Preternatural (Worlds & Secrets)

by Lloyd Harry-Davis

  “Yes,” Nicholas answered.

  “And we were in year nine!” Jaden finalised.

  “Nooo! Listen, you’ve got it all wrong, mates. We’re in year ten and we have been since the beginning of September. Year nine’s long gone!” Jaden and I tapped our soles on the ground, now drained of tolerance and respect for jokes.

  “Ridiculous, isn’t it?” I uttered underneath my breath to Jaden. “Barbaric,” he seconded.

  “Anyway chaps, listen, we’ve got class now so I suggest we hurry up. Oh and here, I have two spares.” Nicholas put his hand in his pocket and handed us two palm-sized, stitched, emerald green clovers, stating: Senior Year 10, Academic year 2014–2015: Cressile International School.

  Although Jaden and I were still looking at our clovers with incredulity and still had not understood an ounce of what was taking place (even if we were trying to behave as normal as possible), I grabbed Nicholas’wrist before he could leave to his next lesson and he rolled his eyes.

  “I’m serious if you don’t break out of character of your joke, Aden, I will punch you.”

  “Nicholas,” I asked, panting for no apparent reason other than surprise.

  “I think there must have been a mistake? These are a year ahead,” I pointed to the crests he gave us.

  “No. No mistake. It’s 2014.” Jaden rubbed his eyes whilst shutting them with a long and irksome moan.

  “2014. What? Do you think I was born yesterday?” I retorted. Jaden and I subconsciously scratched the backs of our heads.

  “Yeah, I know. Still takes me some time to get used to my exercises in English. You know how Mr Durell makes us number our exercises?” Nicholas asked.

  “Uh-huh,” Jaden subliminally agreed.

  “Yeah, I would think so. Except who the hell’s Mr Durell?” Jaden said, correcting what he had previously said. Nicholas sighed exasperatedly, running out of his previous newfound patience.

  “This is getting really annoying now. All right, Mr Durell is the new English teacher for upper secondary – for seniors. Look, guys, I’d love to stay and chat but we’ve got Physics in two minutes so I’ll tell you what, we can chat on the way,” he said dully.

  “Actually, we’ve got to go and see Miss Fanwall so you just go on ahead,” I responded, still clutching the clover in my hand. He ran down the corridor, about to catch up to his friends when Miss Fanwall (who seemed to be walking towards him as he ran) shot him a sharp glance.

  “No running in the corridor,” she scolded.

  “Yes, Miss,” he replied, intimidated and slowing down respectfully.

  Physics? Mr Durell? Miss Strottman getting sacked? Had the world gone mad?!

  Jaden and I looked at each other again before quickly running off to the girls’ locker room, hammering our fists against the swinging doors.

  “Jade! Jade, come out – we have something to tell you,” we screamed.

  “What’s wrong, fleas?” she exhaled as soon as she opened the doors. I put the clover in front of her eyes and she rapidly read its text in her head.

  “But that’s impossible. It’s 2013. Now I know it must be a prank,” she said, trying hard to convince herself.

  “No, it isn’t,” Jaden immediately countered.

  “Look –” he continued, dragging Jade forward to the direction Miss Fanwall was walking. I quickly followed. We slowly approached Miss Fanwall: a middle-aged frizzed brunette woman with a glowing smile and eyes nearly always squinted due to her constant beam.

  As soon as she caught sight of us, she opened her eyes and mouth in total relief, as if seeing us was the prize of the year. Frankly, I was lost here because she had seen us yesterday – therefore I didn’t understand the enormous grin that was spread across her face. Jade was her favourite student and being her two brothers, Jaden and I gained some leniency from her.

  “Jade, what are you doing here?” she asked, approaching my sister with her arms wide open and embracing her in a tight hug.

  “Ow…intruding comfort zone!” Jade mouthed to us behind Miss Fanwall’s back.

  “How have your A-Levels been?” she asked. Jade narrowed her eyebrows in confusion.

  “A-Levels? Um, Miss Fanwall –”

  “Boys, why are you so late? It’s not a very much appreciated entrance. Do you have an excuse?” she asked.

  “Y-yes –” Jaden stuttered.

