Vampire Boarding School

vampire boarding school; chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

I stood up and looked out of my bedroom window. It was yet another miserable day, which only seemed to add to the irony of what was to come. I had been dreading this day for weeks, but now that it was finally here, I felt even worse - I hadn't even thought that was possible!

I went into my en-suit bathroom and looked into my mirror. I looked at my dark brown hair and extremely pale skin and wondered what I was supposed to do with the rest of my life. I had been an outcast in my society. People would jeer at me when I passed them in the street, and I would just wish that I could melt away into the pavement. But I couldn't. I had to face these same people every day. But today was going to be the worst day of them all. Today, my life ended.

After getting dressed in my usual gothic garb (as my parents liked to call it) and applying my black eye shadow and lipstick, I went downstairs and into my kitchen. I looked at the boxes that where filled with all of my belongings and I felt a pang of upset and almost guilt at the thought of never being able to call this my home again, but my internal babbling was then interrupted by my mother.

'Come on now, Jessica. Couldn't you just try and wear something pretty for me today? Just this once?' my mother pleaded at me. And no, I couldn't. I had made a promise to myself that I would make today as difficult - if not more difficult - for her and my dad as they were making this for me.

'No, mother, I can't. And anyway, to me this is pretty, but I don't expect for you to understand that.' I watched as her face pulled into something that was a cross between a frown and a grimace. 'I wish that you could just accept me for who I am, instead of trying to make me something that I'm not, but I guess that that is never going to happen.' As I said this, I walked over to the counter and started to munch on a granola bar.

'Jessica, you know that that is not what your father and I are trying to do to you. Today is going to be a good day for you - and for us! Why can't you understand that this is what is best for all of us?' my mother sounded so exasperated, but I didn't care. If she wanted to make me feel bad,  

then I would just have to make her feel even worse.

I was about to open my mouth to answer back, when my father interrupted me. 'Jessica, can you go and wait in the car please? Your mother and I need to talk.' And with that, I stomped out of the room and went to meet my doom.

***

After going outside, I went to lean against the door of my car. I looked back at the house that I had called home for the past sixteen years. Well, sixteen years exactly. Today was my sixteenth birthday - the worst birthday of my entire life! Today I was leaving home for the first time - and it wasn't even by my choice!

See, there is a tradition in my family. Every time somebody in the family turns sixteen, they are shipped off to a private boarding school in England. I never thought that this day would actually happen, but here it is. The school was so aptly named 'Mary Clarke's Boarding School for the Talented,' in other words 'Mary Clarke's prison for the wealthy. The school prided itself on turning out well mannered students, but I had made a promise to myself that I wouldn't turn out like the snobs that I imagined living at the prison.

My mother had told me about her days at the prison. She told me stories when I was younger of how she and her friends had snuck out in the middle of the night to steal food from the dining hall, and how they would stash it in their pillow cases and under their beds. I loved to listen to her stories as I grew up, but after a while, I began to see just how boring they really were. Stealing food was the most exciting thing that had ever happened to the prison, and I would be sentenced to spend the next three years of my life at the prison, with no friends or family.