Proof of Concept

March, 1999

Willa sucked on a cherry flavoured lollypop as she sat on the perch she had claimed for herself within the playground of Oakdale Primary School, knobby knees scrapped with a bright yellow Band-Aid covering a scabby cut she had earned a few days previously. She wanted to pick at it, but her Ma always warned her that it would scar, so she tried to leave it alone, even though it got itchy. Ma said that was a good sign, that it was healing. Her Ma knew loads of stuff like that, even though she wasn't a nurse or a doctor, she worked in the local cinema on the weekend, and through the week she stocked shelves at the supermarket three days a week. Ma was always working, but that was okay, because when Ma wasn't at work, she was at home with Willa. Just the two of them now, since Granny Gwen died last year. She missed her, Granny used to sneak her sweets and read her stories and always tried answering her questions when Ma was too tired from working, but now that she was gone, she got her own bedroom, which was nice. Not as nice as Granny being around, though, but Willa felt almost like a grownup now that she had her own room.

Willa kicked her legs over the side of the monkey gym she had climbed, waiting for her best friend to catch up with her. They didn't share the same teacher this year, which was very annoying for Willa, who had been afraid that might mean that they wouldn't be friends anymore, but it hadn't changed anything. Willa just had to wait a little longer sometimes for Meg to catch up with her at their favourite spot, that's all. Most of the other kids were too scared to climb up this high, anyways, but Willa had been doing it since practically her first day. She used to love dangling upside down, but she got in trouble for doing it in her school dress, so she didn't do it anymore. It sucked, but even Ma had told her that girls aren't supposed to do that when they're in dresses or skirts, so Willa only dared to do it when no one else was in the playground. It seemed like a silly rule to her, but whatever.

She loved it up here, she felt like she could see the whole school yard, watching the other kids kicking a ball, hula hooping, playing hide and seek...All the normal kid stuff. Willa liked watching them play, maybe it was 'cos she didn't have any brothers and sisters, but she'd always kind of felt a little unsure about other kids her own age. Luckily, Meg was the same, she didn't have any brothers and sisters, and she had moved to the village in their second grade. Willa and her had become fast friends when they had both discovered their shared love for Doctor Who and reading, though Meg still read boring, girly books, but it was better than most kids in their year who barely looked at a book. Willa could work with it.

"Hey," Meg's soft, shy voice reached her, making Willa glance sideways, just in time to see the other girl swing herself up onto the same edge that she was perched on. Meg gave her a timid smile, a small, partly healed cut on the corner of her lip, sandy brown hair tied back in a messy ponytail at the base of her neck, while the collar of her school dress had a small blue stain on it, probably from a pen.

"Finally," Willa grinned at her, popping her lollypop out of her mouth to do so, playfully bumping her shoulder gently into her. Meg swayed lightly with the movement, "Do you want a lollypop?" she raised an eyebrow at her, already moving to grab the spare she had brought with her specifically for Meg today. She liked sharing with Meg, it felt nice doing stuff like that.

Again, probably another thing about being an only child.

"No, I'm...I'm okay," she shook her head, glancing quickly down. Her hands gripped the edge of the metal pole that her legs dangled over, a light bruise ghosting the skin on top of her right hand. She ducked her chin slightly into her chest, "Dad doesn't want me eating sugar, says it'll rot my teeth and he can't afford that".

She frowned slightly at that, eyeing her friends face...she didn't like Meg's dad, she didn't know if all dads were like him, she didn't think so, but he was mean. And scary. Meg had stayed with them twice now in the middle of the night, 'cos her dad got taken away by the police, and Meg's mum was always sick and in bed. Willa's Ma wouldn't let her go 'round to the Collins house, but Meg was always welcome at their house. Willa wasn't stupid, she knew that Meg's dad must be a pretty bad guy if the cop's had to take him away sometimes and she thought it might be something to do with how Meg always seemed to have bruise's or cuts on her, but her Ma wouldn't explain it to her. She always said she was too young and it was 'Grownup business,' but it didn't seem like that if Meg was involved and Willa was three months older then her.

"Well..." Willa gave her friend a small, gentle, almost teasing smile, "You're dad's not here now, is he? One lollypop can't hurt".

