Hi! Here it is... the first chapter!!!!! Any suggestions are MORE than most welcome. This is in Zoe's point of view. It's just the base for the rest of the story... you know, explaining a bit of her normal life so that we can go and make it NOT normal!!! Fun fun fun stuff. Anyway, please read! Thanks! I hope you enjoy. :D
Chapter 1: Waking Up
I’m standing in the middle of the driveway in front of my house when I see specks of sparkly white in the distance, growing closer…
Unicorns.
My dream-self smiles and tries to get their attention. But my real self remembers that unicorns aren’t real. Once I realize this, my real self starts taking over and I begin to wake up…
Now I know I’m awake, but I don’t open my eyes. Not yet. Because I remember that today is the first day of the new school year, and opening my eyes will mean letting go of the last shreds of summer.
It wasn’t like I’d had an amazing summer or anything. It had been okay. The two weeks in the Bahamas had been really fun, but I still wished my mom had been there. At least I have a nice au pair. The rest of summer had been kind of boring… my best friend was in New York the whole time. But it’s okay, because I’m pretty good at occupying myself.
Whatever kind of summer I’d had, I was still reluctant to kiss it goodbye. Not that any kisses would be involved. That would be strange.
I’m thinking about this way too much, I said to myself. Then I opened my eyes, as widely as I could, so that I could have my whole room in my sight range. The door to the bathroom. The dresser. The full-length mirror. The closet. The two bookshelves (one is never enough, in this case). The door to the hallway. The rack for jewelry and makeup and random what all. The frosted glass windows filtering in a gray light. The bed I was lying in. The black calligraphy on the blue walls that read “Zoe”.
I had to turn my neck to see the clock on the bedside table. 5:45. An hour before I needed to be up. I rolled over, but my mind wasn’t going back to sleep without a fight. And I like to think of myself as a peaceful person, a fight-avoider.
I sat up, reaching to the bedside table. Without needing to look for it, I grabbed a blue spiral-bound notebook labled “Observations”. Its location was the same as always, burned in my mind so that I couldn’t forget if I wanted to. I opened it and fanned the pages until I came to the first empty spot.
It’s September 7, the first day of school. I had a weird dream involving unicorns and woke up an hour early. It’s supposed to rain today. I don’t really mind rain, though. I’m kind of exited but I’m not sure why. It’s just school. Well, I’ll be seeing Brianna. That must be it.
I shut the notebook and put it back. It’s just a place to put the things you see, think, know, feel… observations. The reason why I have one is because my father kept an observation notebook. I have faint memories of him writing in it. His was always green. Now I have five in all different colors… green, purple, yellow, pink, and blue. I started it because I’d missed my dad, but now I think I do it for me also.
My dad, Fisk Shadow. Who had died in a car accident ten years ago. I had gone to bed at night, tucked in by him. The next morning I woke up with a fever and my parents weren’t home, so my current au pair had taken care of me. All I can remember from my feverish, three-and-a-half year old mind was seeing my mom come home that afternoon. Crying.
I shook the memory out of my head. Okay, not the ideal way to start your day. But I could still see her mascara running, the image stinging into my photographic memory. It had scared me at the time.
I decided to get dressed. I wasn’t really the sort of person who would leave out their clothes for the next day on the night before, but I’d done it for the first day. I’d thought I might wake up late. Scratch that.
The outfit was lying on the floor in front of my mirror. I kicked off the covers and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I looked down at the colors I had tried to avoid for the past two-and-a-half months: red, black, and silver. They were the colors of Redthorn Academy.
The uniform had been stricter until some celebrity parents complained about it. Now, we just have to wear the colors.
I shed my purple T-shirt and Eeyore pajama shorts, then got dressed in black jeans and a gray top with a red flower design near the right shoulder. They were designer, which was normal for people at my school. They were all the kids of someone who was wealthy or legendary. Some of them were even famous themselves. I still think that most designer clothes hardly look any different from the normal brands, though.
I put on some socks and my gray and black skate shoes. Then I stood in front of my mirror as I brushed my shoulder-length, chocolate-brown hair.
I looked at my reflection. Green eyes, pale skin, not really tall or short. I had one of those forgettable faces that was attractive enough, but unnoticeable. Not special. It let me exist in the background for the most part, the way I liked it… like a shadow, like my last name.
