I'm Reece Knight and I'm fourteen years old. So far I found out life is boring. I go to Oasis Academy Mayfield and I'm in year ten. The year I have to prepare for GCSE's. The work is really hard. I hardly get anytime to play with Babe or hang out with Alex. Alex is my best friend and has been since I got moved to this town when I was four. My care home that I was in moved me here because there was a family that were going to adopt me. Cameron and Rosie are really nice to me and have been all my life. I used to go from one foster family to another for four years of my life. I remember for the first couple of months I refused to un-pack my bags because I was convinced that I would be moving again. I went to school after the holidays and Alex was there. He helped me to get around and we became best friends after that. It's been that way for ten years. Rosie and Cameron are like my big sister and brother. I love them so much. I love Alex too. He's like my brother and he calls me his little sister. He's older than me by about one months and a day though. I was born on the fourteenth of February and he was born on the thirteenth of January. Funny isn't it? I was born on Valentine's Day. Anyway I haven't told you who Babe is. Babe is my spirit animal and she's a tiger. I can't remember the first time I summoned her on my own, but I can remember her there as a baby. I remember seeing her in my coot as a cub. She was always there. When I was around three, almost four and I started to understand what was going on, she was there to stop me crying at night. I think it was when I was all alone at school once because Alex wasn't there and I wished that she was there with me. She appeared and told me her name. After that I always found time to play with her. It's one of the reasons I don't have many friends. They saw me talking to nothing and said I must be a freak. Alex asked what I was doing when I was about seven so I told him. He told me to grow up and I took his hand trying to make him understand. He said he saw Babe. I was so happy and he described her perfectly. Babe told me later on that if I held someone's hand whilst she was around then they would be able to see her for about an hour. So sometimes Alex will take my hand on purpose just to see Babe. She doesn't mind.
Now, to the good part of this. It's Monday and I need to say what happened at school today. Alex has always been protective of me when it comes to bullies or people that he doesn't like the look of. He's right almost all of the time but he was so on edge today. We were in tutor messing around like normal. Babe said I should be more serious but was laughing. A teacher came in with a boy following her. He was like the opposite from Alex. They looked the same height but he had blonde hair and green eyes. Alex stopped laughing when he came in. Alex's blue eyes that were normally happy had turned stone cold. He also has jet black hair but that didn't do anything special. He glared at the new boy as he came in and sat on the opposite side if the table to me. The new boy stood up and introduced himself as Charlie Gold. He didn't really say anything else but he did start to talk to me and Alex. Alex looked like he could kill Charlie right there and then. I hadn't seen him that way before, ever. I had seen the angry, the caring, the prince, the beast and all of the ones in between of his moods. But this one was new to me. After tutor Alex pulled me out so fast he almost pulled my arm off. I had science next and we were in different sets. "Hey, Reece can you promise me something?" He asked.
"Yeah sure. I trust you." I replied.