Meg lifted her head slightly and looked at her, both girls sharing a small smile as Meg slowly nodded in agreement, looking vaguely sheepish. Willa grinned widely at that and immediately fished her spare lollypop from her pocket, this one apple flavoured, Meg's favourite, and gave it to the other girl. Willa watched in satisfaction as Meg unravelled the little plastic wrapping around the sweet, crunching it up in her fist as she uncovered the lolly. Willa held out her hand to take the wrapping, not wanting Meg to be found out by having it still in her pocket and the other girl dropped it in her hand. She stuck the lollypop in her mouth, while Willa stuck the wrapper in her pocket, her own sweet between her lips. They enjoyed their sweets in silence for a moment, before Meg sighed and reached up to slip her sweet from her mouth. She stared sadly ahead of her. Willa frowned at her; taking her own lollypop from her lips, regarding the gloomy expression on her face...it upset her to see Meg so sad.

"What's wrong?" she asked her, concerned, but she only shrugged. That wasn't going to work for Willa, who only frowned deeper and lightly nudged her side again, "Come on, Meg. What?"

"We had a maths test right before the bell," she told her, her expression only falling even more, much to Willa's increasing concern, "I know I failed it, like, really, really badly, Will. I hate maths..."

Willa instantly understood, but it didn't make her concern lesson, if anything it only grew. She suddenly didn't feel very much like eating her lollypop, even though cherry was her all-time favourite flavour and lollypops the best sweet ever, but as she looked at Meg's sullen features, her heart only sank. She knew Meg wasn't good at maths, probably her worst subject, and she also knew that Meg's dad didn't like that. She remembered how last year Meg had come to school crying with a bright red welt on the back of her leg, all because she hadn't been able to count how much money she had in her piggybank and her dad had gotten so angry...It had been okay, for the most part, 'cos Willa had been secretly doing Meg's math homework all year and she happened to do fairly decent in maths, but a test? That was different. Willa couldn't do that for her when they weren't in the same class.

"Oh," Willa said softly, not knowing what else to say, what to do.

Meg squeezed her eyes shut, "He's gonna be so, so mad," she breathed shakily, words spoken so softly that they were almost lost on the near still breeze, even though Willa was right beside her, "I'm gonna have to run away or something. No way can I go home after he finds out, and its parent-teacher-interviews on Friday," she opened her eyes and stared directly ahead of herself, looking more miserable than Willa had seen her in a long, long time. She swallowed, hard, "What do I do?"

Willa felt as if all of the happiness and sunshine in the school had been totally sucked out of it, she felt like crying watching Meg, and Meg wasn't even crying. Maybe that was the worst thing, the fact that Meg wasn't even crying because she already knew what her fate had entail for her and she had accepted it already, like it was somehow okay. But it wasn't okay; Willa couldn't let her best friend get in trouble for a stupid maths test, who even cared that much about stuff like that? It was all trivial nonsense anyway, Willa didn't believe that failing a test now meant anything, maybe if they were going to uni it would be different, but they were nine. She had to do something...and she knew that she could.

"Meg..." she turned herself slightly towards her, eyeing her friend with big brown eyes, full of worry and softness, "I...I think I have an idea".

Meg frowned slightly and glanced sideways at her, "What?"

She smiled, then, growing confident in her idea...she could do it; she knew she could, she'd been doing stuff like this for years. Listening to conversations when she was supposed to be sleeping, pretending to be sleeping when she was actually reading one of her books. What was the point of making herself invisible if she couldn't help out a friend? She reached out and slung an arm around Meg's bony shoulders, eyes dancing.

"I'll do my magic trick. It'll be easy, I'll just sneak into the classroom and find your test, change the ones you got wrong and...poof. Fixed. No worries".

She blinked at her slowly, "You...you can really do that?"

"Sure," Willa said instantly, suddenly utterly confident in herself, even smirking slightly smugly, "It might even be kind of fun, like being a super-spy".

Meg slowly smiled at her, eyes brightening with relief.

