Lightning Girl Read online

  “Hello, sir!” We heard a man’s enthusiastic voice ring down the hallway as Dad opened the door. “I’m from the Weekly Herald! There’s allegedly been a hostile alien strike in your back garden. Do you have any comments to make about our impending doom?”

  “You know what, Mum? I think you may be wrong,” I whispered, as we heard Dad shutting the door in the reporter’s face.

  I brought my eyes up to meet hers.

  “I have a feeling that everything has changed.”

  4

  I tried to get out of going to school the next day but Dad was adamant that I had to carry on as normal.

  “It’s important that you keep a healthy life balance,” he said sternly, like he was Oprah or something. He pulled the duvet off me and got my uniform out.

  I hadn’t really managed any sleep. After the reporter left the night before, Dad had made me a cup of tea and banned Mum from “overwhelming” me with any more “stories”. Alexis had then come slumping down the stairs in search of snacks, with his noise-cancelling headphones still on. Luckily, he hadn’t noticed or heard a thing over his blaring music. He took in Mum holding my hand, Kimmy sitting alertly at my feet, and Dad placing a mug of tea in front of me. He slid his headphones down from his ears, folding his arms as he leant on the doorframe with a bemused expression on his face.

  “Did Aurora fall into the toilet again or something?”

  If I hadn’t been stumped into silence by Mum’s big superhero reveal, I would have told him that had happened ONE TIME and it was in the middle of the night so it was all dark and it was just because stupid Alexis had left the toilet seat up. And it was deeply traumatic so I didn’t appreciate him making light of that particular incident, especially as it was HIS FAULT that it happened to me in the first place.

  But I was totally freaking out and in too much shock to speak, so he got off lightly with that comment.

  The doorbell went again and Dad grumbled about nosy reporters, but it turned out to be Clara being dropped off by her friend’s mum.

  “Welcome home, Squirt,” we heard Alexis say after he went to let her in. “Everyone’s in the sitting room being weird.”

  “What’s new?” Clara sighed, wandering through to us and crossing her arms. “Dad, can I go to Science Camp this summer? Ruby is going and she says that—”

  “Let’s discuss that another time, shall we?” Dad said chirpily, covering the situation by clapping his hands together and making Kimmy leap to her feet in excitement. “Who’s hungry? How about I make pancakes?”

  Clara and Alexis shared a confused look. Dad only ever made pancakes on special occasions and usually for breakfast, rather than for dinner.

  “OK.” Alexis shrugged, deciding not to probe further. “Pancakes sound good.”

  “And while I make the pancakes, I can tell you more interesting facts about my precious stone exhibition! You can hear all the behind-the-scenes gossip.”

  “Any chance we can get the pancakes without the museum chat?” Alexis mumbled, but Dad was already through in the kitchen, clattering the frying pans and ordering Clara to hunt down the flour.

  Alexis followed them out, while I sat numbly on the sofa and Mum continued to squeeze my hand and whisper how exciting everything was, how I wasn’t to worry, it would all be OK.

  I hardly heard her. My ears were ringing and my mouth had gone all dry, making it difficult to swallow. The whole room felt hazy and my brain didn’t seem to be functioning properly.

  MUM was a superhero? I had superpowers? ME? This was all wrong. There was nothing special about me. I wasn’t the superhero type. I’m just normal and boring. I can’t have superpowers. It didn’t make any sense.

  Yet, sparks had flown out of my fingers. Twice. I had seen it. I had felt it. What else could explain that?

  And when I really thought about it, it did kind of make sense that Mum hadn’t actually been travelling for work all those times. She had always left for her “business trips” at the last minute, without any warning, and she had never gone with a suitcase or a laptop or anything. The hot yoga thing too – NOBODY got actual scorch marks and sizzling hair from hot yoga. I can’t believe we fell for that one.

  But saving the world? My mum, a superhero? My mum who never knew what day it was; who often put important letters and bills in the fridge for safekeeping; who sang the Britain’s Got Talent theme tune way too loudly and out of tune in the shower every morning. My mum, who once cheered me up after a bad day by putting a pair of trousers on her head and shoes on her hands.

