Allie's Life
Allie McCartney's life is horrible. First of all, she's in sixth grade. Second of all—she's absolutely dead drop gorgeous—but she looks exactly like all of her nine older sisters. She has talent—she wants to shine out, not be known as Angelina's younger sister—the amazing. Not to mention—she has a secret. Something that only her three best friends share.
How will she get her chance to shine?
CHAPTER ONE: Yeah, yeah—my life's great. Not.
I fingered the pencil carefully and hesitated for a second before looking at the Sign Up/Try Out sheet for the Middle School's Yearly Play. The page was a crispy white page, and the print stood out in bold.
"What's wrong, Allie?" snickered Angie Beck. "You too chicken to sign up? Oh…that's the first McCartney. Allison, April, Avril, Abra, Alexa, Alexis, Angela, Angel and Angelina never even hesitated. Hmm."
Some other people snickered. Including Allison and April, my only sisters that still attended middle school.
I turned around to glare at them—my anger rising. I hated my sisters, Angie Beck, my family, the world and my life. It's horrible. I was only known because of my great sisters. Nobody knew me.
I stared up at the sign up sheet:
Drama middle's school yearly play. Sign up sheet:
Name:_ aGE:_
Role_ GRADE:_
I was so sure that this was meant for me. I had to get into this play. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. I wanted to be Hermione Granger. No, scratch that. I was going to be Hermione Granger.
I quickly filled in: Allie McCartney, eleven, Hermione Granger and six.
Allison came up from behind me and tapped me on the back as I was walking back to class.
She flipped back her deep, brown hair that was completely similar to mine.
"Look Allie," Allison began in this sweet, sing-song tone. "I know your deep little heart is set deeply to play Hermione Granger—but I say, forget it. You're in sixth grade. Sixth graders never get into plays."
"Angelina did," I argued.
Allison rolled her eyes. "Allie, I didn't even try out for Hermione Granger and I'm a WAY better actor than you. April did and she's going to get the part. I'm going for Ginny, Lavender Brown, Parvati Patil—or some girl close to the main character."
I crossed my arms over my chest, trying to make it clear to Allison that I really didn't care. I was going to try out for Hermione—and I was going to get the part in the school play.
"I don't care, Allison," I told her firmly, looking right in her deep brown eyes.
Allison raised her eyebrows and shrugged to herself. "Okay, but don't say I didn't tell you."
Allison walked down the hall and into a group of girls who were laughing, giggling, whispering and gossiping to themselves. Allison walked straight past them.
One of the girls came up to me. "I'm Angelica. I think you're going to get the parts—as your older sisters did."
Angelica hopped away over to her friends who waved at me and then walked away.
This was wrong. I didn't want to get the part for the play just as my older sisters did. I wanted to be known—I wanted to get the part because of me, not because of them. Why didn't anybody understand that I didn't want to be known as my older sisters or even be like my older sisters. I wanted to be known as me. And I wanted to get the part because of me. Was that just too hard to explain?
Amy-Anne Roberto, my BFF of life walked up to me and threw her arms around me.
Her silky black hair was parted into two plaited ponytails. Her fingernails still had the sharp weapon underneath them, that only Amy-Anne, Ame and I knew about.
I—had a way with bodies, if I touched them in the right spot—they wouldn't be able to move.
Ame, was the princess of our land. Which we were now, fighting in a war. Our land was called 'spies'. That meant that every other girl had a cool power. If you were lucky, Ame would send you to the Spy School for girls and you would become a warrior to battle in out war. We were fighting against the mind-readers, future-see-ers and the flyers .One day, she would take over as the Lord. Her power is one of the four elements, fire and lightning. She is very powerful and she is one of our BFFS.
There's still a war going on between us and the mind reader, future see-ers and the flyers. So we haven't seen Ame for a while. Not since her brother, Brian ran away to help the other nations.
Now here's the catch. Amy-Anne and Brian used to be deeply in love, but Brian ditched her, leaving her only a note that said good-bye and sorry. Ame hates Brian, and so does everyone in our Nation. He's a traitor.
Now, Ame knows about Amy-Anne's and my powers. She doesn't want anyone to know about us, because we have the best powers in the world. We're supposed to pretend we're one of the unlucky girls who don't get powers and attend regular school and have a normal life.
Now the boys—they have different powers. One in five hundred boys got a power to turn invisible and use force fields. Those boys, went to the same school as the girls and trained hard and learned to use their powers and spy.
The good part about this was—my sisters had no idea that I was great friends with the princess. And they had no idea about my powers, either. They didn't have any powers.
"Amy-Anne," I sighed. "Can't you wait 'til eight grade's over so we can just…relax?
Amy-Anne frowned. "I suppose so, but we still have two and a half years, you know. Besides, once I'm done eighth grade I have to go to my father's nation city that he built on the future-see-ers land. It's going to be so boring. Nothing ever happens there."
I paused and then grinned at her. "I think…" I whispered into her ear. "That I'm going to run off to the circus."
Amy-Anne's face stayed the same. "The circus?" she demanded in a quiet voice. "Allie, you can't! Our Nation needs you, Ame needs you."
I looked at her. "Oh, yeah—Ame needs me. We have the biggest powers in our whole Nation and Ame doesn't even bother sending us Spy School to help our Nation. As soon as school's out, I'm out of here. I don't want to stick around, being known as my older sisters."
Amy-Anne looked at me. "I—well okay. I guess I'll see you later."
