Journey to Wubang 01 - Earth to Hell (18 page)

‘If anybody discovers my demon nature it’ll be all over, Meredith.’

‘Then we just have to ensure that they never do.’ She rose. ‘Now up you get, Missy Emma, and go practise the meditation techniques we’ve covered. Clear the demon nature as much as you can, control the chi flow, restrain the demon essence, and call me when you think you have it.’ She concentrated for a moment. ‘Meditation room on the seventh floor is free, all yours.’

‘Thanks, Meredith,’ I said quietly.

‘Feel like tearing the limbs off things rather than meditating right now?’ she said.

I nodded.

‘Let me know when you don’t.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

T
he Australian International School had significantly grown in the nine years that Simone had been attending. It had spread onto two campuses and its population had doubled.

Marcus parked at a meter near the school and I headed up to the roof. The swimming pool and netball court were up there, and Simone was still at practice. She gave me a cheery wave when she saw me. She was playing the position of goal attack and neatly took the ball that was passed to her by another girl. She turned, lined up the shot, and missed.

‘Pick it up, Simone,’ one of the other girls said. ‘You should be doing better!’

‘Tiffi’s right, Simone,’ the coach called from the sidelines. ‘Spend some time on the hoops, please.’

Simone raised her hands and laughed. ‘Yeah, I’ve been slacking off. I’ll come up and practise tomorrow, I promise.’

One of the other girls threw her arm around Simone’s shoulder and gave her a friendly squeeze. ‘That’s our star shooter.’

The coach blew her whistle. ‘That’s it, ladies, we’re done.’

Simone trotted to me with a huge smile. ‘So what’s the go with my teacher?’

‘I’m seeing her now. Marcus is waiting downstairs in the car.’

‘Okay, I’ll take a shower, then meet you down there.’ She dropped her voice. ‘At the moment I’m getting about one in three to two in five in. Think I should ramp it up? They’re starting to complain that I’ve done a lot of practice but I haven’t improved.’

‘If you’ve been practising then you should be getting about three in five or slightly better, I think,’ I said. ‘And don’t make it predictable, have some good and bad patches as well. Just make sure you aren’t unnaturally good.’

She nodded. ‘Sounds about right.’ She grinned. ‘I’m counting on you, Emma. I’ve made a lot of friends in this grade and I don’t want to repeat. Fix it up with the teacher, please.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ I said.

We headed down the stairs together, her to the showers and me to the meeting room in the school office.

Simone’s home-room teacher was a thin woman in her mid-forties with brown hair immaculately blow-waved into a large teased hairdo. She frowned when I entered the meeting room and gestured for me to sit across the table from her.

‘I’m Mrs Wilder.’ She pulled out some paperwork, put on her reading glasses and pointed the frown at me. ‘Actually, this meeting is far too late to fix anything, Mrs Chen. You may not be aware of it, but Simone has been consistently skipping school all this year. Despite all our attempts to warn you, she’s been expelled. You need to find a new school for her.’

I sat there for a moment, stunned, then pulled myself together. ‘Are you sure about those attendances?’ I said.
‘Can you check the records again, because I’m sure she’s been coming to school.’

Mrs Wilder raised a sheet of paper. ‘I’ve been keeping watch on her attendance and noting down all her absences, Mrs Chen. She’s been absent far more than the permitted ten per cent and we tried to warn you that she was skipping. She even missed my science class this morning, skipped it completely, and joined the English class after that without giving any reason for her absence.’

‘I’m not Mrs Chen, I’m Emma Donahoe, call me Emma,’ I said, frustrated. ‘Simone is an orphan. I’m her guardian.’

Mrs Wilder shuffled the papers. ‘This may explain her truancy, and why you aren’t aware of it, then. Maybe you should find counselling for her.’

‘She does receive counselling, and some of it is during school hours.’

Mrs Wilder removed her glasses and glared at me. ‘You should be notifying the school about it then.’

‘Simone went through a lot when her parents died, but she doesn’t want special treatment so she asked me not to tell anybody,’ I said.

‘She has you thoroughly worked out, doesn’t she?’ she said. ‘You don’t know she’s skipping, and you don’t let the school know that she has problems purely because she asked you not to.’