My eyes drifted over to the silver rack on the wall. I glanced at the makeup skeptically. I could practically hear Brianna’s voice in my head: “Just WEAR it!” She was the type to obsess over her appearance a little more than could ever be necessary.
Maybe, I thought.
After I’d washed my face and brushed my teeth, I did add a subtle shade of lip gloss and some eye liner. But that’s all you get, Brianna.
I opened a window to check the weather. The frosted glass panel slid up smoothly to reveal my elaborate backyard. I don’t think there was a single plant or stepping stone that hadn’t come from another country. It was an exotic getaway. I saw my mom out there at night sometimes, after she gets home from a long day in the life of a famous actress. She has a fondness for being outdoors. I can’t honestly say I get it. It’s all air, right?
But I do love the tree by my window. It’s got these twisted, long, thick branches that are good for climbing. One of them comes right to my window. It’s an escape route. When it was planted, it didn’t come all the way, but in this past year I’ve started to use the branch as a second exit from my room.
I grasped the end of the branch and used it as support as I kneeled on the windowsill. Then I moved my hands up, followed by my legs. I wrapped my legs around and shimmied down the branch until it was stable enough to stand on.
I stood, leaning on the nearest other branch. I took in the light green leaves, dark bark, and gray sky that peaked out in the gaps. It wasn’t raining yet, but low clouds promised that it would. A slight breeze, just a little cooler than my air-conditioned house, ruffled the leaves and moved my hair out of my face.
Whenever I’m here, I just feel so alone, except it’s not a bad thing. It’s hard to explain, but it’s a freeing feeling. I love it.
I leaned out and observed the work going on up the road. Our house is more like a mansion- picturesque and apart from all other life. Our driveway is long enough to be a road and it winds up to the main road for some long distance, past various water features. The next house is very far away and very different from ours, but it’s a mansion too and it’s big enough to see. The construction on it just stopped a week ago. I’m waiting to see who moves in. It’s more modern and trendy, while ours is traditional and beautiful. By the size of it and the area we’re in, it’s a famous or just rich person. I’ve been watching it for a long time with no other signs of the kind of people who would live there. This sort of bothers me, because observing is what I do best. There’s a lot you can tell about a person just by their appearance, or their playlists on their iPod, or even the contents of their locker. I have broken into lockers before- but it wasn’t for a creepy reason, so don’t worry. Houses are trickier, though… especially when you only watch from afar. Maybe later I’d go check it out.
After a little while, I went back in through the window and checked the clock. 6:25. Still plenty of time. I took my backpack out of my closet to make sure I had all my things… not so much because I needed to do it, but more because I was bored. The pack was green with white and raspberry colored swirly designs. This was the first year that dress code colors had been lifted from bags, which was cool.
Actually, it was pretty lucky I’d thought to do it, because my cafeteria swipe card was missing from the front zipped pocket. I went into my walk-in closet and searched the floor. My closet is weird because, while there’s more than a fair share of clothes in it, it’s mostly full of books. There are books in there that date back to my baby board book days. I guess I just have a hard time giving them away. Books are alternate universes, different lives, and if you don’t have a completely dense imagination, you can live in their worlds for a short time. I don’t understand people who don’t like to read. It doesn’t make any sense.
The other oddity about my closet is the panel in the very back. I don’t think it’s very noticeable, but I have a good eye for detail and I’ve had a lot of time to notice it. It’s the same green paint as the rest of the closet’s interior, but there’s a light outline around it and it’s slightly jutting out. If you run your hand across the wall, you’ll feel it. I’ve tried everything to see if it does anything… pressed it, pulled it, tried to wedge it out with everything from safety scissors (age seven) to steak knives (age eleven, and I can’t tell you how hard it was to make up an excuse for stealing it from the kitchen!). Nothing worked. But I still can’t help from feeling as if I could say the right magic words and a secret passageway would reveal itself.
The card had fallen in the carpet just a few feet from the entrance, all the way to the left. I dodged under some dresses I never wore, picked it up, and went to tuck it back into my backpack.
At 6:45, I made up my mind to go downstairs. I was getting peckish. As soon as I left my cozy room, I was reminded of the severe hugeness of my house. When this mansion was designed, the only thought in the architect’s mind seemed to have been “bigger is better”. The upstairs hallway was long, wide, and high-ceilinged. I dashed past a few rooms to see if my mom was still asleep in her room, but when I peeked in, she wasn’t there. She’s probably not even home, I thought grudgingly. Okay, maybe I’m being a tiny bit unfair… I can’t exactly expect my mom to act like a normal one. She leads a busy, paparazzi-followed life that ends up in most major magazines, and her face is on so many movie posters that I’m surprised America isn’t sick of her yet. I know she has a hectic schedule, but I find it hard not to notice that she’s almost NEVER there.
