Julia Lelieveld and the fifth element
~26~

Slowly I woke up. I immediately thought back to the dream I had had. It was horrible. Last night it happened all over again, only this time without Renzo saving me from Ivo. In the dream, Ivo had finished his job that he hadn’t gotten around to last night. The shivers went through my body.

I lay there with my eyes closed for a while. Trying to banish last night’s dream from my mind. As I lay there, I suddenly became very aware of the environment around me. Something I’d never felt before.

I heard nature outside, somehow I knew the sun was shining behind the gray clouds. Everything seemed to be alive.

I heard the wind moving my bamboo mobile on the balcony and making a soft sound from it. How nature took its course as always, but only now was I aware of it. I just shook my head. It was probably because I just woke up. I slowly opened my eyes and concentrated.

No, I still heard it.

Shit, the sun behind the gray clouds?

I opened the curtains, sure enough it was light. I quickly looked at the alarm clock, nine o’clock.

God damn I overslept. I completely forgot to set my alarm last night. I hurried out of bed, sending a great pain through my wrist.

My wrist now looked blue instead of red. A large bruise in the shape of Ivo’s grip. A shiver ran through me again. I got dressed quickly.

It wasn’t until I got to the bathroom to put my makeup on that I noticed how lousy I looked. My eyes were red and swollen.

Thank goodness there was foundation. With enough makeup to cover it up, but still looking a little natural, I quickly grabbed my bag and headed for the garage.

I heard there was a strong wind. I still felt nature alive. It was strange that everything was so remarkably clear. I was aware of everything, something I had never felt before. I cycled out of the garage and felt that the wind was not favorable. If I had a tailwind I could still take the last part of my first lesson. While I thought that, I felt the wind at my back and I cycled to school like a spear. I barely had to pedal. Well, that was lucky.

The schoolyard was quiet when I arrived. I think the sixth graders had the first hour off, because they also arrived. I quickly put my bike away. I did notice that Renzo’s motorcycle was there again. I hurried up the landing and ran to the third floor. We had Dutch. We got this from an older woman who was good at her profession. Luckily we didn’t have a test. A little out of breath, I knocked softly on the classroom door and opened it. Mrs. Simons looked at me in surprise. The rest of the class looked up from a piece of paper in front of them.

Somehow I sensed in the atmosphere that they were making an unexpected written quiz. Shit.

I walked to Mrs. Simons’ desk.

“Sorry Julia, I can’t help but give you a fail.” She shrugged her shoulders. I looked at her startled.

“I still have ten minutes, can I at least try?”

She looked at me for a moment, then picked up the test and handed it to me.

“Hurry up.” And she nodded at the empty desk at the back of the class. As I took the test, my blue wrist became visible. Her eyes skimmed over it for a moment, but she kept her mouth shut. I quickly adjusted my sleeve and walked to the desk. I grabbed a pen and got to work.

Fortunately, I was able to learn easily. I tried to read through the test as quickly as possible and answer the questions I knew for sure. The bell rang and with great effort I managed to answer half of the questions. I got up last and gave her the test. She took the test and gave me a yellow detention card. I looked at it wearily.

I was really getting tired of all this detention. At my old school I had never had to stay in detention and now I almost belonged to the interior of the detention room. Sighing, I took the note and walked towards the hallway. Eva was already waiting for me.

“Everything alright?”

“Yes, I overslept, forgot to set the alarm.” I shrugged and waved it away.

With that movement she looked startled and grabbed my arm.

“What have you done with your wrist?”

Oh shit, I really need to remind myself not to make any big moves.

“Slipped in the bathroom. It didn’t need much because of that fall in the locker room.” I took my arm out of her grip and walked towards the next class.

“Was your party fun on Saturday?” I asked her.

Geez Saturday, it seemed like a century ago. Unfortunately, the feelings I had because of Sam were already gone. I would love to have that good feeling back.

Eva immediately beamed at that question. I had known Eva long enough now to know how to shift the conversation to another topic.

“Yes, it was very successful.”

I looked at her in surprise.

“Okay, tell me, who is it?” I nudged her briefly with my elbow.

She started laughing.

“Not now, I’ll tell you later.”

‘I’ll hold you to that.’

Eva was in love, a blind man could still see that.

The rest of the day passed as usual. Renzo and I hadn’t had a chance to talk. We had looked at each other a few times. The contact between us was intense enough without talking. Our looks spoke volumes.

I wondered what Lucas would think about me treating his brother like that. I knew we had nothing. But the contact we had was also different from normal. I shook off the thoughts.

