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First Day
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| Chapter 01- FIRST DAY | |
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Chapter number |
01 |
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Book | |
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Length |
14 pages |
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Written by | |
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Main Cast |
Cuthbert "Cub" Barton, Elle Richards, Justin Smith, Klaus Geitenberg, Liz Farrier, Phil Allezo, Sean Sanders |
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Minor Cast |
Jens Geitenberg, Dr. Charlotte Richards, Sir James Farrier, Angie Russell, Anne Jefferson, Trev O'Connor, Assan Kentwood, Sarah, Angela Cooke, Cath Mitchell |
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Preceded by |
None |
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Followed by | |
1 - First Day
Edit
Wednesday 31st August
Outside Silverglade College
There was an uncomfortable silence as Dad and I looked at the building in front of us. It was an interesting-looking building, with strange protuberances all over it and leaping gargoyles contorted into strange shapes. I caught myself thinking about all the improvements I could make, and tried to focus instead on where I was going. Away. Away from my parents, from my home.
Dad finally broke the silence.
“Well,” he said, rather more gruffly than usual. “I guess this is where you’ll be staying for the next few years. It doesn’t look bad, does it?”
A passer-by looked up, realised we were speaking German, and carried on.
“That limestone would look much better if it was curved rather than straight,” I replied, trying to conceal my feelings behind my usual conversation. “And those gargoyles are a little tasteless.” Dad nodded. He knew what I meant.
“Well, I’ll be seeing you soon. And for now, don’t get yourself trapped again.”
He always said that, anytime I was left alone, and it was one of the few things about him that annoyed me. It might have been scary for him, but it had been life-threatening for me.
Before I could say anything, though, he had turned round and was walking back to the car.
“See you at Christmas!” I called, and he turned and smiled. Then he was in the car and driving away, my hand waving forlornly.
I reached down to pick up my bag (I hadn’t realised it would be so damn heavy!) and wandered over to the gate in front of the building. It was shut.
I glanced around quickly, but there was nobody in sight. I placed a hand on the wall by the gate. It was flint and mortar. Normally, I’m not such a fan of flint, but today I was looking for any comfort that the stones could give me. I stroked the wall, letting the cold rock soothe me. And then I pushed. I can’t really explain the process – it’s just something that comes naturally to me. Suffice to say, I passed through the wall without any difficulty. Which was a bit of a relief to be honest – like I say, flint isn’t the easiest to work with – too much mortar.
The receptionist in the building seemed a little surprised to see me this early, but I guess she was used to students arriving while the gates were still shut. She directed me up to the Sherman Building for a room – a horrible, looming brick edifice. Brick’s even worse than flint. The entrance hall didn’t improve my opinion of the place much – all open space and glass. No stone to be seen. The boys’ rooms were on the lower floor, and I spent a couple of minutes having a quick look around. There didn’t seem to be much difference between them – all with two cheap wardrobes, two old but sturdy beds and two tacky sets of drawers. Not that I minded – it’s the surroundings I focus on more than the particular room. Having said that, I did eventually pick one of the larger rooms (S-23A). I ticked my name off against a book in the entrance hall and wrote in my room number, and then I set about improving my room a little. The walls were plastered over, but I could feel the brick behind them. Slowly, deliberately, I placed my hand on the wall and began…communicating…with the brick behind.
Some amount of time later (I don’t know how long – I never do), I straightened up and could feel the limestone behind the plaster.
“Erm…”
I turned around. There was someone else peering around the door. He was huge – a couple of meters at least – and obviously not quite ‘normal’. His face was a bit longer than it should have been and bulged slightly forward. His pointed ears were constantly mobile and his teeth were sharp and protuberant. And he was covered in fur. Not thick fur, to be fair, but definitely genuine grey fur. It disappeared under his T-shirt and trousers, but it was obvious that it was all over his body. His voice was deep and rich, although his teeth evidently got in the way a bit.
“Do you know anywhere free?” he said, hopefully. “Cause everywhere else seems to have someone in it. Either that or I’ll have to find someone who doesn’t mind sharing with me. And I can be quite difficult to share with.”
“I don’t mind,” I said. I was still a little dreamlike from my trance, so that might have been why I agreed. Or maybe I just liked him already. His mouth curled up in what was probably a smile.
“Are you sure? I promise I don’t go uncontrollable at full moon or anything.”
