"Morning, Elle!"
"Good morning yourself, Rita," says the blond girl and smiles at her best friend.
"Wrote that essay for biology?" Rita checks her watch and increases the speed of their walking.
"I thought that one was set for next Tuesday, are you sure we have to hand it in today?"
"For definite!"
"Why did I even ask, as if you were ever wrong," Elle says while rolling her eyes and bumps her friend's shoulder.
"Exactly. Now can we speed up a bit? We're gonna be late."
"We have Morgenson first, remember? He's like always late himself, so for once, relax! Do it for me, it's my birthday, see it as sort of a present."
"If you want your birthday present to be that, I'm perfectly fine with it. So I can bring back the massive birthday cake, and the tickets to see Thirty Seconds to Mars, right?" Elle stares at her friend for a little too long, before she screams out and hugs Rita so tight that she wishs she didn't tell her about it yet.
"Did I ever tell you that you're the best friend someone could ever have?" Elle says, her eyes still wide and shining of excitement.
"Let me think… yes, you did indeed, last birthday, and the one before, and the one before, and-"
"Oh shut up, you know it anyway," Elle says and smiles all over her face, walking with a skip in her steps.
Today was her 16th birthday, a really big deal for Elle. It didn't only mean another year which she spent on Netflix and eating chocolate and popcorn, it also meant that she was now legally allowed to buy a lottery ticket, get married, drive a moped, get out of school, and, oh well, have sex. As great as all those sound – which they don't – there is an even better thing with this new age: she was now allowed to have friends over in this little cottage in the garden which was decorated just for her. And today was finally the day where she was allowed to spend as much time in there and do whatever she wanted in there. And she would have a party tonight. A big one (more or less) just for her.
As they arrive in school, they have to squeeze through a couple of groups whom they both are not too keen to talk to – on the right side next to the school on the car park there are standing the so called "cool" ones, boys with caps and baggy clothes and girls with ear-rings which are sized half of their own head. A few meters across the stairs are the punks who are not Elle's and Rita's type either – a couple of pale skinned and black or surreal coloured haired and some fake piercings which they have to take out every time they enter the school. What a happy and fulfilling life they must lead, Elle thinks as she walks past them.
After the stairs there is just a mass of people who are either loners, people who just wait for their best friends to arrive, cool kids who think that making fun of any harmless person would be the funniest thing to do, girls with way too much pink and glitter and make up and those god damn earrings and not to forget the teachers who are paid to stand there each morning, look professional and as if they could handle this mass of different people, most of them sipping coffee for not falling asleep after the long nights of marking an essay which was written in a hurry without any will of getting good grades. School life, oh how Elle did not love it.
She looks around and found a boy who looks as if he never did and still not belong in all this, a boy called Lin. His parents emigrated from China when he was only 4 years old. With his shy human being and his tendency to get red cheeks whenever any person he does not like comes near him, he never found any other friends then Elle, Rita and Matt. Matt was also a child of some immigrants from South Africa with his mum being Irish and his dad being South African.
"Happy 16th Birthday, Elle! I got this for you, only something little, you'll get the big present tonight," his smile bigger than before as he gets out a small, paper wrapped box with a cute little bow on it.
"Oh Lin, thank you!" She takes the little box and puts her arms around the skinny boy, then she frees him from her embrace and takes off the paper around the little box and bursts into a big laugh which draws half of the attention of the school hallway on her. Rita, as well as Lin, get red and cover their faces in their hands. "Oh Jesus, 'stress bites'? What on earth are they?"
Lin looks around so that he is sure that no one is listening. "They are Chinese, and they are used in any stressful situation – I saw that you had a lot of stress lately, with all that Ethan thingie and-"
"Pssssst, not so loud," Elle bumps the poor kid on the head.
