Now You See Me-Gifted 5 Read Free

was inhabiting her body, she couldn’t help feeling the girl might have had some kind motives. She was about to tell Jenna this when she noticed that Jenna was staring at Amanda in a particular way that Tracey recognized.
    ‘Are you reading her mind?’ Tracey asked.
    ‘Yeah, she’s thinking about trying on the skirt in the window. Thrilling, huh?’ But then her expression changed. ‘Whoa, wait a second.’
    ‘What is it?’ Emily asked.
    ‘She’s got a secret. It’s . . . it’s something to do with, with . . .’ she squinted in her effort to concentrate. Then her eyes widened in surprise. ‘She’s thinking about Mr Jackson!’
    Tracey was startled. ‘As in Principal Jackson?’
    ‘What kind of secret could she have about Mr Jackson?’ Emily wanted to know.
    They weren’t going to find out – at least, not that day. Amanda spotted them.
    ‘Damn, she’s learned how to block me too,’ Jenna muttered.
    Tracey laughed. ‘What did you think she’d do? “Hi, Jenna, welcome to my private thoughts.”’ She smiled at Amanda, but all she got back was a blink of recognition before Amanda moved hurriedly away, with Nina and Britney at her heels.
    ‘She really is a snob,’ Emily remarked. ‘She won’t even speak to us.’
    ‘It’s just because she’s with her friends,’ Tracey said. ‘She knows Nina would say something nasty to us. I think she’s trying to protect us from being insulted.’
    Both Jenna and Emily gazed at her as if she was out of her mind.
    ‘Why are you always defending her?’ Jenna asked.
    ‘I don’t know.’ Tracey sighed. ‘I guess I can’t help thinking there’s something good in Amanda.’ The expressions of disbelief on her friends’ faces remained intact, so she changed the subject.
    She turned to Emily. ‘Got any predictions to make?’
    ‘About what?’ Emily asked.
    ‘Anything.’
    ‘It doesn’t work like that,’ Emily said. ‘I have to be thinking about something in particular.’
    ‘Think about me,’ Jenna suggested. ‘Is anything interesting going to happen to me this week?’
    Obediently, Emily looked at Jenna in that peculiarly dreamy way she took on when she was trying to get an image of the future. Her eyes glazed over.
    ‘Well?’ Jenna asked impatiently. ‘Can you see me?’
    ‘Yes.’ Emily’s brow furrowed. ‘With . . . with a knife in your hand.’
    ‘Good grief!’ Tracey exclaimed. ‘Is she pointing it at someone?’
    ‘No. She’s just holding a knife.’
    Tracey looked at Jenna worriedly. After all, her friend did have a reputation. When she’d first come to Meadowbrook straight from some sort of place for delinquent teens, she’d been observed with trepidation by students and teachers.
    Jenna just shrugged. ‘That makes sense.’
    ‘It does?’ Emily asked. Now she was looking nervously at Jenna too.
    Jenna nodded. ‘I’m fixing dinner tonight, and I’m making tuna salad. I’ll be chopping onions, celery, carrots . . . yeah, I guess I’ll be holding a knife for at least half an hour.’
    Tracey immediately felt guilty for having even considered that Jenna might be planning to do something criminal with a knife. Jenna didn’t hang with gangs any more, and even though she retained her tough-girl demeanour, she hadn’t been in any serious trouble. Tracey was absolutely, positively, no-doubt-about-it certain that Jenna had completely reformed.
    Still, it was reassuring to know that Jenna’s knife would be used for strictly non-violent purposes.

C HAPTER T WO

    W HAT A DIFFERENCE a few months could make, Jenna thought as she strolled into Room 209 on Monday afternoon. She remembered the first day she’d entered this classroom, and how angry, depressed and scared she’d been. She’d just been let out of that place she’d been sent to after her arrest for drug possession. Harmony House . . . a fancy name for what was really a jail for teenagers. She’d been taken away from home and forced to spend three months with thieves,