When Reality and Fantasy Collide

Okay, so if the tangent of the little upside down Q thing is the opposite divided by the adjacent angle, tan35 must equal 7 divided by 10. Now where has that darned calculator got to? Math is so not my forte...well, unless it involved aerodynamics.

But seriously, I have no idea why I'm taking this stinking subject anyway, it's not like I'm planning on becoming some fancy-pants architect like Uncle Bernie. It's getting late, plus I still have to go downstairs and wash the dishes, a part of the 'rent's secret plan to encourage responsibility in teenagers. Yeah, that book on how to deal with teenagers they hide in the downstairs linen closet is practically their bible. I reckon it was written by some old childless geezer who can't even remember what youth was like.

But to heck with that, I wanna fly.

Sure, I'll get a lecture about the dishes, but I can play the old troubled teen act like a broken record. And guess what? It works every time. Besides, that paper on trigonometry isn't due until next week, so I'll be the studious little mommy's girl later.

But for now, I wanna fly.

I put down my pen and proceed to shove my possessions into that humungous school bag of mine. Turns out my locker's getting overcrowded lately 'cause that's where my classmates like to hide their drugs and suchlike. Teachers never bother with my locker on those random inspection days, which are truthfully just excuses to rummage through the problem kid's locker. But a good little girl with no demerits? Never. Besides, I can talk my way out of most situations; I wasn't made head of the Debate Team for nothing, you know.

Oh, and just to clarify, I have never taken drugs. No way would I befoul my body with such crap. And even if I had been into that stuff (which I am not, not, NOT) I'd be busted right away. My parents have no sense of privacy.

Sometimes I really envy those latch-key kids, like my friend Maxxie. His full name is Maximillian but I don't reckon many people can call him that and live. Then there's Cassandra, who's always having huge parties at her house since her parents are never around. She had an older sister, but she and her fiancé moved to Switzerland so they don't see each other very often.

I carefully walked over to the window and disabled the alarm. Robert and Naomi - my parents insisted I was old enough to be treated like an equal so I should use their names - claimed it was only to keep thieves, murderers, rapists, (and boyfriends), etc. out. But it served another annoying purpose: keeping me in. Took six darned months to crack that stupid code. 0-1-1-4, my birthday.

Don't get me wrong, I love my parents, but sometimes they can be a little...over controlling. Mom (Naomi) is a psychologist, so she tends to be a bit paranoid about me making the right choices and whatnot. They say they're encouraging my independence and yet I get smothered in the process.

Remembering something important, I run and lock my door. I know there's an open door policy in the house, but it's better than getting caught sneaking out and having Mom - I mean,Naomi, jump to all the wrong conclusions.

Let me set another thing straight here; I do not, have not, and probably will never sneak out of the house to see boys. Well, I see them, but it's hard to not see fifty percent of the population unless you go around blindfolded.

Not that I would get a chance to explain though, since Dad - Robert - wouldn't let me get a word in edgewise. He must be where I get my debating skills from; since he's the only person I can't win an argument against. Although I doubt even he couldn’t find some logical explanation as to how someone could get in or out the attic window, which is pretty high up and there's with poison ivy all up the sides of the house. Beats me. I'm not Rapunzel, and no Romeo is gong to brave itchy rash causing plants for me. That damned creeper is just as effective as barbed wire on a prison for any normal girl.

Thing is, I ain't normal.

I felt my instincts bubble up inside me; it's presence rising in my consciousness. The sweet scent of freedom filled my lungs, and I inhaled deeply, savoring the moment. My lilac curtains ruffled gently in the breeze as I closed my eyes, sensing the thermals, wishing to soar and circle over the land below.

I was so caught up in the sensation that the once uncomfortable action of my bones hollowing out and shape altering went almost unnoticed. It was worth having good aerodynamics anyway. Instead of the unfamiliar pain during my first transformation, my wings burst forth from by back with a rush of exhilaration.

The silence was broken by a ripping sound, loud and intruding into the night's tranquillity. Oh hell! That was the third pair of pants this month, thanks to that stupid tail I kept forgetting about! Now my mom was already suspicious, it was he job after all, but if I kept having to chuck my clothes out she'd start grilling me about my missing underwear (which unfortunately had also been sacrificed to the extra appendage). Seriously, what kind of a girl did she think I was?

