Children of the Elementi (2 page)

He heard another loud smash from downstairs and winced. Another plate gone. It was a good thing he had hidden her good china last week! The way Aunt Emma threw dishes, there would be nothing left. Although she really had to improve her aim. Uncle Ben was far too good at dodging. He grinned.

This had been coming for months. His uncle was so clumsy; it had only been a matter of time before Aunt Emma found out. Giving up on the assignment, Jake opened his browser. As he was typing his password into his favorite site, Chatlite pinged. Karl was finally online.

Karl359:
Waz up?

Tech_Warrior:
Not much. The Richards are at it again.

Karl359:
at least they don’t shout at you!!

Tech_Warrior:
only cos I don’t exist to them. lol

Karl359: The video?

Tech_Warrior:
No, They might hear I’m not doing homework :-)

Karl359:
K, have you had a chance to look at Battle Land yet? There are some great moves we could copy for next week.

Tech_Warrior:
No, I’m bored though, I might as well have a look.

Karl359:
K, I’ve sent you the link by email. You’ll lose it otherwise!

Karl359:
Did you get the answers for the science test tomorrow?

Tech_Warrior:
You know it doesn’t work like that. He was thinking about the periodic tables and something 2 do with compounds, before D distracted him.

Karl359:
cool. At least it narrows it down. Here’s that link. I’ll let N know tonight. He should leave us alone for a few days.

“Jake!” Aunt Emma’s shriek reverberated from downstairs.

Tech_Warrior:
M’s calling. b4n. C u later.

Karl359: K

Rushing downstairs, Jake found Emma alone in the lounge. She sat in her favorite chair, staring into the gentle flames of the gas fire. Her eyes were red; she’d been crying again. As Jake reached to push the door open, he recoiled in surprise. The turmoil from her mind hit him like an icy blast. Without any conscious effort on his part, his aunt’s thoughts became clearer.

He’d tried to explain it to Karl. How he could almost hear people talking to him even though he knew they weren’t. It came and went, too quickly to harness. Jake moved forward to read her surface thoughts before it disappeared again. It seemed this time she thought Ben was gone for good. Jake shook his head in disgust. He knew it was just another argument. It happened almost every other day. She always thought Ben was going to leave. “Chance would be a fine thing,” he grumbled under his breath.

Normally he could only hear thoughts for a few seconds, but for some reason he could still hear her. Aunt Emma was obviously more upset than usual. Whatever, he did not want to hear it. Jake turned to leave the room. He didn’t want to invade her privacy any more than he had to. He
liked
Aunt Emma. But he ‘heard’ her think about him and... what was it? Adoption...? ...in the same thought - ...what?

“Aunt Emma?”

“Oh Jake, you took your time.” She smiled weakly and turned to face him. “I need you to pop out and get me some stamps. Are you out tonight?”

“No, I’ll just stay in my room again,” he bluffed.

Emma paused.

“Well next time you ‘stay in your room’, do make sure you close your window properly as you leave. Ben nearly caught you yesterday. I had to go to your room to stop the shutter banging. I know you need your freedom, so I covered for you.” Emma dissolved in tears. “That’s if he comes back.”

“He will, don’t worry.” Jake pulled up a stool and shoved a pile of Ben’s car magazines on the floor. The box of tissues was underneath them.

He had to find out about the adoption. Were Ben and Emma going to adopt someone?

“Is anyone in our family adopted?”

Emma stared at Jake, tissue halfway to her eyes. Jake concentrated on her thoughts. They were flitting about. He saw Ben in her mind telling her never to tell him. They were in their old house in London. Jake had never seen it but he had seen pictures. Never tell him what? She was trying to work out how he knew. He prodded her thoughts,
What
? … and her mind darted to a will hidden in the room. Unconsciously, her eyes strayed to the bay window and he saw where it was hidden in her mind.

Emma stood quickly and swept past Jake. She paused in the doorway, “Don’t be silly. I don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s some money on the table for the stamps. Don’t be too long. Your tea will be ready in one hour.”

