OK, so this made it slightly more difficult.
“Are we ready to dance, people?” Sergeant Cain’s voice boomed. He strode forward and gazed up at the sliding poles, a grin of pure malevolence on his twisted face. He loved this, I could tell, pushing little kids to their limits. He was like every PE teacher I’d ever had.
He studied the group, his mismatched eyes glinting. “Who’s first?”
The kids inspected their feet, no one wanting to be picked for this latest challenge. I followed their example and tried my hardest to make myself look invisible, not easy given I was about two feet taller than any of them. Cain’s gaze hovered on me for a moment and then passed on. I guessed he decided to go easy on me. Either that or he was leaving my humiliation for later.
“Max, you’re up.” He gestured to the poles with his thumb.
Max was a tall, gangly kid with brown hair and freckles. His pale skin went even whiter as he stepped forward and looked up. He swallowed hard and threw his arms around the nearest and shortest pole, then started shimming his way up it. He reached the top and pulled himself up, planting both feet on its surface. It jerked slightly and he wobbled, waving his arms about trying to regain his balance.
I looked across at the course he had to take. I couldn’t see any pattern to the movement of the poles; sometimes they were slow and steady, other times they jerked up or down fast enough that if you happened to find yourself standing on one at the time, you would need to be a limpet not to fall off.
As one, we all peered up to watch Max. He had that same expression on his face I’d seen on Aubrey’s – a sort of unfocused stare, as if he was looking through the poles rather than at them. He stretched out one leg, his bare toes wriggling as he prepared himself to make the first leap. He jumped and landed on a pole to the left. It hissed upwards just as he landed, bucking him a clear ten feet into the air. We all shuffled around trying to get a better view of him. I couldn’t see his face any more, just his twiggy legs stretching out for the next step. He leapt onto the pole that had been right under his feet but was now suddenly three feet lower. He went hurtling to the floor, banging against the poles as he spiralled downwards. He hit the crash mat with a heavy thud. There was a collective sucking in of breath and wincing.
“Come on. My daughter could do better than that and she’s six!” Cain helped Max up and patted him on his back as he got unsteadily to his feet.
“Next!” Cain shouted.
CP stepped forward, whether to either get it over and done with, or because she had something to prove, I didn’t know. I didn’t really care. If she was mad enough to give it a go, more power to her. She worked her way up the pole and took her place at the top with more grace than Max had displayed. She stretched her arms out, like a gymnast on the bar and jumped. She didn’t hang about. Before we knew what was happening, she’d already made it to the top of the third pole. It juddered, and I was sure it would shake her off, but she crouched down and stayed on top. She glanced to her left and her right, and I guessed she was carefully considering her options so she could Shift to another path if she needed. She sidestepped to her left, or at least I was sure I saw her going to the left and then I saw that strange twitch again and suddenly she was clinging on to the pole on the right. She pulled herself up, her small arms straining with the effort.
“Nice work, CP,” Cain shouted up. “Keep focused now.”
She straightened up and took a few steadying breaths. She closed her eyes.
“Use the Force, Luke,” Jake shouted and the group tittered.
“Shut up, Jake,” CP said scowling down at us. She had a faint accent that I couldn’t quite place.
“Yes, shut up,” Cain said. “And you’re up next, Jake.”
Jake groaned.
Disruption over, we all turned back to CP. The pole she was on started twisting, and I was reminded of a jewellery box my sister had, with a fairy ballerina spinning around on a coiled spring. CP was such a tiny thing, with huge blue eyes fixed in total concentration. She stepped forward. But the pole she was reaching for wasn’t there.
She fell through the air, her arms flailing, and landed right in Cain’s arms. I was sure he’d been on the other side of the mat when she fell. But he must have anticipated her fall and been in the right spot to catch her. Judging by her muffled curses she wasn’t happy with her attempt. Cain put her down and coughed. “Come on then, Jake. Let’s see how funny it is when you’re up there.”
I gave Jake a weak thumbs-up of encouragement. He jerked his head in thanks and took his place at the bottom of the first pole. I could see his knees quaking beneath his baggy trousers. He looked as if he might be sick.
