Avalon (4 page)

The whole class looked at me with hopeful eyes. I knew the answer but I didn’t want to be a show off.

“Go on, Holly,” Emily said. “You might as well give it a go.”

“The first and second groups are rare metals, in other words not used in everyday, but they still have some elements which are used more: Potassium, Sodium, Magnesium and Calcium. Group three is commonly used: they are Iron, Gold, Chromium, vanadium, Copper, Zinc, Titanium, Platinum and Silver. The fourth group is also common but used as much as group three: the elements are Aluminum, Tin and Lead. The last two groups, the fifth and sixth groups are rare and unstable: Neodymium, Cerium, Uranium, Plutonium.”

“Woohoo,” the class yelled, clapping and whistling.

I couldn’t help but smile from ear to ear. My whole class had made me feel extra special, even more welcome.

“Well, Holly, I have been happily surprised. Well done. Class you can thank the newest member for giving you the chance to go twenty minutes before the bell. Holly, I know you have done this work before but we will be covering metals over this term, so perhaps I will have to organise some extra work for you.”

I nodded, still smiling shyly.

Sir had the class write down all the groups of metals and then the twenty different metals before letting everyone go. Emily and I went to the courtyard with all the other kids and soon I was surrounded by all the girls and boys in my class. They all had so many questions and they thanked me for answering Sir’s questions.

“It was nothing, I’m happy to help.”

At lunchtime Emily and I collected a tray from the food counter and selected the food we wanted to eat. I took some pasta with bolognaise sauce, a small yogurt and small bowl of fruit salad. We sat at a long empty table and were joined by many children from our class.

“Wow, you’ve really made a good impression,” Emily said. “I don’t usually have this much company at lunch time.”

I talked a little with most of the children in my class and finished the day with sports. The boys played football and the girls played netball. I had never played the game before but I quickly caught on and really got into it. I had a go playing Wing Attack and then Centre.

Stuart and Sara collected me at 3.30pm at pick up. I had to learn the procedure for pick-up which meant day pupils had to line up in the common area and take their turn to sign out.

“Next,” said a teacher sitting behind a desk. I had not met him before.

“Holly Stephens.”

He ticked a piece of paper, looked up at me then said, “Done, you can go.”

I could see Sara and Stuart waiting, Sara waved to me briefly so that I could find her easily.

“How was your first day at school, Holly?”

“Really good.”

“That’s great news,” Sara said looking straight from me directly to Stuart approvingly. “Holly, I have some news for you. Your mum had a little boy today, they called him George.”

“Is mum all right?”

“Yes mother and baby are fine. She wanted me to remind you how much she loves you.”

As I got into the car I felt a surge of emotions. I missed my mum and dad, I wanted to meet my brother and I knew I never would.

Sara seemed to understand how I was feeling. “What would you like for dinner? Just name it and we’ll make it,” she said.

“I’m not really hungry.”

“OK, you let me know if you change your mind.”

I nodded.

Sara and Stuart always gave me a present on my birthday and on the anniversary of my arrival on Earth. Today I had officially been on Earth for two years, but it felt so much longer. Even though I am not related to Sara and Stuart, you wouldn’t know it – they treat me like their daughter and I treat them like my parents. Sara and I have become particularly close over the last two years, especially when I have my melancholy moments, she is always there to comfort me, sometimes just sitting with me and rubbing my back while I sob. I don’t really cry as much as I used to, I actually quite like my new life.

At school I’ve become quite popular. I was given the lead in last year’s school play and really enjoy performing arts, something I didn’t really get into before. I tend to excel in science, having a natural aptitude for the subject, I just get it, all of it; physics, chemistry and biology. My teacher suggested I think about being a doctor or a scientist, I’ll keep that in mind, but for now I like the idea of performing. I also like doing athletics, particularly sprinting and the 400 metres race. So far I’ve competed against the whole county and I’m ranked at ten for all under 15’s, in my county and in my age group.

Emily and I have become firm friends. She lives in a big manor house on a farm and is the only child at home as her older sister has left. Emily was a mistake, but a welcomed mistake, but she does feel isolated some times. I would love to live in a house like Emily’s but if I did I wouldn’t be able to hop on my bike and go for ride, or walk down to the shops. So there are good things that come from living on an estate. Emily loves to come over to my place for a sleepover, and I love going to her house too. Emily is thinking about becoming a weekly boarder as her parents think it would help her socialise.

I’ve been toying with the idea of boarding too; it would be like a sleepover with Emily every night, but I haven’t suggested it to Sara or Stuart because I’m not sure if it’s what I really want to do.

I made a big discovery recently, one I was not expecting. I was at Emily’s house for the weekend, we had decided to ride the horses right up and over the hills when Emily fell off and she fell hard. She was crying and couldn’t move, her legs appeared to be paralyzed. I think Emily was crying because she thought she had broken her neck and her back or at least a couple of vertebras, I mean why else couldn’t she move her legs? I got off my horse and went to her side and knelt down next to her lifting her head slightly, resting it on my knees and stroked her hair off her face. I told her to relax and try and calm down when I noticed a strong warmth in the palm of my hands, almost a burn, like an intensive heat. Worried Emily might feel the heat and think I was a freak I placed my hands under her head so they were out of view. I didn’t know what was happening and didn’t know what to do. After a short time, maybe a minute or two, Emily began to move her legs and screamed out, “I haven’t broken anything, I’m not paralyzed.” She laughed, then laughed and cried at the same time, as if she were laughing at how scared she had been for nothing. Emily didn’t want to ride back to the stables, so we walked the horses back to the barns. All the while I thought about my hands and what the intense heat might mean.

