ICE
Eugolorp
It was a dark and stormy night. No, scratch that. Far too many stories began like that. I wanted my story to be unique, to be different. No luck so far.
I looked down at my sheet of lined paper. Nearly every line had something written on it. Nearly every piece of writing was crossed out. I looked down at the paper, cross-examining the lines over top of the letters. To me it was ink killing ink. A war on paper. I sighed. It was a normal thought any book-obsessed teenage girl would have.
Normality.
That was my life. Normal. It's the only thing that can describe me. I turned in my chair and looked around my room. Bubblegum coloured walls, a twin sized bed, a wooden bookcase and desk, a full-length mirror. It was a normal girl's room. I turned in my seat again and stared at my reflection in the mirror. I had long wavy brown hair, green eyes and tanned skin. Everything else about me was average. Average height, average weight, and so on. It's so…normal.
That's me all right, a normal 14-year-old girl, Isabella Carlen Emmerson. I-C-E. Ice. My name. That's the only thing I really liked about myself, and I didn't even like that too much.
Ice is a weak element. It's overpowered by water, melted by fire, drowned by earth, and broken by air.
Little did I know that ICE would soon be, not just my initials, but also my story. It would become my life.
Retpahc Eno"That's it! I give up!" With that, I crumpled my paper and threw it across the room. I was frustrated, I was pissed, but most of all I was depressed. My story was a bust. All those endless hours of writing, thinking, reading, everything, were wasted.
"Aw, Bella, don't give up, you've come so far!" My best friend Lucy said in what she obviously thought was a soothing encouraging or even comforting voice. It wasn't. Actually it sounded more like a mocking sort of voice. I managed a feeble smile.
Lucy Haynes was a person that could be described with one simple word, beautiful. She had waist long, perfectly straight, platinum blonde hair. Big curiosity filled eyes that changed from green to blue to grey. She had a perfect body and looked astonishing in anything and everything. Currently though, she was lying on my denim bedspread.
Denim. In my opinion it's a vile material. It seems indestructible, it won't rip or anything. According to my mother it would be there for me to hand on to my grand children. For some reason, that makes me laugh.
"As if, Bella's-er, did you call that a book? Anyways, it's been going downhill for ages." Jake, my other best friend, has this uncanny ability to bring up the truth in a way to make other people feel guilty; it's probably because of how casually he does it.
Jake Smith was a tall boy with jet black and the most unusual eyes. One was a bright blue, and the other was grey. They were always like that, and most likely they always will be. He was quite handsome and loved to talk. He was also very easy to compare to Harry Potter. Currently though, his hands where in his pockets and he was leaning against my bookshelf.
"Don't be so rude!" snapped Lucy. His reaction was a mere shrug.
My best friends were awesome. The were always there for me and they made me seem somewhat less normal. I loved them. We were the golden trio.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't give on my story. What I wanted more than anything was to at least get a good start. Yet, at the same time, my mind was telling me I was fighting a losing battle, and I should surrender before the odds get even worse. Mind or instinct, which one should I trust? No clue.
Lucy and Jake left about an hour ago leaving be to debate on my own.
"Isabella, dinner!" my mother called me from the kitchen.
At this I bolted upright. This remark startled me for two reasons. One; I didn't hear my mom come home. Two; she never, never, never, never calls my Isabella. Something wasn't right.
I ran out of my room and down the stairs. When I reached the bottom I stopped in my tracks and looked around as a sudden though struck me. When we moved into this house about a year ago, it seemed so large, that I was certain that I would get lost. Now, this house seems uncomfortably small to me. I shook off this thought as I remembered what I was doing. I continued to run to the kitchen.
"Mom?" I didn't recognise the voice that had uttered this word. It was a scared voice. Then I realized that the voice was my own, and I was scared. Wait, I was scared? But I haven't been scared for so long!
When I reached the kitchen I was that my mom wasn't alone. There was a man in the kitchen with her.
It wasn't my father. I know that for sure. I never knew my dad and mom never told me what had happened. From what I guessed, he just up and left us before I was even born. How I hated him.
But this mad in front of me I feel that I know him. I feel that I've known him for a really long time. What I didn't know was how or where I know him from.
