"Hi Lucy." We were shopping. A kid, perhaps a year younger than my little brother Billy, came up and greeted him. The kid turned to Mom. "His name's Lucy, right?" What the hay?!

"No." Mom looked down at the kid. "His name is Bill."

"Oh... Hi Bill."

Billy stood frozen through the exchange, and I could see his embarrassment. I couldn't help glancing at him through the rest of our shopping trip. I understood perfectly. A seven-year-old boy called a girl's name... and in front of Mom, that could only have been arsenic on the cake.

Back home, Billy went straight to his room. I knocked on the door. "Billy? May I come in?"

"Okay..." He sounded unenthusiastic.

I entered, and for a moment there, it seemed as if neither of us could think of anything to say. I finally said it straight out. "That kid really thought your name was Lucy."

"It's Charlie's fault!" he shouted. I suppressed my instinct to ask who Charlie was, but he answered the unstated question anyway. "He's a big kid in third grade, and he got everyone to shout at me and call me `LUcy GOO-SEE'!"

I said nothing, but let him bury his face in my chest and cry.

He stopped crying and pulled away. "I'm gonna zap them all!" He paused a moment. I kept silent, waiting for him to continue. "Lightning! They did it in `Hocus Pocus'. They did it in `Star Wars'. And that giant in the sky did it in `Fantasia'! I'm gonna learn all about lightning. Then they won't pick on me any more!"

Something occurred to me. "BigSis's books might have information." BigSis and several friends were involved in Wicca, much to Mom and Dad's consternation. She had a few books, and always borrowed more from the library. Sometimes I overheard her talking on the phone about magic spells and rituals. "But please be careful. Don't hurt yourself."

The following days, I never saw Billy with any of BigSis's books on Wiccan magick, even though it seemed to me that they might have the best information on the subject. Maybe they were too advanced for a kid like him. I once tried reading a couple myself, but couldn't understand them. But the books I saw Billy with, they didn't look any easier.

"It's really interesting," Billy said. "Voltage... charge... current..." I just shook my head. I hadn't the foggiest.

Later, I saw Billy carrying something. "What is that?"

"It's called a Leyden Jar." He held it up. It was made of mostly glass, with metal attached, filled with -- what? Water? "It stores the charge needed for the zapping." Whatever.

I heard nothing further for a couple weeks, until I asked him how he was coming with the project.

"I couldn't aim it. I always zapped myself. I finally understood that it's impossible to aim."

"Does it hurt?"

"Yeah, but a really good hurt. It feels really really really good!" He held the jar in one hand, then touched something metal on the jar with his other index finger. I heard a zap and saw sparks, as his hair raised and he went taught, lips tight between his teeth, muffling a high-pitched squeal.

Wait a minute! Was that the Big O?