"and," he clears his throat, "school, your parents, organizing this party and life in general. So I thought they would help! You don't take them as actual pills, but whenever you feel like you couldn't handle something, they will help to organize your thought and to clear your head. My mum always takes them – the only side effect is that if you take them on an everyday basis, they won't work anymore. For that, my mum takes 7 of them a day. One of them each day is completely satisfying if you ask me." Elle nods, as she catches the sight of this one special boy in school.
His name was Ethan and he is probably the only boy in school she likes apart from her two best friends. He is gentle, friendly, good looking, good in science and is somehow different. She can not quite put it into words in which ways he is different, but he simply is. Maybe the way he walks, or the way he doesn't have any friends in school and sits by himself each lunch, leaning against this massive tree and reading his books after he finished, or how he looks at her during class, or how mysterious he always seems to be. This strange new guy no one ever talks to. And whatever it was, it made Elle fall slightly in love with him.
A few days ago she made a move in their non-existing relationship and asked him if he wanted to come to her party tonight, and to her and everyone else's surprise, he actually said yes. And then their relationship which never existed ended again. Those looks in science still were the same and he would still not come over during lunch time to talk to her. Elle used to compare him with an unopened book which was beautifully illustrated inside, but would break if you would dare to touch it.
"…earth to Elle, are you still with us?" Rita asks and waves in front of her friend's face. Elle shrugs and sighs. "Do you think that he will actually come? I mean he doesn't even talk to me in Science, and I'm sitting right next to him."
"Well, he talks about the weather and then reads through his Science notes. Suppose he just needs time, it's only one month since he's been here, give him some time and he'll eventually warm up. Or not. We'll see. And maybe he's coming to your party that would be a break-through in your relationship-to-be." Matt says, now standing next to Lin, looking suspicious at Ethan. "Oh, and by the way, happy 16th birthday, 6 o'clock tonight, right?" Elle nods and looks at Rita's watch.
"Should we go? I got Maths first and I don't want to sit next to Timothy again if I don't have to." Her friends laugh.
"I think he likes you though, he asked you out for a date yet, so it seems that he actually respects you." Rita says and gets out her mobile phone to put it on Silent.
"Or he is actually interested in you, he always looks at you when you don't look, you know?" Rita blushes and Lin smiles a little. "Oh, and he asked me if he could have your number, so I gave it to him." Matt says with a big smile.
"You're such a traitor," Rita says and gives Matt a gentle slap, "as if I would not have any other problems then him, and you just give him my number? Why on earth did you do that?"
"Well, he asked me to, and he gave me Therese one's in return." Matt nods to a brown haired girl who over dramatically laughs at a joke of her friend. He turns away and smirks, "I rang her twice and pretended to be a pizza deliverer." All four laugh. "You're such an idiot, Matt," Rita says. "But you still like me," Matt smirks and looks at her with an overly-in-love-face, as she bursts out into laughter and turns toward the biology room, "see you guys later, good luck in Maths, Elle, and don't forget to come to the drama room for lunch, boys!"
"Yes, Miss," they say all at the same time and salute her, before they split up and all walk to their own classrooms. Elle is just about to enter the Maths room, as a hand pulls her aside. "Hi," a, to her, well-known but hardly heard voice says which she recognises as Ethan's. His voice sounds so rough but still so soft and gentle, Elle could get lost in just his voice every time he speaks.
"Hey, Ethan, how-" she stops as the bell rings. "Oh, I got to go, biology now." He turns around and walks towards the same direction, Rita went in. Elle sighs frustrated and slams her hand on the wall next to the classroom. "You okay, blondie?" Timothy says and smiles at her with the whitest teeth in probably the whole United Kingdom. "'Blondie' does not feel the necessity to answer your question. Now, if you excuse me, I want to get a spot not in the very back of the classroom or next to some idiot for once."
"No need to be so mean, blondie, I'm just trying to be a bit more social with you." Tim says and tightens his tie.
"You want to be a bit more social? How about leaving me alone and annoying someone else?"
"But no one is as fun to discriminate as you, blondie," he says and guides her into the classroom with the back of his hand. "See, I let you through, can we sit next to each other again?"
