trace_of_scarlet

Cassie ran down the wide gravel path towards the school, mid-length brown-black hair swishing out behind her, new shoes with little roses on scrunching on the stones as her suitcase floated behind her. She dashed up to the group in front of the lovely mansion just as the only adult in the cluster produced what was unmistakeably a register.

“I’m here!” she gasped, blushing in the heat of the group’s stares. “Not late at all, really. Am I?”

The woman glanced at the floating case, then at her register. “Cassandra Allway?” she enquired. The woman was young –early twenties, Cassie estimated- and pretty, with a sharp sort of face, the darkest skin she had ever seen and waist-length charcoal-black braids. Cassie nodded.

“That’s me- but most people call me Cassie or Cass.”

“Very well. I’m Veronica Lake, but you’ll be calling me Miss Lake or by my codename, ‘Aqua’- which I’ll explain about in a moment, so put your hand down, young man. No, Cassie, you’re not late, but please try not to cut it so close in the future.”
Cassie grinned. “Sorry Miss Lake, we got lost- I’m not from round here, y’see.” The contrast between her Canadian accent and everyone else’s British tones could not have been more marked, and the other teenagers laughed, though her irony had apparently been lost on Miss Lake.

“Hmm. Well, anyway, welcome to the Samuel Institute for the Exceptional. It was started by my old friend and tutor, Dr. Carlotta Samuel, who is currently,” she paused, “elsewhere. So for now I am your headmistress. This school was begun a little over ten years ago to tutor children like yourselves- those with unusual or abnormal powers and abilities beyond those of normal humans. When I studied here, there were barely a dozen of us. We were taught in secret to protect us from attack from those who were –and still are- suspicious or afraid of what we could do.”

The short, flame-haired twelve-year-old boy who had attempted to interrupt her before put up a webbed hand. “Miss Lake, what can you do?”

The teacher frowned at the disturbance. “As my codename might suggest, I can control water- and yes, that does include ice, snow, hail, etcetera, etcetera.”

A brunette who must have been on the verge of asking gasped, “Are you a telepath as well, then, Miss?”

Miss Lake permitted herself a smile. “No, though one of my friends is- I’ve just been asked that question about my powers so often. But as I was saying, this school has always been a closely-hidden secret to prevent it from attack. However, we have recently ‘gone public’, and so the danger of attack will now be greater that ever. As such, to prevent you and your families being hounded should any of the school’s paperwork fall into the wrong hands, you will each be given a codename that describes your own individual powers and personality. You must always, always refer to each other and the staff by these codenames on anything solid or on computer files, and erase any trace of your full name on your belongings, on pain of a year’s detention doing the nastiest things any of us staff can invent. We are, as you should have guessed, very strict indeed about this. Once you have been given your own codename, all of the school’s references to your real name will be utterly destroyed, so we had best get this over with quickly. Yes?”

It was the ginger-haired boy again. “Miss, what if we don’t like our codenames? Can we change them?”

Miss Lake sighed. “Listen up, all of you, because I’m only going to say this once: there will be no altering of codenames permitted. Full stop. That is all that I’m going to say on the matter. Now, codenames!

“Cassandra Allway, with telekinesis and telepathy- Allstar.” The mystery of Cassie’s floating suitcase was explained as she blushed and lowered it with her telekinesis. Allstar- not bad, she decided. Could probably have been a lot worse.

“Nicola Blackman, metamorph- Chaos.” The tall, aloof-looking teenage black girl only nodded.

“Luke Buchanan: superhuman agility, climbing and other lizard-like powers: Gecko.” The redheaded boy wrinkled his nose, but for once held his tongue and said nothing.

“Cleo and Chang Chen, healing and death touch respectively- Yin and Yang.” The twins looked at each other and moved closer together. The majority of the others backed away from Chang, the boy with the death touch, as unobtrusively as possible.

“Carly Endover, with limited telepathy to read likes, dislikes and weaknesses- Penchant.” The curly-haired, friendly-looking sixteen year old appeared quite pleased with her name.

“Leo Lucas, technopath- Gadget.

“Molly Mulcahy, echolocation and enhanced hearing and reactions- Ragamuffin.

“Harry Paul: ability to appear in an emergency and develop whatever skills needed to help- Vanguard.

“Jenny Quantock- wings and intangibility.

“Rico Spiridion, flight and telepathy- Gabriel.” The Greek-looking boy in his late teens merely flapped his wings impatiently- otherwise he might as well not have heard. Now that the roll-call was over, however, the children looked frankly at each other, sizing up names and powers. Molly Mulcahy happened to look at Cassie, and her eerie white eyes gave Cassie a shock- Ragamuffin was blind. Perhaps sensing Cassie’s stare, the other girl pulled down the large dark sunglasses she had previously worn on top of her long, coppery-brown curls, obscuring her eyes completely.

“What do you think?” asked Carly, who was nearest; Cassie jumped, still feeling a shiver run down her spine.

“Oh- not bad,” she said, as lightly as possible. “I quite like mine.”

“I like mine,” Carly replied. “It’s-” She broke off as Miss Lake called, once more, for silence.

“Everyone!” She waited for sufficient quiet. “At present, we have sixty-eight pupils, including you, but new students will be arriving all the time- three are expected tomorrow, and another next week. For now-”

“Aqua!”

Miss Lake’s head whipped around at the call from behind her; her eyes lit up when she saw who it was: a tall, curly-haired man a little older than she with sleepy green eyes, a wicked grin and an Irish accent.

“Surge!” Dropping her cool, reserved demeanour like a shot, their headmistress dashed to the newcomer, to be enveloped in a hug. “When did you get back?” she demanded. “We thought you were still in Australia!”

“About twenty minutes ago,” Surge answered, grinning. “And what’s this about you as headmistress?”

Aqua’s face fell. “It’s a long story,” she said, dropping her voice; Surge took the hint.

“Ruby’s back, by the way,” he said lightly. “She got here a few minutes after I did.”

“Firestrike? She’s early.”

“For the first and only time in her life, I have no doubt. Are these newbies? Have you given them The Tour?”

“Not yet,” Aqua said, reverting to self-possession. “See to this, please.”

She tossed him the register; Surge clenched his fist and the paper exploded in a blaze of neon-blue electricity.

“I’ll show them around, if you want,” Surge offered. “You go find Ruby- I expect she’ll be waiting for you.”

“No need,” said a new voice: a tall young woman with an auburn crew-cut stood at the top of the steps that led to the mansion’s main doors. The air around shimmered like a Californian heat haze; she rose a few inches into the air and floated down the stairs to hug the headmistress. When they broke apart, ‘Aqua’ introduced the two newcomers.

“Children, these are Sean O’Hanlon, or Surge, and Ruby Connor, aka Firestrike. Surge, as you might have guessed, has electric powers, and Firestrike has heat manipulation. They’ll be teaching History and Self-Defence respectively.”