“It’s not mine. I took it off someone earlier.”
“Huh?”
“Look, okay, I do stuff at night, but I’m not breaking any laws, okay?”
“What stuff?”
“You don’t want to know,” Keira repeated.
“I bloody do!” she said, standing up.
Keira was tempted to invent a boyfriend, but that would simply encourage Shannon to want to come with her, just in case he had a friend.
“Look, Shannon, I’m not like most people.”
“I know, we’re all fucking unique. But somehow, I’m not sure I remember my mother telling me I could fly. What about it?”
Keira simply rose from where she stood in the middle of the room, so the top of her head touched the ceiling.
Shannon gaped at her.
“You see; I really am not like other people.”
“How the fuck....?”
Keira came back down and stood next to her friend.
“This has to go no further, understand?” she said in a voice that did not encourage disagreement.
“Look, ...”
“No Shannon; if I tell you, nobody else gets to know. I mean it.”
“Nobody?”
“Absolutely nobody. If you do, I’m dead. But then, I won’t be going alone.”
The threat was implicit, so Shannon made the sign of the cross.
“I swear.”
“As I said, I’m not like most people. I have powers.”
“Are you an alien?”
Keira was tempted to run the same story as she had to Connie, but it was rather too silly.
“I’m as human as you, but then I’m a little bit more.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”
Keira shrugged.
“I have powers that most people don’t have. If the authorities discovered about me, then I’d be locked away, and, well, you’ve seen the movie, Paul, haven’t you?”
“If you have powers, then surely you could escape?”
“Everyone has a weakness, and if there were too many of them, or they found my weakness, then I’d be helpless.”
“It’s that thing, isn’t it?” Shannon asked, pointing to the torc.
“Partially.”
“What’s that mean?”
“I have powers; all it does is amplify them so as to be even more powerful.”
“If I had it, could I fly?”
“No,” said Keira. “It’s locked into my DNA and so it would probably kill you.”
“How did you get it?”
“It found me.”
“Huh?”
“That’s all I know; it found me.”
“You mean like the Green Lantern?”
Keira looked blank.
“Only in that movie, it was a ring and a lantern. Did some alien superhero seek you out?”
“No, it was nothing like that. It was just in a pile of junk, and before I knew what was happening, I had it around my neck.”
“You mean that it got there by itself?”
“No, I put it on, but you tried to open it, and you couldn’t, right?”
“Right.”
“Well, others have tried and I’m the only one who can open it.”
Shannon regarded her friend for a moment, and then was aware that she still held the knife.
“So, what’s the story with this?”
“A burglar had it and tried to kill me.”
“What happened?”
“He was stealing memory chips from a factory; now these babies are worth serious money, and he’d pinched over a million quid’s worth. I simply assisted him to the police station with a full confession and all the evidence. I forgot about the knife.”
“Did he try to stab you, or what?”
“He threw it at me.”
“And you ducked?”
“I don’t have to duck.”
“What?”
“Try it; throw it at me.”
“Don’t be daft.”
“Go on; nothing will happen.”
Shannon wasn’t happy, but she did. Just as when Sid threw it, the knife stopped just short of Keira’s skin and was held as if in a power beam. Keira picked it out of mid-air and folded it away again.
“See!”
Shannon sat down.
“Jeeeze,” she said, regarding her friend with different eyes. “My best friend’s a fucking superhero!”
“Look, Shannon, I’m knackered, do you think we could do this another time?”
“Can you read minds and stuff?”
“Some stuff, but not minds, no.”
“What stuff?”
“How about I show you, say tomorrow night?”
“Can I come with you?”
“What?”
“On your next jaunt, can I come too?”
“Uh, how exactly?”
“Oh; can’t you carry me?”
“Not for any great distance; not if I’ve got other stuff to do.”
“I’ll work something out,” she said, leaving her friend’s room somewhat reluctantly. At the door she paused and looked back.
“Can you disintegrate people with your eyes?”
“If you don’t bugger off and let me get some sleep, I’ll try!”
Grinning, Shannon went.
On the following morning, the two girls went down for breakfast together. Shannon wanted to ask Keira so many questions, but knew that she wasn’t likely to get any answers with everyone around.
“Do you ever use your powers, you know, in a normal day?”
Keira just gave her a look, and so Shannon raised both hands in the air in surrender.
Breakfast with almost sixty girls, between sixteen and eighteen could be a noisy place, but normally it wasn’t. The food, as Keira had discovered, was by far better than any food she had eaten in a school in her life. It was much better than her mother’s cooking if it came to it.
Over the last few months, she had grown a couple of inches in height, and certainly her figure had developed and matured, more than perhaps it should have in such a short time. The sudden development had been accelerated over a short space of time, as she had not started at a normal time for puberty.
She was a good five foot nine now, and a statuesque girl with a proportionate figure. She still ate, as her father said, like a small horse, and she clearly loved her food. Mrs Lambert always took breakfast with the girls, and on this particular morning had her eye on Keira.
She had no regrets at all over the decision to accept the girl at the college. Keira had shown that she was an intelligent girl, capable of getting on with her contemporaries and more than proficient on the sports field. Judging by what her teachers said, she should get exceptional grades at ‘A’ level, and might even go on and do her Oxbridge entrance exam.
However, there was something rather unsettling about the girl, and Doreen couldn’t quite put her finger on what it was. On those rare occasions when she had to sit in on a class, or was in a position to observe the girl, Keira was distinctly calculating. That was it; she was always assessing everything that went on around her. It was almost as if she was an undercover spy watching and logging everything she saw.
The other thing that interested Doreen was that she wasn’t like a lot of the girls, who rarely shut up. Keira spoke sparely, but whenever she did, it was always worth listening to. She was friends with Shannon, which was odd, because the Irish girl as a year ahead of Keira. They shared no classes, so it was not what anyone would have expected. They were like chalk and cheese. Keira was cool, calm and sophisticated compared to the volatile Irish girl, who, by her own admission was rather a rough diamond.
Doreen felt they complimented each other very well. Shannon had sailed very close to the wind during her first year. Boys were a major problem, and it took extreme measures to keep her away from straying down the road to the boys’ school.
She had, however, grown up a lot in her first year, and Doreen felt that this friendship further stabilised Shannon.
As she watched the pair, Shannon was oblivious, while Keira was acutely aware of the Head’s scrutiny. She was, Doreen felt, much older and wiser than her years suggested. As she met Keira’s glance, she felt a bolt of power that frightened her a little. She had to look away, as nonchalantly as she could.
What was that? Keira thought, as she watched the Lambster physically wince as the Head-mistress made eye contact with her, and then looked away hurriedly.