Chapter One
Beginnings
It had all started on the first day of kindergarten.
Dairine Callahan glared daggers at the boy next to her, Ethan Smithinton. Ethan stuck his tongue out at her in return, then hit her in the arm. Dairine didn't flinch, instead, she smacked him. Hard. Ethan yelped, then raised his hand.
"Miz Ghani, Miz Ghani, Dairine hit me!"
Exasperated, the teacher hurried over, scolding the defiant Dairine.
"Now, Dairine, you know it's not nice to hit someone, especially someone that you're working with for art. Now say you're sorry."
Dairine rolled her eyes.
"He started it."
"Dairine…"
"Sorry," Dairine grumbled under her breath.
Miss Ghani straightened up in approval.
"Very good. Now, work together, you two, and create a beautiful piece of art."
She hurried off to prevent another kid from eating the paint.
Ethan pushed Dairine out of the way, grabbed the paint, and jammed his finger into the blue one. He began, with painstaking care, to draw a picture of a flying bird. Dairine grabbed the red paint from him, then started painting a tree behind the bird. Ethan grabbed the paint back.
"Doooooon't…" he wailed. "The bird is supposed to land on the tree, not fly away from it."
Dairine rolled her eyes again. "You don't know anything, do you?"
Ethan took the blue paint and smeared it over Dairine's tree.
"Now paint it again in front of the bird."
Dairine took offense immediately. "Don't tell me what to do."
"I'm supposed to."
Dairine glared at him, then threw yellow paint at the bird.
Ethan retaliated, and the paint war was on.
