Jeffrey stood out near the bus line, peering over toward the large open doorway where everyone now exited the school. He’d seen neither Peck nor Colin emerge, so he kept still, silently wondering all sorts of things that basically amounted to what he should do.

Amidst his uneasiness, his special ability was on high alert. He beheld again the vision of Colin alone at the bus stop about to save his backpack from getting crushed.

He likewise saw Peck, also alone, being passed between parents to be put up with by each set from afar.

And in watching everyone flow out in a massive current from the school, he picked up on hints of other life stories, hidden wishes, hopes and dreams, and just so many silly little things unique to individuals, which he definitely would have found difficult to describe.

He noticed Gel, her slow stride and black clothing only surface-point tips to all that really separated her from the rest. In and surrounding her face, he witnessed the working components of limitless, connected, intricate machines. The machine parts appeared to Jeffrey to be quite high-tech and futuristic, though they also included many of the more old-timey steam-powered and hand-cranked wonders, and even the sand-and-pedaled conveyer matrices seen in Finnel’s secret stash (the “source of the Mad Doctor’s power”).

Hoping not to cross or displease Gel, he let his vision narrow in on a possible connection he might be detecting between the leaving crowd and images of evolving/devolving machinery.

Peck stormed out, bypassing Gel, and dashed toward the spot where Jeffrey stood.

Blinking, Jeffrey’s focus shifted to Peck, where exasperated, incensed, pushed-too-far anger took the form of a cornered (baby) wolf-bear-lion-shark ready to accept and live out at any moment exactly what its nature would dictate.

Seeing no signs of Colin yet, Jeffrey wandered toward Peck, arriving at about the same time as Gel. “Don’t fight him,” Jeffrey blurted, feeling Gel’s disapproving stare tighten upon the left side of his face.

“Shut up!” cried Peck. “You freaks aren’t gonna stop me! FREAKS!”

“Yeah, ‘freaks!’” echoed the breaking voice of Ricky Vase, the sound harsh enough to catch the attention of everyone involved for a brief What the…? moment.

“Shut up, Ricky!” Peck yelled, causing Ricky’s tiny black eyes to widen in disbelief (though they stayed about the same size). “All of you . . . LEAVE ME ALONE!”

“You’re alone,” stated Gel, her voice steady and low. “That’s not what you want, though.”

“Oh, so now you’re gonna…” Peck began, but cut himself short at the sight of Colin, whom all those present couldn’t help but observe step out from the school as if about to physically outgrow it. Peck might have gulped a tiny bit.

“Jeffrey, let’s get out of here,” Gel cautioned.

But Jeffrey stayed put. You might say that most of him wanted to move . . . to obey Gel, and leave, and go discuss everything at length somewhere secure and far away. It just seemed another, smaller part simply wouldn’t let him.

As Colin approached, everyone else still in the vicinity came too, drawn into his orbit like satellites. Even the bus line broke formation and joined the enormous circle enclosing around Colin and Peck (and Gel and Jeffrey).

“Do it!” came a muffled shout from somewhere at the back.

“Fight!” yelped another.

“Get him!” cried a third to at least one of the potential combatants.

“Yeah, COME ON!” Peck screeched, raising his two connect-the-dots arms to adopt what must be his version of a fighting stance.

“Jeffrey…” Gel’s voice didn’t rise, but dripped with uncharacteristic fear.

“I can’t leave,” he answered, unsure why.

“Why?” she all but begged.

Colin took another big step, which brought him within distance of Peck’s wandering forelimbs. “You want to do this?” he asked, speaking slowly, genuinely wondering.

Without word, Peck heaved himself at Colin, his arms looping and scattering into strikes. 

Colin reached across, brought a boat-paddle-sized hand to rest on Peck’s pointy shoulder, and flung Peck diagonally down to the ground in a contorted heap of what appeared to be all knees, elbows, wrists, and other protruding joints. “Hmmmph,” Colin grumbled as if to himself.

“Get him while he’s down!” Ricky’s evolving voice horned, perhaps causing the whole crowd to wince. “Ground and pound! Ground and pound!”

From the corner of his eye, Jeffrey saw Sarah Heelay walking toward the friendly Penelope Risos at the edge of the dense human ring that bordered the fight. As the two girls crossed paths, time slowed to a standstill for Jeffrey (and Gel too, of course).

