As mornings tended to go, my free time before school was over all too soon. I wasted most of that time talking to Mrs. Hodgins. I wasn’t an entire loss though. My goal had been to research my condition and she had provided something.

If anyone knew about the books in the library, it would be the librarian. I might have read enough obscure books to give her a run for her money, but I was slightly mollified when she told me she had yet to find any relevant information.

Going to class wasn’t all bad. It gave me the opportunity to people watch. I wanted to see what made us all different and hopefully even discover another variant. My first class of the day was Grammar 101. They made us take this same class every year. We used the same white textbook in junior high. Miss Schooley was a wisened old teacher with no patience.

“Class has started. Stop talking and turn to chapter 12. Today we will discuss the proper use of…”, I zoned her out as she began to lecture in her cracked monotone voice.

Name

Vivian Schooley

Class

Teacher

Level

1

Affection Level

Indifferent

The other students in the class were far more interesting. They were all level one, but not all of them were Students. Mixed in was a Football Player, several Basketball Players, a group of Cheerleaders, a Dancer, and even a Violinist. I also saw some more exotic ones like Class Clown, Drug Dealer, and Thief.

I tried to piece together the limited knowledge I had of the kids in the class. I couldn’t confirm that Levar played football, but I rationalized that his character menu wouldn’t lie to me.

“Stop zoning out!”, Mrs. Schooley suddenly barked with her eyes directed at me.

I re-focused my attention on the surly teacher. She sneered and commanded, “Stand up. How about you enlighten the class on the proper use of an adjective.”

I sighed. I wanted to say, The teacher is very annoying.

I pulled up her menu once again. I inwardly laughed to myself as I thought, I had changed my class. Could I change hers too?

She must have caught my smile as potential mischief, so she added a threat, “If you don’t give me an answer in the next ten seconds, you can take all the time you want to think about it in detention.”

I focused on her class. Teacher. Change it to…

Adding new skill: World Edit

Successful

Changing class: Manipulator

Successful

The class window opened once again. Mrs. Schooley was glowering at me. I had to act fast.

Name

Vivian Schooley

Class

Preschool Teacher (Edited)

Level

1

Affection Level

Blissfully Indifferent

I did the first thing that came to mind. Her expression immediately changed. When she spoke, she sounded like a different woman entirely. Her voice that had droned on coldly now possessed a musical quality like she was doing her best not to break out in song when she spoke, “Come on sweetheart. An adjective is a simple thing. You are just describing a noun. Look at Sally here. Would you say she is a pretty girl? Pretty is the adjective. See how easy that was? Now you come up with one.”

You could have heard a pin drop. Sally was blushing profusely. Every other student in the room was suddenly paying rapt attention to the lesson. Someone in the back of the class announced, “I think Mrs. Schooley is having a stroke!”

Realizing that she had lost positive control of the room, Mrs. Schooley waved her arms frantically, “Children. Children! I think it is about nappy time. Everyone get your blankets and put them on the floor in the middle of the room.”

Even she was confused by her words. One of the kids closest to the door said, “Wait here, guys. I’ll go get help.”

Realizing my mistake, I quickly tried to remedy the situation.

Name

Vivian Schooley

Class

Nice Teacher (Edited)

Level

1

Affection Level

Friendly

I tried to remove the Edited but the system gave me an error.

Text Locked

Mrs. Hodgins was bound to notice that. I sighed and began to panic about causing myself more trouble with my newfound abilities. Suddenly Mrs. Schooley shook her head and announced, “Class, I am not feeling well. I am going to report to the nurse's office. The office will send someone to look after you. Please use this as a study period in the meantime.”

As she ran out of the class, everyone started talking. Sally was close to tears, “Can you believe that? Why did she have to use me as the example?”

“Come on Sally. She said you were pretty. It is true after all.”, a boy seated behind her supplied playfully.

As the banter went back and forth I idly wondered if the Edited would disappear if I changed her class back to its original form. The student behind me, a boy I knew named Kevin, whispered, “Wow man, it was a lucky break for you that Ol’Schooley had a mental breakdown right before she threw you in detention. She sure had you singled out today for some reason.”

I nodded silently. I was still distracted thinking I needed a guinea pig for more class editing tests. I gave Kevin a slight grin. He leaned back, looking scandalized, “What are you doing?”

Name

Kevin Mellow

Class

Baseball Player

Level

1

Affection Level

Friendly

I scratched my chin as I tried to decide on a good test class.

Name

Kevin Mellow

Class

Tap Dancer (Edited)

Level

1

Affection Level

Friendly

I asked him, “How do you feel?”

I watched his face as he went through a series of emotions. He whispered, “I don’t know. I feel strange. I don’t know how to explain it. I feel like dancing.”

I grinned. It was working. I whispered conspiratorially, “You should dance then. It is a free period after all.”

He frowned as he looked at his shoes, “These are the wrong shoes I think. I don’t think I can dance like this.”

I looked closely at his shoes, willing the menu you appear.

Item:

Cross Trainers

Components

Leather, Rubber, Cotton

Item Rank:

D

Item Level:

1

Item Owner:

Mellow

The only problem was, I didn’t know what tap dance shoes were called. I asked Kevin, “Let me borrow your phone.”

He shrugged and tossed it to me. This was a normal practice. We both knew that my mom couldn’t afford to get me a phone so he often let me borrow his to make calls or check the web. I googled tap dance shoes. I was pleased to discover that they were just called Tap Shoes. Experiment number two. Could I edit items?

