Lightning Girl

by Alesha Dixon

  I shook my head; I must have been imagining it. I was in control of my powers now, this didn’t happen any more. Maybe it was withdrawal symptoms? I ignored it and focused on what exactly I was going to say to Kizzy.

  But there it was again: a surge of warmth prickling through my body, all the way through to my fingertips. I bit my lip and glanced down at my hands.

  The scar on my palm was glowing.

  “Aurora, are you OK?” Kizzy whispered, as my dad droned on.

  She had turned around and was watching me curiously, before she followed my gaze down to my hands. She gasped.

  I couldn’t risk it, I had to get out of there before something happened. Without responding to Kizzy, I spun round and pushed through the group to the back, racing down the corridor and around the corner, ducking through the first door I came to and slamming it shut behind me.

  I was in a dark storage room with aisles of neatly labelled and locked drawers. I hadn’t been in there for years, but I recognized it from when Dad took Alexis, Clara and me to work one day. It was one of the back rooms that stored all the collections that weren’t due to go on display for the public yet. I remembered Dad proudly showing us the vaults at the back of the room that contained all the artefacts that he was responsible for preserving and organizing.

  Luckily, I was on my own. My hands now felt like they were burning with heat; I had no idea what was happening. The sparkling glow from the scar on my palm had brightened and spread, so that my hands were lit up too.

  “Stop it!” I instructed my hands to no avail. “Stop doing that!”

  “Aurora?”

  I screamed as Fred Pepe appeared from among the boxes.

  “Fred, what are you doing in here?” I cried, hiding my hands behind my back.

  “I got bored of your dad talking about sandwiches, no offence, so I thought I’d go exploring. They have some pretty cool ancient stuff in these back rooms. You should see the animal skeletons.” He waved a bone in his hand triumphantly. “This is from a whale! I know we’re not supposed to take stuff but I thought I could borrow… Wait, Aurora, are you … glowing?”

  The door burst open behind me, as Kizzy ran through.

  “There you are!” she said, catching her breath.

  Georgie and Suzie rushed in after her, shutting the door behind them.

  “You brought them?” I hissed at Kizzy, stumbling backwards as I desperately tried to hide the light emanating from me.

  “We followed,” Georgie answered, folding her arms. “What’s going on?”

  “Great idea to escape, Kizzy. That talk was SUCH a yawn. Why can’t we ever do cool school trips, like to a musical or something? Who cares about dinosaurs and weird old rocks?” Suzie stopped when she saw me and Fred. “Hey… What are you guys doing in here?”

  “Aurora,” Kizzy said, looking frightened. “What’s happening to you?”

  My hands grew hotter and hotter. I just about managed to yell, “DUCK!” as energy burst from my palms and a blinding white light filled the room. After a few seconds, it took all my concentration to bring the sparks under control, plummeting us back into the dim of the ceiling strip lights and leaving my scar with a warm glow.

  There was a loud thud as Suzie fainted, landing next to where Georgie and Kizzy were crouched, staring up at me with their mouths wide open in shock.

  The bone Fred was holding dropped from his hand, clattering loudly on the floor.

  “Aurora, I speak for everyone when I say –” he began, a wide grin spreading across his face – “that was AWESOME.”

  13

  Mr Mercury gave us detention.

  By the time he came barging into the room, after hearing the commotion and realizing some students were missing, Georgie and Kizzy had helped Suzie to her feet and I’d begged them not to tell anyone what they’d just witnessed. Due to the sheer force of my powers, all the boxes and shelves had been knocked to the ground and were scattered everywhere. Just like our still-recovering garden, the room looked as though it had been hit by a tornado. I hadn’t sent out that kind of energy beam for ages.

  Mr Mercury gasped as he took in the chaos. “What happened in here?”

  Dad, who had come running in behind Mr Mercury, took one look at the disaster zone and instantly turned to me. He knew EXACTLY what had happened.

  “Ah, that … uh… That silly air conditioning unit,” Dad said hurriedly, with a nervous laugh.

