Strangely Normal

Chapter 1

 My name is Marina Kristine Martinez. I am seventeen years old, a senior at Mount Topaz High in Salem, Oregon, and captain of the varsity softball and soccer teams. I have emerald green eyes, black hair that hangs to my waist, an even tan, and I stand at 5'8" on a good day. Which is rarely thanks to the stuck-up bitches at school. I drive a 1978 salsa red, Chevy Silverado short-bed truck that I got from my grandfather. Over all a pretty normal teenager. Oh, and I forgot to mention, I can bend reality to my will.

~~~~~

Monday January 8 2018

            The alarm goes off like any other day. I get up, get dressed, and do all of the other things that normal teens do to get ready for school. I slip on a gray v-neck t-Shirt, some white denim jeans, and some gray high-top converse and then look at myself in the mirror. My usually long, straight, black hair is tangled and sticking out around my head. I close my eyes and imagine it perfectly straight and smooth. When I open my eyes my hair is exactly the way I imagined it. I look myself over in the mirror again and decide I could go with some smoky eye-shadow and so it is. I walk downstairs silently, not wanting to wake my parents. When I get to the kitchen I see that my older brother Johnathan is already up. John is the only other person who knows about my secret.

~~~~~

  He found out when I was six and he was eight. He had been teasing me about my new hair cut. The lady who had cut my hair cut it too short and when I got home with my mom the first thing he said was "You look like a boy!" He continued the teasing me for weeks after that.

 One saturday he was feeling especially evil so he decided to draw a mustache on my face in permanent marker while I was sleeping. When I woke up he was there with a camera ready to take a picture. "Haha! Now you really look like a boy!" he said. I could feel my anger rising.

 "You look like a girl!" I yelled at him at the top of lungs.

  Suddenly my hair was long again, the mustache on my face was gone, and he was dressed in a frilly pink dress. He dropped the camera in shock. I snatched it and took a bunch of pictures of him. I had no idea what had happened but I used it to my advantage.

  I smiled at him sweetly, "I won't tell anyone if you don't tell anyone."

  "Okay, okay! Just get this thing off me!" He had been pulling at the dress but it refused to do so much as wrinkle.

 I beamed with triumph. "Deal."

 The dress disappeared as well as my long hair. That was the beginning of my new life as what I call a mentalist.

~~~~~

 "Morning John." I walk over to the fridge to see what there is to eat.

 "It's about time you got down here! I'm starving! What's for breakfast sis?"

 I roll my eyes at his usual greeting. "You get liver and onions for breakfast."

 A large plate of it appears in front of John. He wrinkles his nose and pushes it away. "I was thinking more along the lines of steak and eggs."

 I sigh. "We all are getting pancakes and bacon." Big plates of pancakes and bacon appear on the table. I sit down and serve myself. I hear my parents getting up and heading down the stairs.

 "Oh! Is that bacon I smell?" I giggle at the excitement in my father's voice.

 "I'm more excited about those pancakes!" My mother is a recently converted vegetarian but she doesn't consider seafood meat so she's doing ok.

 My mom and dad are 39and 40 respectively. On June 28, 1998 they were pronounced Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Martinez. My mother wanted to name me Jenna after her but my father insisted on Marina, my mother's and grandmother's middle names.

 Both of them fill their plates and tear into their food like they haven't eaten in a week, which in a way, they haven't. I had gotten back home from Washington DC the day before and they had been eating cold cereal for breakfast the week I was gone.

 I finish my breakfast and go rinse my plate in the sink. I don't bother getting anything for lunch because I can have what ever I want at a moments notice.

 I go up stairs to my room and put on my favorite leather bracelets and my signature fluer des lies necklace and matching earrings. I grab my phone, iPod, and wallet and stick them all in my school bag and go back downstairs.

 "Bye mom! Bye dad! I'll see you guys after school," I yell over my shoulder as I grab my keys and head out to my truck. I toss my bag on the passenger seat, turn my truck on and drive off to school.