The Extraordinary Accounts of One Lost Girl

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I graduated from school two months later. It took me countless stressful and sleepless nights to prepare myself for the Final Graduation Exam in school. Even if our overall school ranking depended on our overall grades for the past few years ever since I applied to the convent, the Final Graduation Examination decided most of our rankings. The higher the ranking you got and the better the school you went to, the more people were willing to hire you for a job. That mainly applied to men. The higher the ranking, the more you were considered as educated. That was the only value a girl could obtain from her school education. Most girls, from families who could afford it, got admitted to finishing schools that taught girls etiquette, cooking, sewing, arts and literature.

I found myself ranking five from my grade. Ranking five from about two hundred girls was... acceptable I guess. The moment my ranking was posted to my home after the Final Graduation Exam, I applied to the National Nurse Training College with the recommendation letter from my school after approval from my teachers and my father who had to sign it like a petition to prove that I deemed worthy for the occupation. A month after that, I received the approval letter from the National Nurse Training College with the date and subjects that we would be tested on us upon admission.

It was followed with me hunting the recommended textbooks for anatomy, physiology and basic nursing whole throughout Colombo's bookshops. It was sad actually. I spent a whole month doing nothing but reading to my heart's content, only to find myself preparing to study for another exam. To be honest, I was already fed up of exams. But it postponed my marriage, hence I let it be. My youngest brother, Christopher, who was only twelve years old, started to read my new textbooks before I even touched them. I had to struggle with medical terms, new words and all the complications that came with studying the basics of medicine.

They were testing us without teaching us. I found it rather ridiculous. But I heard the selection process was strict. Having a good ranking and recommendation was not enough to be a nurse-in-training. If I failed, I would end up eventually engaged and thrown into a finishing school. I didn't want that to happen.

The examination was on March 13. On February 22 that same year, I had to attend an engagement party of a daughter of my mother's friends. She also, was barely sixteen. Our whole family was invited. Even father, who avoided any social function as possible was forced to attend since the girl's father was the General of Harbor Defense and not showing up would be equal to a slap to his face, considering that he was a very prideful man. Father didn't want to inquire wrath merely due to his indifference.

The Riverstens were a purely British family. General Harold Riversten had to bring his whole family to Ceylon upon his promotion to a General, only to find himself transferred to a small island in the middle of Asia. He must have felt his promotion to be a demotion upon hearing his transfer. He had to shift his whole family, with his two daughters to Ceylon. They were our neighbors, in the rich part of Colombo where the two daughters were home schooled by a governess they hired from Britain. In other words, the girls were fairly oblivious to anything about Ceylon. Madam Riversten befriended my mother only by chance, upon hearing that her neighbor's family was of a Major General and consisted of espers.

I remember the day Madam Riversten arrived to our house, dressed in a bright blue long flowing dress with puffed sleeves and lace gloves one barely sees with a sky blue parasols that had navy blue roses embroidered to it. Even my mother, who always carried herself with a calm confidence, was baffled. To see a women dressed purely as a British noble was rare in Ceylon, mostly because most high class nobles never bothered to step foot on the island, and also because any British who lived in Ceylon were not stupid enough to neglect practicality in a tropical island. Especially when the islanders didn't care how a white lady dressed, as long as they were white. Men wore their uniforms and their coats and jackets, but not women.

My mother was wearing a saree at that time. She mostly wore a saree in the Kandian style as she proclaimed. Ceylonese folk from the up country were proud, and my mother being a noble, didn't want to throw away her culture. My brothers and I grew up in a household mixed with Ceylonese servants that followed my mother and with English maids and a butler from my father's side. Father didn't mind my mother not following his culture and the butler somehow integrated to our mixed British-Ceylonese mix family. My second oldest brother, Henry, was home that day as well as Christopher as it was a Sunday. Charles, that day, was on duty along with my father.

'That's a rare sight,' Henry proclaimed. Henry was a telepath and being a telepath made one rather eccentric in my opinion. He was the only person in my family that actually took effort to talk to me at times. Christopher thought I was inferior as he was very clever while Charles was too proud and arrogant to even spare me a glance.

My mother whispered something to the butler, obviously to prepare something fit for a lady and wore her signature smile to welcome the lady. Mrs Riversten stared a great deal at my mother for a long time without saying anything with her smile frozen. I guess she didn't expect my mother to be a local.

'Madam Riversten I presume?' my mother said, smiling and showing her to a seat in the verandah of our mansion. I could almost hear Mrs. Riversten breath out a sigh of relief before sitting down. My mother spoke English very well, being educated since young.

'This is going to be entertaining,' Henry said while giving the lady one of his cultured gentlemen smiles while Christopher frowned. Henry probably knew everything that was going on in Mrs. Riversten's head and it made me wish that I was a telepath as well.

As expected, Mrs. Rivesten could not wrap her mind around why my father would marry an islander and dared not to voice the question. Eventually, she decided that my mother and father fell in love when father was transferred to Ceylon for duty. That is what Henry told me at least. Most people didn't know about the Esper Breeding Program and my parents were happy to make other's believe that their marriage was solely based on love, even if that was not a case. Yet, being mixed race had its disadvantages. For one, my family always caught a lot of attention. I was a Ceylonese girl with green eyes and people would always wonder how my eyes were green. Henry was tanned with bead black eyes and spoke like a gentleman. Even Charles seemed odd at first glance. He had jet black hair, black eyes and fair skin. Yet there was always something off about him. Only Christopher got most of his genes from father and was the only child with blonde hair and green eyes.

Me and my siblings spend a great deal being gazed at my Mrs. Riversten by time to time as we also sat with the best of our behavior while and she and mother spoke about how Ceylon was different from Britain. My mother must have felt sorry for the lady, being thrown into a place she barely knows about and told her almost everything a British lady should know to survive in Ceylon. Eventually, Mrs. Riversten and my mother became good friends.