“Really, sure. This is a big room anyway. Just so long as you don’t mind limestone instead of brick.”
“Err – okay.”
He emerged fully into the room, stooping slightly to avoid the doorframe. He was dragging a large case in a hand that, I noticed, had long, curving nails. Or maybe claws. It was kind of hard to tell. There was an awkward silence as he began taking his things out. With a start, I realised all my stuff was still in my bag – I hadn’t even bothered to unpack it. I wondered how many people had seen me standing with my eyes closed and my hand against the wall, and how many of them had thought I was mad. And now I was agreeing to share my room with someone who looked uncannily like a wolf in a very big human body.
“So…um…what’s your name?” the human wolf asked, jolting me back to the present.
“Klaus. Klaus Geitenberg. Originally from Germany, before you ask. Near Hamburg. But I’ve been in England for three years. What about you? What’s your name?” He groaned.
“You had to ask that, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“It’s not pleasant. Really.”
“Okay, now I’m actually interested.”
“It’s Cuthbert Ulysses Barton. And that tells you everything you need to know about my parents. Well?”
“Well what?”
“Aren’t you gonna laugh? I mean, most people do.”
“No. Why should I? It’s not particularly funny to have a name like that.”
“Too right it’s not.”
“What should I call you then?”
“Well, there was only really ever one nickname for me, wasn’t there?” Seeing my blank expression, he sighed. “Look at my initials.”
“C…U…oh. I see.”
“I know. Wonderfully ironic, isn’t it,” Cub said with a dry smile – or what I assumed was a dry smile. It was hard to tell, with the teeth and all.
There was a knock on the door, and then an older boy (about twenty, perhaps) poked his head round the door.
“’Scuse me,” he said, smiling. “Meeting in the Quiet Room in an hour. See you there.” Then he was gone again. Cub looked at me.
“What was that about?” he asked. I shrugged.
“Probably want to sort us all out.”
“Ah well, gives me time to sort my stuff out.” There was silence for a few moments as we began putting our stuff away. “So what’s your…you know.”
“Stone,” I said. “I can do stuff with stone. Sculpt it, meld it, change it, walk through it – do pretty much anything. You?” He snorted.
“Take a guess. I’m big, hairy, fast and strong. And nothing happens at the full moon, before you ask.”
Mum stopped the car on the gravel outside the main school building - a large, spiky-looking manor house, covered in carvings and gargoyles. A sign labelled it as Silverglade House.
"Well, here we are," Mum said. It had been a long drive from London. "I guess this is goodbye until Christmas, then."
"I guess so," I replied, giving her a quick hug. I didn't open the door, though. "Not quite Harry Potter standards, is it? Where's my magic train?"
Mum grinned. "You could have got the train if you wanted."
"Yeah... Not magic, though." There was a pause. Neither of us wanted to leave.
"You know I'll always love you," Mum said suddenly. "No matter what happens... No matter what else happens."
"I know," I said, hugging again. "I have to go... Gotta find myself a room! Bye!"
As I got out of the car, I heard the gentle whisper of Mum's thoughts. She's turned out to be quite a girl. My little Elle. I think she's happier this way. I smiled gently to myself as I pulled my bag out of the boot. It was full of everything I might need to last the term, and it was pretty damn heavy. I had to drag it up the front steps to the manor's door, but then at least I could use the wheels.
"Can I help you?" a receptionist asked as I pushed open the door.
"Yeah... um, I'm joining new this year. What am I supposed to-?"
"Just tick your name off this list, then walk straight down the hall to the back doors, turn left, and follow the path until you reach the Sherman Building. That's where you'll be sleeping. You're quite early, so you should get a good room. I recommend a room at the very end of a corridor. They're a bit bigger. Girl's rooms are upstairs."
"Thanks," I replied shyly, heading off down the ornate hallway. Old-looking paintings hung on the walls, but I ignored them. I wanted to find a place to dump my bag.
The Sherman Building was a bit of a contrast to Silverglade House. It was an ugly, modern two-story building in the shape of a T. Each of the top arms of the T had twenty-two rooms, giving 44 rooms on each floor. The lower arm contained bathrooms, toilets, recreation rooms, and laundry rooms. The entrance was where the three arms of the T met. Warily, I pushed open the double doors - noticing the keypad had apparently been turned off. An open, rectangular room seemed to function as the reception. I dragged my bag up the stairs in the entrance hall, and was presented with a three-way junction. Rooms to the left and right, according to a sign. Let's try... Left. Remembering the receptionist's words, I headed down to the end of the corridor, and chose the room on the left. Success! It was empty. A post-it note on the brown wooden door read 'Please sign name in book in main hall'. I dumped my bag in the room, read the number off the door (S-22B) and headed back to the central hall. The book was lying open on a table, only a few names written in. I wrote my name next to the right number, and headed back to unpack.
