Portal Jumpers

Preface and Chapter 1

PREFACE

"My mother is right. You may be beautiful, but I have no intention of marrying you as she would have it. So I will have to dispose of you on my own terms."
"Oh, so tell your mother and father, and I'll tell mine. I'm sure they'll understand." I reasoned.
The grin on his face sent chills down my spine.
Then he revealed a knife from behind his back and crept towards me.
My back was rigid against the railing. I saw no way of escaping.
Suddenly he lunged at me.
A shriek fled from my lips. I shrunk away from him just as the knife tore through my sleeve.
Jacques fell into the railing and tumbled over...

CHAPTER 1

"Miss Johnson, would you please return to our world?" My French teacher instructed, rapping her pencil on her desk.
I jumped in my seat, I had been gazing out the window for who knows how long. She had already told me once or maybe twice today, I can't really remember.
The tall, thin woman had no patience left for me.
"Sorry, Madame Petite." I shrunk into my seat out of embarrassment and stared at my desk.
I despised French class.
I tucked my dirty-blonde hair behind my ear as she turned back to the chalkboard to resume her french lesson.
"Psst." My best friend on earth, Rebecca Fawn, tried to get my attention. "You better start to at least look like you're paying attention or she'll make you sit up front like she always does." She shook her head at me, the dark curly hair of hers was a curtain around her face.
"It would be easier if French was the least bit interesting." I spoke out of the corner of my mouth.
Becca's green eyes sparkled when she snickered. "Come on, it's not that bad, we could be learning German instead."
"No way on earth would I attempt that." I whirled my head around to roll my eyes at her and got some of my hair in my mouth. "Mr. Dankworth is soooooo much worse than Madam Petite." I spat the hair out and Becca snickered again.
The bell rang for class to end not too long after and we started walking to the cafeteria, when Becca started going the opposite direction.
"Where are you going, Bec?"
"I have to grab a book from the library real quick. I'll catch up with you in a bit."
I nodded and turned towards the doorway of the cafeteria.
I wonder if she'd like me to go ahead and fix her a tray.
It had only been a second since I'd turned away from her, but she was already gone when I turned to ask her.
"Do you want me to..." I trailed off when she wasn't there. "I've known her for 12 years and I still have no idea how she does that." I mumbled to myself as I started walking backwards.
We met when we were five years old.
She had a knack for randomly disappearing and reappearing out of nowhere, scares me half to death sometimes.
I was looking down the hallway to see if there were any doors or corners she could have run around to have disappeared so suddenly.
Again, there was no way she could have without me seeing her
I had been walking backwards this whole time.
"She's probably light on her feet." I told myself.
"Oof." A boy's voice behind me grunted.
"Sorry! I'm so sorry I should have been watching where I was walking." I turned around to look at who I'd run into.
He had his head down, looking at his shoes, so all I saw was the brown hair in front of his face.
He looked at me now, big brown eyes staring only slightly down at me.
I looked up at him because we were standing so close.
I took a step back. "Hello, I'm Chloe Johnson, most people call me CJ though."
He kept staring at me, making me feel more and more awkward by the second.
"Um... Are you going to tell me your name or are we going to stand here awkwardly forever?" I laughed nervously under his stare.
"Come on James, don't be shy." Someone came up behind me and grinned at us.
"I'm Takoda by the way."
"That's an odd name." I commented, getting a good look at him.
His facial features were similar to his younger brother.
"Not where we're from."
"Takoda is a normal name in Colorado?" I said assuming that they were the new students.
"Well... sure, if that's what everyone wants to believe." He answered.
"Tak, knock it off." James grabbed Takoda's arm, pulled him away from me and started talking in hushed tones.
"Ooookay then, Colorado people are strange." I noted, then turned and walked the last couple of feet to the cafeteria.
"Hey, where were you? I've been waiting here for you forever." Becca said when I found her sitting at our usual table with lunch trays for both of us.
"I was meeting the new guys from Colorado." I answered in a huff and sat down.
"Are either of them cute?"
"Um, I didn't really notice, I was too busy bumping into one of them."
Becca laughed. "Only you could make their first encounter here weird by walking into them. How did you manage that anyway?"
"I was trying to figure out how you had disappeared so quickly so I was walking backwards and..."
Becca slapped her hand to her face and laughed. "I can't believe you walked into someone backwards."
"I can't believe you didn't see us. All three of us were right in front of the doors."
"I was reading." She shrugged. "Now, tell me what they look like!" She demanded, bouncing excitedly, her dark hair going everywhere with her excitement.
"The one has blonde hair and brown eyes and the other brown hair and brown eyes that doesn't talk much he just stared at me."
"He probably likes you." She said and then gasped. "Don't look now, but I think they're coming over here."
"What!" I turned around and there they were, halfway across the cafeteria heading straight for our table, Takoda looked a little sulky, but James seemed more at ease.
"Tell me their names, CJ, quick."
"James is in front, Takoda is following." I muttered under my breath.
They were very close now.
"Howdy again, CJ." Takoda said, sounding happier, sitting across from me, making James take the seat beside me.
"Hey, Chloe sorry I didn't introduce myself earlier. It's James if you didn't hear Tak, yell it out in the hallway." He smiled and then looked at Becca.
"And who is this lovely lady?" Takoda asks her.
"I'm Becca." She managed, acting all shy for once.
They shook hands then got this weird realization kind of look.
"Becca, is something wrong?" I was slightly worried.
"No, no I'm great." She looked at Takoda the whole time and smiled wide.
"Tak..." James said in a warning voice.
"Chill man, my lips are sealed." He answered, finally looking away from Becca.
"And that was why I left last time, these boys are confusing." I said to Becca.
"Not at all." She replied.
"How are they not confusing?" I asked.
"Um, no reason."
I rolled my eyes and began eating.
She wasn't going to tell me anything.
The whole time I had a feeling they all wanted to say something, but they never said it, just gave each other weird looks the whole time as they ate.
"I'll meet you in class." Becca said after I got done eating.
"Ok, I'll see you there."
I started walking towards my next class. James muttered something to his brother before chasing after me. "Wait up, Chloe, we have the same class. I'll walk with you."
"It's a small school, everyone has the same class." I pointed out.
He laughed. "Then I guess I get to see you more often than in a normal school."
I laughed. "I'm glad you're done awkwardly staring at me."
He blushed. "Yeah, I just didn't know what to say. I don't usually get run over on the first day of school."
"Sorry." I mumbled.
"No, it's fine, just surprised me is all."
I nodded.
"Becca and Tak hit it off really well." He said, breaking the silent walk.
"Yeah, they really did."
We sat down in our seats, Becca and Takoda followed shortly after.