  “The dentist’s,” I quickly interjected without hesitation.

  “School policy says you need a note from a parent or guardian. Do you have one?” she automatically responded with not a second to lose. I turned my head slowly towards Jaden. What mess had I just gotten myself into? Thinking was not a hobby of mine.

  “Improvise!” I said through gritted teeth to Jaden. But he didn’t comprehend. I smacked my hand onto my face and sighed out of extreme annoyance.

  “Well –” I said whilst digging my hand into my pocket. Suddenly, my eyebrows furrowed. There was something in my pockets that felt out of place. It wasn’t the usual pieces of gum in wrappers, neither little sweets – but what felt like a very neatly folded piece of paper. I pulled it out and opened the note. I skimmed through it, not caring about the contents (for the handwriting was too ghastly to decipher) so I just skipped to the bottom. That’s when I realised things were severely wrong today. The note – in fact the letter – was signed ‘Angelina Blue’.

  I stared at the note in dismay but I was also very bemused. I couldn’t delay otherwise Miss Fanwall would become suspicious of anything I wasn’t aware of for some reason. And so would Jaden and Jade. I handed Miss Fanwall the note, with my eyes still trailing after it. She took out her reading glasses and saw the signature.

  “Okay, I see your mother still has the same signature from high school,” she said.

  “You went to school with our mother?” Jade asked. Miss Fanwall nodded back.

  “Ow,” Jaden mumbled, breaking the awkward silence between us and Miss Fanwall.

  “What’s wrong?” she interrogated.

  “My molar – it’s aching,” Jaden replied.

  “Oh, maybe you shouldn’t have come to school the same day you went to the dentist. Would you like to go home?” she asked.

  “Well, I don’t mean to cause a fuss,” Jaden pretended, with his hand to his left cheek.

  “I assume you went to the dentist’s as well. I think you should also rest. Would you like to?” she asked me.

  Jaden looked at me viciously in such a way that said: say yes, say yes.

  “Yes? Yes. Please,” I replied unconvincingly.

  “Okay,” she said, all chipper and utterly too bubbly for my liking, “I’ll go make a phone call. So, Jade, how’s your new sixth-form working out?” At that specific point, I knew this couldn’t be a joke. I mean seriously – a teacher was involved in this ‘advanced year’ misunderstanding. Jade was a year away from sixth-form and it wasn’t even April fool’s day to be making such a baffling prank.

  “Sixth-form, what do you mean sixth-form?” Jade stammered, “I’m still in year eleven. You do know that, don’t you, Miss?” A terror-stricken look was on her face as she glanced at us for some sort of explanation.

  “Oh, Jade,” Miss Fanwall said with a soft chuckle.

  “What?” Jade asked.

  “You can’t let go, can you? Don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get used to being away from this place after a while. I must say, however, that I was extremely proud to hear of your six A stars and five A’s in your final examinations. Best results out of the whole year group.” Miss Fanwall beamed a radiant smile that knocked Jade’s face from confused to damn near emotionally terrorised. Jaden and I looked at each other again, even more emotionally undone than our sister.

  “Um, Miss Fanwall, if you don’t mind could we make that phone call to our mother? My toothache is starting to get to my head,” said Jaden.

  “Yes, of course! Look at me standing around here blabbing on. Follow me.”

  The teacher walked ahead whilst we
followed her eagerly. She clutched documents to her chest as she led us to the reception. Jade still seemed shocked and unaware of the circumstances that had mysteriously happened. We made a stop at a blue painted door with a triangular sign reading “Reception” in white writing. Miss Fanwall swung the door open only to reveal a wide room with a broad, brown, polished desk that seemed to be nearly half the size of the neatly furnished office.

  “Here you go, guys. Just go and make the phone call and I’m pretty sure your mother will be here in no time,” she said, still beaming at us. We advanced into the room and looked around. The room had a natural vibe to it: dark ebony floorboards with different tones of a nature brown and a flowerpot in each corner of the room where long exotic green plants with broad leaves were planted. The warm amber dimmer lights were on due to the horrible greying sky outside that grew blacker by the minute. Suddenly, as if my head had been forcefully turned to stare at it, a wilting plant in a glass, water-filled vase on the table caught my attention.

