CHRISTMAS EVE

I’m so excited. It’s Christmas tomorrow. I can’t wait to give my mum the present I sewed and glued with my own two hands. (I even burnt myself with a glue gun) I’ve already opened my first present because my dad had to set it up. It’s a playstation2. My younger brothers are playing on it right now. (Downstairs and I’m upstairs typing this in the office on my laptop) They are playing a game called DynastyWarriors5 on it. The oldest brother is actually quite good at it. Well, all three of them are good at it because:2 are computer geeks and 1 is a junior engineer. I’m not. I’m a bookworm that’s why I love coming on this site.

More is coming tomorrow

My name is Fathom. I’m only ten but I have an interesting life. Trust me, I know interesting.

I stare at the big brick building standing before me. I turn around. My dad left me…….again. My mixed emotions tell me be ready for a bossy Febe, mean Megan, and best buddy Madison. “Hi,Fathom.” said Madison.”Hey,Madison” I reply, signaling to the stairs,” You first.”  “Why?” with her you-are -older-and-smarter-than-me look. “Because………………ummmmmm………………..uh,well,”Drat! She got me! “Ha! Got you!” she says…………we start cracking up at that remark. “Let’s go together.”  “Go where?” said a voice behind us. We turn around.  Madison says, “Oh-no.” “Race ‘ya!” I reply, halfway up the stairs. We lose Febe in a sea of students. “We lost her! Whoa!” I say, tripping down the stairs,grabbing a backpack. “Let go of me, you twit!” said Megan, grabbing a frightend Madison. I let go of Megan before I fall.  Madison and Megan tumble to the bottom. I run to my classroom before the bell rings for lunch count. I run to the window.  Megan walks in the classroom,unharmed, Madison, on the other hand, with a big gash on her leg. Everyone staring at another victim of the meanie Megan.

                                                                    Or so I thought.

During recess, while dodging prison balls, Madison explained, ” I was running as fast as I could from Megan,then I wasn’t looking, I tripped over a tree root and fell and a stick scratched me.”  I nodded in understandment. I grabbed the ball off the floor as something terrible happend…….the fifth graders came to play, and so did the sixth graders. “Triple trouble,” I say to Madison. “Marleigh,Cade,Mason.” Marleigh,Cade,and Mason are three children in the same family, plus…… they throw hard.

I see we got Scotland,and she’s pretty good,and some other good players,too. Balls flew across the room.I turned around and shouted,”Marleigh!Watch out!” but it had already hit her in the gut.

People all around us turned their heads a certain degree to look at us. My heart raced. I shuffled closer to Troy, looking up at the dim lights that lit the surrounding darkness. Bugs swarmed the bright lights, as if there was no trouble beneath them. The gas station was absurdly big. It looked like it might sell thing other than food, like back packs… that could be useful.

“What do we do?” He asked, rubbing his hurt arm. He tensed as I looked at it with concern. “None of that.” He said, rolling his eyes. “I’m fine.” But he looked pitiful. His black eye, his arm in a cast… I took a few steps back and just…looked at him. To see my best friend like this made my heart ache. I guess he could read my expression pretty well, because he turned around and his shoulders fell. I followed him inside the main building, where candy and snacks decorated the halls…taunting me. My mouth watered. The walls were too white, the lights too bright….And it was suspiciously crowded for this late an hour. I tensed as I realized this. One of the men locked eyes with another and made a complicated hand sign. My jaw clenched, my hands shook. My eyes darted from man to man… they couldn’t have been over 20 years of age. They started yelling at each other in an unnecessarily loud voice.

“Jolly crowd, isn’t it?” I asked, catching up with Troy as he entered the candy isle. Was he trying to torture me with this candy thing?

Troy snickered, but it got caught in his throat. One of the men, tall and bulky, approached us with a sort of flare in his eyes. If he got any closer, I’d set a flare on his body… the man chuckled at me as if I didn’t deserve to breath the same air as he did. As if I was a naïve kid, just here to buy bread for my sick grandmother in the forest, with a red cloak on my back. And he was a wolf. Troy stepped in front of me, clenching his fists (well, the fist he could clench) and straightening his back.

