*two weeks later at a secret government base somewhere in the United States*

The secret location wasn't some freaky underground installation or anything like that. Honestly, that's what I was expecting, now that my life was a bad science fiction movie. It was just a very small town. Just so you get what I mean by small I'll describe it.

One gas station, one grocery store, one school, a couple of small businesses and no chance of getting lost. Unless you went into the woods, in which case I figured you were a goner, unless you happened to be Bigfoot, who has a real nice place by the way. In case you're wondering, no, that wasn't a joke.

There were only a couple of streets with houses and all but the houses in the middle had yards that just kinda melted into the woods. No fences or anything. It was like they wanted us to get lost! And on second thought, I figured "they" probably did.

Oh, I've left something really important out of my description. The people, and I use this term generously, applying it to all the uh-beings who'll rub my face in the mud if I don't call them people. Not that it was a totally obvious thing with, for all of them, that they weren't normal. Our new next-door neighbor looked perfectly normal, but he was having a one sided argument with a tree that had apparently wandered into his yard last night and it was "going to move right now or I'll get my chainsaw!" I thought he was nuts until the tree GOT UP AND WALKED AWAY, GRUMBLING! "Hey Mom, a walking, talking tree." I said weakly, "That's not something you see every-day."

Mom and I were standing in our front yard, surveying our new neighborhood. "It is if you live in Weirdville." said a slightly accented female voice I didn't recognize. It took me a moment to find the speaker. A tall girl was stepping out of the shadow cast by the nearest tree. She had black hair, was wearing sunglasses, and was dressed in black from her black headband to her shiny black shoes. This didn't strike me as suspicious in the least bit. I figure she was just a little Gothic. I'm dumb sometimes. "Hi Tim, I'm Veronica."

"How do you know my name?" "Small, town, new arrivals, and you're obviously not your mother." She said this without cracking a smile, solidifying my belief she was Goth. "Weirdville?" Mom asked. "Well, it's not official, but we call it that. We call it Freaktown sometimes too." Mom laughed nervously. "I was wondering if I could show Tim around."

"There's anything to see? I mean we pretty much saw it on our way in." I said. Yes, I know it was rude. I blame the long ride in a nondescript government moving van.

"But you haven't been in the woods yet." Veronica pointed out. I wasn't sure I wanted to go in, but at least if I had a local guide, I had a good chance of coming out again. "Sure," Mom said. "He better just not come home with anything worse than a mosquito bite."

I thought this was a weird thing for Mom to say, but apparently Veronica didn't. "I promise," she said, half bowing. Takes her Goth a little too seriously." I thought to myself as I followed her into the trees.

"So, what do you do?"

"Huh?"

"Why are you here?"

"Oh, they called me a spoon bender."

"How good are you?"

"I don't really know. Mom wouldn't let me practice."

"You'll get lots of practice here."

"Where are we going?"

"My place."

"Now hang on a minute..." I started to object but she cut me off.

"And there is a bunch of people waiting to meet you. My tree house is where we hang out."