Chapter 33

Thursday, after a bit of talking between the girls, Millie and Dot they’d decided that in order to build Gabbie’s selfconfidence Lucy should move back to one of her original classes, so she swapped back to her original Maths class, from now on, for 4 lessons a week they were separated by two rooms.

Maths was probably Lucy’s strongest subject, and Gabbie’s weakest, and as much as it was a wrench to be separated from Gabbie, she was back working at a speed she was more comfortable with, in Gabbie’s set they were working at a lower level and she’d struggled with the pace, finishing work too quickly then being a bit bored whilst everyone else caught up.

In truth, she was even in front of her original class, as she’d been reading ahead whilst helping Gabbie with her prep in the evenings.

So, about ¾ of the way through her first Maths lesson without Gabbie she was daydreaming after finishing the exercise, looking out of the window at the sheep on the hill sheltering from the rain under a big tree.

Then a maths puzzle drifted into view, she recognised it from her textbook, but it wasn’t the one she’d just finished, it was one she’d been helping Gabbie with the other night. And then she got it...

Gabbie was working through it now, in Room 55 while she was sitting here bored in Room 53. Lucy closed her eyes and concentrated. She thought really hard about Gabbie’s pen, she thought about lifting her hand, and Gabbie’s pen lifted off the page!

Oh my god, can I do Gabbie’s work for her?

She thought about the answer, it was hard work, much harder than the equations she’d been working on in her lesson, the maths wasn’t hard, getting Gabbie’s hand working was hard, but with some effort she managed to take control of Gabbie’s pen, and 5 minutes later the work was finished and she let go of Gabbie’s mind and drifted back into Room 53, where Mrs Cole was standing in front of Lucy with a worried look on her face.

“Are you ok Lucy?”

“What?”

“Are you ok, it’s like you weren’t in the room, I couldn’t get you to answer.”

“Oh sorry, I’ve just got a bit of a headache, I’ll be ok in a bit.”

“Ok, I was just worried you were missing Gabbie, it being the first time you’ve been out of her presence in a fortnight.”

“Ahh, don’t worry about that, it seems even when we’re apart we’re still together,” she said enigmatically as she handed Mrs Cole her finished exercise and left the room as the bell rang.

She waited for Gabbie in the maths department foyer, by the start of a huge mural of Pi to 1,000,000 places, she read 3.1415926535897932384626 before her head started to hurt for real. The sight of Gabbie bouncing down the stairs made everything all right once more.

They kissed quickly then Gabbie took Lucy’s hand as they dashed through the rain back to their house for lunch.

“Oh my god!” Gabbie cried as she stepped in a big puddle, “shit my shoe’s full of muddy water.”

“I know,” Lucy said, “I can feel it.”

Gabbie pulled Lucy to a stop under a tree to shelter from another heavy pulse of rain, “What do you mean?”

“I can go in and out of you head whenever I want to, well I don’t think it’s all the time, but during the lesson, I saw you struggling with the maths puzzle...”

“So you wrote the answer for me! I wondered how the answer just appeared in my head. It was you! Shit, I didn’t feel anything.”

“I did wonder if you knew what was happening, I had to concentrate so hard, I managed to lift your hand, but then dropped it.”

“That was you! That hurt my hand, banging on the desk, and everyone looked at me for disturbing them in the test.”

“Ahh, sorry. I wanted to talk to you, but I was worried I’d talk in real life, or I’d make you talk in the lesson.”

“Oh don’t be sorry, that was a work of genius, we’re linked even when we’re not in the same room.”

They walked on some more then Gabbie stopped again, this time under the canopy of a bus stop.

“Do you think I could enter your mind, and control you?”

“I don’t see why not, we could try it later, but not now, I’m starving, and want to get out of the rain as soon as possible”

“Ok Lucy, you’re always grumpy when you’re hungry...”

That evening, after prep they again sat at opposite ends of the bed, they had two things to try, Gabbie wanted to see if she could enter Lucy’s mind and then operate her phone, then they wanted to see if Lucy could take Gabbie somewhere she’s never been.

Gabbie was in charge of the music again, so she chose Waiting for Cousteau by Jean Michel Jarre, turned the volume down low and placed her phone on the floor. They both turned towards the candle from opposite ends of the bed and let their minds go to that other place.

Gabbie thought about Lucy, more specifically about Lucy’s gold iPhone on the duvet by her knee, then she thought about picking up the phone. Gabbie was nowhere near as strong or as confident as Lucy, and it took a huge amount of willpower to fight her way into Lucy’s brain, but she managed it, and as she thought about picking up the phone Lucy’s hand moved from her knee to her phone.

Gabbie was sweating now, this was such hard work, how did Lucy manage it in the middle of a lesson?

As she paused for breath, Gabbie recentred herself, letting the quiet electronic music sooth her soul, then she pressed on, willing Lucy to pick up the phone, and all of a sudden it happened, Lucy lifted the phone and held it on her lap.

