I struggled to open the door with my arms pinned at my side, but I finally opened it. Another flower appeared near my hand, and another one next to my left arm. The office administrator sitting at the tall desk looked at me, looked back at her computer screen, looked back at me again, then rolled her eyes back farther than I could.

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“Four times this week, Calvin, huh?” she said. She naturally had an attitude in her voice, even though I could tell she was trying to be funny. I gave a slight smirk as I looked down, trying to ignore the tied-up situation (pun intended). I glance to the right and see five seats with dark blue covering. I walked over to the seat and sat down. The vines were as still as rock on my skin, and I felt my arm going numb. More and more flowers showed up as each couple seconds passed by.

“It’s Cal....” I mumbled. She just giggled.

“Calvin, I’ve known you ever since you were a freshman, and now you’re about to go to college after this year. I’ve seen your mind fall lower and lower every single time you come in this office, and you realize that was too many times, right?”

I stopped grinning as my smile slowly faded away. She noticed and she sighed. The little poofs of the flowers popping up started to become white noise. She looked at me as I looked at her, and she waved her hand towards her. I got up (using all leg strength) and walked to her desk. On the wall on the way to her desk, there was a circular mirror. I glanced through it: The vines started to dull in color as they were blanketed in pink and purple flowers. My pitch black slightly curly hair was like a floppy mop with no clear pattern. My one earring in my left ear was a silver point while my other ear was left bare. I had freckles that were obnoxiously bold, and my grey crewneck complimented my flop-hair. What really stood out, however, were my eyes. My red, fiery, rich, deep red, very sarcastic eyes. They were my biggest insecurity. Everyone was always so fearful of my eyes, and because of that, I felt alone. All because of my red eyes. It made me angry. Lots of things in my life made me angry. I always thought when I was younger that people would admire my

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abilities and my eyes, but I’m not what they thought I would be. I looked away from the mirror and continued on my path to her desk. She watched me the entire time with every movement and every flower that grew. When I finally reached her desk, she tried to grab my hand, but I snatched it away instinctively. I didn’t mean to. She slowly inched towards my hand again, and I gave it to her. She massaged it with her hand calmly and she looked into my eyes. She was the first person to ever look directly into my eyes. I looked at her nameplate on her desk:

Marina Tailman

Special Ability: Can heal anybody (only physically, not mentally) with a single touch.

Wonder why she had to say mentally…I thought to myself. I looked back at her. Her light pink eyes shined brightly and complimented the light blue wallpaper. She had hope in her eyes, with a tad bit of remorse. She wanted to help me, but she didn’t know how.

“Calvin, sugar, I’m not going to sit here and act like I know you because I don’t. I can’t understand what you have to go through mentally, I don’t even know what goes on in your head. But, word gets ‘round. Your family aren’t the best role models with no love in their hearts, you have to deal with bad grades, always getting people to avoid you, not to mention your…” she slowed down. I was confused. Even my only supporter thinks there’s something wrong with me. But, I had to admit, the numbness in my arms and the tightness from the vines started to fade with such ease.

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“Not to mention my what?” I asked with an attitude. I didn’t mean to be so rude. It just rolled off my tongue from always being judged for my red eyes. There are purple eyes, pink eyes, orange, tan, blue, green, turquoise, hundreds of thousands of colors, and out of all of them, I’m the only red-eye person I know who gets the hate they get now. If I had to say it, I’m the only red-eye person I know. Her eyebrows suddenly fell into a worried state, and she looked like she was holding something back from me. I felt annoyed, and snatched my hand away. She didn’t try to hold my anger back. “Not to mention my what!?” I said louder.

“You really don’t know?”

“Know what…?”

She took a long pause. I was about to walk out the room when she started talking.

“You are not supposed to have red eyes....” she finally said. I looked back at her, confused. “Red eyes are the Forbidden color.”

I felt like my face was on fire from the anger that poured into my head. As my anger popped a vein in my head, the veins that wrapped me poofed into thin air, the flowers going with them, pink dust floating around in the air like dust. She supported me, a stupid office administrator, and she was more of a mother than my mother could ever dream of becoming. She insulted me. I felt insulted. Maybe I am a hothead, but when your life is this bad, what else can you feel? It’s like people don’t care about you. My family, my community, all feel like I am “dangerous”, a little boy who can’t be a good student.

Before I was about to say something, the doors to the office

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flew open behind me, and I quickly spun around in surprise. Once I saw who it was, I rolled my eyes and slouched my back. Why are they here?

It was my mom with my little sister. She looked furious, as she always does, and my sister (who looks innocent, even though she is 12) looked at me with a sinister smile.

“Let’s go.” Mom said sincerely. I looked back at Ms. Tailman, then started walking towards the door.

Time passed. We were silent. We were in the car, driving our way home. Why do we live so far? And how did she get to the school so fast?

Mom is driving while I am in the passenger seat, my sister in the back looking out the window, watching the trees fly by and the sun shine brightly, providing positivity on the brick buildings and the cars whizzing by. Wish some sunlight could reflect in this car.

“How many times do I have to do this?” Mom said, her eyes attached to the road. It was like she didn’t want to look at me with her grey, dull eyes. She’s powerful. One of the most powerful people I know.

“What was I supposed to do? I wasn’t caught up on work and she was moving ahead…” I tried to explain, even though I know the story wouldn’t hold up with her. “I couldn’t do anything.”

“That wouldn’t have happened if you would’ve done your work in the beginning.”

“Don’t you think I know that?”

