Celeg sat at the lunch table, alone as usual. She stared down at her book while she ate, knowing that every other person in the lunchroom was probably laughing at her.

She was a brain, but it wasn't that simple. She looked weird. She had long, curly, white-blond hair, which her adopted parents wouldn't let her dye into a real color, and her ears went to a small point at the top. "Elf girl" they called her. Taunted her mercilessly about. Always asking what happened to her pixie wings, why she wasn't two inches tall, how come she wasn't in a fairy tale. She hated them for it, which meant she was usually alone. And she wasn't quite five feet tall, and for a high school junior, that was short. She had a very slim body, even though she liked food.

She read her book, ignoring the snickers behind her, the whispered comments about "Elf girl". She always had wished that she could just leave, leave the school, her whole life. That's why she read. For a brief time, she could escape from her life, not be Elf girl, but just be Celeg.

The bell startled her. She looked up from her book, and sighed. "Damn it," she muttered, going to dump her tray. "Gym," she grimaced.

Gym was her worst class. Not because she was clumsy, the exact opposite, actually. She was amazingly graceful, and the kids treated her awful for it. She couldn't even count the many volleyballs, basketballs, and other gym equipment wielded by students that had 'accidentally' hit her. Hockey was the worst, those sticks hurt. She put her books into the little locker, changed into her gym clothes, and left the locker room.

"Ok, ladies and gentlemen, today, we play baseball," the teacher announced. Celeg's face fell. She took the spot the teacher assigned her, third base, and sighed.

A girl slammed into Celeg a few minutes later. "Carla, you didn't need to slide into third base, there was enough time," the teacher yelled. Carla nodded, and then glared at Celeg. "Hello Elf girl. The elves leave you all alone, huh? Poor thing," Carla finished, and laughed.

Everybody at the school knew about how Celeg had been found. Left on a door step, just like in a story. Wrapped in a blanket, she had been wearing a small dress, nothing more. And there was a note, written in some strange language, with only the word Celeg written in English. So that was how she had gotten her name, from the note. The little curly haired girl had the whitest hair Mrs. Brockman had ever seen. And her eyes... Mr. and Mrs. Brockman adopted her about six months later. There was no sign of any family whatsoever.

"Celeg". They never did find out what it meant. Nor did they ever figure out how to read the note. She still kept it in her room though, carried it with her when things got really bad.

"Celeg, you're up to bat," the gym teacher yelled, bringing her out of her memories. She grabbed an aluminum bat and walked up to the plate. She stood ready to swing, when BAM! The baseball hit her square in the knee. Celeg cried out, in surprise and pain. The teacher rushed over to Celeg, asking if she were all right, while the pitcher just stood at the mound, grinning. Celeg tried to get up, but her knee fell out from beneath her, causing her to hit the ground. "We'd better get you to the nurse's office. Elizabeth," she called a student at random, "come help Celeg to the nurse's office." Elizabeth rushed over, but only because the teacher had made her. She held out an arm for Celeg, then they walked out of the gym, towards the nurse's office. When they were out of site from the gym, Elizabeth pulled her arm back, Celeg almost falling before grabbing the wall.

"Like I'd actually willingly touch an elf. Eww," Elizabeth said, walking way behind Celeg. "If you're not going to help, why not just go back to the damn gym, Elizabeth?" Celeg muttered through the pain. "Yeah right, and get in trouble?" Elizabeth said, and laughed. Celeg gritted her teeth and went onwards, leaning all her weight on her good leg, and grabbing the wall when she needed to. In the small hallway before the nurse's office, Elizabeth once again grabbed Celeg's arm and helped her. "Nurse Gellar, Celeg got hit by a baseball in gym. It hurt her knee real bad," Elizabeth said, almost sounding upset. She convinced nurse Gellar, though, who sent her back to class after thanking her for helping. She helped Celeg over to a seat, and asked her if she was ok. "It doesn't hurt that much, I'll just be going back to class now," Celeg said, standing up quickly. But the second she put weight on her leg, she yelled out in pain. The pain was so intense, she blacked out.

Little Celeg was only five years old, but already understood far more than a child of her age should have. "She's such a small one. Beautiful though. She's going to be a heartbreaker." It was her kindergarten teacher, Ms. King. She was talking to Celeg's adopted mother. "Celly is a pretty one. Odd eyes though, never seen that color before." Her adopted mother shook her head. Celeg should have been playing on the playground like the other kindergarteners, but instead, she was tending to a small seed she had planted in a Dixie cup a week earlier, when school had started. It was growing amazingly fast. It was recess time, and Ms. King had called her adopted mother in for a parent teacher conference.

