About an hour after my mother left for work, Clemont knocked on my door. He was carrying the multimeter and his notebook. He noticed the can of whipped cream on the counter. "Dude, did you have crepes?"

  "Yes."

  "Any left?"

  "In the fridge. You can microwave them."

   He heated up the remaining crepes, then piled them high with powdered sugar and whipped cream while I played a video game.

  "That was a cool party last night," he said.

   I nodded, intent on my game. "Yeah, it was."

  "Especially when you knocked Corky over."

   I didn't say anything.

  "Serena's really a babe. You know she likes you."

  "She likes everyone."

  "I don't mean it like that. I mean she likes you. I read this book on body language. And I was watching her body."

  "Yeah, I bet you were."

  "No, for scientific purposes."

  "I bet."

   When he'd finished eating the last of the crepes, he came over to the table. "Okay, let's see if there's been a change in your electrical status."

   I paused the game. After the cell phone incident I was curious to find out myself. "Let's do it."

  "What, what's that?" he said pointing to my new watch.

   I held up my arm. "It's a watch my mom gave me this morning for my birthday."

  "What's it made of?"

  "I think silver."

  "Hmm," he said. "Silver has high conductivity, even more than copper. That's why they use it in satellites and computer keyboards." Clemont  always vomited up everything he knew about a subject.

  "So?"

  "Well, you should probably take it off. It might throw off our readings."

  "All right." I unclamped it and laid it across the kitchen counter. Then I clipped the multimeter's cables to the ends of my fingers.

   Clemont looked down at the machine. "Ready? Three, two, one, go!"

   I surged.

   Electricity sparked from the copper ends. "Whoa!" Clemont cried. He set down the machine and began scribbling in his notebook.

   I unhooked the clips. "What was I?"

  "Dude, you're not going to believe it."

  "What?"

  "This thing goes to a thousand volts and it's saying ERROR. You're definitely becoming more electric."

   I sat down on one of the kitchen bar stools and put my watch back on. I wondered what that meant: more electric. "Do you think it will stop."

  "I don't know. No wonder Serena's cell phone didn't work." He set down his notebook. "So is Serena really coming over for cake and ice cream?"

  "She said she was. Then afterward we can have our first official meeting of the Electroclan."

  "That's sick," Clemont said. "Real sick."

   Clemont and I played video games most of the day except when we took a break and walked to the 7-Eleven for Slurpees.

   Around five o'clock Clemont's dad came and got him for dinner. After he left I made myself macaroni and cheese again, then lay on the couch and read from one of the books I'd been assigned in my English class—Lord of the Flies. I read until Clemont came back an hour later. We still had time for a few games of Halo before my mother got home.

   Mom got home at the usual time, a little after six thirty. I could tell from her eyes that it had been a hard day. Still, she smiled when she saw me. She was carrying a chocolate buttercream cake from the supermarket's bakery. "I got your favorite cake," she said as she walked in. "Hi, Clemont."

  "Hi, Mrs. Ketchum. How was work?"

  "It was work," she replied. She set down on the counter. She looked at the multimeter but didn't say anything about it.

  "Did you boys get some dinner?" She spotted the dishes in the sink and the pan still on the stove. "Oh, you did. Mac and cheese."

  "Sorry, I didn't do the dishes," I said. "I got distracted with the game."

  "That's okay, it's your birthday."

   While my mother was changing her clothes, the doorbell rang.

  "Ash, would you get that?" she shouted from her room.

  "Got it, Mom."

   I paused the game, then opened the door. Serena stood in the hallway holding a wrapped package. I immediately started blinking.

  "Happy birthday," Serena said. She held out the present. "This is for you."

  "Wow. Thank you." I felt dumb that I hadn't gotten her anything. "Come in."

  "Thanks."

   Clemont stared in awe, as if we'd just received an angelic visitation, which wasn't far from the truth.

  "Hi, Tex," she said.

   I knew she was kidding, but I don't think Clemont did. He was a genius about everything but girls.

  "Hey, Serena," he said. He'd pretty much given up on correcting everyone. As he was fond of saying, "I don't care what you call me as long as it's not late to dinner." I think he meant it.

