A Winner of the Pearson Prize for Fiction, 2010! Benjamina James was like any other fifteen-year-old until one day a bolt of blue lightning struck her on the soccer field. She soon finds she has strange abilities including shooting fire and lightnin...
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Bennie's first day of tenth grade proved harder than she expected.
She started off trying to get Sarah and Rachel up to speed on everything that had happened over the weekend that morning before the first bell rang, but with everyone she hadn't seen over the summer coming to say hi and catch up, the interruptions proved too frustrating to deal with. Bennie also found it challenging to give an honest answer about how her summer went, seeing as the only interesting things she did were Guardian related. By the time she got to lunch with Sarah and Rachel, Bennie spent most of it scribbling down the list of homework assignments she had been too distracted to notice on the boards during introductions to her new teachers.
"At least I remember to hand in my summer assignments," Bennie said, glaring down at the mile long list of homework she already had. "Honestly they expect us to do all of this in one night?"
"Well at least you don't require sleep," Sarah said with little sympathy,
"Touché," Bennie said as Rachel grinned. "Though I should also consider going to Pelanca tonight. I'm not sure I can bring myself to."
She stuffed her sandwich into her mouth, eating it as quickly as possible so she could finally tell them what happened.
"So yeah, that's my problem," Bennie said when she finished. "I was such a jerk to Perce and it's going to be awkward, even if we act like nothing happened, but I'm not ready to apologize either. Perce knows I want answers and I won't back down until I get them all now."
"Well if it were me," Sarah said, cleaning her glasses as she always did when working out a difficult problem, "I would go, but don't act like nothing happened. Obviously you need to train because something big is going down that involves you, so you can't afford not to prepare. But be straight with Perce. You need to know what that something is."
"And if he doesn't tell you, go straight to Esla!" Rachel said.
"I'm not sure I could get in to see him," Bennie said. "But I will go to training tonight, if I don't have 8 solid hours of homework by then!"
Bennie finished her last geometry problem and checked her phone. 8:39.
Maybe not 8 hours of homework, but it certainly did take a while.
Bennie stretched. Typically training didn't start until ten, but she knew Sean wouldn't mind getting there early. She texted him to see and he told her to meet him at the school at nine.
Bennie crept quietly downstairs, tiptoeing past her mom, who had fallen asleep in front of the TV after dinner after her own long, crazy Monday. Bennie momentarily thought about waking her up to let her know she was leaving early, but decided against it. She would be awake with worry for the rest of the night. Better to let her rest.
