(A/N - I've only had 2 people review so far. If you read this, please review, even if you thought my story was rubbish! I want to know what people think!)

Ipick up Neriah after school, and as it turns out Ms Streek doesn't really like little children, resulting in a whole class detention, even though they're only five. All because a girl yawned. She kept a whole class of five year olds in because a single girl yawned! Wow, Ms Streek really needs to get a life.

I mention this to Neriah.

She giggles, and I think how sweet a sound that is. A melody to my ears.

Then I ask a stupid, stupid question. Well, the question itself isn't stupid; I am just stupid to ask it.

"So, Neriah, made any friends yet?"

"Yeah! There's Joanie, who I really like and she's got the nicest hair, all blonde with these brown streaks…" And she went off into one of her rants. I stop listening at around this point, realising the huge mistake I had just made in asking that question.

I stop listening altogether really, until we turn down my road and a name Neriah says triggers something in my brain to make me stop daydreaming and concentrate on my sister.

"…and then there's Nathan, he's really cute and he's like, my best friend-" I interrupt her.

"Nathan Daniels?" I ask, (I found out Nick's surname in History, 'coz Ms Streek calls out people's full names when she takes the register) and Neriah nods and then furrows her brow.

"How did you know? You haven't even met him!"

"Oh - his brother, Nick, is in my class," I say, and picture Nick's perfect face in my mind, but I can't seem to get it right. Nick's face is one that people need to see to believe anything could ever be that beautiful.

I was going mushy!!!!!!!!! No!!!!!!!! Ditzy Stewart, mushy? No way!

"Ahhh…" Neriah says, a knowing look on her face. "You like him!"

I swear, this girl's too smart! She's only five!

But then Neriah's always been smart. She said her first work at just three months old, and she learned to read when she was one year old. Do you know how much that freaked my dad out? I was the same though, though Neriah lived three more silent weeks than me, but she learnt to read earlier.

She was definitely the brightest kid in her class in our old school, and unless theirs some kid in her class that's even more freakish than she is, she is now as well.

Well I guess it runs in the family. Dad's smart, so is Neriah, and I am too…I guess.

As for the rest of my family… well… I don't really have any. Dad's an only child, we never talk about my grandparents and my mum, well, I'd rather not think about her. She left when I was eight, and she was twenty five. Neriah had only just been born.

When Mum left, I asked my dad why. All he said was. 'She's changed.' I never brought the subject of my mum up again, but even now I remember the look in his eyes when he spoke about her. Pure love.

But after she left, I took it upon myself to care for dad, thinking her leaving must have broken his heart. But it didn't. He seemed fine.

And to this day, I still ask myself; why wasn't he more hurt? Didn't he love my mum?

I push the subject out of my mind, and come back to reality. Neriah's looking at me expectantly, waiting for my reply to something she said. It takes me a while to remember what it was.

"I so do not like Nick!" I say. "I bet you like Nathan though!"

"I do not!" she says, pouting a little and folding her arms. I tease her as I unlock the front door.

"Neriah and Nathan sitting in a tree…" I sing, and abruptly stop to gasp at the sight waiting inside.

A wolf, no, a man, is waiting with five creatures surrounding him. They looked so strange; their bodies were completely birdlike – kinda round with dark, scraggly, limp-looking feathers – and their arms were half-formed into wings! What's more, they had perfectly normal human faces, but their eyes… they had the weirdest eyes. They look so… lost. The overall effect was an eerie one.

I refocus my attention to the wolf, the leader. A closer look makes me instantly realise that he is the beast from my dreams. A closer look at his eyes, that is. The image of those horrible yellow orbs has lingered in my mind ever since I was woken up by that awful nightmare - I've managed to push them aside, out of my mind, but at seeing this… creature once again they flash up, just as terrible as before.

"The girl...give me the girl…" the monster says, his voice thin and raspy. He points at Neriah. His finger is long and knobbly, and the nail is horrible, all yellow and about 3mm thick. I cringe.

What scares me most is that Neriah lays her bag on the hall carpet, yawns and walks right over to the wolf man, making my heart lurch with worry. She was walking straight into his arms!

"Neriah!" I cry, and she turns around.

I blink.

The creatures have gone.

"What? Is there something wrong?" she says, her eyes wide.

"Uh…no, Neriah…nothing…" Suddenly my head is splitting with pain, and I move a hand to my head, as if the action will make it better. "Uh…I'm going to lie down for a bit. I have the most awful headache."

"Okay."

In my room the pain eases. I look around at everything and notice that on my calendar I have made a huge mess of one particular day in a couple of weeks time.

I walk over to the calendar, stumbling over a pile of clothes on my bedroom floor, and peer closely at the calendar. That can't be right! Today's only the…I have a look at my watch to check the date today…wait that is right.

I walk back over to my bed and lie down.

Great.

My birthday is in a week and two days.

And I have no friends to share it with.

Lying there on my bed I think about my birthday. I could invite over Jessica, Lucy and Skye, or go shopping with them, but I feel distant from them. I take a moment to realise that I'm not actually that friendly with them.

After the first day, when they were curious to find things out about me, what my story was, who I liked, what sort of music I was into, they kinda lost interest in me. I now realise that they were just looking for gossip, not friendship.

I mentally slap myself on the head. How could I have been so stupid! I bet Nick's the same, just gossip hungry. But something inside me doubts that.

I groan. Nick! I had told them I liked Nick!

Okay.

My life…is over.

No Ditzy,I heard in my head. Your life is just beginning.

I sit up in bed.

………What…the…hell!………