Finally, something in my life that wasn't normal.
"You must be Isabella, I must say, you have grown since the last time I saw you." He smiled a warm smile. It was a fake smile. All I could do was nod and stare.
"Where's Cam?" I asked my mom without taking my eyes off the man. Cameron was my older brother, he looked a lot like me but he had darker brown hair.
"He's working late dear," was the reply.
I finally managed to tear away from his eyes. There was something strange about his eyes, they were very entrancing. I looked him over. He was fit and seemed to be around his late twenty's to early thirty's. He was tall, his hair was the colour of dried blood and his eyes were a really dark blue. I didn't trust him. At all.
"Bella, this is Mr. Evans. He'll be you new teacher," I looked at my mother. Teacher? For what? I don't need a teacher, I go to school! Buy the look in my moms eyes told me that she didn't want to talk about it. Not just yet.
Something not normal was happening. I sighed, well, there's a first for everything. After I met Mr. Evans, I took my dinner- macaroni and cheese- upstairs to my room. While I was eating I could only think of one thing, what had just happened. When I had finished, I left the dish on my desk, someone would get that later. I walked to my bathroom and took a shower. After that I slipped into bed and busied myself with some pondering.
In another month I would be starting high school. Unlike most people I wasn't excited. Most of my friends were going to W. Rowell High. I, on the other hand, am going to C. Dawson High, where Cam goes. The only good part about that was the Lucy and Jake convinced their parents to let them go there too. I smiled and thought of my first day. Lucy would have many guys casting looks her way, and Jake would have many girls casting looks his way. Me, I would just tag along not noticing anything and pretending to be invisible.
I couldn't tell if I had stayed up all night thinking or if I slipped out of consciousness and my thoughts turned into dreams. All I knew, the next morning, I was tired as hell.
It was Sunday, and normally I would have slept in, but I was woken up when I felt a great pink tongue sliding across my face. My green eyes snapped up and I was staring into the blue ones of Oscar, my collie dog.
Turning in my bed I stared at the ceiling and listened to Cam play his guitar quietly in his room. After a moment I remember the little scene last night and bolted downstairs.
"Mom!" I said panting, "Where's that Evans dude?"
She didn't look at me. Instead, she continued making bacon and eggs without acknowledging me at all. I sat down and waited, I knew better than to bother her. A couple minutes past and I was about to lose my patience. I opened my mouth to say something just as she was putting the bacon and eggs on a plate. She finally looked up at me before I had even said a word.
"He left last night," She said simply. I stared at her in disbelief. That was it? Four measly words, couldn't she have said that before I was here waiting for five minutes?
"Why was he here?" I was fuming by now. I had tried to keep my voice calm but I knew that I was failing miserably.
"Bella, you really need to learn to be more patient" That was it I rounded on her.
" Me being impatient has nothing to do with this! I asked you a simple question and you made a huge show of putting bacon on a plate and—"
"You also need to control your temper!" She was getting furious as well.
"—Answered me four simple words!" I ignored her. I was getting very worked up and I couldn't stop. "I just want to know why he was here! But of course Isabella is to stupid to figure it out for herself and now no one is going to tell her because it might be too much for her little brain to handle!" I had to stop for breath.
"ICE," my mother said quietly.
"ICE?" I repeated, dumbstruck. She said nothing and gave me that 'not now' look and walked out of the kitchen.
I sat there. Staring into space until Cam came downstairs.
"Yum, bacon" I turned and looked at him. How could he not have heard that argument? Mom and I never fight, he knows that. Maybe that was why he was avoiding my eye.
I spent the rest of the day in my room, lying on my bed and replaying what my mom had said over and over again in my head.
ICE? No, it just didn't make any sense. She must have been joking. No matter how I looked at is I came to one conclusion, it's not possible to be so serious when your lying, no matter how good a liar you are. But then, what could she have meant? Was ICE some sort of Old Dutch tradition? My dad's family was from the Netherlands, and mom always wanted me to learn about my multicultural background. After all, she and her family had always lived in British Columbia.
I looked around my room. It seems to me that since I started attempting to write my story. Was that some sort of symptom that you were going to be a great writer?