Mr. Sweet Meets the Chosen One

Chapter 1

Chapter 1Adrian

Looking at it from a rational point of view, I should probably say no. No would definitely be the sane answer, but sanity isn’t always my friend. So instead I say, “Of course,” when she asks if she could come in. It would be cruel to refuse her request; sane but cruel. And I can’t bear cruelty.

So young Ms. Evans gingerly closes the classroom door and walks up to my desk. I don’t budge. I’m still a little in shock after witnessing her float during recess. No exaggeration either, and definitely no figure of speech. She was bloody floating a good twenty centimetres above the ground.

It was behind the rugby pitch, and I had made my rounds at break time to see who was lurking in the shrubbery. The little ones like to hang out back there, building faerie castles out of sticks and conkers, or climbing the old maple tree.

What I didn’t think I would find was Liliwen Evans, year three, suspended in mid-air by all means as though falling infinitesimally slowly. She was also sobbing her eyes out. She looked startled and scared.

For lack of a better response, I went with, “Liliwen, for Pete’s sake, what are you doing up there?”

She shrugged miserably.

“I can’t come down anymore, Mr. Sweet. I forgot how!”

My name isn’t Sweet, but one generation of students started with this, and it has stuck. I have long given up correcting them, and I was never really cross to begin with. As far as nicknames go it’s really quite endearing.

“Oh dear,” I replied, trying to keep my wits about me. In twelve years at Enchanted Meadow Primary this was a first for me, and my usual response to anything (literally anything, not just the weird and unusual) in life is to keep a stiff upper lip.

Very awkwardly I took her hands and tried to guide her back down. She felt like an inflated balloon, the kind that are filled with gas and keep tugging at their ribbons to float high up in the air. I encountered no resistance and was able to gently guide her down. As soon as her feet touched the grassy ground, I felt her body become heavier, less like a balloon and more like a healthy seven-year-old.

Instead of thanking me, she ran away.

I didn’t pursue her.

Until now I have done a very good job pretending the entire incident has been a trick of my imagination.

But now she is standing in front of me, in my very own classroom, after everybody else has gone home or has been picked up.

“Aren’t you being picked up by your aunt?” I ask.

She nods. It seems that now she’s actually here with me she’s run out of words.

“What were you doing behind the bushes all by yourself, Liliwen?” I ask. Because “Why were you floating in mid-air?” is not the kind of question I want to ask. “Were the others bullying you again?”

Liliwen is a little on the dreamy side, and she lives with a rather eccentric aunt; there were bullying incidents last year.

“I go there when I feel like flying a bit,” she replies, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, right after building faerie castles. “Don’t tell my auntie! I’m not allowed to fly outside!” Scraping together all her courage, she quickly says, “You’re magic, Mr. Sweet.” And then she puts something on my desk, quick as lightning, and rushes off.

I notice her sneakers don’t make any sound as she runs, and part of me instinctively knows that it’s because her feet don’t touch the ground. She doesn’t just float randomly; she seems to walk on air entirely.

The door slams shut, and out of habit I call after her, “We don’t slam doors!”

She probably doesn’t hear me anyway, but it feels good to say something normal after what I have just been told. So today’s incident hasn’t even been a singularity. How long has she been able to fly? Can she even fly or is it just aimless drifting? Is it something she can control? How? Why? Is this a side effect of the climate change? The trauma of losing her parents? Long Covid?

Overwhelmed by these questions, to which I know no answer, I look at the object she has so unceremoniously dropped on my desk by way of thanking me.

It’s a conker. Because of course it is. Floating or no floating, Liliwen Evans is still a seven-year-old child who believes that a perfectly round conker is the most treasured gift in the world.

It makes my heart swell. What a sweet kid.

A sweet kid that floats.

I leave the chestnut on my desk, tidy up the classroom and catch the bus home. I watch people’s feet all the way to my place, but they all seem stuck to the ground.

* * * *

It’s a short walk from the bus stop. Down the little footpath across the co-op, and a left turn onto Victoria Avenue. It’s my parents’ house. I inherited it after they both passed away. Both sets of grandparents lived in this neighbourhood as well. I believe we’re seventh generation Porthcawlers, we are. It’s embarrassing how unadventurous we are, but I like it that way. Mum and Dad were born and raised here, so were their respective parents, so was I. I didn’t even leave here for uni; I just took the train to Cardiff every day.

For a wild moment, I’m tempted to herald my return with a quirky, “Honey, I’m home!” as I used to do when I was still a student (Mum and Dad had passed by then from cancer, and the house felt oppressively lonesome for a couple of years. They had me when they were already in their late forties; a blessing from the fairies my father always called me). Except, I’m not a student anymore, and it stopped being funny decades ago. There was never anyone there to answer me anyway, except the dust bunnies under my bed.

Entertaining the idea of someone answering me, of living with anyone, I hang up my dripping wet coat (it started to rain ten minutes ago, and I left my brolly at home this morning) and slide my messenger bag in its designated corner by the coat rack.

It would be nice to come home with someone. Chat on the way, laugh at the sudden rainfall, banter as we’re hanging up our coats together. I would wrap off his scarf and steal a kiss from him as I do so. He’d grin and call me cheeky, but then he’d pull me in for a proper kiss. We wouldn’t be wet, either, because he wouldn’t have forgotten his brolly. And the kiss is glorious, because his full beard is scratchy and soft at the same time. It’s a caress of its own.