I made my way to the spiraling ebony staircase that took up an unnecessary amount of space. There’s thin columns running from the banister to the ceiling every few feet, which I guess looks cool, but makes it impossible to slide down the banister. I wonder if I could slide down it, had there been no columns. In the movies it looks so unreal. I probably could, though, I thought as I walked down.
Halfway down, I could see Ashlinn Cook’s dark brown high ponytail poking out from between columns. She must’ve been coming to wake me up in case I was still asleep. That isn’t an unusual scenario. Along with a photographic memory, I have a disturbingly deep sleep most of the time.
For me, I don’t usually notice when I’m memorizing something. It’s not like I look at something for a long time and then say, “I’ll remember THAT obscure detail now!” I just automatically remember everything, without effort. I don’t know if that’s normal photographic memory stuff, but it is useful. If only the tests at Redthorn were the kind you could ace by memorizing pages of text. Far from it.
“Hey, Zoe,” Ashlinn said in her light Irish accent. It had been more prominent when she moved here from Ireland to be my au pair six years ago, when I was 7, but it was starting to wear off. She had hit it off from the start with me, so my mom had kept her around a long time. To me, Ashlinn was a hybrid cross between a mother and an older sister. “You’re quick this morning,” she observed.
I shrugged. “I couldn’t fall back asleep.”
She nodded knowingly. “Okay, come in the kitchen.”
I followed Ashlinn through a foyer, a living room, and an entertainment room until we were in the kitchen. I sat down at the red granite breakfast bar and grinned. A smoothie and a blueberry muffin sat in front of me. “Thanks, Ashlinn,” I said. “Where did you get the muffin?” It looked like the really good, bakery kind. Usually, I just have a yogurt (I do love my yogurt). Sometimes Ashlinn will throw some fruit together in the blender for a smoothie, but I’m not high maintenance. Muffins weren’t the standard.
“At a café last night when I was driving around town with my extremely good looking, billionaire boyfriend,” Ashlinn said with authority.
I grinned. I knew she had no such boyfriend. Ashlinn is a sort of creative soul who doesn’t always feel the need to tell it like it is. It’s one of the reasons I like her so much.
So I bit into the muffin, having absolutely no idea where it had come from. Mmmm. It was a really good bakery muffin, all sugary on the top with some crunch but soft and moist in the center. “Amazing,” was the verdict. “Want some?”
“No, thanks, I already ate.” Ashlinn produced some bottled water from the fridge and took a swig.
We sat in companionable silence for a bit as I nibbled my muffin and sipped my strawberry-banana smoothie, in no rush at all.
After a while, Ashlinn spoke up. “Excited?”
I nodded.
“I never was. School’s a dose.”
“Well, that’s not exactly encouraging,” I said with a smile, wondering what a dose was.
“No,” mused Ashlinn, “not really. Hey, I wonder what teachers there’ll be this year?”
I’d wondered about this, too. I’d been at Redthorn two years already, and I’d learned a few things that they don’t tell you straight-out about the school.
Thing number one: the teachers don’t stick around long. They might be there two years, tops, but the norm is only about half a school year. There are many conspiracy theories about why this is so, none of which I believe, because most of them are made up by Kane Smith, and to believe him is stupidity. The most believable one, circulated by the field hockey team, is that the faculty is really an agency of super secret spies. Really-that’s the best one.
Thing number two: these vanishing teachers are also strange and deranged. It’s like they won’t hire a normal person. It must be a part of the “improved learning” program that attracts so many rich families to the school. Some teachers are mental cases, some are geniuses, some are army-regulation strict, some have unusual skills, some are obsessed with an odd passion… anything, I guess, minus ordinary.
Thing number three: the education programs get changed every year. So, I can’t ask any of last year’s eighth graders what the year will be like, because it’ll be different from the year they had. It’s supposed to create an individual experience for every class. Yeah, it’s weird.
But despite the unconventionalities, or maybe because of them, I really love Redthorn. It’s better than Hogwarts, to me. Okay, maybe not better than Hogwarts. But it gets pretty close.
