Now that Christmas is out of the way it's time for the countdown to the showcase to begin. Don't forget to donate to Nifty https://donate.nifty.org and message me if you like at sithspawn78@yahoo.co.uk

 

Chapter 23

 

\\\ Ben ///

 

"Are we there yet?" Tom whined.

"Yes, this is exactly where we're going to meet the others; on a dirt track just outside town." I replied sarcastically.

"It's not far now." Danny added, clearly noticing my exasperation.

It was hard not to be mad at Tom. We hadn't told him where we were going or how far it was from his house, but he'd been doing the `are we there yet' thing for at least ten minutes straight. We had picked him up last after stopping off for Jamie and Noah so he actually had the shortest distance of all of us to ride. Once we'd made it to the farm he probably thought that was it but we just stopped there to stash our bikes before walking up to the clearing. Lucas had moved the huge tree trunks that blocked the path out the way a little so we wouldn't have to scramble over those and give Tom more to complain about. We made our way down the path until we finally came to a stop at the clearing.

Thankfully the weather was getting better as we'd had a pretty wet and shitty winter, but now that spring was here the days were getting warmer and drier. We'd planned out how to tell the other guys about Lucas and Sammie but we didn't want to do it so close to Nick finding out. Not only that but we'd also had exams to focus on so it had never been the best time. Now that the Easter holidays gave us a couple of weeks off school and coincided with Nick's birthday, we decided to get it done.

"Ok, so where the hell are the others?" Tom asked. I never even answered, I just pointed to the top of the rock face in front of us. "I hate you sometimes."

I couldn't help laughing at him but I knew I'd picked the right time to tell him about the climb. Not that he really minded. We'd done some rock climbing years before but that was on an indoor wall, so this would be his first go at a proper cliff face and I knew deep down he was looking forward to it. Danny and I retrieved the gear from the hidden box at the base of the cliff and got everyone harnessed up ready for the climb. Nick, Sammie and Lucas were at the top of the cliff and as the guys climbed up they were able to help pull them up over the edge. Obviously Lucas could have pulled us all up at the same time but the guys didn't know that. Once we'd all made it to the top and removed the harnesses Lucas led us over to his makeshift boulder couch.

"So you're finally 16, happy birthday mate." Jamie said with a huge grin as he draped his arm over Nick's shoulder. We all wished Nick a happy birthday while he stood there trying not to blush.

"So what's the big secret you've brought us up here for anyway?" Tom asked. "It's not the gay thing is it cos I think we all know that already."

"Actually I've got something else to show you all first. Check this out." Nick pulled out his phone and handed it to me with a coy smile. He'd left it open on a picture of a birth certificate and when I read it I was shocked. All I could do was wrap my arms around him and as I did I felt Jamie take the phone from my hand.

"Whoa!! Are you serious? That's awesome!!" He had a huge smile on his face as he passed the phone on to Noah. I released the hug and saw that Nick couldn't take the grin off his own face.

"Yeah my parents showed me it this morning. They re-registered my birth with Luke as my dad, so I am now, officially Nicholas David Anderson."

"Did you know about this?" I asked Lucas.

"He told us while we were waiting for you guys. It's cool isn't it?"

"Hell yeah it's cool!!" I yelled. I was so happy for him right there as he was now legally part of the family. The last step now was just for his parents to get married and everything would be complete. Fortunately we were just a few months away from that and I knew Nick couldn't wait.

"So is that why you wanted to meet us up here today, to tell us that?" Noah asked.

"No, that was just a bonus. Like I said, I only found out about it this morning." Nick replied. "Anyway...the real reason we wanted to see you guys today...you might wanna sit down for this...it's gonna be a bit hard to explain." Jamie, Noah and Tom all sat on the boulder couch while the rest of us sat on the ground in front of them. We'd talked over how we were going to break it to them but now it seemed a little more daunting.

I took a deep breath and started to explain. "Ok, so you know how we've got that showcase coming up at the end of the year? Well Danny's come up with an idea for it and we were thinking we need to use this place or the studio down at the farm to rehearse because there's some stuff that we don't want people to see."

"That's it? That's why we needed to do this up here?" Jamie asked.

"Wait, we're not doing the show in the buff are we?" Tom asked.

"Funny you should mention buff..." Lucas said quietly and I saw Danny snickering next to him.