Putting on an ornate mask from behind a loose plank in the ceiling, I placed it over my face. It shimmered slightly, and then a warm light engulfed me. When it released its embrace, I turned to face the mirror, adorned with pictures around the edges.

Golden eyes stared back at me. The transformation was complete.

Cautiously, I stepped out onto the window ledge, balancing my weight evenly. It wasn't exactly an ideal launching pad; in fact it was kind of awkward. But the only reason I had been so insistent on having the attic as my room was because I though there would be a hatch or something leading to the roof. So you can only imagine my disappointment when it was discovered the only way to get up there was with a really, really, long ladder.

A crazy giggle escaped my lips, if only my mommy and daddy dear could see me now! A free woman, governed by on one, guided by the wind alone. My toes curled in anticipation, the muscles in my legs flexed, and I launched myself from the window ledge.

For I, Emily Robertson, was now Griffin.

There is no feeling more amazing than the rush of air that greeted me and no words strong enough to convey the feeling as I shifted my wings and soared skywards into the night air.

I have never been afraid of heights. Ever since I was a kid I've always been the one swinging the highest, climbing the furthest, and pulling stunts none of my peers would even attempt. Especially not Cassie, she's terrified of heights.

But I guess this is a good thing, since if I had been afraid, I would never be able to see this wonderful bird's eye view (no pun intended) of everything, which is something that should totally be on everyone's list of things to do before they die.

It all looks so small from up here, and it's a shame to think about how many people don't bother to look out of the windows on plane rides. I don't really like airplanes; the skies are mine, and not belonging to chunks of metal that keep trying to suck you into the engine. But personally, I could just stay up here forever, riding the thermals happily.

It's only at night, in the cover of darkness, that I can emerge. There's no need to worry about visibility, since my eyes attain an eagle's sharpness after transformation. Clear nights and full moons are to be avoided, along with brightly lit buildings. Never thought I'd be so grateful to my parents for making us live in this hole.

I glanced at the horizon, dawn was approaching. As much as the griffin within longed to dance in the morning light and dive in and out of the clouds, I knew I couldn't. It's not like I can just prance around in the sunshine like this. I don't want to be seen as a freak of nature! I’m just a fairly normal kid who happens to be a griffin's incarnate. If anyone should be sent to the asylum for being a freak it's that crazy grandfather of mine. After all, he did go and name his son Robert Robertson.

There wasn't much longer until I had to get up for school, so I quickly did a 180 and nose dived through my bedroom window in record time. Focusing, I allowed my wings to retract into my body, and replaced the mask to its secret compartment in the ceiling. Then I crumpled up my bed sheets and pyjamas so it looked like I'd slept in them, and rummaged around in my closet for something to wear.

I threw on an old tie-dye shirt (make at Brooke's fourteenth birthday a couple years back) and yanked on a pair of old jeans and some sneakers. Proceeding to throw my hair into a ponytail, I remembered to reconnect the alarm so its little green light was flashing. Then I unlocked the door and what do I see? One angry parent standing before me.

"Emily Robertson! What did I tell you about locking doors? What if there was a fire? I came to check on you before I went to bed and what did I find?"

"A locked door?" I offered my mom.

"Don’t get smart with me, young lady! If I'm going to be able to trust you I need to know that you're responsible enough and that..."

Here I tuned out. You know, for someone who talks so much, she says surprisingly little. Not that I'd ever get a chance to tell her that, what with her mouth running like a steamroller going at a hundred miles an hour ready to turn me into the flatmate (yes, pun intended) of Maxxie's old salamander. Poor little Sally Salamander...at least he was peeled intact off the sole of his grandmother's shoe. And I really gotta stop calling him Maxxie, since he allegedly ditched that nickname in the third grade. Oh the horror of having friends with good memories.

"...I understand that you're reaching a rebellious phase and I'm trying to be lenient so you can have a sense of freedom..."

Hey, I wonder what they're serving today at the cafeteria. I'll just about die if I have to try and stomach that disgusting purple spinach again. Seriously, that stuff looked diseased!

