Boy Wonder

The clunky old school bus was jittering almost as much as I was as it lumbered down the grassy, pebble-ridden road. I shivered in my threadbare school blazer, my skinny elbows poking out of the sides that Mum never got to fix. I swallowed, my throat tickling, as I stared out of the cracked bus window at the pretty English countryside, my entire world. Flowers danced in the pastures and the sun beamed down upon the swaying crests of barley along the side of the road. I could smell the spring air wafting through the cracks in the window, but it didn't make me feel any better. Instead, it made me feel worse, a cruel reminder of what I had promised to do on the first day of spring. I looked down at my feet and tugged at my tartan skirt a little bit, not that it made much difference.

I looked around at the other people on the bus. There was Eddie and his squad sitting at the back, laughing raucously at something on Marcus' phone, as always, and there was Lily and her gang of friends (who am I kidding? More like followers) sitting in front of them, giggling at whatever they were saying, their tiny skirts as short as underwear resting on their thighs. There was a decent-sized gap between Lily's crew and the rest of us school kids. In the school hierarchy, Lily and Eddie were the King and Queen, the rest of us commoners. Those two would never sit anywhere near us peasants, instead hang out with the rest of their devoted followers at the back of the bus.

In their eyes, the front of the bus was for losers, for nerds and geeks, for know-it-alls and kids who play Dungeons and Dragons at recess. For kids like me.

In their eyes, we were all losers who had to keep away from them and their precious group of minions.

All of us... except Boy Wonder.

Boy Wonder... the reason I was feeling so nervous, like I was going to barf.

Boy Wonder was the reason that today was so important. It was the first day of spring, and, three months ago, in the start of winter, when he had first joined Merriweather High, I had been captivated by him. He had glossy black hair that swept over his eyes, which were a startling emerald green, the colour of forests and freshly-mowed grass. His skin was flawless - a deep bronze colour. His lips, full. His nose, perfect. His height, towering. The first time he'd walked onto the school bus, I was struck silent, and yet nobody else was. My best friend Miranda had asked me why I was so quiet, and I told her about Boy Wonder (I don't actually know his name, I just thought it was pretty suitable for him), and she just looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Who?" It was insane - how was a new boy from Cheshire allowed to be this good-looking, when the rest of us all looked like toads?

I'd told myself the day he first walked onto the bus that, on the first day of spring (spring symbolising new birth), I would pluck up the courage I'd never had before and talk to him. I swore it on the River Styx, and everybody knows that an oath on the River Styx cannot ever, ever be broken.

So here I was.

Biting my nails, feeling like I wanted to dig a deep hole and die. My face was already burning with embarrassment and I hadn't even spoken to him yet. I fidgeted with my hair, wishing desperately it wasn't so sleek. My hair was a deep, wine-coloured red, and it was so glossy it always looked greasy, and I was teased about it so much in my first years of high school. "Get a better shampoo, Osa!" my friends would tease. "Your hair's so greasy I can see my reflection in it!" they would say.

I would always argue back, saying that it was just glossy, and that if they really thought it was that greasy, they should feel it for themselves. They would then stick out their tongues and cackle, laughing that they didn't want to touch my 'disgusting' hair.

But now it was spring. Time to forget past memories and try something new, make some new friends.

I swallowed down my nervousness and stood up, walking over to the front of the bus, my entire body shaking. Nobody seemed to notice me as I did so, which was good.

Boy Wonder was sitting at his usual seat at the very front of the bus, reading a novel which I identified as War and Peace. A strange choice for a boy in Year 9 to be reading, but still... he was unique, and lovely, and wonderful. My face heated.

I slipped into the seat next to him. He didn't even lift his head from the book, didn't even acknowledge my presence. I gulped - that wasn't a good sign. "H-hi," I stammered, hating the way my voice caught in my throat. He didn't look up. I spoke a little louder: "Hello!" He still didn't answer. I sighed and swallowed down a bit of bile that had just risen into my throat. I held out my hand and said, "I'm Osa, what's your name?"

Then he looked up. He shut War and Peace and looked at my face in surprise, his emerald eyes wide with shock. He looked at my outstretched hand, my hesitant smile, my shiny curtain of red hair.

Boy Wonder squinted at me. "You shouldn't be able to see me," he said.

Now it was my turn to look shocked. "What?" I demanded. "How am I not supposed to see you? Everyone here can see you, you're pretty see-able."

I swore in my head, knowing how dumb that sentence just sounded.

"You're not supposed to see me," Boy Wonder said slowly, his green eyes, fierce as the air before a storm, narrowing in suspicion. "Nobody here can see me... but you."

