Chris says goodnight to his parents as he hefts his backpack filled with extra clothes and bathroom stuff. He was going to go ahead and come back home after school on Monday. That was the pn, which his parents were cool with. If he was needed before hand, he could always just run home real quick.

  The kids were all yawning, having worn themselves out swimming and pying around with their powers. Mrs. Prowman ends up in front while the rest of them take the back seat. Jerry riding in the very back with no seat. As they drive, Elle yawns and rests her head on Chris’ shoulder. Chris smiles a bit.

  “Aww.” Jerry says, then snickers.

  “Shut up.” Elle mumbles.

  Chris ughs.

  “Everyone have fun tonight?” Mrs. Prowman asks as she looks back at all of them.

  Everyone nods in agreement.

  “I think they all wore themselves out.” Mr. Prowman says chuckling.

  That they did. Pying with their powers for several hours can do that. Although he felt so much better for being able too. Rex was one thing, but tonight was…a big relief. Not to mention that he could finally let go in front of a few more people. Namely ones with powers just like him. That was the best.

  They arrive at the Prowman’s house. Chris notices it’s as big as his. Dark wood siding accented with lighter wood for the trim. Two story just like most of them in the neighborhood. The yard in front wasn’t as big as his, and they had a little more nd then Chris’ house, but the Prowman house was toward the end of the road leading to the wooded countryside. A huge oak tree dominated the middle of the yard. A couple rope swings hang from thick branches.

  Mrs. Prowman gets out as well as the kids as the garage door opens. They shuffle to the door, Elle using Chris to lean on as they walk into the house.

  “Watch out Chris.” Jerry says. “Night of the Living Elle She'll chew on your brains.”

  Chris chuckles then watches Elle turn around and put her arms out. She shuffles toward Jerry.

  “Bra-a-a-ins…” She growls then freezes. She turns to Jackson and continues. “Brains.”

  Jerry just grumbles at her.

  She then shuffles up the stairs saying that she’s taking a shower.

  “Jackson, Jerry. Why don’t you show Chris around a bit then show him the spare room upstairs, he can sleep there.” Mrs. Prowman tells the boys.

  They show Chris the living room which had a sunken floor. A rge ‘L’ shaped couch looking on a wide screen television. A patio door like the one at his house over looks a stone patio with a water garden. A no-brainer that Elle spent a lot of time there, Chris thinks.

  Mr. Prowman greets them as he comes out of the door to the garage, then continue on. Upstairs, the boys show him their room. Chris has a look around at the posters first. Ozzy, AC/DC, Motley Crue, some girls in bikini’s. He checks out their music, rock and roll mainly, some ter eighties pop too. Awesome.

  A big yawn hits Chris. “Guess I’ll head to the shower if Elle’s done.”

  “Might want to use the one downstairs.” Jackson tells him. “Elle plus shower equals…” He stops and shrugs, smiling.

  Chris ughs. “Say no more.”

  Chris drops his stuff off at the bedroom he was going to sleep in and grabs his bathroom stuff and heads downstairs. He passes the bathroom and can easily feel Elle’s elemental energy flowing. Jackson was right.

  After a quick shower, he towels off and dresses in his pajamas. If he wasn’t so tired he would have stayed in the shower and used his power to swirl the air around him, drying him off. So it was the less fun way tonight.

  Upstairs he’s about to reach the door to the bedroom when he hears someone coming up behind him. He turns and sees Elle. She looked half asleep.

  “Thanks for a fun night, Chris.” She says as she puts her arms around his shoulders, in a hug.

  Chris is caught off guard. He puts his arms around her back, hugging her back. “Uh, yeah. I had a great time tonight. Thank you too.”

  While he hugs her, his power suddenly fres. It wasn’t too much, but it was definitely a bit. But he didn’t even bring it forth. He wasn’t even trying. It was just a hug. It felt good though, like the breathing the freshest air imaginable, while flying high.

  Then she lets go. “Good night.” She says with a smile as she turns and disappears into her room.

  Chris turns and walks into the spare bedroom. He puts a hand to his chest. What in the world was that? Sleepiness, that had to be it…right?

  * * * * *

  Elle shuts her door and leans back against it. She lets out the breath she’s been holding in since she hugged Chris and grabs her chest. What the hell? Her power just fred. She didn’t even mean to do it. But for that brief time she felt so good. A kind of peace she’s only read about. Like floating in the water off a tropical isnd. With water so clear you could see the bottom, even if it was a little deep.

  A light knock on the door snaps her out of her daze and she steps away from the door. Her dad peeks his head in.

