Beechwood Academy

prologue

Duncan McCarthy was a troublemaker. The raven-haired boy seemed to constantly get himself involved in school fights or ruthless pranks on his teachers. He was good at the mischief part but was terrible at getting away with it. He was grounded so often that he couldn't possibly make friends alone in his bedroom without any access to the outside world other than the occasional grocery store or his own high school that he despised. There was no escaping his sorry excuse for a life, until there was.

"Are you packed? Duncan?" The scrawny boy's mother called to him from the kitchen downstairs while Duncan groggily pulled on a pair of jeans and a red hoodie, grabbing his various assortment of suitcases and bags and dragging them downstairs with much difficulty. His younger siblings, Cam and Izzy, watched him with tears in their eyes when they thought about not seeing their brother for a whole school year despite the fact that Duncan constantly argued and terrorized them.

"Couldn't you have gotten a later flight? I mean, it's six in the morning. I can't function at this time in the day," Duncan dropped his suitcase assortment as the legs of the kitchen table where his mother was setting up breakfast for Cam and Izzy. "I'm going away to this stupid boarding school willingly, the least you could do is let me sleep in." Duncan stole a solo piece of turkey bacon from Cam's plate. The younger boy didn't even complain for he was too upset about his brother leaving.

"Let's be on our way, I'm sure they'll serve you breakfast on the plane." Duncan's father grabbed half of the bags and Duncan grabbed the other half, dragging them to the small, run-down car his father had owned for well over twenty years.

New things were taking place in Duncan's life and he swore to himself to not take it for granted. He swore he'd do better here. He was going to be happy at Beechwood Academy.