Chapter Four:
After all the craziness that had happened the day before, it was even harder to get up in the morning than it usually was for me. I groggily opened my eyes and stared around my room. Nothing had changed since yesterday, but it felt different. The strange occurrence that had taken place the day before seemed to have altered it completely, turning my refuge into somewhere unknown. What was that book? Definitely not normal, but then again what is normal anyway? I pondered this for a few minutes, then came to the decision that I would have to get up and go to school whether the book was abnormal or not. I could show the necklace and the book to my friends and get their opinions on it. I was sure Cassie at least would have something to say about it, even though that thing may not be particularly helpful. With that thought in my head I heaved myself out of my bed and set off in the general direction of the kitchen.
Mum was waiting for me, a plate of eggs in her hand. "What? No cold porridge?" I queried. "Of course not, darling. It's the big day, remember?" At my look of utter confusion, she explained in a resigned voice. "Its Mufti Day, Rosa, Mufti Day. You know, where you dress up, and don't do work and have fun and stuff?" "We still have to do work, Mum. Just because were not wearing uniform doesn't mean we don't have to work." That explained why I couldn't remember the date, at least. According to the timetable, today was my worst day in two weeks. At school we often joked that the timetable was a personal oracle, predicting whether or not your day would be worth living. Today I had the four worst subjects in the world, according to me, at least. Maths, Science, Geography and Woodwork, all somehow number related, were the bane of my existence, and the fact that I would be enduring them in street clothes lessened the impact only slightly in proportion. It also happened that test period was still not over, and my distraction by Moon Children hadn't helped my study.
"Do you remember what you have to wear?" Mum asked, with laughter in her voice. I looked up, immediately wary of her tone. There was a storm coming. "What? Mum, what is it?" I was panicking now. "Its . . . you have to wear. . . PINK!" She immediately burst into fit of giggles. My mum was the outgoing, energetic type ordinarily, but now she was acting like a four year old. I was furious at her. "Why didn't you just tell me that, instead of leaving me to repress it until I forgot and then telling me again? Why would they make us wear pink? And you know I don't have anything pink at all!" All she could do was laugh for a minute, she composed herself. "Ok, ok, fun time over." Mum said, 'Now I'll explain. The reason I didn't remind you of it was that I wanted to see how well you would remember the date, seeing as I won't be here to remind you when you get older. The reason you have to wear pink is that you're donating to breast cancer, and that's a very good cause, and finally, you do have pink clothes, they're on your bed." She smirked at me imperiously, having executed her final move and knowing that there was no way out of the fate that was about to befall me. I just glared and finished my eggs in silence, except for the muffled laughter coming from Mum's end of the table.
I got to school on time, and fully decked out in pink from head to toe. As it turned out, I had a bunch of barely fitting pink shirts from way back when I was much more tolerant of the colour. Now, however, it was making me sick just looking at what I had to wear, and the fact that everyone at school had to endure the same humiliation was barely consoling. When I got to the school my friends were waiting for me, same as ever. Hugs were exchanged, and comments about the hideous pink repertoire we all had to wear, (only Alexa was fully appreciative of it), we chopped some wood for a chair in woodwork and before I knew it, it was first period recess before I got to even show my friends a glimpse of the book I was so desperate to let somebody, anybody, see. The group met at a particular tree they fancied, far in the corner of the playground away from other popular people, who's school lives were seething with complex 'friendships' and fights and back-stabbings. We weren't like that, and I myself wanted nothing to do with it, and I was pretty sure no one else did either. So we were sitting on this horizontal tree, chatting about tests and boys and things, when I suddenly remembered the book. I pulled it out of my bag, and held it above my head with a solemn reverence.
"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ea" – "ok, ok, enough Shakespeare, we had enough of that in English yesterday, thank you very much" Cass interrupted, shouting over my loud Julius Caesar rendition. "I didn't mind it..." I muttered, slightly miffed at this blatant dissention to my favourite subject. "Get on with it!" Sara and Katherine chorused, and get on with it I did. I lowered Moon Children to eye level, to gasps of wonderment when I turned to the title page. They just stared for a while, just as I had, until I resolutely shut the cover on them. They jerked back into reality with nods of their heads, and after a silence, Alexa finally spoke.