"...you're a growing girl and sometimes it's hard to make the right choices when it comes to friendships and other types of relationships..."

Yeah, and that blue chicken really did not sit very well in my stomach last week. It was sloshing around all night after takeoff. Let's say there was a small news article in the paper about a couple of tourists being it with Unidentified Flying Vomit.

"...so you shouldn't feel any need to be ashamed of your body and lock your bedroom door. Get changed in the bathroom from now on, okay sweetie?"

I smiled from ear to ear. "Thank you so much, Naomi," I said as I walked by and kissed my mother on the cheek. "You know I'll always listen to you." And with that, I was out the door.

The one good thing about living 'round here was that everything was pretty much in the same place, what with limited public transport and all. There was also a special catchment area you had to live in to go to St. Freeman's Educational Institution. Why they didn't just call it a school was beyond me.

Cassie ambushed me as soon as I walked through the gates. She charged up as fast as anyone would after drinking two cans of Coke - her breakfast, and threw her arms around me an a crushing hug.

"Emily!" she exclaimed (but with her accent it came out more as Em-Lee), "What on Earth happened you? You look like something that's been thrown out to sea, dragged through shit, and half-digested by a cannibalistic elephant!" she cried in her usual flight of poetry.

"I know," I groaned, face in hands, "I do look like something that was thrown out to sea, dragged through shit, and - what was it again?"

"That's not important! What is would be the fact we've got to do something about the fact that you look like –"

"Don’t start," I warned.

" - crap," she finished, my ever tactful best friend.

"Thanks Cassie, that makes me feel so much better," was my sarcastic response.

She smiled and glanced at her watch before grabbing my arm and towing me to the bathroom. "Step into my office," she instructed me as I was shoved into a cubicle.

I was sat down on the toilet seat as she stepped back to assess the damage. "Good thing you wore that bright shirt," she remarked, "it draws the attention away from all that dirt and twigs you have in your hair. But it still needs some work." She rummaged around in her bag and pulled out a hairbrush, comb, styling mousse, and hairspray. I gulped, wondering what torture Cassie's fluffy blond locks were put through every day.

"Why do you carry all that stuff around anyway?" I asked as she brutally yanked the brush through my poor brown hair.

"Unlike you, I actually have room in my locker, and care about my appearance," she said simply, articulating some words with yanks to the particularly rebellious knots. Looking satisfied, she quickly layered her hands with mousse and ran it through my hair. After another quick brush, she squirted holding spray all over my head. She then crouched down, studying my face with her piercing blue eyes.

"Did you sleep at all," she demanded. "You look like a raccoon that's been – oh, never mind!"

From the depths of her bag she managed to unearth a rather large make-up bag. She lightly went over my face with foundation (especially under my eyes) and used some mineral powder over that. Cassie then used a stick of clear mascara over my eyelashes, so as not to draw too much attention to the circles, and used some lipstick and blush. The lipstick was darker than what I would usually agree too, but she insisted it would stop people looking at my eyes. At this point, I felt rather like a cross between a model and a Barbie doll. Then again, what was the difference?

"It's such a pity," she said, "that you don’t take care of yourself. Your eyes would be the perfect feature to emphasize, that golden-brown color, if you would only get more sleep!"

"Look who's talking,” I muttered, knowing full well from our MSN conversation times that Cassie didn't sleep until at least midnight, "I see that you've got sunburned again."

She grinned, "Yeah, looks like I have a permanent blush doesn't it? It's not my fault I burn easily; I'm just the fairest one of all!" Which was probably about right, Cassie had almost paper-white skin.

"Not to mention the most modest one of all," I added dryly, much to her amusement.

I stood up and walked up to the sinks, Cassie certainly did a good job. "What would I do without you, Cass?" I sighed, looking down at her.

She giggled. "Do you really want me to answer that?"

"Not really, but I'm beginning to wonder what you look like without any beauty products."

"You'll never know!" she sang, jumping up and sticking out her tongue, bangles chiming on her arms.

"Hey, watch it!" I grabbed Cass to stop her from crashing into the hand dryers. Honestly, she was the clumsiest person I knew. Until she made friends with me, she would have bruises all over her body from various collisions. Nowadays I was practically programmed to pull her out of danger. Hey, what are best friends for?

