Aya Voss

Finishing my sentence, I dropped my pen, letting out a small sigh of relief. The teacher looked up sharply, "Finished, have we, Miss Voss?"

"Yes sir."

He frowned, "Well then, sit quietly and contemplate your answer to question 2. You can read it out at the end."

"Yes sir."

He went back to his work and I looked down at my paper with unseeing eyes. Giving up trying to concentrate, my attention went to the square of light from the window behind me. It was the only window in the room and had a big tree right outside it. Thinking about the window, I started to get claustrophobic. I hated not being able to see outside. Gazing at the shadow of the tree, I felt the panicky feeling rising. The urge to glance round was really strong, but I fought it, knowing that if Sir caught me turning around it'd be detention tomorrow for me. He's horribly strict like that. The panicky feeling was getting worse though, so I decided to risk it.

Turning as little of my body as I could, I glanced out, taking in the clear blue sky, the bare branches of the beautiful old tree, and the afternoon sun peeking around the window frame.

I must have looked too long though, because the next thing I know, Sir is standing in front of my desk, "Since when did ‘contemplate your answer to question 2' mean ‘gaze out of the window and kill your brain cells'?"

I looked down, "It doesn't, Sir."

"So why did you do it?" His voice was quiet; at its most dangerous. I considered my options. I could tell him about feeling sick and claustrophobic, but then he'd send me to the nurse, who'd take my temperature - which of course would be normal again - and announce I was faking it ("Detention!"). Or, I could say I simply liked the view ("Detention!"). OR, I could admit the reason why I was always staring out of windows and getting panicky when I couldn't... ("DETENTION!!")

"Well?" I shrugged. "That is not an acceptable answer!" Then dangerously low, "Look at me." I looked up to see his serious face, noting the anger in his eyes and felt my own anger rising, a hot ball of fury making it's way up my throat at the unfairness of it.

"If I catch you turning around, or not concentrating in any way one more time," The ball was in my mouth now, expanding rapidly, "I will be forced to give you a week's worth of d--"

The ball exploded, "Of what? Detention? Why? I did my work up to your ridiculously high standards, and I finished before anyone else!" My anger was suddenly stoked by all my memories of the times I'd been treated unfairly by him, "And I did contemplate my answer - while I was writing it!"

I was breathing heavily, and I could feel a familiar tingling starting in my fingertips. Sir had launched passionately into one of his long speeches on obedience, respect, blah, blah. I zoned out and focused on my own problem.

Really strong emotions like anger always forced me into a pure transformation. Most of the time, my emotions don't get strong enough and if they do I can usually calm myself down. Today however, it wasn't just recent emotions, it was all the anger I had towards the teacher finally let out.

--

The whole class was watching her, thinking she looked quite annoyed. Well, why not? She'd probably get a detention for that outburst.

But there was one person who saw that she was more than just annoyed. He could tell that her anger had been stored up since her first lesson with this teacher, about 1 year ago. But, good as he was at reading her emotions, he could see that there was something else, completely unfathomable to him, that went much deeper. Then she... shimmered.

He blinked. Had he imagined that? It was like the air around her had vibrated, making her outline waver slightly. But he couldn't have imagined it; there it was again, slightly stronger this time. He looked around the room at the other students' reactions.

Then a flurry of movement made him look back at Aya, but she wasn't there. He frowned. Instead, a tiny sparrow flew up from her chair, flapping frantically, obviously terrified. It threw itself at closed window, trying to get out.

One of the more girly-girls started shrieking, and that seemed to wake Sir from some kind of stupefied trance. He strode to the window and opened it, watching the bird throw itself out and land in the tree.

--

I landed in the tree. Safe at last. I looked at the place I'd been trapped in. One of them was watching me closely. I blinked. Tristan. I blinked again. Memories were flooding back now. I felt like me again. I shook myself, and looked at Tristan again. Like everyone in the class, he has a shocked, confused expression on his face, but there was an undertone of hurt there, too. I should've told him. I did the bird equivalent of a deep sigh, and fluttered back in through the window, gaining pleasure in seeing Sir flinch as I flew by. Transforming back in mid-air (I'd been practising!), I landed lightly beside my desk. I calmly packed up my things, and shouldered my bag. Looking around the class, I smiled, noting their stupefied faces. My gaze landed on the mixed emotions on Tristan‘s face and my smile quickly faded. I walked to the door and, with a last ‘I'm sorry' look at him, walked out.

--

I took the long route home, walking slowly. I was glad that it'd been only ten minutes from the end of my last period, so that when I got home, it'd look as if I'd simply taken the short route. I doubted that Dad would be home, but I didn't want to take any chances.

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A/N: I'm quite proud of this one, and I even (shock, horror) have a basic outline for the next chapter! Let me know what you thought! :) Also, I'd just like to point out that when I name my characters, I try to give them names that relate to their personality, looks, etc. But no-one ever notices!
T-B-B x