by Willow Rose
The grounds outside were still and quiet. No breath of wind disturbed the treetops in the forest. The stables seemed quiet and the ocean calm. I put the book on the floor and was about to get down from the window sill, where I often enjoyed reading, and go back to my bed, when something caught my eye. Someone was prowling across the silvery lawn. It looked like a young boy or some kind of animal—I had a hard time telling. I followed the shape as it moved across the lawn toward the stables. It was flying and running at the same time and looked mostly like a strange animal. Was it a big cat? But it wasn’t running on the ground; it was flying in the air. Where was it going? Why was it heading toward the stables?
In the same second my roommates entered the chamber. I asked Mai to come to the window.
“What do you see?” I asked.
“What’s going on?” she said.
“I want you to tell me if you can see something,” I said.
“It’s pretty dark. What am I looking for?” Mai asked with a yawn.
I pointed. “Down there…”
As I looked out the window again the cat-like figure was gone, like it had vanished. I climbed back into the window sill in order to see better, but nothing was there. I stared at the stables. Had it gone inside or had it disappeared back into the forest where it came from?
“It is probably just some animal from the forest,” Acacia said while Mai yawned again.
“Boy, I am beat,” she said and went to her bed.
“Me too,” Acacia said.
I was tired as well, but as the lights went off in the dormitory, I couldn’t fall asleep. I kept seeing that strange cat-like figure. It looked so big, the size of a human. And it floated above the ground like a spirit. But again, as Acacia said, there were a lot of strange animals in the forest that we had never seen. At least that’s what Adahy had told us. He was the one closest to nature, since he lived in the forest, in a cabin no one had seen, since it was so deep in the forest.
The next day I flew to the stables on my lunch break to find Adahy. I wanted to ask him about the animal I had seen, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. I found it strange since Adahy was always in the stables. As I approached Yofi I could tell he hadn’t been fed. He stared at me with his deep purple eyes and neighed, like he was trying to tell me he was hungry. As I checked the rest of the Pegasuses’ troughs I found them all empty. No one had fed them all day, I realized. In the first year of school I had helped out in the stables so I knew my way around and quickly found their food. I put it in big buckets and soon the Pegasuses were eating eagerly.
I enjoyed the sound of them eating, when I suddenly felt someone was behind me. I turned and found Adahy. He was standing in the entrance and was staring at me. His long black hair was tousled and he seemed to have a hard time catching his breath.
“What are you doing here?” he said with great exhaustion in his voice.
“I … I was just … Well I came to talk to you actually.”
He looked at me looking like he didn’t believe me.
“I saw that the Pegasuses hadn’t been fed.”
Adahy looked at little confused.
“Well, I was just going to do that now.”
“Is everything all right?” I asked, a little concerned. Adahy didn’t seem to be himself. He never forgot to feed his animals.
He stared at me. Then he nodded. “Why do you ask?” he said.
“I don’t know. Just making sure,” I said.
“It is none of your concern.” He started floating past me while he was still speaking. “You shouldn’t even be here. Don’t you have class now?”
“Well lunch break is almost over,” I said.
Adahy seemed to not be listening. “Mmm …” he grumbled while floating around a little bewildered.
Wanting to get back to my class I started heading to the door. When I reached the door I turned around and looked at him. He stood still, bent over a sack of food for a long time without moving. It was odd to see him like that. It was like he didn’t know what he was doing.
“I was just wondering if you had seen a cat-like animal running around on the lawn outside the stables,” I asked. “I think I saw it from my window last night.”
He froze. Then he turned and looked at me. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” he said while shaking his head and breathing faster.
“I just thought you knew all the animals in the forest. That’s why I ask.”
Adahy forced a smile. “Yes, yes of course. I see,” he answered, very distraught.
“So do you know what kind of animal it is? It seemed to be flying and not walking.”
“It might have been King here,” he said and petted his wolf dog that was always next to him. “He likes to go running at night. He runs very fast. It might look like he is flying in the air.”
“Well, maybe you are right,” I said. “I’d better get back to my class now. Thanks for your help,” I said and looked at him, waiting for him to say something, but he had gone back to staring at the sack again.
Chapter 13
That same afternoon Professor Grangé, my Metamorphosis teacher, wanted us to try something new. Everybody had learned the basics of flying. Even Nigel eventually got the hang of it. So now it was time for us to take it to another level, as the professor put it while he spoke to us from his head that he carried under his arm.
I had been wondering why he hadn’t asked to get the head back on when he entered Heaven, but Mick told me that Professor Grangé had chosen to keep his head off. He enjoyed people’s reaction when they saw him and he liked to scare his students. He just preferred it this way.
As second-year students, we had gotten used to it, so we no longer thought about it and no one stared at him or his head anymore.
Not until this moment.
Because that day Professor Grangé did something completely new. He put his head back on in the classroom. He lifted it up and screwed it back on the neck. It made a squeaking noise as he turned it. We all dropped our jaws simultaneously.
