Once upon a school,
Sloane Select High, a sophomore named Lavinia Price wielded her considerable
power. Sloane High was so ritzy there was a large crystal chandelier hanging in
the entrance hallway. During the holiday season a grand piano played carols all
by itself and a huge Christmas tree decorated in magical lights generated real
snow. The brilliantly colored lights rearranged themselves without need of
human touch.
This didn’t impress Lavinia Price who was
the richest, most fashionable cheerleader in school.
The basketball team, The Sloan Shifters, were
the best in the district and the school plays Sloan High put on always had a large
audience. As you may have gathered, Sloan Select was very special. So special,
in fact, students had to be gifted in an unusual way to gain entry. There were
rumors some of them were actually characters from fairy tales, they just didn’t
know it yet.
Some were gliders (they could move back or
forward in time). Others could play piano or sing like a dream. Some were
shifters (they could change their form) and some were weather changers (they
could manipulate the weather). Object movers (they could move objects with
their minds) were very sought after. Sara Bright was a combination of all of
the above – the most powerful.
Lavinia Price, newly recruited cheerleader,
weather changer and object mover, could answer just about any question – with
the help of her cell phone. She wasn’t impressed by the other students or the
entrance hall at Sloane. Her own home was far more glamorous. Rightly or
wrongly, she thought study was boring, socializing was everything and her mad
skills (more on those later) reigned supreme. She had her eye on Jack Hunter, though.
He’d been newly recruited to the school basketball team from some forgettable
corner of LA and Lavinia had liked him since she first clapped eyes on him. Jack
was tall with blonde hair and a cute smile.
Every morning, Lavinia would text her
smart phone the same question (it had voice recognition amongst other things
and Lavinia could see her face on the screen), “mirror mirror on my phone who
is the hottest girl at Sloane?” Every afternoon her cell texted the same
response: You are Lavinia.
That was until Sara Bright arrived.
Sara was the smartest girl who had ever
attended Sloane Select; and the most gifted. She was already taking senior Chemistry
and there was talk she could mix potions, any kind of potion, especially love
potions.
Sara was also destined to become quite
popular. She was talented, genuinely nice – and pretty, with her dark curls and
naturally red lipped smile. Sara kept her distance from Lavinia Price though;
it was as if she knew that Lavinia was jealous of her.
Perhaps that was one of Sara’s gifts, Lavinia
thought, the gift of second sight. Sara could answer every question in Math and
was particularly good at Physics and chemical equation class. The sophomores
nicknamed chemical equation class, chemical romance, because some peeps were
working on love potions. Lavinia realised Sara wouldn’t be the first girl at
Sloane who came prepared with visions of the future and love potions but it
didn’t seem fair that she also had Jack Hunter’s undivided attention.
Lavinia decided to do some research. She headed
to the girl’s locker room immediately and attempted to rifle through Sara’s open
locker. Her street clothes were dark and shabby – apart from that, nothing. Still,
Lavinia sensed her power was being usurped and texted:
Ring
ring on my phone, who is the prettiest girl at Sloane?
Why,
the new girl, Sara Bright is.
There was only one word for Lavinia’s
feelings: outrage. She’d already done at least six mean things to various girls
who thought they were prettier or more popular than her. Lavinia couldn’t
believe they hadn’t worked it out yet. She only knew how to rule with fear. It
was just who she was.
Lavinia’s home life hadn’t been that great,
her mom was exactly like an older version of her, but that was no excuse. She
knew right from wrong. Being born with (quite) exceptional powers, gave her the
ability to gain attention in all the wrong ways. Now, at a school where
everyone was exceptional, she’d had to use some old-fashioned nastiness. So
far, it was working. Peeps in groups divided in two when they saw her coming.
Not Jack Hunter and Sara Bright, though. They
just stayed talking when they saw her appear, trailed by her mean girl pom poms.
She flicked the hem of her cheerleading outfit as she walked by and Jack and
Sara laughed. The whole school stopped and stared. Lavinia collected her
homework and her lunch from one of the students too afraid to say no to her.
Once, Lavinia had put a poisonous lizard in
someone’s locker. No one knew how she got it, because there was talk that she
was neither a glider nor a shifter. Lavinia wasn’t just a weather changer or an
object mover. She was the most feared of all… a wicked, little conjurer. Unlike
the other students she refused to use her gifts for good.
Lavinia could imagine things and make them
happen, manifest an object with her mind; it meant her world could appear, like
magic, but only briefly. Lavinia’s magic was hollow and brittle, like her
personality. People said that’s how the poisonous lizard arrived. Lavinia
manifested it, out of thin air. The reptile disappeared as quickly as it appeared so no teacher was the wiser;
but everyone was scared of Lavinia.
The students were open mouthed when a pathway
Lavinia created behind her made a space not just between the gossiping students
but merged into a small ocean flowing with waves in the middle of the hallway.
The ocean closed up and became a sheet of fire until the smoke alarm sounded
and Lavinia shut the whole mirage down. The vice-principal, Mrs Myers, came out
screaming but the students just stood open mouthed. They knew it was only
Lavinia manifesting visions that weren’t even real.
Lavinia shook her head. “Why are you all
staring at me?” Total Rudeness, Lavinia
thought. As she pulled her purse from her locker, she changed the color of her
nail polish from pale blue to pink with just the click of her fingers. She was
so over people staring at her. They should mind their own business and work on
their own dubious talents, Lavinia thought. Sometimes she wondered if her only
friend was her smart phone; and the only way she could control that was by
turning the annoying thing off, which she did, right away.
Lavinia had plans and she didn’t need any
more lame advice.
Besides,
in chemical romance class she’d been working on a formula for invisibility that
she’d decided to try as soon as possible. Looking at Sara and Jack huddled
together made her think trying it sooner rather than later might be the ticket.
She guzzled a small amount of fizzy orange liquid from the tiny ceramic vial
she kept on a chain around her wrist. In the minutes it took her to walk from
class to the bus stop, it hadn’t worked. Lavinia was wondering what to do in
the unlikely event she’d developed the potion with a flaw. Distracted, she
didn’t realize Sara was looking at her from the back seat of the bus.
“What do you want?” Sara asked as Lavinia conjured her ticket
then moved to take a seat.
Sara turned around and challenged Lavinia.
She was the first girl to ever do this.
“Mmm… not so friendly outside school hours,
are we?” Lavinia said.
“… and you’re not so friendly in. Why are
you on my bus?”
“It’s a free country. I’m going shopping.”
“Where? In East L.A.?”
“Not exactly…”
Sara ignored Lavinia and started reading on
her tablet.
Lavinia
began to feel her skin tighten and hoped the secret formula would work – just
not too soon.
She looked down at her finger and the
polish had disappeared. She felt her lips and there was no gloss. Externals
were the first to go. Thankfully, the bus screeched to a halt and Sara moved to
get off.
Lavinia moved also, just as her socks
disappeared. It was becoming more and more obvious that Sara was walking towards
the opposite side of town.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m just going in the same direction as
you.”
“I doubt that...”