   My mother walked out from her room. She smiled when she saw Serena. "You must be Serena," she said. 

  "Hello," Serena said. She walked up and shook my mother's hand. "It's so nice to meet you."

  "It's nice to meet you too." My mom glanced over at me standing there, holding the wrapped package.

  "Serena brought me a present," I said.

  "How thoughtful. Ash, will you get the ice cream from the freezer?"

  "Sure."

   My mom lead Serena over to the table. I hoped she wouldn't interrogate her, but, of course, she did.

  "So Yvonne's an interesting name. Is it English?"

  "No, it means 'Yew wood' or 'Archer' in French. So I'm like a 'long lasting archer."

   My mother laughed. "Have you lived around here for a while?"

  "I've lived in the same house my whole life."

  "Do you have any brothers or sisters!"

  "I have two older brothers. They both go to college. So it's kind of like being an only child."

  "Well, we're happy you could come tonight. Just go ahead and sit down, and I'll get the cake."

  "Thank you, Mrs. Ketchum."

   My mother walked back into the kitchen, where I was scooping ice cream into bowls. "What a cute girl," she whispered to me. "Well done."

  "C'mon, Mom. She's just a friend."

   My mom just smiled. She put sixteen candles on the cake—one extra for good luck—lit them, and carried the cake to the table.

   The three of them sang "Happy Birthday" to me, and we sat around the table for the next hour and talked and laughed. Serena and my mother really seemed to hit off.

   I was surprised how talkative Serena was. She even told us her favorite birthday story. "When I was five, my mom made this Beauty and the Beast cake with all these plastic trees and they caught on fire so we had a big forest fire on our kitchen table until my dad blew it out with the fire extinguisher. He's a little extreme that way. It put out the fire but ruined the cake, so my mom ended up putting candles on Twinkies."

   We all laughed except for Clemont, who, no doubt, would have done the exact same thing as Serena's dad.

  "When is your birthday, Serena?" my mom asked.

  "Sunday."

   She turned to me. "Ash, why didn't you tell me? This should have been a joint party."
  "It's just cake," I said.

   Serena said, "So, Ash, are you going to open my gift?"

  "Yes." I peeled the paper back, then opened the box. Inside was a black hoodie with a Pikachu emitting an electric Kama-Hama-Ha blastprinted on the front.

  "Do you like it?" Serena asked. "I thought you would like it with how you said that you liked Pokémon."

   I held it up. "It's awesome. Thanks."

  "Cool," Clemont said. "My birthday is in October."

   My mother smiled. "That's a very sweet gift."

   Serena grinned happily. "It's nothing."

   We sat around and talked until nine, when my mother started gathering up the dishes. "I think I'm going to call it a night. Serena, do you have a ride home?"

  "My dad's going to pick me up."

  "Well, it was very nice meeting you. I hope we'll be seeing you again."

   She smiled. "Thank you, Mrs. Ketchum. I'm glad you invited me."

  "You're very welcome. Good night, Clemont."

  "Good night, Mrs. Ketchum. Thanks for the cake."

   My mom walked over to me and kissed my forehead. "I love you. Happy birthday."

  "Thanks, Mom. I love you too."

   She walked off to her bedroom.

   When she was gone, Serena said, "Your mom is really nice."

  "She's a babe," Clemont said.

  "Dude, she's my mother. You've got to stop saying that."

  "Sorry."

   Serena laughed. "Well, she is. I hope I'm that hot when I'm a mom."

   I wished my mother had heard what Serena said. Lately she had been saying that she thought she looked old.

   Clemont said, "So, let's get our meeting started. Who's going to call it to order?"

   I looked at Serena.

  "I think you should be the president," she said to me.

  "Why me?"

  "Because I said so."

  "I second that," Clemont said.

    Somehow her reasoning seemed a little ironic, but I wasn't about to fight her on it. "Okay, I call the first meeting of the Electroclan to order." I looked at Serena. "Now what?"

  "We need to follow up on our last meeting."

  "We need minutes," Clemont said.

  "No more than thirty," Serena said. "My dad's coming to pick me up."

  "No, minutes is what they call the notes from the last meeting," I said. 

   Clemont rolled his eyes.

