Nadia was as bright as a button growing up and as her dad was a mechanic and ran his own garage, she was used to seeing tools lying around all the time. Her mum was always getting on at him to keep a safer environment for their baby girl, and as he was afflicted like a lot of men (born without the tidy gene!) she was banned from his workshop. As a baby the ban worked, but as a toddler, not so much. She found as she reached up as high as she could, the more she reached the more she felt lighter inside. By the time she was walking upright that sensation developed into a sort of invisible force. She could manipulate it to open the handles and get into things and places she wasn't allowed. She was a very worrisome child to have as she was always up to mischief.

As child growing up Nadia was seen as an odd sort of girl. She would be eating her meals and the spoons she'd be using would somehow bend in her hands. At first her parents put it down to faulty cutlery, a weakness in the base metal used. They thought maybe she was banging or bending them to see them out of shape and they'd rebuke her. Nadia wasn't even aware she was doing it, for when the feeling came over her something would happen to the air. Metals would contort and the older she got the more control she had over manipulating that contortion. The hardest part was concentrating so hard to keep focussed and focus her ability. It was exhausting in the early days and she was often caught napping in classes at school. Once she bent the lockers of those who secretly or openly made fun of her at school. She wasn't well liked as nobody understood her, except maybe the boys better. But the older she got it wasn't cars and adventure the boys wanted, they were interested in her for other reasons. That seems to make the girls hate her more, despite her innocence.

She was a breezy fun loving girl who loved mischief and practical jokes, but also she grew up to love cars and engines. She'd pester her dad to let her help in his garage and pay attention as he explained how things worked. She'd tie back her long auburn straight hair, don the overalls her dad had had custom made for her, and just tinker on stuff.
"Now pass that spanner and tighten that bolt to the chassis," her dad would say. At twelve she was already adept at stripping an engine apart, but not quite so good at putting it back together again. By fifteen she was already really helping him do the repairs. She was pulling dents out of cars and reshaping panels even at this age, but she was using her talent to do it.

Fifteen was a pivotal age for her. She wanted to leave school that following year and work with her dad, but her mum wasn't having it. She wasn't academic, and she wasn't at all "girlie" in the traditional sense. She rode a motorbike she'd put together herself. She didn't wear makeup or seem to have an interest in boys, and had very few girl friends. In truth she was a loner of sorts. Guys still liked her wild side and were drawn to her, but when she made it clear she wasn't into risking her reputation they kind of gave her a wide birth. She didn't feel she fitted in.

Nadia had found it hard hiding her abilities from her parents. The spoon bending had gone on for a year before she had it under control. Stress was a major factor. So it didn't help when she was invited out to some girl's birthday party. Her mother wasn't going to let her back out, and in fact it was an invite through her from the other girl's mum. So it wasn't like her classmate even wanted her there. It was at some fancy restaurant that so wasn't her thing. Nadia was more a fast food or diner sort of girl, not some swanky dress-up place where she'd be forced to wear an outfit befitting some Disney princess. But her mum was insisting.
"This is your big chance Nad," she said to her daughter."Verity has connections."
"What? She's just turning sixteen mum, what connections can she possibly have?" Nadia hated all that fakery and rich girl mentality.
"Well her parents do. And you need friends in high places Nad," her mum was adamant she was going and had even laid out an outfit she expected to wear.
"Hmph, I'm not wearing that!" Nadia recoiled at her mums idea of chic, it was like the frilliest dress she'd ever seen.
"Well you're not leaving school, so suck it up and make some opportunities happen." Her mum's last word and she wouldn't be shifted in the matter.

The place was as fancy as she'd expected and the dozen girls there were all the popular ones from her school who hung round with each other. They were the typical mean girls and they all goaded her into feeling very self aware. Nadia was getting more stressed and that wasn't good. She'd already bent three spoons that had spilt and stained three pretty little dresses of those stuck up snobs. A knife they used to cut the cake with had bent so out of shape during the slicing that Verity dropped it in a panic straight into the buttercream topping and it was lost.
"Damn that was hot," she cried checking her hand where the red imprint was still smarting. Nobody suspected Nadia, but it was getting worse as the evening was progressing. When the waiter was taking her dessert order and the girls were laughing at her pronunciation of what she'd like, she saw the trolley itself buckling at the wheels. This was a painful evening and she certainly wasn't going to be friends with these girls. They didn't even give her the chance to be.

Verity's parents showed up towards the end and Nadia was thankful the evening was due to finish.
"Vee darling," said her mother, " me and your father got you a little special present. Here." It was a small box, and the sixteen year old looked crestfallen. Nothing good came in small boxes unless it was expensive jewellery! Nadia saw all the girls cooing as she opened it excitedly.
"Oh ma, pa, thank you so much," she said holding up a set of car keys.
"And we got your first lesson booked in next week sugar," said her father super keen to see his daughter spoiled.
"Oh great," Verity was looking daggers at an unimpressed Nadia. "If it needs fixing we can get Nadia's dad to mend it." She could be snide and hurtful, the other girls tittered. Nadia felt herself going red.
"It's new hunnie," her mum assured her, "it won't need fixing by anyone."
"It will if she raps it round a lamppost," replied Nadia smiling.

It sort of deteriorated after that little jibe. Nadia took their jokes back at her, she was after all a guest. But so stressed was she and angry, that she felt the onset of that strange feeling again pretty soon. She made her excuses as quickly as she could to leave and get out of there. And as she walked through that restaurant, every single bit of cutlery started to bend out of shape on the tables or in the hands of those diners. The path she traced through the hall to the doorway was like a heatwave bending the metal in on itself. Customers dropped their cutlery, and even ladles started to drop what they were serving up as they twisted for no apparent reason. And from the back of the room could be heard...
"My keys, ma my keys, they're melting!"




© .Garry Saunders