The Trials of Arabella
By
Tara Tsang
A bee was buzzing around a frizzy head full of dull brown
hair. The bright pink flower that appeared to be growing out of her head was
its target. She ducked and jumped and the bee flew in circles confused then buzzed
away. The girl next to her hadn’t noticed a thing; she was still vividly describing
her experiences of time travel. She disappeared when Arabella blinked and an
old man was holding her hand. She looked down and found her own hands matching
his. Her hands were intricately lined with papery wrinkles. She turned them
over and was fascinated by how, unlike trees, a human’s age could be guessed by
appearance alone.
She blinked again and she was back next to the girl. The
girl was staring at her side on.
“Well? How was it? What did you see?”
She told her there was an old man and an old woman holding
hands. Her friend stopped walking and stepped in front of her locking eye
contact. Arabella looked back but drifted into a blurry state. Her eyes focused
on nothing and her breathing became very loud in her head. Another sound suddenly
interrupted her peaceful world and her friend came into focus again.
“You need to stop ignoring me Bell, or something bad might
happen.”
Her friend’s new nickname for her sounded weird on her
tongue and in her head. Bell…
“I think we
need to do this together. Tomorrow.”
“Bell. Bell…Bell.”
She muttered the new word letting it be tested on her taste
buds. She then tried a nickname for her friend. “George, Geor, Gee…Gee!”
“Okay Gee. Tomorrow it is.”
Both girls’ mouths twitched at the ends and the beginnings
of hysterical laughter followed. They fell about flailing their limbs as
passers by kept a wide berth. Only one person, who was busy looking at their
phone, tripped over a foot carelessly placed to stop Arabella from falling. In
her place, the person fell and their phone battery ended up a metre or so away.
The girls had disappeared and the person was turning around in circles
searching for something, any sign of what caused the fall. Nobody turned to
stare and the person got up and left never realising the truth.
The future didn’t change much in 10 minutes. He blinked and
the girls stared at him. A unison apology was mouthed and they walked away
quickly almost falling into giggles every so often. They were gone and he was
still there. De ja vu sprang to his mind but he had to get somewhere so he
thought nothing of it. He fixed his phone and organised his belongings, started
texting and was gone in another few minutes.
Gee looked back knowing he couldn’t see them. She saw the
shift in time as it had happened. As the fall was occurring, the light touch of
her fingertips had caressed some hairs on the unfamiliar arm. It was the first
time in a long time she had slipped up. Arabella was a recent venture, but not
an accident. Accidents were usually purposeful and coincidences quite fixed. It
wasn’t fate, but a way of creating lifelong moments. One of these moments
turned Arabella and Gee into lifelong friends but another moment could as
easily erase that forever. The cycle goes on.
Gee had chosen Arabella to feel and see new futures, which
would only happen as long as she was with her, the passerby, would not.
Arabella was completely ordinary. Her ideals were revealed
on the covering of flowers on her walls, kind letters to distant family members
and friendly smiles to strangers. Her mind didn’t seem to have much in it which
either meant it’d be easier for her to absorb new information or nothing would
stick. She was a child whose mind was never focused on one thing but lots of
other things.
Her age limited the information she could provide but what
were you to do?
The only thing Arabella needed to know was that to time
travel all you had to do was touch her skin. And however long you took in the
future, when you returned, you came back to the same instant you left.
Gee quirked the ends of her lips up and acted as though
nothing were going through her mind. She touched Arabella’s shoulder through the
lace on Arabella’s sleeve and both were gone.
The future wasn’t altogether too interesting; it was like a
mystery not worth solving. For example, figuring out which sibling lied about
eating the last bit of chocolate. It happened and knowing who did it would not
change the fact.
The future was a bright sunny day with fluffed up pale
clouds. The buildings surrounding the lonely park overshadowed the colour
making it look saturated and lifeless. There was a man with white hair sticking
out of his nostrils and ears. His left leg didn’t hold him up well when he
walked and his coat quivered every so often.
There was one square of sunlight that was vacated by a boy
and a girl laughing and rolling around. Their hands were stuck together and
occasionally their lips were as well. Then there was Arabella and Gee.
They had red lips from eating strawberries. One of the seeds
had stuck to Arabella’s lower lip. She licked it constantly without success.
