Blue Energy, Red Energy

We told this story as a prequel to a time-travel story from about a month earlier. This is part 1 of 4. Let me know what you think should happen next or what the story makes you think. At the end of the story I’ve included some story-starters for your walks. We had fun telling this one while we walked our dog around the neighborhood. Hope you have fun reading it.
Blue Energy, Red Energy
David and Luke walked down the sidewalk. Calvin Coolidge Elementary School was now three blocks behind them. “Okay,” Luke said. “This is my house.” David stopped. “This is the part where you keep walking. . . .” David’s eyes fixed at some point down the street. “. . . You know, on your own, to get to your own house.” David broke his stare and finally looked at Luke’s face. Luke squinted hard back at David.
“Would you cut it out?” David yelled. “It wasn’t anything. We were just being stupid.”
“Look, seriously, I saw something.”
“Whatever. See ya tomorrow.” David put on his second backpack strap and jogged down the street. Luke watched him for a couple of seconds before running up his walkway.
He dropped his lunch and backpack at the door and crossed right over to his mom who was sitting cross-legged on the sofa and staring at her laptop. “Mom, I was swinging on the monkey bars at recess, and the weirdest thing happened. David was looking up at me, and I swear some electricity flickered from one of his eyes to the other. It was like this blue jaggedy line or something.”
His mom gave him a sweet, mommish smile, “Well, that’s amazing, honey. Did you put your lunch box in the kitchen?” She went back to typing on the computer.
“But, Mom, what I’m telling you is true! It’s really true!”
She smiled a syrupy smile. “Of course, honey. I believe you.”
“Actually, I’ve been feeling a little funny today, too.”
She continued typing, “Oh, no, honey. Can I make you some chamomile tea?”
“No. Never mind.” Luke turned away. He was sure he had seen it. He went to his room to play with his Legos. Everything was in its usual place. Emmett was building an epic racecar like he was when he left for school. Everything seemed perfect. But then” Luke thought, “wasn’t Emmett building a robot body?” Luke looked away, and then his eyes snapped back to the Legos. That plastic jet engine hadn’t been there before. He looked around for some evidence of a prankster who had been messing with the Legos. He looked all around, even under the bed. That’s where he finally found something, but it wasn’t prankster equipment. This was a glowing red orb. Being an adventurous kid, he reached out a hand to touch the sphere. A flash of energy raced through him.
Meanwhile, David was in his kitchen grabbing some crackers and a glass of OJ. He was just about to sit down when he got the same buzzing feeling behind his eyes that he had felt at recess, the same feeling he had when Luke had noticed something flash between his eyes. He sat at the table. The Xbox 8 his dad had brought home the night before was sitting on top of it’s box with crumpled plastic wrapping on the table all around it. Its cord dangled off the table’s edge. David saw a blue glow around the edges of the disc slot. The buzzing feeling grew stronger than ever, and two thin, jagged blue lines zapped out from the disc slot straight into his eyes. The buzzing spread through his body. He felt it move down into his toes and then move back up to the top of his head. He felt a deep vibration down the length of his spine. As he looked around he could see everything very clearly, down to the tiniest detail, every speck of dust on the glass table, the way each one reflected the light. Some looked like tiny hairs with a rainbow-colored sheen. Some were rough and dull like miniature stones. He picked up his favorite action figure and saw a wavy texture in the plastic that before had looked perfectly slick. Still, he envied the toy’s mechanized arm with its gauntlet and grappling tether. The vibration in his spine stopped suddenly. His own arm darkened then grew with metallic clanks and clicks into an iron gauntlet complete with grappling tether.
The next day was Saturday. David woke up his mom to ask if he could meet Luke at the Skate Park. “It’s too early,” she groaned, and I’ll have to see if it’s okay with Luke’s mom first,” David handed her the phone. She could hear a voice saying, “Hello? Jackie?” David’s mom gave him a look through slitted eyes before putting the phone to her ear. “Hello, Elle. Luke wake you up, too?” Mumbles from the other side. David crossed his fingers. “I don’t know what’s gotten into them, either. David was in the work shed all yesterday afternoon and evening. He even took his dinner in there. Daryl next door called to complain about the racket.” Mumbles. “You’re right. Maybe it would do them good to get out of the house, and I’m up now, anyway.” She shot David another look. “Yes, I think he wants to head over right now.” David nodded his head. “It’s all right with me if it’s all right with –” David kissed her cheek and shot away. He almost forgot his scooter as he raced out the front door.
