The Introduction to the New World (1)

I would like to start the story by introducing you to the delightful and amazing wonder world…

Above the blue shinning sky, where you see different kinds of birds flying and the clouds racing with each other to reach the point from where it can hide the sun from you, there was a land, bright and beautiful, called Rosetta. It was really a lovely land which you can even call a town.

Don’t you mistake it for a palace where the gods and goddesses or any angels or fairies live. It was not paradise, nor was it heaven. It was a town of spirits! If you are thinking it’s a land as magical as the one you have heard of, you are wrong. It’s a town exactly like the ones we have. However, the only difference was the people living here. Those were the spirits of the suffering orphans that used to live on Earth.

As one and all knew, suffering spirits gets vengeful and causes violence. And therefore, these extremely innocent spirits are chosen and are carried away by the Lesients, the natives of this town and the old resident spirits, and are given a new life with powers.

And in this town, spirits one and all came. People often wondered where the spirits or soul went after the death of certain people. Well, they still don’t know but answer was there. The Lesients, as far as they could manage, brought as many spirits there as they could. But few of them often slipped and chose on to haunting the earth.

Children here were not grey-ish looking. They were normal with pink cheeks and pretty blue and brown eyes. Few had powers while few didn’t. Only some deserved and special children had the power and often were called little Lesients. These children were raised to either become one of the teachers, some high guide, and soldiers and for useful works.
The one without powers were called Losones.

This town had a lovely castle–like school at the centre. Of course, in old times, it was a castle often known as the Paradise castle and was ruled by the king of Goodness. Mrs. Vardona, the present headmistress of the school was always very proud to be the headmistress.

The town had roads, highways, small buildings and cottages for the people to live in. There were some lovely parks with raspberry trees and lots of other fruit plants. There were hanging gardens with lovely and colourful flowers blossoming from season to season, blooming very fast. There were malls with lovely dresses and dolls and books for you to buy. There were cafes and shops for you to eat cakes and pizzas and everything else that you want. Normal it seemed and it was, it turned to be modern and civilized as years passed. But history remained like stones…

The new school year was about to start along with the New Year eve (The New Year’s Day was observed on the same day we do, which is on 1st January). Every New Year came along with the arrival of new residents for the town and so there are a few new arrivals this year too.

Finally, the day arrived when the new students were being introduced. Along with the others came Dora, a little girl of about eleven accompanied by her cousin, Kate but only Kate had the magical power and Dora did not.

After arrival, the newcomers were taken to a special hall for introduction. The children became speechless as they stared surprisingly at the lovely grand hall decorated with hanging white clouds and heavenly stars.

‘Children,’ said a voice and then, a teacher appeared from somewhere. ‘Welcome to the diverse land of Rosetta and Rosetta High School and wish you a Happy New Year,’ said the teacher, smiling as broadly as she could.

‘Thank you, ma’am,’ the children said together in a chorus.

‘Well, I’m Miss Bella Rogger, and I’m glad to have you here and I hope you are glad to be here too. You know why you are here, don’t you?’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ replied the children together once again.

‘Good. You must have also felt that boosting power inside of you too, haven’t you? But I’m afraid, not all of you are going to have the magical powers. Someone who really deserves it has the brilliant power. More of that later. Okay children, now, our senior teacher, Mr. Paul is going to announce your classes and sections. Then you’ll go right to your dormitory, okay?’

And suddenly out of the thin air, a cheerful man stepped forward and walked up the stage of the great hall. He was wearing a red shiny coat and a hat and navy blue jeans. From far, he looked like a burly man but he was really cheerful. He was a tall man with short grey hair. He was fair and had brown eyes. He had shaggy eyebrows and a freckled face with round and black spots near his lips. He smiled gleefully at everyone and then, his smile faded leaving behind lines and he said,
‘Happy New Year, children!’ And his voice was terribly loud.

‘Thank you, sir!’ And these lovely children returned back in a much louder chorus, of course.

Not waiting for anymore of speech, he took a piece of paper in his hands and he called out the first name.
‘Rasheeda Khan, please.’

A little brown girl with her hair tied into two pony tails rushed to the teacher. She was from Afghanistan and she looked excited.

Mr. Paul handed her a blue packet where all her books and equipments were kept.

She pulled out a silver card from the packet and her quick brown eyes went through her card. ‘Yeah!’ she jumped. ‘I’m a Lesient!’ she said as she rushed back to staring crowd of glistening eyes.

‘Kate Wright, please come over here,’ the teacher called with a half smile.