“You kids lost?” he asked, smacking his mouth, straightening his jacket, tilted his big head to the side. “Where are your parents? You here alone?”

“Nah, our parents are in the car, watching our every move. So I suggest you back off, before you hurt yourself.” I said, pushing out from behind Troy. At first, I took delight in the man’s expression. His eyes widened. Then that jerk turned to his oh-so-tough friends making another weird signal.  Then he turned back to me. He gave me a not-so-complicated sign, pressing his lips together, getting right in my face. I gave it right back to him. When you can catch fire, it changes you for life.

Chapter 16

Obviously, making my little peace sign to the man fired a whole new scene. The tension in the air became thicker (if that was possible.) Then, the time around me stopped. Troy froze- his face like a stone. The man had frozen mid signal. The cashier froze fanning her money. I walked around. What happened? Did a piece of the world just fall and hit me on the head or something?

“Troy! Move!” I yelled. No reaction. My first move; grab a water bottle, open and pour it on the man’s head. I thought water was too innocent, so I used a bottle of orange Fanta, using some to make it look like he had a little accident.  But, oh no! I have an empty Fanta bottle in my hand and no trash can to dispose of it! What shall I do? I gave the man a few hard whacks with the empty bottle. To my convenience, his eyes were open when I poured the Fanta, but his face showed no pain reaction. So, this means I could hit him all I wanted to and he wouldn’t scream? Bonus! I gave him a quick kick in the shin, to remember me by. I couldn’t say I was surprised by the stop in time. Again, after catching fire several times, I wasn’t the same kid. Then, I saw another opportunity open to me. You know, other than the opportunity of bullying the gangster, which was quite fun. We could stock up on food while we were here. Having food with us while we were always on the go would be good. Since it was the beginning of the year, yeah, they had one or two backpacks in the back of the station. I quickly grabbed two, not sure how long this time phase would last. I slung one over Troy’s shoulder and stuffed some food inside. I grabbed one for myself, but the only thing I found useful in the whole store was a cigarette lighter. Well, I didn’t need that.

“Stop.” Said an over dramatic, deep voice

I jumped and swerved around. A teenage boy was looming right over me. How’d he get there? No idea. But he looked like he was trying hard to look like a complete creeper. A little too hard.

“Bite me.” I spat, continuing my search through the store.

“Jenna, let’s go.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m giving you a second chance by stopping time. Are you telling me you’re just going to waste it?”

I put my hands on my hips. “Who do you think you are? Some kind of super villain or something? You know, the mascara gives it a nice touch, but your black cloak just throws the whole outfit over board. If you wanna look evil, I’m sure my gangster friend could give you a few tips. Oh, yeah. We both know your voice isn’t that deep, so why don’t you go through puberty and then come back, k?”

First, his dark eyes widened. He swallowed hard. He took a few steps back.

“You don’t want to make me mad, Jenna.”

“I don’t? Hey, trust me. You should see me when I’m mad. How much did those shoes cost you?”

“None of your business!” he snapped, but he shifted his feet uncomfortably.

“What do you want?”

“Ah, nothing much…” he said, trying his best to look bored. How old was this kid? He couldn’t have been much older than me… “Just come with me, you’ll be safe. You won’t have to deal with all this mystery. I can explain everything. I could give you a real home.”

“How long have rehearsed that line?”

“I’m serious, Jenna.”

“Oh, I am too. Okay, decisions, decisions… should I run away with a creepy dude who wears make-up, or not… See, I’m not too good at being logical, but even I know that’s psychotic.”

“You’re killing me…” he muttered, shifting positions. His fists clenched, his eyebrows scrunched together. He was wound tight, almost to the breaking point. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Hey, hey,” I said, waving my hands in front of me. “Don’t stress yourself. You might get a rash or something.”

“Jenna!” he yelled. Then he took a step back. He breathed deeply, his shoulders slumped. Then he asked, through gritted teeth (with much difficulty, I might add) “Jenna, how have you- How’ve you been?”

Christmas was cool! Christmas is always cool.

Right now I’m typing this up on my laptop that is nearly out of battery, so I have to make this quick. For Christmas I got a big tub of sweets, make-up, perfume, a keyring, a cool coat, a fashion desinging book, a book and more.

More tomorrow