Chapter 1

I was in my room, it was a Thursday night, and I was reading yet another book, when it all started. I loved to read, a lot more than my friends at school -if you could call them friends, I don't any more after this- but that wasn't one of the only things that was different about some of my friends and I. For one, they extremely enjoyed gossiping about other people, and I don't think any of them has ever kept a secret, so people generally don't tell them secrets. I had told them quite a few when I first became friends with them, but soon learned to keep my mouth firmly shut after they told Shawn, a boy I had a crush on that I was insanely in love with him and wanted to marry him, which was blowing it way out of proportion. Shawn never talked to me again and ran away when ever he saw me in the hallway at school. I never told them another secret again after that.

The book I was reading was called Twilight by Stephenie Meyer and I had already read it at least 5 times before, but I still enjoyed reading it. It was my sister's copy and was very battered and warn from all the times it had been read. I had just got to the important plot line when my sister yelled,

"SHIRMA! MUM WANTS YOU!"

I know what you're thinking, who has a name like Shirma? I think it sounds like a kind of mushy peas, but I didn't choose it. When my mum named me she liked that name it was the main character in a TV show she watched called The Red Sun, and she just thought it would be the perfect name for me, and I love it. Not.

Sighing, I folded down the page of my book I was up to, laid it on my bedside table, and walked slowly to the door of my room. We lived in a three story semi detached house and my bedroom was on the topmost floor, facing the back of the house. I shared this room with my sister, Eleanor (She was named after Eleanor Rosavelt) who was 7 years old and a total nuisance. She leaves her toys everywhere and when I get back from school i always have to tidy my stuff and do an inventory of it to make sure she hasn't taken anything- she one stole my hair straighteners and tried to straiten her hair, but instead ended up badly burning her neck and needing to go to hospital- as one of her most enjoyable tasks seems to be seeing what she could take from my things to amuse her for that day.

When I walked into the living room, I saw my mother reading a book- now you see where I get my love of reading from- and looking so engrossed in it, I wondered if I'd be able to sneak back out of the room and continue reading my book before she noticed me, but just as I was about to slowly creep out the door, my mother looked up from her reading and noticed me.

My mother was about five feet tall, with green eyes and short, honey blond hair. When she was a teenager she had been your typical popular girl, had been prom queen, went out with all the cute boys, you know the rest. I know she wished I cared a bit more about what I looked like and was more popular at school, but to be honest I had never cared about things like that. I had my dad's dark brown hair and my mother's green eyes, but I don't look nearly as pretty as my mum had. Partly that was my fault; I only ever put my hair up in a pony tail, plated it or left it down; I never wore make-up and I don't wear revealing clothes like my friends do. Don't get me wrong, I do make an effort to look nice, but I just didn't exhibit myself like they do.

"Shirma, go make yourself useful and clean the kitchen," my mom said, before turning back to her book.

"But I did it yesterday!" I complained, "And Eleanor made the mess not me, I haven't been in there at all today!"

It isn't fair, I always have to clean the kitchen and Eleanor doesn't have to clean anything ever, so I always have to clean it up even though I didn't make the mess in the first place.

"I don't care who made the mess!" my mum said, getting angry now, "Your going to clean it up!"

I knew there was no use arguing with her, so I stormed out of the living room door and into the kitchen. I felt like throwing a plate at the wall, but instead I strated tidying the kitchen. I was still anoyed, so I wasn't doing a very good job, and when it looked the slightest bit tidyer i escaped back up stairs to my room and praticly jumped onto the bed and opened Twilight.

Reading always carms me down partly because it makes me forget about why I was angry and it lets me escape into another world where anything can happen. I estimated that I had half an hour before my mum called me downstairs to clean the kitchen more thourghly.

"SHIRMA! COME DOWNSTAIRS AND CLEAN THIS KITCHEN AGAIN!" my mum shouted up the stairs in an anoyed voice. She had obviously found out how little I had done. I wracked my brains for somthing mum would think was more important than cleaning the kitchen. I suddenly thought of the perfect excuse.