The room was, like the rest of the building, somewhat cheap. The two beds were metal frames with old-looking, but very comfortable, mattresses, and the wardrobes were just wooden boxes with doors that could be padlocked shut. The drawers (built into a bedside table) were a little better, but still looked kind of tacky. Despite the obvious cheapness, everything worked surprisingly well. The wardrobe on my side of the room was even well-stocked with coathangars. It didn't take long for me to unpack, and, by now, I could hear more people arriving. Bags thudding up stairs. Footsteps in the corridor. The whispering of thoughts. In fact, it seemed quite busy. And I needed the toilet.
I opened the door and turned into the corridor, almost bumping straight into a girl coming the other way.
"Oh! Sorry," I said, looking down at her. I was tall anyway, and she was rather short. The girl looked very pale, which wasn’t helped by her long white coat and almost-white hair. Her eyes were strange too – the irises were white, and the bit that should have been white was a dull red.
"Don't worry..." she said in an Irish-accented voice.”D'you know if that other room's free?"
I listened, but I could hear thought-whispers from within. "It's not, sorry."
"Bugger," the short girl said. "Guess I'll have to find a roommate then..."
"Hey, why don't you move in with me? My room's bigger than most others anyway."
"Really? Um... OK then, please. Thanks."
"I'll be right back," I said, beginning to move off. "I have to... y'know. Go."
"My name's Liz," she called after me.
"Elle," I called back.
I flushed the loo and stepped out of the cubicle, tightening my belt. As I washed my hands, I habitually studied myself in the mirror, checking for any changes. But I was still the same. Green eyes, dark coppery-red hair, a thin streamlined face with high cheekbones and a pointed nose. Not exactly beautiful, but by no means ugly. Swiftly, I headed back to the room, to find Liz unpacking her stuff. Considerably more untidily than me. Crumpled clothes were scattered... well, everywhere. She seemed to have a lot more stuff than me, too - and I was worried I'd overpacked!
"Sorry, Elle. I'll tidy up..."
"D'you wanna hand with anything?" I asked.
"Yeah, OK... um, can you start bunging my clothes in my wardrobe please?"
Liz and I finished the job in record time, and, before long, we were sitting on my bed with nothing to do.
"What are you here for?" Liz asked. "Like... um, what's your thing? That you do?"
I looked at her. "Well, um... I can read minds. And... Sort of magic, basically. Theoretically, I can do almost anything, with practice." Liz looked curious, so I offered a quick demonstration. Liz nodded and leaned forward, interested, as I stretched out a hand. Closing my eyes, I reached into the gentle flow of magic around me, and weaved together a couple of smoky, insubstantial wisps of energy. I was aware of my fingers twitching gently, tracing shapes in the air, then, with a puff of smoke, a shower of rose petals fluttered from my hand.
"Wow!" Liz said, breaking my concentration. With a loud pop, a spray of sparks burst from my fingers and the spell twisted away from me.
"Ow. What can you do?" I asked, sucking on my slightly burned fingers.
“I’m... well. A bit stronger than you might think, and a lot faster. And I can... sort of see heat, like, through walls and things.”
Our discussion was interrupted by a brief scream and a loud bang from the hallway, followed by peals of laughter.
"Seems like this new school won't be all bad," I said.
The next hour passed quickly as Liz and I chatted about pretty much anything that came into our heads. As if by mutual unspoken agreement, we didn't mention much about our abilities, or what had happened when we first discovered them. Good thing too. I didn't want to freak out my new friend too much. I did learn a bit about Liz, though. She was 14, the third of five sisters in her family. And her father was Sir James Farrier, one of the richest men on the planet. He had started off building computers, but now he did... well, more or less everything. The Farriers were always on the move, following the places where their father needed to be the most. She'd mostly grown up in Ireland and New York, but also Cornwall, Brazil, Japan, Germany... the list went on.
"Of course, I hated it," Liz was saying. "I just never had a chance to settle down and get a good life going. Everyone seemed to want to know me for the money. Is that someone at the door?"
