The Triplets

Charity, Hope, is there anything you can do about this long ride? Faith asked her sisters telepathically.

“If you can distract Mom and Dad, I might be able to make our car fly,” Charity whispered.

“We did that last time,” Hope pointed out. “It's my turn now.”

“Yes, but remember the last time you teleported something that wasn't yourself?” Charity reminded her. “Splat, kaboom. I don't think the car would make good practice for you.”

“Well, okay. What do you think, Faith?”

I think maybe I shouldn't have asked you girls, Faith said directly into their minds, rolling her eyes. I mean, am I seriously the most mature person in the back of this car?

“So what do we do to pass the time?” Hope asked. “I think we have about twenty minutes before we get home.”

“I, personally, am glad the drive's so long,” Charity said. “When we get home we'll have chores and we'll have to unpack our bags and everything. I don't think I'm ready for vacation to be over so soon.”

“Well, when you put it that way . . .” Hope agreed.

“Girls, girls,” Faith said, speaking for probably the first time in the entire five hour trip. “Just enjoy the trip.” Then she told them privately, I bet I can spot something dangerous first.

After that, the three of them turned to the nearest window to search for something dangerous. Then Faith started laughing.

“What is it?” Hope asked.

“Nothing,” Faith said at the same time she told them telepathically, Girls, this car could be dangerous. Ha! I found it first!

“No fair,” Charity said under her breath, but then she smiled at her sister's clever approach.

The five of them soon arrived at their house, and the triplets had to put their clothes away. While they did, Charity concentrated and sent a telepathic message to Faith. Unfortunately, she was only able to send the message to the one who had the ability, so Faith had to deliver the message to Hope.

Hey, Hope, Faith delivered the message, Charity was wondering if we wanted to practice. She was thinking her room. Either that, or our secret park. Then Faith gave Charity Hope's response: Hope said yes. She thinks the secret park would be better for teleporting herself, although if she wanted to teleport other things, your room would be better. Your choice.

Several minutes later, the three identical girls met up in Charity's bedroom. They immediately closed and locked the door. Charity stared at the curtains and closed them from across the room. Then Charity stretched her arms out to her sides, palms up, helping her to concentrate on several small objects around her in her room, and lifted them up into the air at different heights. Hope stretched her right arm forward as far as she could, her hand flat, straight up and down. She closed her eyes a moment as she took a deep breath, then stared at a piece of paper Charity had floating in the air. It took only a few seconds before it disappeared.

Charity, behind you, Faith said quickly to only Charity.

Charity turned around and caught the paper without touching it. It hovered right in front of her, then she turned back to Hope.

“Again,” Charity ordered.

This time, Hope used her left hand and pointed her palm and stared at a big, pink eraser on Charity's left. However, they couldn't find where it appeared.

“Where did it go?” Faith asked.

“I don't know,” Hope said. “I thought I was making it go to Charity's other side.”

“Well, let's just hope it didn't go to where Mom and Dad are,” Charity chuckled at her use of her sister's name.

“Shall we continue?” Faith asked.

“Sure,” Hope shrugged. “Charity, you want to go on?”

“Okay. Get your masks on, we're going to our secret park. Hope can practice with sticks or something.”

Faith ran to her room and slipped into an entire new outfit, including a mask that went over her eyes, up to her eyebrows and about halfway down on her nose. Hope suddenly disappeared, then reappeared only a couple minutes later with a mask that went over nearly her entire head, her brown hair poking out of the bottom of the back of it. Hope also had some gardening-type gloves on. While they were gone, Charity found her own “mask”, which was really just a pair of sunglasses, and also put on a pair of finger-less gloves and switched into a different T-shirt.

They came back together in Charity's bedroom again. Charity dug through her closet and found an old plastic sled. She opened the window and tossed it out, then used her abilities to catch it in midair.

“Go on,” Charity said.