They both had raincoats on, one yellow and one pink. The bright shiny plastic
tried to catch what sunlight it could while the girls jumped up and down in
star shapes.
“This is not warming me up. Can’t we just steal some
sunlight?”
“If we interfere we might change something. The future can
only be changed by the past.”
“But it’s freezing!”
Gee shakes her head and fists Bell’s hands in hers.
“Let’s breathe on them together.”
“Fine”
They blew out one breath and then took one step and were
back in their own time. It was cloudy with various shades of grey tinting the
sky. Their gumboots touched dry ground and the people around them bustled past
like a raging stampede. They tried edging, clambering, sneaking, and other
various forms of creeping to get out but didn’t move an inch. So they stood
there by an empty chair and waited for everyone to stop.
They felt little specks of weight hit their raincoats and as
Gee looked up Arabella sat down. She then proceeded to turn her gumboots upside
down by sticking her feet up in the air. Her back was against the part of the
chair her bottom was supposed to be and her bottom and legs were resting on the
back of the chair. Gee looked down and rolled her eyes.
Arabella had had one of those miraculous ideas that came to
you out of the blue and made themselves so amazing in your mind that when
spoken out loud, the person didn’t realise how ridiculous they sounded.
She crossed her arms and sat there on her back. People
started staring as they hurried along. Some people slowed. It was perfect. As
the crowd slowed even more, they ran out of the spotlight and high fived the
unplanned plan.
The adrenaline made Arabella spin, jump, whirl, and sing. It
was a lovely combination but there were a few judgemental eyes here and there.
Gee ignored her extravagant use of extra energy and stood nearby waiting. A
policeman saw the commotion and wandered on over.
“Where are your parents?”
Gee, startled, looked hard at the policeman.
“Parents. What parents? Where?”
“Ignore her, she’s just a little hyped up.”
The policeman raised one eyebrow and frowned.
The two girls looked lost and lonely. They were dancing
about and no one was there to stop them creating trouble.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to bring you to my supervisor.
Come with me.”
He held out his hand and Gee, sighing, took Arabella’s hand,
which kept jerking uncontrollably, and then took his.
The policeman pulled them along with his gloved hand and
talked in his walky-talky.
“What’s happening Gee?”
“We’re being
taken to people who think they know what’s best for us.”
“Oh.”
Arabella blinked and her urges to run were subdued only by
Gee’s cold fingers. As the rain got heavier she started shivering, a little at
first but it soon turned into violent shakes and their hands were getting slipperier.
The policeman’s pull was getting stronger and her hand was slipping from
Arabella’s. She tightened her grip but on the wrong hand and lost her. Gee saw
the shift in time just before she lost her. She was devastated and panicked.
She jerked her hand away from the policeman and ran
backwards.
The policeman looked back and both children were gone,
completely lost in the crowd. He had to make a decision; hope the children were
fine or report them missing. He chose the former but stood there looking back
for a very long time causing him to not see the wallet that was nicked sneakily
from a woman. The wallet missing wasn’t noticed till much later. The woman
phoned the police and incidentally, the same policeman who never noticed the
robbery, picked up the phone. They met for the first time at his office and it
went on from there.
Gee reached out, touched too many people, and finally
managed to find Arabella sitting on the ground soaking wet inside her raincoat.
She had a blue tinge about her and Gee quickly pulled her up and into her arms.
She twitched as her skin felt Arabella’s outside pocket. It was so cold it
burnt. She continued to rub her so she would warm up and closed her eyes. When
she opened her eyes again the crowd had disappeared and it was darker. Arabella
was still breathing and her eyes were open. She looked confused. She smiled at
her friend and pulled out a melted icy pole where Gee had felt the scary biting
coldness. Gee started laughing and squeezed Arabella tighter.
“You scared me!”
“I saw something!”
“Did you hear me? You scared me!”
Arabella, distracted by Gee’s words, grabbed her hand.
“I’m sorry Georgia. I am.”
Her demeanour had altered slightly. It had become more
focused, more understanding, more…mature. She had seen something that had
changed her, something no one can un-see.
“What did you see Bell?”
Arabella looked around quickly and then with all seriousness
whispered,
“The end.”
