A Strange Fire (Florence Vaine) (4 page)

 Franklin, or Frank, as he’d introduced himself, pulls a black notepad
out of his bag and flops it open to the nearest clean page. I push my chair
back a little, trying my best to be discreet about it so that I can watch him
write. I still haven’t gotten over my obsession with the flames of his aura.

 His handwriting is a neat joint scrawl as he writes the date at the top
of the page and the title of this lesson. His shirt sleeves are rolled up and
there’s a tattoo on his inner right arm. It’s a quote in an elegant script. I
lean closer ever so slightly to make out what it says.

You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than
enough.

 Interesting. I wonder what it means. I almost fall out of my seat when I
look up and see Frank’s eyes on me. He leans in close to me, and whispers,
“It’s a quote by William Blake, just in case you were wondering.” Then he
flashes me a brilliant smile. I mean to reply with something like, “Oh cool,”
but his proximity has me nervous.

 Just like earlier in CSPE, I can’t get the words out. I open my mouth to
say something, anything, but it’s useless. I think he can tell that my stupid
stammer is getting to me again because he frowns, sympathy in his eyes. I turn
away and begin taking down notes. After a minute, Frank does the same.

 Midway through the class, Frank leans in and asks, “Why Flo? Why not
Florence?”

 “I d-don’t like my full name.”

 “But it’s a good name.”

 “No it isn’t.”

 “Seems to me like you shortened it so you can hide better.”

 I throw him a confused glance, but he just smiles and tells me, “You
should never try to hide,” he pauses and then says, “Florence,” the way he
pronounces it almost makes me like the name my dad gave me for a moment. I
don’t know what he means about hiding, and I really don’t feel like getting
into it, so I return to my notes.

 When the final bell of the day rings I shove my notepad and textbook
into my bag, zip it up and turn to leave. Before I can get past Frank he grabs
my wrist, his touch is warm, like the fire that surrounds him. His thumb grazes
the sensitive spot just before my palm, it feels like nothing I’ve ever known.
People don’t generally touch me. I’ve always been strange and unapproachable.
Perhaps they sense that I can see the truth of who they are and it makes them
avoid me. I pause and look at him, wondering why he grabbed me. His eyes are
closed and he looks peaceful.

 Then he opens them and asks, “Can I walk you home?”

 I don’t know what to say, and my idiot voice messes everything up yet
again. “I-I l-l-live t-t-twenty...”

 Before I can finish he puts a finger to my lips. “Don’t protest, just
let me walk you home.”

 I was trying to tell him that I live a twenty minute walk away and that
he probably wouldn’t want to go that far. His fingertips on my lips send my
heart shooting through my chest, crashing against my ribcage, and now it’s hard
to breathe.

 “I’ll meet you at the front gates in five minutes, okay?”

 I just nod, and he smiles and walks out of the classroom. I go to my locker
to get the books I need for my homework. Caroline peeks her head around the
open locker door and asks, “Do you want a lift home?”

 “N-no I’m good to walk.” I tell her.

 “Okay, let me know if you change your mind.”

 I smile and finish loading the books into my bag. Then I make a quick
dash for the toilets. On my way inside I run into Ingrid and two other girls.
She stops when she sees me, but she doesn’t get out of my way and neither do
her friends. My heart begins to beat frantically and my cheeks redden. Girls
like Ingrid intimidate me, but then again, I suppose that’s the purpose of
girls like that. They get off on being cruel. A dark muddy green colour begins
to form amid the pink of Ingrid’s aura. She resents me for some reason. All I
want is to be left alone.

 “Your eyes freak me out, F-F-F-Florence, you know that,” she says in a
harsh voice.

 “E-excuse m-me.” I say and try to walk past her, her friends block my
way.

 The brownish green is getting stronger by the second, and I can’t stop
looking at it.

 “What the fuck are you looking at?” she demands.

 “Are you retarded?” asks one of her friends.

 “She must be,” says the other. “She’s always looking around like some
fucking spastic.”

 I try to say something in response but I can’t, it’s hard enough trying
to speak to people with good intentions, and these three clearly despise me.
Ingrid pushes me and I trip backwards.

