Not Particularly Special

1. A Not So Average Joe

It had been hard to say goodbye to her friends, the people she had known all her life, lying to them had been easy but saying goodbye had been hard. She knew that despite their promises they would soon forget about her and the things she had done, it would be just like she had never attended the school and never been friends with them. And by knowing this it made her heart even sadder.

She had never wanted to be anything special, at school she had never strived towards any high goal but settled for attaining an average life. She never auditioned for the lead role in plays, or sang solo in the choir; she never overachieved in class and never gave the full 101% in sports. She was completely and utterly normal and then the incident had happened.

She had been playing “British Bulldog” with her classmates on the large playground, her best friends holding her hand whilst she grinned at the dark haired boy in the middle. She had screamed with glee as they ran across the ground, the three splitting up and diving around the boy but he smiled at her and chased after her. It was when he grabbed her that it happened. Her eyes went wide, pupils thinning and then the world fell and he fell with her.

She had ended up in a coma for a week, physicians trying to explain it away as either a summer faint or an epileptic episode and her parents had almost believed them until the gentleman arrived. He was tall and kind, old though his eyes sparkled with youthful energy and he smelt like lemons. He asked her a few questions, as well as her parents and her doctors.

He asked if anything like this had happened before and whether or not anything else strange had ever happened to her. He asked her if she liked school and what subjects she was good at. He asked her who her favourite author was, what colour she preferred and her favourite sweets. He then asked her to touch his hand and she had done so, it was when the old man slumped, as if from weariness and dropped almost to the floor that she screamed.

They had taken her out of the hospital, the man had explained there was nothing doctors could do, and she spent the remainder days of term at home watching the children play outside in the street. He had explained to her parents about her ‘condition’, which was apparently rare but not unknown and had explained that perhaps his school could help. Her parents had said yes and they began to make preparations for her time away from home.

They had gone with him to buy school supplies and extra things she would need and she stayed at home watching the summer flit by. It had been quite hot when they had left this morning and she had longed for her summer dress to wear but her mother had been quite insistent. She had left the house wearing her school shirt that covered her arms and chest, a black skirt that covered her legs and beneath that, just in case, she wore thick black tights and wore long black gloves on her arms. She had hated every minute of the journey to the station, even though the Air Conditioning was turned right up and she was able to slip the shoes off her feet.

She had looked longingly at the girls at the station, all wearing short dresses or cool clothing and had blushed furiously at the stares she had received in return from them. As the train got ready to depart she watched a family, getting quite frantic as they realised somebody was missing, and an older woman who kissed a nervous looking girl fondly on her cheek and put her on the train with her brothers. Her own mother looked at her nervously and went to hug her before her father stopped her; her mother shook her hand formally and smiled sadly.

She found an empty carriage and took the window seat looking back at her parents, her mother was crying in her father’s arms. She put her glove-clothed hand on the window and wished she wasn’t here. The train pulled away and she watched as her parents got smaller and smaller until all at once they were out of sight. She was off on an adventure. She was off to Hogwarts.