Chapter 1

It was a normal day. Nothing unusual had happened. No fights had been fought. It was the average, typical, boring day.

In the midst of this boring, typical day for the world was a small town in Florida called Groveland. This was your average central-Floridian town—lots of rural area inhabited by the rednecks and the regular folk. Many families owned 5-acre lots on the rural highways, although there were several more urban highways, where the schools and stores were located. However, even the "urban" areas were rural.

One middle school, just off of the somewhat rural highway of 33, was the school of a certain female who was so close to fourteen it trembled in her outstretched hands. The name was Lauren, and she was one of the regular folk, a more modern girl with a huge flat-screen television and a laptop. Her family did not own five acres on some dirt road off of 33, but instead owned one half of an acre in a ranch-style home, which was elegantly decorated on the inside with antiques. Her brown hair came down approximately five inches past her shoulder, utterly straight. Her dark brown eyes were scanning, not missing any details, and discerning. She was tall and slender—many of her peers believed her to be anorexic, which she was not.

It just happened to be on this ordinary day that something utterly extraordinary occurred.

Lauren received a letter.

Now, you're probably thinking, How is getting a letter so extraordinary? Lauren wasn't exactly the best known to the world—she tended to keep quiet about her life and such as that, and to keep quiet in general. Very few people knew her house address, let alone mailed them through snail mail as this particular letter was received.

The ordinary thing about this particular letter was that it was from her school.

The unordinary thing about this particular letter was that it was not a newsletter, which most of the letters from the school were. What could the school want with her?

Mildly curious, she took the letter into the kitchen and sat on the barstool at the end of the island, one of her favorite spots just to sit. Then, gently, trying not to rip the paper, she shoved her finger underneath the flap that glued the letter shut and tore it open. She pulled out the letter and began to read:

To the Parents of Lauren Bey,

Congratulations! Your child has been selected among forty students to travel to Washington, D.C. This is an honorary position, as only the top students of those who apply are selected to attend this educational field trip.

More information on this trip can be found on the school website.

Best wishes, and we hope to see you on the trip!

Sheryl Williams

On the second page of the letter was a list of locations they would be stopping at and what they would be doing at each location.

Lauren stared vaguely at the letter and the list, scanning through it several more times to make sure she had read it thoroughly and accurately. She didn't remember ever applying for that trip—but then, the application date was sometime in October, so she didn't expect that she would remember it anyway, seeing that it was now early March. Perhaps she really had earned this position in such an important field trip.

Oh well. There was nothing she could do about it at the moment, except show it to her parents. They were surprised, but somewhat pleased. Like her, they did not recall her signing up to be on this trip, but were pleased nonetheless.

Lauren could only shrug.