"Well, let's get to the real issue here. Celeg doesn't seem to get along very well with the other children. She prefers to keep to herself," The teacher said. "Oh, Celly's just quiet, is all," Mrs. Brockman replied, an excuse her and her husband had come up with.

Celeg stared over at them, wondering why they were talking about her, even though she was right there. Ms. King noticed her staring. "Celeg, why don't you go outside today for recess, ok?" Celeg nodded, not sure what else to do. She went out the door to the playground. Almost immediately the other kids surrounded her. "Why are your ears pointy?" "How come you look like a fairy tale person?" "Are you an elf?" "Do you have magical powers?" "Can you talk to trees?" The questions kept coming. She pushed her way through the group of children. "Hey! We were just asking! You don't hafta be so mean about it," one of the older kindergarteners yelled. The others started looking angry, and one girl even started crying. The somewhat older boy looked over at the crying girl, then turned back to Celeg. "You're mean, we won't play with you now," he said, authority in his voice. Celeg shrugged her shoulders. "Ok," she said quietly, not sad or hurt at all by this statement. This angered the kids even more. One kid threw a handful of sand at her. This encouraged all the other kids. They rushed forward and started throwing sand all over her. Then came the pebbles. They hurt, and Celeg started screaming. Ms. King and Mrs. Brockman rushed out when they heard this. Ms. King pushed through the group of kids and grabbed Celeg. "What happened Celeg?" she asked. One of the kids yelled out, before Celeg could explain, "She was throwing stuff at us, and calling us mean names." The other kids yelled things in agreement. Ms. King stared at Celeg at these comments. "Why Celeg, what's gotten into you. You need to have a time out." She grabbed Celeg by the collar of her dress, and sat her down in the time out corner. "Class, recess is over. Please come back in." She turned to Mrs. Brockman, "We'll have to continue this conference some other time."

Mrs. Brockman looked at her adopted daughter. "Celly, I'm appalled. No tv for a week when you get home young lady." Celeg nodded and looked down at her feet. "Ok, mommy, I'm sorry."

The memory/dream shifted then, to some place that afterwards, Celeg would swear that she had never seen, and there were people around her. It was a dark forest, and all the people looked odd. They all had white blond hair like her, but their ears were pointier, and they were wearing strange clothes. And not a one of them had curly hair; all had long, straight hair. They were saying something in a language that she didn't know, but understood anyway.

"Kill the freak! The abomination must die!" A woman looked down at Celeg, tears in her eyes. When she spoke, it was like bells. "I'm sorry my sweetie, but this is for the best." And then suddenly she was dropped.

"Celeg? Can you hear me? Wake up hun." Suddenly, Celeg wasn't back in kindergarten when everything bad had started, or in the odd forest, falling off a cliff, but at the nurse's office. Nurse Gellar was shaking her shoulders by now. "I'm awake, nurse Gellar. I'm okay now," she muttered. "Good," said the nurse, "Then lets take a look at that knee." Celeg rolled her pants leg up, and the nurse looked at her knee. "Ok, now let's see the injured knee," she said. Celeg was confused. "What do you mean, the injured one. This is the one that got hit with the baseball." Celeg looked down at her knee. No bruise, and now that she thought about it, no pain. "It, it must not have been hit that hard," Celeg said, almost to herself. The nurse nodded, and then told her to go back to class, giving her a note to give to the teacher.

Celeg tried to figure out what had happened all the way back to class. She was positive it had hit her enough to at least dislodge something, yet she felt nothing. She hadn't been passed out that long, otherwise the nurse would've told her. She kept mulling over it, until she reached the gym. Just as she stepped in, the bell rang; signaling that gym was over. She headed off to the locker room, still trying to figure it out.

She thought about it during her creative writing class, through American history, and all during Biology 2. She didn't do much in study hall, just for her thinking about it, trying to figure it out. She was doodling on a page in her notebook, thinking about her knee, and that odd part of her dream, with the strange lady who seemed so familiar, when the boy from her memory, the big kindergartener all grown up, snatched the piece of paper out of her notebook, holding it up. She looked up, noticing that the on duty teacher was elsewhere. He held the notebook paper up for everyone to see. "Hey look," he said, loud enough for everybody to hear, "Elf girl's drawing her family tree." She then noticed that she had drawn a picture of the lady from her dream, and hadn't just doodled. "Give it back Jacob," she yelled, jumping to grab the paper back from him. But seeing as she was short, and he was tall, she couldn't grab it. Just then the teacher walked back into the room. "Mr. Alexander, what exactly are you doing up sir?" the teacher asked. "Nothing sir. I was just returning this piece of paper that Celeg dropped. Here you go," he said, returning the paper that he had taken from her notebook. She glared after him as he went back to his seat. She crumpled up the picture and stuffed it into her book bag.

