The Curiosity of The Enigmatic

“Wasn’t she the invisible person we just saw?” a girl with dreadlocks and gangly legs asked.

Mrs Fleur laughed. “No, I’ve just been trying out a new camouflage technique and she was accidentally my first victim. She’s still a bit shocked so try not to hassle her about it okay?” Some children laughed and others gave me knowing smiles. I noticed however how one girl had barely lifted her head from the book she was reading, her face hidden by a waterfall of blonde hair. And out of the corner of my eye the boy with green hair smirked, his face disbelieving.

“Everyone,” Mrs Fleur intoned gaily, “This is Tania and this is her first time ‘in the fold’ so I hope you make her feel welcome and help her settle in. We were all new here once upon a time and I’m sure you can all remember that it was very confusing at the beginning.”

‘In the fold’? What did that mean? People stared at me and I smiled awkwardly, not used to so much attention.

Mrs Fleur fixed a hard stare on the boy who had been levitating clods of earth. “Now, since this is the first day of the new school year Dan, I’ll let you off for throwing around dirt again but this was your last warning.” She turned back and smiled brightly at her pupils. “Now class, gloves and goggles on for those of you who want them, we’re going to clip the hedges, just to show your new classmate how fun Botany can be.”

A few girls gasped and a pair of boys high fived one another while everyone else shot to their feet and scurried around looking for their…err…clipping tools I guessed.

Now, I’m not one to judge, not on my first day here but last time I checked clipping hedges is not fun…Unless you’re Edward Scissorhands. And I highly doubted that any of these people here had a pair of his hands on stand-by or a pair of their own hidden under their meagre summer clothes.

Mrs Fleur merely smiled at me and walked past towards the back of the ‘classroom’. She put her hand on a part of the wall and gave a small grunt of exertion when she pushed and the wall swung open on silent hinges giving an exciting view of a hidden part of the greenhouse. I saw the slow trickle of a snaking vine which curled back when she walked on a walkway almost identical to the one I had used upon entering.

The class filed I after her and I quickly followed when I saw that I would be left behind. Something poked me in the back and I turned around only to face the girl who hadn’t looked up when I was introduced. Her eyes and most of her face was obscured by her hair but I could at least tell that she was offering me the pair of gloves in her outstretched paw.

“Thank you,” I said, touched that someone at least was really helping me out and not just staring. She was really slight and delicate, dressed in a unisex black shirt, that showed off her flat chest, and a pair of baggy jeans.

“It’s my pleasure,” the girl said, her voice much deeper than any girl’s I knew. Shocked, I watched her…him, walk by me and I saw that she…he wore no gloves themselves. I hurried after.

“Umm…” I began lamely. “Thank you for the gloves but what about you? I really don’t mind not wearing them; it’s not as if Mrs Fleur will allow me to do something like…err…clipping hedges on my first day so I’ll just stand on the side lines and watch…” I realised that I had been babbling and he hadn’t said a word yet. Great Tania, way to go scaring off the first person in this class you talk with. I sighed heavily and trudged on after him seeing how his shoulders were hunched and his hands stuck deeply into his pockets. He probably took offence either at my gentle refusal to use his gloves or my obvious shock upon hearing his voice or both.

It’s not like I was being intentionally rude or something, I just didn’t want to take his gloves when he clearly didn’t have any. And his hands looked so soft, what if the hedge scratched him or…err…pricked him? Maybe I was being rude−

“AH!” I screamed as I was flung to the floor and swung upside down. I looked up and screamed again. A thick Jurassic park type vine thing was tightly snaked around my ankles dangling me awkwardly in mid-air. Blood rushed to my head as I opened my mouth to scream again only this time not because some plant monster had me in it’s deadly vice but because I was invisible. Again.
The glove lending boy had turned around to face me and it frustrated me so much that I couldn’t see his face to read his expression. Was he disgusted? Shocked? Or maybe even happy?

I could actually imagine him sniggering behind all that hair thinking, Rude girl iz caught ja. Now I vill disembowel her and feed her entrails to Mr Snuckums. No, maybe not a Russian accent, he didn’t sound like he had one when he spoke earlier. More of an evil British thing going on there definitely.

I really have to get this whole switching la di do of mine under control, I thought, using what little strength I had in my abdominal muscles to reach up and try loosening the vine’s hold. But the vine was covered in a furry like array of tiny thorns and I quickly stopped wondering why I was only hanging here and not being swung around or being dragged to the mouth of a giant venus flytrap.

“Umm…Help?” I squeaked, feeling slightly nauseous from effects of gravity. But the boy was gone and no one had rushed to my aid. Did I not scream loudly enough for them? Something like five minutes must’ve passed when I finally gave up on the idea of rescue and began swinging my body from side to side. If I could just reach the trunks of one of those trees near the middle (yes, there are tree in here, did I forget to mention that this place is damn huge? Yes I did forget, my apologies) then I could grab onto one and maybe work myself into an upright position.