“Maybe you’ll get a Mofia. Or a mermaid! Or a kook who swears they’re part Mofia, part mermaid!” Ashlinn brainstormed.
“A Mofmaid?” I laughed.
“No, a Mermia,” she corrected me, very matter-of-fact.
“Right. What’s the time?”
“Check yourself.
“Your head’s blocking it.”
“Oh.” She turned and looked. “It’s seven-oh-three.”
On a normal day, we wouldn’t head out until 7:30, but I was bored. “Want to go now?” I asked.
“If you don’t mind being in the courtyard until eight o’clock with chances of rain.” Ashlinn peered out of a window. “Make that ‘large chances’.”
“I want to see my friends. And if it rains hard, they’ll let us inside.” I dumped my muffin wrapper into a trash can and set the remainder of my muffin into a bowl of fruit. “I’m going to get my stuff.”
“All right. I’ll be in the car.”
I smiled my thanks and ran back upstairs. The enormous house was so empty in the morning. None of the maids who came to clean up the mansion had arrived yet. There was no personal chef, no landscaper, no interior designer, no handyman, and no partygoers of famous status like there often were. My footsteps were soft but still echoed in the vacancy. I was never sure if I liked it, but I was used to it.
In my room, I grabbed my backpack and slung it over one shoulder. My science teacher last year, Mr. Arlington, always got really upset when I did this, because he thought I would get some spinal condition. But it was just unbreakable habit. Under my free arm I slid the Observations notebook. I was ready.
Okay, well, at least I thought I was ready. As I jumped the last few steps on the stairs, I thought I was completely ready for anything eighth grade at Redthorn Academy could throw at me. But I was wrong. I was very, very, wrong.
Ashlinn had the black Ferrari ready. My mom owns two cars and rents limos often. Ashlinn is allowed to drive the cars, and so I’m guessing there must have been some test she took when she got hired to ensure she was a safe driver. My mom only ever uses the aquamarine Porsche, because it’s kind of her signature car. I always end up with the Ferrari. I like it better anyway.
“Ready?” Ashlinn asked.
“Yes,” I said. I would only realize later that I had been wrong again.
Very, very wrong.
I don’t know what kind of start I’d had to the first day of a new school year. For one thing, there had been muffins, excitement, and unicorns. But there had also been a good share of being very, very, wrong, possible rain, and unicorns. Yes, I haven’t decided if unicorns are good or bad.
Either way, summer was already long gone. And I was not ready.
Unicorns.
My dream-self smiles and tries to get their attention. But my real self remembers that unicorns aren’t real. Once I realize this, my real self starts taking over and I begin to wake up…
Now I know I’m awake, but I don’t open my eyes. Not yet. Because I remember that today is the first day of the new school year, and opening my eyes will mean letting go of the last shreds of summer.
It wasn’t like I’d had an amazing summer or anything. It had been okay. The two weeks in the Bahamas had been really fun, but I still wished my mom had been there. At least I have a nice au pair. The rest of summer had been kind of boring… my best friend was in New York the whole time. But it’s okay, because I’m pretty good at occupying myself.
Whatever kind of summer I’d had, I was still reluctant to kiss it goodbye. Not that any kisses would be involved. That would be strange.
I’m thinking about this way too much, I said to myself. Then I opened my eyes, as widely as I could, so that I could have my whole room in my sight range. The door to the bathroom. The dresser. The full-length mirror. The closet. The two bookshelves (one is never enough, in this case). The door to the hallway. The rack for jewelry and makeup and random what all. The frosted glass windows filtering in a gray light. The bed I was lying in. The black calligraphy on the blue walls that read “Zoe”.
I had to turn my neck to see the clock on the bedside table. 5:45. An hour before I needed to be up. I rolled over, but my mind wasn’t going back to sleep without a fight. And I like to think of myself as a peaceful person, a fight-avoider.
I sat up, reaching to the bedside table. Without needing to look for it, I grabbed a blue spiral-bound notebook labled “Observations”. Its location was the same as always, burned in my mind so that I couldn’t forget if I wanted to. I opened it and fanned the pages until I came to the first empty spot.
It’s September 7, the first day of school. I had a weird dream involving unicorns and woke up an hour early. It’s supposed to rain today. I don’t really mind rain, though. I’m kind of exited but I’m not sure why. It’s just school. Well, I’ll be seeing Brianna. That must be it.