I stop my imaginary scenario when I realize the man in my daydream looks like our caretaker. The new one, who started last year and replaced Elaine. Elaine and her eternal chit-chat, her whistling, her utter impatience with children who knocked over stuff with their footballs. She got married and moved to Cardiff, because her wife works for the Welsh BBC, and good riddance, I say. So we got Mr. Achilles, who doesn’t really talk, never whistles (thank heavens!), and never yells at the children.

No idea if Achilles is his first or last name, but it’s what the kids call him: Mr. Achilles. And he really does look like a Greek hero: sun-kissed skin, sea blue eyes, ruthless hair. He’s stocky yet muscular; kind of like a Clydesdale stallion. I’ve seen tattoos peeking out from under his shirt when this particular item of clothing rode up one day as he was stood on a stepladder, reaching to get a ball off the top of the shed. An intriguing display of ink and muscles.

I knew I was staring, but I couldn’t look away. I wanted to touch his skin so badly in that moment it was embarrassing.

Ever since then I’ve been trying to avoid him, yet every day I fail spectacularly at that. Somehow, I keep bumping into him. So far we’ve managed to literally walk into each other at least a dozen times, find ourselves using the same door at the same time nearly twice a week, got paired up at the All-Staff Summer Olympics (we won, though!), and met in the gent’s so many times that I seriously considered using the toilets in the coffee shop on the other side of the road from now on. He makes me feel helpless, and sweaty, and like I don’t know English words anymore; like a teenager with a crush.

Which I’m not. I’m thirty-five years old, and I’m done with love. No Mr. Achilles to walk me home, no handsome husband to kiss me senseless, no perfect partner in the near or distant future.

People like me don’t get that, I suppose. I learned that lesson a while ago.

I decide on beans and toast for dinner, because all that pondering on perfect boyfriends has made me too morose and impatient to cook up anything proper.

Also, shopping is hard, and my fridge is stuffed with odds and ends that don’t really combine to make a decent meal.

But I find a leftover cupcake in the fridge that I had forgotten about, so that will be my highlight of the day today! Vanilla cupcake with raspberry frosting and sprinkles. From the bakery by the bus station. Expensive, but worth every penny.

After dinner, I should get a head start on the end-of-term paperwork. But I can’t bring myself to sit down and do it.

Tomorrow.

Or perhaps next week.

Bed now, with a book. The new romance novel came in the mail today. Because I enjoy torturing myself, I guess. Living vicariously through my romance novel heroes is making my own existence less mundane.

Because what really is there in life except going to work in the morning, coming back home in the afternoon, and filling the meaningless void in between with cupcakes?

* * * *

I help Mr. Achilles carry a couple of desks from the year four classroom to the cellar the next day. It’s during break time, and I have nothing to do (no break duty on Tuesdays), so I drift around aimlessly in the corridor looking for something to busy myself with. Sitting around in the staff room is not my cup of tea. I don’t enjoy sitting still. But out here, something or other is always happening.

When I see our handsome caretaker and panically try to avoid him, I actually lose directions and walk towards him instead of away from him.

I want to just keep walking, because I don’t think he has seen me, yet, but I simply can’t. The desks are well heavy, and the stairs to the cellar are steep and narrow. So as he’s trying to push himself and the desk through the cellar door, I tap him on the shoulder and ask if he needs a hand.

Stupid question. It’s obvious he needs a hand. I probably should have just offered instead of asking. So I apologize for interrupting his work.

The Greek god smiles at me.

“Much appreciated. You sure, though? It’s heavy lifting.”

“I can lift,” I say, taken aback a little. It sounds as though he thinks me weak.

I am weak, but he doesn’t know that, and I hope I don’t look it.

A chuckle escapes his perfect lips—I can barely make them out beneath his beard.

“Didn’t mean it like that. I don’t want you to look all flustered and sweaty in the classroom later just because you helped me out.”

Well, he’s the one who gets me all flustered and sweaty, so never mind the heavy lifting.

I don’t say that, obviously. I smile and push up my glasses (they slide down all the time, I guess it’s the heavy frame) instead, and then I just grab one end of the desk.

“Chop chop,” I say.

So we carry the two desks downstairs, and, by George, am I flustered and sweaty afterwards. Mr. Achilles isn’t. He looks perfectly collected.

He locks the cellar door again and thanks me. Then he steps close and brushes his hand over my hair.

“Cobwebs,” he says by way of an apology.

Why doesn’t he have cobwebs in his hair?

* * * *

It’s Friday. My calendar says so. The week after Liliwen Evans’ involuntary flying incident. I’ve been keeping an eye on her, and my initial gut feeling was right: she actually never sets foot on solid ground. Even when she sits down, she seems to hover a few millimetres above her seat. It’s a wonder nobody notices, but I assume it’s not something people would look for.

Liliwen isn’t in my class, I teach year two right now, but she finds me more often than before. I notice her moving in my peripheral vision. She smiles when she catches me watching her, and I nod, because I don’t want to seem creepy.

I do the Friday Aftercare Reading Club after lessons end, and by the time I’m ready to head home it’s five thirty and I’m making excuses.

I’m still at my desk in my classroom after I’ve dismissed the Reading Club group. There is homework in my drawer I could correct at home, staying true to the name in every aspect, but if I do it here…

There’s a chance I might…

It’s Friday, after all.

Yes. There he is.

How can anyone look this composed and attractive after doing school maintenance all day? Perhaps he really is a Greek god. I recently found out that there are flying children, so why not gods as well?

I’m being silly. I should concentrate on correcting my students’ homework assignments.