Chapter 01

News

There are times in my life when I wish my parents were in a different line of work. They’re both well regarded professors in great demand by the universities because they’re the very rare type of teacher who can do innovative research while they also teach well. Thus all of their post graduate students do good work with them as their mentors. This is good news for when my sisters or I reach university, and great news for their students. However, it’s often bad news for us kids right now because our parents get many offers of jobs at other universities. We don’t move often because our parents are very choosy about which of the job offers they do accept. Money isn’t their major consideration and they do try to stay at each university for a reasonable length of time as they don’t like to have our schooling being disrupted too much. Even so, I’ve been to three schools so far, and it now looks like I’ll soon be making it four schools.

I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much because we’ll get to finish the current school year before we go, unlike with our last move. The shift to New South Wales from Queensland was in November just before the end of the school year, which matches the calendar year in Australia. We left Queensland just before their end of year exams to arrive in New South Wales in time for their end of year exams on a different syllabus. Despite all of us being very smart the new school administration refused to put any of us into the new grade because we couldn’t pass their end of year exams for the grade just done.

We failed many of the subjects in the exams they gave us because of the syllabus differences. Maths and English were OK and we passed them with ease, but I’d studied Deserts as the main area for Climates and New South Wales was testing on Rain Forests which I hadn’t done yet. The same was true of some of the other subjects, like Geography being all about Europe instead of Africa, etc. Thus we’re forced to repeat the year, grrr. It wasn’t so bad since we didn’t know anyone and we’d be making new friends in whatever grade we’re put in, but it was very annoying because we’d all been ahead of our age peer groups and we enjoyed the company of the one year older students much more than the company of our age peers, due to their more mature attitudes.

Both of my sisters and I were born in November and our parents put us into school as soon as possible. It meant we were months younger than most of those in the same year as most kids born in the later third of the year usually don’t enter school with the other kids born in the same year, because they usually start their schooling the next year. When we moved from Queensland to New South Wales I did Year Six, Cadi did Year Three, and Bron did Year Five; the years we’d just finished up north as top of the class in the most advanced classes. To say we were not happy about the situation is an extreme understatement.

Although this shift will have us leaving after we do the end of year exams the bad news is this shift is to the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. Since their school system is July to June we’ll be arriving there in the middle of their school year. At the moment it looks like we’ll be starting in the same school years we’ll be finishing here, so we’ll be repeating half of the year. Dad is looking into us doing a few months of home schooling with tutors to bring us up to date with the differences in their syllabus.

We’ll manage, somehow, because we always do. But we’re going from living in a city of fifty-five thousand people to one of around six hundred thousand people. That’s going to take a lot of getting used to for us, but it’ll be an interesting time while we do settle in there, and afterwards.

The Family

I suppose I should tell you about us: we’re the Evans family. Mum is dual nationality, American and Australian. She was born in the USA while her US born mum visited her family in San Diego, California, and her dad was an Australian. So she has two passports, neat. They named Mum Ruby, and she’s a real gem. Her parents returned to Longreach, Queensland, to run the family property because he was the only son and his sisters left the immediate area to live with their husbands on their properties. Mum has three younger brothers and two of them run the property now their parents are dead. Dad was born in Wales in the United Kingdom and his father migrated to Australia when Dad was nine years old. He has two passports too, British and Australian. Dafydd ‘Dave’ Evans is his name and he has a very strong affinity with Wales, his first name means beloved as many Welsh names have meanings.

When us kids came along Dad insisted on Welsh names while Mum insisted on names related to jewels, which explains why I’m named Anian Cartier Evans: Anian means nature, temperament, power. It′s why my eldest sister is named Bronwyn Tiffany Evans, ’Bron’ for short: Bronwyn means white breasted, I get plenty of laughs over it along with lots of bruises from her for laughing. My other sister got lucky as she’s Cadi Ruby Evans: Cadi means pure. Mum and Dad couldn’t agree on the name of another major jeweller, so they went for a gem and used Mum’s name to keep it simple. With my initials I usually get ‘Ace’ or ’Card’ as nicknames, but I use ’Diamond’ as my nickname on the Internet.

All of us know Taekwondo because Mum’s third brother is a sensei who teaches us at his dojo for free, and Uncle Rob moved with us to NSW. We haven’t done any formal recognition of our skills, but he tells us we all rate as a black belt standard and I’m the best of us kids. All of us are about a hand’s width over average height for our ages, slim, well muscled, and fit. We’re what Uncle Rob calls ’all wiry muscle.’ We play various sports, like to run, and to swim. Mum is a brunette and the rest of us have dirty blond hair like Dad’s. We’re all of average looks. Mum and the girls have nice sized breasts as they’re all about the size of oranges.