"That's really cool! And the pictures, doesn't it look like their moving?" That broke the silence. The clearing where we were sitting suddenly erupted into a stream of voices, babbling at full speed, enthusing about all aspects of the book, the leather, the brass, the ink and the magic that it holds over you was all broken down into fine analysis. Only one of us hadn't said anything yet. Jade was eyeing the book warily, suspicion clouding her dark eyes. "I, I don't know about that book ... I don't trust it. No normal book should hold your will like that. We're dealing with something seriously abnormal here. It doesn't fit." She kept scrutinising it, although waiting for it to burst into flames or something. "Well, we don't exactly fit, but look at us!" I reasoned. "Yeah, something that pretty can't be too bad, can it?" Sara agreed. "That's just what it wants us to think." Jade said darkly. Katherine was starting to look worried. "Hey, now it has a personality?" Cass was looking at us like we were all mad. "I think we all need a reality check, people. It's a book. It doesn't have an evil vendetta against us all, and it's not conspiring to take our free will. So get a grip, ok?" That grounded us, but still didn't wipe the distrust from our faces. "Let's have a closer look at it. That'll wipe the evil looks from your faces." Cass was on a mission now, to prove to us all wrong about this mysterious book called Moon Children. I was the only one to know that she would lose, but I let her find that out for herself.
As Cass searched the blank pages for anything incriminating, or otherwise, I told the others the whole story of Moon Children, Mrs Bennet and the mysterious symbol that was now around my neck. When we got to that part of the story, it only seemed to cement in all our minds, (except Cass, who was only half-listening) that Moon Children, now affectionately named MC, was something special. When I brought it out there were again gasps of astonishment, and at that point Cass finally looked up, having found no evidence of any normality in MC. "Well, this is officially crazy," she observed, "so I'm going to give up." There were exaggerated intakes of breath, and gasps of "No! Really?" with layers of sarcasm dripping all over the place. "All right, you win, happy?" "Yes!" we all cried. "Now that it's done, where did this famed symbol go again?" Cass was genuinely curious now, and got her face dangerously close to the rather explosive cover, where the symbol should have been.
She put her eye really close to the hole, and then poked her finger inside, waggling it about. A memory sparked in my brain, bridging synapses at a mile - a - minute. A flash back of me, lying in my carpet, sticking my finger into the hole where the symbol was ... "Wait!" I called, "Stop, MC might...oh." It was too late to save Cassandra. Just like what had happened in my room on the weekend, though I could hardly believe it, another cream and black blur shot out of the cover and hit Cass right smack-dab in the middle of her forehead. "Ow! That hurt!"She exclaimed, holding her hand to her head and effectively imprinting a tattoo of whatever was on the round side of her necklace onto her head. Realising what she was doing, she took her hand away, revealing a serrated lightning bolt, indented on her brow for all to see, Harry-Potter style.
"Hey, it's the Boy Who Lived!" Sara crowed, taking Cass's role of joker and inserting her usual optimism, and, and voila: everyone was laughing. "You're a wizard, Harry..." We quoted, in husky Hagrid voices, then, in high pitched Voldemort voices, "You're a fool, Harry Potter, and you will lose ... everything ..." "Yeah, I get the point, very funny... " Cass sighed dejectedly, putting on a martyred face. "Now what is this?"
It was a necklace exactly the same as mine in every way, except that her symbol was a double edged bolt of lightning, and on the back was the word 'Kai'. "Hey, doesn't that mean strong, or noble in Japanese?" Katherine asked.
We were studying it at that point in the year. "Yeah, it does..." Sara pondered this, and then said what we were all thinking. "Why does an old book have this stuff in it anyway? And, do you reckon the rest of us get a necklace too? I won't say I'm an expert, but if two random people stick their fingers into the cover and get an old world item of jewellery, then why shouldn't other people get one too?" She shrugged matter-of-factly. "Might as well give it a try", I offered. I didn't have anything to lose, did I? And it would be great if the others got a cool trinket too. "Well, go on!" Cass urged. This was going to be interesting...