Hops.(Kevin Hughes) “Hey Hops, good luck today.”

I smiled back at Mrs. Wilson. She was one of the few folks called me that without any malice. She had been like a second Mother to me when I was little. She didn’t think I was weird or a freak. She just thought I was different. In a good way. So I smiled back and gave her a thumbs up. If she only knew how different I was…maybe she wouldn’t be so nice. Maybe.

I knew I would win. I knew I would set a record. What I didn’t know is how my life would change just because of the way I broke the record. It was hell.

*****

The other seven sprinters were all down in their stances. One knee down, grinding their feet into the blocks for that “sweet spot”, fingers so close to the start line that a human hair would have trouble snuggling into the space between that white line and the runners skin. Not me. I was standing as I usually did. My left foot about an inch from the starting line, my right foot two feet further back. Both my arms dangling relaxed and loose by my sides.

My Junior Year in High School, some Traditional Track Members of the Athletic Board tried to ban my starting technique. They said it gave me an unfair advantage. It cost my School and the Board a whole bunch of money in Legal fees. Thank God Mr. Burton (the Head of the State Athletic Board) had common sense:

“Look, the kid just wants to play on a team. Sports is supposed to teach us how to be Team Players. I don’t care how weird his stance is. He still has to cover 100 meters …just like the other runners. So let him run.”

And that was that. Even tho technically…well, I don’t “run” the hundred meters. Even if I started in the Standard Position at the blocks down on one knee, I still won the race. Every race. People don’t like winners. At least winners who don’t run like they do.

The Gun went off.

I gave the other runners a brief second to get out of their stances and upright. I was the last out of the blocks. I always was. I thought it was fair. Once they were hurtling down the course, I skipped. After just one skip I was in the lead. Two more skips and I was done. And I won. I won the race. I set the record. Not a single other runner came up to congratulate me. The crowd was still booing me. The yells of “freak” were drowning out even the Public Speaker announcing the winning time.

That is when I made the mistake that changed my life forever. I hopped. I hopped the way I did when I was far away from people. Nobody, not even my Mom knew what I was really capable of. I did. I was mad. I was hurt. I was only sixteen years old. So I reacted without thinking. Tears burning my cheeks, I lifted my middle finger to the whole crowd…and then I turned and hopped.

The crowd was stunned into silence. It was eerie to have thunderous noise one second, maniacs screaming at me from the bleachers, from the infield, from the benches…and then…silence. The silence of disbelief. Of awe. Of hate. I could do something no other Human Being could do. I could hop. They couldn’t. That was all it took for them to hate me. I looked down at the stadium as I cleared the scoreboard by a good thirty feet.

Considering the Scoreboard was in the EndZone and well above even the “nosebleed” section, I just have hopped about three hundred feet into the air. That was just the vertical portion. I knew from my experiments out in the empty desert and mountain valleys, that I would land about a half mile outside the stadium. From there…I regained control of my emotions…well…enough to fake walk like real people do. Normal people. Tears still fell from my face. I didn’t care.

I got home just minutes before the first News Hounds and my Mom. Mrs. Wilson was watering her lawn. She looked over at me walking as I headed up our driveway.

“Did you win, Hops?”

I gave her a thumbs up. I couldn’t trust my voice.

She smiled back at me and continued to water her lawn. Only looking up when the sirens and News Folks showed up a bit later.

I don’t remember much more of that day. My Mom yelling for folks to get off our property and leave her son alone. Mrs. Wilson coming over and making supper. Then the Scientist showed up. I don’t know what they told my Mom. But she agreed to let me go with them. She thought it was the best thing for me. I did not. I spent two years as a walking…er..hopping... experiment. The Military wanted to find a way to do what I did. The Scientists wanted to find out how I did what I did. The Physicists wanted to prove that I couldn’t do what I did.

The all wanted something from me…but no one wanted to help me. I turned eighteen in that God Forsaken Research Institute far away from the nearest town. They let me have my birthday off. So I left.