‘Simone’s mother was murdered by a gangster when she was a baby, and Simone herself was kidnapped by the same gangster when she was six years old,’ I said. ‘When her father went in to try to release her from the kidnappers, they killed him.’

The teacher sighed with exasperation. ‘She told you this story and you believe it?’

‘I was there,’ I said. ‘He had his head cut off by a Triad gangster right in front of both of us.’

She studied me appraisingly, then picked up some glossy leaflets. ‘Now I see where she gets the ability to tell lies about missing school. It’s too late anyway. If we’d been able to talk to you about Simone’s truancy earlier we may have been able to avoid expelling her. I doubt you would have believed it though. Anyway.’ She pushed the leaflets across the table to me. ‘Here is some information about some excellent girls boarding schools in Australia and Malaysia. I think a more disciplined environment would benefit her greatly.’

‘She’s lost both her parents, one of them in front of her, and you’re suggesting that I abandon her as well?’ I said in disbelief.

‘The schools would probably provide her with more care and attention than you obviously do,’ she said snidely. ‘You weren’t even aware that she was skipping school, and I’ve been trying to talk to you about it for six months. If you’d made the effort to come in the first time I called you, this would not have happened.’

I was silent. She was right.

Oh, come on, Emma
, the stone said into my head.
Don’t let this bitch get to you. You’re doing a great job of caring for Simone.

She’s been expelled from the school she loves
, I replied.
Wait until I tell her. Isn’t there anything we can do?

This woman has a vendetta against you, she’s convinced you are an inadequate carer
, the stone said.
In her own ridiculous way she wants the best for Simone. Nothing I can do because she’s been tracking Simone’s attendance on paper, and all I can change is computer records.

‘Is there anything I can do to avoid this?’ I said. ‘Simone loves this school.’

‘School policy,’ Mrs Wilder said. ‘You’ve had plenty of opportunities to fix this over the last six months and have
made no effort.’ She closed her folder with a snap. ‘She’d be much better off in a boarding school where they’re going to give her at least a small amount of attention.’

I opened my mouth and closed it again. This woman would not believe any story I spun.

You’ve lost, Emma
, the stone said.

I sighed with resignation. ‘Mrs Wilder, I’ll be talking to the principal in the hope I can sort this out,’ I said. ‘This is a fabulous school and it’s really the best place for Simone.’

‘Going over my head will not solve anything,’ she said. She rose and opened the meeting room door. ‘Good day to you, Mrs Chen.’

I hesitated, then decided that it wasn’t worth the effort to point out my name again. ‘I hope we can fix this, Mrs Wilder.’

‘The best way to fix this would be for someone else to be looking after this poor child,’ Mrs Wilder said as she closed the door behind me.

Simone was waiting for me outside the office. ‘How did it go?’

I didn’t reply, I just pressed the button for the lift. Simone stood behind me, waiting for me to say something.

‘Well?’ she eventually said.

I went into the lift, turned and pressed the button for the ground floor.

‘I don’t have to repeat Year Nine, do I, Emma?’ Simone said. ‘All my friends will leave me behind. Tell me you fixed it.’

I didn’t look at her. ‘You’ve been expelled for not attending enough classes, Simone.’

‘
What?
’

‘I’ll talk to the principal, but I don’t think I’ll be able to change it. We’ll have to arrange a home tutor, or get another school for you. We’ll work something out.’

The lift doors opened and we walked out of the school towards the car.

‘Didn’t they give you any warning or
anything
?‘ Simone said as she walked beside me.

I ran one hand through my hair. ‘Apparently they’ve been trying to talk to me for a while. This looks like it’s mostly my fault. They’ve been attempting to contact me and I’ve been ignoring them.’

I got into the front passenger seat of the car, and Simone got into the back. ‘We can go home now, Marcus.’

‘This is the thanks I get for being a freaking battle machine for them,’ Simone said, resentful. ‘I protect these little assholes from demons that would happily tear them into small pieces and they take away the only thing that makes my life worthwhile.’ She slapped the seat next to her. ‘Dammit, Emma, why didn’t you talk to them sooner? Can’t we fix this up by messing with their heads or something?
Do
something! This is your fault!’

‘I had no idea you were going to be expelled, sweetheart—’

‘
Don’t call me sweetheart!’