Amy-Anne looked at me for what seemed a long moment, and then shrugged to herself and walked away.
gwould announce to the school about our powers and take us to the school for spies, but she never has. I think Amy-Anne should just give up. Ame obviously doesn't need us, or just doesn't care at all.
"Allie," it was Quinton, a normal boy that attended our school with literally no powers at all. I was completely shocked and impressed that he remembered my name, instead of calling me Angelina, Angel, Angela, Alexis, Alexa, Abra, Avril, April or Allison.
Quinton walked over to me, his light blonde hair swaying slowly in the distant wind.
"Hi." There was no emotion in my voice. Ame had taught me to speak clearly.
Quinton cleared his throat. "I was wondering if you were trying out for the school play?"
I looked blankly at him for a moment, before saying "yeah. I'm going for Hermione Granger."
Quinton grinned. "That's terrific. I'm trying out for Ronald Weasley. Maybe I'll see you there."
I shrugged, not really caring if he made it or not. It was all about me that mattered. "Yeah, maybe."
Quinton looked at the ground. "Could I have Angelina's cell number?"
WHAT?
Quinton wanted Angelina, my twenty year old sister's phone number. Quinton was in eighth grade.
I looked at him, my face slipping emotions and I knew I looked puzzled. "Uh, sure. But, why?"
Quinton blushed and grinned at me again. "I wanted to see if Angelina wanted to go out. We take the same spy lessons together."
I held my breath to keep from laughing. They need spy lessons. Spy lessons for her kids aged 11-20 who didn't have powers, but thought they ALMOST did, so they took lessons to defend themselves. Spy lessons were pretty pricey so only rich kids like Angelina (my sisters), Quinton (his family) and quite a few other families.
No, I hadn't signed up for Spy lessons. My Mom and Dad had wanted me to, but I'd begged and pleaded them not to. So, eventually, they finally gave in.
I don't know what made me say it, but for once I felt that Angelina should get a taste of her own medicine. I stared at him, my face blank, emotionless. I felt like my sockets were empty, even though I knew they weren't.
Quinton looked at me, his face turning from his grin to a frown with impatient written ALL over it. "So, can I have Angelina's number?" he urged.
I pressed my lips tightly together and thought for a moment. "Sorry, but no, Quinton. I don't give out Angelina's number, she likes giving it out herself. You'll have to ask her at your Spy lessons."
Without looking at his face, I smiled to myself and walked away. Away from my miserable life.
"Great job, Allie! I think you really have nailed it this time! Perfect for the show tonight!" I was congratulated by the circus master, Waldo Marks.
No, I'm not talking about the sixth grade play. I was now fourteen years of age—I ran away from ninth grade (High School), after Amy-Anne left to go to her dad's city.
And guess where I ran away too?
The circus.
It was pretty great, because everyone loved me because I was pretty, and I had the talent, and I did a good job—not my sisters. ME. I enjoyed it too, seeing people gasp at my performance, beauty and talent. I felt special. And I never once felt guilty about leaving my old life.
"Thanks," I said to Waldo, after carefully giving him a hi-five. I didn't want to accidently use my powers against him. Still, nonbody knew about my powers except for Amy-Anne and Ame.
Or so that's what I thought. And that's what they thought, too. But another one knew.
I did five cartwheels through the air on a single wire and through a small hula-hoop.
"Okay, now go and rest for the show, Allie," Waldo told me anxiously. "I don't want you to be too tired or not feeling well for the show tonight. It's supposed to be the best one—perfect for your career."
I nodded and smiled at him and danced my way out the large circus tent, walking on my hands. I was just about to change so that I was walking on my feet and not my hands but somebody tapped me on the shoulder.
A little frightened—or surprised, I jumped and held back my power so that if it was somebody that didn't know about my human body powers, they wouldn't find out.
I rubbed my eyes, hardly believing what I was seeing. "Ame!" I finally cried, more shocked than excited.
I thought Ame was preparing her Spy Warriors for battle and learning how to rule our land, not out here in practically the middle of nowhere—the circus.
"Allie," Ame greeted me politely, her eyes straight and black as always, that evil look in her eyes glowed.
"How are you?" I blurted. "I mean, like what are you doing out here, the circus?"
Ame pursed her lips tightly together and paced back and forth in front of the circus tent.
"Well, I had to come and visit an old friend," she said slowly.
I knew that Ame hadn't come all the way to the circus just to see me. There was obviously some WAY more important reason.
"And?" I urged.
She looked at me, her face pale, her eyes steady, her battle uniform ready with more power than any human in the world at her fingertips. "I came to ask you something. Something very important indeed."
I just looked at her. What was she getting to?
"I would like you to join me on my quest."
"Your quest for what?" I demanded.
Ame paused, and I knew this was going to be bad.
"The Avatar," she told me clearly, without missing a beat. "The Avatar has returned."
The Avatar is a human being of one of the four lands/nations and is normal until he reaches the age of ten, when he must start learning all the other powers and make peace with the world.
"Ha," I laughed. "Funny."
"No," Ame's voice was firm. "It's true, Allie. I've seen him. Father knows."
"Well," I bit my lip and thought for a moment. "No."
"Why?" Ame sounded surprised. "Why Allie? What do you have in this life anyways? If you come with me, everyone will know your name."
"I don't really know, Ame," I said. "I'll think about it, though. I have a show tonight."
Ame pursed her lips tightly together. "I'll be there."