It was then he noticed the color patterns unique to everyone there, which he’d really been seeing ever since he began staring at the school’s big exit/entrance. Though some appeared more bluish-purple, and others a goldish-red (and any other imaginable or unimaginable mix), all looked equally bright, and equally individual, each person’s combination unlike that of anyone else.

Yet the reason he acknowledged everyone’s colors when he did was due to the similarity of hues shown by Sarah and Penelope. Though not exactly the same, each emanated their own version of a sunny yellow, with Penelope’s being more rich and obviously vibrant, where Sarah’s seemed softer and more calming.

Beneath and within all those various spectrums of textures, he saw the same endless, connected, whirling pictures of diverse symbols and machines spaced only by darkness itself.

Then glancing back at Gel, he knew she saw the underlying pictures as he did . . . better than he did . . . but that she didn’t see the people’s colors at all.

Why would that be? And was he sure? How could he tell what she couldn’t see?

Time restarted and needled forward as if tiptoeing its way into a freezing pool.

Jeffrey at once felt at one with everything again, sensing hurricanes of world-sustaining forces rising up through his being from the ground.

Cheers and roars were passed like beach balls from all sides, back and forth.

He glimpsed Dom Eoki standing tall and quietly beaming, a travelling warrior having paused at the outskirts of the crowd.

Wurtz Grandolf bounced and bobbed at Dom’s side, hooting and hollering like a belligerent gorilla.

The colors Jeffrey witnessed as he brought his focus to Dom and Wurtz could not be more contrasted. Since Dom held the weight of mountain ranges, and of torrential rains becoming mighty rivers cascading into massive waterfalls, he carried with him every earthen shade from green through brown to black. Wurtz, on the other hand, was a carnival of secrets, where orange neon signs and red clownish daredevils only partly drew attention from bright grinning ghosts and smiley skeletons lurking behind dark purple curtains and hidden doors.

“YYYYAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!” howled Peck in a bawling shout.

Jeffrey turned back to face the center of everything. He watched Peck slither and wriggle to his feet, sort of like seeing someone stack differently shaped furniture in an unsteady pile.

But now Jeffrey noticed how the color Peck showed was the deep red of a wound, stained by a bruise-esque blue about its edges.

Nothing of Peck’s doomed actions, it seemed . . . just like none of his insults in class, foolish digs, or failed pushes for popularity . . . could be painted by anything but those horrible colors of pure pain and blood.

Peck launched himself again at Colin.

Colin casually reached to place both giant hands around Peck’s scrawny shoulders, upper back, and the rear of his neck and head. He then whooshed Peck straight down in another mangled heap like flinging a set of empty clothes hard on the ground.

As Jeffrey’s eyes met Colin’s, Gel also stood in view. And seeing both, he flinched and did a quick double take, horrified in a way by what he couldn’t ignore. For just as Gel’s amazing awareness of every underlying force and mechanic revealed to her a perfect reflection of reality . . . but only impersonal reality (her ability being limited to black-and-white) . . . Colin showed no colors of his own at all.

What could it mean?

Even now, as Colin towered high above the puny red-blue Peck, Jeffrey had just a muffled sense of how much worse it must be for Colin failing to take part in that which Gel merely failed to see.

Then Colin’s lack of color blew up like a bomb. And Jeffrey knew to his core the sheer disconnection and loneliness felt by this one rejected and pushed out by all. The feeling was a nightmare Jeffrey shook himself to awaken from fast, causing him to spiral with comic immediacy back to sudden thoughts like: What if I never had any special power, and I’m just crazy, and they all know it, and they’re all being nice to me because I’m really such a lost-cause loser, and…

Jeffrey 1 and Jeffrey 2 emerged through whatever cosmic portals to be forced to face off and confront one another at last. Their moment of ultimate decision could be pushed off no further.

There were two paths Jeffrey could go, and he couldn’t leave the choice to chance. He could side with Gel, let events play out, and coldly ignore all but inhuman workings running at the base of his school and world from here on out. Or, he could go against Gel, step in, and use his ability to help specific people.

Neither option seemed right or complete.

Both Jeffreys remained annoyingly silent, just staring across at one another, waiting.

Colin stood tall, less than seconds away from bringing planets formed into fists down in a world-ending storm upon the personified injury that was Peck.

Jeffrey watched as every source of Peck’s pain . . . the disinterested parents, the relentless bullies, the void of friends . . . got prepared to be met and answered by far, far greater pain. The red of Peck’s spectrum glowed hot and molten, welcoming what could only mean its expansion and further dominance (even if Peck, himself, should come to an end in the process).

