Tamalia Kamachii

• Kate-Maree McAllan, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2013

The Kamachii family. A bloodline of people who are all very important in society for their well-mannered members and for their wealth. Kamachii is a secret name given to those who wield extraordinary powers descending from the magical race called Rachus. Rachus are legendary creatures with features that resemble centaurs, but in addition they have the horns of a ram that are found popping out of their heads just behind their human-shaped ears. The family still holds incredible magical powers, but they no longer have the looks of a Rachus because of how many generations have passed. Members of this family usually unlock the full extent of their power at the age of 12, or at least once they reach their puberty stage. Humans with the Rachus look have recently become extinct, and no longer resemble any type of animal at all, especially a wild one at that (Rachus were known for causing a ruckus). But one young member of the Kamachii family was born with these tiny horns just behind their ears. And those horns are the one thing that makes them different form the rest of the already strange family.
It was a perfect morning. The breeze was flowing through the air at a strength just great enough to pluck the early-bloomed frangipanis from their fragile branches. The garden that wound its way through the front of the big house had flower beds in the center and on the outside giant cherry blossom trees shed their tiny petals everywhere covering the ground in a thick layer of petals. A fairly big stream slithered around it all as its surface was shrouded in a whir of yellow, white and pink. As the flowers fell outside the window, and the birds played their familiar, cheery songs, a small white-haired girl woke and stretched vigorously whilst her mouth opened in a big yawn. She threw off her bed sheets and made her way to the patterned cupboard picking out her dress for the day. She chose a simple long-sleeved black hoodie which she tucked into the white high-waisted-denim shorts, underneath them was grey stockings that matched up with the shiny black shoes on her feet. It was a nice day and she was far too lazy to do anything with her crazy hair, so she brushed it and left it down so that it swiftly covered the tiny horns behind her ears.
“Miss Kamachii, your breakfast is ready.” A tall, brown haired maid walked into her room holding a silver tray that held a china tea set and two pieces of toast smeared in butter and cinnamon sugar. “Thank you Lilac,” the girl replied as she took the tray from the maid’s hands and placed it on her desk neatly by the untidy bed. “But you can call me Tamalia. Miss Kamachii sounds far too formal.” Lilac nodded her head and gave a small courtesy, “understood Miss Tamalia.” And with that the maid left the room and made her way to the kitchen. Tamalia then sat at the desk and ate her food. When she was finished she placed her leftovers and the tray that held them into the basket by the door before grabbing her brown-leather bag and making her way to the main room of the mansion of a house.
“I’m off to school Mother. I’ll see you this afternoon.” She stated to the blonde lady sitting on the lounge with her face stuffed in one of those new floating-self-operated computer screens. “Ok, bye.” The woman replied motionlessly as she poked the hovering screen in front of her and opened a tab connecting her mentally to the internet.
“Why does she always ignore me like that?” Tamalia thought to herself as she clutched her schoolbag and walked towards the small skateboard leaning on the dining table. “Nobody would think we are related.”
“Welcome to another fine October morning!” The electronic billboard welcomed as she zoomed past it down the street careful not to hit any rocks or small stones as she curved her board. “This morning will be a cool 25 degree followed by a relaxing 27 degree by midday and heating up to 30 degrees throughout the evening.” The robotically functioned voice trailed off as she ventured further and further away from it. Tamalia could feel the breeze in her face and she tried not to care about the tens of flowers that were plucked from the branches of the colourful trees around her by the wind before landing in her thick white hair. Suddenly, she jumped off of her board and picked it up as she came across an intersection where hundreds of loud cars flew past in coloured blurs. “Look both ways before you cross.” Another billboard overhead from Tamalia began to play its same old boring video that it played every day warning people of the risks of accidents. “Yep.” Tamalia sighed as the pedestrian crossing lights flashed green and she walked across the dark road aimlessly. Then, out of the blue, horns from cars around her called out like a warning call. She turned to look in the direction of the sound, she knew that she shouldn’t have, she should have run, or at least quickly walked back to the path by the road, out of the way, out of danger. But it was too late. When she turned her heart seemed to speed up ten times its normal pace as she came in contact with a giant vehicle. And as lucky as the day was going already, it was a truck. And because of her carelessness she was in too late to escape and she was already in the dangerous clutches of the metallic machine that rammed into her, crushing her bones before the kinetic energy passed through it and sent her flying towards other vehicles smashing their windscreens. She screamed in agonising pain and she felt something in her leg that made her wince like she had never done before. And her arm felt as though it had been ripped from its sockets and its bones been smashed into millions of tiny pieces. The truck, after pausing for a moment, abruptly started up again and reversed backwards before driving around the girl’s limp body lying on the ground. You would think that they driver would have some sort of regret, a pinch of remorse, or at least pity. But it revved its stupid engine and continued towards its intended destination. Not one thing, not even the once cheery birds which sang their once cheery songs, made any type of noise for several moments. Then, everything seemed to explode with noise.
“Red alert! Red alert!” Sirens attached to the traffic lights exploded with sudden sound as Tamalia remained lying till on the bitumen. Little hatches opened in the sides of the traffic lights and tiny flying robots came out of the side with red painted crosses on their metallic chests. “Code 000.” Beeped one of the larger robots with extra blue striped down inside. “Command understood.” The other robots beeped obeying its orders and in unison all flying over to Tamalia as she began to sit up while holding her arms. She looked across the road and saw her brown bag and its contents sprawled out on the floor only meters away from where she waited for the lights to change earlier. She stood to her feet, and ignored the mini robots as they tried to help her. She gently placed her belongings into the bag, and then picked it up, and continued to walk to school with her hand draped over her injured elbow. The robots stopped and watched her as she walked off. I’m not sure if they were confused, or offended because of the way she simply ignored them. But after longer examination they flew off back to the commander robot. “She seems to be perfectly fine, sir.” One stated before returning to the hatch in the pole. The boss robot beeped a few times, starred at the small girl walking away slowly then it joined the others as the small gap closed.
That was the first time Tamalia had used her powers, and it definitely was not the last. She would have died if it weren’t for the funny yet calming glowing sensation coming from the tiny horns behind her ears that strangely calmed her down. She knew that she wasn’t hurt, badly. It was just a matter of how quickly she healed herself. Not that she knew that she could do that at the time. It sort of just, came to her. Like when you play a computer or a console game for the first time. In the beginning you don’t know what you’re supposed to be doing, but there’s something in the back of your mind that knows what to do already, but there are few people that listen to it. It was definitely not Tamalia’s average day. When she arrived at school with no injuries at all, what she didn’t know was that someone had videoed the incident and uploaded it to the internet, so everyone knew what happened, except, they didn’t know what really happened. Only she knew that, the only other person that knew what happened was the mysterious person who got it all on camera. But the mysteriousness of that person needs to be solved another time, in another story. Or perhaps you already know the story, perhaps there’s this small, quiet voice in the back of your mind screaming the answer at you.
You just need to listen.