A Strange Fire (Florence Vaine) (3 page)

 “I hope you don’t mind me asking,
but do you have some kind of stutter, or, um, what do you call it, a stammer?”

 “Yes I have a-a s-stammer, it’s
only this bad when I’m stressed.”

 “Oh I see.” There’s pity in her
expression, and I don’t like it one bit.

 A second later I hear somebody
say mockingly, “H-h-hello m-m-my n-n-name is F-F-Florence,” and then the whole
class starts laughing. I look around the room for the first time. The person
who’d mocked me is a boy with expertly tousled blond hair and a blue
Abercrombie t-shirt on. I should complement him on the originality of his joke.

 “Don’t mind them,” Caroline
continues to whisper to me. “Every school has to have a variety of dick heads
to make life just that much more painful for the rest of us, you know.”

 “Unfortunately.” I reply quietly.

 One of the boys sitting beside
Abercrombie says, “Nice though, pity she can’t talk right.”

 Then Abercrombie retorts, “Yeah
but she doesn’t need to talk to do
certain
things.”

 The girls who’d been laughing
with them scowl now, as if the fact that he made a sexual innuendo about me
means that I’m suddenly a threat. Talk about the death of feminism.

 Completely out of the blue,
Caroline sticks up for me. “It really is depressing how retarded you are Josh.”

 “Shut up, ginger,” says
Abercrombie.

 Then a boy I hadn’t noticed
before speaks up, he’s sitting directly across from Caroline and me on the
other side of the circle. “Hey Josh, you wanna throw abuse, direct it at
someone your own size, what do you say?”

 Abercrombie turns to look at the
boy who’d just spoken, an angry expression causing his forehead to crease. But
before he can say anything Miss O’Brien returns to the class, handing out
photocopied sheets of paper and beginning her lecture about the formation of
the United Nations.

 I take a peek at the boy who had
sort of stuck up for us. He’s got golden brown hair and his eyes are bright
blue. He’s sitting beside a boy with shoulder length black hair and a lip ring.
If I didn’t know any better I would have said they were brothers. They look
nothing alike but their auras are strikingly similar, and strikingly unusual.

 Both of their bodies are
surrounded by blazing orange, it curls and swirls like fire. In fact, the more
I study them, the more their auras resemble the element. Orange is a good
colour, it indicates vitality and stamina. Perhaps they are athletes.

 Preoccupied with the auras of
these two boys, I fail to notice that the one who’d spoken up to Josh is
staring at me. He looks over his shoulder a second, seemingly wondering what
I’m gawking at. He can’t see the fire, only I can. I avert my eyes and look
down at the notes Miss O’Brien handed out.

 Caroline whispers to me again,
“Franklin Marsters is giving you the glad eye.”

 I turn my head a fraction to her.
“Who is that?”

 “Twelve o’clock,” is all she
says. I look up. Fire aura boy is gazing at me. His expression is quizzical,
then he smiles and I quickly look away.

 Miss O’Brien asks the class, “So
can anybody tell me when the U.N was founded?”

 This is a simple question, it’s
printed right there on the notes. One of the girls who’d laughed at me earlier
speaks up. “1945 Miss.”

 She’s got long dark blond hair
and her aura is pink, but not Barbie doll pink like the nail varnish she’s
wearing. It’s more of a dark, murky pink, usually a sign of immaturity,
sometimes dishonesty. Don’t ask me how I know which colours mean what, I’ve always
just known, it’s intuitive somehow.

 “Well done Ingrid, you managed to
read the notes then,” says Miss O’Brien, with a hint of sarcasm that makes me
smile. “And since you’ve volunteered to answer, maybe you could also tell me
where the International Court of Justice is situated, what its function is?”

 Now this one isn’t in the notes.
Ingrid scans the paper in front of her. Nope. “I don’t know that one, Miss,”
she almost sneers.

 “Well if you’d been listening to
me you would know, since I mentioned it not five minutes ago. The ICJ is
located in The Hague in the Netherlands, and it is the main judicial organ of
the U.N.”

 Miss O’Brien continues to tell us
the ins and outs of the U.N, and I wonder why we never did CSPE in my old
school. Then again, it was in a rundown part of Tribane, and I suppose those
kinds of places only bother to give you the bare essentials of an education.