A couple of weeks after that, little Joey Olsen – not so little at ten – who lives across the road, climbed the large tree out the front of his house. I’d seen him do it a million times. I was talking to Stuart who was washing the car. I can’t really remember what we were talking about when Joey fell out of the tree and cried out. I ran across the road and when I got to him I noticed his arm was broken, really broken. The bone had snapped and made his arm look like it had doubled back on itself. I told him not to look at his arm while Stuart knocked on Joey’s front door to tell his parents what had happened. I lent down and took Joey’s hand in mine, as a way of comforting him. My hand began to grow powerfully warm, in the same peculiar way as had happened at Emily’s place. I dropped Joey’s hand worried he could also feel the heat, but he couldn’t because he asked me to take his hand again as it made him feel good. I took his hand and asked, “Joey is it too hot for you?”

“Hot? What’s hot?”

“My hand.”

“No I can’t feel that it is too hot, but I like you holding my hand.” He smiled as if he had just been given some drugs to ease the pain.

I continued to hold his hand as I waited for Joey’s mum to come out and take her son to hospital. I stroked his brow and told Joey it was all going to be fine.

“Joey, what happened? Are you all right?” Joey’s mum hollered as she ran over to his side. “Thank you, Holly. You’re a sweet girl.”

“No, it’s nothing,” I said releasing my grasp from Joey and getting up so that his mother could take my place. I shook my hands as if to shake off the heat. They cooled down almost immediately.

“I’m fine, Mum.” Joey said.

“So why are you lying on the ground then?”

“I fell out of the tree, but I’m fine. Look,” he said getting up off the grass. He stood up in front of us all and straightened himself. “See, all fine.”

“Good,” Joey’s mum said. “Now, Mister, I do not want to see you climbing that tree again. OK?” she said pulling him into an embrace.

“Yes, Mum.”

Sure enough Joey was perfectly fine, I was certain his arm had been broken. which led me to question if I had some kind of special ability.

“Thanks, Holly,” Joey said giving me a hug.

“It was nothing. I just kept you company.”

Joey looked at me as if he knew something, but he wasn’t going to say anything. Had I actually healed him? Is that what I had done? How?

When Joey went back inside, Stuart and I crossed the road and carried on where we had left off. Stuart used a chamois towel to dry the car and I thought it was as perfect a time as any to tell him my suspicions.

“Sounds interesting, Holly. If you were going to have an ability it would happen anytime between the ages of eleven and, say, fourteen or fifteen. It happens when you go through puberty. They call it second stage on Avalon.”

“Do you think I’ve got one?” I asked knowing that both Stuart and Sara didn’t have an ability. Not everyone got one, my parents didn’t yet they both trained to be someone who helped other people.

“I think we should find out once and for all.”

“How?”

“Well I have an idea, my colleague at work has a dog, an Alsatian. He had hip problems and his hind legs collapsed and drag on the floor. It’s very distressing for Mel, she doesn’t want to put her dog down, but she thinks the longer he lives the longer she is prolonging his pain. Mel’s the type of person who talks about her dog like he is her child, he means the world to her.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Let’s pay a visit to Mel and check out her dog. See if you can heal him.”

“Wow, Stuart. That’s a great plan.”

“Let me call her,” he said getting out his phone from his jeans pocket.

While Stuart did this, I went inside and told Sara who was busy baking, what had happened. Collecting her cooked cake from the oven with her oven mittens, Sara dropped the cake tin and almost ruined the cake.

“You think you’ve got an ability?” she said excitedly.

“Well, I might have.”

“Oh, Holly, this is so wonderful. I’ve never met another Avalonean with an ability. Not knowingly anyway. Avaloneans with abilities tend to keep it to themselves, unless of course they are asked to join the Royal League. Then it’s a given that they have one.”

“I thought lots of Avaloneans have abilities.”

“They reckon only about a percent, but the truth is no one really knows.”

“I would never tell anyone I had an ability.”

“Well, not on Earth you wouldn’t.”

“I wouldn’t on Avalon either.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know, I wouldn’t want anyone to treat me differently.”

“People would only treat you different in a special way, not in a negative way. Anyway you don’t even have to concern yourself with that, you’re here on Earth and you’re not going back to Avalon. How are we going to confirm your ability?”

“Stuart is going to take me over to Mel’s house. She has a dog that needs healing and we’re going to see once and for all if I can do this or not.”

“Oh, sounds perfect! I’m going to come too. I wouldn’t miss this moment for anything.”

Stuart slammed the front door and entered the kitchen “Something smells nice,” he said leaning over to give Sara a kiss and touched her warm cake with his fingertips. “Let’s go. I told Mel that you have been on about getting a dog and that you wanted to come over and see hers. She said we can go over there now.”

Sara took her apron off and the three of us headed to the car, nervous and excited. If I could truly help people then wouldn’t it be worth considering being a doctor? Or even a vet? I do love animals.

Arriving at Mel’s, Sara squeezed my arm. “Holly, I can’t believe this is happening. I am so happy for you.”

“Come on,” Stuart told us both.

We knocked on the door and Mel, a lady in her fifties, with salt and pepper hair up tied up in a bun and coke bottle-thick glasses, answered the door. Boy did she look stereotypical; if ever there was a stereotypical teacher she was it.

“Stuart, come in,” she said with a warm welcome. “Come, all of you come in.”

I wiped my feet on the front door mat and entered the house. Mel’s décor was definitely not my style but nonetheless it was a welcomed space. There were more indoor plants than I had ever seen before, rather like a greenhouse with furniture. She had one three-seat fabric sofa with a patchwork blanket hanging over the centre of it and a single padded rocking chair which she perched on. It looked comfy and I kind of wanted to have a go at rocking in it. We sat on the sofa as Mel stood up.