The weird thing was that I was still very aware of my surroundings. Nature, but it also seemed like I was picking up emotions. I didn’t understand.

After I said goodbye that afternoon, I walked down the stairs to the basement confused. Completely in my mind, I entered the room. In the back corner sat the four sixth-graders who were always together. They looked up and looked at me. I didn’t know if they were two couples or just friends, but they always seemed very close.

“Hi,” I said and looked at them for a moment.

“Hi,” they said in unison and went back to what they were doing.

I could see from their attitude that they would rather not have me there. I sat down at the very first table by the door, sitting as far away from them as possible.

I wanted to grab my bag until I heard them talking.

“Is that the new girl?” I heard a boy’s voice say.

“Yeah, she’s been here for a few weeks,” said a girl’s voice.

“She is a junior. She spends a lot of time with Eva and Bas”, said another girl’s voice.

“Say Sara, do you know more about her? I don’t know what it is, but she radiates something,” said another boy’s voice.

They were silent for a moment.

I didn’t dare look back. What was this about?

It’s not normal to talk about someone when they’re within earshot. I wondered why they were talking about me. They were clearly intrigued. The weird feeling I’ve had since this morning did let me know. And what on earth did they mean by radiating something?

“She’s not yet seventeen, so you can’t notice her at all”, said the same girl who also said that I was hanging out with Eva and Bas, Sara.

“It can’t be done anyway, because we’re already here,” said the other girl.

“We’ve got to ask Rob, there’s something going on here,” said the boy’s voice that had also said I was radiating something.

“Kicking, at last a little action,” said the other boy’s voice.

“Gosh Max, is that all you can think about?” said an irritated girl’s voice. I also seemed to notice some jealousy in her.

“Calm down everyone, we’ll just ask Rob,” Sara said.

“Hey guys, I think she can hear us?” said the observant boy.

“What?” said three voices at once.

I felt four pairs of eyes burn into my back.

Shit, I should have put a book or something on my table. I was just sitting at my table listening. I knew it wasn’t nice to eavesdrop on people, but they were talking about me. Come on, if anyone has something to say about me, I want to know it too.

But what were they talking about, of course I could hear them. There were five of us in the room here. Surely it makes sense that I overhear their conversation.

“No, of course she can’t hear us,” said the irritated girl’s voice again.

I felt my shoulders relax a little.

“I’m sure,” said the boy again.

I heard a chair slide back.

Out of instinct I got up quickly and grabbed my bag. I turned and saw that the blond boy was already standing next to the three other surprised faces.

“I’ll go, you obviously want some privacy.” I turned and quickly walked out of the room. I didn’t even give them a chance to respond.

Shit, now what? I glanced down the hallway. Then go to the other detention room. First I looked through the window in the door.

Empty.

I walked into the room and sat in the back. I buried my head in my hands. What was going on?

I couldn’t understand why they made such a point that I could hear them.

As I sat silently in the empty room, I was startled. I looked around but saw no one. I actually heard someone talking. Shit, it was them from next door.

They were still talking about whether or not I could hear them. And whether I belonged to them when it was impossible and that I am not yet seventeen.

What the hell were they talking about?

I started to doubt myself. What was going on here?

Lost in thought, I was startled by the door opening. Rob stood in the doorway.

Rob? Rob! Could it be this Rob they were talking about?

“Why are you in this room Julia?”

He walked over to me and sat down on the desk in front of me.

I concentrated for a moment, but heard no more voices from the next room. Would they be quiet or would I just not be able to hear them anymore? I was actually hoping for the latter. The thought that I was going crazy was strong.

“Oh, I just wanted to be alone for a while.”

He seemed to think for a moment and observed me.

“How’s your wrist?”

I quickly checked that my sleeve was still in place, but it showed nothing of my blue wrist. So he had seen it well yesterday.

“It’s okay.” I shrugged my shoulders.

“I don’t know if I have the right to say anything about it. But does it have anything to do with the fact that Renzo’s hand is hurt and Ivo’s nose is broken?”

A shock went through me. No, this couldn’t be true.

I looked at him startled, but said nothing.

“I just want to say that if you want to talk sometime, I’m here.”

He really meant it.

I cleared my throat for a moment, probably it wouldn’t help.

“Thanks,” I said hoarsely.

“Okay, but let’s talk about something else. I didn’t know there were other students who had to stay in detention?”

“Oh, yes, there are four other students next door.”

“Oh,” he said in an understandable way.

“Rob, it’s us,” said the boy in charge. Shit, where did that come from?