  THAT’S WHO WE ARE ENTRUSTING TO SAVE THE WORLD???

  If so, we’re all in trouble.

  But then again, she did win the parents’ race at sports day really easily. She wasn’t even out of breath and was way ahead of the others. Also, there was that time she hit the ball so hard in a tennis game, it flew out of the court and right across a big field. So maybe she is a superhero after all.

  I just thought she had an unusually strong forehand, like Serena Williams.

  The rest of the evening had felt like a blur. I barely touched my food and couldn’t concentrate on any of the conversation. I didn’t even protest when Alexis reached over and slid the pancake off my plate on to his without asking. When I went to bed, I just lay there, staring up at the ceiling. At one point, I thought that maybe this whole thing had been a really odd dream, so I purposefully rolled off the bed to see if that woke me up. It didn’t. I landed with a loud thump on the floor. This was not a dream. This was happening.

  And now my arm hurt on top of everything else.

  “Everything OK?” Kizzy asked, making me jump when she found me staring into space by my locker.

  Dad had just dropped me off at the gates having made me promise to ring him immediately if anything “strange or dangerous” happened.

  Which, by the way, filled me with confidence.

  “What do you mean? I’m fine!” I replied to Kizzy, a little too enthusiastically. “I’m absolutely fine! Everything’s fine! I’m normal! Just a normal eleven-year-old! Just a normal everyday person! Normal! Person! That’s what I am!”

  “Whoa, OK!” Kizzy laughed, linking her arm through mine. “You just looked in a bit of a daze, that’s all. Are you looking forward to the assembly?”

  “Huh?”

  “Mr Mercury’s assembly.” Her eyes widened in surprise as I stared at her blankly. “The one about your dad’s new exhibition?”

  “Oh. Right. The precious stones. Yes.”

  Every now and then we had these assemblies where a teacher would give a presentation on an interesting topic, or the choir would get up and sing songs from a West End musical or something. I’d forgotten that Mr Mercury was doing a science one today.

  “Are you sure you’re OK?” Kizzy asked slowly. “You seem … distracted.”

  “I’m fine! I’m great. I don’t know why you keep asking that. I’m totally groovy.”

  Totally groovy. Totally groovy?! That’s what I went with?! TOTALLY GROOVY?! I have never used the word “groovy” IN MY LIFE. Who uses the word groovy?! No one in this century, that’s for sure.

  “Um. Good. Glad you’re … groovy,” she nodded, trying and failing to hide a smile.

  Kizzy was still looking at me curiously as we sat down in one of the back rows of the school hall and Mr Mercury got up to stand at the podium. I did try and concentrate on what he was saying, because it was my dad’s project, but thanks to Mr Mercury’s monotone voice, it was hard to pay attention and I had all these thoughts running through my head, like…

  I have superpowers. My mum is a superhero. I’m descended from superheroes. This can’t be happening. I have superpowers. What is going on? How has this happened? Do I have to wear a cape? My mum is a superhero. How do I make the light beams come out of my hands? Do I have to say a special command, like “shazam” or something? Or do a weird hand pose like Spider-man? I can’t believe I fell for the hot yoga thing. People would sue if hot yoga gave them scorch m
arks. I am so gullible. People with superpowers surely shouldn’t be as gullible as I am. You can’t have a gullible superhero. Not that I am a superhero. Am I? If I have superpowers, does that automatically make me a superhero? What happens if I’m a supervillain? Can you choose which one, or are you just assigned a “hero” or “villain” title, like in netball when you’re just given a position and a square to stand in? I can’t believe this is happening. What am I going to do? As if this is—

  “Aurora Beam? Aurora?”

  Kizzy jabbed me sharply in the ribs with her elbow.

  “Ow! What?” I hissed.

  She nodded towards Mr Mercury at the front of the hall. The whole school had swivelled round in their seats and was looking at me expectantly.