The swinging didn’t help my stomach but it did help to make me see that it was working. I came away with a few torn nails and plenty of bark but eventually I managed to hold on long enough to wrap my invisible arms around a trunk. Wonderful, splendid, Tania. You’re so brilliant. You’re still upside down but at least you’re just clutching onto a tree trunk like drunken monkey with its feet tied. Massive improvement.

Seriously, had no one noticed that I was missing yet?

I snorted angrily and I twisted around awkwardly to grab a tree branch above me. My fingers scrabbled on the bark and my other arm was becoming dangerously tired. I reached out a bit further, grabbed onto a flimsy looking branch and pulled. My other arm quickly followed and I hurriedly hoisted myself upright, using the higher branches like a ladder to steadily pull myself up and onto a solid looking branch upon which I could sit. As the blood rushed from my head I groaned, feeling very very dizzy.

At least my limbs were visible again. It seemed panic made me go all invisible girl but then I remembered my first time going invisible and dismissed that idea.

“Hey!” someone called.

I looked down and quickly regretted it. I was quite high up and my recent nausea came back with a vengeance. It was glove lending boy waving up at me. I waved back weakly.
“Don’t worry, help is on the way,” he shouted up at me. I nodded not caring if he couldn’t see it. Then something sprang to mind and my eyes snapped back down at him.

“Please don’t tell anyone about my power okay?” I shouted back at him. “I don’t think it would go down well with the spy master if he find out I already broke my cover,” I murmured to myself.

But before he could answer me Mrs Fleur appeared at his side and a whole bunch of the others seemed to appear out of the shadows. I think I know now why they wanted me to take Botany of all things. These people are like panthers in the jungle. Strange that help hadn’t come sooner.

Mrs Fleur looked murderous and frazzled, her hair out of place and bits of leaves and twigs were stuck in her trailing sleeves.

The air around me became tight and the very tree I sat in seemed to shiver as the vine around my feet leapt off of me as if I had electrocuted it. Without the assurance of the vine the drop down seemed much further than before. I held on tightly to a branch next to me and called down, “How do I get down?”

“Boo,” someone whispered into my ear and I jumped, losing my balance and nearly toppling forward if not for the pair of arms that wrapped around my waist.

“It’s just me invisible girl,” glove lending boy muttered. “Hold on tight.”

“Hold on wha−” I began but my voice was drowned by the loud rushing in my ears. I squeezed my eyes shut and bit back a scream.

I heard people laughing and then glove boy’s voice, “You can open your eyes now.”

I opened them and gasped. I was back on the ground.

“It seems we have a problem,” Mrs Fleur said as she glared down at me. I flinched and wondered what it was I had done wrong. Or had they found out my secret? But wasn’t Mrs Fleur in on it?

“Who are you really?” she said as I looked up at her stunned. “None of my plants have ever reacted like that against but one person and you better not be that person Miss Davids.” I looked at glove boy for support but his face was turned away from me.

A girl stepped forward, her body rippling with barely suppressed strength. “Ma’am,” she interjected and I now recognised her as the girl I had seen in the bathroom this morning with the tail. Now that I really got a close look at her I also saw that her ears were elongated and coated in glossy black fur, the same colour as her curly mop of hair. “She only carries the scent; she’s not who we’re looking for.”

“Thank you Sara.” The fire softened in Mrs Fleur’s eyes but was not extinguished. Grimly she turned back to me and asked, “Who have you been in close contact with in the past twenty four hours?” I blushed hoping she wasn’t thinking something intimate because then the answer was obviously no. But when I really thought about it I realised that I had been close to someone or a few someone’s in that time though not intimately. Was I just misinterpreting or something?

“Umm…I sat next to Eric Blanc on the plane, I sat next to Lena in the dining hall, my roommate, girl with the purple hair you know, steam punk look? And…that’s about it,” I said.

“Eric Blanc?” everyone looked at me stunned. “You know Eric?” Cat girl asked me.

Puzzled I frowned at her. “We’ve been neighbours for years but I only found out recently that he’s
also…umm…endowed so to speak.”

“Sara!” Mrs Fleur reprimanded her sharply.

“Oh right, sorry. No,” Sara shook her head. “I used to have athletics training with Eric, it isn’t his scent, nor is it Lena’s, we have classes together. She smells like strawberry incense.” A few people laughed and nodded and I got the feeling that Lena was well known but whether this was a good thing or bad thing I didn’t know yet.

“Wait,” glove boy began startling everyone. I figured that he didn’t talk much. Not hard to come to that conclusion. “You said you’re Lena’s roommate? So that means you’re with her and Symphony right?”

I nodded, wondering where this was going. A few people gasped and backed a bit away from me whispering feverishly amongst themselves, and obviously everyone had come to some conclusion which I was unaware of. Even Mrs Fleur looked shocked; her face was drained of colour and her hands were held tightly at her sides.

Was it because Symphony was my roommate? Or was it something else?

“Okay everyone,” Mrs Fleur said, breaking the tension slightly. “Class ends early today, you can all relax until your next lesson and remember, not a word of this to anyone.” She spun around and disappeared into the undergrowth. A few people followed her but the others scattered leaving only me, cat girl or Sara, glove boy and a green haired boy behind.