"No, we're gonna be fully clothed, in fact we're going to be in costumes but I'll let Danny tell you about that part." I handed over to Danny and he went through his plan of what the show would involve but without giving anything away about Lucas.

"Ok so what's the big secret about that? Unless you don't want anyone to see the costumes." Noah said.

"Actually the problem is we need to get their dads involved." I replied, pointing to the twins. "They're going to be a part of the performance as well but they're going to do something you guys are going to have to keep a secret."

"Just spit it out, what's the big deal?" Tom asked impatiently. Lucas just sighed and stood up.

"Right, you can't tell anyone about this, got it?" The other three just nodded at him as he took a step towards them. "Ok, hold on tight." Before they knew what was happening Lucas lifted the massive rock up above his head as the others just cried out in surprise. He quickly put the rock back down again and the guys scrambled off it like it was possessed.

"How the fuck did you do that?" Jamie asked.

"I'm...kinda strong." Lucas replied casually. "Our whole family are."

"Bullshit, nobody's that strong, there's gotta be some trick to this." Tom said as he went round to the side of the rock and tried to lift it.

"It's not a trick, they really are that strong." Nick said as the rest of us stood up.

"They? Wait, so you can do this too?" Tom asked Sammie. She just smiled at him and then lifted him off the ground by his arm pits. He looked down into her eyes with a smile and said, "I am so turned on right now." Sammie just let him drop to the ground with a look of disgust as Nick and I cracked up.

"So you guys all knew about this?" Noah asked.

"Yeah, I've known since I was a kid, Danny figured it out a few years ago and Nick found out at Christmas." I replied.

"I should've known that little shit would figure it out himself." Tom said, giving Danny a wry smile. "So how does this tie in with the showcase?"

"There's more to it than just the strength thing. Try not to freak out now ok?" Nick said.

"You wanna do this next part?" Lucas asked Sammie.

"Take my top off in front of him? I don't think so." She replied, gesturing at Tom, who now seemed to have a bigger smile on his face.

Lucas sighed. "Fine, just brace yourselves for this." He took off his top to show his regular body and quickly piled on the muscle until he looked like a heavyweight bodybuilder.

"HOLY SHIT!!" Tom yelled. Noah and Jamie just looked on with open mouths as Lucas blushed and tried to look confident, even though I knew he was scared about letting more people see this.

"How the fuck is that even possible?" Noah asked, tentatively poking at Lucas' meaty chest.

"It's another thing we can all do." Lucas replied. Tom turned to look at Sammie and looked like he was going to ask a question.

"Yes I can, and no you can't see it." She said, cutting off the questions she knew were coming.

"You lucky bastard." Tom said, smiling at me. Lucas shrank back down to his regular size and put his top back on as Noah and Tom started bombarding both of the twins with questions. I soon noticed that Jamie wasn't with us and after a quick glance around I spotted him sitting over by the edge of the cliff, just staring out over the fields in front of him. Jamie was the last one to join Fleek Flow but he was just what we'd needed. I always said he was the heart of the group because he was the most caring out of all of us. There was nothing he wouldn't do for his friends but now it looked like he was the one who needed some support.

I took Sammie off to one side to ask her a favour. "Hey can you take the guys back to the wreck room or something, I need to check on Jamie."

"Sure, it'll give Lucas a chance to show off." She replied.

We herded the others towards the cliff edge where we'd climbed up and I made sure they left a couple of harnesses for Jamie and I to use later on. I gave Sammie as kiss before she jumped over the ledge and, once they'd gone, I made my way over to Jamie. He was hunched over slightly and he had his cap pulled down to protect his eyes from the sun, but I could see they were a little puffy so I knew something was upsetting him.

"You ok?" I asked as I reached him.

"Not really." He replied.

"What's up? Is it Lucas?" He didn't answer; he just kinda shrugged and grunted. "Look I know this is a bit weird but..."

"A bit? That's like saying the Atlantic's a bit damp!" He scoffed and I tried to stop a little grin coming over my face.

"I know how you feel, trust me I've been coming to grips with this for years."

"You don't know how I feel at all." He muttered causing me to let out a sigh.

"So explain it to me then." There was a long silence while he tried to say what was on his mind but eventually he seemed to figure it out.

"I can't protect Nick from him." He said quietly and I saw a tear trickle down his face. I was kinda surprised by his admission but then I realised that was exactly what he'd been doing since Nick arrived. Every time Nick had a panic attack, flipped out or run away, Jamie had been there for him before anyone else.