Suddenly the car was full of water. It pressed in around me, squashing me. I took half a breath and my lungs filled with water. I was vaguely aware of an impact, but I was suffocating. I panicked, trying to breathe, then made a frantic attempt to open the window of the Mercedes. The electrics didn’t work. I scrabbled at the door handle but I was choking. Everything started to fade.

Then I could breathe and I was coughing up water in the front of the car. Marcus was unconscious next to me, and the Mercedes had run into a parking meter on the wrong side of the road.

‘Emma! Marcus!’ Simone cried from the back. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m okay,’ I gasped through the coughs. ‘Marcus looks bad.’

‘Freaking stupid elementals,’ Simone said, and got out of the car. She came around and opened the door on the driver’s side. ‘Marcus? Marcus!’

‘Get the water out of his lungs,’ I gasped. ‘Doing the same for me would be a good idea too.’

The water gushed out of Marcus. I nearly choked as water charged up out of my throat. It flew through the air and splashed outside the car.

‘He’s not breathing, Emma,’ Simone said, frantic. ‘Oh my God, he’s blue. Do something!’

‘You’ve had training in CPR,’ I said. ‘Do mouth to mouth on him. I can’t breathe enough to do it.’ I struggled to turn in my seat and removed the seatbelt. I put my hand on his chest over his heart. ‘His heart is beating, he just needs a kickstart on the breathing. Breathe into him, let’s get him going.’

She put her mouth over his and breathed into him. His chest rose.

‘Keep it up,’ I said, still choking. The water had hurt my throat and every breath was difficult.

Meredith appeared behind Simone. ‘Move back.’

She did, and Meredith put her hands on Marcus’s face. ‘Don’t leave us now, Marcus,’ she said.

Marcus took a huge shuddering breath.

‘I’ll take him home,’ Meredith said. ‘Let me send someone with another car for you, and we’ll tow this one.’ She studied me. ‘You’ll be fine, you just need some healing on that throat.’

She leaned out to speak to Simone. ‘Stay here with Emma, we’ll send a car and a truck for you. Pick up the car and move it so that it’s aligned with the kerb and make it appear that it’s just parked here. Make the damage on the front invisible, so it doesn’t attract any attention.’

‘Okay,’ Simone said weakly.

Meredith put her hand on Marcus and both of them disappeared.

I collapsed backwards into my seat. The interior of the Mercedes was soaked and my clothes were drenched. Simone extracted the water from the interior and my clothes and it funnelled outside the car and splashed onto the ground. Then she sat in the driver’s side next to me and leaned back.

‘I think I need a lesson in controlling the elementals.’

‘I’ll arrange it.’

‘Thanks.’

The phone rang that afternoon right after I’d put it down from booking an appointment with the school principal. ‘Hello?’ I said.

‘It’s the Sparrow.’

‘Oh, hi, Zhu Que, is everything okay?’

She chuckled. ‘You always assume something’s wrong when one of us calls you.’

‘That’s because it usually is,’ I said.

‘True. In this case it’s not a new attack. I heard that Simone finally agreed to learn how to summon and control her elementals, and about time. I was wondering if you wanted any help teaching her.’

‘One of the Masters is going to teach her.’

‘Won’t work, Emma. Only we Winds and the most powerful of our children can control the elementals. Anyone else who tries it is putting themselves at risk. I have a great deal of respect for your Masters, they’ve taught some of my best Red Warriors, but you need someone who can do it themselves. You should have asked one of us before.’

I sighed. ‘I know how busy you guys are with the demon attacks happening all the time. You have far better things to be doing than teaching a teenager.’

‘I have a daughter who seems to have the talent, and I’ll be teaching her. I was wondering if Simone would like to join in and both of them can learn together?’

‘You can teach Simone how to manipulate water even though you’ll be doing fire?’

‘Elementals are elementals. The skills are the same.’

‘When can you start? Can you come after school…’ My voice trailed off. ‘Damn.’

‘There’s a problem?’ she said, concerned.

‘She’s been expelled for not attending enough classes. I’m talking to the principal of the school tomorrow but it’s looking bad. They’ve been tracking her attendance.’

‘Humph,’ the Phoenix said. ‘The child is helping to protect these ungrateful humans from the demon horde and this is the thanks she gets. She’ll be much happier at CH anyway.’