Willa gave her a half-hug, before dropping her arm from around her. She stuck her lollypop back inside her mouth and moved to swing herself back down off her perch, Meg hastily moving to follow suit. Neither girl needed to speak, Willa dropping easily from where she dangled off the bars of the monkey bars to land on the ground with a loud thump of her scuffed school shoes. The left one was starting to break away at the seam of the toe, Ma had glued it last week, but then it had rained and the glue had dissolved. But that was a concern for another time, because Willa was on a mission, sucking on her sweet as she led Meg through the school yard and around to the furthest back corner of the yard, well away from the rest of the kids. There was a wooden bench beneath one of the oak trees and Willa immediately made for it, settling herself on it with a little twirl on the tips of her shoes, feeling suddenly as if she could rule the whole school with a snap of her fingers.

She loved doing her magic trick, no one else she knew could do anything close to what she could do. It wasn't something disgusting, like being able to burp the alphabet, like Jordan Kelly, or something boring, like Sophie Smith being able to cartwheel, or even something mildly impressive, like Sandy Green being able to play the trumpet. Willa's special trick was loads better and loads more interesting. And she knew she could use it to help her friend, so it was useful, too. How, exactly, was Jordan Kelly supposed to help anyone with his burping skills? Try and explain that one.

"What do you want me to do?" Meg whispered to her, eyes bright and excited, settling herself beside Willa.

"Just make sure no one bothers us," she told her quietly, shifting comfortably on the bench, feet just touching the ground beneath them. She closed her eyes, taking a deep breath...

And just like that, she felt herself literally lifting up out of her very body, eyes snapping open to find herself looking back down at her own body, which remained sitting on the bench. It had slumped sideways into Meg, who had an arm around her, staring at her with an eager, hopeful expression written across her pale features. Willa glanced down at her own hands and found herself semi-transparent, a grin of delight filling her face. She waved a hand at Meg, but there was no reaction...invisible, good. She had done this before and accidently got caught by her Ma, who had been positively shocked to nearly fainting, before then making Willa swear that she would never play this trick again. Willa had promised, but how could she keep such a promise if her friend was in trouble? It seemed totally unfair to her to keep that promise.

Willa turned and began making her way through the school yard, no one looking at her, invisible to everyone, but herself. She grinned and started running, feeling like she could do anything and everything, invincible. She noticed Sally Thomas playing skip rope ahead of her and couldn't help edging closer to the other girl who had mocked her only that morning for her tattered shoes. She couldn't touch or feel anything in this form, but if she tried hard enough and walked into someone, she noticed that it made people uncomfortable, so she made sure to walk straight through Sally...

A loud squeal rang out. Sally gasped and staggered back from her friends, almost tripping on the rope as she hugged her middle, looking slightly sickly all of a sudden.

"What was that?" she gasped, appalled and confused.

"What? What's wrong?"

"I...I..." she shook her head, before she suddenly gave a small retch...her pretty blue eyes widening and she slapped a hand over her mouth, before turning and suddenly bolting away, over towards the girl's toilets.

Willa smiled and kept on walking, mentally clapping herself on the back. Sally had been a pain to her since their first grade, revenge was sweet. Her Ma would be so disappointed if she knew she had just done that, but she wasn't here, what did it matter? Besides, Sally was asking for it. So, she kept on going, skipping all the way back through the school yard, managing to side-step and dodge any of the other kids who nearly crossed her path, all the way back up to the back entrance of the small school. She slipped inside; the corridors eerily quiet without the din of classes and kids, the echo of excited shouts and laughter reaching her from the yard. She kept on going.

Meg's classroom was all the way at the front of the school, so that's where Willa went, utterly ghost-like as she found the right room, the classroom door closed, while school bags hung on the hooks lining the wall outside the large window that looked into the room from the hallway. Willa didn't need to worry about doors or walls like this, she simply stepped straight through the door, vision briefly obscured by a sliver of darkness from the inside of the wooden door, before she was stepping right out into the classroom. Five square tables dotted the middle of the room, pencils sitting in brightly coloured holders in the middle of the tables for the kids to borrow and use throughout class, while strings had been hung up across the tables, showcasing the student's history posters and artwork from throughout the term, posters stuck to the walls about the room with cartoon educational stuff. A large black bored, still stained with rubbed off white chalk, hung on the wall at the end of the classroom with large cut outs of individual letters pinned to the wall above the board, making up the alphabet. Below it, Mr Hughes's teacher's desk sat overlooking the classroom, all neat and tidy.

