Lightning Girl Read online

  I looked down at my hands and wiggled my fingers.

  “I have no idea,” I admitted. “It all just … happened.”

  “Try,” Mum encouraged. “Take your time and try.”

  I wiggled my fingers more enthusiastically. I closed my eyes, scrunched up my face and focused all my energy on getting light beams to spark from my fingertips. I bent my knees and held my hands out in front of me, shaking my arms around madly and still wiggling my fingers, keeping my eyes tightly shut in concentration.

  “SHHHHHHAAAAAAAAABEEEEEEEAAAAAAAMMMMMMM!” I yelled.

  Nothing happened.

  I opened one eye to see Mum with her hand clapped over her mouth and her eyes watering as she tried not to laugh.

  “Did you just say … SHABEAM?”

  She exploded into hysterical giggles, bending over double and clutching her stomach. I dropped my hands and stood up straight, my face flushing with heat as I waited for her to stop laughing.

  “Sorry, I’m sorry.” She grinned, wiping the tears from her eyes, her shoulders still shaking. “You should have seen you! Crouching in that position and making those faces! And then you … then you said … SHABEAM!”

  She burst into a fresh round of giggles. I narrowed my eyes at her.

  “Well, I don’t know!” I huffed. “My powers aren’t working!”

  “SHABEAM isn’t a word,” she chuckled, now fanning her face with her hand as she tried to pull herself together. “SHABEAM!”

  “It’s not that funny, Mum!” I protested, the irritation rising up inside me.

  “I’m not laughing at you, darling, I swear. You did really well,” she said, grinning. “You just looked like you were warming up for some kind of bizarre wrestling match or something. I wasn’t expecting you to do … well … that!”

  “You are laughing at me. I was trying to get my stupid powers working,” I argued. “And SHABEAM is a totally normal word!”

  I shouldn’t have said “SHABEAM” again, it just set Mum off on another round of giggles. Honestly, she’s supposed to be the grown-up in this situation. And OK, so maybe saying “SHABEAM” was a bit weird, but no weirder than Harry Potter saying spells and stuff, right? How am I meant to know what to say? SHABEAM just felt right in the moment. Like shazam but with a personal edge.

  OK, so the more I thought about it, the more embarrassed I felt about the whole SHABEAM thing.

  WHY did I have to say SHABEAM? I could have said something a bit cooler. Suzie would NEVER say something like SHABEAM. If she suddenly got superpowers, she would probably just click her fingers and make the powers appear again with no problem whatsoever. She wouldn’t stand in the middle of an unused car park with her bonkers mother, squatting like a chicken and yelling “SHABEAM”.

  Brilliant. Now, the word SHABEAM is going to haunt me for life.

  My face grew hotter as my frustration at myself grew and I felt my whole body tense, and then a familiar tingling feeling race down my arms and suddenly…

  WHOOSH!

  The car park lit up in a blinding bright light as beams radiated from my hands and, almost as quickly as they had shot out, disappeared again. I snapped my head up to see Mum jumping up and down on the spot, clapping her hands together.

  “That’s it! You did it!” she cried, rushing over to give me a hug.

  “I did?” I held out my hands as she released them and saw they were shaking. “I felt annoyed at myself for the SHABEAM thing.”

  Mum pursed her lips in an attempt not to laugh again at my use of the word “SHABEAM”, and nodded enthusiastically.

  “That’s your trigger. You felt annoyed at those kids bullying Clara. And in the garden… ”

  “I was frustrated that I couldn’t do a cartwheel,” I explained. “So you think it only happens when I’m angry at something?”

  “No, I think it’s triggered by strong emotions, like the build-up of pressure in the atmosphere just before a big lightning storm strikes. It just so happens you were annoyed at the bullies and then yourself. But I think when you’re very happy or very sad, that will cause it too. Aurora, I need you to concentrate really hard now. It’s important not to lose this moment.” She held my shoulders and stood square on, looking deeply into my eyes. “I need you to remember exactly how you just felt. Focus on that overpowering feeling. Can you do that?”

