Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Tabula Rasa

Chapter 10

"Let me work my magic rookie."

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“FINLAND?!”

“Yes.”

“What kind of cases live in Finland?!”

“Cold-proof ones?”

“Not funny!”

To my huge shock, our next case is located in Finland. But Malice seems to like the idea of the frozen country in the middle of the north-pole.

“Where’s Finland anyway?”

“You really don’t know Sam?”

“No! But I heard that penguins live there!”

“No they don’t. And Finland is between Sweden and Russia. Penguins don’t live even on the same side of the planet!”

“They don’t?”

“No, they don’t.” Kaoru sighs.

“So why are we going there?”

“Ah, that’s something we have to talk about: this one is a case we have to prevent from an early death.”

“But aren’t we supposed to deal only with…you know…already dead cases?”

“Not always. From time to time we gotta make sure some people don’t become our cases.”

I sigh.

“So what do we do to make that happen?”

“We spend time with them.”

“WHAT?! But…we’re already-”

“Dead? Yeah, what about it?”

“…how can we possibly spend time with them like that?”

“Easy. We become solid and visible to the human world.”

“What?!”

“Oh chill out, it’s only temporary.”

“…why doesn’t that make me feel any better?”

“’Cause it came from the mouth of the evil woman?”

“Shut up redhead. This is none of your business.”

Sam pouts.

“C’mon Sam, let’s go.” Kaoru grabs Sam’s arm and starts dragging her towards the door. Sam waves at me before the door closes and leaves me and Malice alone in the room.

“So, any more questions?”

“What kind of person are we dealing with then?”

Malice smirks.

“You’ll see.”

~*~*~*~*~

After the quick visit to the teleportation house we have arrived in…somewhere.

“Malice, where are we?”

“This lovely little town in the middle of nowhere is Koria.”

“Korea?”

“No, Koria. K-O-R-I-A.”

”Okay, I get it.”

”Great. So now off to our case.”

“Which is…?”

Malice points at a house on the other side of the street.

“Over there.”

“And we get there how?”

“We won’t go there.”

“Then how do we -”

“We meet up with her at school.”

“School?”

“Yup, school. Surely you know what school is?”

“Yes, I do.”

“So no problem.”

“…so when do we-”

“Go to her school? In exactly…” she looks at her watch “5 minutes.”

“What?”

Then I notice where exactly we are. A bus stop. And yes, there come the teens.

“How do we get this done without having to explain why we both speak only English?” I’m panicking right now.

“Relax. We can speak in all languages now that you have your powers. Just focus on what language you wanna speak and the rest is easy.”

I don’t get to answer her because the kids are already too close to us.

They’re chatting and laughing and doing all the normal stuff.

Malice pokes me and points at one girl behind a group of boys.

She has a short blonde hair and grey eyes. She’s wearing a dark blue blouse and jeans. She has a black bag and she’s staring at the ground while walking.

Well this sure looks promising.

“Hei, ketä te ootte?” (Hey, who are you?) So people have already noticed us.

“Ei kuulu sulle.” (None of your business.) Malice sounds almost too confident.

“No kyl se meille kuuluu. Ootteks te te uusii tääl vai?” (Well it is our business. You new here or something?)

“Joo mut kyl me pärjätään.” (Yeah but we’ll be fine.) The bus arrives. All the kids go in.

~*~*~*~*~

“Now what?” I whisper to Malice, who’s sitting next to me.

“Better move to mind-talking.”

“To what?”

-Mind-talking.-

I jump a little. I can hear her in my head.

-How do you do that?-

-It’s easy, just focus on what you think and I hear it. Not that I wouldn’t hear it all the time whether you focus on it or not.-

-Like this?-

-Yeah.-

-So what do we do now?-

-We go to her school. We’ll be attending all her classes. Let’s try to get close to her for now.-

-Oh. Okay.-


Our case is sitting next to us. She’s listening to her mp3-player and looking out the window.

-Doesn’t look too social.-

-She isn’t.-

-So how exactly do we get close to her?-

-Let me work my magic rookie. Just try not to blow us.-

I pout. We sit quietly for the rest of the trip.

~*~*~*~*~

Once we arrive to our destination and get off the bus Malice starts to walk towards the school building right behind our case.

We follow her to the classroom 15. Sitting in the classroom is a girl with pretty boyish clothes.

“Moi.” (Hey.)

“Moi. Kuule, mä unohin tehä läksyt ja-” (Hey. Listen, I forgot to do my homework and-)

”Taas vaihteeksi.” (For a change.)

”No joo. Mut saanks mä kopsata sulta, pliis? Muista YYA-sopimus!” (Well yeah. But can I copy yours, please? Remember the YYA contract!)

(A/N: The YYA stands for ystävyys, yhteistyö, avunanto (friendship, cooperation, aid) and it’s a contract between the Soviet Union and Finland. It’s a complicated thing to explain, but mainly it was about the Soviet Union helping us if we go to a war and the opposite but it was to be negotiated first. We had to learn that stuff in history class. My friend uses the same thing but now it means that she can copy my stuff if she needs to. That’s the aid. I have no idea how the rest of it works. )

“Joo joo.” (Yeah yeah.)

The girl smiles widely.

The rest of the class enters. Well, the rest of the girls. I don’t see any guys.

The teacher enters.

“Te ootte varmaan ne uudet tyypit. Oottakaas hetki nii mä esittelen teidät.” (You must be the new guys. Wait a minute so I can introduce you.)

She looks around the room.

“Missäs pojat on?” (Where are the boys?)

“Kytiksellä taas.” (On a look-out again.)

(A/N: The guys in my class do that. They wait in the main hallway for the teacher so that they don’t have to come to the classroom so early. A very stupid system.)

The boys finally enter the classroom.

“Kytiksellä taas vai?” (On the look-out again huh?)

“Ei kun ne on ollu tupakkanurkalla!” (No they’ve been to the smoking corner!) (A/N: A place where all the smoking students go sate their need for nicotine.)

The guys laugh confidently, like they own the world. The teacher shakes her head.

“Menkääs ny istumaa meillä on täällä uusia oppilaita!” (Now go sit down we have new students here!)

“Tässä ovat Maria ja Salla, he ovat uusia oppilaita tässä koulussa.” (These are Maria and Salla, they’re new students in this school.)

A few mumbled heys can be heard.

“No menkääs ny istumaa vaikka tonne taakse nii päästää alottamaa.” (Well go sit down in the back so we can get started.)

We go sit down. Our case is sitting right next to us.

-Well this is a start.-

Malie doesn’t say anything.

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A/N: So now we get some Finland! ^^ Koria is the place I actually live in. And it's pronounced in pretty much the same way as Korea, so don't mess those two up.

And this chapter had A/Ns in the chapter too since there were mentions of some things we have in Finland but not in any other country and stuff that you can't translate so that you'd understand it. I hope those didn't bore you to death.

Also, the Finnish in this chapter wasn't (mostly) the proper Finnish. I used the local slang (which looks incredibly stupid when written). The perfectly written Finnish and the spoken Finnish have a huge difference.

And as usual, all questions and comments are welcome! ^^

P.S. TR is now 74 pages long (on Windows Word)! WOOT! This is the longest piece I've ever written!

Guestbook signings: 15
Total visits: 44

...I need more visitors. Got to start spreading the word...anyone wanna help me? *does the puppy-eyes*


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