  Now it was probably just me and my overactive imagination – or maybe the confusion was getting to me – but I could have sworn I noticed a leaf starting to sprout ever so slowly. Concurrently the flower seemed slightly greener than a few seconds before. My eyes grew larger until Miss Fanwall snapped me out of my sudden trance.

  “Aden, are you okay? It seems as if – well it almost looks as if your eyes have turned green?” Miss Fanwall was unsure and foggy about the situation. She didn’t know exactly what she was seeing.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Oh, never mind actually. Just go and make your phone call,” she said, gesturing to the telephone. I pushed myself past Jaden and Jade.

  “Will you call or should I?” I asked my brother.

  “You should. I don’t really know how to start explaining this to mum,” Jaden said undertone. I went to the phone and dialled mum’s mobile number. “It’s ringing,” I said to the others.

  Almost immediately, I heard a phone ringing outside the office, at which point I turned around cautiously. Mum suddenly walked in as if it was the most perfectly ordinary thing in the world and began talking to Miss Fanwall. I slowly hung up the phone with my mind perplexed. I looked at Jaden, who was just as stunned as I was.

  “Mum,” I let go of the phone, “how did you get here so fast?” I asked.

  “Well, I came to see Mr Leery.” Our faces were enough to tell mum we were lost.

  “Mr Leery? But it seems like you wanted to call me. Why? What’s wrong?” she quizzed. Jaden and I looked at each other. I pinched Jaden on the back and gesticulated to mum with my head discretely.

  “Ow,” he silently said.

  “Oh, right. Erm, mum, I have a toothache. So can I please go home?” Jaden asked, his sentence seeming so blatantly plain that he winced upon the end of his statement, convinced that mum would suspiciously react.

  I pinched him again.

  “Ow,” he exclaimed a bit louder through gritted teeth. “I mean Aden and I. It must’ve been all those sweets we had after the dentist’s,” Jaden spoke shrilly and in upright manner, as if he had been turned to porcelain and was unable to move. At that point I knew we were finished. Mum’s eyebrows rose in surprise and she slowly folded her arms. There was no dentist, and I’m sure she knew that. But what she said baffled me all the more. It really wasn’t a good day to be sane today.

  “Well, I’m sure if both of you are in too much pain to concentrate then that’s fine with me. Georgina, is this okay with you?” mum asked with a perfect blasé face.

  “Oh, it’s fine. You can skip one day, I suppose. It’s more of revision now since you are seniors, so don’t be reluctant to just pop open a book,” said Miss Fanwall in her usual ear-to-ear grin.

  “Seniors, seriously?” mum asked us with a confused tone.

  “Yes, seniors,” said Miss Fanwall “look,” she gestured. “They have their crests to stitch on. It’s strange though, they should’ve gotten these at the beginning of the year. I guess they grow up so fast don’t they.”

  “Yeah,” mum forced out a fake and unpersuasive laugh. “That must be it,” she muttered underneath her breath.

  “So, Lina, how’s Jade’s performance in her new school?” asked Miss Fanwall, too inquisitive for her own good.

  “Oh, it’s great! She’s taking part in all these extra-curricular activities and I’m getting very good reports and comments about her.”

  “You are?” Jade asked in astonishment.

  “Yeah,” mum said staring at Jade so spine-chillingly that she shut up all together. Did mum know about all this? Or was she deliberately playing along?

  “Anyway, I’d love to stay and chat, Georgina, but I’ve got to take the kids home and stitch these for them. Oh and please tell Mr Leery I’ll try and stop by tomorrow – I’ll have to cancel today’s appointment. Come on let’s go,” mum said, hurriedly ushering us out.

  “Bye,” Jade, Jaden and I each sang individually as we walked out of the office door.

  “Oh, Jaden, be a darling and close the door on your way out, will you?” Miss Fanwall asked.

  “Thanks, love.” Miss Fanwall’s perky mood didn’t seem to wear off and was intoxicatingly nauseating at times. She finally sighed heavily as we left the room.

  “Tut’, charming family.”

  CHAPTER 3.

  Misapprehension

  We were marching down the hall at such a viciously fast pace that I thought my hamstrings were going to tear and that the carpet would somehow wear out.

