AURORA (Original Novel)

CHAPTER 1. The girl who doesn't exist. Part one.

"Orwe Primary School" said the sign, faded with time. The letter "O" in the name of the settlement has almost completely worn out. A little girl in a baggy, oversized red windbreaker, slouching, sadly looked at the inscription. Behind a small arched gate made of white stone, the school yard began; it was quite quiet today. The bad weather was to blame, even though it was just the beginning of September. This year, northern storms have brought a lot of rain clouds, which have brought with them cold and dank dampness.

A prickly wind walked freely in the crowns of the spruce and birch trees that grew nearby, swaying their branches. His thin, chilly fingers ruffled the long the blond hair of a schoolgirl who was trampling in front of the entrance to the educational institution even made its way behind the collar, pinching her skin. The child's name was Aurora Bielke or, as the other children called her, an offensive nickname, "Beam". (The surname Bielke means Ray or Beam in Norwegian.) The girl stood and delayed as long as possible the moment when she would have to step over the ill-fated invisible line between freedom and prison. The school reminded her of a prison filled with angry creatures. Having inhaled more of the damp autumn air, as if before jumping into a deep lake, she, drawing her head into her shoulders, passed the gate.

Orwe, where Bielke had to travel by school bus five days a week to gain knowledge, was one of the villages lost in the center of the province of Sør Trøndelag. Located in the middle between different communes of Norway. Three years ago, Aurora's parents, not having much money, bought a house, a former farm, in neighboring Gruve. There were few people in the area, there were hills, fields and forests everywhere, and for a dozen settlements there was one school, in which at most two hundred children studied, all from different places. Both Orwe and Gruve, located eight kilometers from the first, were villages stuck in time and space, with an elderly population.

The educational institution, gray after the recent rains, shaped like a two-story square with a dark brown tiled roof, gloomily greeted the late student. Next to the main entrance there was a playground for schoolchildren and a small sports field with a thousand seats, the stands of which glowed like an orange spot in the gloomy landscape. Behind the foggy veil to the west, there was the sea, from there, echoes of the cries of seagulls periodically reached. Nearby, in a wooden gazebo, Aurora noticed a group of older guys. A pink fashionable handbag flashed among several boys. For Bielke this was an alarm signal, and she quickened her pace, lowering her gaze to the ground. A nasty voice rang out.

"Hey, trash queen! Where did "Timber" find her jacket?!" Laughter followed, turning into real cackling. The girl sped up even more, wanting to leave the school yard as quickly as possible, away from the pink handbag and its owner, Camilla. Aurora mentally called the high school student a "pink monster." Feelings of hatred and fear fought within her at the same time. When Bielke was left alone with herself, she used to imagine how she was dragging the offender by her brown hair, perfectly styled and decorated with multi-colored bows. But as soon as Aurora encountered her in person, an air bubble appeared in her chest, preventing her from breathing normally, her heart sank, and her palms began to sweat treacherously.

The lover of pink shouted something else after her, but apparently the strong wind didn't like it, and he carried the offensive words away, drowning them out with his howls. A heavy old backpack weighed down the girl's fragile shoulders; she was in such a hurry that she almost crashed into the school doors, bulky and old, made of resin-impregnated oak. Aurora clumsily grabbed the steel handle, pulling it towards herself, but the building did not want to let her in, the door only swayed slightly. Bielke pulled the door again in bewilderment, but it was all in vain, as if someone had locked it. There was a satisfied laugh from Camilla's company. One of her companions shouted loudly, trying to shout over the howling wind.

"Hey, you idiot!!! The door in the other side opens!" Out of excitement and fear, the girl forgot basic things; She, blushing and barely able to contain the trembling in her legs, entered the room. Aurora stood frozen in place for several seconds, fighting the emotional waves trying to wash over her shore of calm. The school's common hall was spacious and semicircular; on the right, hidden behind a large ficus tree in a clay pot, sat the administrator. An elderly woman in voluminous glasses, bored, was reading the latest issue of the Evening Mail newspaper for September 3, 1981, not paying attention to the student who had entered.

A group of first-graders, making a loud noise, ran into the far corridor, hurrying to class. Music was playing quietly from a small speaker mounted on the ceiling. Bielke recognized her immediately; her favorite composition, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, was already coming to an end. The girl greeted the administrator, but she was too busy with press news. There was a loud headline on the title page of the Evening Mail. «The Soviet Union has once again detained a Norwegian fishing vessel, this time Freya's Heart.» The caption then read: «What will the Prime Minister do?» The page ended with a menacing black and white photograph of a warship pointing its guns at the reader.

Aurora walked over to the schedules and announcements board. Her third grade class was studying in the renovated wing today. The first was a literature lesson. A little higher on the wall hung photos of the best students. Camilla's satisfied face looked down on Bielke with contempt. The girl really wanted to somehow ruin the hated image, but she overcame the evil feeling. In one of the corridors there were small lockers for schoolchildren's street clothes. Aurora took out a tiny key and approached her own.

The door was covered with markers, bold black inscriptions «Fool, Beam, trash girl» and stuff like that. This was not the first time the girl had laundered offensive insults addressed to her, but after a couple of days they appeared again. Having inserted the key into the lock slot, she realized that someone had also damaged the lock. Aurora bent down, examining the hole into which the ill-wisher generously poured glue, which had already dried and turned into stone. The girl suspected that Camilla and her friends were behind all this, but she could not find a way to deal with them. The pink beast's father was the chief of police for the entire province, her mother was friends with the school director, and it was not in Bielke's character to complain, no matter how bad it was.

The student put the key in her backpack, put her windbreaker in there and headed to the stairs to the top. Casper, a boy from the fourth grade, came across; he was taller than his peers and, in Aurora's opinion, had a serious, handsome face. The girl, passing by, blushed once again, knowing full well that she looked miserable in her faded long dress. Once bright blue, but now faded to a light blue hue. The sleeves, hemmed by Bielke's inept hand, also did not inspire confidence. She liked Casper from the first day, but Aurora, of course, hid it, she didn't want the other children to laugh at her even more.