There was a knock. "Come in!" I called. A tall black girl poked her head in.
"Uh... apparently there's some kind of meeting in the quiet room. Down the centre corridor, last on the left. I think. I'm Angie, by the way."
"Elle," I replied. "And this is Liz. Thanks for telling us."
Angie grinned and disappeared back into the hallway. As Liz and I left our room, I noticed little green shoots sprouting from the wooden door where Angie's hand had been. Weird.
The meeting was in a room labelled 'QUIET ROOM' (with 'so shut up!' scratched underneath), but it was anything but quiet. I guessed everyone in the Sherman Building was crammed into it. The blue seats along the walls were all taken, and most of the floorspace was occupied too. Some kids were floating in mid-air without apparent effort, and one guy was sitting cross-legged on the ceiling, upside-down. I was surrounded by thought-whispers - happiness and excitement were the most common, but also loneliness, homesickness, and an undercurrent of deep sadness. Some really bad things had happened to some people in this room... Forcefully, I closed my mind off to the thoughts and sat down next to Liz. Barely two minutes had passed before four people walked in. Two guys and two girls, all about nineteen or twenty. They all had a small, circular badge pinned to their chest.
"Quiet please!" one of the girls said, her voice echoing through my head. Quietpleasequietpleasequietplease... Instantly, all conversation stopped.
"Sorry," she continued, her voice losing its... whatever it had. "But there was no way you'd have heard me otherwise. Anyway. Welcome to Silverglade College. I'm Anne, this is Sue, Bill and Trev. We're the prefects in charge of you newbies for this year, so, if you need anything, come to us. Now, there are some rules we ought to lay down first. Girls upstairs, boys downstairs, unless you're going to one of the rec rooms. Then, you don't pass the door that leads to the rest of the floor, OK? Rule two. The code for the front door is C2118Z, and you need to keep the Z held down as you twist the handle. Remember that code! C24... no, C2118Z! Rule three. Try not to blow stuff up. Not killing people would also be nice. Rule four. Uh... Oh, lights out at ten thirty, except weekends. You'll be meeting the headteacher tomorrow, he'll run through the rest of the school rules. Along with other stuff. Um, dinner is at six thirty, just head outside and we'll direct you to the canteen. Oh, and if you turn right as soon as you get outside and keep going, there's a good little shop on-site. You can buy sweets, rent movies, stuff like that. Anything else guys?"
Trev stepped forwards. "If the fire alarm goes off, just get outside and wait for someone to register you. Apart from that, any questions? No? Okay, head off then."
"Wait up, Elle," Liz said as people began to stand up and move out the room. "I think I know that guy over there..."
That guy over there turned out to be a fairly well built blond boy, talking to a tall boy with wings. I headed towards them, trailing after Liz, and... Wait. That guy had wings. Awesome! I took another look. They looked like they could easily be seven feet each if he stretched them out, but right now they were folded neatly behind his back. They looked almost like bird wings, covered with tan feathers, but there was something not quite right about them.
"'Scuse me," Liz said to the blond boy. "Is your name Justin Smith?"
"Yeah," he said. "Who are... Liz?! I haven't seen you since... well, I don't know when. What are you doing here? No, we can talk later. Um, this is Phil, my roommate."
The tall boy gave Liz and me a grin. For the first time, I noticed his eyes. Entirely amber, but with little specks of bronze and gold radiating from the slit-shaped pupil. Wow.
"Oi, Elle," Liz said, elbowing me. "Stop staring and say hi."
"Um... Hi guys, nice to meet you. I'm Elle... as you might have guessed." I felt like I was making a fool out of myself, so I stopped talking suddenly.
"Should we sit down?" Phil said.
Klaus Geitenberg
The Quiet Room (which wasn’t) was packed to the rafters by the time Cub and I got there. There were some blue seats along the walls, but they were all full, and so was most of the floor. Even some of the airspace was occupied – people floating in mid-air and one guy even sitting on the ceiling. It was complete chaos – people shouting and waving and generally causing havoc. I winced. I’ve never liked loud noises.
We shoved our way through some of the crowd (or rather Cub did and I followed) and eventually found ourselves a space against the wall, next to a small mixed-race guy who seemed to be vibrating and muttering to himself.
“Excuse me,” I said, horribly self-conscious. “Mind if we stand here?” He turned to us with a twitchy movement.