Kate, the pretty blonde and the cousin of Dora walked to the standing teacher and received her packet. But as her patience held, she didn’t wait to see her silver card.

‘Tom Johnson,’ called the teacher and then, the process continued until all the students had received their packets.

Mr. Paul announced the classes and sections and dormitory room numbers. He also selected captains, one from each dormitory. The captains were to look after their own dormitory and see that no one sneaked out during afternoon naps and at night. To Mrs. Vardona’s surprise, there were only fifteen students out of the whole lot who were Lesients. They were Rasheeda Khan, Kate Wright, Lily Brown, Bob Graham, Peter Tennyson, Lata Patel, Nita Sen, David Brown, Tejasvini Sharma, Gabriel Marshall, Karan Davis, Alisha Ali, Gwendoline Rossetti and Nikki Rushdie.

After that, sheets were distributed to all the students and one by one all of them shouted out their sections and classes.

A few days passed before the classes of the sixth grade began. Gwendoline, Nikki, Kate and David were the only four Lesients in section A. The children got their timetables and syllabus.

That day, they had the Matology classes. Matology was a subject where modern technology were taught. The elder residents believed that instead of living as mourning and wandering spirits, the students could get involved in human sort of works even if that would be of no such importance for future. As saying went, learning is always fun.

Gwen, short for Gwendoline made friends with Nikki and sat with her. That morning, they walked together to their Matology class.

‘To which country did you belong to, Nikki?’ asked Gwen.

‘I belonged to India. That place was nice. By the way, which country did you belong to?’ Nikki asked back.

‘England,’ she replied. ‘I was in London in a posh house that belonged to my step mother.

Just then Kate came to meet them. ‘Hey Gwen! Nikki! Going to the classes, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, come with us, Kate,’ offered Nikki.

‘Hey girls! Can I come with you too? Newcomer, you see? I’m afraid I’d get lost and Mr. Paul over there asked me to make groups so I don’t get lost.’ David joined them too.

‘You know what; I’m really excited to learn magic. You know, it’s not simple magic tricks. It’s a power and I can’t believe I have it. Aren’t we little wizards, then?’ asked David.

‘Yes, but actually we won’t be called magicians, neither wizard as we are not alive. We are only spirits and we don’t have a wand to cast spell on others. We have powers which are inside of us and they influences when we want something with burning desire. We’ll have to use our fingers and hands, move them round and round, and magical light will come out from our finger tips,’ said Kate, smartly.

‘Right, but fancy not being invisible like the real ghosts, isn’t it? I wish i could appear and disappear,’ said Nikki.

‘Of course you can. It takes noting but desire. But you only disappear when you decide for an astral travel. I know that you are talking about the ghosts that we all have of heard of, but they aren’t real, thanks to Hollywood. We are real and we are not on the Earth. We are called Lesients,’ said Kate.

‘What in the devil is astral travel? Sounds like some road trip to me,’ David said. ‘Can you do anything, Kate? I mean, you are smart and intelligent, aren’t you?’

‘First things first, astral travel is no different than a road trip. It is more of an air trip actually. Trans-location, that’s what it is. You think of a place you want to visit and you appear there. Secondly, ya, I do know a mind trick. It’s done to make something disappear,’ said Kate and closed her eyes.

She stretched her hands and put her palms forward and did a mind trick. And her little purse disappeared when none of them had noticed. It all happened in lesser time than a blink of eye.

‘Wow! Lovely! Now can you bring it back?’ he asked again.

‘Yes, I can,’ Kate nodded and she did it again. And her purse appeared back. She looked at surprised David and laughed. ‘Don’t worry, you will learn it in the class,’ she said. ‘I just read it in advance during the holidays. I’m fond of reading but never really had a chance to do that, you know? ___Here we are.’

The students reached the class and realized that they were late when they saw the others sitting and waiting for the teacher to arrive. The teacher came walking from the other side. They hurried to the class and sat wherever they could and by mistake, David and Kate took the same seat. They looked at one another and said sorry together but they had no time to change seats because the teacher had already arrived.

‘Good morning, sir,’ all the students wished together.

‘Good morning, please take your seats,’ said the teacher and they took their seats. ‘Children, welcome to the first class of magical lessons, the wonders of spells and mind tricks and modern technology. By the way, I’m Mr. Kristen. I hope you’ve got your books and all other necessary thing and are ready to begin the class,’ he said in a solemn voice that sounded real stern and serious.

A boy looked out of the open window and the teacher banged at the table. ‘I want you all to pay attention and that’s one condition to be in my class,’ he said. The boy looked away.