I pouted, annoyed that the boy who I had fallen in love with was turning out to be a complete weirdo. "That's not possible," I said, my voice hitching up several octaves. "You're right in front of me. I'm talking to you. Everybody else can see you! How can they not see you?"

"Mortals are not worthy enough to lay their filthy eyes upon a being as celestial as I," Boy Wonder grunted, his voice barely a whisper. "Also, if they did, they would spontaneously combust."

I balked and blinked, not understanding a word he just said. Spontaneously combust? "Pardon?" I asked.

Boy Wonder locked eyes with me, his viridescent eyes baring into mine, and in that moment, I knew he wasn't exactly human. His pupils weren't exactly pure circles like mine or everybody else's - they were slightly elongated, like a serpent, but they weren't sinister... they were watchful and knowing, like a wolf or an owl. I shivered as he slipped his ice-cold hand into mine and shook it ever so slightly. "It's a pleasure, Osa." he said. "Always a pleasure, to meet somebody like I."

I winced. "Someone like you?" I asked. "What do you mean?"

The shadow of a smile passed over his face. "I will explain everything," he said softly. Then, he looked out of the window.

I froze, a million thoughts racing through my brain. "What is it?" I asked. "And why did you say that I was like you?" I paused. "I'm not even attractive."

Yep, that was the wrong thing to say.

Boy Wonder didn't smile. He just gripped my hand and stared into my eyes. "Do you trust me?" he whispered.

"Famous last words?" I quipped, but my heart was beating a million miles and hour. I tried to tug my fingers out of his grip, but his hands were as strong as iron. "And no, Boy Wonder, I just met you, so..."

I didn't have time to finish before he yanked me out of the window, glass fragments flying everywhere, some embedding themselves in my skin, and soared away into the air, holding onto me.

I screamed - I was flying. And it was wonderful, and it was terrifying, and I can't describe it. If I could, I would, but there are some things in life that you cannot measure by words alone, and this experience was one of them. The wind buffeted my face and tore through my hair, making it blow behind me in a billowing curtain of red. We soared over the countryside like birds. I couldn't believe it - I woke up this morning as a normal girl and now, only an hour later, as an eagle. I clung to Boy Wonder like he was my lifeline - because he was. Protruding out of his back were two massive, feathery wings, like the wings of an angel, because now I know, that's what he was - an angel.

"Where are you taking me?" I screamed over the roar of the wind. I made the mistake of looking down, my stomach feeling like lead in my body, bile rising to my throat. The rolling green pastures sped by beneath us, the houses dots on the ground. "Where are we going?"

"A place for the likes of us!" Boy Wonder yelled. "Over the Wind!"

"What?" I screeched.

Boy Wonder untangled one arm from around my waist and pointed to a cluster of blue-grey mountains, their peaks covered in sparkling white snow. "Hold on!" he said, and then he dove.

I screamed, my stomach dropping as we spiralled out of the clouds down to the earth. I clung onto Boy Wonder, my nails digging into his arms so harshly that they began to bleed. This is it, the little nagging voice in the back of my head said. I'm going to die.

I shut my eyes and waited for the inevitable crunch and excruciating pain of all my bones breaking.

But it never came.

Instead, it was me clinging onto Boy Wonder, my head shoved against his chest, my eyes beginning to tear up, in a cave, in the side of a mountain. Boy Wonder gently prised me off him and said in a low, soothing voice, "it's OK, Osa. We're here now."

I sniffled and pulled back, my face burning with embarrassment. I looked around at the cave - it was unlike any kind of cave I'd ever seen before, and certainly not what I was expecting... It was massive, for a start, with stalactites dripping from the roof and stalagmites rising up to meet them. Strange blue light drifted around the dark room in bubbles and giant turquoise mushrooms sprouted from the sides of the cave. Vines of pure silver tangled on the roof while a gentle trickling brook splashed in the corner. I blinked in wonder. "What is this place?" I whispered.

"Over the Wind," Boy Wonder said. "The bridge between two worlds."

"Huh?" I poked one of the mushrooms, my fingers coming away covered in sparkly goo.

"Mortals aren't allowed to see this place," he said, his voice a tinkle in my ears. "They aren't -"

"Worthy enough, yeah," I snorted, my voice as dry as the Gobi Desert. "I get it. Are you going to explain who the hell you are and why you have two ginormous wings on your back and why you just flew me off my school bus into a super weird cave that you claim is the portal between worlds?"

"I was explaining that, Osa, before you interrupted me." Boy Wonder looked at me funny, a gleam of amusement in his viridescent, wolf-like eyes. "May I continue?"

I wiped the mushroom goo on my skirt. "Yeah," I mumbled. "Sorry."

Agh, it was so hard to be around this guy! He was so distracting! It was insane!