  “I can try.”

  “Good. I’m going to stand over here. Deep breath,” she advised, stepping backwards. “Focus, Aurora.”

  I closed my eyes but instead of scrunching up my face and wiggling my arms around, I focused my mind on the warmth in my arms, the tingling sensation in my hands, the overwhelming powerful feeling rising from my toes, washing through my body. I concentrated so hard that my ears began to ring, the rest of the world becoming a muffled blur in the background.

  WHOOSH!

  I stumbled backwards at the force of light coming out from my hands. Mum whooped and punched the air as the beams died away, and I clenched my hands as they continued to prickle with energy. Mum came running over once again.

  “Aurora,” she said, beaming at me. “You did it. You really did it! I knew you could. How did it feel?”

  “It felt … it felt… ” I searched for the word in a daze, eventually tearing my eyes from my hands to look up at her. “It felt magical.”

  6

  I came home to find an ostrich in my bedroom, wearing my dressing gown as a cape.

  I guess for most people, coming home to find a cape-wearing ostrich in your room might be out of the ordinary, but I knew exactly what was going on.

  “Alfred?”

  The ostrich, who had been admiring himself in my mirror, spun around and blinked before strutting straight past me and down the stairs, with my dressing gown floating behind him as he went. I shook my head and followed him into the sitting room where Dad was leaning on the mantelpiece looking very tired, and a lady wearing a tiara was sitting on the sofa, shaking her head at Mum.

  “Really, Kiyana, when was the last time you went clothes shopping? I remember you wearing those trousers in your last year of school. It’s bad enough that your husband still thinks short-sleeved shirts are the height of fashion; someone has to talk to him before it’s too late and he progresses into sandals and socks.”

  “I’m standing right here,” Dad mumbled.

  Alfred the ostrich marched over to the sofa and, with a flourishing wiggle of his bottom feathers, he perched next to the lady, allowing her to tickle his neck. Then she caught sight of me hovering by the door.

  “Aurora! There you are!”

  “Hey, Aunt Lucinda.” I smiled as she jumped up and drew me into a perfume-heavy hug, complete with air kisses.

  “I hear you’ve been going through some … changes,” she whispered, tapping the side of her nose and winking dramatically.

  Aunt Lucinda is Mum’s twin sister, younger by three minutes. Mum says they started arguing in the womb and have never stopped, so Aunt Lucinda’s visits were pretty rare and we could never visit her because none of us ever knew where on the planet she was living, she moved around so much. She loved bright colours, clashing fashion, big sparkling jewellery and causing as much trouble as possible. And she never went anywhere without Alfred, her snobby pet ostrich and fellow mischief-maker.

  Mum said her wicked sister was an “amoral liability”; Dad said she was “flighty, tricky but kind at heart”; Alexis said she was “seriously strange”; and Clara once described her as an “excessive-attention-seeking and drama-addicted flamboyant eccentric, as though plucked from the pages of Evelyn Waugh’s triumphant novel Brideshead Revisited and placed in modern society.”

  I liked her.

  “So,” she said, sweeping an arm around me and drawing me to sit between her and Alfred on the sofa, “tell me all about these powers of yours.”

  Dad cleared his throat. “Lucinda, Aurora is dealing with a lot and I think that—”

  “Are you able to control them yet?” she asked e
xcitedly, ignoring Dad completely.

  “Um … I’m just getting my head round everything at the moment,” I began, trying to push Alfred’s feathers out of my face. “Where are Alexis and Clara?”

  “Out walking Kimmy,” Dad answered, glancing out of the window. “Kimmy didn’t take too well to Alfred prancing around her house.”

  Alfred jerked his head in Dad’s direction and narrowed his eyes to slits.

  “Now, now, Alfred, watch that temper of yours,” Lucinda said sternly. “Of course you don’t prance, he didn’t mean it. Did you, Henry? Apologies if Alfred is a little touchy, we just got back from a jaunt in Bali and returning to the cold weather always affects his mood. Now, Aurora, your powers have shown themselves much too early. Why do you think that is, Kiyana?”

