Clicks of fingers, winks of eyes, waving of arms that’s all you saw as you walked down the wooded walk in the center of town. Even above the baby carriages you could see baubles and rings floating unattached to strings. At school every child was required to wear the unmagic woven mittens and the reflective unspectacular spectacles so that they could not play pranks during their educational hours. Lunch in the cafeteria was another matter as the mittens were off and everyone was wide eyed to see who could make the most mischief without being caught. Chairs moved when someone had reached across the table so that when they came to sit down again their buttocks found nothing there. Or sometimes a french fry might find its way into someone’s nose or ear. Each day was a challenge, but not for the others, just for him.

He lacked what they called the ‘spark’ or ‘that spark’, the one everyone had. When he was very young his parents had been constantly hovering around him, doing the magic themselves that everyone else thought was his doing. They were all so impressed by such a young tot who worked wonders usually not seen until you were hit by puberty. At first at school it didn’t matter either, in kindergarten to fourth grade the kids all came with clothes and gloves that prevented the use of any kind of a magic which was a relief to the teachers having twenty students in their classes. Yet when the fifth class started it was thought best to give the children some freedom so that they might learn how to behave with their powers. That’s probably why the fifth and six class teachers pulled at their hair and were always a bit paler than the others in the faculty.

So, the years of pretending to be a good boy by not using his magic at school had come to an end. Now everyone did it in secret just like smoking a cigarette behind the gym. The day had come and the three bullies as well and they looked at him and in a slithery sneer,

“Bur—p—-ton!”

Of course his name was not really that, it was ‘Burton’ after is great granddad, but those three loved to say his name with belchy sort of tone, so everyone simply called him that long throated, burpy name. He hated it and felt his face flame red. Again it came:

“Bur—ppppp—-ton! Show us what you can do, show us that spark!”

Their laughter erupted and their hands began to wave as they lifted from the ground with their magical might, whatever they might find, shriveled cigarette butts, pebbles and splinters of glass, up they went into the air, swirling above their heads and slowly pointing in his direction. For anyone else it would have just taken a blink of the eye or the snap of the fingers and it would have all fallen on the ground or simply disappeared in the air. Not for him, all that litter swirled in his direction and all he could do was fall and lay flat on the ground. He could feel it fall from above him and pelt him on the back as an uproarious laughter rose from those gathered around. A chant had begun:

“Bur—-ppppp—-ton the sparkless, Bur——ppppp-ton not one of us!”