SAM

My day started off as usual. Make breakfast for mom at seven. Eat and leave for school. Okay, okay, I gotta back up. My name is Samantha (Brett) La Rue, but my friends (though I don't have many) call me Sam. I used to be Samantha Brett, but after dad got rid of me, I got adopted into the La Rue family. My passport reads Samantha La Rue. I'm fifteen and I go to the East Columbia Academy for troubled kids, my ninth school in nine years. I try hard to study hard so I can get into college but noooooo. My ADHD and dyslexia just has to ruin everything. Now this is my life. I went to the school mom wants me to go to. I used to have a foster sister, but around five years ago, she disappeared with a man called Gleeson Hedge. Mom changed, she starting treating me like a human and she started telling me: "Sam, at least you're normal, not like Clarisse." I have no idea what she meant by that, because I wouldn't call an adopted kid with ADHD and dyslexia that got kicked out of all the schools she's ever been to normal.

I walked out of the house and sighed. When I get to school, I'll probably get pushed around by Dara and her gang again. I checked my watch. 7:30. School starts at 8:00, and I only live 3 blocks away from school. At least I got there on time, right?

Wrong. The moment I began to walk towards school, two teenagers around my age crashed into me. My face got to high-five the pavement, which I didn't really enjoy.

"Ouch," I muttered.

The two stopped running. They turned to face me. It was a girl and a boy. The girl had long black hair and dark, piercing eyes. She wore a purple cloak that looked really out of place in the modern world and she held a golden staff with a golden eagle with red ruby eyes on the top. But that wasn't the strangest. She also had two dogs made completely of metal. I wondered how the other people didn't think she was strange. The boy was pretty much the same. He was Asian and also wore a purple cloak. I stared at them. And the more I stared the more little details I saw, like ripped bits of the cloaks, the scratches on the boy's face and a few twigs in the girls hair. They were panting like they'd ran twenty miles.

"Uh, are you two part of some religious tribe that's getting chased?" I blurted.

The girl glanced at the boy. "Not really. Sorry we knocked you over, but we're in a hurry."

She pulled the boy's arm. "Frank, we have to go."

The boy shook his head, still panting. "He's too fast, Reyna. We won't outrun him by feet." I stand up, my head still a bit dizzy from saying hi to the ground.

"Hey," I said, "Who are you people? What's with the metal dogs? Do they actually work?" The girl, Reyna, put her hands on her hips.

She regarded me with her piercing eyes. "You can see them? Who are you?"

I dusted my shirt and said: "I thought I asked you first. But I'm Samantha La Rue." Reyna's eyes widened for a second in surprise, but she got her poker face back just as fast. "Do you know Clarisse La Rue then?"

"I —" I broke off as Frank shouted in warning.

"Reyna!" She turned and narrowed her eyes. Her eyes were looking at something behind me, but when I turned there was no one. When I turned back all I saw was the disappearing figure of Reyna…on a horse and Frank was nowhere to be seen.

"Hey!" I ran after her, but she was already gone. I kept running in the direction she was going until suddenly I was flying in the air, and my face just had to have a reunion with the concrete. I laid there for a few seconds, 'cause it really hurt and I was annoyed. There were a few scratches and scrapes on my face and I stood up, extremely annoyed. I turned around to see what tripped me and my annoyance faded away almost instantly.

A few feet away, lying on the ground, with one red ruby eye gone, was the golden staff with the eagle on top. I looked around. Everyone was still doing whatever they were doing, with no sign that they saw a huge golden stick in the middle of the road. I ran over to it and picked it up. It was really heavy and I didn't really know what to do with it. So naturally, I did something stupid. I packed it into my bag.

Now, if you're wondering how a golden stick that big can fit inside my backpack, it's because the moment the staff touched my bag it shrunk and fit exactly into my bag, but it was still like twenty pounds. which sucked a bit. It seemed a bit too magical (and heavy) for me though. I shrugged like I was trying to shrug off what happened that morning and glanced at my watch. Uh-oh. It was eight already.

"Right, what's going to be my reason?" I asked aloud. Then I laughed. "I met a girl that had two metal dogs." Yeah right, everyone's going to believe that.

I arrived at school ten minutes late. So of course, Ms. Towers greeted me with the usual "Why are you late?". And my response was, as usual, "I'm sorry, I got up late."

A snicker sounded in the back of the room. I turned and saw Dara with her hand over her mouth. I gritted my teeth. I was determined not to be late the next day. Ms. Towers pointed at my desk and I sat down at it. She drummed her fingers on my desk, while staring at me. I looked away. I knew I shouldn't be late, because there really was no reason. She cleared her voice.

"Right, Ms. La Rue, because of your constant lateness, you will be getting a detention. Seeing as Mr. Pierce needs his wood sorted, you will be going to him for a two hours after school for detention. Got it?"

She sounded so upbeat I wanted to punch her. "Got it," I said.

School went on as usual after that. Ms. Towers talked about conjunctions or conjugations I have no idea and wrote stuff on the board. She teaches Spanish. I tried my best to follow what she was saying but too soon I got pretty restless and my dyslexia just got even worse so I stopped attempting to take notes. I'll be getting another F, I thought grimly.

The lesson finished and I headed off to math. The morning passed extremely slowly but finally, it was lunch time.

"Oh my gods," I grumbled, "I can finally eat something." I headed down the corridor and stuffed my bag into my locker, with the staff and all. I walked into the cafeteria and got a sandwich. Then I sat down at an empty table. No one came over to sit with me, which didn't surprise me. I glanced up and saw three teenagers walking into the cafeteria. They must've been students at East Columbia Academy, but one looked like he should be going to college already. One looked like he had too many zits and even a wispy beard. And the other…I gasped. What was she doing here? I quickly wolfed down the rest of my sandwich and got up from my table.

"Going somewhere?" I spun around. Dara, I thought. But it wasn't her. The three teenagers I'd seen coming in were standing right in front of me.

There were two boys and a girl. One boy had messy black hair and sea green eyes. He was kind of cute, but not really my type. He wore a shirt that read something like Amcp Alhf-Loobd. I squinted at it for a long time then gave up. The other boy also wore the same shirt but he had curly hair and a green Rasta cap. He also had a lot of zits. And the girl, she was…