 When the bell rings I shove the
print out into my bag and Caroline asks, “What’s your next class?”

 “English,” I reply, after consulting
my time table.

 “Damn, I’ve got biology next, but
I can show you where your room is, my brother’s in your English class.”

 “O-okay, thank you.”

 Caroline smiles and shows me the
way to classroom number twenty-six, where I’ve got English with Mr Sinclair.
She tells me that she and her brother Christian are twins, and that I should
introduce myself to him as a friend of his sister’s, she assures me he’ll be
nice to me. I nod in agreement, but have no intention of introducing myself to
anybody in my next class. It’s hard enough being looked at like an oddity when
you’re new. Speaking would only gain me more unwanted attention.

 Thankfully, the seats in my
English class aren’t organised into a circle like in Miss O’Brien’s. That must
be a hippy thing. The teacher is in his fifties with grey hair and a brown
shirt on. He gives me a look over, probably noting that I’m the new girl and
then turns back to sort through the papers on his desk. Thank God he didn’t
tell me to stand in front of the class and talk about myself like before. I
take a seat in the middle row beside the window.

 I sit and gaze out at the front
gates of the school as the class begins, and I notice a boy to my left raise
his hand to ask a question.

 When Mr Sinclair asks, “Yes,
Christian?” I realise that this must be Caroline’s brother.

 I turn a little in my seat to get
a better look at him. He’s got the same auburn hair, only it’s a little darker,
and the same black eyes. He looks like one of those cool nerd types. There’s a
copy of a Sandman comic sticking out of his bag. His aura is similar to
Caroline’s, he’s got the yellow but it also has some green in it, creativity
and good communication skills.

 The boy who’d been sitting next
to Franklin Marsters is in this class too. I notice that he’s sitting right
behind me. He came in with another boy with pale blond hair and ice blue eyes.
Funnily enough, this boy has the same fiery aura as the other two. I wonder why
their energy is all so similar. Perhaps they’re related, they can’t possibly be
brothers because they’re all the same age, but maybe they’re first cousins or
something.

 On my way to my locker during the
mid-morning break I pass by Josh and his friends, he shouts over, “Hey, it’s
stutter girl!” but I hurry on before they can bother me further. I really hate
teenagers, even though I am one, with their stupid social hierarchies and need
to ostracise the weak.

 I dig in my bag to make sure I
put my Xanax in this morning before I left Gran’s. My doctor back home
prescribed it to me six months ago because apparently I’ve got an anxiety
disorder that’s related to my speech impediment. But I try to only take the
pills when I really need them. Growing up with my dad, I came to hate any kind
of drugs, even prescription ones.

 Unfortunately, this first day of
school thing has my chest seizing up, and I need something to calm me down. I
open my locker and switch my books for the ones I need for my next three
classes before lunch. Then I take one of the pills from the bottle and swallow
it down, making an effort to do it discretely so that the passing students
can’t see. But I sense I’m being observed, I look quickly to my left and find
Franklin Marsters had been watching the whole time. Shit.

 I shouldn’t be ashamed, but I am.
I don’t like people knowing I’m so screwed up in the head that I have to take
pills because I become so anxious I can barely function sometimes. I shove the
bottle back in my bag and zip it up. It could have just been a headache tablet.
He can’t know that it’s anything else. I look in his direction again, he’s
still watching me. His locker is about six or seven down from mine. His blue
eyes seem to see right into my soul, it’s unsettling. Just because I can see
people’s auras and am often preoccupied with studying them, it doesn’t mean
that I like it when I become the subject of analysis.

 Franklin doesn’t smile. He
doesn’t do anything for a minute, but above his head the orange fire has sparks
of turquoise in it. Compassion? Is he feeling sorry for me? That makes me even more
self-conscious, but I can’t stop staring at the turquoise, it’s too lovely.

 He looks up above his head for a
minute, probably wondering again what the hell I’m staring at. If only he could
see the fireworks display, I muse. I look away, people must really think I’m
special needs the way I stare at things that aren’t there. I hitch my bag up on
my shoulder and almost walk right into Caroline. She links her arm through mine
and shows me the way to my next class. Her yellow aura soothing me more than any
silly pills ever could.