I shut the notebook and put it back. It’s just a place to put the things you see, think, know, feel… observations. The reason why I have one is because my father kept an observation notebook. I have faint memories of him writing in it. His was always green. Now I have five in all different colors… green, purple, yellow, pink, and blue. I started it because I’d missed my dad, but now I think I do it for me also.
My dad, Fisk Shadow. Who had died in a car accident ten years ago. I had gone to bed at night, tucked in by him. The next morning I woke up with a fever and my parents weren’t home, so my current au pair had taken care of me. All I can remember from my feverish, three-and-a-half year old mind was seeing my mom come home that afternoon. Crying.
I shook the memory out of my head. Okay, not the ideal way to start your day. But I could still see her mascara running, the image stinging into my photographic memory. It had scared me at the time.
I decided to get dressed. I wasn’t really the sort of person who would leave out their clothes for the next day on the night before, but I’d done it for the first day. I’d thought I might wake up late. Scratch that.
The outfit was lying on the floor in front of my mirror. I kicked off the covers and swung my legs over the side of the bed. I looked down at the colors I had tried to avoid for the past two-and-a-half months: red, black, and silver. They were the colors of Redthorn Academy.
The uniform had been stricter until some celebrity parents complained about it. Now, we just have to wear the colors.
I shed my purple T-shirt and Eeyore pajama shorts, then got dressed in black jeans and a gray top with a red flower design near the right shoulder. They were designer, which was normal for people at my school. They were all the kids of someone who was wealthy or legendary. Some of them were even famous themselves. I still think that most designer clothes hardly look any different from the normal brands, though.
I put on some socks and my gray and black skate shoes. Then I stood in front of my mirror as I brushed my shoulder-length, chocolate-brown hair.
I looked at my reflection. Green eyes, pale skin, not really tall or short. I had one of those forgettable faces that was attractive enough, but unnoticeable. Not special. It let me exist in the background for the most part, the way I liked it… like a shadow, like my last name.
My eyes drifted over to the silver rack on the wall. I glanced at the makeup skeptically. I could practically hear Brianna’s voice in my head: “Just WEAR it!” She was the type to obsess over her appearance a little more than could ever be necessary.
Maybe, I thought.
After I’d washed my face and brushed my teeth, I did add a subtle shade of lip gloss and some eye liner. But that’s all you get, Brianna.
I opened a window to check the weather. The frosted glass panel slid up smoothly to reveal my elaborate backyard. I don’t think there was a single plant or stepping stone that hadn’t come from another country. It was an exotic getaway. I saw my mom out there at night sometimes, after she gets home from a long day in the life of a famous actress. She has a fondness for being outdoors. I can’t honestly say I get it. It’s all air, right?
But I do love the tree by my window. It’s got these twisted, long, thick branches that are good for climbing. One of them comes right to my window. It’s an escape route. When it was planted, it didn’t come all the way, but in this past year I’ve started to use the branch as a second exit from my room.
I grasped the end of the branch and used it as support as I kneeled on the windowsill. Then I moved my hands up, followed by my legs. I wrapped my legs around and shimmied down the branch until it was stable enough to stand on.
I stood, leaning on the nearest other branch. I took in the light green leaves, dark bark, and gray sky that peaked out in the gaps. It wasn’t raining yet, but low clouds promised that it would. A slight breeze, just a little cooler than my air-conditioned house, ruffled the leaves and moved my hair out of my face.
Whenever I’m here, I just feel so alone, except it’s not a bad thing. It’s hard to explain, but it’s a freeing feeling. I love it.
I leaned out and observed the work going on up the road. Our house is more like a mansion- picturesque and apart from all other life. Our driveway is long enough to be a road and it winds up to the main road for some long distance, past various water features. The next house is very far away and very different from ours, but it’s a mansion too and it’s big enough to see. The construction on it just stopped a week ago. I’m waiting to see who moves in. It’s more modern and trendy, while ours is traditional and beautiful. By the size of it and the area we’re in, it’s a famous or just rich person. I’ve been watching it for a long time with no other signs of the kind of people who would live there. This sort of bothers me, because observing is what I do best. There’s a lot you can tell about a person just by their appearance, or their playlists on their iPod, or even the contents of their locker. I have broken into lockers before- but it wasn’t for a creepy reason, so don’t worry. Houses are trickier, though… especially when you only watch from afar. Maybe later I’d go check it out.
