The secret

Most people have special secrets. Not small ones,too. Big, scary, enormous, mind-blowing ones. Usually, those people do try to keep that secret to themselves, and do their best to not let anyone else know about it. But eventually, most secrets do come tumb out, and the consequences are terrible to imagine.

Jane Peterson was the same. A nice brown haired and brown eyed girl of seventeen years, she didn’t attract attention to herself. She wasn’t exceptionally pretty or exceptionally smart, so when other people saw her in the street, all they assumed was that she was a normal girl in her teenage years, listening to pop music on her expensive pink headphones. But she was a little bit more than that. Actually, she was a lot more than that. Why? Because she had a secret. A really big, enormous one, too. Well, what was it? Well, she had superpowers.

Yes, she really did. That ordinary looking girl on the train every day had amazing, astonishing superpowers. Not just small and useless ones, no. She had the most powerful ones in the whole city, possibly the whole wide world (believe it or not, others did have superpowers). She was atmokinetic. She was able to manipulate the various forms and aspects of the weather itself. A very useful power indeeed.

Of course, her parents knew about it, her older brother and her younger sister, too. How could they not? But no one else did. No one. Not her grandparents, not her relatives, and not their housekeeper. She had wanted to tell others about her amazing powers when she was small, but an incident at a wedding changed her mind immediately , so Jane was fine with that. Until one very fateful day.

It was a normal afternoon. Jane was going home after school alone when she turned around a corner and came face to face with a scary-looking man.

The man was initially surprised, but his surprised face quickly turned into a deadly snarl.

‘Hand me all your money little girl or I will kill you,’ said he.

Jane did not have any money. She spent it all on lunch in the cafeteria. But, of course, the man didn't believe her.

‘Hand over your money and your bag right now or you are dead!’ The robber than showed her a knife he had hidden inside his pocket.

‘How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t have anything!’

The Robber rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah right. I’ve heard all of this before. I’m going to count to ten, and if you do not hand me all your money and your bag by the time I finish counting you will be extremely sorry. The count is now on. One. Two.’

‘I don’t have anything!’

The robber ignored her and continued counting. ‘Three. Four. Five.’

Jane sighed. She was not getting much choice, was she. Looking around and seeing no one, she quickly flicked her hand up and a storm cloud appeared on top of the man, sending a lightning bolt his way.

Someone gasped. But it was not her or the robber. Jane slowly turned around, and saw her best friend, Sam Williams, looking at her with widened eyes. That was not good.

It had been about a month after that particularly surprising incident and Jane was absolutely exhausted.

Her friend, Sam, approached her at school the next day and asked her what had happened. Jane dismissed it as something that Sam had imagined in her head, but of course, Sam did not believe her. It did not help that the robber was brought to hospital the next day, with a leg charred so much that they had to cut it off.

So Sam did something she always did When she wanted answers. Confront Jane every single day. Sam was Jane’s best friend, but it was taking her everything to not summon a cloud and throw another lightning bolt at Sam. But of course, she could not, because everyone would then find out and Mum and Dad would be furious, so Jane kept her mouth shut.

But that was not the only problem. The real problem was, should Jane tell Sam? They had been friends since kindergarden, and Jane wanted to tell her so bad. After all, great friendships were made on trust - how could they ever trust each other if Jane didn't tell her? She couldn't trust anyone else either. If Sam ever found out, how would she ever trust Jane again? This had happened with another friend. . After finding out a secret, her next door neighbour became unfriendly with her. Cracks started to form in their friendship. Eventually, a big moment between them had grown to the point of no return, and their friendship ended. She was not eager for that to happen again. But then, she remembered what her grandmother once said, ‘Diamonds are forever. Friends aren’t. Be cautious around them.’ So Jane did not tell her. After all, who is to say that Sam would not tell anyone when they had falling out of some sort? That would end up being a complete disaster, and she would be in danger or be carried off by the FBI or something.

Then one night, Jane was having dinner with her family. She was pushing the food around her plate, not eating anything, so her mother asked her what was wrong. Jane immediately broke into sobs and told her mother about her hard predicament. Surprisingly, her mother was lost for words, and her father was the one who offered her good advice.

‘Jane, tell Sam. Sam does deserve to know, and she will be your friend for a long time, because she is loyal and nice. She is also trustworthy, so you can definitely tell her without fear of what she will tell others.’

After hearing this, Jane became more determined. She marched up to Sam to next day and dragged her into an empty classroom.

‘Jane, what is the matter?’ Asked Sam, worriedly.

Jane smiled. ’Can you keep a secret?’