 “These toilets are not for your use, so find another, or piss yourself.
I don’t care either way,” she hisses.

 I grab my bag and quickly rush away from them. I’ll have to hold my
bladder until I get home. By the time I get out of the school most of the
students are getting on buses, or into cars and leaving. I want to cry so badly
but I need to wait until I’m at home in my room in Gran’s. That way I won’t
have to worry about being seen blubbering like a baby.

 When I see Franklin standing by the school gates talking to the blond
guy and his girlfriend, I literally cannot approach them. I’ve suffered enough
with being ridiculed by Ingrid and her friends. I can’t find the strength to
talk to new people right now.

 There are lots of students leaving through the gates so I decide to try
and blend in with the crowd and maybe Frank will be too busy talking to his
friends to notice me. I walk swiftly, close behind a group of younger girls.
Frank doesn’t see me avoid him, thank God. But I only get six or seven yards
outside of the gates when I hear him call, “Hey Flo, wait for me.”

 I turn around when he reaches me and tell him, “I w-w-want to be a-alone.”
Then I run away, as fast as my feet will carry me. He doesn’t follow me, just
stands on the spot stunned. And I run the whole way home, never stopping once.

I don’t understand why I ran away from Frank, an extremely friendly and
attractive young man. Even though I’d really like to get to know him, I just
wish I could be somebody else while doing it. I don’t want to fumble my way
through sentences, while he politely pretends not to notice my stammer. I want
to be able to talk properly.
And
there’s the whole story about him
having spent time in juvie.

 When I get home I open the front door with the key Gran gave me
yesterday. I can hear her voice in the kitchen, she laughs at something, and
then I hear another woman talking. I go inside, dropping my bag at the end of
the stairs and make a quick dash for the toilet.

 “Florence, is that you?” Gran calls a minute later as I leave the
bathroom.

 “Yeah, it’s me Gran,” I shout back.

 “Come on in here, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

 I sigh and make my way into the kitchen. Gran is sitting at the table by
the window with another woman. The woman is in her late thirties and has middle
length blond hair, she’s wearing a cream blouse and jeans. I almost trip over
my own feet for a second when she turns to greet me, smiling widely.

 Because as she offers her hand and says, “Hi there, I’m Diana, your
grandmother’s care assistant,” her entire body flashes, for a fraction of a
second becoming an entire other person. A girl with short blond hair, a girl
about my age. Then a second later it flashes back to the woman in her late
thirties. I rub my eyes and shake my head, I must be hallucinating. All the
stress of my first day at school in Chesterport, or maybe those Xanax are
giving me side effects.

 “H-hi,” I say. “I’m Flo, n-nice to meet you D-diana,” and then I shake
her hand.

 “Come and sit with us Florence,” says Gran, pouring me a cup of tea. I
sit down by Gran and study Diana. She and Gran are talking about the upcoming
Chesterport Arts Festival at the end of the month. I take a sip of tea. Diana’s
aura is nothing special so I’m not interested in her so much.

 She’s got the materialistic kind of red and a hint of grey, the grey
normally indicates a dark side, but it’s not as sinister as it sounds. Most of
my dad’s friends had grey in their aura, it’s a common colour in people who
live in cities and hang out with men like my father. Impure people. But where
would you find people who aren’t these days? Half of the students at my new
school were showing grey auras today. Badness in people, I’ve come to
understand, is a lot more common than goodness.

 “Diana made lasagne for dinner Florence,” says Gran. “I’ve already had
mine, you can heat yours up in the microwave if you’d like. It’s in the white
container in the fridge.”

 “Okay.” I reply, and rise to go about heating up my dinner.

 “So how did you find your first day at school?” asks Diana.

 “It was fine, I made a couple friends.” I answer, trying to sound
cheerful. Well, I made one proper friend, and ran away from a potential second.

 “That’s good,” she smiles. “You’re in your final year now aren’t you?”

 “Yes, that’s right.”

 “You must be turning eighteen soon,” she continues.

 “Yeah, my b-birthday’s in three months. December twentieth.”

 “Oh, we’ll have to throw you a party honey,” says Gran.

