Shadow Killer

Chapter 6 = First Day Back

I’m not going to tell you about the rest of the holidays because nothing interesting happens. I’m going to skip to the first day of eight grade.

I was just getting ready when there was a knock on the door. I quickly wrapped up my arms with the thin cloth.

“Come in.” I said.

“Ah!” I heard Hanna scream.

“Hanna! Are you okay?” I ran to the door. She screamed again. “Hanna? Hanna!”

“Alex!” she said as she hugged me, “I can’t believe we’re all seniors now!”

“Oh,” I said, “You scared me to death, Hanna! I thought that someone plunged a knife in your stomach or something. Don’t ever do that again!”

“It’s sweet that you would be worried about me.”

“What are best friends for? Hey, did you hear that? When I was getting ready I heard these ‘click’ sounds. Do they always come?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s the air conditioner. It’s pretty old. Don’t over think it.”

“Yeah, I won’t.”

“Let’s go.”  We left the house and started walking to school. It wasn’t that far. On the way, Miranda and Claire joined.

Over the holidays, all of us had become better friends with Claire. Even she seemed nicer. That was the girl who I had wanted to become best friends with.

When we got to school, we went to the auditorium and took our seats. Every year on the first day of school, we had to go to the auditorium for a briefing about the academic year. I was so happy at that moment but it was ruined by the one person who could ruin it. Victoria.

“Alex, Alex, Alex.”

“Victoria, Victoria, Victoria. What do you want?” she held up a few pictures. I immediately recognized them. They were of my burns from this morning. “You! The clicks! You were taking my pictures!”

“Yeah and I’ll show this to the entire school right now unless you embarrass yourself.”

“Embarrass myself? How do I do that?”

“Sing, dance, make a fool out of yourself, I don't care what you do or have these pictures exposed.”

“Fine.”

“Good.” I stood up.

“No Alex, don’t,” Hanna said.

“I have to. This is better than having my burns exposed or I’ll never hear the end of it.” I went onstage. The whole audience became quiet. It was the whole school except the primary. I could just pick out the worried expressions on my friends’ faces. “Um… I-uh… I’m… um… I’ll-I’m going t-to…uh…”

Pull yourself together Alex! I chanted in my head.

“I’m… um…” Victoria ran up the stage. I looked at where my friends were sitting. Claire was missing. Victoria said something into the microphone.

“Today, boys and girls, Alexandra Collins is going to-”

“Crack a few jokes,” Claire said. The voice came from the speakers but I couldn’t see her. “She’s going to tell you some awesome jokes.” As she said that she appeared on stage, switched off the microphone she had and pulled Victoria off the stage. I saw her show something to Victoria then put it back in her bag. She gave me a thumbs up and I thought about a joke. I remembered one from 4th grade.

“How many sides does a circle have?” No one raised their hands or shouted the answer so I just continued. “Two! The inside and the outside.” I yelled.

Nobody laughed so I made a face which said why-aren’t-these-people-laughing and that made them laugh. So I laughed too. It felt good to laugh.