"Thanks, Em," she said, steadying against the wall, "What would I do without you?"

"Do you really want me to answer that?" I quoted her, and we both burst out laughing.

"Oh, that reminds me. What do you think of my new skirt? I did the flowers myself." She twirled around and struck a pose. Said skirt was a burnt red color with black embroidered flowers that she had added on. She'd also put on some black stockings, red flats (she would never be able to walk in heels with her sense of balance), and a V-neck black and white shirt, something I would never dare to wear in public. I had a spindly torso with no chest to speak of, and often worried if the rest of me was badly proportioned.
On the other hand, what Cassandra lacked in height and stability was made up for by her full hourglass figure. She had long and elegant fingers too, with perfectly manicured nails, although her wrists looked like they could be easily snapped by my bare hands. Unlike me, she was one of the girls who had actually grown out of her childish proportions.

I rolled my eyes. "Cassie, when do you find the time to do these things? Don’t you ever study?"

She grinned cheekily. "Me? Study? No way!" Curse that girl! She was an honor student on top of all that. Teachers loved her, while they always seemed to hold some weird yet unspoken grudge against me. But I never got in trouble. That was probably because I had an extremely well known lawyer for a father.

"I should have figured," I said, "but why don't you ever just throw on a pair of jeans?"

"They make me look fat." Was the simple yet effective response, which made me feel a bit self conscious of my own attire, "But you always look great in them! I'm so jealous!" she said brightly.

I decided it was time for a change of topics; clothes weren't really my favorite subject. "So where are your parents now? Still in Hawaii?"

She shook her head. "Nah, they decided to go island hopping in the Bahamas I think, with some of their old sailing friends." The Silverpool family loved the ocean, and most of my outings with Cassie involved the local swimming pool since she hated the artificial beach nearby.

"Hey, are you girls going to sit chatting by the sinks until school starts or are you going to come out and talk to me?" a voice came from outside the bathroom.

"Hey, Maxxie!" I greeted, smiling as he cringed at the nickname. Most people just called him Max now. Cassie jerked her head in her own way of saying hello as we both exited the loo.

"You look...different," he noted, looking confused, "What's the occasion?"

"Cassie attacked me," I said dryly, and he nodded knowingly. "I'm going to have pores the size of the drainage system by the time I'm twenty if she keeps this up." Seems her poetry style is rubbing off on me too.

"Oh yeah, are we still all going swimming tomorrow?" Max asked me, swishing a lock of red hair out of his eyes.

"Yup, then we're going for dinner at Cass's house."

"Are you guys' parents okay with that?" Cassandra chimed in with a question. Then her eyes widened slightly in horror when she realized the accidental tactlessness.

You see, Max had taken it pretty hard when his parents split a couple months back. He'd been moody and irritable, vanishing at random moments. He never had any friends over because he was embarrassed by their constant fighting. Cass joked he'd been sneaking off to see his (nonexistent) girlfriend, but I knew him better than that. Eventually I had tracked him down and forced it out of him. I'd told Cass because Max said it was okay, but no one else. At the moment his dad had a new girlfriend, and was always out with her, leaving his only son to fend for himself.

Consequently, he was always staying out late or at his friend's houses, since no one really noticed if he came home or not. Not that he wanted to go back; he'd been freeloading off Cassie for a week after the split, even though they didn't know each other very well. I think he spent the last week at Jeremy's, who gave him the spare keys to his apartment while his family was at a funeral in New Jersey. I would have offered the spare room at my house, but I didn't want my mom going psychologist-mode on him.

My half-Spanish buddy of four years shrugged off the blunder. "Yeah, there's no problem."

"Me neither," I added. "So long as I follow her list of rules and regulations as taken from her little teenager manual it should be fine."

The school bell drilled through my head, time to face another day of absolute boredom where all my thoughts were obsessed with the upcoming weekend. At least I would be able so sleep in until midday tomorrow, before heading over to the local pool.

"See ya!" I yelled, scooping up my bag and heading off to the left to my next class.

"Bye-bye! Ouch!" Cass was trying to stop the contents of her locker falling on her head as she waved.

"Later." Max gave a lopsided half smile and turned in the opposite direction.