Never to return.

*****

I had learned to “hop” even better. The Physicists claimed that I wasn’t really “flying” it just was one long hop (or jump). They also couldn’t understand why my bones didn’t shatter, my muscles pop, and my tendons rupture. When they did the Calculus to determine the force necessary to propel me over 25 mile at close to three hundred miles an hour- well, it wasn’t possible. But I did it anyway. I never let on that I could “hop” much farther AND much faster. I saved that for the day I left. My eighteenth Birthday. I did a truly magnificent hop.

To a different continent.

*****

I sat on a frozen stump of a blue spruce tree. I had no money. No clothes. No supplies. What the heck was I going to do. I could hop anywhere…but how could I live? I got up and walked. And walked. And walked. Oh, not like I had to fake it when I was a kid: left foot, right foot, left foot. No, I merely hopped from one foot to another, covering about six feet with each hop. I do that with about the same effort a dolphin needs to skim along the surface. I can keep hopping at that pace for hours.

I must have hopped a good seven miles through powdered snow before I came across a small hut. It had a sign on it. In English and Norwegian. It was a rescue hut. I laughed out loud. I knew where I was now…Norway. The sign said anyone could use it. It had a small stove, some blankets, a table with one chair, a bed (well, a wooden shelf that served as a bed) and best of all, some canned and dried food.

I started a fire, melted some snow for water, ate dried fishcakes, washed that down with a can of peaches. I slept like a baby. I stayed there for three days. Finally the snow stopped. The map inside the hut showed me a trail to the nearest town (20 Kilometers away)…I could have gone there in a single hop. I decided to “walk” incase I met anyone on the Trail. It would make it easier to explain how I got trapped in the hut during the blizzard. I was only eighteen, so I didn’t think far enough ahead to explain how an American Teenager ended up in a hut in the middle of nowhere in Norway with only the clothes on his back.

I had cut one of the spare blankets into a poncho…since I didn’t bring a coat with me when I hopped from the Facility just three days earlier. I didn’t have boots either. Just my Nike running shoes. I must have looked like Clint Eastwood if Clint walked from the desert into deep snow. It made me laugh.

I heard a startled cry. A cry of pain. I hopped.

A girl pretty close to my age was sprawled out on the bottom of a gulley. Her right leg just below the knee was bent backwards, two bones were sticking out of her ski pants. She didn’t notice me …at first. I heard her scream again. Calling out for help with a weird accent. It sounded like “hejelpt” to me.

“ Helpt, Margit, Grete, Helpt. I broke my leg. “

Two other girls came running out of the woods. They slid down the embankment on their bums. One of the girls yelled something in Norwegian, I didn’t understand it. The other girl said:

“Oh, my God, Britte. It’s a compound fracture. You are bleeding out!”

I saw the girl with the broken leg start to cry.

“I am going to die. You can’t get me to a hospital fast enough. It is in Breivika and that is fifty kilometers from here. Tell my Mom and Dad, and my sister Hanna I love them.”

The two girls looked at each other, crying but trying to hold it together. I hopped.

All three of them looked at me in shock.

“Where did you come from?”

I looked down at the girl with the broken leg. I could see blood pouring from the back of her knee where the bones protruded. Her pale skin was now almost as white as the snow. I knew she didn’t have long. So I did what I had to do.

“It doesn’t matter right now. What is your name (tapping the girl with the broken leg lightly on the shoulder)?

“It is Britte.”

“Okay, Britte, they call me “Hops”. I am going to touch your lightly on your shoulder and take you to that Hospital. Just point me in the right direction.”

The bigger of the two girls who weren’t injured looked at me like I was nuts.

“The Northern University Hospital is that way (pointing a long arm towards the SouthWest. But it is a good fifty kilometers from here in a town called “Breivika”. You can’t carry her that far…or fast enough.

I smiled. People had been saying those kinds of things to me my whole life.