Faith stepped out the window first, fully trusting her sister. She stepped right onto the sled and sat down, slowly moving to her stomach, and held onto the front. Then Hope came on and copied Faith. Charity managed to keep her arms at her sides as she also walked onto the sled. She, however, stayed standing up. She leaned forward, her knees bent a little, then focused and made the sled move forward. It started pretty slow, but the girls knew to hold on tight, as Charity always made it go super fast.

Using the quickly-accelerated sled, the disguised triplets soon made it to the middle of a local park and through a secret tunnel to a hollowed-out space below the park. Only then did Charity make the sled land, collapsing on it. They landed in a large room with a bunch of trees around the edges and a cleared out space with grass on it in a circle in the middle.

“Okay, you are alright, right?” Hope asked.

“Yes,” Charity said, sitting up. “I just need a small break. It's exhausting piloting a sled through the air, if you know what I mean.”

Hope giggled, but then became confused when she saw Faith. Faith stared across the room at a small flicker in the shadows.

Hope, could you teleport over there and check out the shadow? Faith asked. Hope nodded and instantly transported herself over into the corner.

Before Hope could even see what was happening, something hard hit her stomach. She stumbled in surprise and fell down. Then someone — or something — stepped out of the shadows. It looked like a tiger without the stripes or a lion without the mane, except it had an almost human look to its face and it stood on its hind legs.

“Hope!” Faith screamed, running over to her sister. She knelt next to Hope and looked her over. While she did, Charity stared at the creature and slowly picked it up and tossed it toward herself. Then she made it float up into the air, its arms pinned to its sides, to look at it.

The side of the underground room exploded, blowing Charity into a tree with minimal damage. A man with a big black mustache sticking straight out to the sides and crazy hair that made it look like he had contact with too much static electricity walked into the room through the new hole in the wall.

“This your henchman?” Faith asked, gesturing at the big orange bear thing.

“We're equal partners,” the creature said in a gruff, muffled voice.

“I don't think we've met before,” the man said. “I'm Static-tricity and this is my partner, Were-thing. If you don't mind, we'll be taking this place over as our lair.”

“You're being awfully nice for the guy who just blew up our wall,” Faith retorted. Her eyes flickered to Charity, who was just starting to stand up from the explosion, then she looked at Hope, who was still groaning about the hit.

“Well, I was trying to get this nice place the easy way, but I suppose I'll have to take it by force. Too bad, it'll mess it up quite a bit, I suspect,” the man — Faith thought “Static-tricity” was a silly name — said, his eyebrows lowered. Electricity shot out of each of the ends of his mustache, both nearly hitting Faith.

Faith, I'll get the were-whatever-it-is, Charity telepathically messaged Faith, You keep Hope safe.

Sounds good, Faith responded, obviously better at communicating telepathically.

Charity focused and picked the bear-like creature up, making it hover right in front of the man. He tried to turn and shoot at Faith again, but Charity made it move. Trying to walk around the thing proved futile as well, as it blocked his path each time he tried, although he didn't give up easily. This gave Faith the chance to pick Hope up and carry her to a small closet, where she left her. Faith ran back as silently as she could and made her way to the man. She kept hidden a moment, then leapt into view and kicked the man in the stomach, then punched his face. As he fell to the ground, Faith shook her hand in pain.

“Man, I need more practice with that,” Faith muttered.

Soon, the three of them were back in Charity's bedroom, the mess in the secret hideout all cleaned up. Hope was feeling better, although she had a big bruise on her belly from her contact with the weird creature. However, Charity had a minimal burn on her cheek and her leg.

“How am I going to explain these burns to Mom?” Charity asked.

“Don't tell her about it, wait for her to ask,” Hope said.

“Think up a really good excuse before she asks, so you don't have a bad one slip out that she's going to immediately tell is horrible,” Faith suggested. “And whatever you do, don't tell her what really happened.”

The sisters smiled and nodded simultaneously in agreement.