Chapter one
I smell the air around me, smiling. It's sunny today in California. I stare down below the bridge, admiring the sight. There are tree's and water and it's so beautiful. Though it's so hot, so I'm drenched in sweat. Tom doesn't hesitate to point that out." Gee, Cris. Did you run out of water and have to use your own sweat instead?" He jokes. I punch him on the shoulder." Ha ha, very funny." I say sarcastically. He laughs. I stick my tongue out at him." Aww. Does wittle Cris not wike Tom teasing her?" He mocks me. Whatever." Who are you making fun of, Dorky glasses?" I laugh, using my nickname for him. He frowns, pushing up his big black square framed glasses. This is perfect. I'm spending the last day of Christmas break with my best friends. Then, Stephanie runs up to us." Guy's, you have to see this." She said. She was panting, and even more sweaty than I was. We all follow her across, trying to keep up with her. You might be confused right now. You might be wondering, What is this thing? Who is Tom, the guy with a big heart and enormous glasses. Who is Stephanie? And, of course, Who am I? Well, I'll tell you.
My name is Christina Rowan. I'm a 7th grader at Lakeside junior high school, and I'm 12. I have brown wavy hair which I love and braces on my teeth, which I hate. My best friends are Tom Sanders and Stephanie Taylor( We call her steph.) I'm a social outcast at school. Mainly It's because I like to dress in clothes I find in thrift shops. While all the other people are wearing Name brands and all that stupid crap, I'm wearing jeans and a camo top. So what If I don't spend 300 on one t shirt. Is that really that bad? Anyway, I'm a optimist and very cheerful. I mean, it's not like I would be smiling and giggling at a funeral. I just don't like when people are sad and grumpy for no good reason. So basically, I'm almost always smiling and cheerful. I love that about myself.
I have ADHD, Which really suck's. My mom say's she will find a way to help, but she never does. She's too busy finding a new soulmate. our dad died when I was 4. At least that's what she tells me. Really, I'm not sure.
The main person who bullies me is Rebecca Harrington. I just want to slap that tacky makeup off of her face. Even worse, she spreads rumors that me and Tom are dating. Just because she has a so called perfect life dosen't mean she can make mine misreable. Tom sticks up for me, though. She has a huge crush on him, so she's absolutely gutted when he takes my side and tell's her I'm not ugly, she is. It's kind of hilarious.
I have a brother named Sam who is off I don't know where. He just got up and left. It left me feeling awful. I mean, we were like best friends. It was as if we were twins( Even though he is one year older.) Didn't he care about me? Anyway, that was 6 months ago. By now if he came home, I would not speak to him. And if I did happen to talk to him? It would be calling him out for leaving his sister guessing if he was still alive. I wish I could find him. That would be my wish.
Strange things keep happening to me. It's like I'm cursed or something. Like that time that I got extremely angry at my enemy, Rebecca, while we were exploring a patch of quicksand. Let's just say she almost died.
" What do you think she wants to show us?" I ask Tom as we walk behind Steph. Stephanie is a big jock. She does track, volleyball, soccer and basketball in the winter. You could say she's a overachiever." Don't know. Must be big." He sighed, running his hand through his brown hair. Really, Tom could be the most popular guy in our school. He's nice, cool and funny. Plus, many girls have huge crushes on him. I don't. We have know each other since we were in diapers, so it would be too wrong for us to go out. We are more like siblings. Sadly, this was Toms last year in junior high school before he graduates up to the daunting world of high school. I'm still a 7th grader. Oh well. Graduation wasn't until June. It's January. We have a while.
Then a thought crosses my mind. Stephanie is a huge nature freak. So what if this big thing is just some big tree that we have never even heard of? What If we basically just did Olympic track just to see Steph excited about something that we could really care less about? What If that was the case?
I pushed that thought out of my mind when I thought of something new. What if it was something bad. She never said it was good. Oh no. I'm so scared now.