  Everyone turned to look at him.

  “Must get that fixed.”

  Mr Mercury looked at him like he had lost his marbles. “Air conditioning did this?”

  “Yes, and may it be a lesson to you all to check your air conditioning units and make sure they are in good working order. I think I’ve got some interns in next week, so clearing this up should be a fun job for them. Anyone hurt? No? Fantastic. Let’s move on to the next part of the tour, shall we?”

  “But, Professor Beam,” Mr Mercury hesitated, still casting his eyes over the damage, “all the items in here… Shouldn’t we check everything is in order for your exhibitions?”

  “Nah, I wouldn’t bother,” Dad said, in a much higher-pitched tone than normal. “All of this is mostly my notes and a few historical antiquities that we don’t include in the main exhibitions. The most valuable items preserved for my displays are in those vaults at the back, and, trust me, nothing can get in or out of those. They are heavily secured.”

  Mr Mercury nodded slowly before turning to look accusingly at us.

  “What were you all doing in here?”

  The five of us stared blankly at him. I tried desperately to make my brain function and come up with an excuse but I was distracted by trying to keep my glowing hands out of sight. My fingertips were still tingling and I didn’t feel in control.

  “Well?” Mr Mercury’s face was growing redder and redder as none of us spoke.

  “Whale bone,” Fred blurted out.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Whale bone,” Fred repeated, casting his eyes across the mess surrounding him. “Aha! Here it is.”

  He bent down and pulled the whale bone he’d had earlier from underneath a pile of books and old coins that had spilled from their box. He passed it to Dad.

  “You were in here looking for … a whale bone?” Mr Mercury asked, his brow furrowed in confusion.

  “Yes, that’s right,” Georgie chipped in confidently. “We heard it was missing and we thought we might put ourselves to use. You are welcome, Professor Beam.”

  “But, who said to—”

  “Excellent work, team!” Dad enthused, catching on. “This whale bone is critical to the … well, the whale bone display! Your students have been very helpful, Mr Mercury.”

  “Well,” Mr Mercury said gruffly, “I don’t care how helpful they’ve been, they shouldn’t be snooping around a museum with valuable artefacts that don’t belong to them!”

  “We would never steal,” Georgie said, looking insulted.

  “Yeah! And if we did steal any whale bones, we’d bring them back in a few weeks or whatever, so it’s more like borrowing anyway,” Fred added indignantly before Georgie shushed him.

  “Well, none of you should have gone anywhere in this museum without my permission,” Mr Mercury scolded. “Detention tomorrow for all of you.”

  “I don’t feel well,” I said suddenly. The tingles in my fingertips were growing warmer and warmer. “I have to get out.”

  Mr Mercury narrowed his eyes at me suspiciously, but thankfully didn’t ask any more questions. He begrudgingly said he’d take me outside but Dad insisted on it, asking one of his colleagues to continue with the tour and encouraging Mr Mercury to guide the others back to the group. As soon as Dad and I got to the top of the stairs and stepped outside through the emergency exit, a wave of crisp, fresh air hit me and I felt instantly better.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, breathing heavily and sitting down on the pavement.

  “What happened?” Dad asked, sitting dow
n next to me with a concerned expression.

  “I don’t know! My powers. I couldn’t control them. It was like that time with Clara and the bullies. Or the garden. Except, more intense. I can’t explain it.” I sighed. “Dad, I’m so sorry about ruining the storeroom. I feel terrible.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Let’s get you home.”

  Mum was pacing up and down the drive when we got home and threw her arms around me as soon as I stepped out of the car. Dad must have called her when I was waiting for him to get his stuff from the office. She led me to the sofa whilst Dad put the kettle on. Kimmy came running from her bed and leapt up on to my lap, licking my face.

  “Tell me exactly what happened,” Mum instructed, gently pulling Kimmy down.

  So I did. She sat and listened while I went through it all, nodding patiently and not saying anything until I was finished. Dad put the hot chocolate down in front of us, and settled back into the sofa opposite with his mug.