"Anyway," Boy Wonder said, pacing, "Over the Wind is a bridge, or a portal, as you may call it, between the two realms that exist in our current universe. The bridge between Terra, or Earth, the Mortal Land, and Thraesan, the Realm of the Fae. I come from Thraesan, as you may have guessed, and you, my dear Osa Kramer, come from Terra." He smirked.

I flushed a little. "How do you know my last name?" I asked, then realised that Boy Wonder was an all-powerful enlightened Fae bad boy who probably knew everything about everyone and it was useless to talk to him about personal things. "Never mind. If all of my friends are from Terra, how come they can't see you, but I can?"

Boy Wonder paused, as if that question troubled him. "That question troubles me," he said, and I had to keep myself from bursting out into hopeless laughter. "I'm not 100% sure, but I do have a theory... it's probably best if you sit down."

He gestured to a mushroom. I wrinkled my nose a bit but sat down anyway, grimacing because it was cold and squishy and the goo soaked into my skirt. "So, what is it, Boy Wonder?" I asked.

Boy Wonder's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Boy Wonder?"

I blushed. "Yeah, that was my nickname for you when you first arrived at Merriweather... what were you even doing there?"

Boy Wonder's tanned cheeks flared with a bit of colour. "I'm about to answer that, but you keep on interrupting me."

I snorted. "Well, you keep on distracting me."

He wiggled his eyebrows. "You love it, Kramer."

I turned away so he couldn't see my blush. (Understatement of the century! I was so embarrassed my face was as red as my hair!)

"Your name is Osa Edaline Kramer," Boy Wonder said. I nodded. "You were born to Jena Elton and Mirlyn Kramer, however your father died when you were a babe." His voice held no sympathy for me, instead it was the blank monotone of somebody describing a person's life in a historical television show. I looked at my feet, a lump rising in my throat. It was true - my father died when I was a few weeks shy of one. A car accident, Mum said. He continued: "Your mother told you it was a fatal car accident that caused his death, but she was lying."

I froze. Looked up at him. "Wh-what?"

"Mirlyn Kramer did not die in a car accident," Boy Wonder said darkly. "He was a general, a Fae Captyn of the Queen's personal guard, and he died in the Massacre of Aerilon. So many Fae, old and young, rich and poor, died that horrible day. My brother did, my mother did too." His voice held no sadness, but his emerald eyes glinted with the memory of a thousand tears. That was where our eyes were similar - his forest green ones compared to my muddy brown ones, the same in that one fact. I swallowed. "Mirlyn died defending the Queen against the monster who killed all of those innocent soldiers that traitorous day. He threw himself across her body when he saw Cervantes throw the Spear of Darkness at her chest, intending to kill her."

I gasped. "My dad... was a Fae?"

"Yes."

"Who is Cervantes?" my voice was barely a whisper.

"He is the Traitor Prince, the King-Born Barstard, the Dark One. He goes by many names, but none as horrible as his true name, which is, as you heard, Cervantes." Boy Wonder's eyes flashed in anger. He clenched his hands together. "In my language, it means Light-Slayer." He paused. "Mirlyn was the light, and Cervantes slew him."

A million thoughts rushed through my brain. "So... I'm half-Fae." I said. "That's why I can see you."

"Yes."

"But my mother is mortal."

"Yes."

"So I'm like... fairy Superman."

"I do not know who that is, but yes. You are the Fae version of the one you call Superman."

"I would say that's cool, but my father died protecting the Queen of the Fae, and I can't help but hate her a little bit."

All of a sudden, a cold wind blew into the cave, making me shiver and rub my arms. Thunder boomed outside. Boy Wonder looked to the sound. "I would not insult Her Majesty so rashly, Osa," he said. "Do not despise her because of the great deed your father did."

I nodded, the goosebumps on my arms going down. "So are you going to tell me what you were doing in Merriweather?"

Boy Wonder sniffed the air, his angel wings fluttering. "Not right now. There is danger here, and I need to get you to Thraesan right away."

"But... my mother," I said. "I won't be able to say goodbye!" I thought of my small, weak mother, all alone in our tiny apartment, tear maps streaked on her face. "She'll be all alone."

"Jena Elton-Kramer is stronger than you think," Boy Wonder said. "She will know where you have gone."

I looked at him and stood up. "Are you going to open a portal?"

"Yes, Osa Kramer," Boy Wonder said. He moved close to me and wrapped an arm around my waist, pulling me close to him. His massive snowy wings wrapped around us, enveloping me. He motioned for me to put my arms around his neck and I did, my heart thumping at the speed of a galloping warhorse. "Hold on."

I shut my eyes, and then everything went black.

To be continued...