Luke was skateboarding down the sidewalk when David shot past. “How’d you catch up?” Luke yelled after him. When Luke got to the park seconds later, David was scootering around slowly, letting his old scooter dangle from one hand. “What are you doing with that?” Luke asked.
“I’ve got something to show you.”
“Yeah,” Luke laughed, “Me, too.”
David tossed his scooter to the fence. No one was at the park yet, but David looked around to make sure that nobody was watching before letting his “scooter” collapse up through his foot and back into his leg. Luke’s mouth dropped open. “No way,” he whispered. David tossed off his one shoe and sock. He hid between a wallride and a halfpipe and let his feet become rocket-powered scooter skates. Luke backed out of the way while David leaned in and the rockets fired. He zoomed around the park, flying up the ramps and doing flips in mid-air.
David landed right in front of Luke, who was howling with his fists raised above his head. “Wooooo! Yes!” Their hands slapped together in a bro shake. “You’re, like, mechanical, Dude.”
“Shhhh!”
“Nobody’s around, man. This is crazy.”
David looked around again, but then laughed. “I know, right? I still can’t believe it. I went into the shed and experimented all day after school yesterday.”
“I told you I saw something.”
David grinned. “Yeah, I know.” They stood silent for a while. “Didn’t you say you had something to show me?”
Luke got a wide grin. It was his turn to check and see if the coast was clear. “Watch this!” His hands moved around. Red mists started flowing in mid-air like a steamy waterfall. He muttered strange, mystic words. He pointed one hand at his skateboard, which floated over to him. L rode around, hovering over every obstacle.
David stood smiling and shaking his head. “That mist. It’s like . . . magic.” He stood shaking his head for a while, trying to let it all soak in while the mist spread out into the air. Then a crooked grin took over his mouth. “That was nice, but check this.” David blasted himself up a ramp and flew around in the sky. The rockets on the back of his skates flared bright blue, and the wheels shifted and pitched in as jets, too. He came down, ground the length of a rail, then hovered just passed the end.
“I don’t know how I can top that.” Luke said, “Oh wait, yes I do.” He rolled his board off to the side and created a giant hamster ball around himself. Transparent red orbs appeared around his hands, and with a movement of his arms steered the giant hamster ball down the halfpipe. Pretty soon he was launching in circles around the pipe.
“I can do that, ” David said. He landed, his skates vanishing into his feet, and sat down into a chair. Glowing blue orbs formed around the chair, his arms and him. He lifted up and flew around then transformed into a starship and took off.
“Show off,” Luke said when David finally landed.
They gave up their competition and sat on a bench After telling each other exactly what had happened the day before, Luke repeated, “I knew there was electricity between your eyes. I knew it! I knew it!”
They sat silent for a long time. Then Luke said, “This is amazing. We can do whatever we want. We can go wherever we want.”
“So you just want to fly around all the time, like this?” David asked, “Don’t you think we’re supposed to do something with all these powers?”
“Like what? Heck, yes I want to fly around all the time. This is insane. We’re like the luckiest people alive. Unless there are other people like us. Do you think there are other ones?”
“I don’t know, but look, if we have gifts–or powers–or whatever, we have to protect those who don’t. It is only the right thing to do.”
Luke said, “Beautiful speech, but I hope you’re kidding. I mean, let’s just have fun.”
“Seriously. I thought about this all night. Something’s gonna happen, and I’m–well we’re–gonna be the only ones who can help.”
“Yeah, okay, maybe sometime, but you’re not saying we should become superheroes or something, are you?”
David looked hard at his friend. “That exactly what I’m saying.”

Now here are some Story Starters for you. What kind of stories did you come up with from these? Do you have some story starters that you’d like to share? Maybe you’ll see one show up in one of my posts. I’ll make sure to let everyone know who gave me the great starter.

• Lawrence was a very unhappy mushroom.
• He woke up to a flash of light. Something was very wrong here.
• “Everything is perfect,” she said. “It’s just as I imagined.”
• Her feet and ankles were stained purple with grape juice.
• He realized that he should like fish. After all, he was a cat, but . . .