An alarm blared from beside her bed. Ugh, 6am… Time to get up for school… She thought. Christy reached her hand over to her phone to shut off the obnoxious sound that interrupted her dreams. Already it was fading, but something about the dream was familiar. She would have liked to see more, but oh well. It was just a dream, anyway. She lay in her bed for a little longer with her eyes shut, praying that she wouldn't have to get up today. Please let it be a snow day… Christy slowly began to emerge from her bed, throwing the sheets off of her as her feet touched the floor. Summoning every ounce of her will she managed to stand herself up. She cracked open the blinds a little. Dang… A perfect, beautiful day. Well that blows. Christy started her daily morning routine. Once she finished doing her makeup she stared blankly at her closet and shuffled back and forth through her clothes.

"I never have anything to wear…" She sighed. Finally she settled on a red top and a pair of blue jeans and then she checked herself out in the mirror. She had decided that today she would wear her hair down, though normally she'd wear it in a ponytail or a half-up hairstyle. She glanced at the top of her head and noticed a cowlick. "Guess it's a hat day."

She grabbed her favorite baseball cap that her dad gave her when she was younger. It was old and worn, but the purple color was still vibrant and somehow the hat could still be stretched enough to fit her.

"Christy! You're gonna be late for school!" Her mom shouted from down the stairs.

"Crap!" Christy shouted as she quickly grabbed her backpack and ran down the stairs. She grabbed the lunch her mom had made for her and jumped into her car. The engine turned over and Christy floored the gas pedal. She was lucky her high school was only a few miles away, or else she'd be completely toast. Once she parked, she took for her classroom, making it into her seat just as the bell rang.

"That was a close one, Christy!" Her friend, Dawn said. "What took you so long?"

"Let's just say my bed and I couldn't bear to be apart." Christy smiled.

Dawn chuckled. "Well I'm glad to hear you finally have a boyfriend!"

"Pft, Dawn, you don't have one either! The closest thing you got is your brother."

The blond boy sitting behind Dawn leaned his head in close to theirs. "Gross, Christy! Anyway, who'd wanna date this hot mess? Dawn's hopeless!"

"Oh, what, just because you somehow managed to get a girl to date you, you think you're all cool now? Newsflash, kiddo, you're not. And you should treat your elders with some respect." Dawn retorted coyly.

"I'm only 4 minutes younger than you!" John said, flustered at the way his twin sister always lorded her status as the elder sibling over his head. "And anyway, she kissed me last night! That's right, I got my first kiss before both of you!" He laughed.

Dawn and Christy shrugged and looked at each other. "At least we aren't paying anyone to kiss us," they said together, "But you are!"

"What are you talking about?"

Dawn had a mischievous look on her face. She whispered, "You and I both know you're doing her English homework for her, Johnny boy."

John blushed. "S-so what? She needs help, she's really busy! I'm just tutoring her, that's all!"

"Uh huh, sure." Christy said sarcastically. Christy and Dawn both knew he really was just tutoring her, but John was just too easy to make fun of.

"John, Dawn, and Christy! If you three don't stop talking during my class, I'm going to send you to detention!"

They each apologized and were quiet for most of the rest of class. It was just another boring calculus period- nothing new. Well, by "new", Christy means that it's always the same- more topics and formulas that just go right over her head. She still did her best to do well in the class, but for as hard as she studied, she always maintained C's on the exams. Maybe today would be the day though, the day she finally receives a good mark. At the end of class their teacher passed out the graded exams and everyone took a breath and garnered the courage to look down at their paper. Christy did the same, ready to jump for joy at what she believed could have been her best grade in the class.

"A D?!" Christy shouted. Well, whisper-shouted anyway. How could I have done even worse on this exam? I studied every single day! She buried her head in her hands. This day was not going well at all and it was only first period. She turned back to her friends for the usual grade-sharing ritual.

"Ugh, I was so worried about this exam! I barely studied at all! But I still managed a B!" John said, proudly, while he showed off his paper.

"Oh, me too- I can't believe I aced this exam; it was so hard." Dawn replied.

In her mind, Christy rolled her eyes. It always made her so mad that these two could just pull a good grade out of thin air without even trying.

"So…?" Dawn tried to coax the grade out of her.

"It looks like I really am only good at shooting marbles…" Christy attempted to joke.

"Hey, that's a pretty neat talent. I wish I could shoot marbles as good as you!" John said. Dawn and John both knew that Christy had been feeling down on herself recently, for whatever reason, so they did whatever they could to make her feel better.

"Heh, yeah, well, if you want to trade talents with me, go ahead! I'll take being a genius over being a marble prodigy any day! Nobody even plays that stupid old game anymore." Christy smiled sadly. It was a shame, for some reason she had this talent to shoot marbles at impossible angles and accomplish amazing feats with them, but in this day and age hardly anyone even owned marbles anymore. Her only talent was a total waste.

John smiled at her. "C'mon, Christy, why don't you show us a trick? I bet you still have it in you." He nudged Christy with his elbow until she gave an answer.