"MUM, I CAN'T I'VE GOT HOMEWORK TO DO AND I'LL NEVER FINISH IT IN TIME IF I DON'T DO IT NOW!" I yelled downstairs.

"OK, SHIRMA! BUT DON'T LEAVE IT SO LATE NEXT TIME!" mum yelled in reply.

Yes! I didn't have to do the kitchen! But I did have to do my homework, it wasn't made up. I had 2 pages of maths to do and 10 A6 or more pages of a story to write. I started with the maths first, because I was quicker at that than I was at writing stories. When I had finished that, I started writing the story on my laptop. I'm great at writing stories, and it was like someone else was giving me the words they came so fast. I wrote pages and pages of the story, it was about a girl who was abducted by pirates but then became the captain of the pirate ship.

What I thought was a while later, I glaced at the clock and what I saw shocked me. It was 2:00am. I had started writing at 8 o clock, so that meaned I had be writing for 6 hours. I quickly looked down at my story and pressed the print preview button. I had written 324 pages. I was amazed. How had I written so much without noticing the time passing? I had been so absorbed in the story. I quickly printed the story and went to collect it downstairs.

I stood there for a whole half an hour as it printed all of the pages. When they were finally all out there was the equivalent of a book in front of me. I put in in a large folder and carryed it back upstairs to my room where I put it away in my school bag. I then got into my pyjamas, set my alarm clock and collapsed into bed, exausted.

When my alarm went off at 7:00am, it felt like I'd only just closed my eyes, when I had been asleep for 5hours. I grogily go out of bed and dressed for school still half asleep. I wore a comfy pair of dark jeans and a white top witha black jacket on top. I quickly brushed through my hair and left it down.

By that time it was almost time to leave, so I quickly threw down a glass of orange juice before running out the door, I would get a waffle for breakfast on the way.

I go to Larrington High School which has a total of 3,546 pupils. It was here we had to go for 8 hours everyday. I entered the gates and ran to my first class, I was going to be late if I didn't get there soon.

I ran into the English classroom, late, but the teacher didn't notice because she wasn't here herself yet. I quickly sat at my desk next to the window and said hi to my best friend, Jesse. Jesse was a few inches taller than my 5 foot 4 inches and had lovely deep blue eyes with blonde hair that went down to her waist, and like mine was left down. Jesse was my best friend who new all my secrets, and kept them, unlike some of my other friends.

"Shirma, did you finsh that story we had to write? It took me 2 hour and I only wrote 10 pages!"exclaimed Jesse as soon as I sat down. I didn't want to admit I had wrote 324 pages, but the teacher, Miss Greenwood, walked in then and saved me from having to. She told us to had them in at the end of class.

The class passed increadibly slowly for me, I couldn't wait for it to end as I had already studied the subject we were working on independantly, so I was pretty much just bored and stared out the window for the entire hour. I looked up, startled, when the bell rang, I had been lost in my thoughts. Seeing my startled expression, Jesse laughed.

"Daydreaming again, Shirma?" She said, acting shocked. "It's not even the second class of the day yet!"

"I've already studied this." I replied, as we walked over to Miss Greenwood's desk to hand in our homework.

"How am I surprised?" Jesse laughed. "You do so much independant study, you must have the dictionary memoriesed by now!"

"Not quite yet," I joked. "I'm only up to the T's.

For some reason I didn't want Jesse to know how much I had written so I quickly handed mine in while she was rummaging through her school bag for her own story. Luckily, she didn't notice.

The rest of the day passed much like the first lesson, I stared out of the window and got lost in thoughts for most of the classes. At lunch time I sat with a bunch of my other friends and Jesse, but the latter didn't talk much to the former, as my other friends didn't approve of Jesse. Jesse and I sat a seat apart from the rest of the table, and chatted between ourselves. Jesse's eyes almost popped out of her head at one point, when she spied Josh Davies in the lunch line. Josh Davies was in the year above ours and Jesse worshiped him. He was one of the popular guys that was considered completely cute and hot to everyone else- ncluding Jesse-but I really didn't get why he was so liked. To me, he seemed like a air-headed jerk that had never opened a book in his life, let alone read one.