Item:

Tap Shoes (Edited)

Components

Leather, Denim

Item Rank:

C

Item Level:

1

Item Owner:

Mellow

The shoes transformed on his feet. The material shrunk off of his ankles and didn’t stop until they were just over his foot. The heel of the shoe suddenly grew and the sole of the shoe thickened considerably.

Kevin nearly screamed, “Did you see that just now? What the hell just happened to my shoes?”

I tried to play dumb, but he was practically shaking me at this point. I shrugged, “Those look like the right shoes to me. You said you wanted to dance right?”

A foggy expression crossed his face as he tried to piece together the circumstances that led him to this point. A few moments later he said, “Give me my phone back.”

He didn’t seem upset. I placed the phone in his outstretched hand. He put on some music which gained him the attention of the class and announced, “Watch this guys.”

The next thing I knew, he was on his feet tap-dancing like a pro. I decided that a class change must come with at least some level of proficiency. A few minutes later the Violin Player student had taken out her instrument and was adding to the music. The rest of the class was going crazy cheering Kevin on. I wouldn’t have had the guts to perform in front of the whole class like that.

When he finished the dance, Kevin sat down next to me again. I whistled, “That was pretty impressive. I’ve never seen you dance like that before.”

He looked at me curiously, “Really? Never? That's weird. I can’t seem to remember the last time I danced.”

I took the moment to change his class back to normal.

Name

Kevin Mellow

Class

Baseball Player

Level

1

Affection Level

Friendly

I heaved a sigh of relief when I saw that the big red Edited tag had gone away. This meant that I could fix Mrs. Schooley. I just had to get to her before…

Suddenly Mrs. Hodgins marched into the classroom with the school principal. He looked around and whispered something in Mrs. Hodgins’ ear. She nodded and pointed at me. At that moment, I felt betrayed. She had just sold me out to the principal.

He walked up to my table and gave me a stern look, “Son, I need you to go with Mrs. Hodgins here.”

To the rest of the class, he announced, “I will be monitoring the class for the rest of the period. You can all consider this free time to do whatever you need to do to get ahead of your other classes. Don’t worry about Mrs. Schooley. It doesn’t appear to be life-threatening, but she is going to the hospital just to be safe.”

I quietly packed up my belongings and followed Mrs. Hodgins from the classroom. I was shaking with anger at her betrayal. Once we were out of earshot of the class she asked, “Did you have something to do with what just happened to Mrs. Schooley?”

“What did you tell him about me?”, I barked, sounding even harsher than I had meant to.

She took a step back from me, startled by my tone, “Woah. Calm down. I saw that Mrs. Schooley’s class had been edited. I don’t know what happened, but it was too much of a coincidence to think she woke up at the same time as you did. Also, you are in her class. What did you do to her? I can’t see what it is now.”

I repeated the question. It was the only question that seemed relevant right now, “What did you say to the principal?”

She stopped talking and gave me a sad look, “I didn't tell him anything about you. I am sorry that you feel you can’t trust me. When I saw her come running down the hallway I worried something was wrong. When I saw her class and the same red text in her menu as you used to have, I knew you had to be involved. I suggested to the principal that you were trustworthy to give the paramedics a good idea of what happened. I did that so you could undo what you did before she leaves this school. Right now she is a shining beacon to anyone who can see the menus that something funny is going on here.”

I let go of my anger as quickly as I had conjured it. She had a point. It was one thing to hide myself. If I created an army of people with that red text in their menus, others would be drawn in. I would have the attention that I didn’t want.

We found Mrs. Schooley sitting on a bed in the nurse's office. She was rocking back and forth and crying gently, saying, “I don’t know what’s going on. I thought I was teaching preschoolers. I called one of my students pretty. I think I am losing my mind.”

I quickly switched class back to the way I’d found it.

Name

Vivian Schooley

Class

Teacher

Level

1

Affection Level

Dislike

I heaved a sigh of relief when the red text went away. There was an unfortunate side effect as I seemed to lose affection with the already difficult teacher.

The room was quiet. I looked around wondering what else had changed. Then it dawned on me. The old teacher had stopped crying. She rose to her full height, which was an unimpressive 5 foot 2 inches. It still felt like she was towering over me. She announced, “You. I didn’t like your attitude today. Detention. For a week! Okay. I feel better.”

The nurse marched into the room and wagged a finger at the battle-ax of a teacher, “Nope. You are still going to the hospital. I don’t care how many detentions you hand out.”

I looked anxiously at Mrs. Hodgins. I supposed that detention wasn’t too bad. It was held in the library after all. I could get back to my research. As the scholar frogmarched me from the nurse's office she gave me a very stern look. This surprised me because I had never seen Mrs. Hodgins visibly upset before. She stopped walking and placed both hands on my shoulders, "Listen to me carefully son. I don't care what your reasons were, but it is not acceptable to use your newfound abilities to harm another person. I don't know anything about this manipulator class that you've chosen for yourself, and we both know that rotten old teacher deserves a good talking to, but I know you're better than that. That goes for that bully Tim too. You have been given a great gift. Don't let it corrupt you."

I looked down at the floor dejectedly. I hadn't been trying to do anything evil. I was just excited about my new skills and was eager to try them out. It wasn't like changing their class was hurting them? Was it? I supposed the changes I made to Mrs. Schooley were designed to throw her off her game and in the end, they did cause her to have some sort of a meltdown. I sighed, looking up at Mrs. Hodgins, "Okay ma'am. I promise not to use my powers for evil."

Her expression softened a bit and the old scholar patted me on the head, "I've heard it said somewhere that great power comes with great responsibility."

We both laughed as I was hauled off to detention.