After a little while, I went back in through the window and checked the clock. 6:25. Still plenty of time. I took my backpack out of my closet to make sure I had all my things… not so much because I needed to do it, but more because I was bored. The pack was green with white and raspberry colored swirly designs. This was the first year that dress code colors had been lifted from bags, which was cool.
Actually, it was pretty lucky I’d thought to do it, because my cafeteria swipe card was missing from the front zipped pocket. I went into my walk-in closet and searched the floor. My closet is weird because, while there’s more than a fair share of clothes in it, it’s mostly full of books. There are books in there that date back to my baby board book days. I guess I just have a hard time giving them away. Books are alternate universes, different lives, and if you don’t have a completely dense imagination, you can live in their worlds for a short time. I don’t understand people who don’t like to read. It doesn’t make any sense.
The other oddity about my closet is the panel in the very back. I don’t think it’s very noticeable, but I have a good eye for detail and I’ve had a lot of time to notice it. It’s the same green paint as the rest of the closet’s interior, but there’s a light outline around it and it’s slightly jutting out. If you run your hand across the wall, you’ll feel it. I’ve tried everything to see if it does anything… pressed it, pulled it, tried to wedge it out with everything from safety scissors (age seven) to steak knives (age eleven, and I can’t tell you how hard it was to make up an excuse for stealing it from the kitchen!). Nothing worked. But I still can’t help from feeling as if I could say the right magic words and a secret passageway would reveal itself.
The card had fallen in the carpet just a few feet from the entrance, all the way to the left. I dodged under some dresses I never wore, picked it up, and went to tuck it back into my backpack.
At 6:45, I made up my mind to go downstairs. I was getting peckish. As soon as I left my cozy room, I was reminded of the severe hugeness of my house. When this mansion was designed, the only thought in the architect’s mind seemed to have been “bigger is better”. The upstairs hallway was long, wide, and high-ceilinged. I dashed past a few rooms to see if my mom was still asleep in her room, but when I peeked in, she wasn’t there. She’s probably not even home, I thought grudgingly. Okay, maybe I’m being a tiny bit unfair… I can’t exactly expect my mom to act like a normal one. She leads a busy, paparazzi-followed life that ends up in most major magazines, and her face is on so many movie posters that I’m surprised America isn’t sick of her yet. I know she has a hectic schedule, but I find it hard not to notice that she’s almost NEVER there.
I made my way to the spiraling ebony staircase that took up an unnecessary amount of space. There’s thin columns running from the banister to the ceiling every few feet, which I guess looks cool, but makes it impossible to slide down the banister. I wonder if I could slide down it, had there been no columns. In the movies it looks so unreal. I probably could, though, I thought as I walked down.
Halfway down, I could see Ashlinn Cook’s dark brown high ponytail poking out from between columns. She must’ve been coming to wake me up in case I was still asleep. That isn’t an unusual scenario. Along with a photographic memory, I have a disturbingly deep sleep most of the time.
For me, I don’t usually notice when I’m memorizing something. It’s not like I look at something for a long time and then say, “I’ll remember THAT obscure detail now!” I just automatically remember everything, without effort. I don’t know if that’s normal photographic memory stuff, but it is useful. If only the tests at Redthorn were the kind you could ace by memorizing pages of text. Far from it.
“Hey, Zoe,” Ashlinn said in her light Irish accent. It had been more prominent when she moved here from Ireland to be my au pair six years ago, when I was 7, but it was starting to wear off. She had hit it off from the start with me, so my mom had kept her around a long time. To me, Ashlinn was a hybrid cross between a mother and an older sister. “You’re quick this morning,” she observed.
I shrugged. “I couldn’t fall back asleep.”
She nodded knowingly. “Okay, come in the kitchen.”
I followed Ashlinn through a foyer, a living room, and an entertainment room until we were in the kitchen. I sat down at the red granite breakfast bar and grinned. A smoothie and a blueberry muffin sat in front of me. “Thanks, Ashlinn,” I said. “Where did you get the muffin?” It looked like the really good, bakery kind. Usually, I just have a yogurt (I do love my yogurt). Sometimes Ashlinn will throw some fruit together in the blender for a smoothie, but I’m not high maintenance. Muffins weren’t the standard.
“At a café last night when I was driving around town with my extremely good looking, billionaire boyfriend,” Ashlinn said with authority.
I grinned. I knew she had no such boyfriend. Ashlinn is a sort of creative soul who doesn’t always feel the need to tell it like it is. It’s one of the reasons I like her so much.
