At that moment, Tennyson's "big blue eyes" were closed as he sat in his hoverchair just a few blocks away. His ears were tuned into the gorgeous rendition of "Silent Night" being done by the carolers across the street from him. The baritone and soprano were particularly good.

Tennyson did hear the footsteps crunching in the snow, but paid no mind. Most people passed him by without so much as a word. Before he realized that the footsteps had stopped near him, one of the padded gloves he wore was yanked off of his hand and used to smack him across the face.

"Hey, freak! Didn't you know you can get arrested for loiterin' on a public street?"

Tennyson shook his head and looked up. A burly youth stood in front of him, a skinny one with a beaked nose to his left, and another with a pockmarked face to his right.

"You heard me, hover-boy," the burly youth said. "You've got no business being on a public street with normal people." He threw the glove in Tennyson's face.

The boy in the hoverchair reached for the keyboard in front of him to answer, when the pockmark-faced teen grabbed his wrist. Tennyson winced as he felt it pop.

"Don't even bother," his tormentor sneered. "What makes you think anyone understands you with that thing, anyhow?"

Tennyson felt the hoverchair move down a few inches, and looked up to see the bully to his left had leaned on the back of it. Didn't he realize---

"Hey, I read that in the old days, people used to bury their refuse. Whey don't we take the speechless hover-boy and bury him in the snowbank over there," he jerked his thumb over his shoulder. "I'll bet no one'll find 'im 'til spring."

His larger companion chuckled. "Great idea. Whitey, you--"

Just then, what Tennyson thought would happen did. The heat from the hoverchair motor penetrated the coat sleeve of the thug to his left, then the shirt sleeve.

"O-ow!!"

The teen to the left stumbled back, grabbing his arm. The one in front of the hoverchair looked shocked, and the third let go of Tennyson's wrist.

Opportunity struck. With the push of a button on the control panel above the keyboard and the pull of a lever, the hoverchair shot thirty feet straight up. With another adjustment of the controls it whizzed forward.

"We'll get you next time!" came the threat from below.