Friday came, the last day at school. Some of the people in her school year were staying on there for A Levels, some were going to other High Schools, others, like Ella and Duncan, were off to colleges to take technical courses; hers was Digital Art, and Duncan was going to do a Computer Games Design course; they had both chosen the same college, which she was really happy about.
For Ella, it was quite a difficult day. She had only been at the school for one year; they had been getting ready to move because her father was changing his job, then just before the move, her mother’s cancer had come out of remission. At first, mum’s doctors had been very positive about her progress, but there had been a crisis, a seizure and Ella and dad had arrived at the hospital only to be told that she had just died. After that, the actual move had seemed a good thing, a fresh start.
There had been another downside to it; in all the confusion of the illness and the move, she had lost contact with her anchor. Ella had been adopted as a baby, but she had a birth sister in Ukraine, a twin. In all the confusion of Mum’s death and the move, they had lost track of each other. She missed Mum terribly, of course, but her sister Vesna, they had written to each other, both trying to learn the other’s language, and they had always had someone there, in the background, on their side. And they had a shared passion for myths and legends, both had started as small children with fairy tales, then they had loved Percy Jackson, which inspired them to look at the original Greek myths, where they found out how sanitised the tales had been for the American youth audience. Ella had nearly choked laughing when Vesna wrote to her, ‘PJ, it is nothing like the originals, more like X-Men wearing a toga!’ So then they had explored the Norse, Anglo-Saxon, Germanic and Slavonic myths. Ella envied Vesna’s name, the Southern Slavic goddess of the dawn.
They had also sent diary entries, stories of events and occasionally photos. If one were upset, the other would comfort them. They had joked, shared hopes and dreams. And then, during her mother’s illness, Ella had struggled, become withdrawn, and the contacts became less frequent. And when she did look at her phone, it was full of messages from friends having a good time and partying. In the end, Vesna had said, ‘You need a break. Put the phone down. I will always be here waiting for you when you are ready.’ But then, in 2022, the Russians invaded Ukraine.
Ella texted Vesna immediately, but there was no reply; the number was out of service. Dad rang the home number. That was out of service as well. So they had sent a letter and waited. Ella could tell that Dad was really worried about it, but she felt sure that her sister was fine – it was as if there was a connection between them, and she still felt it. Vesna was alive, Vesna was ok. They had both just had to move suddenly, and one way or another, they would reconnect. But it had left a huge gap; now she missed both her mother and her sister. When they had moved, while she loved the house and the town, it had been hard for her to make new friends because most people at school had already buddied up. She had ended up feeling very lonely.
But then she got to know Duncan. He was one of those people everyone loves, good at sport, good academically, good company, funny, and never mean, and they had just kind of clicked. He had always listened kindly when she was sad. But Duncan was funny, he always pretended, fairly convincingly, to listen when she rambled on about her obsession with ancient mythology, gods and goddesses. She didn’t think her performance was quite as good when he did the same thing about computer games.
The day passed quickly in the end, just a load of people saying goodbye to each other, addresses from some of the teachers, homework for the summer being handed out to those who were staying on there, then by mid-afternoon, she and Duncan were back at her house picking up all the packages from the neighbours.
They stacked everything neatly in the corner of her bedroom and then started work. Or really, Duncan started work; the big case had a large glass front and masses of room for everything. Dad had said they could assemble it all, but they mustn’t load the gloop until he got home; he was really keen to be there for the big finale.
The assembly took less time than she had expected, but Duncan, once she had stopped him crooning over the case, was fast and knew what he was doing. They sat back and admired it. If it was anywhere near as good as dad had said it would be, she thought it looked like a great companion for her next two years of studies.
The front door banged shut. Dad was home. He called up to them, “How are you doing?”
Ella shouted back, “All done, just waiting for you to be ready, and we can put the slime in.”
“Gloop!” he shouted, “Get me coffee while I change, please.”
Ten minutes later, Dad had checked everything over thoroughly and approved their, well, Duncan’s handiwork. He sat back on Ella’s bed, sipped his coffee and said, “Ella would you like to do the honours?”
She went over to the machine, uncorked the distilled water and poured it carefully into the tank. “Slime now? She asked.
“Gloop now!” chorused Dad and Duncan.
Once again, the lid was removed, she poured slowly, and the gloop eased itself down to the bottom of the tank. There was a very slight fizzing and a shimmering; the activation had started.
Dad pointed to the USB key “Switch on, and you should be able to run that now, so everything will be in place once the gloop has cooked. Should be ready first thing in the morning, from what Geoff said”
Ella pushed the power button, and the pink light bathed the case. Fans whirred, and Ella stuck the key in the slot on the front of the machine, then stood sucking her finger while it loaded.
Duncan asked, “Is your finger ok?”
“Yes, it’s fine, just a little nick, I think there was a rough edge to the glass on the jar.”
Duncan got up and left the room. She heard him opening the bathroom cabinet. She called out to him, “It’s nothing, I don’t need a plaster.” She really appreciated how thoughtful he always was, though, and actually, yes, tiny but deep, it really did need a plaster. He came back with a small pack of plasters. She held out the finger, he applied a plaster and returned the pack to the bathroom.
As he returned, a box appeared on the monitor. “System Settings”
Ella read through “Dad, I don’t think I am going to need to do anything more than put a name in?”
“Geoff said as much. The defaults will be fine. Another mythological creature?” said Dad. “I still haven’t forgiven you for calling my laptop Weird.”
“It is not Weird, it is Wyrd, the goddess of fate, as you well know, and yes, I have already chosen the name for this one. It will be called Eostre.”
Duncan chipped in, “The goddess of dawn, because that is about when she should arrive with us?”
Ella nodded, “I didn’t know you listened to anything I said when I ramble about mythology, yes, the goddess of dawn, new beginnings and also the source of the word Easter, with which the early Christians replaced her feast.”
Duncan nodded, “I do find all that stuff really interesting, I am not just into computer games, you know. “I’ll type”, he smiled, pointing to her finger ”, you are crippled.”
He typed ‘EOSTRE’ into the box and clicked on OK. The box disappeared, and the screen displayed a message saying “Phase 1 …… 2%”. They sat and looked at the number just stuck there, refusing to change.
Dad said, “Ok, this is a kettle, and we are watching it, so it will never boil. How about we think about some food? Are you staying for dinner, Duncan?”