Stunned, Jake sat there for a moment. He was adopted? How? Why hadn’t his parents said anything? He tried to deny what he had just discovered, but it was clear in her mind. How could his parents not have
told
him? Shaking his head to clear it, he picked up the five-pound note from the coffee table, grabbed his coat and headed for the back door. What was going on? He had ‘seen’ where his aunt and uncle kept his parents’ will. Tonight, he decided. He would look for it while his aunt and uncle were asleep. Adoption was far more important than just another beach party.

Later in his room, Jake waited until he heard the click of the landing light.
Great, they were in bed.
Quietly he opened his door and listened intently for a few moments. Hearing no movement, he stepped tentatively on to the cream carpet in the hall. Slowly he crept down the wooden staircase, keeping to the left to avoid loose floorboards. He hesitated every few steps to listen for movement on the landing. At the bottom of the steps, Jake breathed a sigh of relief. He seemed to be the only one awake.

Now in the downstairs hall, Jake didn’t dither but headed straight for the sitting room. Light from the street streamed through the net curtains into the small room.

Jake walked towards the bay window. As he reached the sandy-colored sofa he knelt down and pushed it a few inches to the left. Yes! The carpet was loose there. He pulled up the corner and saw a small floor safe with a combination lock. Talk about security overkill.

Jake thought back to the afternoon. What
was
that security code? Oh yeah. He entered the numbers he remembered lifting from Emma’s mind into the keypad. The lock whirred and clicked and he froze for a second. The sound too loud in the silent room.

Success! He moved a little to the left of the window to gain more light and opened the safe fully. It was filled with colored folders, which he stacked on the sofa arm one by one. Beneath them lay his parent’s and, below it, another folder with his name.

He removed the two folders and carefully put everything back the way he’d found it and closed the safe. Silently, he moved the sofa back and tiptoed eagerly back up to his room.

Once in his bedroom, he kicked his dirty clothes across the floor and stuffed them against the crack under his door. Sure that no light would creep out into the landing, he turned his bedroom lamp on and tilted it to get maximum light on his bed. He sat down and looked at the two colored files.

The blue one bulged with something hard and solid. Jake emptied the contents over the duvet. An envelope, a crystal pendant and some loose paperwork spilled out. Ignoring the paperwork for now, Jake picked up the envelope. It was addressed to him in his dad’s untidy scrawl. Underneath his name, he read that it was meant to be opened on his own eighteenth birthday. Taking the letter out of the yellowing envelope, he absent-mindedly smoothed the creases out of the paper.

His eyes roamed the page, scanning the type quickly, eager to know more.

Dear Jake,

First of all we want to say how proud we are of you, we love you and you will always be our son.

We couldn’t find the words to tell you before but you were adopted when you were a baby. We will support you in every way we can if you want to look for your birth parents.

We included a pendant with this letter that was found with you. We should have given it to you years ago. Social Services insisted that we had to because your birth parents wanted you to have it. We can only say we are sorry for not giving it to you before now but if we had we would have had to admit that you were adopted. We love you too much and thought we would lose you if we did that.

We hope you can forgive us.

Mum and Dad

The paperwork looked like adoption documents. They had both his mother and father’s signatures on them but no information about his real parents. The will in the last file only told him what he already knew - that in the event of his parents’ death, his uncle, Ben, would look after him.

And there was the crystal.

It hung off a black leather thong, suspended in a circle of white metal. The crystal itself was small but clear. Holding it up to the light, he couldn’t see any flaws. It looked like a perfect globe. Engraved on the edge of the metal, Jake could just make out some symbols, but these were far too small to see clearly.

Fascinated, Jake stared into the depths of the stone. In the lamplight, it glowed a soft yellow, green to blue and finally red and back to yellow from deep in the center. Feeling an irresistible urge to put it on, he slid it over his head and tucked it under his black t-shirt. A warmth began to emanate from the crystal, making him feel drowsy. As it crept though his body, Jake felt more relaxed than he’d ever felt before.