One area where we do differ is both Mum and Dad have IQs in the 170s while Cadi and Bron are in the high 180s but mine is 203. I’m a member of Mensa Australia and the Prometheus Society, joining both at fifteen. To keep my IQ a secret from the government I avoided doing the usual state IQ tests by not turning up at school on the day they ran them. Very early on I realised I was smarter than average and being a very high IQ can see you pressured to push ahead way too much and too fast. Also, too many prodigies burn out far too quickly. But, more importantly, they don’t have a real childhood while I intend to enjoy mine. This is why I keep my IQ secret from the departments of education, and my sisters have done the same for similar reasons. They asked me why I did it, and they agreed with me when I told them why. Due to our IQs and martial arts training all three of us kids are very self confident in our dealings with others. We’re not brash, nor are we shy or reticent in any way.

One thing that’s odd about our family is Dad and us kids are all very good about sensing how other people feel about things and sensing their emotions when they’re strong. Mum explained it’s a form of empathy. We’re very good at it, and we have been all of our lives.

I also do one thing none of us have been able to explain. I’ll be doing something, usually reading a book, and I’ll put a drink or plate of food down near me. When I reach for it again my hand goes straight to it without me looking for it, even if one of my sisters shifts it on me. Mum and Dad even tested me with a newspaper and the blind moving of the drink, but my hand always goes straight to the drink. If they shift it from the left to the right I’ll change hands to get it with the nearest hand, even when they shift it without making any noise. Also, just before my fifteenth birthday I had an interesting incident I think is related. I’d put down a text book while studying and thirty minutes later I reached for it to compare the text with material in another book. It was real interesting because I’d moved across the floor while reading and the text book I wanted was a metre and a half away. After I reached out my hand for it I remembered the distance and I turned toward it in time to see the book sliding across the floor to me. I was a bit shocked. I experimented, and I soon found I could cause anything up to twenty kilograms (about forty-five pounds) to come to me by simply thinking for it to do so. I soon realised I’m telekinetic, and I decided to keep it a secret. I named this skill Calling to disguise it from everyone else if I accidentally mention it.

Another Skill

Since learning of my Calling skill I’ve done a lot of secret testing and I can now move up to sixty kilograms (about a hundred and thirty-two pounds) with ease. A year after learning about the Calling I get another shock which starts a second testing program I really like, and enjoy a lot.

We’re out shopping on a Saturday morning when Mum tells me to keep an eye on my sisters while they try on some new clothes, and I’m to pay for the clothes when they’re finished. She gives me her purse after she takes out her credit card and driver’s licence. Nothing new in this action because she often parks me to look after the girls while she does something else instead of waiting around for them. She often says I’m their protector. But this is the first time she does this to me in a lingerie store. I’m standing near the change rooms with Mum’s purse slung over my shoulder while my sisters are about a metre away from me looking at very skimpy underwear. They realise I’m a bit embarrassed by this so they take lots of time with their selections, even holding some choice items up to ask my opinion of the item. They stop that when I say, “Look, Cadi, if you want my opinion on how you look in that bra you’ll have to put it on and show me.” I was correct in thinking neither of my sisters are going to do that, not at thirteen and fifteen years old. Being sixteen I’m interested in the differences between guys and girls, so when a lovely young lady about twenty years old picks out a few very skimpy outfits then goes to the change rooms you can bet I’m very much aware of her actions. Especially when she sees me standing there with the purse and my sisters nearby. She smiles and winks at me while she holds up her choices of skimpy underwear for my inspection.

The change rooms have short doors that only cover from the knees to the neck on an adult, and I’m leaning on the corner of the entryway to the four rooms. When she passes me I smile back while thinking, Damn, I’d love to be able to look over the door to watch her without her screaming. I lean back and close my eyes to imagine what it’d look like if I did look over the door. The next thing I know is I’ve got a very realistic image in my mind of the young lady while she turns the lock on the door. She hangs up the underwear then undoes her dress before slipping it off over her head to reveal her current underwear.

I smile while I think my imagination is improving in quality of image as I watch her remove her bra and panties to try on the new ones. She puts her dress on and walks out to see how they fit while moving. Now this is all well and good, but I get one hell of a shock when she brushes my shoulder just when I’m imagining her doing so. This makes me open my eyes to watch her take a few paces. When she turns I smile and ask, “Trying the see-through set or the white lace first?” In my imagination I’d seen her put on the see-through set.