But Jeffrey didn’t make a decision.

Neither Jeffrey 1 nor Jeffrey 2 pushed forward to take the lead.

Instead, all that happened was he brought his eyes back to Colin, and thought maybe he noticed what might have been the slightest hint of something suggesting the possibility of the tiniest, faintest, lightest, flimsiest, least prominent tint of some indeterminate color apart from black, white, or any grey shade in between.

“Don’t do it,” warned Gel, her voice the small and simple kind used to explain the last step in solving a math problem.

Jeffrey took a half-pace forward.

And Jeffrey 1 and Jeffrey 2 were then no more. For just that tiny shuffle ahead had proven enough to break their frantic hold, like inching off the edge of a cliff in faith and hopes of sprouting wings.

Maybe the decision had been made without him having to make it. He didn’t need to know or understand why. Not anymore.

What he needed was to do the unthinkable . . . something akin to standing in class and showing off his strange daydream drawings, or speaking before an assembly unprepared, proudly riding the waves of whatever oddness he might bring.

An all new Jeffrey with no particular identity to keep him safe had emerged at the other end of his barely noticeable movement.

“Sarah, Penelope . . . please come,” he called, his voice a tad shaky, but clear.

Sarah looked at him as if for the first time ever. The easy yellow of her spectrum-essence began to change, turning a greenish turquoise. “What?” she asked, surely shocked at his addressal.

Penelope also turned, the golden sunlight smile which always stretched to possess her whole face working now to mirror itself some over on his.

Again, he spoke to the two girls, saying, “Please come and help Mangelo. We can stop this.”

Gel was a statue, her eyes cast down.

Penelope and Sarah said nothing, but skirted the crowd to approach the center where Jeffrey stood.

Then all three kept still for a moment, and together peered over at Peck.

“Mangelo,” called Penelope sweetly. “You don’t have to do this!”

With a surge of what had to be embarrassed defiance, Peck collected himself gruffly back to his feet. He glared up into Colin’s eyes, a snarl etched and deeply set in his face.

This time, Jeffrey took a big step forward, followed by Penelope, bringing the two into what was essentially the attack zone.

The easier path from here would be to turn and plead with Peck to stand down and step away. But Jeffrey instead chose to face Colin, raising his gaze to meet the eyes of the biggest person in school (staff included). “It’s hard to be a superhero,” he heard himself utter, and somehow (miraculously) didn’t feel the need to cringe.

“...?” communicated the slightest twitch of Colin’s expansive features.

Penelope slid behind and stood next to Peck, now out of Jeffrey’s line of sight.

“All along, you wish things could be different,” Jeffrey added, still unsure where he was headed.

Sarah very slowly moved to stand by Penelope and Peck.

Gel didn’t move. Though her mind and perception might have been launched a million miles out, her eyes remained glued to the ground.

“You wish someone would help you,” Jeffrey continued, his inner eyes scanning Colin for any further hints of that faint, dull color he’d seen. “You want someone to understand. You hope someone who knows what it’s like will come and show you what to do,” 

“I know what you’re saying,” Colin responded, his voice low and thoughtful. “So it’s true that you see things. But what if no one comes to help? What if no one understands? How could a hero…?” He didn’t finish the question.

“FIGHT!” squawked Ricky, a yapping dog not quite over laryngitis.

A few others joined the fray, encouraging, “Yeah, fight! C’mon!”

Jeffrey turned slightly to see Penelope leaning in, engaged in a whispered conversation with Peck, whose abject redness was beginning to ease to something of a sunnier orange. 

Sarah kept silent, though Jeffrey saw in her eyes much, much more than just comprehension of what was taking place between Penelope and Peck. What he saw, unmistakably, was love. And Sarah’s light yellow also appeared to be skewing more orange-ish, as though part of her palate had begun absorbing Peck’s.

He turned back to Colin, and there was an instant of pure quiet, as well as a shared emotion close to wonder . . . as if both Jeffrey and Colin had returned to themselves and the current situation from far away, and were ready to marvel together at the people they actually were and the particulars of what must be really going on.

“The thing is,” Jeffrey heard himself start to conclude, “that hero could never become the hero if they got what they were hoping for. It has to feel lonely. You have to feel separate, and misunderstood, and empty. But it’s worth it. It will be worth it.”