Christy chuckled. "Oh, please! You guys are still impressed with that old stuff?" Christy took out her pouch of marbles. For some reason she always carried it around with her, even though she almost never used it. She took out one of the glassy orbs and rubbed it; after so long of not taking one of them out, she'd forgotten how natural a marble felt in her hand. She looked around the room for a target, her eyes focused on the light switch at the other end of the room. This class period could use a little excitement. She focused on the space she was in, picturing the angles of everything, automatically processing every piece about the room in her mind. Within a few seconds, she knew her course. She took aim at the wall directly next to her.

The marble bounced off of the wall, against the ceiling, and onto the back of someone's chair, making slight plinking sounds as it went. It then flew towards the back wall and shot forward for the rim of the white board, which angled the marble down towards the teachers office chair and then finally over to the light switch, flicking all of the lights off.

There were no windows so everything went pitch black. John and Dawn were snickering behind her, trying to keep themselves under control but being completely unable to. Christy smiled confidently. Guess I still got it!

The teacher, however, was far less amused. She turned on the lights and sternly spoke, "Who did that?"

No one replied.

"If no one tells me who turned off those lights and disrupted my classroom right this moment, so help me I will send everyone here to the principal's office!"

Christy was feeling particularly rebellious today, so she raised her hand. "It was me."

"I should have known…" The calculus teacher shook her head. "I want you and your friends laughing over there to go straight to the principal's office."

"Wait- but John and Dawn didn't do anything!"

"I don't care, you three are getting on my last nerve! Now go!"

Christy shot a look of apology to her friends, but they shrugged it off. The three of them packed up their stuff and walked out of the room. The eyes of their classmates shot daggers in their backs as they went.

"I'm really sorry, you guys…" Christy said. She always ruined everything.

"No way, Chris! That was awesome!" John said.

"Yeah, that was seriously amazing. One of these days you've got to teach me how to do that!" Dawn continued.

Christy took her best friends into a hug. They always knew how to cheer her up, didn't they?

"Anyway, we'll just get an in school suspension. It's not like we've ever gotten into trouble before, right?" John explained.

"Yeah that's true…" But Christy's eyes were already beginning to tear up. Getting in trouble or talking to authority always made her cry involuntarily. It was pretty pathetic but there was nothing she could do about it. Dawn grabbed Christy's hand and squeezed it tight.

"Let's just get this over with." She said.

They went into the office one by one and explained their stories, although there wasn't really much to explain. The principal almost seemed to be annoyed that they were sent to his office for something so petty, as if it was a waste of his time. He assigned them all lunch detention and sent them back to class in time for second period to start.

"Well- that was really lame." Dawn said.

"Yeah, but at least we didn't get more than a single lunch detention. Plus, we'll get a lot done!" John was always thinking about getting his homework done super early. Dawn, on the other hand, was much lazier.

"Um, yeah… How about I catch up on my sleep, instead?" Dawn laughed.

"Sounds good to me… I hardly slept last night!" Christy said, opening the door to their next classroom.

The bell rang as they took their seats in second period. Finally, physics class. Something important I'm actually good at for a change. Maybe it was her natural talent at marbles that made her so good at physics, or the other way around; but whatever it was, this was the class where she was really able to shine. Everything just made sense, the way the forces counteract each other and add up, the way angles and shapes affect trajectories, the way gravity pulled on objects and changed their speed- everything just worked.

Christy vigorously took notes and enjoyed every second of it. She loved finishing the practice problems before the teacher was even halfway through explaining them. Before she knew it, class was over. The next two periods also passed by in one giant blur, and suddenly it was lunch time. Christy packed a book she was supposed to read for literature and trudged off with her friends for their punishment. After sitting down, she took out the book and began to read, but soon enough she was out like a light.

Images flashed in her brain, familiar images, but also somewhat obscure. Short, chubby, and colorful figures pranced around on top of… clouds? It was difficult to make out exactly what was happening. Her dream then immediately morphed into something more sinister. There was a dark figure looming over her, just beside her desk. Christy was paralyzed. Suddenly her point of view changed and she was staring at herself sleeping there as the shadowy figure outstretched his arms to grab her. Christy shouted at herself, desperately trying to wake Christy up, but it wouldn't work. Out of nowhere, rainbow-colored beams pierced the shadow and it dissipated into nothing.

"Christy…" Something said in her mind. What…? She tried to say.

Again it spoke her name in a soothing but stern voice. "Christy…" The voice was beckoning to her, and without saying anything more than her name Christy knew that it wanted her to follow it, to find it.

She jolted awake. Her breath was heavy, like she'd just run a marathon. Her friends looked at her with concern. "Christy are you okay?" They asked.

"Y-yeah… I, uh… just had this really crazy dream."

Dawn's eyes widened and she glanced at her brother.

In a serious tone, John asked, "What kind of a dream?"

Just as Christy began to explain herself, the detention monitor shushed them. "I'll tell you guys after detention."