Mind Games (10 page)

Grandma's good and strong. She says I shouldn't worry. She'll be around a long while yet.

To be on the safe side, I asked Claire the psychic about that. You know what Claire said? She said Grandma's right. We've got lots of time ahead of us. Good times, too, Claire says.

Sometimes I don't think that can be. But then I'll be outside on the court. It's so cold, colder than the day Ma died.

"Cold?" Marina laughs at me. "In Russia this is like the springtime."

No freaking way, I tell her. What did Babushka think was so great about Russia, anyhow?

Me and Marina start playing and sure enough, we get warm real fast. Our hearts are pumping that blood good.

And that little chest pain, the one you get from breathing in the freezing air—pretty soon it does go away.

W
E HAVE DEFINED
ESP
AS THE PROCESS OF ACCUMU
lating knowledge that cannot be gained through the use of our five known senses.

When we attempted to crack the lottery, careful scientific methodology was unsuccessful—although, given ample time, I am confident it would have worked. Meanwhile, haphazard guessing led to a $500 jackpot. Was this a coincidence? Or were other forces at work?

When Claire drew pictures formed in Kathleen's mind with no assistance from the five known senses, the probability of coincidence decreased significantly. However, the unexpected appearance of said results remains to be explained.

It would seem that interpretation of these findings requires intellectual reserves of a paranormal nature. Failing these, one must fall back on intuition.

My mother says that without intuition, scientists might not have stumbled upon nuclear physics, cellular biology, or modern medicine.

I recently read a biography of Marie Curie, and I see that she may have a point.

My mother has read this same biography.

We talk about books and reading and writing. We talk about reporting, which starts with a question—just like science.

We have conversations that my intuition would have said were not possible.

As a scientist, I resolve to hone my intuition.

I'm thinking of asking Claire to help me. Are you reading this, Claire?

(as told to Claire Phelps)

W
E BELIEVE IN
ESP. W
E THINK YOU KNOW WHY
. T
HIS
is the funnest project we ever did. Mr. Ennis is the best teacher we ever had. We are a pair of normal sisters again. We can't wait till next year.

W
ATCH
M
ARINA AND
B
RANDON ON THE BASKETBALL
court. The more they practice, the more they know what the other person will do. They don't have to talk; usually they don't even have to look.

Who says telepathy is an "extra" sense?

For twelve years, Kat and I never tried to see things through each other's eyes. And we didn't.

Now Ji and I have stopped trying. And we don't.

Kathleen and I
are
like other sisters. We are like other friends, in the most important way. We need each other.

That doesn't mean things are great between us—or even good most of the time. But we are trying.

What if I'd wound up in the origami club like I originally planned? Somehow Mr. Ennis knew we belonged in Mad Science. Maybe we should give him a Zener card test someday.

Bender, David L., and Bruno Leone, ed.
Paranormal Phenomena: Opposing Viewpoints
. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1991.

Cassill, Kay.
Twins: Nature's Amazing Mystery
. New York: Atheneum, 1984.

Cobb, Vicki.
Chemically Active! Experiments You Can Do at Home.
New York: J. B. Lippincott, 1985.

Deem, James M.
How to Read Your Mother's Mind.
Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994.
^*

Duncan, Lois, and William Roll, Ph.D.
Psychic Connections: A Journey into the Mysterious World of Psi.
New York: Bantam Doubleday Dell, 1995.

Miller, Kenneth, and Steve Wewerka. "Together Forever."
Life
19, no. 5,
[>]
, 1996.

Psychic Powers.
Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1987.

Randi, James.
Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP,
Unicorns, and Other Delusions. Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1988.

Van Cleave, Janice.
Janice Van Cleave's
Guide to the Best Science
Fair
Projects. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997.

T
HANKS TO OUR MOTHERS, FATHERS, AND GRAND
parents for assistance with transportation and transcription and for their helpfulness in general. To Mrs. Gershwin for keeping things interesting. Special thanks to Grandma/Mrs. Mathews and Mom/Mrs. Robles for the interest they have shown in Mad Science as it concerns us. And of course to Mr. Ennis, a true scientist who can do magic with chemistry.

Thanks also to our friends who were brave enough to take the Zener card test:

Kamala Roy, Florence Hui, Maritza Delgado, Amy Love, Tyler Falcone, Cami Rayfield, Jaime Puente, Hosea Whittaker, Michael Whittaker, Justin McNamara, Rachael Myers, Rebecca Schwartz, Alison Ng, Ashleigh Banneker, Ezra Edelman, Kate Nelson, Katie Baird, Kaitlynn Neff, Jasmine Vines, Malaika Young, Christin Colman, Brian Murtaugh, Jenna VanderVat, Remy St. John, Paul Keegan, and Emily Sisk-Parrot.

Pizza and ice cream on us when we win the science fair!

Dear Mom,

Please insert state science fair article here.

Yours truly,
Ben

¹
N
OTE TO
J
UDGES
: Paranormal Pursuits were originally intended for Mr. Ennis's edification and not for inclusion in the final project report. Please accept my apologies for their failure to conform to formatting specifications, which I delineated carefully for my fellow group members when they were apparently not listening.—BDL

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1  Except in those cases of fraud, of course, which appears rampant in this field of research.

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2  I.e., identical (although this is a highly misleading term when it comes to Claire and Kathleen).

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3  Identical twins provide good evidence because they have identical genes. Therefore, if they were raised in different families, their degree of similarity as adults is due totally to their genetic makeup.

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4  This is a made-up story, but you get the idea. It is a fairly typical example.

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5  That's a step below GT—Gifted and Talented—which I'm in.

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6  Having cooked several such unpalatable meals since my mother moved out, I can attest that this pain is quite intense.

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7  This is a quirky behavior that Kathleen is known to perpetrate to this day.

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8  As the owner of the hair in question, I was so traumatized as to nearly become a kindergarten dropout, except that my mother refused to let my father home-school me. Too bad. I could be in college now.

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9  Determined after extensive questioning to be a dog.

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10  Do not mention this incident to her. She will cry.

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11 Besides winning the lottery—see below.

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* N
OTE
: The opinions contained herein are those of the writer and do not reflect in the least those of the transcriptionist!

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1  Although there was a time when, she would have perceived this as thrilling news.

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1  Actually, it's a rectangle, and thus not so equilateral as it appears.—BDL

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* Despite the (highly) misleading title, an excellent source of information.

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