“Notatall,” he said, almost too fast for me to follow. Then he sighed, closed his eyes and slowed his vibrating. “Sorry, I meant ‘not at all’,” he tried.
“Er…right.” He sighed again.
“It’s my metabolism. It’s about twice as fast as anyone else’s. Means I have to speak slower than I think I do.”
“Oh.” I offered him my hand. “I’m Klaus, and this is Cub.”
“Cub?”
“Long story,” my friend muttered.
“I’m Assan. Nicetomeetyou. Sorry, nice to meet you.”
Quietpleasequietpleasequietplease…
I clapped my hands to my head as a voice rushed through my mind, then lowered them as I realised that everyone had stopped talking. There were four older people standing in the middle of the room. One of them had her hands up.
“Sorry,” she said, "but there was no way you'd have heard me otherwise.” She went on into some long speech about general stuff. All seemed to be pretty much common sense.
Once she’d finished, people began shuffling towards the exits. I turned to go, but Assan tugged on my sleeve.
“Whereareyou guys going?” he asked, slowing down in the middle of his question. I looked at Cub, who shrugged.
“Dunno,” I said. “Um…look around the place a bit, I guess.”
“Can I come with you?” I looked at Cub again. He shrugged again.
“Sure.”
We were walking down the corridor towards the entrance hall when somebody brushed past us roughly. Cub let out a small growl – and it really was a growl – and the guy turned around. He was tall and lanky with long blond hair and was wearing a plain white T-shirt, jeans and an arrogant sneer.
“Whaddya want?” His voice was as dislikeable as the rest of him.
“Nothing,” Cub said, politely. “Just watch where you’re walking, all right?”
“Yeah?” The tall guy swaggered back towards us. “Well, I think I can walk where I want, got it?”
“You could just walk round us,” Cub pointed out. His voice was still mild, but he was obviously a bit nettled by this guy.
“Hey,” he sneered, “don’t talk back to me all right?” He brought his arm forward like he was going to punch Cub, but stopped short. A fierce blast of wind picked Cub up and sent him sprawling into the wall. He turned and looked at me and Assan.
“Either of you want some?” Assan glared at him.
“Youdidn’thavetodothat,” he replied, too rattled to slow down. The guy grinned, nastily.
“Yeah? Well, I can do what I want. Remember that.” He clicked his fingers, and a wall of air slammed into my back. I saw Assan go down out of the corner of my eye as I hit the floor, hard. It was concrete – not real stone at all. No comfort there. From above, I heard his parting shot. “Remember what Sean Sanders can do.”
Beside me I could hear Cub groaning.
Eleanor Richards
The chairs in the quiet room were, like much of the other stuff in the Sherman building, cheap-looking but very comfortable. And now that everyone had left, it was actually quiet as well. Good. I let my mind reach out again, taking in the thought-whispers again. Justin was mainly happy to meet an old friend again, but I couldn't get anything from Phil - his thoughts were flicking between English, Spanish and something else incredibly quickly. I could, however, pick up low-level fear and tension from the pair of them. I didn't ask why - that might lead to ruining any chance of friendship. Or an embarrassing so-what's-your-story moment. No thanks.
"So," I said. "How do you two know each other, then?"
"We met when I was living in Cornwall, we went to the same school for a year or two. But then my parents moved to America, and...yeah. I thought I'd never see him again, least of all places here! I mean, wow. Talk about coincidence. What's your... y'know, thing?"
"Erm... I can make force fields. It sounds kinda lame at first, but there’s all kinds of cool stuff I can do with them. What about you two?"
Justin and Phil listened as we both explained our abilities, and then I asked the same question to Phil.
"What about you, Phil? I mean, apart from the obvious?"
"I don't know," he said. "I don't actually have an ability yet, except for... yeah. I might still get some kind of fireball-throwing power or something, but then I might not. You want to look around outside?"
"Um, alright," I said.
We quickly gained an idea of the shape of the college. Silverglade House stood at the front - but still nearly a mile within school grounds - and held the admin department, teacher accommodation, that sort of thing. Behind the main house were two lines of four buildings, one with the Sherman Building, two other similar accommodation buildings and a large canteen, the other with four Sherman-esque dorms. To either side of those were more buildings, mostly modern-looking. These were classrooms, mostly. Behind that was... well, everyone else said nothing, but I wasn't so sure. A large part of the forest that encircled the school seemed to shimmer slightly, like a giant soap bubble. Apparently, nobody else could even see the shimmer. As six thirty arrived, we headed back to the canteen. Well, that was one of its functions. It was the largest building on site, and, as well as a canteen, it contained a swimming pool, a large amphitheatre-like hall, a well-equipped gym, and a library. We would later find out that the library extended two floors underground.