  "Sorry," she said.

   Clemont started. "In our last meeting Serena shared her discovery that you were both born in the same hospital in Pasadena, California, a very unlikely coincidence. Then Clemont pointed out that the fact that both of you having this mutant—"

   Serena looked at him and he stopped.

". . . power is a statistical improbability. And third, the hospital records of said hospital, for the eleven days around your birthdates beginning April sixteenth, appear to have been conveniently expunged."

Serena looked at me. "Does he always talk like this?"

"Pretty much," I said. "Expunged means erased." I only knew because Clemont loved using that word. "Thanks, Clemont."

"I have something very important to add to the record," Clemont said.

"Go ahead," I said.

"I discovered something very disturbing. During those eleven days there were two hundred and eighty-seven birth in Pasadena County."

"What's so disturbing about that?" Serena said.

Clemont looked at her. "May I continue?"

"Sorry."

"Fifty-nine of those babies were born at Pasadena General Hospital, where you two were born. As I looked over the records, I came across something very, very peculiar." He paused just to make sure he had our attention. "Forty-two of the children born during that didn't live more than two days."

  "What?" Serena and I said almost in unison.

  "I checked the same time period the month before and there was only one baby that didn't live."

  "Forty times the number of . . .?" I couldn't say it.

  "That is so sad," Serena said. "Did it say what happened to them?"

  "Unknown causes." Clemont scratched his head. "Bet it gets stranger. Only seventeen of the babies born at Pasadena General lived, and that includes you two."

   I leaned forward on my chair. "You're saying that out of fifty-nine births only seventeen babies survived?"

  "Precisely." Clemont knit his fingers together. "It couldn't be a coincidence. A forty-two-hundred-percent increase in death in an eleven-day period and the records of those eleven days disappear. I'm guessing that whatever caused those deaths has something to do with whoever destroyed the records."

  "We need to find out what was different about those eleven days," Serena said.

  "My thinking exactly," Clemont said. "Just give me a few days to get to the bottom of it."

   Clemont told Serena about my most recent voltage test and a few minutes later we adjourned our meeting. A little after nine thirty, Serena's dad called from the parking lot and I walked her out. Her father was driving his police cruiser, which seemed to me kind of strange, as I always just thought that police cars were picking up bad guys, not your kid. I guess I had never known anyone who had a police officer for a parent.

   Serena's dad looked pretty tough. His window was down and his arm was hanging out of it. He smacked the side of the car as we approached.

  "Dad, this is Ash."

  "The birthday boy," he said. "Why aren't you in your birthday suit?"

   Serena rolled her eyes. "Dad, why do you try to embarrass every boy I'm with?"

   He leaned back into the car. "It's my job."

  "Sorry about that," Serena said. "He loves to harass boys. When I'm old enough to date, he's going to be a nightmare."

  "It's okay," I said. "Thanks for coming over. It ment a lot to me. And thanks for the gift. It was really cool."

  "Thank you for inviting me." She smiled. "Actually, I guess I should thank your mom?"

  "She's braver than I am," I said. "Hey, we're going to have my real birthday party Monday after school. We're going downtown to the aquarium and then out for pizza. Want to come?" Somehow the invitation sounded dumb as it left my mouth.

  "I'd love to."

  "Really?" I guess I was still getting used to the idea that she liked being with me. "We're leaving around four thirty."

   She frowned. "I'm sorry, that won't work. I have cheerleading until five."

  "We can wait," I said.

  "Are you sure?"

  "We could even pick you up at school."

  "That sounds good. You sure it's okay with your mom?"

  "She'll be thrilled. I can tell she likes you."

   Serena smiled. "Okay. I'll see you at school." She climbed into the patrol car. "Thanks again."

  "Have a happy birthday tomorrow," I said.

  "Thank you. Good night."

  "Good night, Mr. Yvonne," I said.

  "Night, Ash."

   Her father drove off. The police cars siren chirped, then its lights flashed for just a second. Serena waved to me from the back window. Hands down it was my best birthday ever.

2346 words

Another important chapter yielding to the mystery of their births. Hope you've enjoyed it. Please vote to let me know how invested you are and how you like the book.