“This is getting heavy,” Sara said, scratching her head. She turned to me. “Don’t let this scare you off from Botany, Mrs Fleur is usually very sweet.”

I smiled tightly my mind rife with confusion and curiosity. “Why did everyone take so long to get here? Not that I’m blaming anyone, I just want to know−”

Sara groaned and eagerly began to talk. “You wouldn’t believe what we had to do to get here. Walter, that creeping vine, never attacks anyone and always listens to Mrs Fleur and some of the rest. But when we heard you scream we rushed towards the sound but Walter had laid his vines all over the place, like a web making it almost impossible to get here without hurting him. Then Xiao popped out from nowhere and told us what had happened to you but every time we tried to get to you Walter blocks us until Mrs Fleur lost her temper and forced him to make way.”

Xiao? That was glove boy’s name? If not for the situation I would’ve laughed but all I could manage was, “Why did…Walter attack me?”

“Enough,” the green haired boy suddenly intervened, his eyes stormy. He was tall and well-muscled and had earlier seemed like the type that nothing could scare. But I noticed how his hands shook, ever so slightly. “We’re not allowed to talk about that stuff without Mrs Fleur’s say, especially not to someone working under Spy Master himself.”

Sara rolled her eyes. “That’s ridiculous, why would she−”

“I’m sure Mrs Fleur knows why Tania’s here,” Xiao said quietly but forcefully. “We all have our secrets and I’m sure we can trust Tania not to say anything, right Tania?” He turned his head towards me and I knew what he was implying.

I nodded bleakly. He had the audacity to subtly blackmail me with my own secret! As if I would ever tell that slimy Spy Master anything.

“Right. But at least tell me one more thing and I promise I’ll never ask another question. What’s the big deal that I share a room with Lena and Symphony?”

“You mean you don’t know?” Sara asked condescendingly as if I was a five year old brat that knew nothing. “Lena and Symphony are ex members of the most notorious group this academy has ever seen. Their old roommate Glenn Bronte, whose bed you’re most probably using, was their leader. Glenn had a terrible power which she abused and many had it in for her. So it was not surprising when she suddenly disappeared this time around last year. People suspected murder but no one ever found out anything else about her disappearance. Lena and Symphony were seriously bullied by Glenn and people think that Symphony is a mute because Glenn must’ve done something to make her shut up about where she had gone.”

So I must somehow carry this Glenn girl’s scent because I’m using her bed, I thought. And the vine must’ve attacked me because of this, thinking I was Horrible Glorrible Glenn. Though don’t ask me how a plant can smell things…Sheesh. This girl must’ve been a monster to have a freaking plant out to get her.

“I wonder what her power was that made her so feared,” I gave a weak laugh and stood up, dusting off the seat of my pants. Green haired guy muttered something and left, melting into the shadows. It was kind of freaky how they did that.

“Hey!” Sara shouted. “Max, where’re you going?” she didn’t even spare me a second glance before following after green haired boy.

“I made a great impression on my first day eh?” I muttered sarcastically at Xiao, who hadn’t moved.

“Glenn…” Xiao said suddenly. “She controlled minds…at least the part of the mind that controlled movement in the body. Basically, she took away free will.”

I felt slightly green. As in sick green. If he had told me this only a few weeks ago I would’ve laughed in his face but now…the thought that people with powers were real and that someone like that existed…

I suddenly noticed how alone we were. “So…you’re a, umm teleporter?”

I blinked and his face was suddenly an inch from mine. Cool blue eyes glared out at me. “I’m also training under the Spy Master so if you breathe one word of that outside of Botany and break my cover, I’ll break yours and so much more.”

“Comprendé,” I breathed. He drew away and began walking away in the same direction Mrs Fleur had disappeared in. I followed him feeling like a desperate lost puppy.

“I’m just following you because I have no idea how to get out of here. Look, I know I come off as nosy and irritating, or at least that’s what I’ve been told, but I’m really sorry if I’ve offended you. I only found out a few weeks ago that I even have a power let alone that there are others like me so this a whole lot to take in. I promise I won’t blow your cover. At least you have a cool useful power. Mine fluctuates and comes up when I don’t need it−”

“You talk a lot,” he interrupted and then chuckled lightly as we stepped onto the path.

“Thanks Captain Obvious,” I muttered but I was smiling but then my smile fell. “Darn it! I lost your gloves! I must’ve dropped them when Walter grabbed me. I’m really sorry, I’ll buy you…”

He turned around, the ‘lost’ gloves held in his hands.

“Oh.” I breathed out a sigh of relief. “That’s at least one thing that didn’t go majorly wrong today. And thanks for learning my name, most people just forget I exist at all…”

Xiao snorted as we walked on. “Then they’ve never heard you talk.”

“And what was the whole clipping hedges thing about? How can that be fun?”

“You’ll found out one day invisible girl. Maybe even tomorrow…as long as you can still see your hands they won’t be bitten off.”

I grinned. Even though he was a bit rude and found me annoying I had at least made him laugh which I figured was a hard thing to do. Rather a frenemy than an enemy right?