"Stay away from the new kid. There's something not right about him." He answered and ran off to his next lesson. I walked to mine and tried to make sense of what he had just said. Charlie was in my next lesson and sat next to me. I tried to be nice but why had Alex said that? He was almost never wrong about things like this. Correction, he was never wrong about this stuff. I got through first lesson and I was starting to like the new boy. Alex wasn't going to be happy but I didn't need to tell him. Yet somehow he found out. I should have known he had his spies keep an eye on me. In science it was Lucy. She told him and he asked about science. I tried to tell him nothing much but he didn't believe me. I had geography with him next and he was bugging me all lesson. I couldn't wait for the bell to go for break. Mainly just so I could speak to Babe. I was lucky and today we had an assessment for half the lesson. By the time that it was over and the bell went I walked out of the door really quickly. Alex was still trying to get his bag by the time I was out of the door. I went outside to the woods behind the school. I found the place that I loved to go to and summoned Babe. I started to talk to her about Alex. She already knew all that though. She said that someone was coming. I thought it was Alex so I didn't care. I was wrong. I was so wrong. It was actually Charlie. He smiled at me and sat next to me. He said Fire and an owl appeared on his outstretched hand. It was a spirit animal. He patted Babe on her head and his owl flew around my head and landed on my hand. I was so surprised. I didn't know what to say. Charlie just smiled and clicked his fingers. I snapped back to attention and he explained everything. He's the same as me. His earliest memories were of his owl. "He's called Fire because he controlled fire once to get me out of a burning building." Charlie said. Babe had started to talk to Fire without a care in the world. Fire knew more things then Babe did about spirit animals and the people that could see them. We talked about our different experiences with our spirit animals and I heard Alex shout my name. He knew where I would be so I wasn't worried about that. I was worried about him seeing me with Charlie though. Oh well, it wasn't like he was going to start a fight. He found us and he looked so angry. I rushed over to him and told him that Charlie was like me. He didn't believe me so I took his hand and he said hello to Babe and stroked her and then saw the owl. He pulled me to one side and asked if I knew what I was doing. "He's like me Alex. I just want to know more about my abilities and so does Babe. Did you know she has a special power?" I asked.
"Fine, just go careful, promise me that. And Babe, please keep her safe." Alex said and went to hang out with some of his friends. I went back over to Charlie and we carried on talking. We carried on until we heard the bell. We went to class and Alex met us by the door. He looked really annoyed at seeing us two together but was holding it in. I went in and we sat down in our seats. To Alex's amusement, Charlie was put at the opposite side of the room to us. We talked like normal and did our work to an alright, it's enough not to get a detention level. Next we had English. Charlie and Alex were in the same class, but I was in second set so I had no one. Well, Babe came to help me with some of my work. We had to do a booklet on the text that we had been reading. It was a multi-choice kind so Babe pointed to the ones that I didn't know. Charlie had explained that we can see our own spirit animals because they exist on a different plane to the others. People with heightened senses can see them but if they don't summon their animal by the age of five then they lose that connection. When we touch people we are like heightening their senses for a short period of time. However we put them on the same level as your own as that's the only level we know. Charlie said that he didn't know how his owl could control fire but they hadn't tested it again to be safe. I wanted to know if Babe had special abilities. When we were talking about it at lunch she said that she didn't know if she had any. Maybe she did but we had to be in a really bad situation to find out. I wasn't planning on that happening any time soon. Last lesson came and went really fast and before I knew it, I was walking home with Charlie. Alex had some kind of training after school and normally I would wait for him but today I didn't want to. So instead I walked home with Charlie. I lived five minutes away from the school and so did Charlie. It turns out he lived just up the road from me. When I got in, apparently I looked in love. "Rosie, I am not in love!" I said.
"Really, then what's that look for?" She asked. Cameron came in and said that I looked like I had met a prince. I followed him into the kitchen and without realising it I said "He is a prince and a cute one too." Rosie started to laugh. I realised what I said and started to go red. About half an hour or so later Alex knocked the door. I let him in as he almost always comes around mine for dinner at least once a week. "Here comes the cute prince!" Rosie shouted out as I lead him to the kitchen.
"He's not the cute prince. He's like the dragon now you've said that." I replied. Poor Alex looked so confused. Babe was laughing in the corner I said that I didn't summon you and everyone looked at me confused. Alex was going to have so much fun making fun of me. "So my little sister has a crush, who is it so your big brother can hit him and make him not cute?" Alex said and wrapped his arm over my shoulders. I turned my head away from him and they didn't stop bugging me about it all evening. Was I in love? I didn't know what being in love was. I think it's when you would do anything for that person, but I would do anything for Rosie and Cameron. I wasn't in love with them, I just loved them. My head was hurting from all these questions. Maybe I would find the answers if I went to sleep. So I did go to sleep in the end. My last thought was of Charlie. He was in my dream, hugging me and whispering in my ear that I was his princess. I would have stayed in that dream if I hadn't been woken up by someone shouting my name.