A couple of clues relating to the mysterious car crash will start to be revealed. As always, enjoy reading and review if you can.
From The London Times:
Yesterday, at approximately 8:05 PM, there was a car collision between Powell Avenue and Churchill Street. One of the vehicles, a 1985 Cadillac, suffered the greatest damage, flipping over as soon as it crashed, according to one eyewitness. There were two passengers inside, and both were dead upon the arrival of the police at the scene. The names of the passengers were Alice and Ryan Davidson, ages 24 and 25. According to the autopsy, Alice died from a broken neck, and Ryan from a concussion. They lived in London and had been married for three months. No family members or friends have been contacted yet.
The other vehicle that crashed was a 1987 Toyota. An Identification card revealed the owner to be Hannah Lewis, age 22 and an Early Childhood Education teacher at Rolling Meadows Nursery School. She and another unidentified woman were dragged out of the car by an unidentified pedestrian, who is said to have held on to the back of the vehicle as it crashed, according to another eyewitness. This interference, though considered reckless by the eyewitness, may have prevented the vehicle and passengers from what could have been serious damage and death. Lewis was approached for questions at 7:46 AM this morning, but she refused to comment.
The day after the accident, despite getting little sleep during the night, Jackie was the first person to arrive at the nursery school. Her car was parked exactly where it always was at 7:10 AM, although who brought it back was something she wouldn't find out until much later.
Hannah, on the other hand, arrived seven minutes late, but received no lecture from Karen. One look into her face, where dark circles and heavy eyelids surrounded her usually cheerful looking eyes and lines of stress were visible throughout, and it was clear to everyone that she'd had a bad night. Throughout the morning, she complained of headaches, and after nearly fainting as she was reading a story to the morning class, Karen told her to take the rest of the day off. When she read about the incident in The London Times, later that day, she gave her the rest of the week off. "I can't have you working after going through something so horrible, Hannah," she'd said to her on the phone after Hannah had protested against her decision. However, she was grateful for what she'd done for her, because she would suffer from migraines and insomnia and sleepless nights for six days.
"Whenever I try to close my eyes," she told Jackie when she paid her a visit on Friday, " All I can see are those gruesome faces from the accident. And it's not just how awful it all looked that scares me, Jackie; it's the fact that it could have been us. We would be dead right now if it hadn't been for that strange woman!" She refused to blame Jackie for what had happened; a fact which brought Jackie both relief and shame.
That whole week, she didn't suffer physically at all. The small wounds in her face healed very quickly, leaving scars that would fade away within three months. No one at work asked any questions, and she just did her regular duties as if nothing had happened, which included setting up toys and snacks, helping the children get settled before an activity, and giving assistance if one of them misbehaved or had some kind of accident. She was no longer drinking either, which at that point was making things a little easier. Karen would later tell her that both her quality of work and attitude seemed to be improving this year. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I think the fact that Rose has moved on to primary school has a lot to do with these changes. Having your children with you at work can be lovely, but it can also increase stress due to the fact that you feel as if you must continue on with your role as a parent while having to care for other children at the same time. And of course, with a child like Rose, you never know what to expect."
As for Rose, it didn't seem as if things would be getting any better for her. She couldn't forget about that dream she'd had about her mother, and she knew that she was hiding something from her, but she was not able to detect what that could be. While some of her dreams turned out be visions of things that happened later on, most of the time , they just weren't. When she asked John Smith about what had actually happened, he responded by saying, That is something which I can't reveal to you, Rose. There are some things which children should not have to know.
But John Smith, you have always told me that the more I know, the more I'll be able to face challenges.
You weren't the one that had to face this challenge, Rose! It was your mother, and it's best for now that she keeps her experiences to herself. All you have to know is that I send someone to help her, and she's now safe.
And who was it?
I will reveal nothing on that matter.
And in school, the bullying would not stop. Although not everyone in her class made fun of her ( there were at least three kids that tried to stop the bullies), it seemed to her as if she had more enemies than friends. On her second day, someone tripped her in the hallways, which caused some of the kids who saw her to laugh. Afterwards, some of her crayons and her pink eraser were stolen while she went up to sharpen her pencil. When she told Miss Bryan about it, all she said was "Things get lost all the time, Rose. Just because something goes missing doesn't mean that it was stolen," causing some kids to start quietly giggling, and one of them whispered, "Tattletale." Only one person called her a Looney on that day, but she barely took notice of that. It was as if everyone in the school hated her.
However, there were some good things going on. In class, Miss Bryan took notice that she could already read a little as well as write a couple of things which everyone else had yet to learn. Her abilities weren't considered to be "exceptional", as were those of two other kids in the class, but she seemed to be one of the smarter kids in the class. And of course, she had Mickey, whom she saw every school day during recess. They tried to stay away from the other kids who were constantly teasing her, and as a result, they spend most of recess walking around in the field, where some of the oldest kids in the school would play sports or walk around in groups while listening to music in Walkmans (they would always ignore them as they walked by).
Mickey liked talking about how his parents both worked as flight attendants, which meant that he'd already traveled to certain parts of the world, including Paris, Berlin, Sweden, Japan, and New York City. However, this was only during the summer, and as a result of how they traveled very often for work, he was usually being taken care of either by his grandmother or Sarah Jane Smith. Sarah's work as a journalist was very interesting as well. He told her about how she once caught a group of thieves who were planning to rob the national bank, uncovered a secret research project which involved human testing, and exposed a successful attorney who was actually a Russian spy. But even more interesting was how she'd been said to investigate alien sightings, including a case where a whole neighborhood claimed to have seen a UFO flying by during the night.
"Did it actually happen?" Rose asked.
"Sarah won't tell me if it did or not. She always says that she was just investigating," was Mickey's response. He never said anything about Sarah being able to read minds, and Rose noticed that he had no idea about it. She must have been keeping it a secret, just as she kept trying to do. Rose had been trying to reach John Smith in order to ask about her, but he never responded. John Smith usually only showed up to her during times of need, but rarely when she actually wanted him to come. Why would he not want her to know that there was probably another person in the world who had the same special abilities as she did? It struck her as very strange, but then again, John Smith's existence was strange enough.
On that second day of school, Mickey told her that Sarah wanted her to come over to her house.
Rose already knew why she would want this, but she asked anyway.
"She thinks it's a good idea for me to start having friends over," was what Mickey told her. Of course, this couldn't be the only reason why, but upon detection of his mind, Rose realized that it was at least part of the reason. Mickey had few other friends besides her, and they never even asked to come visit him.
"I'll ask my mummy if I can come," she responded. And when she asked her mummy that night, as she was typing away in her old typewriter (she had been writing a lot more often lately), she had at first shrieked on account of feeling startled. She was very into her work, and the scene she was writing, which involved the sad memories of a now grown woman, was what was on her mind at the moment.
"Sorry, Rose. What did you ask again?" was what she asked after taking a drink of water. No more alcohol. That was another thing that was different, as well as the fact that even the smallest unexpected occurances seemed to scare her.
"My friend Mickey invited me to come visit him after school next Wednesday. Is it all right with you?"
"Of course, honey. It's a good idea for you start making new friends. Just let Ella know that you'll being staying there." And after that, her mummy went right back to typing, as if she'd never been interrupted.
Rose had no idea about the things she would be discovering when the day of the visit finally arrived.