Before I could worry anymore, Steph leads us to a old brick building. It was covered with moss, and very uneven." Really? You dragged us all the way from on top of a mountain to show us a house?" Tom turned to her. Tom is a very sweet guy, but also can be rude. It's our special bond that keeps me from strangling him. She glared at him. She lets everyone know what she's feeling." Shut up. And there's something that's in the house that I wanted to show you." She said, opening the door. Me and Tom sneak a glance at each other before heading inside. I can tell this was going to be intresting.
The inside looked like it was from the eighteen hundreds. It was stone, with a fireplace and rotting wood stairs. I liked these kinds of houses. Me and my brother use to look at them together. Stephanie sighed." Lets head up the stairs." She said, grabbing the railing. I head up with her. The stairs creak, and I wonder if it's safe. But I make it stairs lead to an attic. I look around. There are a bunch of old crates and spider webs." So, what's the big thing you wanted to show us?" Tom asked. He sounded impatient. To be honest, I was 's when Steph picked up a leather bound book.
" A book? You wanted to show us a book?" Tom was glaring at Steph. The book was brown, and it had a triangle carved in to the cover. I was semi interested to know what was in the book, but too afraid to open it. What if it was someone's diary. Then I would feel guilty about knowing about all of their secrets and whatnot. I decided to open it. Dust flew out when I did. We flipped through the book. There was nothing in there." I didn't want to show you what was in this book. I wanted to show you this…. Weird feeling I'm getting from it." She stuttered. Steph never stutters. Something was wrong.
I am texting my friends when my thoughts keep going back to the book. I wonder why it made Steph nervous. I mean, Steph is so confident that her calling herself ugly or anything of that sort is as rare as aliens coming down to earth because they want to turn Taco Bell into their main conference room. Seeing her nervous made me nervous. I decided I needed to tell a friend my feelings. And that friend was not Tom
" Really, Cris? You think that book is haunted?" I am talking to my other friend, Ellie Morgan. I told her about everything that happened yesterday. She appeared not to believe my theory." I know ,it's weird." I say, plopping onto my bed. It was the first day of school after two weeks, and we had a ton of homework. But I am a huge procrastinator. Ellie sat on my bed." Well, Cris. I don't know what to tell you." We heard a honking outside." Those are my parents. I have to leave." And with that, Ellie left.
I was on of the few people that chose to go to school on skip day, mostly because my parents told me to. Also because Steph wanted to talk to me about the book. She waited at the front for me. We had about 15 minutes until class started." Hey." Steph muttered. She walked over to a corner, where I had assumed we would talk." Cris, I am getting very bad feelings about this book." She moaned." Quiet. Someone will hear us." I whisper, looking at Rebecca just feet away. Her long brown locks flow perfectly down her back, and she's wearing all Holister clothes. I look down at my red jeans, white top, and black converse and feel jealous. " Earth to Cris?" Stephanie whispered." Oh, right." I say. We walk into the bathroom to talk, but Rebecca follows us." Well look who we have here. Losers one and two." She mocks us." Bug off, Becca." Steph stands up to her." Oh look, you have a little book." She snatches it. She then runs out the door to show her bratty little friends.
" Great, now what?" Stephanie yelled. Just then, the bell rang." We'll meet after school." I say, slinging on my backpack. We walk to our first class, history. I can't focus, especially with my ADHD. Finally, we can leave history. But that's when I realize our next subject is math! Math I completely hated. I wanted to be a singer when I grow up, so why should I need to know how to understand Algebra?
I finally reach the end of the day. I go out to the outside of the school to wait for my car. Our school does the carpool system. Everyday a different teacher yells into the megaphone who's car is there. It's stupid, and it bursts my eardrums. " So Steph-" I start to say." CRISTINA ROWAN, PLEASE GO TO YOUR CAR!" Ms. Anderson, our math teacher, yells. The bad part was I was right next to her. She glares at me as I walk over to my car. I get in the car and sigh." So how was school today?" A low voice said. Wait. That's not my mom. The person turn's to look at me, and I realize who it is. It's Sam.