  “Are you a superhero too?” I asked her, wondering if that was why she was always flitting round the world.

  Lucinda threw her head back and cackled.

  “A superhero? Moi?”

  She placed a hand on her heart and shook her head, still chuckling.

  “Do you think I have the time to be a superhero? No, no, I don’t bother with any of that nonsense.”

  “But … you have superpowers?”

  In response, she wiggled her fingers and red light beams sparked from her palms.

  “Wow!” I exclaimed.

  “That’s enough, Lucinda,” Mum said with a sigh. “Alexis and Clara will be back soon.”

  Lucinda rolled her eyes and dropped her hands, returning the room to its normal light.

  “Well,” Mum said, clapping her hands together suddenly, “thank you, Lucinda, for dropping by, but I’m sure you have a flight to catch to the other side of the world—”

  “Not at all! I’m staying in the area. It will be lovely to catch up with my favourite sister.”

  Mum looked horrified. “What?”

  “You didn’t think I’d miss Henry’s big exhibition at the Natural History Museum?”

  Mum turned to Dad in confusion but he appeared to be as shocked as she was.

  “My exhibition?” he asked, his brow furrowed.

  “I saw it in the papers! Very naughty of you not to mention it, Kiyana. I’ve been reading all about those precious little stones and I’m terribly excited to be joining you all for the big opening night in a few weeks’ time. I’m very proud of you, Henry, heading up such a wonderful discovery. I’ve told simply everyone that you’re my dear brother-in-law – it’s a lovely talking point.”

  “You’re coming to Henry’s opening night?”

  “Oh, yes. I’ll be in the neighbourhood until then. Let’s just say I have a couple of things I need to take care of. Now, it’s time for Alfred and me to go, otherwise we won’t make our dinner reservation.” Aunt Lucinda stood up dramatically before Alfred did the same, swishing my dressing gown behind him regally and strutting to the door. “See you all tomorrow.”

  She stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to face me.

  “Aurora, if you have any questions about your superpowers, best to come to me. Don’t listen to your Mum. It’s not all hard work. There’s plenty of fun to be had. Just you wait and see.”

  She grinned mischievously and swanned from the room, slamming the door behind her.

  7

  Relations between Mum and Dad got worse.

  When Aunt Lucinda had stayed with us in the past, the atmosphere had always been slightly tense, but this time it was different. After Aunt Lucinda and Alfred left for their dinner, Mum received a message on her phone and had grabbed her coat and rushed from the house, yelling as she ran out that we shouldn’t wait up for her. Dad and I shared a look.

  “Saving the world really is a full-time job,” he said quietly, before forcing a smile and asking me if I’d like to help him cook.

  Since then, she’s been saving the world every weekend. Alexis, Clara and I were used to Mum dashing out for “last minute work meetings” and returning home when we were all in bed, but now, thanks to my after-school training sessions and Lucinda dropping in whenever she felt like it – not to mention the trouble my aunt had already caused locally thanks to Alfred’s habit of strolling around neighbourhood driveways and pecking at random car bonnets – Mum was even busier and Alexis began commenting on her hectic schedule.

  “She’s working hard, that’s all,” Dad told him defensively, when he mentioned that she was hardly ever in the house. “Now, what film are we going to watch? Alexis, you choose.”

  Dad was putting on a brave face but I knew he was stressed about it, especially as he was so busy at the museum in the run-up to the exhibition. When Mum eventually got back in the middle of the night, they would have heated discussions in their room and I’d always hear a door slam at the end.

  “It’s not your fault,” Kizzy told me at school, when I confessed to her that they were arguing all the time. “They’ll be OK.”

  But what Kizzy didn’t know was that it WAS my fault. If Mum wasn’t so preoccupied with training me to manage my powers, then she’d have more time with Dad at home. But I couldn’t tell Kizzy that.

  “I knew something was up with you,” Kizzy said gently, as we tied our plimsoll laces in the changing rooms before our PE lesson. “You’ve been so out of it lately.”

  “Sorry.” I sighed, wishing I could tell her the truth.

