I Am Polaris

I crunched up the gravel-laden drive-way, shoving my hat into my back pocket and sighing slightly. Ringing the doorbell, I stood back and looked up at the house. Whoever owned this was rolling in it.

“Come on rich people. I don’t have all day.” I mumbled to myself, ringing the doorbell again.

“Hello?” Came out of a speaker next to the door.

“Uh, pizza delivery? 4 margarita, 5 pepperoni and a pineapple and olive on cheese.”

“Ooh. My olives. Excellent.” Came the reply. The door opened a moment later, revealing a large blue head. I looked at him in silence for a few seconds. He put a hand up to his face and shrugged.

“It’s a mask.” I raised an eyebrow at him, he smiled sheepishly.

“No it isn’t. Come on, pizzas this way. My moped does not do gravel.” We walked in silence to the pizzas, him taking half, me taking the others. He could clearly have handled them, but he didn’t complain when I helped. Plus I had to get the money anyway. I noticed him watching me on our way back to the house and looked back at him for an explanation after a few moments.

“This doesn’t bother you? My skin?” I frowned and shook my head.

“Should it?”

“Well, it’s a mutation. Sort of. Most people hate us. You seem pretty tolerant.” I shrugged.

“Tolerant of what? It’s a mutation. It’s not like you can help it. And it’s not like you go around stabbing people in the face with a tail.” I paused and looked up at him. “You don’t… have a tail do you?” He smiled and shook his head.

The man led me through the mansion, after closing the door behind us with his foot, leading me into the kitchen.

“Pizza’s here.” He announced to the two boys in the room, they had been throwing paper at each other when we entered and clearly had been for some time. There was ripped up paper littering the floor. “Honestly I leave you alone for half-an-hour.” They both shrugged.

“Excellent.” said the blonde one, jumping up and taking a pizza from the top of my pile. Opening it and taking a slice. “Who’s she?”

“Pizza girl, idiot.” The other boy replied, leaning over and taking some of his pizza. Resulting in more paper being thrown. The man I had come in with sighed as I put the rest of my pile down on the counter-top.

“Payment?” I asked. “It’s £32.20.” They all looked at each other for a minute.

“Xavier.” The blonde boy replied, with a mouthful of pizza. The blue man sighed again, leading me out of the kitchen as they started throwing paper again.

“Sorry about them. I wish I could say they’re not normally like that, but they are.” I laughed.

“It’s fine. What’s Xavier?”

“He’s a friend. Owns the house.” He replied, pointing around. “He tends to feed their pizza addiction.”

“Oh.” I said, glancing around the corridor we were in, a lot of dark wood and green paint. “So why does he let you live here? Sexual favors?” I asked. Smiling cheekily up at him. Damn he was tall. He looked down at my face.

“Not exactly. We’re setting up a school. For mutants. A safe place really. With all the anti-mutant sentiment traveling around, people are going to need someplace to go. Xavier wants to give people that.” I nodded.

“Yeah I get that. Admirable.” He laughed.

“Yeah I guess.”

“So what? You’re a teacher?” He ran a hand over the top of his head.

“Not exactly. I’m a scientist.”

“Cool.”

“You think?”

“Yep. But I kind of have to think that’s cool. Me too.” I said, pointing at myself. “Geophysics major. Electromagnetics specifically.”

“Really?” He frowned at me. “You seem a bit young.”

“Not really. I’m 22.” His mouth dropped open.

“Seriously? You look like 17.” I smiled and raised my eyebrows.

“Really now. We were having a nice conversation.” He shook his head, a closed his eyes.

“Sorry. That was rude. It’s just surprising.” I laughed.

“It’s fine. I’ve had worse. I don’t blame you actually. It’s the uniform. I look about 3 in it.” He grinned and shrugged.

“You look fine.” We smiled at each other as he came to pause outside a large wooden door. “I’m Hank by the way.”

“Lottie.” He smiled and held up a finger.

“One sec, I‘ll fetch Xavier with your money.” He disappeared through the door.

“Sure.” I turned away from the door and looked around the corridor. There were paintings all down the walls, and a large mirror opposite the room. I moved up to it and stuck my tongue out at my reflection, then grinned. Then my smile dropped from my face as I looked at roots of my hair, there was about an inch of green starting to show through. “Damn it.” I pulled my hat from my back pocket and jammed it over my hair, covering all the parts I could see that had the slightest tinge of green. That was close.

“Miss Dane?” A voice said from behind me. I turned to find Hank returned, with a young man in a wheelchair. “Your money. You can keep the change.”

“Thanks.” I tucked it into my pocket, turning promptly and walking away as fast as I could without seeming weird. Then I stopped short before I’d got too far. I turned back slowly and met my eyes with the guy in the wheelchair.

“How did you know my name?”

“I’m telepathic.” I sighed, rubbing my eyes.

“Of course. A mutation.”

“Yes.”

“Right. Well. Stay out of my head.” He nodded.

“Nice hair.” I sighed. “It’s interesting. Often powerful abilities like yours manifest themselves outwardly.” Hank frowned.

“Professor X? She’s a mutant?” The professor smiled, putting a finger to his lips.

“Mmm. A powerful one at that. Grade 3 at least, if not more. Show him.” I swallowed and shook my head. “Please. Feel safe here.” I shook my head again.

“It’s not that. I don’t use it. Not ever. It’s dangerous. People get hurt.” He tilted his head slightly and studied me.

“Would you like to stay? I can help you learn to control it.”

“I can control it well enough without your help thanks. It’s been 3 years since an incident. And I’ve got my job to get back to. So I’ll be off now.” I turned on my heel before either of them could reply and walked away. As soon as I was out of their sight I sprinted back to my moped. Starting up the engine I drove away. Back to the real world.