The Mark

“Katie! Hey, Katie! Wait up!” Jenna walked fast to catch up with her. They’d never interacted before so this was going to be super awkward.

“Yeah?” Katie asked, puzzled.

“That… Umm… That mark on your neck…”

“Oh! That’s just a burn I got from the curling iron,” Katie laughed nervously.

Jenna came straight to the point, now surer than before, “really? I… Uh… I got one of those too…” she said, rolling up her left sleeve revealing the mark.

Katie pulled down her sleeve, “What! Are you crazy? What if a naysayer saw us?” Katie led her to a booth in the girl’s washroom.

“What’s a naysayer? More importantly, does this make us cool or something?What does it do?” Jenna asked excitedly.

Katie looked at Jenna with amusement and pity, “give me your number, I’ll text you the details. Don’t tell anyone about this. No one. Is that clear?” Jenna nodded in affirmation with all the seriousness one could muster in a washroom.

Katie introduced Jenna to a bunch of other kids, “We don’t know much about these marks but we find out a little bit everyday. Dave here can sing like a nightingale. This is just the initial stage though, we’ve found that the mark grows… slowly and painfully.” Dave sensed Jenna’s doubt and sang them a song.

“That was beautiful!” Jenna smiled at Dave.

“Reggie can echo locate,” Katie continued.

“Quick! Everybody hide. The naysayers are coming our way!” warned Reggie as he climbed up a tree.

The naysayers were soon at the meeting spot, sniffing around to find the markees. They found Gabriel, the youngest of them and held him up by his leg. Gabriel was in tears, Jenna jumped out of her hiding spot and by instinct twirled in an anticlockwise direction releasing quills in her circumference.

Caught by surprise, the naysayers made a hasty escape.

“We’ve got ourselves a porcupine you guys!” Reggie exclaimed.