“Watch your tone, boy!” She finally took her eyes off the road

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and looked at me dead in the face. Her eyes were the dullest, but you could tell there was annoyance behind the color. Color only corresponds to your ability, not to your attitude. I wish it could. It would save me a lot of pain. I finally stopped looking at her and scoffed as I combed through my hair, and looked out the window. Streetlights were in a pattern of blur every couple of seconds, and the sky was such a pretty blue. Why can’t things be nice for a change?

“Why do you just refuse to be a good student? Or a good son?” She said after some time.

“What’s the point when all I do is disappoint you?” I replied.

“You wouldn’t disappoint me if you just were a good person.”

“Well, you made me like this,”

“What do you mean?”

“All you do is just make me guilty over everything! You just treat me so differently than everyone else! It’s like everyone gets a pass to do everything in your eyes and I’m the only one fighting for a ticket into your life....” I finally snapped. Been meaning to get that out for a while. “I’m your son…why can’t you just accept that and let me have a chance? I know I’m not the best student, or a good person, I know I’m a jerk. But I am because I push people out like you do to me. You matter to me. You’re my mother. Without you, without dad, without Carrie, without everybody else, what am I?”

She stopped with the stern face and guilt washed over her, I could tell.

“Cal, I —”

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“I’ll tell you what I am. I’m this stupid kid who’s failing everything, even having friends, because apparently my eyes are like ‘no other.’ Even my eyes aren’t enough for anybody. Eyes. You would think people would ignore them and love you for who you are, but no. Eyes are the most important thing to a person and what they’re like. I guess they’re right. Red is dangerous.” I said sarcastically. A tear shed down my face, but I quickly wiped it away. I refused to get vulnerable.

Finally, we were home. She parked the car and Carrie and I got out and went up the steps on our porch. That car ride was shorter than usual. Maybe because I’m used to just sitting in silence in the car for so long, my mind always extends the time. Maybe that’s why she was so quick to pick me up.

We were walking up the stairs to the house on the porch when a voice was heard behind us with an echo.

“Hey, Carrie! Hey, Ms. Welshire!” a man called out on his porch with a wave across the street. I saw his eyes lock on mine, but he never said my name. Mom and Carrie waved after him, then walked up the stairs. Mom started unlocking the front door, but I was stuck in place watching the man on his porch. Why didn’t he say my name?

It was the next day. I woke up slowly out of bed. Thank goodness it’s the weekend. I sat up and looked at the clock on my desk next to me: it’s 12:30 pm. Earliest I’ve ever woken up. I heard clattering of tools downstairs, so I got up and walked downstairs, the stairs screaming under my feet as I approached the final one. I look and my mom is in the kitchen at the sink, and my dad is at the dining room table, my sister looking at a newspaper with him. Who reads newspapers anymore? Mom

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turned around and looked at me with a smile on her face. She then rushed over to me with open arms also. She tightened around me and spun me around, restricting me ever so tightly. What is she doing?

“Hey, Cal! Good morning! Can you help me for a second?” she asked. Before I could even ask what was happening, she dragged my arm to the backyard, where there was a pile of old clothes, cloths, the smell of alcohol doused all over the giant pile.

“What are you doing?” I hissed. She ignored me and pointed at the pile.

“Shoot.”

“Shoot what?”

“The pile! You have anger in your system, I can tell.” She smiled, and her grey eyes immediately switched to red, and she shot her hand out, and a fireball shot, setting a couple of soaked clothes on fire. I immediately switched my mood, and used my ability to run around the pile, doing spin tricks and different tricks with my fire. It was fun. The first time I ever had fun like this.

After about ten minutes, the fire had gotten too big, and we had to stop. I have never let out my ability like that before. Mom was panting from all the running around she was doing, and her eyes turned to a light blue, shooting her hand towards the giant fire and water put it out. After it was all just charred by now, her eyes switched to a clear-like color and she looked at me: my mind started to feel dizzy and I felt like I couldn’t think. Then, my mind was fine, and I felt normal again. No, I didn’t feel normal. Normal for me was holding in all of this anger towards everything. I felt better.

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“I read your mind,” she said. I smiled. “You’re happy. That’s good. But, you’re confused.” She was right. I am confused. I thought back to what the office administrator said. Red is the Forbidden Color.

We went inside and mom told me a story. It was quite interesting, honestly. Red is Forbidden because fire was the most dangerous ability out there, and somebody with it was not part of society. Apparently, I am quite literally one in a million. Seriously.

“The reason we ignored you and disrespected you was because we didn’t want someone like that part of our family line. You were menacing-looking, with your black hair and red eyes. Nobody wanted anything to do with you. Clearly, we were wrong. We should love you for who you are. Not what some prophecy said.” she said. I felt relieved. It wasn’t my fault. I am right. Mom is a powerful being. Powerful for your mind, but more so because she can mimic any power she can think of. Wish I had that. But I am fine with what I have too.

“The talk you gave me in the car opened my eyes. I couldn’t see the damage we were doing to you. You matter to us, too, Cal. We love you. You just scared us. We, your family, matter to you because you are a part of us. Doesn’t matter what people think. We knew the whole time behind those eyes that there was somebody good. But I didn’t stop your behavior because I thought that side would show. You matter to us because if we are negative towards you, you are going to reflect that. If we are positive to you, it’s obvious what the answer to that is.”

After those words, I hugged her tightly by almost jumping on her shoulders. First time I ever hugged her before. She’s right.

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They matter to me. Family matters to me. Community matters to me because if they can’t accept me, then we’re back to step 1: giving up on hope. I should’ve tried to understand before doing stupid things, and I guess they could’ve been nicer. In the end, it all adds up. We need each other. No matter what our abilities are, it all comes down to who you choose to be as a regular person.

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