"How about no, Tim, I really can't be bothered to explain you everything again, right after the teacher did, and it's my birthday today, so respect my wish for once, okay?" Elle says and rolls her eyes.
"If you say so. Happy birthday then. How old do you get? 12? 11?"
"16 if you want to know it for sure, but just forget about it."
"So much negative energy today, I wonder where that comes from. Any problems with your little loverboy?"
"Then only because you put it inside me and he is not-"
"Miss Robinson, I do not mean to interrupt this seemingly intimate conversation, but I would very much appreciate it, if you and Mister Jackson would sit down and continue this conversation after the lesson has finished." Mr. Morgenson says and goes ahead of the two teenagers, one of them blushing because of the anger and embarrassment and the other one smirking.
Elle manages to sit as far from Tim as anyhow possible and then tries to focus on the lesson but gets drifted away with thinking of all the things she would need to buy for her party and what she could talk about with Ethan, or how to tell her mum that some other boys apart from Matt and Lin would come to her party.
The day goes by fast with many teachers and students wishing her a happy birthday. After all she was a very respected and well-known student without being too much of someone who puts herself in the foreground or drawing attention to herself. Walking home, his time alone, as all of her friends still are in school, she takes the sharp corner to her right and nearly crashs into an old woman, rushes a quick "sorreh" and takes the next one left, right to the front door of her house. She leans the bike on the fence, puts out her house key from her right trouser pocket and turns it around twice until the green front door with the poor painting cracks open.
"Mum? Dad?" she screams without intending to hear an answer – her mother usually works from 9 to 5 at the hospital, while her dad is an oh-so-famous (well, he actually was, but Elle was sick of hearing how great her dad was) lawyer working up in Nottingham today to meet up with another political asshole who twisted the law to get some money for himself and now set her dad up to get him out of his situation.
She places her school bag next to the stairs and strokes the ginger cat named "Lucky". She was named this name because she was, first, Irish, and second, found by some man in an abounded house in a wooden box, starving and with burning marks. Some of her hair still didn't grow back, but Elle always thought that Lucky was an extraordinary cat compared to some humans she knew. "C'mon then," she says and nods to the kitchen, where she opens a tin of cat food and places the blue bowl with the green dots and some chicken in it in front of her car. As if she wants to say thank you, Lucky looks up at Elle before eating her cat meal.
"Already forgot, I still need to call uncle Harry," she checks her watch and tries to wage her possibility to reach him, "it's me, and it's my birthday, he should have time for me. He better does," she says, grins and dials the number on the land line. The phone beeps twice, silence, beep beep, silence, beep beep, silence, beep-
"You are speaking to Robinson & Junior Building office-" (since when was Ryan, her cousin, also part of the company?) "-my name is Georgia Anders, how can I help you?" Elle coughs and tries to speak as clearly as possible, as she knows that Ms Anders was German and wasn't too good in English – much to the dislike of many costumers, as she was the first person they need to talk to before then portray their dream home to her uncle, - or Ryan, as she just found out.
"Hello, my name is Elle Robinson, Mr Robinson's niece, may I talk to him, or is he busy at the moment?"
"Oh, hello Elle, isn't it your birthday today? Mr Robinson was on about it all day long, but I better not tell you too much," she giggles and Elle cannot hold it back but to giggle about her strange giggle as well.
"That's fine, can you tell him to ring me back, please? Oh, or does Ryan happen to be free to talk to?"
"If busy means actually working and not creating Greek temples on our software for creating houses, he is not, for definite. Should I put you through, love?"
"Thanks, Ms Anders."
"No problem, Elle. Nice talking to you, and have a happy birthday!" Elle smiles and nods, before realising that Ms Anders couldn't see her. She's about to say thank you, as the call cuts and the beeping starts again. She sighs and looks across the room only to see Lucky finishing the bowl, doing sort of a nod thing towards Elle (yes, this cat was indeed very weird and unusual) and then leaving the room to most likely sit down on Elle's bed where she always lays.