Willa immediately made her way over to it, eyes quickly scanning over the surface of the desk, but she couldn't see anything that looked like a maths test. She really hoped Mr Hughes hadn't taken the testes away to grade them already, but she didn't reckon he would have. She had seen him on yard duty earlier, he might not even be back for his own lunch yet...She regarded the desk closely, determined to find Meg's test and set it right, so that Meg didn't get into any trouble. She couldn't let that happen to her, she just couldn't. Her eyes fell on the top drawer of the desk, a small lock on it. She grinned.

It was a little annoying that being indivisible meant that she couldn't actually touch or pick up anything, feel anything, not unless she had been holding that object when she made herself invisible. But she could still go through stuff, find Meg's test and...well, that was when her grin did slip, because she suddenly remembered that all good plans typically have a flaw and this one was rather big. If she couldn't touch anything, then she couldn't change Meg's answers. Her face fell and she felt her heart drop, licking her transparent lips anxiously...how had she not thought of that?

"It's fine," she told herself, firmly, though she didn't believe it. She frowned at the desk drawer, "I can...I can work around it. Besides..." she took a deep breath, not caring if she probably sounded totally mental right now, no one could see her, anyways, so who cared? "Maybe Meg did better then she thought, maybe good enough".

And if not...well, Willa would just have to figure that part out. Maybe she could convince her Ma to let Meg come stay with them, maybe Ma would even let Meg live with them if she told her that Meg was planning to run away. Maybe she could tell her Ma she was going to run away if Meg did, so she had to adopt Meg, unless she wanted Willa to run away, too. Again, not exactly a fool proof solution, but at nine years of age and desperately trying to help a friend, Willa was willing to grasp at whatever she could to archive her goal. She could work with it, she'd make it work for her, she just...might have to think about it a little. Her Ma always said that she could do anything she put her mind to; this was just one of those things.

Willa stared at the desk drawer, trying to regain her initial confidence boost, but she now felt slightly flat. It wasn't going to stop her, though, and she struggled not to squeeze her eyes shut as she leant closer and closer to the desk...she knew she would just go through it, but leaning purposely into an object still felt kinda weird, but she'd gotten over being nervous about floating through walls and doors without smacking into them, a stupid desk was nothing. She broke through the desk surface to find herself peering inside it. A neat stack of paper sat there, while a red stapler and a box of spare staplers sat beside it, a couple of pens and brightly coloured sticky notes, too. Willa focused on the testes and carefully tried peering through them individually, but it was hard.

Something warm trickled down her face from her nose, warm and wet, but she ignored it, knowing it was her real body feeling it, and Meg was with her real body right now. She trusted Meg to have her back, so she kept going. But it was way harder to look at individual pieces of paper, all stacked up on top of each other, it began to blur together, she couldn't get a good enough look...

"What?" a loud voice suddenly exclaimed, shock and disbelief ringing through it.

Willa jumped and bolted upright, right out of the desk and the drawer, her eyes widening as she looked up to find Mr Hughes himself standing in the doorway of the now open classroom, his eyes wide, bushy grey eyebrows nearly disappearing into where his receding hairline used to be, thin lips gaping wide. He dropped the red lunch box he was holding and it fell with a bang on the floor, the lid popping open. A red apple went scooting across the ground. Willa stared back at Mr Hughes, who reached out to grasp the edge of the doorframe beside him, staring directly at her.

"Oh," Willa said breathlessly, finding herself suddenly quite stunned herself. And horrified, "Hey, Mr Hughes...I was just...leaving".

"What?" he gasped out, "Miss Scott, what..."

Willa blinked and suddenly she found herself slamming right back into her own body, whatever invisible string between her and it throwing her back into it so hard, that she couldn't help chocking slightly for air and giving a small, shocked gasp as she toppled backwards, right off the school bench and onto the ground behind it, legs still stuck on the bench, skirt flaring up.

"Will!" Meg cried, frightened as she scuttled off the bench and fell on her knees beside her friend, eyes wide with fear and alarm, grabbing Willa's arm, while the other girl coughed and spluttered, tasting blood on her tongue. She reached up to rub her lips and found her hand covered in a deep streak of scarlet.