When lunch time arrives I quickly put on my earphones and consider my
options for eating inside of a toilet cubicle. But that would be too easy. It’s
not that I don’t want to eat with other people, it’s just that I’m scared of
the interaction, while the other half of me is lonely and longs to be included.
Joan Jett sings
Crimson and Clover
in my ears while I take the plunge
and enter the queue in the canteen.

 After I’m served I dash for an empty table in the far corner of the
room. I notice Caroline sitting with a group nearby and once she clocks me she
begins gesturing animatedly for me to come over and join her and her friends. I
probably should’ve just gone and eaten my sandwich while hiding in the toilet.
I walk over to her table and take an empty seat, pulling out my earphones,
because it would probably be rude keeping them in.

 “This is Flo,” says Caroline, with half an energy bar stuck in her
mouth.

 “You’re in my English class aren’t you?” says Caroline’s brother
Christian.

 “Y-yes.” I answer, trying to stick to monosyllables so as not to mess up
when I speak.

 “I’m Christian,” he says, then goes back to eating and chatting with the
boys beside him.

 Then Caroline introduces me to the girl beside her whose name is Lia,
and the two boys who are talking to Christian, Marley and Steven. I smile at
them all and shove my sandwich into my mouth so that I won’t have to speak
again.

 It’s difficult to be in a room as big as this one, so many people, so
many colours. My eyes can’t help but to look all about, focusing on the
differences, the nuances of each individual personality. It’s at this moment
that my gaze stops at the window, where a cloud of fire consumes my attention.
Out on the grass sits a group of boys with auras the likes of which I have
never seen before.

 Franklin, and the black and blond haired boys he’s friends with, as well
as two others. The combination of all five boys is almost magical. The flames
whirl about them, shifting, changing, interconnecting, a hint of blue here, a
splash of purple there, but always, always predominantly orange.

 They seem so vibrant, so full of life, laughing, joking, eating, it’s
distracting. A girl with long black hair wearing jeans and a tight green top
approaches them. She sits on the lap of the blond one from my English class.

 Her aura is a clear red, powerful and passionate and self-possessed. She
grabs his sandwich and takes a cheeky bite while he kisses her on the neck.

 “Are you okay Flo?” Caroline whispers curiously beside me, causing me to
jump.

 “Yes, why?” I say, a little too defensively.

 Her eyes glance out the window at Franklin and his friends. “I’d steer
clear of that lot, they’ve all spent time in juvenile detention centres. They
live in a foster home for boys run by a local man called John Danson. You’ve
got to wonder what they did to end up there,” says Caroline, raising an
eyebrow.

 “Thanks for the warning.” I tell her, and I really am grateful, I’ve had
my fill of all things illegal after being raised by Dad. I don’t want anyone
like him in my life ever again.

 “What are friends for,” she says and bumps me with her hip. It makes me
feel less alone when she mentions the “friends” part.

 My last class of the day is Business Studies, but Caroline doesn’t take
that subject so I have to go alone. It takes me a while to find the classroom
because it’s on the far side of the school. The class is already seated and
begun by the time I get there, but the teacher is searching through a drawer to
the side of the room so I manage to slip in without him seeing me. It’s a full
class and the only free table is at the very back. I’m useless at this subject
too. I got assigned the class because there was no more room in Art.

 A second later the door opens. Well thank God I wasn’t the only one to
be late. The teacher must be still searching for whatever it is he’s looking
for in the drawer, because I don’t hear him reprimand the other late comer. I
carry on doodling on the cover of my notepad, head down. The chair beside mine
squeaks and whoever it is sits down. I glance to the side and my eyes almost
pop out of their sockets when I see Franklin Marsters beside me. He’s leaning
back in his seat, eyes on mine, regarding me with interest for some reason.

 “It’s Florence right?” he whispers.

 “Flo.” I correct him.

 “My name’s Frank, it’s nice to meet you Flo,” he replies and offers his
hand. I shake it quickly and awkwardly, his skin is warm on mine, and then I
resume my doodling. The teacher begins to talk about something but I’m too busy
blushing to listen.