 “Maybe not a party Gran,” I grimace. “I barely know anybody here.”

 “Of course, of course, whatever you want love.”

 The microwave pings. I put the lasagne on a clean plate and tell Gran
I’ll have it upstairs in my room, feigning tiredness. I don’t want to sit and
talk with Diana any more, her selfish aura is giving me a headache. There’s so
much want in her. I can get this way with people sometimes, it’s like polluted
people taint those who aren’t. Not that I’m saying I’m anywhere near
unpolluted, I don’t like to study my own aura, sometimes I’m afraid of what I
might see. It’s hard enough having to look at my arms and legs radiating
anxiety and fear. I don’t need to carry out any further inspection to know that
I’m a mess.

 Some people say that your childhood stays with you forever. Well if
that’s true then God help those of us who’ve had bad ones. It doesn’t exactly
contribute toward the building of a well-rounded character to have your father
nickname you “the murderer”.

 If he had any ounce of intelligence I might have tried to explain to him
what the word “murder” actually implies, that the act requires pre-thought
intentions. I hate to sound so stereotypically teenage, but I didn’t ask to be
born. My mother died in childbirth because she’d compromised her health with
booze and drugs. If she’d taken care of herself she probably wouldn’t have
died. All of this I know. Still, when your parent throws blame at you
constantly, you tend to start believing it.

 Ever since I could talk I’ve had a stammer. I can’t ever remember not
having one. Maybe it’s genetic. Maybe it’s because I’ve always been afraid.
Afraid of the man who was supposed to make me feel safe, loved and protected.

 Ever since I could see I saw colours. As a child I didn’t know to keep
my ability to myself. I’d point out people’s auras to my dad. It didn’t even
faze him, he’d just tell me to shut the hell up and stop attention seeking. I’d
always know when he was off his face on heroin because his aura would turn
completely white; white is almost always a bad sign. It tends to mean that a
person is inebriated in some way. I can’t count the number of times I’d come
home from school to find he’d overdosed.

 It’s not exactly a testament to the social services in this country that
I only ever got taken away from him once, then given back three days later. I
sit on my bed and eat my lasagne, but all food tastes like ashes when I’m
thinking of Dad. He never cared about my stammer at all. He’d get pissed off
and tell me to talk properly, but he never bothered to help. To maybe send me
to speech therapy or something. I’m so scared now that I’ll never get rid of
it, and I’m even more scared to go to a therapist myself in case I really can’t
learn to overcome it.

 I know that a lot of people with a stammer get over it eventually, but
what if I can’t? What if it’s gotten so bad now that I’ll never be able to talk
correctly? It’s okay with people I’m comfortable with, but in life you have to
meet new people all the time, and that’s always what they’ll notice first. It
will always be my defining characteristic. I’ll always be the girl with the
stammer.

 When I’m finished with my dinner I put the plate on the floor and pull
my school bag up onto my bed. I take out the books I need for my homework, I
might as well get it done while I’ve got time. Oh God, I’ve got time. I have to
remind myself that my time is my own now. Dad isn’t going to come bursting
through my door like he used to, telling me to scrub the floors or go on a ridiculously
dangerous errand for him in the middle of the night. Gran is a good person. She
won’t take my time away from me like Dad did. I breathe in and then out. And
then, I begin my homework, relaxing in the knowledge that I have all evening to
do it. No interruptions.

The next morning at breakfast Gran hands me a fifty and tells me to treat
myself and go shopping after school, get myself a new blouse or something, she
says. I try to get her to take it back but she’s not having any of it. I finish
my breakfast and then head off for school.

 Happiness is not an emotion I’m used to. But Gran’s kindness makes me
happy. I fondle the silver locket around my neck. The one she gave me as a
present, it makes me feel...I don’t know, loved. I’ve never felt loved before.

 Caroline is standing by her locker with Christian and Lia when I get to
school. She waves to me in greeting and I wave back. I fumble around in the
front pocket of my bag and retrieve my timetable to check and see what classes
I’ve got first. I don’t know my schedule by heart yet.

 Somebody taps me on the shoulder and I turn around to find Christian
standing before me.