Distant Elemental

Everyone caught the bus to school the next morning. Autumn voiced their concerns as they bounced over a speed bump.
“What if they did a roll call?”
“We can just say we got separated.”
“Hey Fulgora, I forgot to ask,” said Skye as the bus roared around a corner, “What did you do that made such a massive explosion to distract the teachers?”
At this Fulgora shrugged. “I struck one of those green electric boxes. I had to run away pretty fast, I wasn’t expecting such a massive explosion.” She frowned suddenly. “That would have cut out a bit of power, wouldn’t it?”
Skye was staring at her.
“What?”
“Uh, nothing.”
“So back to the roll call thing,” said Autumn, flicking her black hair from her face as she spoke, “we could say we were frightened by the sound of the blast and ran away. Do you think the teachers would have noticed if we had actually done that? It would have been pretty chaotic...”
“I think they wouldn’t have any choice but to believe what we said. They would hardly believe it if we told them we teleported away,” said Andromeda with a grin.

The elementals got off on the main road and started walking down towards the school when Blaise stopped.
“What?” asked Nayru.
“Look,” he said, pointing down the road.
Everyone squinted down and saw police ropes taping off the area.
“Does that mean... no school today?”
“No school?” cried Nayru, “Wooooooooo!”
“But I left my bike here,” said Andromeda.
“Oh yeah, so did I! Think we could get them back?”
“Well if there’s no school, I’m not hanging around,” said Fulgora, who turned around and walked away.
“Yeah screw that, I’m going flying!” squealed Skye who ran off in the direction of the large oval across from them school.
“I’m going to go check out my garden. I’m planning on practising a few new techniques,” said Autumn and she, too, left.
“And then there were three,” said Blaise.
The three ventured towards the school when they spotted police walking behind the rope and frowning at one another.
“Excuse me,” Nayru asked tentatively, “do you mind if we get our bikes back?”
One policeman looked down at her, and his eyes widened. “You!” he yelled.
“Wah!” cried out Nayru, stepping back a few paces.
“It was them!” cried out the policeman to his companions. “Those three and a few other students were the ones I went past as I was leaving. They did this!”
“When you were crying like a baby, you mean?” asked Blaise, trying to hide his anger.
“They’re involved in this.” The policeman seemed to have ignored his remark.
Two policemen lifted up the tapes and ushered the elementals forward. A few minutes later they found themselves sitting in an empty classroom opposite someone of higher rank with a quivering moustache who leaned heavily upon some poor teacher’s desk.
“Okay, what’s going on?” asked Andromeda.
“That’s what we’d like to find out,” replied the officer.

“Okay so we heard this massive bang, right, and we got separated from the other students,” babbled Andromeda, trying to sound less intelligent than she was, “and it was really scary ‘cos there was heaps of girls screaming and people running everywhere, so we ran away, too, and some other students followed us. We went into the school and we saw some policeman run away screaming, so we ran out, too. Then we walked up to the main bus stop and caught a bus home.”
“Okay then,” replied the man evenly, “if that’s the case, can I have your bus passes please?”
“We don’t have our bus passes on us,” said Nayru rather quickly.
The policeman raised an eyebrow, and his moustache seemed to tilt upwards as well.
“So how did you get to school today?”
“Nayru and Andromeda walked and I got a lift,” said Blaise.
“A lift from whom? I’ll have to talk to this person to confirm that.”
Oh crap, thought Blaise, who do I know that will lie for me and has their P’s?
“It was Nova,” supplied Andromeda before he could speak.
Blaise wondered suddenly whether or not Nova had a license and doubted it, but said nothing.
“Nova who?” asked the constable.
“Umm... I don’t know his last name,” said Blaise.
There was a silence that seemed to stretch on for a minute.
“So, rather conveniently, you don’t have your bus passes on you, you got a lift to school with someone who’s last name you don’t know, and even though you walked through the school when there was a monster on the loose, you saw nothing of it?”
“That’s right,” replied Nayru in a cheery voice. She received a frown from the officer.
“Do you know how far-fetched this sounds?”
He received no reply.

Fulgora yawned and stretched out across the couch, preparing to go back to sleep when a head popped up in front of her line of vision. She jumped and quickly regained her breath in slow-time before the person could realise she had been frightened. Nova blinked down at her.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at school?” he asked.
“School seems to be cancelled cause of that whole monster thing,” she replied. She sat up and Nova came to sit down next to her.
“So what are you going to do today?” he asked.
“I dunno, I was about to go back to sleep. We’ve had a few sleepless nights.”
“I won’t disturb you then,” he replied, and stood up to walk away. Something in his voice sounded strange, and Fulgora puzzled over it for a bit.
“Hey Nova, wanna go do something? Skye is flying at the moment and Autumn is in her garden, but when Blaise, Nayru and Andromeda get back we could go see a movie with them or something.”
Nova looked over at her, and Fulgora could see a smile beneath his mask. “Okay,” he agreed.

“Do you have a number for this person?” asked the officer. Andromeda, Nayru and Blaise shared an uneasy glance.
“So this mysterious person has no number and no last name. Does he even exist?”
“Yes!” the three of them said, rather indignantly, all at once.
“So then how am I supposed to get in contact with them?”
He was interrupted by a knock at the door. Another officer opened it, and said “another student here, sir, who says he knows something about what is going on.” He ushered in Harrison, who looked at the other three and smiled.
Instantly, an idea came to Andromeda, and she hoped like hell it would work.
“Oh hey, Nova, we were just talking about you.”
Harrison seemed to pause for the briefest second before smiling, giving her a small wink and saying, “oh hey Meda. I can’t believe you still refer to me by that nickname. Call me Harrison, will you?”
The police officer gave him a quizzical glance. “So this is your mysterious Nova?”
“Yep,” he replied before anyone could say anything, “it stands for Supernova. Great name for the girls,” he said, and gave the officer a wink. The officer stared back for a few seconds before clearing his throat and continuing with the interrogation.
“So, you gave Blaise here a lift to school today?”
“That’s right,” he replied, while wondering what on Earth they had been saying and what they were trying to get out of. Harrison lifted up his legs and crossed them on the desk in front of the officer, apparently at ease.
“Why did Blaise get here before you?”
“I dropped him off in front of the school before going to find a parking spot.”
"So you have a license?"
"Sure do," he replied, handing it to the officer who inspected it before handing it back to him.
“And the officer says you know something about what’s going on here?”
“Well yeah, I was with these guys yesterday when that massive explosion happened and everyone started running around everywhere, and I don’t think these guys saw anything,” he said, giving them a small glance and feeling a sense of relief to see them smiling at him, “but I thought I saw something on the road when we were running off. It looked like it was made of metal, but I don’t really remember too much, I only caught a glimpse of it when I was leaving.”

After a few more questions the officer let them go. Fifty metres from the school, Nayru let out a big whoop and Andromeda started laughing. Harrison smiled before Blaise picked him up and threw him against the nearest tree.
“Blaise!” yelled Nayru and Andromeda, both completely shocked.
Blaise ignored them, grabbed Harrison’s t-shirt and lifted him up against the rough bark. “Alright, tell us everything you know. Andromeda, make sure he doesn’t get away. Nayru, tell us if you see anyone coming.”
“What the hell are you doing!” Nayru yelled at him but he ignored her.
“If you let me go, I’ll tell you,” said Harrison.
“You’re not in a position to barter,” replied Blaise with a growl.