1st 5 Pages April Workshop - Feltham Rev 1

Name: Abi Feltham
Genre: Young Adult Science Fiction
Title: The Spring Years  

Chapter One

The day before I left my Year Zone had been somewhat unconventional. Sitting in the back of a police shuttle, I counted how many times I’d been here. Five this year, six the last and three the year before. I was well on the way to breaking my personal record and I couldn’t help but congratulate myself. Mum wouldn’t be happy, I knew that, but perhaps she’d recognise my achievement. A medal maybe? At least a cookie.

Officer Aldana climbed out of the shuttle and hovered round to my side, his balance boots making that annoying whirrr sound. I checked the time—we’d arrived at my house before I could think of an excuse why, once again, I’d been so lucky to deserve a police escort. He swung the door open and stood there silently, waiting for me to move. I caught my reflection in his helmet visor as he lifted it and gave me one of those I’m-not-mad-just-disappointed looks. Smiling sweetly, I sunk into the backseat. Perhaps he’d let me off this time.

“Out you get,” he said, not at all impressed. “I need to talk to your mum.”

“I’ve got a better idea, Martin,” I said, my index finger pointed in the air. “How about thi—”

“Officer Aldana,” he corrected me. “Spending so much time in my vehicle doesn’t make us friends, you know.”

“Sorry, Officer Aldana. What if—and this is just a suggestion—you give me a free pass? I’m springing tomorrow… there’s zero chance of me doing it again.”

“You know that’s not how it works, Billie. Let’s go.”

He signalled me out of the shuttle as if he were my chauffeur, then led me up the garden path to certain doom, hovering next to me. It’s not like I’d skipped school deliberately. It was more of a coincidental thing. Like, somehow I turned left at the end of my street instead of right, and before I knew it, I’d spent all afternoon in the VR arcade shooting zombie beauty queens with a giant pink machine gun. Totally not my fault.

I scanned my holowatch and the front door slid open, whereupon I found my mother sat on the stairs, shoulders hunched, tapping her foot. She’d been in the exact same position the day I returned from running away. I’d been missing for an entire week before she called Jodie’s parents to check I was there. I got in a lot of trouble that day, but at least it was Mum who caved first.

“What’s she done now?” asked Mum. She was talking to Aldana but looking at me.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Embers,” he said, holding out a hand to shake hers.

She ignored it. “Miss.”

“Sorry, Miss Embers. Can we have a chat?”

“Look Officer, we’ve been through this. I’ll speak to her but there’s not much else I can do. She’s a lost cause.”

Mum spoke as if I wasn’t standing directly in front of her. How rude! I barged past and headed upstairs, stomping heavily to make my presence known. “You shouldn’t talk about someone in the third person when they are present,” I said, my face burning up, lip quivering. “You should refer to them by their name. It’s basic good manners.”

She didn’t hesitate before loudly telling me to go to my room, but by then I was already outside my door. I flung it open and without turning round, asked her—at a similarly deafening volume—where else she thought I was going. I didn’t wait for a reply. I just slammed the door and kicked the pile of dirty clothes that perpetually lived on my bedroom floor.

My temper was rising by the second. Soon I’d burst open like one of those shaken cans of soda I hand to my sister when she needs her ego reduced. Who was Mum to call me a lost cause? Yeah, I was a little careless now and again, but least I have my whole life ahead of me. She’s so old, she probably remembers the energy crisis. In an attempt to calm down, I held the pendant of my necklace, a silver lightning bolt, between my thumb and forefinger, and rubbed it. The smooth metal, the straight edges, the pointy corners—they all lent a hand in cooling me off.

Earlier that morning, when I found myself entering a VR booth instead of the school gates, I’d questioned my actions. I couldn’t decide whether I was skipping school because I was extraordinarily keen to play Undead Pageant III, or whether I was, in typical Billie fashion, putting off the most important thing I had to do that week—travel through the depths of time and space. Abandoning my family for four years wasn’t so bad; it was my friends I couldn’t bear to leave. If I stayed away from school, away from home, reality would never hit and I wouldn’t have to go on my Spring Years.

No one came to get me that evening, not even for dinner. Mum was, presumably, still mad at me, and my big sister, Saskia, would’ve been too busy either (a) studying like a maniac for her spacetime engineering degree, (b) “volunteering” at the animal hospital but really just chatting up recently bereaved pet owners, or (c) kissing Mum’s behind with her perfectly lined lips. Sometimes I wonder if we’re even related. Were it not for our freckles, above average height and gangly limbs that are more akin to tentacles, you’d never guess.

Instead of enjoying my final night of freedom, hanging out with friends or sitting round a silent dinner table with my moody family, I turned off my light and crawled into bed—fully clothed, make-up intact. Sadly, this ritual was all too familiar. I couldn’t sleep, too anxious about leaving the next day. Dragging two fingers through the air, I booted up my holowatch’s display screen, then with stressful thoughts of springing the next day, spent the next few hours watching twentieth century sitcoms, until eventually, I fell asleep.

#

The next morning, my routine played out as usual. I woke up late, spilt coffee down my front, and instead of eating a well balanced meal, ended up shovelling cereal into my mouth as I raced toward the car. The only deviation from the norm was the nagging thought in the back of my mind that knew my entire existence was about to change. Thoughts like these—vague and unsettling—made my heart beat dangerously fast.