At the end of school Jesse and me walked home, and luckily for me, when I got to my house i found out my mum had gone out for the night with Eleanor. This meant that I wouldn't be interupted in my reading, and I wouldn't be told to tidy the kichen!

The next day, when we were finally released from school by the bell, I shoved my books in my bag. Today was even for boring than yesterday, as we had Geography all afternoon, I mean, who needs to know how many rivers there are in the world? Not me. I was about to leave when Senora Brown, the spanish teacher who's lesson I had just been attending, came up to me.

"Shirma, Miss Greenwood would like to see you in her classroom," Senora Brown said, and left before I could reply.

Why would Miss Greenwood want me in her office? I thought to myself as I walked to her classroom. I would meet Jesse later in the parking lot and we would walk home together then, I hoped she wouldn't mind waiting. The halls were filling up now, and it was hard to manoever around the crowds of people moving towards the exit, looking forward to getting home. Mabey Miss Greenwood noticed me not listening in her class and was going to lecture me about listening. I really hoped not. Once Miss Greenwood got started, it could take her half an hour before she thought she had achieved her point, and Jesse might have decided not to wait for me if I took to long.

Finally, I was at Miss Greenwood's class room. I knocked on the door, trieing to soften her up if she was anoyed. I new from experiance that she was big on manners. But when I heard her quietly say come in, her voice didn't seem to have any anoyance in it, rather excitement for somthing I couldn't think of. When I walked through the door, I saw that Miss Greenwood was smiling, a rare sight to see.

"Shirma! Come in, sit down I have something to discuss with you." Miss Greenwood said, happieness mixed with joy was clear in her face.

I walked over to her desk and sat down at one of the chairs there.

"What do you need to discuss with me, Miss Greenwood?" I asked her, because i really didn't have a clue.

"The homework you handed in was brilliant, so good when I read it it was like I was reading a book. So I rang up a friend of mine and told her about, and I faxed her a copy. Today she emailed me (I was shocked she evenknew what email was) and told me she would like to publish it as a book!"

I was shocked. Never would I have thought that one of my stories could be good enough to publish. I evidently stood there frozen in shock for a while, because Miss Greenwood then said

"Are you alright, Shirma? I know it is alot to take in, but its a fantastic oportunity, and you will of course get payments for it depending on how well it sells-" Miss Greenwood was just chatting aim-lessly now, so I cut her off.

" That would be great Miss Greenwood, tell your friend she can publish it."

" Yes, well this is good, I just need to call your parents in, as there is contract signing you have to do, and your a minor."

I saw her pick the ancient phone on her desk- no really it was one of the really old ones that has the circle with the holes on it -and she asked me what my house number was. I gave it to her, and watched her as she talked to my mum. I couldn't believe this was happening. I got my story published and I got paid for it?

Miss Greenwood was done talking on the phone and she then told me that my mum would be here in 2 minutes. That must mean she was taking the car, and she barly ever took the car to my school as she believed that we should always walk places because it is better for the enviroment. I wondered how she would take me getting one of my stories published, but didn't get much time to think about it because at that moment, my mum walked in the door looking excited.

"Ah, Miss Smith, yes, you and your daughter here just have to sign a contract for the book to be published." As Miss Greenwood said this, she pulled a large stack of papers out of the draw and placed it on her desk.

My mum and I spent 2 hours going through the contract and signing the different parts after we were sure we knew what we were signing for. My hand ached by the end of it from writing my name so many times, and it was a relief when Miss Greenwood said we could go.

While mum drove me home she told me not to tell my friends about it yet, unless it acually happened. I didn't listen to her about this and as soon as we got home I emailed Jesse, but told her not to tell anyone. When I had done that, I lay down on my bed and read untill I fell asleep.