Sunday Morning 9am
Chris felt utterly miserable as he walked across the deserted school grounds in search of discarded trash, armed only with a green refuse bag and his litter grabber. He was shivering in the early morning cold (well, early for a Sunday anyway) while still half-asleep, having been turfed out of bed early by a gleeful Mr Andrews.
This was totally unfair. Only a couple of days before he’d been a hero, saving lives, literally saving lives, yet here he was two days before Christmas, alone on the playing fields picking up thrown away crisp packets, sweet wrappers and crushed coke cans.
Wallowing deep in his own thoughts, he was surprised when he suddenly found himself confronted by a red imp that bombed in from above, dropping almost instantly from near orbit to within a few inches of his face where she floated effortlessly. It was a very small person, though one he was now familiar with, wrapped from head to toe in a bright red snowsuit. The curious little face immediately lit up as she stared at Chris, “Hi’ja!” said Cassie. The preschooler had recently had her fourth birthday and was now allowed out to play unsupervised as long as she didn’t fly too high or leave the area in front of the Teachers bungalows.
Technically, the school playing fields were not in front of her parents or grandmother’s homes. That meant either Cassie was breaking her mum’s rules or..?
Cassie started asking him what he was doing and could she have a go, then he heard the voice he’d been expecting. Mrs Hutchins, Cassie’s grandmother’s voice, rang out, “Cassie, what did I say about rushing ahead?” “Sorr-ry Nan, but I wanted to see!” was the squeaky yet loud reply.
Chris turned around and to his surprise, there with ‘Mama’ Hutchins was Gus, ‘Old Man’ Summers and ‘Ant-Man’ Andrews armed with litter grabbers and bags walking towards him. He noticed that Summers was limping more than usual and also had a small holdall in his hands. Gus, meanwhile, had a smile spread across his face. What was going on?
Summers cleared his throat, “Seems Mr Sett that a couple of young Metas ran into a burning building on Friday night to rescue some people. Would either you or Mr Jaeger know anything about that?” Chris was about to deny that it was them when he saw the grin on Gus’s face and the attempt by Mama Hutchins and the Ant-Man to not burst out laughing.
“Yes sir, sorry sir, but we felt we needed to help if we could. Ah, can I ask how you know it was us?”
This time Summers smiled, “The Fire Service is well aware that the only young Metas in the area all attend this school, a description of your powers and the fact that there are so few special curriculum students staying over the holidays helped narrow it down. Though, to quote Mr Andrews… I believe your exact words were, “It had to be those two, no-one else would be so damn reckless and stupid?” Andrews nodded, “Word for word, sir.”
When the Chief Fire Officer contacted me next morning to inform me that I had almost been two pupils short” he immediately halted Chris’s protestations and continued, “well, I wanted to ah, discuss the matter there and then but was convinced by Mrs Hutchins that you needed a day to recover before I addressed the matter. Of course the Chief Fire Officer herself wanted a bit of the action but I had to convince her that regardless of your stupidity, you still had a secret identity to try and maintain, hence our meeting now.”
Summers handed his picker to Andrews and pulled two small wooden plaques out of the holdall, handed one to Gus and then the other to Chris without saying a word. The others gathered round expectantly. Chris dropped the litter picker and took hold of the plaque. It was made of wood, shield shaped with an old style helmet badge on the front that read ‘Wessex Fire and Rescue’.
What the? He paused, looked at the others as Cassie flew down picked up Chris’ grabbers and began trying to use them to pull out a blade of grass, whilst hovering a couple of feet above the ground. Grown-ups were boring, she decided as she ignored the jibber-jabber and focused on her self-chosen task with her tongue sticking out to signal her degree of concentration.
Summers continued, “What you two did was both reckless and irresponsible. You could have died. Mr Jaeger, however, had convinced me that you had a plan and had tried to minimalise the risks. To that end, all I can say is…” He paused for a second and tried to look angry, however failed miserably. “Congratulations, the plaques are a thank you for your bravery from the Fire Service. They would have liked to have had a proper award ceremony, but I’m afraid I convinced them otherwise. Your actions have been kept out of the paper, though you’re still local gossip and the awards will need to be kept secret. Now, given your propensity for getting yourselves into trouble since your arrival, both Mrs Hutchins and Mr Andrews have agreed to carry out a session with you both on rescue techniques, with a focus on buildings on fire. I’m afraid your punishment for losing your unlocked earpiece still stands but I thought you might enjoy a little company so myself and ah, young Cassie here will be joining you for your litter picks and seems Mr Jaeger has elected to help as well. I would imagine we should be finished in about five minutes if we all work together and unless the others staying over this holiday are very messy, your Sunday morning picks should be resolved quite quickly?”
He reached over and took his litter grabber back from the ‘Ant-Man’ while ‘Mama’ Hutchins tried to convince her granddaughter to hand back Chris’s grabber and take the special one designed for young children.
As she did so, she leant it and whispered to them both, “Congratulations, but please make sure you plan how you intend to escape before you dive into a burning inferno in future? It would be much too quiet around here were you, something to happen to you. Now, if Cassie and I do the area around the chapel, do you want to start on the car park with Mr Jaeger and Mr Andrews?”
Growing up Meta, UK-Style! 