Chapter 3 - State Your Name and Power

It was Ben’s hand. Denny stopped in place and turned back to face them. “Don’t leave,” Ben pleaded.

“Yeah, you didn’t do anything,” Hazel agreed. Everyone else nodded their head and tried to smile encouragingly. “There are just some problems that were already here and we all just need to get through them. But your situation is more important to us right now. You need to get home. I know this place seems pretty depressing right now, but trust me, it’s usually never like this. Honestly. But please stay. We can help you and we will help you.”

Denny thought about it and said, “Okay, fine. But will you people try to liven up at least a little bit? All the fighting is putting me in a bad mood. And I’m almost always happy.”

Everyone smiled a little and even laughed. A wave of relief had washed over them and they needed it now more than ever.

Later that night, everyone except Grandpa Max sat around in a circle towards the center of the RV.

“Guess we should introduce ourselves,” Hazel announced. Everybody nodded and looked at Denny.

“You mean I have to go first?” she whined. But everybody continued to gaze and she felt as if their eyes had a spell over her, making her talk. “Fine. My name’s Denny Tennet, but I usually go by Den. I’m 11 years old and in the fifth grade. I come from Daytona Beach, Florida and have lived there all my life. I’m a member of many things: the volleyball team, my band which me and my friends started, and many other small clubs here and there. I’m very easy to get a long with and I have a lot of friends. My best friends are Shelbie Carter, Alyssa Calloway, and Kyle Manson. I’m am only child but Shelbie is like my sister. We’ve known each other all of our lives. We are the guitarists as well as singers for our band. Our band’s name is ‘L.O.V.E.‘ It doesn’t really stand for anything, but we chose it over ‘S.A.D.‘, which is all of the first letters of the names of the band members put together. If there’s one person I can’t stand though, it Reshana Canini. She has hated me ever since about the third grade when I got a part in a school play that she wanted. But that’s really about the only person in the whole school that I don’t really get along with. Except for her sister. I love music and I usually play guitar and sing. I also like to spend time outside. Besides volleyball, I play soccer, tennis, and softball. I’m also interested in guys. I always thought that being boy-crazy was weird, until I hit fourth grade and all of that changed. Speaking of changes, I used to be really shy. But then I joined the school teams and clubs, and then that really got me talking to all kinds of new people. And that’s about it for now. I have so much more to say, but I’m sure that you guys don’t really want to hear it all,” she noticed their bored looks and yawns.

“Oh, it’s fine, but I guess we should move on since there is quite a few people around here,” Hazel commented. “I’ll go next. So, my name’s Hazel Felina, but everybody just calls me Hazy, Lil’ H, or Hazy-Kitty. I grew up in a town known as Panama City with my parents and my annoying twin bro’ named Ansem. I’m 13 and will soon be 14. I’m a major tomboy and can’t stand girly stuff. My best friend would probably have to be Kevin. I know I have a lot of other friends, but he’s been there for me and he helps me out. I would be living at my home right now, but I just go where ever the wind blows me. You see, there’s this evil guy named Mastermind, and he’s out to get me. Well actually, my collar,” she pointed to the collar around her neck, “It’s the Felina Family Treasure. It gives me the power to turn into any animal I want, read minds, turn into anybody or anything I want, absorb energy, put people to sleep, and so much more. There’s even stuff on it that I haven’t even discovered yet! But that’s basically me. Nothing special. But of course I don’t mind if you think I am.” She beamed with a bright smile and surely didn’t seem to have any low self-esteem issues. But she seemed a lot happier now than she had earlier.

“That is so cool!” Denny exclaimed. She seemed to be entirely fascinated by the blue jewelry around Hazel’s neck. She stared at it and didn’t take her eyes off of it. That is, until Kevin started to speak.

“’Sup? The name’s Kevin but I sometimes will go by Kev. Yes, I know, just one more nickname to remember. But it’s simple enough. I can seem pretty serious, but that’s only to people who don’t know the real me. I can actually be pretty funny when I want to be. But I haven’t always been like that. Not too long ago, I lived in a subway in New York. I caused a lot of trouble and was pretty selfish, I’ll admit that. But then I met Hazel, and she helped to change me. But I wouldn’t have gotten into so much trouble if it weren’t for my powers. I’m like an energy sponge, you see. I can soak up energy such as electricity and can shoot it out whenever I need, or want, to.”

“Woah,” Denny said quietly to herself. This guy seemed pretty tough, and he even scared her a little. Normally she would’ve started to like him since she was totally boy-crazy, but he had an edge to him. Something dark and it creeped her out. She turned to the last two people there, so they could introduce themselves. It was the brown haired boy from earlier, and a red haired girl that she hadn’t really even noticed yet. It was Ben and Gwen. Ben shoved Gwen over and said, “Move over dweeb, it’s my turn.