  “Mum, slow down. No one’s after you,” Jade quickly said as we tried to keep up with her rapid catwalk.

  “Huh?” mum didn’t seem to be herself at this point. I would say she seemed paranoid and quite fretful, always looking at each intersection in the corridors with a nervous tremble I could truly sense. “Oh, sorry. It’s just…I’m in a rush to do something,” she said.

  “Do you think we should tell her?” Jaden whispered as we tried to keep up with her rapidity.

  “I guess we should.” I took a deep breath, “hey, mum, can I ask you a question?” I started.

  “Yes, of course. Anything, sweetheart. What’s wrong?” she robotically replied.

  “Well, a number of things actually but I guess I’ll come right down to the point and say it – are we in 2014?” I asked. Mum halted and looked back at us whilst evilly chuckling.

  “What makes you ask that?” she replied unconvincingly innocent.

  “Because apparently we’re –” I stopped and groaned.

  “Never mind; it’s too long to explain. I’ll explain when we get in the car,” I justified.

  “All right, your choice. But we’re not dropping the subject,” mum replied.

  She did not seem to stop as she approached the main entrance. She merely walked on, obstinate, and swung the doors with each of her hands. Who did she think she was; calamity Jane in a saloon? Mum looked bizarrely eager to get back home and Jaden, Jade and I couldn’t help but feel so lost and disarrayed. It wasn’t even noon yet and we were already dreadfully worn out.

  We walked out into the playground to cross to the car park, but the weather seemed to have gone downhill. It was raining terribly; an ever-pouring deluge of bitter rain that corroded your skin as soon as it made contact. The sky was a terrible grey. A horrible night-resembling darkness had built up above as thunder and lightning threw tantrums in the heavens. The streetlights in the neighbourhood had been turned on to illuminate the darkened vicinity of Richmond upon Thames. Crows circled the skies in an orderly fashion. Mum continued to walk on through the deluge without a single care of her getting wet and we followed keenly.

  Our car was a big Ford, parked directly in front of us. We hopped through the rain with our hands stuck underneath our underarms for warmth whilst we walked with bowed heads. Mum was otherwise; headstrong and walking upright, completely unaffected by the drops of what could have easily been acid that fell from the sky. Mum’s normal piercing light-blue eyes had
changed though. Maybe it was just the lighting and the darkness that had fallen around us, but her glacial blue eyes didn’t seem to look human anymore. They contrasted with the environment and simply stood out from her, especially her black pupils which were very visible from where we stood. She took the car key from her pocket and pressed the button – the car clicked and unlocked as the headlights flashed.

  “Hop in,” mum commanded.

  Jaden and Jade went in the back seats from each side and I went in front. As soon as we slid in, mum started the engine and turned on the radiator. We gave a sigh of relief before she reversed the car and left to go home. Jaden looked at Jade with a narrowed expression.

  “Jade, we just walked through heavy rain.”

  “You’re a very observant boy, Jaden. We get it. What’s your point?” she snapped in a moderate tone.

  “But you’re not the least bit wet,” Jaden concluded. Jade looked at her arms and rubbed her hair, noticing that Jaden was right. Not a single sign of the water’s touch. She was as dry as a bone. Whilst on the road, the silence between us was broken by the raindrops that bulleted on the car’s rooftop, the windows and the windscreen.

  “So, A.J., what was it you wanted to tell me earlier in the hallway? Something about 2014?” asked mum.

  “Well – um…yeah – so anyway, I was asking whether or not we were in 2014?” I asked.

  “I already told you, no,” said mum, “why; are you already counting down how many years you have before you leave home?” she added with a scoff.

  “Well, let’s just say a series of inexplicable oddities have been happening to us. And when Nicholas gave us our clovers – already being strange because only seniors get clover crests and we’re in year nine – it said on it,” I pulled out my clover crest, “senior Year 10, Academic Year 2014–2015: Cressile International School. Everyone had theirs stitched on, further implying that they had had them for some time,” I finalised.

  “How did they get theirs stitched on already?”

  “Well, we’re in October. If we really have advanced a year, one should assume the school year obviously started in September, at which point they would have already had their clovers stitched on,” Jaden said.