‘Students, I’d better warn you about my rules or you may often run into troubles,’ he said. ‘First of all, you should never be late to the class.’

Kate gulped as she felt a bit guilty.

‘Second thing, whenever I say something, you must pay attention as well as give importance. Third thing, you should not disturb others or work on other subjects during my class,’ he said. ‘I hope it is all clear to you,’ said the hot tempered man.

But while he taught, he was a rather calm person, very calm for words.

‘All right, let me tell you that you Lesients, each one of you, have an unusual power that the others don’t have. This power is often known as the personality power. I’ll go to each one of you now and I’ll see and tell who has what power. Won’t that be brilliant?’ And he was suddenly pleasant.

‘Yahoo!’ said the whole class in excitement. ‘I don’t want any disturbance like I said,’ Mr. Kristen grumbled and snapped on the table.

He went over to Rasheeda Khan who sat on the first bench. He touched her palms and a smile spread on his face. ‘Oh dear, you have the power to look through everything. I mean, you can easily see what’s inside a cupboard without even opening the door!’ he said making it sound great.

The girl blushed and smiled as everyone clapped for her and even tried to eyes on one of the cupboards but saw nothing.

‘Don’t worry. You’ll soon be learning to use the power,’ Mr. Kristen said. ‘And here we’ve got Kate, the very deserving girl. Let’s see what’s in her,’ he said taking her hand on his.

‘Oh, how lovely! You can see the future!’ he said.

‘Wow!’ said Nikki. ‘I wish I could do that!’

‘And, she can even go back to the past. A little time machine is inside her,’ added Mr. Kristen. ‘And here, Nikki,’ said he, moving to the next bench. He announced that Nikki had the power to feel and recognize everything. The faintest sound, the slightest noise or anything that was wrong, whatever it was.

He checked every students and some or the other had wonderful and very unusual powers. But as he said, Kate had a little time machine inside her.

‘Now, let’s get to the point,’ he snapped turning into one of his moods when the noise started to eat him up. ‘First of all, close your eyes and stretch your hands and then bring your palms forward,’ he said in a bold and calm voice. ‘And be sure you are concentrated and relaxed.’

‘As you all are beginners, you’ll be taught to do mind tricks. Now, if you want to become invisible, close your eyes and visualise yourselves being invisible,’ said he.

Every student did as he told and more than half of them vanished.

‘Bunch of real well concentrating kids,’ the teacher muttered, pleased. ‘Now, imagine yourselves being visible. I will not stand any nonsense if you don’t listen to me now,’ said Mr. Kristen.

The students did as he said and appeared back, scared that he might punish them.

‘Very good. But the rest of you, practise concentration. Now, if it’s important for you to see anyone who is invisible, you’ll have to cast a spell with your fingers. Get into the same position as before and then, close your eyes and chant- “illusion” in your mind.’

This time, surprisingly thought, everyone was able to cast it unlike like the previous one. A shower of red light flashed out brilliantly from their fingers and it showed Mr. Kristen who had turned himself invisible.

After a long and amazing time, the bell rang. ‘Students, we had lots of fun. There are some mind tricks on the chapter three and a few other on chapter four of your text book. Learn it and the next week, I’ll take your practical tests.’ The teacher and the students got out of the class and in this way the first day was over.

Classes continued regularly and the new students had a good time at the school, sleeping and talking at the dormitory and enjoying the different classes. Some teachers were kind and nice while the others were rude and serious. But as years long objective written in stone remained, these spirits were to be given the joyous times of life and until they wished to let go, that certain mortality would have to come. But as far as they wished to live, they could live. And they could grow. In other words, they could have another human life…

Kate and David turned to be great friends along with Nikki and for some reason; Gwen had started to ignore them.
One night, David, Kate and Nikki discussed about the matter. They wanted to find out what was wrong with Gwendoline because they haven’t heard from her since a week.

‘I wonder what’s wrong with Gwendoline?’ said David.

‘I don’t know. I haven’t heard from her yet,’ said Kate. ‘Nikki, do you have any idea?’ asked Kate.

‘Nope,’ Nikki shook her head. ‘But yes!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve heard something, today. It really felt like my personality power. You see, I could smell something in the air. I heard Gwen talking to someone about some kind of meeting today. She said that she wants the other one, whoever she was talking with, to come to a secret meeting at the Lauriens book store.’

‘Huh, a secret meeting at the Lauriens? What kind of place is that for a secret meeting?’ David scoffed.

