Secret of the Caretakers

My friend Rosa

Ch – 1

Rosa was no ordinary girl. She had seen much in her short life of 17 and she had wished that she hadn’t seen that much. Being the only remaining descendent to the most celebrated family of clairvoyants, Rosa had had a hard childhood figuring out why whatever she saw was coming true. One would wonder that if she was from the family of clairvoyants, why wasn’t she accustomed to her gifts from childhood itself?! Well as I mentioned, she was the last descendent so obviously she was not brought up by her real family. Her foster parents were as ordinary as they come and it was not until the age of 9 that she was discovered by the Caretaker Clan. Hence the hard childhood!

I have known Rosa since I was 10 and I have liked her from the very first time she pushed me into the nearby bushes. Then as we grew up my liking turned into crushing. Finally, one fine day she up and left, and my crushing turned into loving. She cares for me; of this I am sure but whether she will reciprocate my feelings or not, I can’t really tell. You see, unlike her I don’t have psychic powers to look into the future and I most certainly am unable to keep up with the present at times! So I had managed to harbor my feelings inside and put out a friendly front just so the world could be as normal for Rosa as it could be.

Rosa and I became friends the very first day we met at the Caretaker Clan’s headquarter. I was also one of the unfortunate ones who had lost his parents in early childhood and hadn’t been able to lead a normal life as my real self. Being a teleport does have its perks when you can control it but when you can’t, you can really freak people out!!! I would frequently find myself teleporting out of unpleasant situations without even intending to do so. One minute my foster mother would be scolding me for feeding my broccoli to the cat and the other minute I would find myself in the backyard of our neighbors. Then by the time I turned 9, my powers sort of magnified. And that’s when the Caretaker Clan (let’s call them the CC, henceforth) came looking for me.

It was the biggest relief of my short sordid life to find out that I am special not weird! So my first year at the CC’s headquarter was quite a journey to self exploration. But it wasn’t until Rosa came in a year later that I really started liking being at the CC’s! I still remember our first meeting…

<8 years ago at CC’s>

“SPIKE! You moron!” shouted guru Zen.

“Guru Zen, I really could not help it…” I retorted back.

“Oh yes you could…you chose not to!” said guru Zen advancing towards me.

Before I could avoid it, out of sheer instinct, I teleported out of his office and found myself on the edge of the forest surrounding the CC’s.

“Oh shoot! Now he will actually bite my head off as soon as I get back!” I thought.

And then it happened, I was unceremoniously pushed into the bushes nearby and found someone also landing there beside me.

“Hey!” I yelled in indignation.

“Hey there!” breathed a calm voice.

I turned around to find the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She had rosy pink cheeks, beautiful, grey eyes and deep red hair tied up tightly in a ponytail. Judging by her height she was probably younger than me, but judging by her manner, she was probably much older. For some reason she was staring dead ahead of her. I followed her gaze and caught my breath. Where I had just teleported was a huge, smoking crater now.

Damn those Blazeroids! Wait a second; this girl had just saved my life!

“How did you know that blazeroid will land in that exact spot? And what were you doing in the forest anyway?” I blurted out as soon as I found my voice.

“First of all, you’re welcome. And secondly, what’s a blazeroid?” She said getting out of the bushes.

I blushed and mumbled a weak thank you while getting out of the bushes myself.

“A blazeroid is a field of energy attracted from the atmosphere towards a sudden void created by hyper activity of opposite energy particles…or something like that. Since I am a teleport and I make sudden appearances at places, I attract blazeroids a lot!” I informed her.

“Hmm…My name is Rosa. I am new here and I can see future. So I knew of this incident some time before you teleported guru Zen’s pet gerbil into the 2nd floor plumbing.” She told me casually, while taking stray twigs out of her hair.

I gaped at her!

“What’s your name?” she asked.

I gaped at her some more…

“Look, I know that you are not deaf or dumb…so stop pretending!” she teased.

I gulped and then wheezed out “I am Spike.”

“Pleased to meet you Spike. Now if you excuse me, I have to get back to my room and finish unpacking. See you around” she said, turning.

“Wait, I can at least save you some time…” and with that I grabbed her hand and teleported us back to the CC’s.

<Present day>

So that’s how I met Rosa, the very first day that she came to stay at the CC’s. We became the best of friends by the next fortnight. She was such a mystery to me and I could never really hide anything from her so I was like an open book to her. I would always be the bumbling hyper active kid and she would be the calmest and most serene person I had ever met. For a 9 year old, she had such tranquil demeanor that made most of the guru’s seem like immature teenagers. I like to believe that just like she brought some stability in my erratic life, I brought excitement and adventure into hers and thus I was as valuable to her as she was to me.

And now that I can’t have her and she is so far away; I am realizing what I have lost and what I must win back.