Walking home from school, she pulled the paper back out of her book bag and looked at it. She had captured the woman perfectly. That was when she started wondering about maybe this woman being real, because she looked so much like Celeg. She could see herself in this woman, the nose, the shape of the eyes, the point of the ears.

Celeg sighed. Yeah, like stuff like that happens anywhere but in the movies. Celeg folded up the piece of paper and put it in her pocket. She continued walking home, glad that the day was over.

Later, while doing her homework, Celeg had her radio blasting. Well, blasting compared to the level she usually had to keep it at. Mrs. Brockman, as she had begun to call the woman who had adopted her, got awful migraines, and couldn't stand loud music.

"Celly, how many times have I told you to keep your music down," Mrs. Brockman yelled up the stairs. Celeg turned the volume down one notch. She could hear a door slam downstairs, and knew that Mr. Brockman was home. A few minutes later, she heard him yelling "Celeg, you get down here right this minute!" in a very angry tone. Celeg rolled her eyes. She hurried downstairs to get lectured at, yet again, for some bad thing that somebody made up, something she hadn't done in school.

She walked downstairs, a grimace on her face. Mr. Brockman started yelling immediately. "What's this about you calling some girl a 'bitch' and spitting on her?!" Celeg just stared at him. "Would it actually matter if I told you that I didn't do it?" she asked. He just looked angrier. She went on, used to this sort of thing by now. "I thought not. What's my punishment this time?" He yelled at her some more, then gave her a double chore load and sent her to her room.

She walked back to her room, with each step getting angrier at her life. She closed her door, not even bothering to slam it. She put the lock in place, and turned her music back up. But instead of sitting back down at her desk to work on her homework, she put on her jacket, shoved the note from her real parents into her pocket, and opened up her window. She climbed down the convenient tree just outside her window, and snuck off to her secret spot, the place where she went whenever life just got too bad.

She sat down on the log, and stared out at the lake. She sighed. "Life just plain sucks." she said to herself. She took the note out of her pocket, and sat staring at it for awhile. "If only I could read this code. Maybe then I'd know where my parents were, and I could run away to find them." A tear dropped from her eye onto the paper. She shook her head, trying to quit saying things that made her sound like a first grader. "Yeah, everything has a happy ending, and my parents didn't really want to get rid of me, they just had no choice. Oh, yeah, I definitely believe that," she said sarcastically. She shook her head again, put the note back into her pocket, and started walking back home to do her homework. She stopped suddenly, and stared up at the sky. "I want out of here! NOW!" She didn't know why she said it, but it made her feel the tiniest bit better. She sighed, and jumped up onto the log that led the way out of her hiding spot. She walked along it balanced, because she didn't want her foot to fall in the lake and get her shoe wet. Then, almost out of nowhere, an enormous gust of wind knocked her off balance. Normally, she would've just dropped into the lake, no harm no fowl, except for one soggy shoe. But this time, it was different. The wind had somehow knocked her over sideways, and while the lake here was usually shallow, with a bottom of sand, she fell in and hit her head on a rock. Vision starting to dim, she had one last thought. "At least I got my wish," she thought, floating off to the black place that looked as much like death as she had ever seen.

Celeg woke up, her head splitting, yet her clothes completely dry. She looked around. "So this is heaven," she said to herself. "I was kinda expecting pearly gates and clouds, but if they want it to be a forest outside of a village, it's their choice." She shrugs, which makes her head hurt worse, and starts walking towards the village. "It must be far away, because it's so small," she once again said to herself.

As she got closer, she saw that the village wasn't far away, it was small. There were people rushing around, all of them at least a foot shorter than her. It almost looked like something right out of the pages of a book, except for the people being shorter. They all had curly hair like hers, but not a one had white blond hair. It ranged from regular blonds, to dark browns and blacks. They all looked up at her oddly, but went about their business anyway. 'Must be my jeans,' she thought, glancing back at all the people staring at her. Her headache was slowly getting worse, and she started to feel a very slight trickle down the back of her neck. She looked up, and noticed that she was in front of a pub, the sign saying "The Green Dragon". She felt the back of her neck, and her hand came back with blood on it. Her eyes grew wide, and just as a group of four boys walked out of the pub, she collapsed in a heap, blood still trickling out of the cut on the back of her head.