Early the next morning, a steel-toed boot encountering her ribs awakened Dani.
" Get up." her dad said harshly while opening his door to get in for work.
Dani hurriedly crawled out form under the car as he started it up and backed out.
She wondered if he would have even slowed down if he were going to run her over, as she had barely scrambled out of the way before the car had started moving.
A moment later, her mom swept into the garage.
" Get going girl." She commanded as she also got into her car and drove off to work.
Dani entered the house, breathing a sigh of relief.
This was her favorite time of day, when she had the whole house to herself.
Well, maybe not the whole house; her parents bedroom was still off limits, but she had no desire to go in there anyway.
She had a whole hour before she needed to be in school, so she unhurriedly poured a bowl of cereal, a glass of juice and a banana, ate them, and then washed the dishes in the sink.
She then climbed the stairs to her room where she turned on her favorite music and mended her clothes.
She always listened to the One Direction songs.
She was had a huge crush on Harry, the band member who looked like her.
She would sometimes block out her surrounding by daydreaming about his coming to rescue her and the two of them going off to live together forever.
But she knew that would never happen.
She sang along to the songs as she finished mending her clothing, and then dressed, found her books, and started to school, re-hiding her cds so her parents would not find them and take them away.
They were her only source of enjoyment, and she guarded them with all she had.
She got to school with a few minutes to spare and then her happy thoughts vanished.
There was the same gang of girls waiting outside the school, with smirks on their faces.
As she neared them, her stomach twisted, and she desperately wished there was some other way to get to her classes other then through these double doors.
" Hey Peach-Face!" one of the girls called out to her as she got close to them. " The teacher is handing out free tickets the concert tonight IF the students get A's"
The girl waved a One Direction concert ticket at her.
" You won't get and A with the way we scribbled in your books yesterday and you better not tell." Another girl mocked, lunging forward and grabbling her hair, pulling it hard.
Dani nodded as tears ran down her cheeks, as the girl yanked out a clump of hair.
They let her go, sneering laughter following her down the halls.
What could she do?
She so badly wanted to go the concert, but the girls were right; she would never go because of her books.
Dani stood in her locker, hurriedly applied liquid paper, blew on it to dry it, and erased as much pencil marks as she could.
She reviewed her homework and carefully made sure no one seen her as she slipped a couple crackers she had snatched from the cupboard at home into her locker for later, when she would be hungry.
The she shut her books and trudged off to class.