“My mum always said not to talk to strangers. It’s a good thing I didn’t listen to her,” laughed the little girl. Well, Anastasia was actually 307 but she didn’t look a day over 9. We’d asked her about it before, but she liked this form. Inconspicuous.

Our friend group looks incredibly weird (and probably illegal) from the outside. There’s Anastasia, of course; then Bartholomew (but if you call him that he will set you on fire) and his husband Isaac who is our resident mindreader; Louisa the witch; and me. I can talk to animals.

I realised I was different from the rest of my third grade class when I was able to hold conversations with the pigeons outside. I was past the age of it being a game of imagination and the bullying got so bad that I effectively dropped out of school. I couldn’t let my parents know so I spent my days at the library or walking around. Thank goodness for overcrowding- I wasn’t missed.

Looking back on it, I made an almost too easy target for pedophiles and kidnappers. It’s a good thing Bart found me first. He could sense that I was different (more like an innate thing than an ability) and gave me the address of an abandoned house. That was their hideout.

I had nowhere to be, so the next day I went there. I met Anastasia on the way and she played pranks on the other pedestrians by shifting from an old man to a baby to a yeti and more. I laughed so hard that even the sewer rats told me to shut up.

When we got there, Bart was inside. He lit some candles without matches or a lighter and then stated the obvious: “Oh, yeah. I can bend fire.” Anastasia rolled her eyes and shifted back into the little girl she favoured. She spoke about how she came upon this group despite her mother’s warnings of “stranger danger”.

Bart didn’t have a similar story, since he was the founder, but we learned he was a softie with a temper and a boyfriend. Isaac arrived and promptly started answering questions that we’d only asked in our heads. He told me telepathically he could read minds and stuff. I told him I can do the same with animals. He smiled.

Louisa was the last to join. I’d been part of the group for 7 years when she arrived. She was new to town and being Italian and a witch made it difficult for her to fit in. My parents had eventually caught wind of my bunking and sent me to a new school, and that’s where I met her. We connected. She caught me talking to the snakes in the lab when she snuck in to take some plants for a potion. She came back to the hideout with me after school.

We are a family of friends. We find others like us. Are you one of them?