"So you can see them too?" I inquired.

"M-hm."

"And they say stuff about ancient Greek mythology, too?

"M-hm."

"And you can read, speak and write in ancient Greek, too?"

"The answer to all the questions you're about to ask is yes."

"So the teachers said really, really bad swear words in a different language?"

"No, actually they just screech stuff like DIE and WE KNOW WHO YOU ARE."

"What is that supposed to mean?!"

"I have no idea! I just think it means something bad."

"No, if somebody screeches DIE it only means happy good stuff."

I wondered silently what they meant by 'we know who you are'. As far as I knew, Alexy wasn't anyone more than she appeared to be. But what if she wasn't telling the truth...

"Are you who you appear to be?" I blurted.

As soon as the words came out of my mouth I regretted them. How could I ask something like that to anyone, let alone my best friend? If anyone had asked me if I was who I appeared to be, I would be mad. No, more than mad.

"Izzy, I assure you I am nothing more than Alexandra Robinson, and hopefully that's all I'll ever be. But what has happened in my recent years has made me question whether there's a part of me that I don't know about, a part that's very dark. Now, after your battle with Mrs Freedman, I'm worried you have that too."

Oh no. If Alexandra and I could see (and not to mention fight) these ... creatures, then where did that leave Jack and Lezlie? My mind was racing. Hmm.. Lezlie had seriously seemed like she believed that Miss Johansen was the lower reading teacher for 3 years, but Jack's voice sort of wavered when he was replying... could he have been lying to me? One of my best friends in the whole world to China and back had lied to me? I was ashamed for him, but even moreso for myself. Well, I couldn't blame him... his main goal in life was to fit in and NOT sound like a loon... but still. How had I not realized this before? Everything that everyone has ever said to me could have been an outright lie. That was when I learned to be careful about who I trust, one of the world's most important survival skills.

"Welcome home, sweety."

"Hi Mom,"

Now that I was back home, I could just finish my homework then lie down and think about the day's events. But something Mrs Freedman had said had intrigued me, and I knew that needed to come first.

"Mom, who is my dad?"

Mom's expression went from cheerful and upbeat to sad, almost lonely. She looked a thousand years older.

"Isabella, it's really a long story. I'd really rather not go into the details now."

Her sad face made feel sorry for her, so I just said "Oh," and set off to do my homework. My cat Thumbelina was sleeping on my bed, and when she heard me come in she raised her head slightly, then promptly fell back asleep. I started with reading, and the first question was: When a monster is killed, what does it turn into, and does it die? Explain your answer. Hmm.. if I killed a monster... wait a minute, MONSTER?! That wasn't right. And when you're not right, you're wrong. Then I remembered that Mrs Freedman was my reading teacher before she exploded into yellowish powder that smelled bad. This must have been one of her assignments that I stuffed into my folder before I popped her like a balloon. I remembered that she exploded into sulfur, and she was pretty darn close to my definition of a monster. Just about to kill an innocent human being like that? Now that was hard to chew on. But nonetheless, she was a monster, so for Question 1 I wrote that a monster explodes into sulfur when they are killed and I'm not sure if they can really die or not. I shuddered. To think that Mrs Freedman might still be alive, somewhere out there... No. I shook the thought from my head, and wrote a detailed explanation of how I had witnessed it happen firsthand. I had trouble sleeping that night. Once I thought I saw a shadow outside my window. It looked like a cat's shadow, but I wasn't sure. It was only there for a second.

I woke up early in the morning, with a bird sitting on a telephone wire outside my window. The bluejay chirped defeatedly at me, as if it had been trying to wake me up for hours and only now was I noticing. Then he flew in my bedroom and settled on my dresser. I blinked. "Wha-" My thoughts were interrupted by a loud rumble of thunder, and then a thump that came from my mom's bedroom. The door opened. "Honey? What's wrong?" I turned around to explain the bird, but it was gone. "What was that thumping noise?" I asked. "Oh, it was just the cat." Mom replied. "Ah," Thumbelina was afraid of thunder, and when she jumped out of my mom's bed I wasn't surprised the noise was that loud. No offense to Thumbelina but she needed to lay off the carbs.

It was the weekend, so the first thing I did when I came down the carpeted stairs was plop down and watch TV. I was being raised by only my mom, and we only had enough money to live comfortably. My ADHD made it so that it was hard for me to follow a TV show storyline, and that's why I was glad that my favorite cartoons had that thing where it doesn't matter what episode it is because they all have a different storyline. Since we were a working-class family with one daughter (me) to support, we didn't get to spend money on much things for personal entertainment, which was why the library was my hero. My aunt was a librarian, and she let me take out a book for as long as it takes to finish it. And I would usually finish it past its average due date, because of my dyslexia. That made it really hard for me to read, but I still loved it anyway. Our TV was a nice little Panasonic (A/N: I do not own Panasonic... was that really neccessary?) that displayed in full color and we didn't have cable but regular channels were good enough for me. I was entertaining myself watching TV when the doorbell rang. We had an "authentic" doorbell, which was really just a bell which you pulled a string to ring. Anyhoo, the bell rang, and I turned off the TV and rushed to the door, hoping it was one of my friends. I swung the door wide open. A girl and a boy who both looked about fifteen were there. The girl was athletic-looking, with cool grey eyes and curly blonde hair, and the boy was like how I pictured Harry Potter, minus the glasses. He had messy dark brown hair, jade green eyes that eerily reminded me of Alexandra's, tanned skin like Alexy's, and the same calm, cool atmosphere that Alexy has, only older and more mature, more refined. The girl spoke. She only said three words: "Come with us."

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HA! YES! More cliffhangers!
Isabella: You love doing this to me, don't you.
ME: Yep.