A surge of pride swelled Gabbie’s heart and she used the momentum to force Lucy to lift the phone to unlock it using FaceID.

With the phone unlocked Gabbie used Lucy’s thumb to swipe across and open the Spotify app, then she scrolled though Lucy’s favourites to find her own name, selected it and played Chasing Pavements, it was a bit loud though, and they both jerked out of their trance.

It took Lucy a moment to realise what happened, then she looked down at her phone, “you did it!” she cried, “you controlled my mind, and used my phone.”

Gabbie was still panting from the mental exertion and the shock of springing back to reality, “yeah, it was such hard work though, your mind is pretty stubborn.”

“Well duh, have you only just realised that.”

“Hahaha, well yeah, I should have realised I suppose, and the lesson learnt for next time, turn the volume down on your phone before I start the Spotify app. My heart is racing with the shock.”

They rested a while, then went down to the staff kitchen to make a hot chocolate before they embarked on the next exercise.

Millie was in the kitchen making a mug of tea, “hey girls, how are you doing?”

“We’re doing great thanks,” Gabbie replied, “we’ve been practicing psychic trances.”

“What’s that?” Millie asked.

“It started as meditation, so I can try to get rid of the mental echoes of my abusers, which reminds me, when we get round to that we’ll be doing some shouting to expel the memories, so we’ll need a room where we won’t disturb anyone.”

Millie looked around for a teaspoon, couldn’t find one and quickly fished out the teabag with her fingers, blowing on her scalded fingers afterwards, then she thought for a moment about a room for Gabbie, “mmm, remind me tomorrow dinner time, there’s a room near the laundry that might be ok, it’s under the dining room, so there should be nobody around to hear you.”

“Oh great, that sounds perfect,” Gabbie said.

“So, what’s this psychic trance then?”

“Ahh yes, I sidetracked myself, sorry. We found that while in a trance Lucy could enter my mind, so while we meditated and thought about my house, Lucy could see my memories, and explore the grounds as if she was actually there.”

“I could even smell the earth and hear the leaves in the woods.”

“Oh wow,” Millie said.

“And then today, during a maths lesson.”

“Ahh, sorry to interrupt, did you have separate lessons today?”

“Yes, we did,” Lucy said.

“Great, and how did it go?”

“That’s kind of what I’m getting at,” Gabbie said, “the lesson went well by the way, I coped well, no separation anxiety or anything. But, well, I was struggling with a question on my test and well...”

“ ... well I was bored,” Lucy continued, “because I’d already done today’s work on my own last week, so I was daydreaming and all of a sudden I saw Gabbie’s test paper, and I could sense that she was stuck, so I kind of...”

“ ... she took control of my hand, and she completed the answer for me.”

“mmm, that’s actually an admission that you cheated Gabbie.”

“Wasn’t me, honest, I didn’t even know it was Lucy working my hand until after the lesson, I just surprised myself by suddenly knowing the answer.”

“Ok, right, what you can do sounds fantastic and everything, but I’m actually going to forget you ever told me, because if you can do that how do we know you won’t cheat in exams.”

“Oh, shit, I never thought.” Lucy exclaimed, “Oh wow, I’d never do that, it’s just so wrong. I only did it today to see if I could work Gabbie’s hand.”

“I believe you Lucy, but the Exams officer doesn’t know you like I do, and neither do the people at the exam boards, so if they even suspected you could control Gabbie’s hand to answer questions for her, well, they’d have you both disqualified. So keep it quiet whatever you do.”

“We will Millie, promise.”

“And can I just say once again, you amaze me, both of you, such beauty, courage, humour and above all, so sassy. I wish I’d had a friend like you when I was here.”

“We kind of consider you our friend,” Gabbie said, “if that’s allowed.”

“Well, we’re supposed to be more like family than friends, but thank you, I’m honoured.”

Millie left the kitchen and Lucy set about the search for a teaspoon so she could make some hot chocolate.

20 minutes later, refreshed and relaxed, they were back on the bed looking at the candle, with some Harold Budd playing quietly on the speaker.

“Ok Gabbie, my turn to take you into my mind and explore somewhere. We’re going to my old primary school, so to give you a starting point, it’s one of those late Victorian red brick schools, the ones with a sperate boys and girls entrance, can you picture that?”

“Yes, I can picture it, we had some near home, but my school was quite modern.”

“Ok, so we’re going in the girls’ entrance, and I want you to find my classroom, then tell me the number on the door, and the clock was broken, so what time is it stuck at.”

“Cool, this will be fun.”

They were used to this now, and very quickly slipped into the trance mindset, Gabbie cleared her mind, let the quiet piano music drift through her body and she thought of Lucy’s school, She was standing across the road and could see a single story red brick building surrounded by a low wall topped with an ornate iron fence, the tall iron gates were standing open, inviting her to cross the road and enter the school, so she did, checking for the girls door and stepping though the tall wooden doors.