So I bit into the muffin, having absolutely no idea where it had come from. Mmmm. It was a really good bakery muffin, all sugary on the top with some crunch but soft and moist in the center. “Amazing,” was the verdict. “Want some?”
“No, thanks, I already ate.” Ashlinn produced some bottled water from the fridge and took a swig.
We sat in companionable silence for a bit as I nibbled my muffin and sipped my strawberry-banana smoothie, in no rush at all.
After a while, Ashlinn spoke up. “Excited?”
I nodded.
“I never was. School’s a dose.”
“Well, that’s not exactly encouraging,” I said with a smile, wondering what a dose was.
“No,” mused Ashlinn, “not really. Hey, I wonder what teachers there’ll be this year?”
I’d wondered about this, too. I’d been at Redthorn two years already, and I’d learned a few things that they don’t tell you straight-out about the school.
Thing number one: the teachers don’t stick around long. They might be there two years, tops, but the norm is only about half a school year. There are many conspiracy theories about why this is so, none of which I believe, because most of them are made up by Kane Smith, and to believe him is stupidity. The most believable one, circulated by the field hockey team, is that the faculty is really an agency of super secret spies. Really-that’s the best one.
Thing number two: these vanishing teachers are also strange and deranged. It’s like they won’t hire a normal person. It must be a part of the “improved learning” program that attracts so many rich families to the school. Some teachers are mental cases, some are geniuses, some are army-regulation strict, some have unusual skills, some are obsessed with an odd passion… anything, I guess, minus ordinary.
Thing number three: the education programs get changed every year. So, I can’t ask any of last year’s eighth graders what the year will be like, because it’ll be different from the year they had. It’s supposed to create an individual experience for every class. Yeah, it’s weird.
But despite the unconventionalities, or maybe because of them, I really love Redthorn. It’s better than Hogwarts, to me. Okay, maybe not better than Hogwarts. But it gets pretty close.
“Maybe you’ll get a Mofia. Or a mermaid! Or a kook who swears they’re part Mofia, part mermaid!” Ashlinn brainstormed.
“A Mofmaid?” I laughed.
“No, a Mermia,” she corrected me, very matter-of-fact.
“Right. What’s the time?”
“Check yourself.
“Your head’s blocking it.”
“Oh.” She turned and looked. “It’s seven-oh-three.”
On a normal day, we wouldn’t head out until 7:30, but I was bored. “Want to go now?” I asked.
“If you don’t mind being in the courtyard until eight o’clock with chances of rain.” Ashlinn peered out of a window. “Make that ‘large chances’.”
“I want to see my friends. And if it rains hard, they’ll let us inside.” I dumped my muffin wrapper into a trash can and set the remainder of my muffin into a bowl of fruit. “I’m going to get my stuff.”
“All right. I’ll be in the car.”
I smiled my thanks and ran back upstairs. The enormous house was so empty in the morning. None of the maids who came to clean up the mansion had arrived yet. There was no personal chef, no landscaper, no interior designer, no handyman, and no partygoers of famous status like there often were. My footsteps were soft but still echoed in the vacancy. I was never sure if I liked it, but I was used to it.
In my room, I grabbed my backpack and slung it over one shoulder. My science teacher last year, Mr. Arlington, always got really upset when I did this, because he thought I would get some spinal condition. But it was just unbreakable habit. Under my free arm I slid the Observations notebook. I was ready.
Okay, well, at least I thought I was ready. As I jumped the last few steps on the stairs, I thought I was completely ready for anything eighth grade at Redthorn Academy could throw at me. But I was wrong. I was very, very, wrong.
Ashlinn had the black Ferrari ready. My mom owns two cars and rents limos often. Ashlinn is allowed to drive the cars, and so I’m guessing there must have been some test she took when she got hired to ensure she was a safe driver. My mom only ever uses the aquamarine Porsche, because it’s kind of her signature car. I always end up with the Ferrari. I like it better anyway.
“Ready?” Ashlinn asked.
“Yes,” I said. I would only realize later that I had been wrong again.
Very, very wrong.
I don’t know what kind of start I’d had to the first day of a new school year. For one thing, there had been muffins, excitement, and unicorns. But there had also been a good share of being very, very, wrong, possible rain, and unicorns. Yes, I haven’t decided if unicorns are good or bad.
Either way, summer was already long gone. And I was not ready.