Mama Kat Thursday: The Unlucky

The Mama Kat blog writing prompt today is a quick little fiction ending with "I should have known."  It's from a writer's prompt idea to write about a world where everyone gets a super power on their 18th birthday and your character gets one no one would ever want.

       Ned woke up early, excited. Today was his 18^th birthday. Today he'd found out what his super power was!

     Everyone on the planet got super powers on their 18^th birthdays--ever since the manned mission to mars came back with some unknown micro-organism that mutated the entire human race. That was 40 years ago.

     Ned jumped out of bed and dressed quickly, eager to find out what his was. He wondered what his gift might be? His Mom could see through walls. His Dad could speed read and could read through a 1000 page book in a manner of seconds.

      Would he fly? Ned gave a little jump to test it. Nope. 

      Move things with his mind? He tried moving a towel off the rack in the bathroom e his desk chair across the room. Nope. 

      Pass through walls? He pressed his hand against the door. Nope.

      His best friend, Joey, got speed running. He tried jogging in place, but he didn't get that.

      Ned knew another girl at school who got the ability to talk to birds. They followed her around all the time. He saw her sick a bunch of crows on a guy who was bothering her once.

      Ned walked into the kitchen. He could smell chocolate chip cookies and he wondered if his Mom was baking, though that seemed old so early in the morning.

      His Mom and Dad were both just sitting at the kitchen table with mugs of coffee, scanning the news on their pads. Both suddenly looked up, sniffing the air.

     “Why do I smell chocolate chip cookies?” his Dad asked.

     His Mom shook her head that she didn't know.

     Ned got a breakfast bar and slid into a chair at the table. Just then his phone buzzed in his pocket. Pulling it out, he read the text. It was from his best friend, Joey.

     “What is it?” it read, referring to Ned's super power.

      “Don't know yet,” Ned typed back.

     “I had mine as soon as I woke up,” Joey responded.

      Ned put the phone face down, discouraged. He'd never heard of someone not getting a power. Though, he had heard of a few people getting weird powers, like the guy who could talk to cockroaches or the girl who could communicate with cats. Just cats. He wondered if maybe he was just the unlucky one.

     That smell of cookies was still wafting around the room, strongly enough to make his Dad put aside his pad. He regarded Ned thoughtfully a long moment, his brows furrowed.

     “What is it, dear?” his Mom asked him.

     “Not sure yet,” he replied getting up. He walked into the living room, picked up a throw pillow from the sofa, then returned to the table and held it toward Ned. “Here, touch this.”

     Ned looked at the pillow, his Dad, then the pillow again, shrugged and touched it. His Dad then gave the pillow a sniff and passed it to his Mom. She sniffed it. “It smells like chocolate chip cookies!” she exclaimed, staring at her son, astonished. 

     Ned's Dad nodded as he sat down. “It's you,” he told Ned. “You have a scent power.”

     Ned put his head in his hands. “A scent power?” he groaned. “What good is that?”

     “Well, I don't know, but it could be worse,” his Dad replied. “I had a classmate once who got the power to make everything smell like garbage. No one liked him.”

     Ned just got up and stalked back to his room, wistfully thinking he might go back to bed and try starting over. He was the unlucky guy. He got a stupid power.
      He should have known.

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