"Oh," Willa coughed slightly, staring at the blood dripping off fingertips, falling in crimson droplets onto the white and red checked school dress she wore, staining it. She blinked, slightly dazed, and looked up to Meg and her wide, frightened eyes and gave her a probably slightly terrifying, bloody, weak smile, "I think I might have messed up, Meg's".

Meg simply gaped at her in disbelief and horror, blood dripping off Willa's chin.

...

On the other side of the world, an old-fashioned phone trilled loudly upon a large, handsome wooden desk within a striking study. The space was cluttered with books and expensive trinkets, an empty fireplace with marble and wood mantle poised behind where an elderly appearing man sat in a brown leather chair, a monocle covering one eye, while his lined features were set into a hard, stern scowl, busily jotting down notes in a journal. A clock nearby sung the hour. The man almost impatiently reached over to grab the receiver of the phone, annoyed by the notion that someone was disturbing his brief moment of peace before attending to the afternoon's lessons for his seven wards. The ringing stopped as he lifted the receiver up to his ear, still writing.

"Yes?" he asked with a slightly impatient edge.

"Sir, there's been a development in Wales".

The man paused in his notes, bushy grey eyebrows arching high with a degree of interest as he slowly lowered his fountain pen, finally lifting his grey eyes up. Ah, finally. Proof of concept.

...

Willa was suspended for a week, even though Mr Hughes hadn't been able to properly explain why and what Willa had actually done, even though the man himself had decided to take a very sudden break from work due to 'Family issues,' though Willa didn't really believe that. She was nine, not stupid, she guessed that seeing one of your students transparent and all ghost-like, popping out of where they had been bending inside a desk, might be a little shocking for someone. But it seemed that whatever the man had managed to tell the Principle, it was enough for them to decide to suspend her.

Ma was not happy.

"You promised me, Willa," May shook her head, cheeks flushed but yet pale, eyes wide and slightly glassy, as if she was on the brink of possibly crying, while her previously neatly combed shoulder length hair was now frizzy from having hands anxiously pushed through it for the past hour. She gripped the top of the rickety dining chair, knuckles almost blanched white, "Willa, do you have any idea how serious this is?"

Willa shifted awkwardly on the dining chair she sat on, head bowed and hands gripping the sides of the chair tightly, trying hard not to squirm too much. Or cry. She was usually a pretty well behaved kid, it was hard to be naughty when there wasn't anyone around to be naughty with, she mostly stuck to her TV or books or colouring, there wasn't anything else to do, so finding herself suddenly kicked out of school for the week and facing her mother's distress, was an unfamiliar experience for her and not one that she enjoyed.

"I was trying to help Meg," she said quietly, weakly, risking glancing up to her mother. Her nose had only stopped bleeding a few minutes ago; she still had a bloody tissue gripped in one hand and she was sure there was still dried blood around her nose and chin, even though the school nurse had tried cleaning her up. Her school dress was probably wrecked now, too, smeared with drops of blood, her white collar ruined by it. She looked like she had lived through one of those horror movies Ma told her she was too young to watch, but she still snuck peeks at.

May sighed heavily and briefly closed her eyes, "And I love that, Willa," she said tightly, as if she was conflicted about that fact, torn by how she felt. She opened her eyes and pinned Willa with a stern glare, "But this is...this is important, I told you how important it is that you don't use your trick anywhere that someone might see..."

"I didn't mean to be seen!" she couldn't help blurting out.

"But you were, Willa!"

Willa jumped slightly at the sudden shout from her usually calm, level toned Ma, who so rarely ever shouted. She gaped slightly up at her, disbelief, shock, and then, lastly, misery. She felt her bottom lip start to wobble with tears and she couldn't stop herself from hiccupping on a stuttering, tearful gasp, before she was fully dissolving into crying. Ma's stern frown melted and a look of regret flashed over her pretty features, before she was moving over to Willa and crouching down.

"Come here," she whispered soothingly, and Willa immediately threw herself into May's arms, crying as she felt a tender hand smoothing over her back, over her hair, hugging her, "I don't mean to shout, Will, I don't want to shout. I'm just...I'm just scared, that's all".

