My name is Madeline pronounced (mad-a-line), I grew up in a small town in Wisconsin called Cherryville, and I'm sixteen! To be clear this is a romance story, but not like a weird lovey-dovey teen romance! His name is Parker, and to be clear I loathed Parker. With a passion, no like seriously I hated him! Unfortunately for me, Parker and I were part of a government testing program. All the kids in Cherryville were in the program, and everyone before faction k12 was fine! Fraction k12 consisted of me and my closest friends, and Parker and two of his friends. I had never met Parker until the 8th grade when I was put into fraction k12. That's when it all began!
Let me tell you about the program in general, when you hear "government testing program" normally you freak you right? Some creepy experimental high-tech labs and injections of unknown fluids while being strapped to a weird table? Yeah, no, that's not it, the program was called "Cherry High Educational Research Project" yeah, a mouthful, everyone just called it "cherp" pronounced like "chirp". Cherp was a program we could sign up for starting in 8th grade we signed up in the hallway and once a month goes with our fraction to a government-owned lab, and we take a fifteen-minute quiz on paper that asks a bunch of random questions. We turn in the paper and sign out and wait for the rest of our fraction to finish as well, then a doctor comes in and gives all of us a check-up. Sometimes we did get injections, but we were always assured that they were completely harmless and had been tested on humans before. After all that is done, the doctor would sign a paper and we would all go back to the school and turn in our papers. The papers added up in our college credits and we would get a free period, so it was a win-win. The groups where divided into fractions, mine was k12, it consisted of me, my best friend Amelia Langhouser, her girlfriend, Katie Freeman, Parker Wells, his friend Jonathan Rouse and their mutual buddy Tyler Humphrey. No one ever really minded being part of the program.
That was, until third quarter of 8th grade year, it was a regular visit for everyone in Cherp, but this time fraction k12 got injections, normally, before giving us an injection they called our parents and told them about all that stuff, so we didn't have any questions, everything seemed normal. Until a few days later when we had a test in biology and Amelia knew all the answers, that might be normal to you, but for us, that was weird. Amelia sucked at biology, and I can say with complete confidence she did not study. After class the three of us started walking to the cafeteria, and she was freaked out big time, she kept talking about how it just came to her, she didn't even have to think. That's when it happened Katie, who we call Kat, goes "why are you guys being so quiet, you always talk on the way to lunch" I looked at Amelia who's eyes were on her shoes, "oh sorry I'm just tired" I was shocked. "Uh, guys?" I started "I think something is very wrong with me" Amelia looked at Kat, then back at me "ME TOO!" she shouted, a few people in the hall looked our way but didn't say anything. "You knew every single answer on the test without thinking? Yeah I know I heard you talking about it" I stated bluntly, "Kat, anything weird going on with you?" Amelia said turning her attention back to Kat, "I had a weird dream last night but that's it. Nothing out of the ordinary". Dead quiet, we all just looked at each other, before bursting with questions.
"So you're telling me you can like hear my thoughts!?" Kat asked super confused, I was confused too "I don't know, ask me a question in your brain" I commanded.
"What's my favorite color?" it was Kat's voice but her mouth hadn't moved my hand flew to cover my mouth. "Well!?" kat asked, I frantically answered "red! Your favorite color is red!" Amelia jumped in between us "guys if Madeline can read minds I'm a super-genius!" both Kat and I looked at Amelia.
"What are the digits of pi," Kat asked
"1415926535 8979323846 2643.." Amelia started
"Okay okay! Amelia is a genius and I'm a mind reader, what the hell are you Kat?" I asked cutting Amelia off
"I don't know! Nothing is wrong with me I feel fine" Kat smiled blankly.
"How the hell are you being so calm!?" I whisper shouted as we entered the lunch line
"Because this is all just a dream" She smiled back at me grabbing an apple
"What are you talking about?" Amelia asked joining in on my whisper shouting.
"I had a dream about this last night, well not really a dream, more like a vision, I was studying in my room when I picked up my manuscript for the student council meeting on Friday, wear we are supposed to talk about cherp and then a ton of images flashed through my head, it was Amelia at her desk in bio, you looking at Amelia in the hallway and me eating an apple-" She talked as if it was some minor detail
"KAT! Me at my desk, was when I became a super genius, Madeline looking at me in the hallway when she read my mind and you are eating an apple right now." Amelia cut her off.
"You can see the future!?" I gaspedSuddenly I heard a voice in my head, well I heard a lot of voices bc we were in a middle school cafeteria, but I had drowned those out really easily when we walked in, this one was in my head in bold lettering.
"Can you hear it to!?"
YOU ARE READING
Hanging on by a thread
ספרות נוער"Madeline... What the hell did you do!?" she looked terrified at him... At IT. "Well, what does it look like I did? Gave him a big hug and played ring around the rosy?" Whoa there I'm getting ahead of myself, lets start from the beginning, or as I...