I saw that Rob automatically looked at the wall, where the voice was coming from. As if it was the most natural thing to hear the people in the room next to you talking as clearly as if they were sitting next to you.

My instincts told me not to look at the wall. As if I hadn’t heard anything at all.

“Okay,” said Rob. “Let me go see who’s sitting next to this.”

“I’ll come back later to have a look.”

I nodded and Rob rushed to the door.

I heard him close the door behind him as he rushed into the other detention room.

“Guys, what’s going on?”

Well I’d like to know that too. It was as if Rob was still sitting on the table in front of me, but instead he was standing in the room next to me.

It just wasn’t possible to hear it so clearly now. Just like the blond boy I heard so clearly through the wall just now. What was going on?

“Rob, she can hear us,” said the blond boy.

“Who can hear us?”

“The girl who just sat in the room with us. The one you were just talking to.” He said it a little urgently.

“Julia? But she didn’t respond to your voice when you said you were here.”

“Well that’s very smart of her,” he said, a little irritated but also impressed.

“Leo, are you sure about this? You mustn’t make mistakes with this.”

“I don’t understand it myself, but I’m pretty sure. Besides, we heard her clearly too when you were talking.”

Wait a second. Did they hear me as clearly as I could have heard them?

“Rob, this isn’t possible at all. We’re already here and she’s not even seventeen yet,” said the girl, her voice still irritated.

It was quiet for a while.

“She was in the room with you, of course you may have just talked too loudly.”

“No, of course not. It was even softer than a whisper. There’s no way she could have heard us with a normal human ear,” said the boy named Leo.

And it was quiet again.

“Say why don’t we just ask her and we’ll get rid of all this nagging,” said the other boy.

“Max, just think. You can’t just ask someone if they happened to hear us. Or that she might be able to control one of the elements lately?”

“Kate, enough!” Rob said. I heard he was worried. Or did I feel it?

“Now we have to ask. What if she heard you and is freaking out! What then? You know very well what can happen if you don’t know what to do with your powers.”

Powers? What the hell were they talking about? This became too much for me. At first I didn’t want to hear them at all. Now that I could hear them I became curious, but this, this was beyond me.

I quickly grabbed my bag and walked out of the room. Ran up the stairs and out of the school. I quickly grabbed my bike and went home. Powers? Control nature? Surely it won’t?

Was that the feeling I had this morning when I woke up? The feeling that hadn’t gone away.

Oh, the wind. The wind to school this morning. I was hoping that I would have a tailwind and suddenly I had it. No, it couldn’t.

My thoughts went to the wind, somehow I knew how to do it. And sure enough, there was the wind. He sat tight on my back and led me home.

No, enough! I closed my thoughts and the wind died down again. I couldn’t do this. It just scared me. What was all this? How could I do all this?

This is not possible. This only happened in books and movies. Not in real life!

My thoughts ran like mad. My head was too small to contain everything. Controlling elements, what were they talking about? On the other hand, wind was an element and somehow I managed to control it twice.

Being so aware of my surroundings, I heard a car quickly round the corner. I didn’t know how I did it, but somehow my body and mind managed to interpret everything correctly. I seemed to know what to listen to and what not to listen to. How I could shut myself off from it and summon it. I heard the car come to a stop with screeching brakes. He blocked my way. Due to the speed I was riding, I was too late to brake, but I felt a strong wind blowing against me and I stopped abruptly. I had to do my best not to fall over. I shook my head briefly, confused by what had just happened.

Leo stood with his flat hand out to me. When he withdrew his hand, the wind abated. I looked at him in disbelief. If I’m not mistaken, he just made sure I didn’t hit the car.

He was a tall blond boy with bright gray eyes. His eyes focused on mine. I did not know what he was looking for, but he was not satisfied. I saw that in his expression, but also in his attitude. To everything actually. He turned and with that movement I watched where he was turning. There were the other three with Rob.

They looked as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened when Leo blew me to a halt. I got off my bike, knowing there would be no point in cycling away quickly.

I looked at them one by one questioningly.

Next to Rob were the three others I had seen in the detention room. A girl with dark blond spiky short hair and blue eyes. Next to it stood a girl with long brown hair and brown eyes. I knew their names were Kate and Sara, but I didn’t know who was who.

Next to the girl with the brown hair stood a boy with black hair and a very special color of eyes, it looked like a mixture of brown and orange.

They all looked at me with great concentration, as if I was about to attack at any moment. I tried to relax my posture a bit so they would see that I wasn’t going to do anything crazy. What were they thinking?

Rob stepped forward.

“Julia, I think it’s time we talked.”

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