Professor Grangé smiled widely as he got the head positioned on his neck. He tilted it back and forth a couple of times before he burst into a great laugh and talked with that French accent of his.
“Alors, I’ll wager you didn’t know I could that, huh?” He said.
The classroom was silenced.
“I got you there, didn’t I?”
Still no one managed to utter a word, so the professor continued. “What are you waiting for? Why are you still sitting here and staring at me? The fun is outside, you know that!”
We gathered on the lawn outside the castle. As a couple of third-year students floated passed us, they yelled at the professor.
“Looking great, professor!”
“Keep moving, Mr. Dale. Nothing to see here,” Professor Grangé yelled back with a wide smile.
“New hair?” The guy next to the one the professor had called Mr. Dale yelled with a fake French accent not pronouncing the “h.”
The professor shook his head which looked very weird to all of us since we had never seen him do that before.
“Time to try something new, n’est-ce pas?” the professor yelled back. He looked at us and told us to ignore them.
“Well, children. The reason why I have put on my head for you today is that we are going on a field trip. We are trying something new today and it is easier if I keep my head on my shoulders.”
Nigel stretched his hand into the air. “Where exactly are we going?”
The professor smiled. It made me a little uncomfortable. “You’ll see,” the professor said as he soared quickly into the air yelling, “Follow me!”
We did as we were told and followed the professor for an hour or so flying above rugged mountains, dark oceans with crystal-white seashores and later big cities. It was the first time we went outside the school area as a class and I could tell my classmates were excited. A lot of them had never left the school since we got there. Since I was the only
student who had a permission to leave the school and visit Jason, I had tried it lots of times. So it wasn’t that big a deal to me, but I did enjoy getting away from the school again. It had been quite a while.
The sky was crystal clear for most of the way, but as time passed by it got increasingly cloudy. Clouds were always more fun to fly in and we all had a lot of excitement gliding in and out of them. Nigel even tried surfing one for the first time.
“Look at me!” he screamed, just before he fell and landed on another cloud.
He was laughing so hard and I couldn’t help but miss Abhik terribly. He would have loved going on this trip. I would have to take him when he got better, I thought to myself as the clouds became heavier and darker. Now we had to stay close together, the professor instructed us, so no one would get lost.
“The visibility is terrible around here, but it will only get worse from here on,” he said.
So we had to find a buddy, someone to stay close to. I chose Mai, with whom I had talked to a lot lately. We stayed close to each other as the clouds became really heavy and we could feel how it rained underneath us. Thunder roared beneath us and the professor told us to go higher, above the clouds, to avoid being struck by the dangerous lightning.
Mai and I stayed just behind him. He looked as though he was searching for something in the air.
“It should be here somewhere,” he mumbled to himself. “Just around here somewhere.”
”What are we looking for, Professor? I asked.
He put his hand up in the air to quiet me. “Just one moment, we are almost there,” he said.
Then he stopped in the air. “Here it is.” He pointed down through the clouds where a giant hole was growing out of the clouds. “I knew it was around here somewhere.” The professor smiled at us.
“What is?” I asked.
“The eye.” He pointed again and we all stared into the giant hole in the clouds that seemed to be slowly turning in a huge circle.
“What is that?” Acacia asked.
The professor smiled as if he was glad that she asked. He spoke with great enthusiasm.
“This, mes enfants, is the eye of the hurricane Katie. She was formed a couple of days ago over the Atlantic. She became a hurricane just yesterday so she is very new. Almost a baby.”
I swallowed hard. Comparing a deathly storm to a baby wasn’t something I had heard before.
“And what exactly are we doing here so close to her eye?” I asked.
The professor lifted his forefinger. “We are going to dive into it,” he said.
A murmur spread among my classmates.
“You cannot be serious. Are you asking us to go down there?” Nigel said with a trembling voice.
Professor Grangé nodded. “Now you see why I put on my head for you.”
Nigel gulped.
“It will be fine, Nigel. Just wait and see,” the professor said. “The important thing is to relax and just let the wind carry you. Never try to fight it when you are caught in a hurricane or even a tornado. You need to find complete serenity.”
“You mean to say that we are going to try to fly in a tornado as well?” Nigel asked with a shriek.
Professor Grangé nodded again. Now that he could, it seemed like he wanted to both nod and shake his head as much as possible.
“Oui, mon cher Nigel. That is exactly what we are going to do. And once you have got the hang of it you will soon see that it is the most fun you have ever had.”
Nigel had a look on his face of utmost terror. Fun wasn’t the word he was thinking of right now.
“You have to be aware that flying isn’t always without obstacles,” Professor Grangé continued. “Often you will have to face all kinds of weather. It could be a hurricane, a tornado, or just a small thunderstorm. But if you are not prepared for it, if you do not know what to do or how to react, it might throw you around like a tennis ball in a washing machine. That is why it is my job to make sure that you are prepared for all kinds of weather. And as I just said, if you know what to do, it can be extremely fun. Just look out for the lightning. Getting hit by a bolt might leave you unconscious.”