He dragged himself up the pole, eyes clenched shut the whole way. When he made it to the top, he steadied himself, pointed his arms out like a gymnast and leapt.
Like CP, he went for the fast approach, hopping onto the first and then second pole in a matter of seconds. I had to look away as the slices in reality were making my head spin. Like watching a 3D film without glasses. Jake was a pretty good Shifter, I’d gathered that much from our fight. I wonder if I’d ever have even half the control he had. But even his skills weren’t enough. He screamed as a pole he’d just landed on hurtled upward like a bucking bull and sent him flying into the air.
“Ha!” CP said, in triumph as Jake landed on the mat. Her smile slowly vanished. Jake wasn’t moving. He laid on the floor his eyes closed and his leg bent at a weird angle. CP was the first to run to him. I watched as she bent over his tiny body. Oh, god, please. Don’t let him be hurt, I thought.
“Got ya!” Jake shouted.
“You eejit!” CP said, kicking him in the side. But just like me, I knew she was relieved. Jake crawled to his feet rubbing at his backside.
“OK, thank you for your performance there, Jake. That’s five poles to beat,” Cain said. “Scott, your turn.”
My stomach turned to ice as I approached the first pole. I wrapped my arms around it like the others had done and stood there hugging it, my face pressed against the rough wood. I hooked one leg around the pole and then didn’t know what to do next. I didn’t even know how to climb it properly, let alone how to stay alive once I got to the top. The pole made things even harder by jerking into the sky and suddenly I was clinging onto it, three feet off the floor. No going back now. I started to shuffle my way to the top.
My fingertips reached for the flat surface and I pulled myself up. I’d done a few balancing exercises in kick boxing, but nothing like this. Now I was gazing across the stubby forest of poles, the floor was farther away than I’d imagined. The safety of the raised platform on the other side might as well have been a mile away. I thought about just leaping off the pole and getting it over with. But as I looked down and saw five little faces turned up to watch me, my pride kicked in. I didn’t want to shame myself, not in front of a bunch of kids. Jake gave me a thumbs-up and I returned it.
The poles hissed up and down. The first one was only a couple of feet away and only a little higher than the pole I was standing on. But the question was, would it still be there when I tried to step on it. I tried to plot a route across to the platform but every time I worked one out, the poles would change position and it would be impossible.
I then remembered what the whole thing reminded me of. It was like a computer game I used to play, where you had to make it across a crumbling pile of columns before they turned to dust. In the game there had been one clear route that would take you across the chasm. But it took about six goes before you learned the path. And I didn’t have the option to ‘play again?’ here. Or did I? Perhaps that was exactly the way to think about Shifting: it was like getting another go on a computer game. You accepted that you were probably going to fail on your first, even second or third go, but with each attempt, you got a little closer to finishing the level.
I decided to not even bother trying to work out which way to go on my first attempt and took a step forward.
My foot landed on the pole perfectly. I’d been lucky. With my next step, I missed it on the first attempt, but Shifted just in time to make it on the second. I jumped forward, focusing not on where I was going as much as holding all the possible places I could be. Before I knew it I was six poles in. A murmur came up from the kids below. Leap, and I was seven poles. Leap, Shift, and it was eight. On pole nine I almost lost focus and it took two Shifts before I was clinging on with my fingertips. The gasps from below fired me on. I took one, big leap, and was standing on the platform. Safe.
I turned around and looked across the poles. They had stopped moving, as if I had them under my command. I was buzzing with adrenaline and the joy of success. At that moment, I felt as if I could achieve anything. I wanted to go again, only I wanted the poles to be higher. Why not throw some fire jets in for me to dodge while you’re at it?
The kids all erupted in cheers and Jake was cheering loudest of all. I raised my hand and waved, drinking in their applause.
Cain was watching me, his shattered face fixed in an expression I couldn’t quite read. But I thought it might just have been approval.
Jake walked me to the canteen when the lunch bell rang.
“That was awesome!” he said, punching the air with his little fists. “You were like, bam, bam, bam and then whooo! Done.” He sighed, out of breath after his overlyenthusiastic recreation of my path across the poles.