“You are such a selfish jerk!” Gwen exclaimed.

“I know you are, but what am I?!” Ben shot back.

“Fine, whatever, just go and get it over with,” she huffed, crossing her arms.

Ben smiled and started, “Well, I really actually don’t know how to do this. But I’ll just put it in simple terms, so that even my doofus cousin here can understand.” He pointed to the redhead beside him.

“Uh hello, if anybody needs simple terms, it’s you. I actually get A’s in school and have a high IQ. You on the other hand just guess on all of your tests and sleep through the rest of class,” she poked the boy’s forehead firmly with every syllable.

“Okay, nerd,” he replied. Gwen gasped and stomped her foot on his shoe. “Ow!” he yelled.

“Ha,” she said, her arms still crossed.

The boy got quiet for a second and closed his eyes. Then he re-opened them and began to speak, “Now, where was I? Oh yeah. A summary of my life. Well, my name’s Ben first of all. And three words to describe me are Sumo Slammers, video games, and…”

“Mega-Dweeb?” Gwen questioned with a smirk.

“No, what I was going to say was cookies,” he grimaced.

Denny almost fell completely fell out of her seat when she heard the last part. “Cookies?” she asked. She laughed so hard that tears started to roll down her face. Then Hazel and Kevin started to join in on the laughter. Gwen tried her hardest to stifle a chuckle but then failed miserably. She too fell out of her seat and joined Denny on the floor.

“What?! It’s just cookies! God!” Ben yelled.

That just made Denny laugh harder. She could remember only one other time where she had laughed this hard. Of course, she was easy to make laugh, but this was ridiculous. Ben glared at all of them as they humiliated him. He couldn’t understand how they found his favorite food to be funny. It made no sense. But he thought everyone in that RV was weird anyway. He hadn’t known Denny for long, but she seemed like one of them. He stomped off to the front of the RV and sat down quickly in the passenger seat.

“Okay, maybe that’s enough,” Denny finally said, “I hope I didn’t make him mad.”

“Oh, he’ll be fine. Just give him some time to get over himself and he’ll be back to normal soon enough,” Gwen said. “But wait, I forgot, he’s never normal.”

Denny nodded and said, “Thanks, uh…”

“Gwen,” Gwen replied.

“Oh, Gwen. That’s a cool name.”

“Yeah I guess, but it’s so insanely popular. At least it seems like it.”

“Well, it’s not as bad as ‘Ben’. Now that one’s popular. I think Denny is a little. I’ve even known quite a few other people named Denny. They were guys though. All of the girl’s were spelled differently; they were ‘D-e-n-e, instead of ‘D-e-n-n-y’.”

“Oh, well I think Denny is the nickname for guys with the name of ‘Denis’.

“Yeah, all of the guys were named Denis. But eh, oh well. It’s still the way it is, although I don’t really appreciate having a boy’s nickname for a name.”

“Well, I think it’s killer cool,” Hazel added to the conversation. She had felt left out and couldn’t stand being by Kevin at the moment. He was all smiley and it annoyed Hazel like crazy.

“Thanks,” Denny said. She then turned back to Gwen. “So, you want to do an introduction of your own?”

“Well, you already know my name, but I’m 10 years old and as you’ve already seen, I’m stuck here in this RV all summer with my geek-a-zoid cousin, Ben,” Gwen sighed.

“He’s your cousin? You guys acted like siblings. I guess you two just really don’t like each other,” Denny remarked.

“Yeah, but I don’t think that it’s possible that we even share the same DNA. I think that his parents adopted him. I’ve seriously always thought that. He’s so weird and doesn’t know how to use that pea-sized brain of his,” Gwen said.

“That’s how me and Ansem are,” Hazel said, “I think that the collar malfunctioned or something and just made an opposite version of me. Now they think that he’s my brother, but I think he’s a deformed clone.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know what it’s like. I don’t have any siblings, but I guess I mentioned that during my intro,” Denny commented. She looked up towards the front of the RV. Gwen noticed.

“You still think he’s mad at you?” she asked.

“Yeah, but I was wondering who that older man was. You and Ben were referring to him earlier as ‘grandpa’, so I assumed that he was your grandpa,” Denny said.

“Yup, that’s our grandpa. Hazel calls him that too, but he’s like a grandpa to just about everyone. He’s really kind and generous. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you called him that too,” Gwen said.

“Oh, sounds good.”

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