  “And you had no control whatsoever?”

  “None.” I took a deep breath. “Mum, it was really scary.”

  “It’s OK.” She smiled, placing a hand over mine. “You’ve got a lot on your plate; it must have just … spilled over into your powers somehow.”

  I shook my head. “That’s not it. Something triggered it.”

  “I’ve been meaning to speak to you, Aurora.” Mum lowered her eyes. “I wanted to apologize for putting too much pressure on you. For making you work so hard. Especially with everything else that’s going on. It’s my fault this happened.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Dad protested. “And if it is, then it’s just as much mine.”

  Mum smiled at him gratefully and then took a sip of her hot chocolate.

  “You’ve put hazelnut syrup in!” she enthused.

  “Your favourite.” Dad blushed. “I always thought you were just making it up but … I decided to give it a go recently and you’re right, it is an excellent addition.”

  I glanced from Mum to Dad and back to Mum again.

  It was a really nice moment and everything, don’t get me wrong, but HELLO I just almost blew up the Natural History Museum! This was not the time to discuss hazelnut syrup.

  I tried to explain to them that this time there was something different, but Mum was convinced that it was an “emotional overload” of all the pressures I was under and Dad agreed. I gave in and went to bed early to try and “get some rest”, but how could I? All I could think about was the fact that I couldn’t control the superpowers. Something happened to me in the museum and I didn’t know what. What about my scar? Why did it glow like that and why did it feel raw now, like a fresh cut on my palm, when I was born with it? And what was I supposed to say to Kizzy and the others? They had literally seen light beams come out of my hands. There was no way I could make up anything that would explain the incident away.

  The first tactic I attempted was to just avoid the four witnesses the next day. I was doing quite well – purposefully averting their pointed looks in lessons and hiding in the theatre props room at break-times – until Mr Mercury reminded me about detention when his class finished at the end of the day and I tried to make a break for it.

  I said I wasn’t feeling too good, like on the school trip, but he just raised his eyebrows at me and said, “Anyone who is well enough to eat two helpings of pudding, is well enough to sit through detention.”

  Which is not true because sick people always eat ice cream.

  But even when I made that point, he just waved his hand impatiently at me to leave him alone and sit back down. Suzie, Georgie, Kizzy and Fred were all staring at me as I sat down on the opposite side of the room to them. I pretended like I didn’t notice and just got out my homework, flicking through my textbook all innocently.

  “OK, I’ll be five minutes,” Mr Mercury yawned a few minutes in, scraping his chair back and standing up.

  “Wait! What?” I squeaked, knowing that as soon as I was left alone with them, I’d receive a barrage of questions. “Where are you going?”

  “To the men’s room,” Mr Mercury replied, looking at me strangely. “If that’s all right with you?”

  “Are you sure you can’t hold it? I know they say it’s bad for the bladder, but what do they know?”

  WHY WAS I TALKING ABOUT BLADDERS?

  Mr Mercury blinked at me. “No, Miss Beam, I can’t hold it. Not that it’s any of your business. And it is, in fact, bad for your bladder. Now, back to work before I give you a week’s worth of detention for being cheeky.”

  He left the room, shaking his head and muttering something about strange students at this school.

  “So,” Fred said, as I pretended to be busy, “you want to explain what happened yesterday?”

  “You’ve been avoiding us all day,” Kizzy remarked.

  “What? No, I haven’t!” I laughed breezily.

  “Oh really?” she said with a hint of a smile. “You weren’t hiding in the theatre props cupboard at lunchtime?”

  “Wait, how did you know?”

  “I’ve known you for ever.”

  “That’s not the important point here,” Georgie pointed out. “The question is, what happened? We have a right to know.”

  Suzie narrowed her eyes at me. “Are you an alien?”

  “What? No! Why would you think I was an alien?”

  “Because you began to glow and then all these sparks flew out of your fingertips and suddenly the room was filled with a burst of light, like a flash of lightning, blinding us all momentarily,” Fred explained. “Suzie thought you might be an alien. I reckon it’s a science experiment gone wrong, especially as your dad is a professor.”