  “Uh … yes, I’m present!”

  A ripple of sniggers passed across the hall. Suzie Bravo, a few rows in front, sighed impatiently.

  “Ah, well, I wasn’t actually doing a roll call,” Mr Mercury said.

  “Oh.” My cheeks grew hot with embarrassment. “What was the question?”

  “I was just saying how your father is curating these unique gems which are going on display at the Natural History Museum in a few weeks,” he explained slowly into the microphone. “I wondered if you’d like to say anything about them, as your family is so involved with such a remarkable discovery?”

  “Nope,” I squeaked, sinking down into my seat. “I’m good.”

  Mr Mercury tutted. “All right, then. Well, as I was saying, I am very grateful to Aurora’s dad, Professor Beam, for allowing me to take the Year Sevens on a special school trip to the museum later this term. If anyone has any questions… ”

  Now that the attention of the entire student body was no longer on me, I zoned out again. I began to examine my hands. They looked like normal hands. I squinted down at my fingers, scrutinizing them closely. Apart from the swirled scar on my left palm, they could have been anyone’s hands. There was no sign that these hands were superpower hands. Nothing that showed these hands could shoot out powerful light beams that knocked over bird houses. No sign that—

  “Hello! Earth to Aurora!!”

  I jumped as Kizzy’s voice cut sharply through my concentration. The assembly had finished and everyone was already filing out, while I had just been sitting there, staring at my hands. One of the girls who had picked on Clara the other day happened to be in the row in front of us and began sniggering as I hurriedly dropped my hands and stood up.

  “Admiring your weird scar again, are you? It’s about as interesting as the rock display your dad is putting on,” she sneered, nudging the boy next to her. They burst out laughing before sauntering out of the hall.

  “Ignore them,” Kizzy said. “They’re just jealous because your dad has such a cool job.”

  We both knew she was lying but I smiled at her gratefully anyway.

  I got told off for not paying attention by four different teachers throughout the day and in PE I got hit in the face by a netball because at the time I was staring down at my feet wondering if I could shoot light beams out of my toes too.

  When school finally finished, I shoved my books back in my locker, slamming it shut quickly before they all fell out again.

  “Hey, honey!”

  I screamed as I closed my locker door and Mum was standing there right behind it, beaming at me.

  “WHAT THE… MUM! You gave me a heart attack! How did you get there without me seeing you?!”

  She held up her hands and wiggled her fingers gleefully. “Duh! Superhero!”

  “That isn’t funny!” I hissed, checking no one could overhear. “What are you doing here?” “You’re coming with me today. Your dad is picking up Alexis and Clara.” “What? Why? Where are we going?”

  “It’s time.”

  “Time for what?”

  A mischievous grin broke across Mum’s face.

  “Time, Aurora Beam, to see what you can do.”

  5

  In movies, superheroes always have glamorous underground lairs where they keep all their awesome state-of-the-art training equipment, flash cars and weapons.

  In reality, it turns out that superheroes learn how to use their powers in disused car parks.

  “What is that smell?” I asked, wrinkling my nose as Mum picked up an empty fizzy drink can and threw it towards the bin at the other end of the car park. It went straight in.

  “Stop being so fussy, Aurora – this is a perfect spot to begin your training. Plenty of space and it’s nice and quiet so you can really focus.” She watched me carefully as I folded my arms. “How are you feeling?”

  “OK.” I shrugged.

  “Hard to concentrate at school, right?”

  “A little.”

  “When your grandmother first told me I had superpowers, I was so confused and terrified I shut myself into my wardrobe and refused to come out for an entire day. Mum had to lure me out with the smell of fresh chocolate brownies that she wafted in from outside the door. Trust me, I know what you’re going through. Although, I was a little older than you are. Your powers have shown themselves very early compared to others in our family.” She paused thoughtfully. “I wonder why.”

  “So, I’m doubly weird!” I whined. “Weird because of the powers and even weirder because I’m not meant to have them yet.”

