The Secret Legacy of Pan - English Translation

Chapter Nine

AT COREY'S

When I stepped out of the tram later that day, I was blinded. The sun had this powerful, intense colour that lit up all the house walls around me, and painted the trees, leaves, and flowers in a colourful shade. Typical autumn lighting. An inspiration to all impressionists! With lighting like this, it was not hard to imagine Renoir sitting in a park and putting all those sunspots shining through the trees on paper.

But I would be sitting in a dark room again soon, bent over schoolbooks. Corey's little sister, Cheryl, needed all the help she could get in English, and I needed the money that I earned from tutoring.

I loved the small parks all around London. Green oases in the middle of a noisy, grey desert. Corey lived in a side street, and although it was detour from the tram to his place, I always walked through the park. Especially when the sun was out. Three elderly people were tanning on a bench, five kids were playing on the playground, and four mothers were chatting while they were pushing and pulling their strollers and watching the older kids play. A bit further away, two ravens were jumping about, looking for something to eat.

One second, I was observing this idyllic picture, in the next, I was faced with a meadow. No people, no buildings, no noise. Dead silence. The people, the cars – everything had disappeared. Just this meadow and a few hundred metres away, a few trees on a hill.

I faltered and took a startled breath. In the same moment, I was back in the park. The noise suddenly returned. I stumbled and had to put my hands on my ears. What just happened? Had that been a vision? Was I going mad? My heart was beating irregularly, my knees were weak. Unsure of what to do, I dragged myself along the path. I had to get out of here.

The park had lost all its charm. Not just that. I was afraid. Why had that happened? I took a couple of breaths until I was able to walk normally again. When I passed by the ravens, I had the feeling they were watching me with tilted heads.

Corey opened the door. "Cheryl is still in the shower. She needs like thirty more minutes", he explained. That was typical of her. We would only have half an hour to practice, because I had to get back to the pub. I followed Corey to his room to wait there.

"Oh, hey, Jayden", I uttered in surprise. Jayden sat beside Corey on his computer. But he seemed embarrassed when he saw me.

"Hi, City", he said. His voice seemed a bit reserved. If it had not been for his dark skin colour, I could have sworn he was bright red. My gaze turned to the window directly beside the PC. Right then, a woman flit past the opposite window. I understood.

"Oh. My. God." I looked to the window again. The woman was definitely only wearing a bra and a G-string. Now I knew why Jayden had been so flustered. A look to the PC confirmed my suspicions because the monitor was turned off. "You wretched pervs", I hissed.

Corey grinned, unaffected by the situation. "Don't be like that, City. I will never complain about my view again." The woman was walking back and forth while talking on the phone, giving us a good view of her 110-60-90. Especially of the 90 because she kept turning her back to the window.

"Don't begrudge us for it, City", Corey said, but he was not looking at me. "After all, you girls have been lusting over a certain someone at school as of late. Now me and Jayden also have someone."

I looked at him sternly. "If you are talking about my bench mate..."

"Of course, who else?"

"Lee is definitely not...", I wanted to protest, but paused as I was reminded of Felicity, Cynthia, and Ava. "At least he isn't naked", I placated.

"No, fortunately for us", Corey said honestly, "because I would get a serious complex. Since he's at school, no woman has even spared me a glance."

"No one spared you a glance before him either. You just never realized", Jayden said drily and stared out the window. Miss G-string was about to bend over to pick something up.

"Enough!", I shouted and blocked the window. "Could you guys at least behave yourselves while I'm here? Think about your sister? She's thirteen. What do you think will happen if she sees this?"

"Don't know", Corey admitted, unbothered. "But I don't think she'll replace her Sheepworld stuff with sex toys just like that."

"But maybe she'll replace her underwear with G-strings and start making a show in front of her window from now on. I can imagine the hairy bastard over there enjoying his fill." I watched with satisfaction as Corey's eyes found the window above Miss G-string in horror. A man of pretty questionable appearance with a thick, dark beard was sitting there. He stared down at us. I waved up at him kindly. He disappeared immediately.

Cheryl popped her towel-wrapped head past the door. "I'm ready." How nice. I knew that she was embarrassed about being tutored. Not just because she was bad at English, but also because the uncool friend of her uncool brother was helping her... Wait! I quickly corrected myself. Lee was right: As long as I felt like a loser, everyone would treat me like one. I had to stop that.

I still followed her and thought about those seven pounds I would be handed soon. When I closed the door, I could hear Jayden say to Corey: "Our City is pretty great. At least she's not falling for the chiselled face of that jerk."

It was not until I was on my way back that I recalled the incident at the park. Or had it been a hallucination? Two ravens had reminded me. They were sitting on a construction barrier, and I had the feeling they were watching me. I knew it was nonsense, but ravens had always had that effect on me. I looked away and walked faster. My gaze fell upon a small, Italian ice cream shop on the other side of the road. Ava and Lee were sitting in the intense autumn sun. Ava was making dog eyes at him and balancing her filled spoon in front of his mouth. Lee let her feed him and both laughed.

I felt as if someone had slapped me – including the humiliation and shock. But I immediately asked myself: why was I feeling like this? It was not like Lee was my boyfriend. A lot of girls were fawning over him at school. Even Phyllis and Nicole. He was my bench mate. Nothing else. He was kind and friendly towards me. I should appreciate that. And I did appreciate it.

Still, I had silently hoped he was different. That he would not fall for the affectionate bullshit of the Three Graces. That he would see through that shallowness and... and what? Fall in love with me? Did I want that?

I thought about it and came to the conclusion that, no, he was not my type. Really. He looked stunning and was interesting, smart, and polite, but something irked me about him. Maybe because he looked too good, was too perfect. Maybe it was because it was the first time I had gotten attention from someone other than my friends. Maybe it was because he was suspect.

And he was blond. Blond with blue eyes. Richard Cosgrove, my favourite actor, had dark hair and grey eyes. I concluded that I had no reason to be offended or jealous when Lee was flirting with other girls. Rather, I felt disappointed. He wanted to go to my mum's pub with me, he had made out with Felicity on his first day at school, and now he was eating ice cream with Ava. A Casanova. Just like I had assessed him from the beginning.

It did hurt a little, however. The ravens were still looking at me. I had the feeling they were laughing at me.