  I held up my hands and Suzie flinched.

  “I’m not an alien or a science experiment gone wrong. Just forget it, OK?”

  Fred shook his head. “Nope, you’re not getting away that easy. What’s going on?”

  “Can’t we just leave it? We have a lot of homework to do. It was nothing!”

  “Aurora, what we saw wasn’t nothing,” Kizzy said quietly. “Please tell us.”

  I sighed and closed my eyes. I knew they weren’t going to leave it alone. I thought about coming up with some kind of excuse but there was nothing that would fully explain the museum incident, except for the truth. They had seen my hands glowing and they had seen the light beams shoot out of them.

  “Fine.” I took a deep breath. “I kind of have … superpowers.”

  There was a stunned silence before Fred whooped and fist-pumped the air. Suzie picked up her science textbook and began to fan herself with it.

  “This is SO COOL!” Fred exclaimed, jumping up and down in his seat. “So, you’re a superhero? I knew it!”

  “No!”

  “I can’t believe this!” Kizzy whispered. “Superpowers?”

  “I know it sounds unbelievable but—”

  “We all saw it,” Fred nodded eagerly. “So we believe it all right.”

  “Please forget what you saw.”

  “Like that’s going to happen any time soon,” Fred snorted, looking at me in admiration. “So, what sort of thing can you do? Are you super-fast? Super-strong? Can you turn invisible? Can you fly? Can you read minds? Like, what am I thinking right now?”

  “No, nothing like that! Just the light beams. But, please, you have to promise not to tell anyone,” I pleaded. “It’s really important no one else finds out.”

  “This is just like a Marvel or DC movie,” Fred said, his eyes wide with excitement.

  “No, it’s not. I’m not a superhero and I’m never going to be. What you saw was a one-time thing and it’s never going to happen again. Promise me you won’t tell anyone?”

  Before anyone could reply, the door swung open and Mr Mercury came back into the room.

  “No more noise,” he barked, sitting down at his desk and picking up his book. “Back to work.”

  I turned my attention back to my textbook and tried to hide my face as my eyes fil
led with tears.

  My secret was out.

  14

  For the rest of that week, I felt more alone than ever.

  I kept seeing Kizzy, Georgie, Suzie and Fred huddled together, whispering and glancing over. I knew they were talking about me and, knowing Suzie, likely saying bad things, so I avoided them, even when Kizzy tried approaching me a few times. Despite me having said very clearly in detention that I had given up my powers, the fact that they knew about them made me a freak in their eyes. Plus, they’d seen what came over me in the museum, so they could hardly trust me to keep control of my powers around them. I kept waiting for Suzie to tell someone and for me to be expelled on the spot. No parent would want someone like me around their children.

  Plus, Mum’s absence from the house seemed even more noticeable these days, because usually when she was “working late”, Dad would be around, but, thanks to the big exhibition launch coming up, he was staying late at the museum most evenings. Then Dad made things worse, by asking Aunt Lucinda to pick us up from school and drop us home on the days he couldn’t make it in time. I tried to argue against this disastrous decision, reminding him what she was like, but he insisted that she was the only person he could ask at such late notice.

  “Where’s Mum?” Alexis grumbled one evening from the front seat, as Aunt Lucinda explained Dad was stuck at work, and Clara and I attempted to squeeze in next to Alfred.

  You have never experienced a truly uncomfortable car journey until you have sat in the back seat of a sports car with a grumpy ostrich.

  They have a very wide gait.

  “An evil genius is trying to take over the world from an island off Scotland using a rocket launcher,” she explained, checking her lipstick in the mirror, while I froze. “Your mum’s had to pop up to stop him.”

  What on earth was she thinking telling them the TRUTH?! Had she lost her mind?!

  “Sure,” Alexis sighed, “so she’s stuck in a boardroom meeting then. Remind me never to get an office job when I’m older. The hours suck.”