  “Weird is not the word I’d use. I’d say you were very, very special.”

  “You have to say that – you’re my mum,” I huffed, rolling my eyes. “What are we doing here?”

  “This is superhero training, lesson number one. We’re going to work on controlling your powers, so they don’t just explode whenever they want to. Then we need to find out what other powers you have.”

  “Wait, I have other powers? I thought you said the women in our family can all control light.”

  “That’s right, but we seem to have extra individual … perks, if you will.” She smiled. “They’re not extra superpowers, we just sort of excel in other areas too. As well as controlling light, I’m pretty strong and fast. Very helpful with superhero duties. Your grandmother has some kind of healing capability. She can’t exactly heal wounds, but she can make pain fade when she’s near.”

  “And Aunt Lucinda?”

  Mum grimaced at the mention of her sister. They had never really got on.

  “Charm. She’s superior at persuading anyone to do exactly what she wants,” Mum said disapprovingly. “Useful when it comes to breaking the law.”

  “What do you think my extra perk is?”

  She looked at me thoughtfully. “I don’t know but there’s something about you… We’ll work out what it is. It might develop at a later stage in life. I only started winning races when I was in university. Once we’ve worked on you controlling your superpowers, we can start focusing on what else you can do to help save the world. Hopefully, it will be something that comes in very handy when going up against criminals!”

  “Mum, can I ask you something?”

  “Anything.”

  “How do you know when to go save the world?”

  She gave me a funny look. “What do you mean?”

  “All those times you went off on your ‘business trips’, how did you know that there was something bad going on that you needed to stop? Do we have an inbuilt superhero radar or something?”

  Mum burst out laughing. “No, Aurora, we don’t.”

  “Well, then, how do you know there’s a bad guy about to attack?”

  She took a deep breath. “I have help when it comes to that side of things. I’m kept in the know when there’s something fishy going on out there.”

  “Like some kind of secret network?”

  “Let’s just focus on training your superpowers for now, OK? One day I’ll tell you how everything works, but for now, I just want to make sure you can keep your powers under control.”

  She reached out her hand to give mine a comforting squeeze before dropping it and marching determinedly to the middle of the empty car
park, turning back to face me.

  “Right,” she said, rubbing her hands together excitedly. “Let’s get started.”

  I nodded, attempting to ignore the butterflies fluttering about uncontrollably in my stomach.

  “Come forward a little,” Mum instructed. “That’s it, so I don’t have to shout. Now, take a deep breath. In through your nose, out through your mouth. In through your nose, out through your mouth. In through your—”

  I interrupted her with a fit of spluttering.

  “Sorry!” I wheezed, as she rushed over to clap me on the back. “I think I inhaled a bug.”

  “Up your nose?!”

  “In my mouth.”

  “You were supposed to be inhaling through your nose.”

  “I thought I was inhaling through my mouth and out through my nose.”

  “Weren’t you listening?” Mum laughed. “In through your nose, out through your mouth.”

  “You see? I can’t even breathe right!” I wailed. “Mum, are you sure I have superpowers? I’ve been thinking about this all day and I am SO not superhero material. Surely someone like Suzie Bravo or Georgie Taylor would be better for the job. They’re cool and popular and perfect. Maybe the beams of light are something else; maybe they really are just growing pains and I’m a big freak.” I let out a long sigh. “I think there has been a mistake.”

  “You think being cool, popular and perfect are the qualities you need to be a superhero? You really do have a lot to learn.” Mum raised an eyebrow at me. “Trust me, there has not been a mistake. Now, stop this negativity, please, otherwise it will never work. Shoulders back, relax and take a nice deep breath. In through your… ”

  She gestured for me to finish her sentence.

  “Nose,” I smiled weakly.

  “Very good!” She laughed, moving back to her starting position. “The breathing is to relax you. You need to focus on how you felt when your powers came to you before. How you felt in the garden and how you felt in the playground the other day. You need to channel that energy, so that your powers get going. Once you know how to form them, we can train you to control them.”