Sounds of shouting and confusion reached her ears after a moment and she lifted her throbbing head once more to survey the area. Confusion filled her. Was she on the roof?
"Where is she?" she heard a boy bellow. "I thought you said she turned in here!"
"I saw her!" another boy cried.
"Obviously not. She's not here!"
The two going back and forth sounded like the pair of Dudley's goons she had just been running from. Heri crept over the to the edge and peered down. There, looking like the stupid apes they were, was Piers and Malcolm, Dudley's main enforcers. One would have thought that after months of not being about to lay a finger on her they would lay off by now. Obviously, she overestimated them.
She shuffled back from the edge on her rear and took a moment to settle her heart-rate. She had done something odd again. She had run into a dead end and tried to jump behind a pair of trash cans welded into place in a wooden shelter. Next thing she knew, she was on the roof.
Heri got to her feet and walked the perimeter of the roof. It was mostly bare besides the door. She tried the handle; the door was locked as well. She let out a huff of frustration. How the hell was she supposed to get down then? She wasn't about to jump, she was two floors up!
She tried the handle again, this time trying to channel the oddness that got her there in the first place. If her weirdness could fix clothes and let her teleport, it was reasonable to think that it might unlock a door for her.
Twist, twist, jiggle—click.
Heri beamed. It had worked! She opened the door and hurried down the stairs as fast as she could without falling. There was still a few minutes of recess left and she didn't want to get in trouble because the teachers couldn't find her.
As she sprinted back toward the play area outside, Heri couldn't help but wonder what else she could do with her powers.
St. Grogory's Primary School soon became a place of the strangest accidents.
By the time Heri was in third-year, she was well known among the teachers as an observer. While the other children vied for attention and couldn't be bothered to see too far beyond their own interests, Heri sat quietly and watched. Unless chosen to answer questions or demonstrate something for class, she only ever watched.
"She's always watching," said Mr. Tisdale, Heri's gym teacher, unease in his tone as he spoke with other teachers during lunch.
While some of the teachers looked at Mr. Tisdale strangely at being unhappy with a child who always paid attention, there were many that agreed with the sentiment.
Heri saw far more than others thought she did. With her quiet, unobtrusive presence, she ended up being privy to many secrets. Far more than they'd ever want her to.
She had sat out in the corridors, looking through a book before classes, and watched as a fourth-year student went down the halls, opening lockers and taking things out of them. He wore worn clothing that was as scruffy as hers were and he had a sly look about him. She had seen him do similarly twice before, but he had become extra shifty now that the school administration was cracking down about the thefts.
She had been in the lavatory and overheard a couple of the older girls talking about boys that they liked. One girl was talking about dumping the boy she was currently 'dating' since she had only been with him out of pity anyway and she had her sights on another boy whose well-off parents gave him lots of pocket-money.
Just before walking into the classroom one day, she had overheard her homeroom teacher talking excitedly on the phone with a friend about trying for a baby with her husband.
"I think we're finally ready," the woman had said. "Adam's stopped drinking so we'll have a stable environment for the baby."
She had been sent during recess to deliver a stack of worksheets to a teacher overseeing detention. Only a few students had detention that hour, not even a handful. Out of the small number, there was a sixth-form boy, Terrence Wright, known for his bad attitude belied by a pretty face. She had paused in the open doorway and waited to be acknowledged by the teacher, but he was occupied keeping a keen eye on the delinquents he was supervising. A bit too keen of an eye when his sights reached Wright. Heri saw quite clearly the gleam in the man's eyes before he noticed Heri standing there.
Heri did not try to hide that she had seen the way he had looked at Wright. Judging by the tense way he greeted her and received the worksheets, he knew very well that she was onto him.
There was little that Heri missed when people let themselves become complacent in her presence. Whether they wanted her to or not, she was always watching.
Heri was hiding beside a fruit stand. A lumbering brute was not ten feet away from her, glaring around the area in search of her. She ducked farther down when he turned in her direction and held her breath.
Heri had been dragged out grocery shopping with her aunt and cousin. She had been told to push the cart around as her aunt looked for deals and Dudley dragged packages upon packages of junk-food back to the cart. Every now and then Aunt Petunia would scold her for slouching or 'looking like a wastrel.' Dudley would make faces at her as he bumped her on his way in search of sugary trash. Heri had been bored out of her mind just before the hairs on the back of her neck rose.
She turned slowly to see what was amping up her danger senses. There, looking ridiculous hold a shopping basket between his forefinger and thumb, was a giant man with one eye. And by giant, she meant giant; his shoulders were level with the top of the shelves. He also had only one eye. As she took in the sight of him and tried to make sense of it, he caught sight of her as well. Knowing better than to stay in place while strange things were happening, Heri booked it around the aisle while her aunt wasn't looking.