Friday came, last day at school. Some of her 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 a Digital Art course and Duncan was going to do Computer Games Design course.
For Ella, it was quite a difficult day. She had only been at the school for one year, they had had to move here when her father changed job, then just before the move, her mother had been diagnosed with cancer, so Ella and her father had worked together packing everything for moving while making daily trips to the hospital. 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.
But she had struggled to make new friends, most people had already buddied up. Then she had met 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, she missed mum terribly of course. He was funny and he always pretended to listen fairly convincingly 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 and picked up all the packages from the neighbours.
Everything was stacked neatly in the corner of her bedroom and they 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 any where near as good as dad had said it would she thought it looked like being a great companion for her next two years studies.
The front door banged shut, dad was home, he called up “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 down the inside of the tank. “Slime now? She asked.
“Gloop now!” chorused from dad and Duncan.
Once again, lid removed, and the gloop eased itself down to the bottom of the tank. There was a very slight fizzing and 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 and pushed the power button, pink light bathed the case, fans whirred and 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 the door of the cabinet in the bathroom open and called “It’s nothing, I don’t need a plaster.” She really appreciated how thoughtful he always was 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, otherwise 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 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 and refusing to change.
Dad said “Ok, this is a kettle and we are watching it, so it won’t boil. How about we think about some food? Are you staying for dinner Duncan?”