  “Don’t worry, you’ve got a lot on your mind.” She put her arm round me and I leaned my head on her shoulder. “Try and stay positive. We’ve got the castle tomorrow, so that’s something good!” She pulled away and laughed at my confused expression. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about the history trip?”

  “Oh, right.”

  “Apparently, you can try on old pieces of armour,” she said brightly, standing up. “Promise me we can sit together on the bus.”

  “Promise.”

  “Pinky promise?” She held out her little finger.

  I smiled and wrapped my little finger around hers, shaking it up and down.

  “You can’t break a pinky promise,” she said knowingly as we made our way to the sports hall. “It’s bad luck.”

  When school finished for the day, I expected Mum to come and get me so we could head to the car park. We’d been going every day after school under the guise that I was taking ballet lessons, which Alexis found HILARIOUS.

  “Ballet dancers don’t fall into toilets,” he sniggered before Dad told him off.

  I had made a little progress in my training sessions and I woke up every day looking forward to the end of school and the chance to practise my powers. After just a few days, I could now create light beams at will, even if it did take a couple of minutes. Mum thought that by next week I might be able to start learning to control the intensity of the beams. I asked her if I could change the colour of my light, remembering Lucinda’s had been red, but she said that wasn’t possible. Which was disappointing because it would have been super cool to be able to create a disco effect.

  We still hadn’t worked out what else I could do as well as produce light. We tried a few tests like timing a run, jumping as high as I could and trying to lift the car, but I was useless at all of them, so it didn’t look like speed or strength was my thing. I just ended up looking silly.

  I did seem to be good at getting Mum to laugh at me, though, so maybe that was my extra power.

  “No training session today, Aurora,” Mum said when she appeared at my locker. She looked tired and her eyes were all red and squinty. “We’re going straight home.”

  “Is everything OK?” I asked.

  “Yes, of course,” she replied, unconvincingly.

  I followed her to the school drive where Dad, Alexis and Clara were waiting in the car. We all sat in silence on the drive home. I looked up quizzically at Alexis but he just shrugged back at me. When we pulled into our driveway, Dad asked us to go into the sitting room.

  “OK, you guys are creeping me out. What’s going on? Did Aunt Lucinda steal the crown jewels from the To
wer of London again? I thought she put those back and MI5 had decided to drop the charges,” Alexis said, sitting down next to me and Clara.

  “This isn’t to do with Aunt Lucinda,” Dad said gently, glancing at Mum.

  Kimmy came rushing through from the kitchen to greet me, resting her large head on my lap and letting me tickle her chin. Mum nodded at Dad encouragingly, as though giving him the go ahead to say whatever he was trying to.

  “Your mother and I have decided to separate,” Dad said quietly.

  I stopped playing with Kimmy’s ears.

  “We want you to know that we are still a family,” he continued. “This is not a permanent situation, it is simply while we work things out.”

  Mum nodded along with him. “This is absolutely no one’s fault; we still love each other very much. We just need to … have some time to sort out the best way of moving forward.”

  “You’re separating?” I whispered, my eyes beginning to prickle with tears. Kimmy nudged my hand with her cold, wet nose.

  “Yes. Dad will be staying here with you and I’ll be staying elsewhere for now. It makes sense with my work, but I’ll still be here for all of you, like accompanying you to your ballet lessons, Aurora.”

  “Do you have any questions about anything?” Dad asked.

  I looked at Alexis but he was staring at the ground, his jaw locked shut. Clara’s eyes were filled with confusion. None of us said anything.

  “I just want to stress again that this is no one’s fault. Your mum and I love each other and this is just a trial, until we can find a better solution. Things haven’t been running as smoothly as we’d like lately, so we… ”

  Dad stopped mid-sentence as his eyes met mine.

  “Kiyana,” he said quickly, getting Mum’s attention and nodding towards me.

  Her eyes widened. “Aurora, why don’t we go outside for a breather? Come on.”

  She stood up and grabbed my hand, pulling me hurriedly through the door and down the corridor out into the garden.