Strange Perceptions Read Online Free PDF Page A

decorated with red, white and pink ribbons and hearts. The Valentine’s day dance. Two girls sat at the table with a closed cash box, both texting.
    How did Dennis Spleenk plan on slipping Ivy a roofie? No way she’d be at this dance with him.
    I went to the gym and looked around. The lights were bright. They’d dim them when the dance started. The decorating committee had went wild. Red, white and pink balloons, most of them heart shaped, were tied everywhere. White and red ribbons hung from the ceiling, from the walls, from basketball hoops ratcheted up, out of the way.
    Several tables holding punch and Dixie cups lined one wall. Dennis Spleenk stood behind them.
    He had volunteered to help with the refreshments so he could drug Ivy.
    I looked around, wondering what to do. Should I try jumping into Dennis Spleenk and see what happened? I wished Jeremy would show up. Someone turned down the lights and music began playing softly. The background noise in my head was louder.
    I moved behind the table, next to Dennis Spleenk and scanned the room, looking for Ivy. I didn’t see her.
    I looked at Dennis Spleenk. Now or never. I jumped into him.
    It felt as though I had broken through a glass window and the glass shards sliced me as I went. I could see out of two sets of eyes, images juxtaposed. Slowly, the images coalesced into one and I saw only from his eyes. The distant sounds of whispers had grown to shrieks. It sounded like a hurricane.
    I lifted my arm, Dennis Spleenk’s arm, and looked at my hand. How disconcerting. Then I was gone.
    Back to the hospital room on the night of my death. It was so … quiet.
    Shit. I had lost focus somehow, but I had been focusing on my hand, or Dennis Spleenk’s hand.
    Jeremy wasn’t here either.
    I closed my eyes, focused on the image of the ticket table at the school, and was there. I looked at the clock on the wall of the school. 6:49 yet I knew now was 7:15. I closed my eyes and pictured the clock’s hands moving forward to 7:15. I opened them and was in the now again.
    In the gym, many more couples had arrived. A classical Journey song played. I spotted Ivy drinking punch off to the side with her date, Eric Bunting, a stupid jock. Don’t ask me what she saw in him.
    Dennis Spleenk stood a few feet away, grinning like he had just won the lottery.
    I was too late. She’d already taken the drug.
    Without thinking I jumped into Dennis Spleenk again. I ignored the feeling of being sliced and the screech of a thousand yelling voices. I took a slow, unsure step with his body, moving like Frankenstein’s monster. I stepped again, moving toward Ivy and Eric Bunting. I poked Eric in the chest with a finger.
    His eyes went wide. He must have been shocked to have this nerd anywhere close to him, let alone touch him.
    I found my voice, Dennis Spleenk’s voice. “I drugged your girlfriend and later I’m going to rape her.”
    I didn’t see Eric’s fist coming, but I felt it, a sledge hammer against my jaw. Dennis Spleenk’s legs crumpled and he/I fell backward.
    I scrambled out of his unconscious body.
    The music stopped. The lights came on.
    Eric Bunting had his arms around Ivy, helping her leave. She staggered as if drunk.
    Jeremy appeared. “Dude! You did it. You saved her.”
    “Yeah,” I agreed. “I think I did.”

Memory Fades
    Miss Esther Horace of Number 18 Eddington Way looked out her kitchen window while washing her teacup and saucer. Across the street, atop the Chapman’s house, a boy appeared in a bright flash of red.
    She dropped her teacup. It clattered into the porcelain sink, but she took no notice. She dried her hands on her apron before bringing her glasses to her eyes, the glasses which hung around her neck on a beaded necklace—her far-away glasses. She kept two pairs of glasses around her neck, forever tangling them. The other pair, the up-close glasses, dangled on a thin chain, easily distinguished from the beaded string. Better to untangle the glasses than