"You really care about him don't you?" I asked but he never answered, he just closed his eyes tighter. "Look, you've got nothing to worry about; Lucas isn't going to hurt him."

"How do you know? Imagine if they have a fight someday and Nick needs to get away from him, none of us are going to be able to stop Lucas getting to him."

"Maybe not, but his dads can and so can Sammie. Trust me; you don't need to be scared of him or his family."

"No? So why did you take so long getting together with Sammie? Are you telling me you weren't scared of her?" He caught me off guard with that one; I had never been scared of Sammie, unless you count a fear of rejection, but I did have a huge problem coming to terms with what she and her family could do.

"You're right, I shouldn't be surprised at you being freaked out by all this, the truth is; I was freaked out by them for a long time as well. I avoided going to see them and stayed out of the way if any of them came to see us. It sounds wrong to say this but they actually scared me, even though I knew they were good people. Alex was always great whenever I saw him and a lot of the time I forgot he even had those abilities, but it did freak me out knowing that kids my age were so powerful and that made me avoid them."

"So how'd you get over it?"

"To be honest it was all down to Nick, he gave us something we had in common so we had to come together."

"You mean the whole hating you thing?"

"Yeah. When he told us about his past we all knew we had to help him, and the only way I could do that was to get Lucas involved as well, but that meant I had to confront my feelings about all of them in the process. It's just a pity I didn't do it sooner because now I feel like I've missed out on so many good times we could've had." It really was a great shame that I'd been so afraid of them. Lucas had showed himself to be a good friend since we'd been back on better terms and I just wished I could've been around Sammie a lot earlier.

"So how do I get over it?"

"I dunno; only you can do that." I replied and he just looked defeated at that point. "Hey don't worry about it, you can talk to me about it any time you want to. Their whole family will talk to you about any of it if you want to as well; they're used to explaining it all by now."

"Yeah, I guess."

"Just remember that Sammie and Lucas are still the same people they were yesterday. Just because you now know what they can do it doesn't change who they are. They've been able to do all this shit for as long as you've known them so the only thing that's changed now is your perception of them."

"Yeah...it's still weird though."

"No shit." I replied with a big smile on my face. "But now that you're a part of this huge secret you're gonna get to see some really fun and cool things, so think of it more as a privilege. Just wait until we start rehearsing for the showcase cos I've already got some ideas to try out with Alex and Josh, and I bet you'll be able to come up with some too." Jamie seemed to perk up a little then and agreed to go and find the others.

Once we'd made it back down the rock face we headed back down the path towards the farm. One of the twins had moved the tree trunks back to block the path but there was still the makeshift ladder on our side to help us get over them. Not that we would've struggled anyway as we were used to traversing obstacles when we were free running. All the way back we talked about ideas for the showcase and I was usually able to answer any questions he had about Lucas and Sammie. By the time we were back at the farm he seemed to be feeling a lot more at ease with the situation.

"Hey boys, did you get lost on the way back or something?" Alex asked from the garden as I was closing the main gate.

"It's a straight road and besides, it's my mum who's bad with directions, not me." I replied, knowing Alex was making reference to my mum's appalling sense of direction.

"Ah ok, just making sure it's not hereditary."

"Do you know where the others went?" I asked.

"They're over in the studio. That's that building over there." He pointed out with a smile. "Can you find it ok? I could draw you a map if you like." Jamie cracked up next to me as I flipped Alex off before walking over towards it. As we got closer I heard Alex yell out, "IT'S ON YOUR LEFT!!"

"FUCK OFF!!" I shouted back as he was laughing to himself. Jamie was laughing his ass off as well by this point. "See, I told you there was nothing to worry about."

As we walked into the studio we could hear the music thumping and we saw Lucas helping to choreograph some of the moves for the showcase with the others. Our routine wasn't going to be a dance number as such but everyone needed to be in the right place at the right time to make sure it flowed properly. Having Lucas there not only helped with him standing in for one of his dads, but it also allowed the guys to figure out how they could incorporate his dad's strength into the routine. Over the next few weeks we rehearsed our act as well as getting our costumes made with the help of Lucas' family. Sammie and Nick also worked on the music for not only our act but for Lucas as well, as he had his own dance number in the show. We were determined to make the showcase a night to remember as this was the last one we'd ever do at the school and we wanted to set the bar for anyone who came after us.