The canteen itself was easily large enough to hold everyone at the school - which was something like one thousand one hundred students, if I remembered the leaflet I'd got with the application form correctly. Today, though, there was only our year, so the hall seemed a bit empty. The food was lovely - I'd been expecting airplane-food-style rubbish, but this was delicious! I loved a good roast dinner. Liz, Justin and Phil were engaged in an animated discussion, but I spent my time scoffing my plate. I did, however, notice something odd about Liz’s drinking habits. Justin, Phil and I all had glasses filled with either water or squash, but Liz had a white sports bottle. Whatever was in it must have been really nice, since the pale girl quivered slightly every time she drank. I could sense little waves of pleasure emanating from her as well. Finally, I could take the curiosity no more.
“Hey, Liz,” I asked. “What’s in the bottle?”
“Um... Nothing interesting. Really. You wouldn’t like it.”
“Well, it looks like you’re enjoying it. Let’s have a bit.”
Liz looked a bit uncomfortable, but handed me the bottle. I took a sip – and practically threw up as the salty, metallic taste of blood filled my mouth.
Well, I did warn you, I heard Liz think. I know you can hear me. I’ll explain back in our room. Just... don’t tell Justin, OK? He will freak out. Majorly.
“Ugh,” I said eventually, aware that everyone was looking at me.
“What was it?” Phil asked.
“Some kind of...” I stopped for a second to think. “Um, chemical thing. Don’t have any.” I picked up my glass of water and took a massive drink, before resuming my dinner. Thankfully, that horrid taste vanished quickly.
When I was finished, I looked up and down the row of tables, checking out the hundred and fifty or so kids in the year. Probably half were indistinguishable from a 'normal' human, and most of the rest had some kind of feature that wasn't too difficult to conceal - strange-coloured hair or eyes, for instance. Only a small minority - like Phil - deviated much from a usual human physique. I could see the occasional patch of fur, feathers or scales, and a few whose difference from human was more intangible, more of an aura of otherworldliness that you'd have to be blind drunk and hidden under a blanket to miss.
As I finished my second helping of strawberry trifle, Anne, the older girl who'd given us the speech earlier, stood up.
"Okay everyone," she called out in her strange mind-echoey voice. "Listen up! The rest of the night is yours, just to hang out or whatever you kids do with your time. If for any reason you need help, just dial 94735377 into any phone on the school site, or your mobiles. It's free, by the way. That will put you in touch with... um... well, the head will explain tomorrow. Sort of a help desk, I guess. If you're going to forget that number, it's like texting the word 'wireless'. Sleep well, kiddies!"
Klaus Geitenberg
After that, there didn’t seem much point in hanging around the Sherman Building, so we went and had a look round the rest of the Silverglade complex. There were a few other buildings – all brick. None of them seemed particularly interesting, so we spent most of our time wandering the grounds. Really interesting grounds, too – a mix of sandstone and limestone. We talked a bit as we went, and I found out a bit about the others. Cub’s parents, apparently, were a little…eccentric, and Assan’s hadn’t been particularly happy about his…talents. I kept quiet. I wasn’t ready to share my experiences just yet.
Before we knew it, it was time for dinner in the canteen. We were all a little wary, in case we bumped into Sean again, but he was there already, laughing with a group of sycophants, so we decided we were going to pick a table at the other end of the room – a very large room, big enough to hold the entire school, which was a heck of a lot of people.
The dinner looked absolutely delicious, and smelled even better – roast pork with rich gravy and plenty of vegetables on the side. I grabbed a plate and began shovelling food onto it as fast as I could. Behind me, Cub dithered a little.
“What is it?” the woman behind the counter asked, obviously used to difficult requests. “Would you like it raw, dear?”
“Er…no. Have you…I mean, is there…I mean…could I have something vegetarian?”
There was a pause in the conversations of everybody within earshot. A two-metre tall wolf asking for the veggie option was clearly slightly unusual.
We got to our table without further incident and began eating one of the best dinners I had ever tasted. We were about halfway through – still in an almost religious silence – when a pair of girls approached our table. One was of medium height and build with bright white hair tied back in a ponytail and the other was taller and darker, but somehow less noticeable.
