Shadows

Chapter 1

10th September 2008

The Piñata exploded in an array of sprinkles and colour, sweets raining down on the five tiny children. The room was so hectic with sound that most of the parents had gone to the kitchen to escape the screams. Birthdays; always cause so much trouble don’t they? I guess you can blame it on poor little Jade, the birthday girl as you would say. She sat there in the corner, not mattering about the raining sweets that much, she was much more intent on her new book- Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban. After finishing the other two books in a day about a week before, she couldn’t wait for her birthday. Her dark green eyes skittered across the page, back and forth, soaking in the story. A little silver crown sparkled out her short black hair, and her legs where tucked up underneath the skirt of her pink fairy dress (She’s nine! What do you expect?).

“Now Jade, its present time! Come on girls help me collect up the sweets.” Jades mother exclaimed as she entered the room.

“Oooh Jade, open mine and Sam’s first!” Charlotte shouted over the noise. 

“Oh she doesn’t have to Charlie, unless you want to Jade.” Replied Sam

“That’s not fair, I’m your best friend Jade, so open mine!” Pouted Marilyn.

“I think that’s a very mean thing to say Harriet! Maybe I’m her best friend. You don’t know how she feels.“ Meg muttered.

“Girls, stop arguing. Jade just open this present” Roared Jades mother, thrusting the biggest present into her daughter’s hands.

“Yay! That’s mine!” Meg cheered.

It went on like that for quite a while, with them all arguing over whose present got opened next. Jade though, just wanted the party to be over so she could get back to her book. Her mother had to confiscate her book to get her to open her presents. This annoyed jade. Sirius black had just broken in to Hogwarts and she wanted to know what happened next! Still it would only take a few minutes to sort out and then she would be back in her magical world.

Sammy had been quite grateful of the noisy party room and all the strange games they had played. It had meant that her brain got a rest for once. Being able to concentrate without hearing millions of people screaming, crying, shouting for her attention was quite nice because it was quite a rare occurrence. When she did get five minutes peace, they never lasted long enough, but two hours of her friend’s shrieks was almost too much!

Despite what you think, Sammy was perfectly happy in her little bubble of voices. It helped her sleep at night, it helped her get use to noise, and most of all it made her feel… special. No-one knew of it of course. Not even Charlie who she confessed EVERYTHING to.  There wasn’t a single thing they didn’t know about each other (beside the fact of the ‘voices’ as Sam called them). The two twins were absolutely inseparable. They all ways liked to trick people that didn’t know them into think that Charlie was Sam and that Sam was Charlie, which always amused their 3 friends. If you knew the two twins it was easy to tell the differences.

Sam had slightly lighter blonde hair which she always had in plaits, not to mention the fact that she had their dads chocolate brown eyes. Charlie on the other hand wore her wavy blonde hair down all the time, never tying it up, and her eyes were a piercing blue like their mothers. Other than that, the two were identical:  same tanned skin; same height and weight (which seems strange as Sammy eats a lot more); same nose and mouth. It always annoyed them both that they were the babies of the group but what can you do about your age.

As Jades best friend, Marilyn always felt it was her job to make her friend understand that books weren’t the only things in her life. Jade was always absorbed in a book and Marilyn couldn’t help but try and explain to her friend how she was being extremely rude. I mean how you can just sit there, surrounded by present and read, she would never know! But Mar new it was pointless. Jade was a book worm. It didn’t help that Jade was like a cat; don’t frighten them or they won’t warm to you. That was Jade all right, shy and timid like a cat. This infuriated Marilyn so much! Why did people have to be all annoying and shy? It made making new friends or playing with others so much harder because Marilyn- as Jades best friend- had to stick up for her and join in her games even if she wanted to play with Chris and Patrick or some other super cool people.

Don’t get me wrong, Marilyn loves jade like a sister but sister’s fight don’t they? That’s how she sees it anyway.

After the present incident, Meg felt simply delighted to have been the first of presents opened. She never really did fit in with the group as she wasn’t a best friends or sibling of the other 4. To her, Sam, Charlie, Marilyn and Jade were all her best friends! They always made fun of her, calling her a geek and she knew it wasn’t bullying because they all made fun of each other, but she always felt they meant it. She didn’t understand why when she was so much older. Meg was smart; it was quite obvious to see. People always described her as smart, organized and…Beautiful! In Meg’s eyes never saw it as beautiful, just… a little pretty. Ginger hair that always curled weirdly in her mind, light green eyes that looked almost like seaweed and she guessed she was relatively thin, But it was the little things like her freckles or a tiny spot way up In her hairline that made her wander what prettiness people saw in her.

That wasn’t the only think that Megan felt was wrong with her. She couldn’t help but feel alarmed that one of the only dreams she had were about her walking through a cemetery on a cold rainy night to one grave, always the same one. The problem was that she never actually reached the grave to see whose it was. This alarmed her because as a bright child she always thought of the worst outcome of a situation. Her thought on the dream was that it was signifying that someone she knew and loved would die or something like that; nevertheless the dream had continued for many, many years with no out come so she had taken to ignoring it.

ꜙꜙꜙ***

It didn’t take long for the lull of school life to kick in for the 5 children. Meg got straight on with her studies preparing for her SATs that were 2 years away; Charlie and Sammy got instantly became the most annoying students ever, listening to music during lessons and doing everything to annoy their new teacher Miss Sherbet; Jade had finished prisoners of Azkaban… and Goblet of fire… And order of the phoenix, so she spent the lesson sat at the back of the class reading Half-blood prince with Deathly hallows on hand just in case; Harriet was bored as usual, so she played with a pencil.

The other students mostly ignored Megan’s constant hand in the air, Charlie’s loud music, Jade’s reading and the irritating tap, tap, tap of Harriet’s pen. They knew that soon the bell would go and they could run around the field playing Pepsi cola or football. Of course there would always be 5 girls not fitting the general mould of society. Meg usually convinced the others to sit at the very back of the field by the conker as not many students walked that far out onto the field.

Normally they sat down and happily ate up their lunches, occasionally sharing crisps or chocolate bars. Today was different. None of them were all that hungry so that just sat in silence for a few minutes, staring into the middle of a circle they had made. Megan was the first to break the awful silence.

“I’ve been thinking guys; it’s not really that much longer until we move up to big school. Can we promise to always be friends? I heard that they split you up and friendship groups break and…and...”

“Meg stop fretting! Its ages away! And of course we will be friends! Friends forever, friends till we die, right guys?” Marilyn replied, calming Meg’s fright

There was a general murmur of ‘Yeah’ and ‘of course!’ before they decide to continued lunch as normal.