  “Hey sweetie. Just wanted to see if you were asleep yet.”

  “Soon as I get in bed.”

  “You have fun tonight?”

  “I had a bst, dad. Thanks.“ She goes and hugs her dad, they give each other a kiss on the cheek.

  He hugs her back tight. “So did I and your welcome. Good night sweetie.” He gives her a kiss on top of the head.

  “Night dad.”

  Her dad leaves and she turns and yawns. She shuffles over and crawls into bed. She didn’t feel that spark of power with her dad. Hmm. And she knows she never felt it with her brothers. Was it because she hugged Chris? Or did he do that to her with some weird trick? She resigned herself to worry about it ter. For now she needed her sleep. And she was out as her head hit the pillow.

  The next morning a knock on the door wakes Chris up. He stirs a bit then flips over to look at the door. It creeps opens and Elle’s head creeps in, a look of wonder on her face.

  “Chris? You awake in here?” She looks around the room.

  He catches her gaze and decides to py around with her. He ys his head back down and pretends to be sleeping some more. He didn’t care if she knew he was bluffing or not.

  “Rise and shine sleepy head!” She yells out as she flings the door open.

  It was all he could do not to start ughing. He gives a few snores to egg her on some more.

  “Wakey, wakey!” She announces as she grabs his cover and yanks them off onto the floor. “Time for breakfast!”

  Snore. Snore. Grumble, grumble.

  “Fine. I’ll just eat everyone’s breakfast, get nice and fat and come back up and sit on ya till you wake up.”

  Chris snickers. “That was just pin weird.”

  Elle grabs his arm and pulls. “Come on, Chris. I’m hungry.”

  Chris gets out of bed, with the help of Elle, and trot downstairs. Jackson and Jerry were already at the big dining table. Which looked about as big as the one back home.

  Jerry yawns. “Get used to what ever she did to wake you up, Chris. If she’s up then everyone else has to be up as well.” He then yawns again.

  “I'll remember that.” Chris ughs.

  “You sleep good, Chris?” Mr. Prowman asks coming out of the kitchen.

  Chris nods. “Yeah, like a log.”

  “I don’t bme you. All of you were pying hard st night. And using your powers for that long too.” He sits down at the head of the table. “All of you should have slept like petrified wood.” He takes a section of the Sunday paper and starts going through it.

  Mrs. Prowman comes out with a couple ptes and pces them down for Jackson and Jerry. Ham, eggs and toast. “So Chris. How far can you fly up?” She asks as she goes to get the other ptes.

  Jackson and Jerry start eating.

  “I made it about a mile and a half once. Haven’t tried in a while so I’m not sure.”

  The others were in awe.

  “That is so cool. Wish I was an air elemental?” Jerry says after swallowing.

  Mrs. Prowman returns with ptes for the Elle and Chris. “I hope you like scrambled eggs, guess I forgot to ask.”

  “Scrambled is cool, thank you.“ He smiles, then goes on. “I can fly without using my elemental powers. A friend of my dad‘s back home was a Spirit attuned and taught him, then my dad taught me. But with my air powers I can maneuver better. And can even breathe at higher altitudes too. I just haven't tried that yet.”

  “Awesome, dad is a Spirit attuned. Right dad?” Elle says.

  “That’s right sweetie.” Mr. Prowman puts his hand out. A thin blue mist begins swirling around his forearm up to his wrist and hand, then coalesces into a ball of energy an inch above his palm. The ball swirls around and condenses, blue bolts of energy crackle and spark before Mr. Prowman closes his hand around it causing it to disperse.

  “And here I am,” Mrs. Prowman says, “the only one without any powers to speak of.”

  Mr. Prowman puts a hand on hers. “That’s not true, honey. You have the amazing gift of being the best wife and mother ever,”

  Elle and her brothers cheer in response.

  She blushes.

  After breakfast they change out of their pajamas and into their everyday clothes. The weather outside is clear and warm, perfect for practice. Which Mr. Prowman said they could do down by the stream. Stream?

  “Come on we’ll show you.” Elle takes his arm and pulls him along as she jogs from the patio.

  Chris notices that nothing happens when she takes his arm. His spark didn’t fre. Weird.

  The stream was in the back of the property about forty yards or so. The stream itself was pretty wide itself, maybe ten or so yards across. To the left a bit was a nice wooden dock leading out into the water a good ways.

  “Fishing spot?” Chris asks.

  Jackson ughs. “Dad is having Elle and Jerry dig out the bottom of the stream for a swimming hole. Maybe even put a rope up to swing out into it eventually.”