"Ryan Robinson, who am I speaking to, and how can I help you?" Her cousin's voice sounds through the phone and makes Elle smile.
"And since when are you in your dad's company?" Elle asks smirking. She just could not imagine someone like Ryan in an office, wearing a suit and tie, and having to be polite to costumers. It was nothing like the boy who was listening to Nirvana, Metallica and Kiss, wearing mostly black, messy bright brown hair, a bandana and those green eyes who always seemed to her as if they were full of excitement and living energy.
"Excuse me, who am I speaking to?" She can clearly her his confusion and happily imagines his big eyebrows bow.
"Have we actually got to this point where you don't recognise me anymore when I'm speaking to you on the phone?" Silence again, then she can hear him sigh and imagines him leaning forward on his desk, closing the window on his computer with his ancient temple.
"Elle! We must not have talked in months, if not years! Did you change your phone number? I tried to text or call you, but there's always a strange teen girl who must think I'm sort of a pervert calling her and asking to meet her," he laughs, and so does Elle. "Well anyway, it's your birthday today! I don't think I should tell you this, but dad's got an awesome surprise! It was my idea and actually I wanted to have it for myself, but so we can both get it! I think we get round to yours later on at around," he pauses, "six o'clock… ish? I don't know, better ask dad, but you'll love it!"
"Hey, that's great! I actually wanted to speak to your dad about doing an apprenticeship in summer as I thought about studying Architecture but I first want to see what it is like, I thought that could work out, but I can ask him later when you come here anyway! Oh, and Ryan? You could come and stay here as well, some friends, Lin, Matt, Rita, Jess and Ethan, don't think you know him, come as well."
"So who is that Ethan then?" he asks, clearly knowing that she would not want to talk about it. It was sort of a talent of him to always do that and Elle had always appreciated it, as she was able to talk about all those things as she would not talk about them with him if he didn't ask.
"He's new, he moved here from Brighton one month ago and came to our school. We sit next to each other in chemistry and he is actually pretty good at it, our teacher always calls us the dream-team, as when we're working together, we're the quickest and best ones in class. Well anyway, I'm not so sure, but I think he fancies me and I fancy him, but he barely talks to me nor any other person. I don't quite know why, but I think he's special and-"
"You sound like a girly teenager, growing up now, my love, ay?" Ryan says and laughs. Elle shakes her head.
"Probably you're right. I just thought there might be something heating up, so I invited him to come to my party, and I never thought that he would actually accept the invitation and come. I think I'll see where things are going, I'm just happy that he made the next move, and I hope we can get him to talk a little more, Rita, Lin and Matt had to promise me to leave him alone in case he would not want to talk. I haven't talked to Jess about him, you know her, she would look at us in that way the whole time." She can hear him giggle.
"You know what? I'll stay for a bit, but I'll have to leave at around 9 o'clock, some mates from school wanted to meet up and so I'll go and meet them at Captain Dawson's. Should I get you some alcohol for your party?"
"I don't think we'll need something, mum promised to make bowle and dad said he'll get us some beer for that barbeque later on, so I think that's enough for once. You know Rita and Matt don't drink usually but will tonight, so they won't be able to take much in, Lin is religiously not allowed to, Jess is pretty much the only one who goes out, and I have no idea about Ethan. But I suppose he doesn't drink either. And if he does, he may talks three words more," she laughs, then thinks that this was an insult and bites her lip. "Whatever, I'll see you later then, have fun working! I really did have problems imagining you as a person sitting in an office."
"That's because it just doesn't fit to me, but dad lets me wear my bandana and I don't have to wear a tie, so I'm happier than I would be anywhere else," he smiles dryly and then rings off.
Elle puts down the phone into the little land line phone charger and looks out of the window, watching three owls sitting down on the white fence. She looks at them for a few seconds, thinking of how beautiful they are, before realising, that owls would not be awake during day and if they would, they would not sit, three at one time at once, at her garden fence. She leans forward to watch them closer, when she notices Lucky slowly tapping towards them. Panicking that her cat would attack them, she opens the door and shouts her, as all of them three fly away, majestic as they are.
