Nowhere Girl

Chapter 1

What would you say if someone told you that you were soon to be the hero of a story, and that the story would be read by nearly everyone of your generation, and then by the parents of everyone in your generation? What would you do if someone told you that you, your friends, and the world as you knew it was in danger, and that only you – yes, just you – were the person who could save it?

I know what I would say – and for one simple reason. I was told exactly that.

Looking back, I'm still surprised at how I reacted. I didn't laugh, scream or even cry. I said nothing. I just walked away. It was like I didn't hear him.

More like I didn't want to hear him.

I knew he was sort of right, though, that's the thing. And that's not because I'm an egotistical maniac, or because I'm superman's lovechild or anything. It's because I've always known that I was born to do something significant, something momentous. I could sense behind the furtive whispers of my parents that I was somehow different, 'special' as it's often euphemistically put. I had also discovered very early on that I was not my parents' biological child. I was someone else's child, and no one had ever found my real parents.

Sometimes I heard my mother raise her voice, when she was with my father in their bedroom, and she would take it to that high hysterical pitch which would send a shiver down my spine. And she would screech, absolutely screech, that she had no idea, absolutely no bloody idea where I'd come from.

It would go through a bit of a routine. Five minutes of hysteria, a few moments of kind undistinguishable mumblings from my father, meant to placate her, then five more minutes of an even louder shouting, and then, finally, harsh, heartbroken sobs. The tortured moans seemed to pull my mother down to the floor. These might last let's say ten minutes. Then, my father would shuffle out of the bedroom, walk downstairs and get my mother a glass of cold water. He always searched in the cupboard for the exact same glass, as if this glass and no other would be the one with the power to calm my mother down. It was a tall slim glass, with a band of gold around its rim. It was a very pretty glass, and it seemed to hold all the hope of the world in it. At least to my father I think it did.

He was right, after a fashion. Slowly, my mother would quieten down, and after a while she usually fell asleep, worn out after all the emotion. But just between the glass of water and the falling asleep I would hear her plead with him, begging him for the answer - why, but why did it happen, how could the hospital could have sent them home with me, rather than the baby she had given birth to...?

I asked them, of course, about this. When my mother came downstairs the next morning for breakfast, eyes puffy still from the previous evening, I asked – aren't I your actual child? Where is your real child? Who am I? Why didn't my parents come to find me?

But there had been a mix up. Another woman had taken the child who my mother had given birth to, and had left her child - me - instead. The hospital searched their records for who this other woman was, but it turned out that she had fabricated all the details about herself. The police took over the investigation but also failed to find out anything about her.

Why did my actual mother abandon me? What did she know about me to think that a stranger's baby would be better?

I would look in the mirror. I would stand in front of the full-length mirror propped up against the wall in my bedroom. I looked at every inch, but I could find nothing strange, nothing to make my natural mother blanch and abandon me, to take another baby instead of me. I can't tell you how old I was when I started this habit, but I know it went on like an obsession until, well, until...

Until he came and told me, that it was me who would save the world.

***

When people first hear about this story, they think I'll be a boy. Most heroes are boys. It is a more manly type of thing, saving the world. They think a hero will be handsome, will be strong. Saving the world, in particular, seems to suggest a real action sort of hero.