He lay back on to his pillows and closed his eyes. This was amazing, he felt like he was floating. His awareness expanded, taking in the whole room. He could see but he knew he had his eyes closed. Turning, he saw his body below him. Underneath the t-shirt there was a glow in the crack between the t-shirt and his skin. Wow.

This is weird, he thought. His legs hung off the bed at an odd angle while his upper body lay on his pillows. His arms were folded on his chest and obscured the logo underneath. However, his face seemed relaxed. He couldn’t help comparing himself to his friend. Where Karl was relatively short and ginger, Jake was tall and blond. Jake grinned; he was taller than some of the teachers!

Thinking of school, he suddenly remembered about his promise to meet Karl at the beach. Without warning he was floating towards the wall. Jake raised his arms over his eyes as the wall loomed closer. Of course, he didn’t have arms! Silently yelling he passed through the bedroom wall. With horror, he felt rather than saw spiders scuttling in the wall and he was through to the outside. Taking a few seconds to gain his bearings he realized he was far from the ground. He was floating in mid-air! The realization hit him.
Oh my God, I’m floating in mid-air!
He told himself not to panic but vertigo began to set in. He began to fall. His thoughts froze as fear gripped his mind. The grass was getting closer but his friend filled his thoughts. He was supposed to be meeting Karl. What a time to be thinking of Karl! But he stopped falling and began to move along again. He was off, heading towards the sea.

As he floated, Jake became more confident. He tried to take in all the details. Everything was so clear. He’d always had good vision but he’d never seen anything like this! He could see the details of every brick of every house he passed.

He began to notice sounds and realized they were muted. A brown moth fluttered against a window across the road. His progress slowed as he concentrated on the insect and his hearing sharpened. Jake could hear the wings hitting the glass with a large regular thump, thump, thump. Suddenly, he began to hear other sounds. People were shouting in the house across the road and a baby was crying in another. A bat passed, the clicks a counterpoint to the other sounds. They were getting louder, Jake’s instinct was to cover his ears, but he didn’t have any hands. Karl. Karl he had to get to Karl. He was off again, the sounds muted once more.

Within moments he passed his school. It was dark now, its gates closed. It reminded him of a haunted house he’d seen from an old horror movie. He concentrated on the boy's wing and felt himself slow down. He circled over to Karl’s window to see if he had already gone. The curtains were open and he saw two rows of beds. Jake looked to the left through the glazed windowpanes and sighed. He could tell from the shape on the bed that Karl had rolled up clothes to look like a person.
Matron should be wise to that trick by now. Maybe she didn’t care?

Thinking of people who didn’t care, he was glad his uncle hadn’t made him board here. He thought he might when he first arrived but Ben kept him at this school for appearance’s sake. Fortunately for him, Ben hated spending more money than he had to on him. It was cramping his style. Paying for Jake to board there would mean he had less money to spend on his
girlfriends
. But again he wouldn’t want his friends at the golf club to think he was mean so he was still allowed to be a day-boy - and Ben never let him forget it, Jake thought bitterly.

Jake recalled the will. When his parents died last year, Ben and Emma were left a third of their money. That was three hundred and fifty
thousand
pounds! It wasn’t as if his parents had dumped him on them expecting them to struggle with him. The school fees didn’t cost that much, he thought.

He could see the beach peeking through some trees; it wasn’t too far now. This was the main reason everyone chose it as a meeting place. Following a break in the fence, a well-trodden mud path marked the way through the park. He was so close; he could see Karl’s ginger hair shining like a beacon in the distant firelight. As usual he was sitting on the sand alone, slightly apart from everyone else. Jake felt a pang of guilt. It wasn’t his fault. Karl would understand. After all, it wasn’t every day you found out you were adopted or come to think of it left your body and flew!

Jake gently floated down to beach level and sat down next to his friend. A few of the others were standing next to the fire, chatting and drinking. Someone had brought some speakers and attached it to their phone and a few of the girls were dancing; a bottle in one hand and their phones in the other. Probably texting one another, Jake thought.