All that happened last year. Petey was a year ahead of me and at the end of summer he left to be a Psychic Paratrooper and we haven’t heard from him since. Was there a boot camp? Is he deployed? We have no idea. 

Ivy (Queen of the Wandering Vines) was friends with Petey too and tried talking to Petey’s mom to find out what happened, but Petey’s mom wouldn’t answer the door. She’s not an easy person, Petey’s mom. 

Me and Ivy and the rest of us are all headed to different schools next year and it’s exciting. Ivy’s going to @Silverfawn College, which is new and has an amazing Botanical Communications program. Me, I’m majoring in International Psychic Relations. I’ve traveled a lot in North America but never been overseas. 

That’s why Petey joined the Army. The recruiter really played up the travel part.

“I’m gonna be a Psychic Paratrooper,” Petey said.

He was balancing the giant strongman barbell on the end of one finger. We were hanging out in his backyard.

“But won’t you have to… kill people? Get blown up? Have PTSD?” I asked.

“I’m pretty invulnerable,” Petey said.

It was true. Petey's muscles were super resilient in order to be so strong. And he was made of nothing but. That's why the kids called him Stringmeat.

Petey kept his super strength mostly to himself. There wasn’t much call for it at school, and he didn’t play football or have a job where he could use it. But sometimes he’d go down to the junkyard and throw around old cars. 

BAM! CRASH!

“So, where’d you get to today?” he asked. 

“Outside of Los Alamos. Then Evansville.”

“Indiana?”

“Wyoming.”

CRASH! BAM!

“You sure are lucky,” he said. “I’d give anything to get out of this town. See the world.”

“What’s the hurry?” I asked. “It’s not like the world’s going anywhere.”

“Easy for you to say.”

KERTHUNK! SMASH!

PETEY THE WORLD’S STRONGEST BOY

Petey was a kid in my town that lived in the garage behind his mom’s house. He had all sorts of barbells in the backyard, including the classic giant strongman kind you see in cartoons. His garage was filled with elastic straps and stirrups hanging from the rafters and walls.

“Those are for my special muscles,” Petey would say.

For all his tremendous strength, kids called him Stringmeat, because he was so wiry.

After that first experience, I was able to "find the spot" in all kinds of places. The town I grew up in had lots of them. In the ditch behind a farmer's barn, in those little dirt road alleys between people's backyards, up by the water tower. Then you just have to take note of the place you come out, and that's how you know your way back.

None of the other kids I grew up with learned how to do it. But there were some other kids in my town who could do other things.

Like Petey, who was World's Strongest Boy.

Like a lot of people, my first Psychic Cross Country run was accidental. It was a 10k fund raising event for the Dirk Chutney Memorial Library when I stepped into a wasps’ nest. They started chasing me and I panicked and bolted blindly down a country road and then suddenly “found the spot” and all at once I was about three towns away. Had to call my family to come get me I was so scared.

All Cross Country involves running different terrain, like dirt and grass and gravel. At Psyhigh it also involves abandoned railroad tracks, decrepit tunnels, caves, industrial settings, chain link and barbed wire, and, when necessary, circumventing electronic security systems.

At Psyhigh Cross Country we did about 800 miles today. I brought home a cactus.