Most of us gulped and nodded, while Nigel hardly moved. His eyes were fixated on the eye of the storm that seemed to be growing bigger and bigger in front of us.
“This is only a Category One hurricane. It shouldn’t be that hard,” the professor continued. “What is important to know is that you cannot fight it. You cannot fly against the current. If you are caught in a storm like this, then all you can do is let go. Just let it take you where it wants. Relax in all parts of your body and most importantly do not ever panic. When you feel the storm loosening its grip on you, you can start flying sideways from it. I will show you how to do it. I will go first and then wait for you at the other end. Just do what you see me do. D’accord?”
We nodded again. Nigel was still motionless.
Professor Grangé gave us one more look before he dived head first into the eye of the hurricane. We all stared as he disappeared downwards, sliding in circles around inside the clouds, letting himself be pulled by the circling wind. As he was halfway down we heard him scream like someone on a rollercoaster ride. As he reached the bottom he disappeared while flying sideways away from the storm.
We all looked at each other.
“Who is next?” Mai asked.
We stared down at the huge hole under us. We all wanted to try it, but no one wanted to go first.
“I’ll do it,” I said.
The rest of the class clapped, relieved they didn’t have to do it first.
“Okay, Meghan,” Mai said. “I will go after you.”
“Great. See you down there,” I smiled. “Could you count for me?”
Mai nodded.
“On the count of three?”
“On three.”
I swallowed hard again as I saw lightning strike the earth at the bottom.
“One … two ...”
Chapter 14
As Mai said “Three,” I lifted my arms and bend forward. Like a professional swimmer, I dived head first into the deep hole. It was incredibly quiet in the middle of it, as if everything had ceased to exist and the wind itself had died. For a few seconds I just fell through the soundless air. It was a free fall into uncertainty.
I suddenly felt something grab onto my leg and pull strongly. Before I realized it was the circling wind, I was sucked into the spinning eye. I turned and turned in big circles and felt like I was on a great rollercoaster. I tried to look up and see the rest of the class, but it was impossible to know what was up and down, I just had to trust that I was being carried in the right direction.
“Just relax, find serenity no matter how rough the storm gets,” the professor had said, and so I tried. It was actually harder than I thought because it seemed very easy to panic. I completely lost my sense of direction and eventually I began to feel a little sick to my stomach from all that turning and spinning. I felt like my body was being stretched and almost ripped to pieces. When I tried to look at my feet it was like they had dissolved in the wind. I just hoped I would turn back into myself again afterwards.
But I knew there was no way out. I had to wait until I had reached the bottom of the hurricane’s eye. About halfway down I began to enjoy it a little bit. I got a tickling feeling in my stomach and I just had to laugh. So I screamed my laughter out, sounding exactly like the professor had.
When I reached the bottom, I was relieved it was over, but I also realized it had been a while since I had laughed this much. The feeling of just letting go, of letting the storm take control for a couple of minutes, was both terrifying and wonderful.
Now came the part that I really dreaded—getting out again. The pulling in my legs slowly got weaker and my feet reappeared. As the wind had almost completely let go of my body, I started flying with all my strength sideways away from the center of the storm. It was really hard and left me out of breath. The winds were still extremely strong and kep
t pulling on my legs, as though the eye wasn’t ready to let me go just yet and wanted me back inside. But somehow I was stronger than the pull of the wind. I managed to pull myself out of it and soon I spotted the professor. He had found land and was waving at me from a treetop not far away. There was still a lot of wind where he was and the tree was swaying while he was laughing. He grabbed my hand as I came closer to him.
The professor pulled me in and I threw myself exhausted around a big branch and held onto it tightly. The tree cracked loudly.
“Quite amusing, right?” the professor asked.
All I managed to do was to nod. I felt so worn out that I doubted I would be able to fly all the way back when we were done. But it had been quite a ride. I had to admit that much.
“Here comes another one,” I heard the professor shout and I lifted up my head just in time to see Mai shoot out of the eye. She was such a small girl that our physical training was always so much easier on her than on the rest of us. She flew to the tree smiling and laughing while holding her hands to her stomach.
“Wow! That was amazing!” she said.
“I knew you would like it,” the professor said.
After her, Acacia followed less elegantly, but also with a great big smile on her face. Down came Jackline and the Cornwell twins, who were quite exhausted as well by the huge physical effort, but not too tired to still fight over a branch.
“This was mine,” Alexandra said.
“Why do you always take the best?” Frederic countered.
Even Nigel did fine for most of the ride. We saw him as he came out of the eye and started to fly toward us. He smiled and seemed so relieved, but then something happened. It was like the storm wouldn’t let go of his right leg. It looked like it started to pull him back in. I saw the expression on his face change. The smile froze into the same look of terror we had seen earlier on his face.