"Why?" Willa asked in a tearful, shaky gasp.

May sighed heavily and held her tighter, "I just love you so much, that's all," she said softly, gently rocking her.

...

Being suspended from school sucked, because unlike most kids, Willa actually liked school. Well, she liked hanging out with Meg and school was usually the only chance she got to do that, since play-dates wasn't really a thing that either girl got to do, Ma worked too much and, well, Willa wasn't allowed around at Meg's house, so...school was kind of their place. But no school, meant no Meg, no Meg meant boring and dull, and loneliness, which was all terrible and just really bad. It didn't help matters that Willa wasn't allowed to watch any TV for the week and she had to go to bed at seven thirty, and no sweets. The only upside was that she at least got to hang out with Ma, who, even though she still had to work, had been allowed to take Willa with her during her shifts at the supermarket and cinema, though that was possibly even more dull. There was nothing to do and Willa wasn't allowed to sneak out to watch movies or help out in the shop, just stuck in the break room the whole eight house that each shift lasted. Boring.

It was, then, quite the relief when the week was up and Willa was back at school, even though everyone was talking about her and what she had done, which no one actually knew, but everyone had all these ideas. She heard one kid saying that she'd been caught trying to burn the school down...as if. Some kids had the most overactive imaginations. Still, it was nice to be back, and within two days of Willa being back at school, everyone had already moved on to how Darren Hopper had a crush on Claire Green, which everyone already knew about, but Willa was just happy to not be the focus of attention.

Of course, she couldn't have quite expected what would happen next, if she had, she probably would have tried running away. It wouldn't have worked, but it might have felt better, instead Willa left school as she normally would during any other Wednesday afternoon, saying 'Bye' to Meg as they parted ways at the school gate amidst the rush of other students trying to escape, parents standing around or sitting in cars, waiting to pick them up. Willa lived just around the corner from the school and Ma usually worked until four on Wednesdays, so Willa normally walked home, unless it was raining or snowing. But today was a nice day and so she set off on foot, school bag weighed down heavily with two new library books, trying not to trip up on the flapping sole of her shoe. Five minutes later she was arriving at her back door. She paused as she got her keys out, spotting Ma's coat hanging on the peg on the wall through the glass window of the back door. Ma always wore that coat when she went out, always. She was home early...weird. Willa went to unlock the door, but it was already open...Okay, that was odd. Definitely odd.

"Ma?" she called, stepping over the threshold and into the house, peering around curiously. The kitchen looked normal, nothing out of place, "Ma?"

"In here!"

Ma's voice came from the living room, shaky and strained, but to nine-year-old Willa, she didn't fully register the obvious sounds of distress in her mother's tone, passing through the small kitchen/dining area and into the door of the living room, pushing it open. Her mother rose quickly from the couch, pale and anxious looking, wringing her hands together down her front, still dressed in her supermarket uniform, eyes darting nervously from Willa to the stranger. Willa eyed the man curiously as he turned to regard her, a monocle over one eye. He was an old man, with grey hair and a rather cold, stern scowl fixed to his lined features, dressed in a fancy looking three-piece dark suit, a grey beard framing his mouth, lips pursing in consideration as he seemed to take in every single little detail about Willa, who stood frozen in the doorway, confused and instantly wary of this stranger.

"Willa," May said softly, swallowing, hard, "This is Sir Reginald Hargreeves. He...he wishes to speak to you".

Ooh…any guesses on exactly what sort of power Willa's got?

I feel so badly for giving Meg such a sucky homelife, she's a sweet girl and…well, you'll see later, but I feel pretty badly about it, but I felt like I needed to give Will a reason to be understanding about what a dysfunctional and toxic family life looks like, before she ends up being placed in one herself. Willa's life, thus far, has been truly lovely and sweet, she might not have had a lot, but she definitely never missed out on having love and support, and that's super important for her character and how she grows up. I also really wanted to highlight that, at this stage, she's a pretty confident kid who has the whole mentality of 'It'll work out,' even when she's presented with problems. She is clever and advanced for her age, but she is also a kid who's only ever known love and support, unlike the Umbrella kids. It's an important thing to keep that in mind about her.

I hope you liked it, tell me what you thought. Please review :)