The Curiosity of The Enigmatic

This is what I’ve gotten myself into. I’m currently at an airport. A busy busy extremely busy airport. And I have never been in an airport in my life. Much less flown. You could understand my distress. But clearly Eric couldn’t.

“Move it already, you’re blocking the way,” he growled.

“Aw, did someone have a bad nap?” I cooed but let him pass me. I wasn’t in the mood for a fight.

Why did he want to stand in front of me though? I craned my neck to see past him and beheld a ridiculously long line of people queuing to get a place on the small ‘shuttle’ bus that I was told would take us to our plane. Clearly walking the half a kilometre there would kill us. I didn’t understand people sometimes.

“This is taking so long,” I whined.

“We’re already behind schedule,” said a female voice at my shoulder. I turned to look who had spoken.

A slinky young woman in her early twenties with huge sunglasses looked down at me. But only slightly. I’m sort of tall. She swept a few ebony locks behind her ear and frowned.

“Miss Tomlinson. Have you not been briefed that you will be meeting me here? I am your group’s escort after all. Without me, you will get no further than this point.”
I looked down at the ticket in my hand. I had been mailed mine two days ago but had received no further directions or information.

“Nope,” I mumbled. “But now I do.”

Over her shoulder I could see those twins eyeing her up. Disgusted once again with the male race I turned back only to come face to face with Eric.

“Who’s that you were talking to?” he asked, but his eyes were on the lady behind me.

“My grandmother.” I crossed my arms and sighed my own eyes once again on the queue.

“She looks pretty good for her age,” he replied dryly and putting his headgear back on( yes, headgear, he looked like a bloody sound technician) he turned to the front cutting off all communication. Not that I minded. I’m the eccentric loner type. That is, when I’m left well alone to my own devious advices I’m at my happiest.

And I wasn’t very happy now. I was hungry, tired, and very on edge. I was surprised I didn’t snap and run away screaming when the line began to move. I glanced down at my watch on my arm only to find...
Well...I could tell the time perfectly only I couldn’t tell where my arm was.

“Don’t panic,” Miss Tomlinson whispered just behind me. “It’s only minor; your hands and feet vanish first. Nothing else has so far. Stay calm and the reaction will recede.”
I listened to her advice in growing respect. How did she know all of this? I had never filled in a form about my...condition for the academy before.

I was so lost in such thinking that when I held my hand up to my face trying not to attract attention I saw with relief as substance return to my fingers and finally my whole hand. I caught someone’s stare out of the corner of my eye and grinned at the young teenage girl across from me standing in a opposite queue.

Her mouth was wide open and her cell phone was so loosely held I was sure it would slip from her hands at any moment. I put my finger to my lips and feeling like some sort of spy slash Mr Bean I giggled and Miss Tomlinson hissed in my ear, “Don’t attract attention.”
Just at that moment I found myself herded into the strange bus and sat down on one of the seats next to a fashionable old lady or was that fashionably old?

And then...Well, if there had been a POOF sound it would’ve been extremely appropriate. For just at that moment I found myself seated in a small area, like a bus only more...streamlined. Everything I had experienced a second ago was gone. The old lady’s flowery perfume, the blaring of an airport intercom, the feeling of steady rising panic.
All were gone. Replaced by complete confusion with a dash of bewilderment. And right on time, the rising panic.

Nice to know you’re still here, I snapped at the feeling only to have it grow smugly when I looked around me. The tiny oval windows of whatever we were in, I assumed it to be a small plane-I have seen enough movies to at least know the difference between a plane and a bus for crying out loud-and the familiar passengers. All of whom were looking steadily at me biting back laughter.

“I can’t!” Eric’s laughter sputtered out first and I actually saw a tear sneak its way down his cheek. “That was brilliant!” He was peering down at me from the headrest in front of me and the twins were sitting across from me next to each other.

The twins (or whatever they were, I couldn’t care less at the moment) high fived each other and my face burnt. I clutched my bag to my chest for comfort and finally piqued up, “What just happened?”

This was of course a stupid thing to say and immediately set them off laughing. I growled and sank lower into my seat.

Suddenly their laughter broke up as Miss Tomlinson came into view holding a thick folder in her arms. She gave the boys a stern look each effectively silencing them.

