The Gift of Fire by Dan Caro

Kieran. When they saw me coming, they immediately screamed, “Look out, he’s coming! The monster is coming! Run for your life!”
    The huddle of boys scattered, but I had set my sights on my target. I was going after Kieran, and I chased him all over the playground. He was running as fast as I’d seen him run before, but I kept gaining on him. I felt another surge of energy, another push from beyond, and—wham! The next thing I knew, I had the fastest and most popular boy in kindergarten in a full tackle. We skidded along the ground and began to wrestle. He fought hard, but I was stronger and finally pinned him down.
    A crowd had gathered around us by this time, and every one of the kids stood there with their mouths open. The silence was deafening. I stood up and then helped Kieran up, too, and we stared at each other for a moment or two. Then he reached out to me, clasped my wrist with his hand, and introduced himself. Even though the chasing and wrestling had been a violent burst on my part, it put a stop to the ticking time bomb inside me. My anger and emotional misery fizzled away at that moment. I felt only peace and joy as Kieran turned to the other boys and girls around us and said that I was now his friend.
    A surge of raw energy shot through me. Again, I don’t know if it was God taking a spin through my soul for a moment or what, but I know I’d never experienced anything like it before. The surge was a little bit scary to me when it happened, but only because it was so unfamiliar—as unfamiliar as suddenly being accepted. I felt like a door had opened inside of me. I realized that I’d been my own worst enemy, that I’d allowed myself to be consumed by fear, and others had picked up on that. When I tackled Kieran, I’d taken on my own fear, and I emerged victorious.
    Kieran was now my friend, and because he was so popular, the other kids followed his lead. I’m not saying that everything about my “differences” faded away like magic, but this acceptance allowed me the ability to stop erecting my own roadblocks (which I hadn’t even realized I’d been building). From that day on, school was no longer a burden to be dreaded. I began to grow, both physically and academically.
    I began to take part in class discussions and work in study groups without feeling like a complete outcast. I even started to play games with the other kids—real games of basketball, soccer, kickball, baseball, and football. I knew I’d finally discovered that elusive thing that every other kid takes for granted: childhood. Now I had a shot at a relatively normal one, with genuine friends I could bring home and play with.
    Over the next couple of years, I made more and more friends. At the end of each school year, I also routinely saw my name on the dean’s list—by the fourth grade, my grades were among the highest in the academy.
    As I slowly grew used to my new thumb, I found that I could do more and more things that otherwise would have been impossible. Although I still couldn’t tie my shoelaces, I no longer considered this to be a failure; it was just a challenge that I knew I’d conquer one day. I loved my new life, my newfound sense of being a boy. I’d lost so much by giving in to my own insecurities and fears, and now I’d taken it back.
    I reclaimed my life, and I was determined to excel.

Chapter Four
    Making Miracles
    I was seven years old in the fall of 1986, and that’s when my parents heard rumors circulating around their church about miraculous cures happening in Europe. Parishioners in the congregation were talking about the wonders that were supposedly occurring in a remote village in what was then Yugoslavia (now Bosnia and Herzegovina) called Medjugorje. Supernatural visitations by the Virgin Mary were said to have begun in 1981, just two years after I was born. Over the course of the next five years, the little town had been transformed from an obscure Balkan backwater to a world-famous apparition