My parents sometimes asked for
money when I ‘found’ something and by doing this they saved up the air-train
fare to take me into the big city to the finder academy. Here they could get me
tested, to prove to everyone that they were not playing some sort of elaborate
trick.
By the time they had enough money
saved I was a canny five. I had learnt that if it took you longer to find
something people paid more, which seemed a bit daft to me, but by now I had
worked out that adults were a little strange.
I was aware that being able to find things one
day and not the next upset my parents. They frowned when someone told them that
I’d not found their lost keys but had found a cousin that they did not know
about, who actually lived in the same town! The next day I might find a missing
pet or talk to the ghost of someone who had not yet found their way to the
afterlife. You would not believe how many of them have messages to give to
loved, or unloved, ones before they could find their way, so I’d pass the
message on, as best I could. You would have thought that my parents would have
been pleased that I could find so many different things, but they muttered and
murmured in the kitchen about me. When I found out their secret worries - that
I was not normal, that it was impossible to have more than three specialities, that
I would be locked away and remembered as ‘that crazy girl’, I was scared.
I chose the easiest finding of
them all – finding lost objects – and concentrated all my efforts on this. When
I found other stuff with my mind I built walls to keep them out and ignored the
pull. An object finder was way better than being a dead finder. I had a sore
heart and had cried myself to sleep for many a night after finding my friend’s
soggy, slightly bloated kitten. The image of his fish nibbled ear has never
left me.
I didn’t know if other finders choose
their speciality, I didn’t know any other finders at that time.
The trip to the academy on the
air train was very exciting, although I had to pretend to get lost when I
needed the toilet so that my parents wouldn’t worry. I loved the smooth whoosh
as we flew over the animals in the fields, they continued to eat, glancing at
us out of the corner of their eyes. Pretending not to be interested in the
silver shimmer passing overhead. But I knew that they were wondering, I could
find their curiosity as it sprayed out from them like water droplets from a
sprinkler.
I wondered what it must have been
like in the past, when trains ran through tunnels rather than just going over
or around a hill, I think I would have liked the darkness and the amplified
sound. I loved the speed, but part of me wanted to slow everything down so that
I could take in all the sights. I could imagine living in that little totally
alone house on the hill, or what I would see from the top of the info poles
that stretched up into the atmosphere. I loved the look of the triangular roofs
cut low into the soil with their shiny solar panels glistening in the sunlight.
The circular solar tubes next to each house made an interesting geometric pattern
in the green, tree covered land. I had read in stories that before house were
built high above the ground. I tried to imagine the air-train twisting between
tall buildings, towering over us and blocking gout the light. I shivered.
The journey was over too soon and
my dreams were cut short. I promised myself, before I stepped out of our
section, that I would travel all over the world on as many air trains as I
could when I was a certificated finder. I am working on that promise.
Imagine my shock when we walked
through the cities trees and gardens and I looked up the hill and saw the academy.
It was bigger than I had imagined an old building would be, it was huge and
towered over my small body, high into the sky. The shadow it created swallowed
me up and I had to half close my eyes and look down to make my feet move
forward. Even my parents were impressed, and yet they must have known. Why had
no one told me?
My head was spinning, there was
so much finding in the air it clouded the building like a mist. I think my
mouth opened wide enough to swallow it all as I followed my parents up the
stairs and through the doors.
Inside there were doors and
stairs everywhere, leading to answers and the knowledge I thirsted for, but I
was not given the chance to explore. My parent’s hands guided my shoulders in
the direction of a sunlit room and they left me there, with strangers.
They were nice people though,
they told me they were finders and teachers, they smiled a lot and there were toys
and games for me to play with. I was careful to only find objects, although it
was a strain to keep up my walls. It felt like a thousand fingers were tapping
at my head, trying to find a way in. They were clever people and very
observant. A few lifted eyebrows was enough to focus my mind, but it meant that
my finding ability was erratic.
I don’t know how long I was
there, being tested. I had some lunch sitting at a round table by the window,
but I was too little to see out. I could see the sky, it was blue with a few
wisps of cloud. No rain coming. I wanted to stand on my chair and press my nose
to the view, but I don’t think they would have liked that.
Sometime later I heard the finder
teachers assuring my parents that my erratic ability was normal, I was still
very young, that my mind was adjusting to the new experiences. I was relieved
and thought that was great. I latched onto the word - normal. I was five and I
understood that I was normal, that everything I experienced was the same for
every other finder. I did not know what normal meant, but it made my parents
happy, so it must have been ok.
The finder teachers told me, in
that slow, simple language way adults do when they are talking to a child, that
I was an object finder and would be welcome in the academy when I was 10, when
my finding ability would be fully developed. I would be enrolled into the elite
society of finders to learn about finding.
I wanted to question this logic as I found it
lacking somehow, but somehow I knew this would be frowned upon so I sealed my
lips into a lopsided smile.
One of the finder teachers noticed
my slight confusion, looked at me closely and asked, ‘Are you happy with being
a lost object finder?’
‘Oh
yes, it’s just that sometimes I find too many things, and people are not happy,’
I replied.
She
smiled at me and said, ‘People lose many things, it is important to find only what
they have asked you to find. It will become easier to do this.’
I breathed a huge sigh of relief,
it seemed that this confusion and choosing was normal for a finder. I wondered,
just for a moment, if I should have chosen something else. It was hard to
choose so young. I wanted to ask if I could choose something different when I
was ten. But the words stuck in my throat.
The finder teacher
looked at my parents and added with a frown, ‘She is not a finder yet, she is a
child and as such she should not be working. If people ask for her help, tell
them to go to the local finder bureau.’
My
parents were astonished that she could think that they would do such a thing as
let their child work, at such a young age, and they assured her that they would
watch me more carefully. But I don’t think the teacher finder was convinced.
She
winked at me as my parents turned to leave. I hesitated, then I ran down the
steps after them, stopping to look back at my future only once.
