Halfling

Chapter 6

The classroom was brightly big and brightly lit. The walls were white and shiny. The clothes which Amy had given me were surprisingly comfortable. I wore one of her stretchy black trousers and a dark purple t-shirt. It seemed that Amy only wore dark clothes. She had given me some black boots too. There were around fifteen people in the room who were all chatting happily. There were no windows visible but there was a wide purple curtain that covered what I thought were windows. At one end of the room was a mini swimming pool and around it were big bowls of water. At the other end of the room, fires were lit. 'What lesson is this?' I asked. 'Element practice. It's really cool' replied Amy. 'Where were you during history' someone said a girl with brown hair and dark brown eyes. She was looking at Amy. 'I had to go to the secretary to sign Anna in' she said. 'Anna, this is Ellie. Ellie, this is Anna' Ellie smiled at me. 'Hi' she said. 'Are you air because we could work together?' said Ellie. 'Or fire?' said another girl with blonde hair and bright blue eyes. 'I'm Holly.' 'I'm Anna' I introduced myself. 'She's a quattuor persona' said Amy. 'Ellie and Holly looked slightly surprised but I noticed Holly giving Amy a look to which Amy nodded slightly but that happened so fast that I thought that I had imagined it. 'Wow' said Ellie after a slight pause. 'Will and Dimana are cross with you' said Holly to Amy. 'Will is the girl with the shorter hair?' I asked. 'Will isn't a girl' said Amy. 'They're an agender.' Oh. Right. 'Where were you during history?' demanded a familiar voice. Will and Dimana were standing behind me. Amy rolled her eyes. 'If someone asks me that question again I swear that I...' I didn't hear what Amy was swearing to do because just then a large plump woman had walked into the classroom. She had light brown hair that had a few stripes of grey in it. Her eyes where a light green colour. She wore gold glasses, a red blouse and a scarlet knee length skirt. 'Hello people, you all know what do. Carry on practicing making your element ball. I'll set up some targets so that you can throw your element ball at the target for those that feel ready with their element ball. Remember that you have to concentrate on the ball the entire time. Even when it's flying at the target. It will soon become a habit.' She spoke with an American accent. As soon as she had finished talking everybody rushed to someplace leaving my standing in the middle of the room looking like an idiot and wondering what to do. 'I'll introduce you' said Will appearing next to me. 'Thanks' I said gratefully. Will pulled me through a group of boys who were pushing each other to the mini swimming pool and bowls of water. The teacher was examining a floating ball of water. Next to her was a boy with wavy blond hair and dark blue eyes. He was looking hard at the ball of water and was slightly frowning. I stared with wide eyes at the ball of floating water. This was amazing. I noticed that the teachers' glasses kept sliding down her nose so she had to push them up very minute. She nodded and said: 'Try throwing it at the targets.' The boy made the ball of water float to his hand and made a throwing motion. The ball flew through the air and splatted on a target nearby. 'That was a good start. Try making the water stay more solid when throwing it' said the teacher. 'Mrs Archer?' asked Will. 'Yes, what is it Will?' Mrs Archer noticed me and immediately understood . 'Oh, a new student. Will, you can carry on practicing. What's your name?' asked Mrs Archer. 'Anna' I replied. 'Element?' asked Mrs Archer pushing her glasses back up. 'Quattuor persona' I answered hoping that Mrs Archer wouldn't react like the secretary. The boy who had thrown the ball glanced at me but then carried on concentrating on his water ball. Mrs Archer didn't even blink when I said quattuor persona. 'You had better start with spirit then. Follow me' she said. I followed her towards the wide curtain which she pushed aside and instead seeing a window there was a small room.

It was slightly dark but there a few candles lit on the floor. Around them sat three girls and two boys. All the girls had long black hair that glimmered in the candlelight. They had closed their eyes and looked as if they were meditating. 'Come here, E' whispered Mrs Archer. Out of a dark corner of the room came a girl that I hadn't noticed. She looked like she was about sixteen. She wore only black. Black jeans, black shoes, black leather jacket... Her hair was also black and short. It covered most of her face. I could only see her mouth and a bit of one of the purple eyes. They were purple! 'You're eyes are purple' I blurted out before I could stop myself. 'Got a problem with that?' said E in a hostile voice. Is E her real name? 'E, don't be rude' said Mrs Archer in a stern voice. 'Anna is new here. I would like you to teach her how to use the spirit element. Teach her the basics first' E looked grumpy. When E didn't respond Mrs Archer looked at her angrily and left the room muttering. I heard her saying something like 'as if I were talking to the wall'. E slouched back to wall and leaned on the wall with her hands in her pockets. I followed her nervously.