“You have broken one of our Academy’s most sacred rules: never ever reveal your ability. Now kindly explain to Miss Davids what experiment you have just conducted on her. I would also love to know how you achieved the forcefully induced sleepwalking or ‘dream control’ as you’ve been known to call it in the pass.”

What..wait...What’s going on here?! They used one of their abilities on me? Wasn’t that clearly forbidden? I sat and watched them warily as their colourless eyes screwed up in consternation. I could see they were thinking and thinking fast.

One of the twins opened his mouth only to receive an icy glare from Miss Tomlinson. “Don’t even think about lying boy...You have no idea what you’re going up against in the coming months, if you can survive that long with such a troublesome attitude.”

His mouth snapped shut, almost audibly. His twin came to his defence quickly, and started
speaking very very rapidly.

“It’s hard to explain...” insert glare from the dragon lady and a comical gulping sound, “Well, maybe not that hard. As soon as we neared this private landing field, which isn’t too shabby by the way, we knew what a suburban girl like her was expecting. A huge airport teeming with people. If you noticed, she suddenly became quite panicky when we entered the very quiet reception area and kept on looking around as if she saw things no one else could. If you asked her I’m sure she would remember smells and sounds that were not present in reception. We almost perfected the smoothness of the transition so that the receiver is less aware of...”

“That’s quite enough. I’m not here to hear what is already in your files. Your emotion and thought simulation technique is quite impressive but you’ll fare badly in the future if you don’t learn to defend yourself should the ‘receiver’ be of an unexpected calibre. The intricacies of the mind hold more horror for those familiar with them.” Her eyes melted very very slightly when they alighted upon mine. “I can ask them to apologise but it would be worthless words.”

“Umm...no...that’s fine ma’am, thank you,” I said, my cheeks still flaming. I still wasn’t completely sure what had just happened but obviously the part about me being in a huge international airport had just been poppy cock. Literally a figment of my imagination sparked by some weird ability those twins had. I just wanted to be left in peace. Why couldn’t these people ignore my like others would?

“Aw, brighten up Tania. We were just having a laugh, no harm done,” Eric said leaning his elbows on the headrest and staring down at me.

“Go listen to Queen or something Frickles,” I growled knowing he was sensitive about his freckles slight though they were.

“Queen’s better company than a sour faced brat like you,” he combated weakly and his face disappeared.

I ignored him and thought angrily, when is this plane going to take off? And why had we been taken to a small private air field like this? Did they want to hide the school’s comings and goings so much?

Gradually as my sullen attitude began to dissipate I heard a babble of voices outside the plane and I lifted up the blind of my tiny window to peek outside.

This jet can take at least fifteen people, I knew there had to be more than us. I grinned anticipating new faces and learning of new abilities or at least someone interesting to talk to.

It was a large gaggle of girls much younger than me, however, that filled the seats round us. One girl gave her friend a look as if to say, ‘Why me?’ and took the empty seat next to me.
I rolled my eyes seeing that she obviously didn’t want to get to know weird looking Tania with the bright yellow Pikachu T-shirt and gloomy face. One of them just had to put her off. It was either the Pokémon part or the gloomy face. Or both. I tried to force the dark cloud from my features and gave her a timid awkward smile before turning back to the window.

This is just wonderful! I thought. I should at least get to know these people. Any people. I started to turn back to the snobby looking red head when I heard Eric’s unmistakable hiss of annoyance.

I opened my eyes up really wide pretending to be very shocked to see him sitting next to me. Which I was but I liked exaggerating.

He jerked his head at the seat in front of me. “I don’t want to be sitting next to one of those,” he stated simply as the pair in front of us starting giggling like nine year olds. I rolled my eyes at Eric but understood. They were probably eighth graders, fresh out of primary school, still silly and too excited about almost everything.

I preferred Eric to one of those giggling brats and that was saying something. I peeked a glance at the twins who weren’t faring much better. Girls whispered audibly about them and what they were wearing. The twins had strange pained expressions as if from a headache.

Revenge, I thought, albeit indirect it was still revenge. Try toggling with the minds of twelve thirteen year old girls.