Something like a flash of destiny working back from up ahead broke Colin free from his black-grey cage, so he now displayed all the major colors. Blues and reds of every stripe flooded forth and mingled, calling up bright hints of yellow-gold and forest greens.

Colin’s combination of colors indeed looked unique like everyone else’s, yet also appeared somehow far more all-encompassing than the rest. Jeffrey knew this distinction had everything to do with Colin’s potential and future role in the school and beyond, for which this all had to be but preparation.

Jeffrey strode confidently to Penelope, Peck, and Sarah, at last able to hear their low, murmured dialogue taking place.

“It’s gonna be ok,” Penelope assured Peck, her sunlight grin as infectious as ever. 

Sarah touched a hand lightly to Peck’s slim shoulder.

Jeffrey knew exactly what to do.

It was funny to find he didn’t care in the least whether his next move would make any sense. It was something he never, ever would have thought to do on his own, or wanted to do. But he knew it was what was needed.

“Hey, Wurtz,” he called, looking over to pick out the easiest landmark of all in the school to spot . . . Wurtz’s wavering hobo smile, several feet above the din, oozing with casino-sign brightness designed to light up the night.

The smile worsened, and Wurtz approached, shamble-plodding forward like an animated skeleton to its own beat. “Yeah???” Wurtz barked, stopping yet never staying still.

Side-eyeing some of the top-hatted specters circling Wurtz’s jolly noggin, Jeffrey burst out laughing, and couldn’t seem to stop. For with each of his increasingly heaving guffaws, those eerie beings making cheerful use of Wurtz like some vintage cartoon hotel made progressively sillier faces back at Jeffrey as they flitted about pulling luggage, riding elevators, etc., entertained in their endeavors by his attention.

Seeing more of why he’d called Wurtz over, Jeffrey felt utterly, shockingly unashamed to recite his next line. “Hey Mangelo,” he cried, still laughing a little, “Wurtz here has something I think he wants to say to you.”

“Yeah?” Peck hazarded, the bare-bones beginnings of a smile dusting his face as he turned to take in the sight of Wurtz.

Of course puzzlement found no home on Wurtz’s big mug, and he shot back with: “Yeah, bro! You got smaaaaaashed!”

Peck giggled, and so did Penelope, likely just at Wurtz’s tone and countenance (awash with trash-yard glee).

“Na, bro!” Peck pronounced, his cadence matching Wurtz’s immediately. “I never…”

“SMAAAAAASHED!” interrupted Wurtz, who stepped up in a playful, theatrical sort of display of over-assertion. “I seen it, bro!”

“Well, you look like someone’s first ever scarecrow . . . like, almost before they knew you were supposed to be person-shaped.”

“Na, man! You’re a pincushion without the cushion. Just a bunch of misplaced pins!”

“If you were in the army, they’d send you out first to make the other side die laughing.”

“Bro! I seen meatier things than you crawl out from corners in walls! What even are you?”

“Why? You planning on taking me back to show your kind what you found?”

“Careful, bro!” Wurtz tuned. “You’re whole body looks like a match that’s about to catch fire!”

As the two continued back and forth, building zany momentum, Jeffrey breathed a drawn-out sigh of relief.

He scanned the crowd, and found it strange at first how no one seemed to want to leave. The fight had fizzled out. The first bus had even arrived. Yet the large donut formation of onlookers kept almost completely in place.

The sight made Jeffrey start to contemplate how little he’d actually had to do to help bring peace and instill a sense of wonder and meaning in all those now so reluctant to go. He’d brought Penelope and Sarah to Peck, confirmed Colin’s arduous path, and then joined Peck to Wurtz.

That was it.

Yet he knew the whole crowd had seen in just those few small actions something important enough to make them want to stay . . . maybe something beloved but largely missing in themselves . . . something to be sought after and rediscovered.

His focus came again to Gel, who lifted her dark, stoic eyes to catch his before they could land. He couldn’t help but behold the way her eyes still held the same beautiful culmination of every symbol, and each part of all connected components of everything. As always, her eyes revealed a perfect sketch of pure and inarguable oneness.

He let himself wish in that moment that he could move another step out from his comfort zone, this time toward her.

But he couldn’t. He shouldn’t, and didn’t. 

Still, Gel stared back at Jeffrey as if willing him to try.

She then turned and briskly stormed away, moving faster than he’d ever seen her go.