“Mind if we join you?” White-hair said, casually. Assan shifted his chair up slightly while Cub and I kept eating. “Thanks.” The other girl murmured a thanks under her breath and sat down beside her companion.
“So,” the shorter girl continued, “who are you guys? I’m Sarah and this is Angela.”
“Klaus.”
“Assan.”
“Cub.”
“Cub? Cub? That’s not a name I was expecting. And is that a salad you’re eating?” Cub sighed.
“Yes it is, and yes that’s what people call me.” Sarah shrugged and took a bite of the roast. She chewed it slowly for a moment and then said – with her mouth full –
“Bit underdone, this.” Then she clenched her fist and the dish was engulfed in fire. With an abrupt gesture, she killed the flames. The pork was blackened in the middle of a cloud of gravy steam. Assan stared at it like a stuffed fish.
“Isthatyour…I mean, is that your power? Flaming stuff?” Sarah grinned.
“Yep. Fun as hell. You lot?”
We told her, briefly. She nodded, not impressed, but not disdainful either.
“What about you?” I asked Angela, who’d been sitting quietly the whole time. She flushed slightly.
“It’s not very interesting,” she said, hesitantly. “It’s just…irritating.”
“Go on,” I said.
“Well, I…I sort of disrupt electronics and computers and stuff. Mostly when I want to, but sometimes it gets a bit…out of hand.”
“Oh,” Cub said, his mouth full of lettuce. “That could be a problem.”
“You’re telling me.”
“Have any of you met Sean Sanders yet?” Sarah interrupted, bulldozing across the previous conversation. She did that a lot, I was noticing. Assan shivered – and at twice the speed it was quite an impressive sight.
“Ohyeswe’vemethim notpleasant.”
“We ran across him earlier,” Cub elaborated. “And he left us a bit…sore. He didn’t seem like a very nice guy.” Sarah snorted.
“I should say not! He was wandering around trying his luck with the girls. Cocky bastard. He was trying it with Angela till I got involved and sent him packing.”
“Wha – how?”
“Told him to fuck off.” She shrugged. “Left him gawping at thin air and dragged Angela off.” The taller girl blushed.
“That’s probably why he was in a bad mood when he met us,” I guessed.
As the others returned to their meals, I felt Cub nudge me in the ribs. I winced.
“Careful, big guy,” I muttered.
“Sorry,” he whispered back. “But you see that bunch over there?”
I looked over. On the table a couple of rows across were a group of four – two girls, two boys. One of the girls was a bit pale and one of the guys had a really nice-looking pair of wings, but other than that, they looked pretty normal. As I watched, the pale girl took a swig from a white sports bottle.
“You see that bottle?” Cub continued. I nodded. “There’s something bad in it. I can smell it.”
As I watched, the other girl took the bottle and drank from it, then held it at arm’s length and looked at it in disgust.
“Should we investigate?” I asked, under my breath.
“How?”
“We’d just have to get hold of that bottle.”
Cub looked at me sharply, but then nodded slowly.
“That might not be a bad idea.”
Eleanor Richards
“Right then,” I said as soon as the door to our room closed. “What’s with the blood?”
Liz didn’t meet my eye as she answered. “I... I died, over the summer. Then I woke up like this. Some kind of vampire. I’m still dead, technically. I don’t have a heartbeat, I don’t breathe, and I don’t even need to eat. I just do coz I like it. Blood is... it’s the only thing I actually need to survive, and it tastes so good to me, I think I might be addicted or something. I can’t help it. It’s just... what happened. And I’m trying to deal with this, but...”
She started crying. Instinctively, I sat next to her and put an arm around her shoulders. I couldn’t help noticing how cold she was.
“I know,” I said softly. “I know how difficult it can be. But... Look, I just want you to promise that you won’t try to suck my blood or anything when I’m asleep.”
Liz looked at me, grinning slightly. For the first time I noticed the little fangs in her mouth. “I promise not to suck your blood without permission,” she said.
“OK, that’ll do,” I replied. “Why didn’t you want me to tell Justin?”
“Back when I knew him, he was a Christian – not just the going-to-church kind, but the... well, you know. Kinda extreme. Now look at me: I’m some kind of vampire demon thing. If he finds out, he’ll flip. I need to find a way to tell him without driving him away.”
