The Unearthly Child

She rested her chin on her hands and gazed at her jotter. At the front of the class, the teacher inserted the CD into the player and selected the track. Soon all the class could hear the German people telling them about their holidays.

"Ich habe meinen Großeltern besucht. Sie wohnen in Berlin am Stadtrand. Wir sind zwei Wochen geblieben. Ich habe stayed in their spare room. On the first day we went to see the-"

"What?" she squeaked.

"Miss Campbell," began her teacher sternly, pausing the tape. "Is there a problem?" He glanced around at the rest of the class. "Has anyone else any reason to believe there's something wrong with this CD?"

"No," they chorused.

"Exactly. So just calm down, please." He smiled faintly, almost patronisingly, and continues with the recording.

She sat through the class somehow, increasingly on edge. She didn't even wince at being addressed as "Miss" Campbell. Despite the fact that she could clearly hear English, no one else in her class seemed to have noticed. Indeed, some of the points in her desk partner's jotter were wrong.

When the bell finally rang, she glanced down at her textbook as she stuffed it into her bag. It now said "German" on it in big letters, where before it had said "Deutsche." Now completely freaked out, she flicked through the pages and saw that there was not a single German word in sight.

Walking out of the school building, she glanced involuntarily skywards, but all she could see were clouds. Nothing else swirled above her head. She shook her head to try and clear her thoughts, but she continued to look up every few minutes.

She turned into Totter's Lane and ambled slowly up the road. Reaching the place she currently called home, she turned, as always, to look at No. 79 across the road. She sighed, opened the door, and entered the Children's Home.

Apart from a quiet "hello," no one bothered her; they could see she was preoccupied. They'd learnt to leave her alone at such times. This was the one thing that put prospective foster parents off. She had that lonely look of someone who had been through a lot more suffering than most people went through in a lifetime. Though the Social Workers were supposed to help children like this, the truth was, they just didn't know how. Only a few actually knew anything about her past. She was a closed book otherwise. To everyone else, she was just another kid in care.

She changed out of her school uniform without really noticing what she was doing. She brushed out her plaits and stowed her school clothes away on a chair in the corner. Then she moved to the large object that dominated most of her small bedroom space. It was unlikely that she would have been able to continue her harp playing if she hadn't already owned this harp from her previous life… before she came here.

She moved the pedals into position: all in middle, except one. She coaxed a haunting lullaby from the strings, simple yet beautiful, melancholy and strange. Suddenly, as if agitated by her distraction, she drew her fingers across the strings in a loud glissando, and proceeded with a much faster tune. The bass rhythm pulled strange memories, floating like dreams, from the back of her mind. Or maybe they were just dreams. She wasn't sure… comas did that to you… a great rip in the sky… through the fabric of space and time… millions, billions of orbs falling from the sky… her friends slaughtered before her eyes… a fear she could no longer place… a fear of being found… found by what? … hiding… remaining still as the world plunged into chaos around her… then a story… a single word… a word filled with hope… then she'd woken up from the coma induced by a cycling accident.

As the final chord rang out, she became aware of another sound. The grinding of alien engines. Her heart rose into her mouth at the sound, desperation to cry out, and yet to remain silent. Crossing to the window, she peered out into No. 79 across the road. Sure enough, she saw just what she had expected to see, what she had wanted to see for so long.

A faint image at first, growing bolder and stronger with each second. Blue. A blue box. The Blue Box. And out of it came a skinny, brown-haired man, and his pretty companion.

Her heart leapt.

The TARDIS had come home.