E had closed her eyes so that it looked as if she were sleeping. After a couple of minutes of me standing next to her awkwardly I decided to say something. 'Um, so whatamI s...' I stopped talking because I saw E glaring at me angrily. I wasn't usually this nervous around people. I could be a bit shy but I was never nervous. I suddenly felt a strong urge to walk away. Away from E. Without thinking I took a step back. But that was not what I wanted to do. I never wanted to take a step back or walk away from E and lie down somewhere. I was about take another step back when I realised something. Maybe spirit users can control minds? It would explain the incident when I ran into some man in a fancy suite who was turning red and was yelling at me when his face became blank and he just walked off. So that must mean E was making me do these things. I had to block her. But how? Time to experiment. I imagined E thoughts pushing at mine. I imagined my thoughts pushing hers away. I opened my eyes. I never remembered closing them. I no longer wanted to walk away from E. I had managed to block E. 'Next time, use a force field shield. It's better' said E looking at me. I realised that I was sweating and felt as if I had been sprinting. 'Is there a specific way to block people?' I asked. I no longer felt nervous. 'No. Imagination is essential in spirit' said E. She still looked slightly grumpy but she wasn't hostile anymore. 'What are they doing?' I asked pointing at the girls and the two boys who still looked like they were meditating. 'They're pretending to talk to spirits' said E looking very annoyed. 'What do you mean?' I was curious. 'They think that if they go in a trance, they can talk to spirits. Only that's a super rare gift and most spirits are angry and only want to cause trouble. If they were talking to real spirits then they would be looking very grave after each trance session' explained E. She stopped leaning against the wall and walked to the curtain without looking back. 'That wasn't bad for your first time' she said just as I heard a loud ringing. I was surprised. Could time have flown that fast or was it a short lesson? I looked at a clock on the wall. Eleven o'clock. Time had flown very fast. I walked up to the curtain just as the girls and boys who were 'talking to spirits' opened they're eyes. They started to chat happily. I heard one of them say 'She said that I was to find a pot of flowers made out of gold someday as long as I ate one gold marshmallow everyday' as I left the room. Couldn't she have thought of something that wasn't that stupid or unlikely? I was too busy thinking about what had happened to notice the big and bulky sixteen year old boy in front of me. I bumped into him. 'Sorry' I said and was about to carry on walking towards the door when I saw the boys expression.

He looked very angry. Extremely angry. 'Nobody bumps into me!!!' He growled. 'Sorry' I said again. 'That's not in of' growled the boy. He was tall and had spiky white blonde hair and pale blue eyes. A group of other boys who were as big him were standing menacingly behind him. 'What do you want me to do?' I demanded. 'Do you know who I am?' he asked in a dangerous voice. 'No and I don't care' I said. I had only bumped into this guy and he acts as if I had stabbed him in the back. 'You're going to pay for that' he said. A fire ball appeared in his hand. I morphed into a sharp dagger which he held as if it wasn't burning him. This was bad. I tried to do something like summon water and splash it over him and grinning triumphantly but of course nothing happened. Instead I stared at him. No, not at him but at the fire dagger which he was waving about. His friends started to laugh. 'Leave her alone, Jason' said Amy's voice from behind the boys. They turned around and saw Amy standing with crossed arms tapping her foot on the floor. She wore a leather jacket and her long blond hair was slung over one shoulder. Her blue eyes were staring at Jason who was the boy in front of me. He glanced at her and grinned. 'Stay out of this Amy' he demanded. 'You're ruining my cool moment' grumbled Amy. 'I'll try again. Leave Anna alone!' Jason ignored. 'Yes! I can do it the cool' Amy sounded delighted. That got Jason's attention. He glanced up just as a light wind began to blow around the room and all of a sudden he flew up in the air and was thrown against one of the walls leaving him dazed on the ground. His friends growled and ran at Amy. I wanted to help somehow but I didn't know how. Amy waited calmly until two of Jason's friends were close to her she kicked one of them in the groin and somersaulted and during the somersault she kicked another of Jason's friends on the head. Will, Dimana, Ellie and Holly came to help but I suddenly noticed that Jason was not knocked out. He was glaring at me and I realised a moment too late that a flying fire dagger was aimed at my direction. All this happened just because I bumped into Jason. I was really mad at that guy. I saw the dagger as if it was flying at me in slow motion. I put my hand in front of my face as if I could protect myself that way. The fire dagger was inches away from me.

A/N: Hi people! The drawing at the top of the screen is E. What did you think of the chapter? What do you think will happen?

Dimana :)