No one will ever believe me. This is not one of those stories that start with Once Upon a Time or end with Happily Ever After. This is a story that will twist you around and keep you guessing. I suppose that is what happens when you live in a place like Pinetrov. There isn't anywhere else like it I guess. Sometimes it's hard to say the first hello, but it is always harder to say the last goodbye.
In that case, hello reader. My name is Kathleen Ellen Fisk. It's just me and my mom, since my father left when I was little, around my third birthday. That was 11 years ago. Everyone says I look exactly like my mother except for my eyes; I have his green eyes. Those who used to be my friend aren't anymore. Having green eyes used to be the thing everyone loved. It was beautiful, legendary. I was the luckiest girl on the planet during grade school. Seventh grade made being unique uncool. Then, the cliques emerged and began in earnest. I became a freak, a social outcast. One with the once amazing, enchanting green eyes. A little over a year ago I got contact lenses to make my eyes blue. I'm still a social outcast, but at least I'm not picked on as much. My fake blue eyes betray the green if you look too closely, not that anyone does. My mother barely even noticed. I had used the feeble allowance she gives me every month. It had taken the whole summer, but hey, it was worth every rusted penny since the others don't make fun of me anymore. At least, about my eyes. Cliques can always find a fault in you no matter how small it is and how hard you try to hide it.
"Alright class, now write about anything as long as it is original." My teacher, Mrs. Harper, says. I sigh along with the class. I'm sitting in the front row, right in the center.
"Teacher's pet." Someone sneers behind me. I turn around slyly as I grab my binder to get a piece of paper. Of course it's Bradley. The closed door slowly drifts open, then slams. No one jumps except the new kid. He doesn't talk much. None of the teachers notice him, but if they do, they do it discreetly. The 'cool kids' have already starting picking on him. Evan Bradley, the captain of the football team has already christened him as Newbie. Poor kid. I stare at the blank sheet of notebook paper in front of me. My pencil, which is nearly as yellow as my natural hair, taps the desk.
Truth is weakness. Middle school is a battle ground. One false move and suddenly you lose all your friends. You can be judged about everything. You can't talk to any of your old friends. Peer pressure is at an all time high. Your true self must be hidden behind a mask. That test you studied for weeks in advance was easy, or that one time you forgot to study you fail. Your heart gets broken every other week. Preteens are the best liars. We can spend hours every weekday with people we never want to see. Fights happen, lessons are learned, and the world spins on. At least in Pinetrov the days are punctuated by door slams and the other so called paranormal activity that happens here. Apparently it doesn't happen anywhere else in the world. I wouldn't know; I've never left our little town in New Jersey.
"If it's any comfort to you students," Mrs. Harper said again, her hazel eyes scanning the class, "your writing will be read by me and criticized in front of the class. However, no one will know it was you." She lifts a hand and swipes her black hair dyed red in horizontal lines over her shoulder.
Good, I found myself thinking. A girl in a white dress floated into the room, the door slamming behind her. She glided up front and opened her mouth to speak, only to disappear into mist, her ghostly eyes staying a bit longer than the rest of her. I glanced at the clock, 11:41 am, 1 minute from literature ending. She was always on time.
No one else seemed to see her though.
I suppose this is the part where you close this book and walk away, summoning thoughts of the paranormal in your head. Perhaps the movie Paranormal Activity, or maybe The Shining has entered your head. Pinetrov isn't like that. Our proms don't end in mass murders, and citizens live past 18. After a few years you'd get used to it if you ever lived anywhere else, but for us it has always been this way.
I'm the only one that can see why these strange things happen to us. I scribble down a song I made up the other day about ghosts and demons. It was a song that if anyone happened to see me read, they would call me a idiot, a freak of nature, someone who belongs in an asylum. Mrs. Harper has no clue what she's getting into. I finish and turn in my paper just as the bell rings. My name stands out in pencil; the rest is written in a midnight black shade of ink, my signature style. My own words haunt me like the ghost girl's eyes as I walk out of class, imaging Mrs. Harper's reaction.
Maybe this time I'll get kicked out of this wretched place. Maybe I can stay home. Maybe middle school shouldn't be this hard. Maybe I need to leave Pinetrov. Maybe I should get into a clique. Maybe I should stop this mindless hoping.
I never should have taken that dare to go to the cemetery three years ago. If I hadn't then I likely wouldn't be seeing these ghosts. Perhaps then I wouldn't be dubbed a freak show.
I picked up my things and headed out of class. Someone 'accidentally' slams my books down, making me late to language arts.
The day goes downhill from there. I get totally nailed in the head with a dodge ball by Nickolas, so now I have a huge black eye. He likely only did it to get in with the jocks. It's hard to believe that he used to be a tolerable guy. That is, until he became the biggest wannabe you'll ever know about. One ice pack and 3 classes later, my awesome math teacher, Mrs. Shultz, decided to give us algebra that literally made this one chick cry! What was she thinking! When am I EVER going to need this?! After a few tears myself, I completed it just in time for the bell. In Spanish- on second thought, lets not talk about that. I'll just say this; when you are trying to learn Spanish, and the teacher plainly REFUSES to speak English, you're going to have a bad time. Finally my saving grace, Social Studies comes along. With Mrs. Seneca talking about World War 2 like it's happening this moment, it's easy to feel involved.
"Mrs. Fisk," she said to me as I sat down, "Would you mind letting Mr. Jacob sit next to you?" The newbie waved shyly at me as she finished.
"Oh, the social freak has a boyfriend!" Nickolas exclaimed, to the jocks' approval. Rolling my eyes, I nodded my consent to Mrs. Seneca. He slid into the seat next to me. It wouldn't have mattered if I denied the request, since the table I sit at becomes an immediate quarantine zone, with me as patient 0.
"My name's Richard." He says in a voice as clear and smooth as a flowing river. Something about that made me trust him, but he is probably just like all the other boys. Really nice on first impression, but after that they just get worse and worse.
"Kathleen Ellen Fisk, but everyone calls me 'Social Freak'." I replied, leaning back in my chair as he looked concerned. The classroom ghost, a boy by the name of Michael, runs up to the class, and throws a ghost paper airplane. After that, Michael, who must have gotten yelled at, looks forlorn and writes his name on the board, the pale lines barley distinguishable against the now white-board. Richard falls out of his chair as the paper airplane makes another loop and goes right through his chest. With wide eyes I turned to Richard.
YOU ARE READING
~SPECTORTOME~ Wattys 2016
ParanormalLet's face it, when we were in high school, some crazy things happened. Yet, perhaps not as crazy as this. Ghosts were a normal occurrence, but when her father sells her to some men in black for money the day her mom disappears, perhaps things may n...