Still wondering about this rare situation she decides to go upstairs to her room to look it up, if this was theoretically able to happen, or if she just daydreamed all that. Quite disappointingly it turns out that this wasn't able to happen. At least in theory. She takes a closer look and reads the headline Owls seen during day – the secrets of a hidden world. Suspiciously, Elle clicks on the website only to get linked to a site of freaky stuff, all about magic and a hidden world and witches and wizards. As if. She sighs and closes the laptop, when she notices an emerald-green box with a golden ribbon around it.
She stands up and walks closer to it, eyeing it as if it was something from Mars. She checks all sides of the box and then decides that it must be a present which was left from either her parents or her brother. Either way, it must be an early present, as she always got the actual present or presents after her birthday dinner which always consisted of a roast dinner and some extra Yorkshire Puddings, as they were her favourites.
Slowly taking off the golden ribbon, she notices that the box was not sealed with tape, the cover was only held together with the ribbon – a system which none of her family members used. She wonders whom this present was actually from and who and why they placed it on her bed. She watches the curtain flow with the wind, as she realises that it was not herself who left that window open, lesson one about living in London was to not leave the window open when leaving for more than a few minutes further away than to the kitchen to sneak some Nutella.
She pulls a funny face and closes the window and looks down to the fence. Owls, an open window, and now a strange box on her bad which was certainly not from her family. What was this all about? Or was she just going crazy because she read that thing about magic and all that. But no, that cannot be, magic was impossible, as a science defender this simply could not be the case, this article just made her head go funny.
Elle shakes her head and tries to get rid of the thoughts in her head. "Humbug," she says and smiles a little about her stupidity. She wraps the cover off the box and puts it aside. She now holds wooden box in her hands, it surely must be old, as it is dark and shiny from, probably being touched from many people already. Who would give something like that to her? Curious now, she puts down the lid down. Eyes wide open she stares at the necklace laying inside it. There were five symbols on it – a silver snake with an emerald-green background, a golden lion with a red background, a silver eagle on a blue background and a badger on a yellow background. In the middle of those four was a Rubin.
Carefully she let her fingers slide over it, to fully embrace this piece of jewellery which she found most extraordinarily beautiful. She then looked next to her hand to see the corner of a parchment sticking out behind the little pillow in which the necklace laid in. She puts the necklace around her neck and feels a bit strange as if she just hung a huge milestone around her neck, like a cloud of responsibility raining down on her. "Now, what is this," she whispers to herself and takes out a letter, addressed to:
Ms E. Robinson
The Last Room on the First Floor
442 Buckinham Road
Chiswick
LONDON
It gives Elle the shiver. This clearly could not be from any friend or family member of her. But whoever wrote this must have known in which room she lived which was not a bit worrying too. Still she tried to put that thought aside, as the curiosity overcame her fear and anger. She turned it around to find the letter being sealed with red wax, another strange sign on this one. Wherever it came from, the sender must be living in another universe, using parchment and wax so seal a letter. She laughs hysterically, this somehow did not get better or clearer, as she hoped and expected. It more of became a big mystery and mess in her head. Slowly moving her finders under the sealing part of the letter, she opens it and pulls out another piece of parchment. Again, on the top right was written her address.
Dear Ms E. Robinson,
You may wonder where this letter comes from and I can assure you that you will get all your questions answered as soon as the clock strikes 9 o'clock tonight. It is important that you tell nobody about this necklace which may not seem worth anything to you at the moment, but you have been chosen to be servant and leader of the magical world. Do not talk to anyone and make sure that you are alone and wearing this necklace, when the time has come.
All you need to know is that this is a present which you cannot decline, and I can ensure you that you do not want to decline it as soon as you get to know to my world and all my surroundings.
I hope you enjoy your 16th birthday,
Gondor Gryffindor