One Year Before High School

Chapter One

Ella Lea wasn't unique. Scratch that, she was literally the most normal, unremarkable, typical-ist person out there. The bran muffin of people, the white Crayola pencil crayon of the box.

Which is probably a good/bad thing, depends on how you see it, in comparison to her sister, Ivy, who is the Oscar of 10-year-olds, award-winner of pretty much every single elementary competition there is, and way more confident than Ella.

And way more snarky too

Of course, a kid like her has as many ememies and friends, including half the boys in her class, who probably wouldn't know the meaning of "dating" even if it walked up to them with a bouquet of roses and a heart-shaped box of chocolate, were all over her, asking her out on dates, asking for tutoring, asking if she had time to hang out after school etc.

In comparison to Ella's few male acquaintances (2 of which were Ice-Cream the gerbil and Bella the duck), Ivy was like a celebrity.

Although...for some reason, though Ivy detested all other people (something about them being too clingly), she was completely fine with Ella, though they were on separate ends of the social food chain. I mean, if anything, Ella should've been the one with the puppy-love eyes and Ivy should've been the one with the "who is this piece of gum which has been scraped off the bottom of my shoe?" kind of attitude.

So then, with these two characters, was where the story began.

~

"Ella! You're going to be late, again!" shouted Ivy. Ella "Eek!"-ed as she hurriedly grabbed her go-to hoodie and jeans and stumbled out of the front door, toast in mouth, house keys dangling from her pocket. Ivy sighed impatiently (though it didn't come off well as she was several years younger than Ella) and tapped at her wristwatch.

"Sorry Ivy!" she said breathlessly. Ivy rolled her eyes, "Whatever, let's go already. I'm not walking through the snow just because someone overslept again" she said. Ella blushed as she remembered it.

"It was an accident"

"So were the other 78 times"

Ella sighed, knowing there was no point in arguing with her (correct) little sister.

"By the way, is that our bus?"

Ivy looked at Ella's pointing finger to the yellow vehicle, which revved up its engine, and sped off.

"Yes Ella, yes it was," she said tiredly.

After arriving at school, Ella found herself in math class, half paying attention, and half daydreaming. Ella was always a daydreamer, and it kind of fit too, because daydreaming was a gentle activity, just like her. Ella was the type of person that would stare off into space for hours on end.

Bringggggg!

Students eagerly packed up. The noise of rustling papers was evident as people trickled out of the classroom, Ella among the last.

She walked to her locker, decorated with shiny stickers and post-its, and looked inside, fishing around for her notebooks and stuff that she would have to bring home that day to review.

They were wet and cold when they got home. Ivy's left eye twitched in irritation as she took off her soaked boots and ran upstairs to do homework while Ella prepared tea. She carried the two cups upstairs, one for Ivy, and one for her.

Ella sighed as she opened her textbooks and started to write. Line, after line of careful work. Occasionally, her phone blipped with a new text message, but she always ignored them. They weren't from a) Ivy, b) her parents and c) any of her friends.