‘That’s about all. I heard her say but I don’t know to whom she was speaking to,’ said Nikki. ‘She sounded bad tempered and disgusted.’

‘Do you think we should go and spy on her?’ asked Kate.

‘Sounds eerie to be hearing it from you. You think that’d be a great idea?’

But ignoring David, Kate asked, ‘Nikki, at which time did she call the other one to the Lauriens for the meeting?’

‘Well, I think I heard it was at midnight,’ said Nikki looking at her blue wristwatch.

‘All right, then we can set out for the Lauriens at twelve,’ Kate said.

‘Hey, couldn’t we better sleep? I mean, I seriously don’t want to get into trouble,’ David suggested.

‘If you are afraid, you are free to stay back. No one asked you to come. Well, Kate, must we doze off for some minutes or stay awake?’

‘Nikki, are you mental? If you are going to sleep now, you are surely going to miss out everything. It’s 10: 30, now. All are asleep and I guess we are the only one to stay up so long. However, I don’t feel sleepy at all,’ said Kate.

‘All right, I’m going to read something then. But what if the captain sees us?’ She asked again. ‘Oh right, he’s dozing at his corner. Nice sleepyhead,’ she said and took her Matology book and started learning the mind tricks. They had lost their will to sleep that night, excited at the idea of snooping around.

The time passed by and finally there came a loud ding-dong from the clock tower at the backyard of the school. Nikki looked away from her book and then looked at her watch. It was twelve, all right. ‘Kate! David! Are you ready?’ she whispered.

‘Yes, let’s go! We don’t have time to change into our jeans,’ whispered back Kate and the three of them went out of their dormitory with extreme caution.

They went down the stairs which led to the large guest hall. Quietly and cautiously, they made their way out of the large front door and then, they heard a noise! They saw someone coming through the other way. It was Gwendoline and another girl.

‘Hey, that’s Gwen and Gabriel, aren’t they?’ said Nikki, surprised. ‘Why, she said she hated Gabriel.’

‘Shut up, Nikki, and do the mind trick to become invisible. Quick David!’ whispered Kate.

David stretched his hands, brought his palms forward and closed his eyes, imagining himself and his two friends becoming invisible. He had caught both of their hands so that they disappear along with him.

‘That was superb, thanks,’ Nikki smiled. ‘Let’s follow them. They won’t see us if they haven’t cast the spell to see the invisible spirits. And I don’t think they have. The red light’s not flashing out of anywhere.’

And they went off, following Gwendoline and Gabriel as they walked. Finally they were out on the school garden. Nikki looked at the lovely roses and lavenders as she passed by.

‘Oh, they are so beautiful!’ she said.

‘Nikki, can’t you concentrate on following? I think we have the whole day to watch these flowers,’ said Kate.
Nikki looked away. ‘Sorry, I was just_,’

‘All right,’ nodded Kate and they continued walking until they reached the road.

‘Kate! I can’t walk anymore! Can’t we just fly instead?’ said David, stopping suddenly.

‘David__all right, it’s useless arguing.’ Kate did the mind trick and the three of them were up in the air, still invisible. They were carried away by the magical wind and they had nothing to do but mind the direction.

Finally, they were at the Lauriens. The children appeared in the store. They probed the interior and hid behind a book case and to their great disappointment, Gwen pulled something and a door was shut in front of the three.

‘Oh no! Now we won’t be able to hear them and what more, we can’t get invisible and go inside because Gwen has put on her red flash! We can be easily seen through red flashes,’ said Kate, disappointed.

‘Isn’t there any other way you know?’ asked David.

‘Yes, there is. But I don’t know the casting. I should have read chapter seven,’ said Kate and they turned around to go back, but to their great dismay, there stood Mr. Kristen.

They could do nothing but stare at him.

‘You children, what are you doing here at this time of night? Go back at once!’ he grumbled in a low voice, very furiously.

The children jumped out of their skin at once ran away. They were not half surprised to see Mr. Kristen there, too! There were restrictions for teachers as well.

The next morning, at the class, the three of them saw Gwendoline brooding and sulking.

‘I guess that churlish teacher had done something to Gwen, too. Damn! We couldn’t hear to what she said,’ said David and they took their seats silently.

It was the test period and Kate easily passed her turn and so did Nikki. But David, the forgetful boy missed out three questions but fortunately, he too passed if not with flying colours. He didn’t mind because he had the same personality spirit power that Kate had. “Twin aura” as the teachers called.

After a few weeks, they came to know that Gwen had learnt all the advanced tricks from Kate and betrayed them. She was with the bad group now…