“Beginner’s luck,” I said, trying to keep my swelling head in check.
“Na-ah,” Jake said. “You totally nailed it.”
“I did, didn’t I?” I said giving into the bravado. I was enjoying having someone to show off to. It reminded me of when Katie was little and I was still her hero. Before she grew up enough to realise what a loser I was. I wrapped my arm around Jake’s neck and knuckled his hair.
I heard the clatter of plates and the hum of conversation before we reached the large double doors that led to the canteen. Jake pushed the doors open and the chatter grew even louder.
The rest of the cadets were in line already. CP was at the front, piling her tray up with food.
“Jeez,” Jake rolled his eyes. “CP has to be first at everything.”
“Why is she called CP?”
“They’re her initials, though I don’t know what they stand for. She doesn’t talk much. Max said he knows, but he tried to tell once and she knocked out his last milk tooth.” I watched him watching her and recognised the expression.
“You fancy her,” I said, nudging him as we fell into place at the back of the queue.
“Wha’? No way. Urgh. Like urgh, urgh.” He protested a little too much.
“Come on, she’s cute. And she’s totally kickass.”
“Yeah, she’s a pretty good fighter,” he said, dragging the top of his trainer across the parquet flooring. “Guess she’s had a lot of practice.”
We shuffled a few people closer to the food serving. “What do you mean?”
“When she first arrived all she did was fight. People made fun of her and her family and she fought.”
“What’s funny about her family?”
“She’s a gypsy.”
“Oh. Well, that’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
“I never said it was,” he said a little too defensively. “And besides you get loads of Shifters from gypsy families and stuff. It kind of goes with the territory.”
I remembered my induction from Morgan. “Oh, yeah. Rogues.”
Jake looked up at me his dark eyes still for a moment. Then he just shrugged.
We’d arrived at the end of the queue and a burly woman with frizzy hair escaping out of a small white hat smiled at me. “What will it be, love?”
I scanned the silver trays of food and was surprised to find it all looked pretty decent. Better than anything I’d get at home, that’s for sure. “The lasagne please.”
She scooped the meaty pasta onto my plate, added a flourish of salad and turned to Jake.
“Just chips for you, petal?”
Jake grinned as she piled his plate high with chips.
I followed him over to the table where the rest of the kids from class were eating, including CP who was sitting at the end on her own. Jake headed for the end away from her, but I wasn’t going to let him get away with it that easily.
“Is it OK if we join you?” I said, squeezing my legs over the plastic bench attached to the table.
CP looked from me to Jake and then nodded, her long fringe falling into her face.
“You were pretty great back in class. Jake was telling me you’re the best in the year.”
I heard Jake cough next to me, choking on a chip. I patted him on the back and poured him a plastic cup of water from the jug on the table. CP watched him and smiled a little, her small mouth curling up at the corner.
“Thanks,” she said softly, the dropped ‘th’ giving away her accent.
“Are you Irish?” I asked, playing as if I didn’t know anything.
“I’m from a lot of places.”
“Yeah, a lot of places that don’t want her back,” Max said from the middle of the table. Some of the kids laughed, but most just carried on with their food.
“Shut it, Max,” said Jake. “Or she’ll knock the rest of your teeth out.”
CP’s smile grew bigger.
I waited, hoping that these two might pick up the conversation on their own. But they were both too busy picking at their food.
“So your family moved around a lot?” I asked.
“Yeah, a bit.”
“Mine too,”’ said Jake. “I went to eight schools before I was eight.”
“That must have been tough. My parents never made me go to school.”
“I guess. The lions made up for it though.”
“The lions?” CP and I said at the same time.
Jake laughed his loud bark. “My family owned a circus. So we had lions and elephants and couple of zebra but…” He leant forward conspiratorially. “They were really just donkeys painted black and white.”
CP laughed so much, her water came out of her nose.
“My sister was a trapeze artist. The best ever. Man, you should have seen her fly through the air, she never fell. Well, even if she did, she’d Shift.”