Mae smiled up at the perfect sun. Her golden blonde hair swinging from side to side because of the wind, her paper-bag lunch was clutched tightly in her left hand. She was sixteen, but still felt very young. She still collected care bears and she still watched Spongebob Squarepants. Also Mae believed in another life, a better life, a life of fighting crime and saving the world, although she knew the dangers of it all. She was a hopeless romantic.
But, Mae had one flaw, her pride. It kept her from admitting how her life truly was. First of all, her parents, Jack and Donna were horridly poor. The children were constantly having yard sales and selling lemonade. Mae worked at the local Ice Cream stand, it didn't pay well, but it was work. Her two older siblings, Nova and Tony both worked at the Gap. While Shelley sold lemonade on the block, and her 6-year old brother, Marcus, begged out on the streets. The older children mourned for the younger ones, for the innocence, how they did not know of their handicap.
So Mae started walking to school, typically she and Shelley walked together, but today Shelley had a bad cough. Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder and started to run, she felt a hard blow to the head and blacked out.
"Bobby that was harsh," she heard a voice, a girl voice she tried to open her eyes and soon realized she had a headache.
"What was I supposed to do?" Now there was a male voice, Mae was confused.
Mae tried to work up all the energy she had and run, but she was too slow, she felt hands grab her arms and pull her back; she stared into the face of a handsome teenage boy. She looked around; there was a girl she recognized from school and a boy who looked well, geeky. She remembers the boy whose eyes she stared into, but, she could not remember, she knew those eyes.
"Who are you," Mae could barely work up a whisper.
"Bobby Pendragon," he said starring at her, "she's okay," he said to the two others, "this is the one."
"I am not the one, listen Bobby are you going to kill me or, something? Because I am nobody, I swear." she yelled.
"Glamour," Bobby said his voice sounding parched.
"Excuse me?" Mae questioned
"Take off your glamour," Bobby said loudly.
They knew, Mae felt like she was going to cry, and in-fact she did.
"Stop it!" Is was from the teenage girl, "can't you tell that she's crying!"
"But-" Bobby started.
"But what?" The teenage girl questioned, "I'm Courtney, and that kid hiding in the corner is Mark, say hi Mark."
"Hey," he said.
"Lenski Manourg Lay Umbra," Bobby yelled.
Suddenly Mae fell to the ground. Pain rushed through her spine and her face felt like it was burning. She shrieked and crying and banged her fists against the dirt. Suddenly, she found enough energy and took off running as her glamour fell off bit by bit (for all you who do not know what glamour is, it is a disguise faerie often wear). Mae tripped but she continued to run. She ran till her feet no longer had feeling. She heard pitter-patter of footsteps behind her and she took off into the sky.
"Bobby Pendragon, I remember you, you were the kid who vanished, the kid who nobody ever found, my crush," she said the last word pathetically.
Because she knew he did not remember her. She and her family had come to America to avoid a repeat of the witch trials or may I say, Faerie Trials. They were faeries. But, they had been able to hide it with glamour for a while. Around two years ago she started seeing a boy around school. He seemed different than all the other boys and she instantly fell in love with him, it was no silly crush. But, she had hid it because she knew that true love made glamour vanish when your love kissed you. So, she dealt with jock boyfriends for a while, but came to realize that she couldn't stop thinking about that nameless figure, and gave up dating other boys. She knew he did not remember or care about her.
"He's a traveler," she though to herself, "the very thing I am told to avoid."
But, Mae was wrong. Bobby remembered her, but, in a not-so flattering way. He hadn't known Mae personally so he simply thought of her as a slut who dated all the jocks. When he had seen her today- he didn't know he had just felt something and it scared him.
No matter what both had to admit it was, love.