  “Hey!” Jerry blurts out. “We could try that thing we tried a while back.”

  “What thing?” Chris asks.

  “That friend of ours back in Cali and us tried to see if we could create a…‘thing’ of every element.” Jackson tells him. “We kinda call it the raw element thing.” He chuckles a bit.

  Chris wasn’t sure what he was talking about but he was game. “So how do we do it?”

  Elle has them stand in a square pattern, each of them taking a corner so to speak. “Now all we do is focus our power on a spot in the middle of us.” She points to a spot in the geometric center of them. “Then hopefully…something should happen.”

  “We’re not sure what will happen yet. But we think we’ll know when it does.” Jackson tells him.

  Chris just nods as the others stretch out their arms and begin raising their power. Chris follows suit. He can feel where they’re focusing their power and focuses his there too. The power in the middle is a confusing mass of the four elements, like four liquids that wont mix swirling around and through each other. A light sparks to life from the mix, flickering randomly. Then he can feel the powers becoming violent, the light flickering wildly. It suddenly unleashes its energy, thrusting outward into the kids, knocking them back off their feet with a loud boom.

  “Oww!” Is the general consensus from all four of them.

  Chris sits up and rubs his lower back. “Well…that did something all right. Knocked us on our butts.”

  “Kids!” Mr. Prowman yells out from the patio. “You all right!?”

  “Yeah! We’re fine!” Jerry yells back.

  “No more booms today, okay!”

  “Yes, dad!” Elle yells up.

  Jerry starts ughing. They all look at what he’s pointing at. Jackson was getting up out of the stream which he had obviously was ‘boomed’ into. Chris didn’t even notice. Jackson grumbles as he stands up.

  Elle snickers. “Need some help, Jackson?”

  He smiles in response.

  With a wave of her hand, the water soaking Jackson is sucked from his body…and pced on Jerry. Who tries to guard himself with his hands but to no avail, he is soaked in the water that was just recently soaking Jackson.

  “Elle, be nice.” Jerry pouts.

  Chris has to py along. “Don’t worry I got ya.” Chris creates a vortex of air around Jerry, blow drying him. He starts hopping up and down.

  “Cold, cold!”

  Chris seen Jackson with his hand raised toward Jerry. Chris didn’t have to be a genius to realize that he was sucking the heat from around Jerry.

  “What is this? Pick on Jerry day?” He says shivering, then shoots his hands downward.

  The next thing Chris realizes is the ground slipping out from under him. He is then on his back again. The worse thing is, Elle is off in the middle of the stream ughing her butt off.

  “Brat!” Jerry yells out. Sounding less chilly now. “Chris get’r!”

  Chris stands up. Sure why not. He draws in a good amount of air into one of his air spheres. He smiles as he moves his eyes to look at their faces. They were amazed. What till they see this, Chris thinks.

  He sends out the ball over the water, using his right hand for added control. Elle glides across the water both watching in awe and trying to avoid it. Chris lowers it close to the surface of the water where its current stirs up the water and sprays it in all directions. For a moment Elle yelps and holds up her hands to guard against the spray, but then she stops and takes all the spray and gathers it into a small sphere of her own.

  “Uh oh, Chris. Look out.” Jerry says, ughing.

  Elle smirks and sends her water ball toward Chris. He uses his left hand to alter the flow of air and banks the water ball…right at her brothers. They throw their arms up and protests against the act.

  Chris takes this moment to float upward and out over the water toward Elle. She was giggling and snickering happily. He grabs her hand and tells her to glide along as he takes her away from the arguing fire/earth duo.

  “You’re both brats!” Jackson yells.

  Chris and Elle move away from the dock area and around a tall bush. They stop and ugh. Chris lets go of Elle as they move close to the bush and look through watching her brothers talk and shake out the water from their hair.

  “Suckers.” She whispers, still giggling a bit.

  Chris snickering himself.

  “Hey, Chris. What was that st night? When I hugged you?”

  Chris stops snickering. How did she know? “Uh…you mean that…thing?” He didn’t know what to call it.

  “It felt like you activated my elemental power. It felt good but…weird too.”

  “Yeah, I felt it too.”

  “Come on guys! What are ya doing in there, making out!” Jerry yells over.

  Elle grumbles. “Why!? Did you wanna make out with him instead!?” She then holds a finger to her mouth with a wink.

  “Brat!” Jerry says after a few moments of silence.

  Elle chuckles. “We’ll talk about it ter. Come on.”

  Chris and Elle get back on dry nd and run over to her brothers. At least Chris was sure of something, they both felt that thing with their spark. But unsure as to what it meant.