I slept in a little too much that morning so I was almost late for school. I just made it to Lit 1 Honors before the bell rang, and then I realized I forgot to read chapter three of The Pearl.
“Everyone, please take out your book! There’s a quiz on chapters two and three. Open book!” Mrs. Greene announced. She sat on her throne at the front of the class and watched the freshmen squirm. Her chapter quizzes were arguably harder than her essays, with their complicated literary detective work and the general subjectivity of the meaning behind literature devices.
Yeah, and now I’m boring you. Sorry. Just don’t read this book in an English class and I promise you it will be way cooler. Like a Mark Twain quote or something. Now back to the story.
Metaphors? How about everyone dies at the end as a metaphor for life! I mused. It was really too bad the baby didn’t die of the scorpion bite because I really wanted to use that as my “symbolism.” Ugh. I hated lit. Math was so much more logical.
Halfway through the annoying quiz, I noticed there was something written on the back of my paper even though I hadn’t used the backside, yet. When I flipped it over, there was nothing there. Was it a trick of the lighting…? A dirty piece of paper?
No. It was probably a soul-message. Darn. Not another adventure. I just finished the nonsense with the soul thing! It took me forever to fashion a soul-light to my glasses. Okay, it only took one weekend, but it felt like forever. Soul-sight was such an inconvenient “gift.”
I clicked off the light on my glasses and flipped the paper over. Violet words glowed on the page, pulsing with the programming of a once-living being. It was disorienting since I was still getting used to this expanded vision. My writer used to actually talk to me in my head. Now they just sent me weird messages using the souls of the dead.
“The breach has been located,” it read. “You know where to go.”
I sighed. I looked up, watching my classmates’ souls pulse with concentration. The breach could wait. I turned my soul-light back on. For now, I needed to pass this quiz, as impossible as that might seem.
At lunch, Nathan was strangely missing from MTG club. That was most peculiar. The resets usually fixed everything. Why didn’t Nathan go back to school? I tried not to think about it. I still had two hours of school left, and I was not ready for another adventure.
No wonder there was a breach. My writer was way too prolific. Why couldn’t they give me a break and mess with poor lonely Kathryn?
I wandered around the school that lunch, trying to ignore the missing Nathan anomaly. I guess I was kind of a loner, too, but I liked walking around in the cold of winter with nothing more than Shadow speaking to me in my thoughts.
Then I saw Myren.
She was one of the only other freshmen in my geometry class, and she was really smart. She was tiny in a cute way, with long black hair that flowed down her back and deep blue eyes. She hung out near the drama room with the other drama production kids.
“Hey, Claire!” Myren called when she saw me awkwardly staring.
“Oh. Hi, Ren,” I said, walking over to her group. “How’s life?”
“Can you believe that math test?” Myren asked. “It took us two class periods to finish!”
“Well, it had so many extra credit opportunities,” I pointed out. “If you know what you’re doing, 125% ain’t that hard.”
“That’s true,” Myren smiled. “Hey, you should come and hang out with us on First Street after school today! I haven’t hung out with you in forever.”
“Um…” As much as I absolutely wanted to hang out with her since she was so smart yet cool, I still needed to handle that breach. My writer would never let me off so easily. “Maybe some other time. I have a lot of homework today.” It was the most logical lie, and it was somewhat true.
Myren frowned. “Oh, that’s too bad. Well, good luck on that.”
The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch. “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll see you around.”
“See you!” she said, bouncing away in her cute pink boots.
This better be good, I told my writer.
They finally answered me once again. My dear Claire, it’s going to be so fun, you’ll forget all about Myren’s “playdate.”
I sighed. I highly doubt that.
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