“Trust me.”

The girl with the broken leg reached up and put her hand over my shoulder. She looked into my eyes and studied me. She smiled a desperate small smile colored with exhaustion and pain.

“I do.”

I hopped.

*****
I staggered to the Emergency Entrance. I don’t know why I can hop with ease, but when I carrying anything, it was just as hard as it was for a regular person. I was carrying Britte’s unconscious form. Tons of people ran out to help me. I handed her over to their care, and gave a brief description of what I saw, and how long she had been bleeding. They went to work right away. I hopped back to the other two girls. It only took a few minutes to find them. They were still gathering the things Britte had dropped when she fell.

Their mouths dropped open when I landed just yards away from them. One screamed in surprise. The other one just stared hard at me.

“Come on, we need to get you two back to the Hospital. Britte needs you!”

“What are you?”

“I’m just a guy with some weird skills. Come on, they need to know about Britte!”

“What do we do?”

“Just come here and stand by me. As long as you are touching me, I can hop you both to the Hospital.”

“Hop?”

“Yeah, hop. Like I did with Britte. Come on, hurry.”

They were timid, but they cared about their friend more than their fear. As soon as they touched my shoulders, I hopped.

This time I hopped right to the front door. And this time, it didn’t go unnoticed. The girls ran inside to talk to the Doctors working on Britte…I had to fend off a lot of bewildered interrogation. A few minutes later and the Police showed up. Then the Doctors turned their attention to me. An hour later and all of the girls Parents and family showed up.

Britte’s Mother didn’t care how I did it. She just hugged me and cried. Thanking me over and over again.

“They tell me Britte would have died within minutes if you hadn’t done what you did. I can’t thank you enough. Oh, my god, Thank you!”

I just patted her shoulder. The other two girls came over to me too. They hugged me and thanked me. I stayed that night at Britte’s house. Along with both Margit and Grete. We talked long into the night before we finally fell asleep. It was two days before we could all go see Britte. I watched as the girls shrieked with joy and almost clambered up in the bed with Britte. Her leg was suspended in some kind of contraption and you could see metal bars screwed into her legs.

She motioned me over and shooed the girls off the edge of the bed.

I came over close to the bed. She smiled at me and waved me closer.

I bent over to here what she had to say. She wrapped both arms around me and pulled me down to kiss me. It was a long lingering kiss. When she let me go, her breath was a little husky. She was beaming at me.

“Thank you! For saving me life.”

I laughed.

“For kiss like that, I will save your life anytime.”

She laughed and pulled me back down. That kiss was every bit as good as the first one.

She pulled my head next to hers so she could whisper in my ear.

“That’s for next time.”

I laughed.

*****

We got married just a year later. Norwegians aren’t Americans. I was on the News Briefly. I only had to demonstrate a few “hops” to the Authorities and they were satisfied. One of the Doctors that saved Britte’s leg had a Sister In Law that was a Researcher. She was kind, caring, thoughtful, and I submitted to letting her study my hopping ability. We met once a week, and she ran me though most of the same tests the heartless bastards at the Facility did. Except she always treated me as a person, a human being, and not some cursed lab rat. I liked discovering my limits and abilities under her supervision.

Everyone calls me Hops. My Mother and Mrs. Wilson came over for the Wedding. They stayed at Grete’s place and hit it off with her Mom. My Mom and Mrs. Wilson were only supposed to stay ten days. They stayed the whole summer. When Britte got pregnant, my Mom decided to move over here to be close to her only grandchild.

I don’t hop much anymore. There isn’t anything I want to hop away from. Turns out I am a pretty good woodworker, I make furniture now. Britte has a knack for materials to make the upholstery. We make a good team. Sometime we hop out to find the right wood for our shop. So far our Daughter Ingrid hasn’t shown any hopping ability.

I think I might just be one of a kind.

Britte laughs when I say that.

“Hops, all of us are.”

She’s right you know.

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