“Ah,” I said. “Well, listen, we’ll worry about that later. Right now...”
There was a knock on the door, and the girl from earlier poked her head in again.
“Hi,” she said. I couldn’t for the life of me remember her name. “I just wanted to introduce myself properly. I’m Angie Russell, I’m in the room just over from you. And this is my roomie, Catherine. Sorry, Cath.” Another girl, small and dark-haired, peered around the door. “And you’re... Elle and Liz, right?”
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Cool,” Angie said, walking into the room. She seemed very talkative. “Well, I just wanted to warn you, a few doors down there’s this girl called Julia Reitman... uh, if you’ll pardon my French, she seems like a bit of a major bitch. She just practically bit Cath’s head off just because of her... appearance.”
I took another look at Cath as she walked in – like Phil, she had wings, but hers were pearly-white rather than brown. She caught me looking and smiled shyly, before spreading them out behind her. Their feathered tips brushed the walls on either side of the room.
“Damn, that’s cool,” I said. “And this... Reitman character attacked you coz of that?”
“Sort of...” Cath said. She had a voice that I could only describe as angelic. What a surprise. “I didn’t even do anything, she just started yelling at me, telling me I ought to go and find somewhere where they wanted freaks like me. I told her that she was just as much a freak as I was, and...well, she didn’t take that too well.” She raised a hand and rubbed her cheek.
“Elle,” Liz whispered. “I know the name Reitman. That family owns a pretty big corporation. Not as big as mine, but still, pretty big. My dad told me that some corporations hate people like us. Maybe she’s... I don’t know. If I’m right, it must have been terrible for her. And I hate to think how she’ll react to me. Or Phil.”
I frowned. This school was already looking a bit dangerous. In that pause, there was another knock on the door. It was turning into a bloody party in here. Before I could say anything, that older girl walked in. Anne.
“Hey there,” she said with a grin. “My name’s Anne, I’ll be helping you lot get through your first year. I just thought I’d... oh, where are my manners? What’re your names?”
We told her.
“Cool, thanks,” she replied. “Anyway, welcome to Silverglade and all that. I thought I ought to give you girls the low-down on how things work around here. The stuff the head won’t cover tomorrow, that is. Basically, we’re like any other school, in that people have little groups they hang around in – but, of course, when you get a load of people like us in a school like this, there’s gonna be some... disagreements, and they can often get quite dangerous. I’d just recommend being careful, at least until you know just where you stand, who will help you if you need it, that kind of thing. Most of the older students are in some kind of group or the other, and all these little groups sort of loosely band together into larger groups, there were about four of them at the end of last year. But pretty much everyone has their own agenda, so be careful.”
“And what’s your agenda?” Liz said.
“See this?” Anne pointed at the little badge on her coat. Now that I was closer, I could see the school crest on it – a sort of pointy oval around a tree. “This means I’m a prefect – I work with the teachers and security teams to make sure these disputes don’t get too out of hand. My agenda is making sure nobody dies, nobody gets too injured, and the school stays standing.”
"That might be nice," I said lightly. 'Disputes getting out of hand' sounded like suicide at a place like this. Suicide or murder.
To: elizabeth@farriertech.com
From: james@farriertech.com
Subject: A little info
Hello Lizzie, I hope you're settling in well. I decided to spend a bit of time this evening doing a bit of digging, and I've got some rather interesting information for you. It turns out that rather more people know about metahumans than we first thought. Obviously, everybody pretends to know nothing, but there are no locked doors to a Farrier. I was able to uncover some truly disturbing snippets of information. Several other corporations of the same scale as our own are not only aware of metahumans, but are on a covert crusade against such people as you! I also found several extremist religious groups (most importantly a branch of al-Qaeda and the so-called "Church of God's Earth") that support similar views. Initially, I was worried that you are in more danger than I ever suspected, but there are also a number of organisations that take the opposite viewpoint. Not as many as I would like, but Farrier Technologies will soon be joining their number. (Secretly, of course! We can't have the world thinking Sir James Farrier is a nutjob!)
Anyway, I want to know all about Silverglade! What are they teaching you? Have you made friends yet? How is the food?
Lots of love, Dad x
P.S. Be very careful around something called CATS, I haven't been able to get much information about what it is, but it seems dangerous!
Message scanned with Zero-One VirusShield
Zero-One is a subsidiary of Farrier Technologies Ltd.
Wireless says this message is clean!
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