Chapter two

"It is gone Alexandra, it's gone without a trace look!"

I was sitting in a couch that was in Ms Blatova's bedroom, which also doubled as her office. It had a bed on one side and a desk and some chairs on the other. Ms Blatova was lying on the bed as Alexandra was closely inspecting her leg while Veronica was sitting next to me with her arms wrapped around me. She had draped a blanket around my shoulders after I had started shivering following what had happened outside. I was munching on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich she made me while sipping from a mug of hot chocolate that Veronica only makes when someone was sick. After the weird thing that had happened with Ms Blatova's leg I became a little dizzy and very hungry, in fact this was the third sandwich I was eating.

Veronica leaned towards me and asked, "Are you alright little buttercup?(that's her nickname for me) The way you are putting away those sandwiches is starting to scare me. Slow down, they aren't going to run away you know."

I smiled up at her kind pudgy face,"I'm okay V(that's my nickname for her) I was really hungry at first but now I'm just enjoying the sandwich."

Veronica smiled and gave my shoulder a little squeeze," That's good buttercup, if you feel that anything is wrong my room is always open, OK ?"

I just nodded and continued to eat the sandwich.

Meanwhile, Alexandra had finished her inspection of Ms Blatova's leg and had a puzzled look on her face,"The damage to your joint's cartilage seems to have healed, your joint can now bend normally without the bones rubbing against one another. It appears that the osteoarthritis in this leg has vanished, of course that's impossible but there is no inflammation and you have full mobility . If you told a doctor that you had osteoarthritis on this knee two hours ago he would tell you to stop wasting his time, hell if I didn't know any better I'd say you were misdiagnosed when they told you you had arthritis. I need to take you to the hospital to perform some more tests, but from my initial assessment the results will probably be just as confusing. Osteoarthritis is not something that simply goes away like a cold, mom what the hell is happening ?"

"It was her, it was Peter ! She was staring at my leg and the pain was suddenly gone!"

"Mom, be reasonable. She was looking at your leg when it happened, but you don't think that a six year old child fixed your leg just by staring at it, do you? "

"I know it sounds insane , but I am sure it was her! She even collapsed after it happened, it had to be her!"

"Fine mom, if you insist we can talk to Peter. But calm down and let me do the talking, I don't think you are in the proper mind set to talk to a child."

The two finished their private conversation and turned their attention towards me .I wonder why adults sometimes assume that a child can't hear their conversation if it is not directed at him/her even though they are in the same room. I had heard everything Ms Blatova and Alexandra had been saying and although I didn't understand most of their conversation it seemed like Ms Blatova was blaming me for something. I didn't want to get into anymore trouble so I decided I wasn't going to tell them what really happened, so when Alexandria approached me and asked me if I knew anything about what had happened I vehemently denied it. Every time I denied what had happened, Ms Blatova seemed to get more and more angry until she finally started shouting in my face,

"I know you are lying you little brat, how dare you sit there lying to me. I have taught kids for forty years ,you think your feeble attempt is going to fool me? Tell the truth, tell the truth right now!"

Alexandra finally had to push Ms Blatova back ,"Mother , what are you doing? You are scaring her! I was willing to humor you on your crazy hypothesis , but I will not let you harm the children in any way, physical or psychological. Why are you even upset ? You had your leg healed , why are you shouting at Peter as if she committed a crime?"

That was the final thing I heard because at that moment Veronica took me out of the office and led me towards my bed. She apologized on her mother's behalf and told me to go to sleep. I was pretty tired from the day's events so I immediately got under the covers and dozed off.

* * *

For the next three weeks Ms Blatova watched me like a hawk .

I don't know what she was expecting but nothing weird had happened since the leg incident. The only thing that has changed were the strange dreams I've been having and the strange things that I sometimes caught in the very corner of my eyes. Whenever I tried to turn around to see what it was it would vanish, but this could all be explained away as a child's overactive imagination.

One afternoon Anna and I were playing a game of tic-tac-toe that Anna had invented where instead of writing down the 'x's and 'o's we drew them on rocks and threw them from a distance at the grid. What made the game fun was that you could knock the opponents piece away with your own, so the game could last much longer than a normal tic-tac-toe game. That afternoon we were having one of our most intense games and I threw my piece sharply knocking away Anna's piece, which sailed away and fell by a pair of black shiny shoes. I looked up to see who the shoes belong to and saw a man wearing a black suit and red tie. He had brown eyes and light brown wavy hair, he was followed by a pretty woman in a fancy looking blue green dress. Behind them was Ms Blatova.

The man looked over at me and asked Ms Blatova," Is that her?"

"Yes , that's Peter."

"Wait, you still call her by that ridiculous name?"

I was a little upset that he would insult my name but I was too shy to say anything, Anna on the other hand was not as shy as me.

"Who are you to call my friend's name ridiculous?"

The man knelt down on one knee in front of me and said," You may not remember me but I am the one who gave you that name."