Chapter 1.
Alone.
Dead.
Two words that pop into my head when I think of my life.
My mom, my dad, my best friend, my boyfriend, all gone. One by one they left my life. Everybody I love was gone. I was alone.
My name is Malerie, I am not human, and this is the story of my life.
I was in second grade. I never enjoyed it. During lunchtime I would be sitting alone on a table in my class. But it wasn't the worst part. Whenever I would sit next to someone they would move away.
They would say stupid excuses such as, "I'm sick."
But you can only be sick so many times.
But I have to admit, they had fairly great reasons to stay as far away as possible. They would try to avoid me since bad things usually happen when I'm around. They've been through a lot of pain because of me.
For example, one time, during recess, a classmate of mine was swinging on the swing. I leaned against the swing set and the entire swing set collapsed. Poor Johnny broke his arm because of me.
Also, another time, our class was finger painting, I was carrying a little bucket of paint and I tripped and the paint spilt all over my classmate's hair. Yeah, I don't think Nicole has ever forgiven me for that…
I hated school and my parents knew it.
But it wasn't until that one day where everything collapsed underneath me.
It was Valentine's Day.
The teachers made us write a card for every person in the class. On the card, we had to say what we liked about the other classmate. The teacher wouldn't allow us to open them at school since she thought some kids would share what they got with each other. Causing some kids to be upset if one got better than the other.
I got home all excited and curious over what people liked about me. Even if they hated me, they couldn't hate everything about me, right? I told my mom and my dad to hurry up since I wanted to show them what others thought about me. When they arrived, I opened up my first card. It was blank. Then, I looked at another one: it was blank as well. If I had a blank piece of paper now, it wouldn't have hurt. But back then, it stung. Like a gunshot wound. I quickly looked at another: blank. Everyone I looked at was blank.
I tried not to cry and my dad noticed that I was hurt.
He patted my back, "It's ok, kiddo. Would you like some ice cream? Yes? Let's get some ice cream." He walked over to the freezer and opened it up, "Well, we're out of ice-cream…"
He yelled, "Hey, Linda."
My mom answered, "Yes, Dan?"
He replied, "I'm going to take Malerie to get some ice cream."
She said, "Ok. Don't take too long."
He took his keys and his coat, "Come on, Malerie. Don't you want ice cream?"
He always knew how to cheer me up. I quickly put on my coat and ran to the door. He held my hand as we went into the car.
He put me in the back seat and he hopped in the front, "Ready?"
I nodded.
"Ice cream, here we come."
After a 5 minutes drive to the nearest convenience store, we got some rocky road ice cream. My favourite. Luckily, the place was empty so we didn't have to wait to pay. Right when we were handing the money, everything went wrong.
We were supposed to pay and leave, but it didn't happen like it was supposed to.
As we were handing the money, a drunken man with a gun walked in, "On the ground!"
Everyone turned to see who said that.
He fired his gun in the air, "I said on the ground!"
Everyone panicked and did as told.
My dad whispered in my ear, "Hide."
I crawled my way behind the candy section.
He walked over to the cash register, "Give me your money!"
The cashier took a paper bag and started stuffing money in it.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he spotted my dad talking to the police on his phone.
Everything went so fast.
Out of retaliation, the drunken man pointed his gun at my dad's chest and fired.