Silverstar

Chapter 1

Thalia Silverstar woke up to the sound of bickering. The higher, louder voice carried all the way to the quiet sanctuary under her pillow, while the deeper one took a little longer to strike her throbbing eardrum.

Within seconds, her alarm clock began to ring noisily, the last straw.

Getting out of bed was no small feat for a girl that had stayed up almost all night completing the finishing touches on her history project, literature essay, and human studies reading. It took all her power to ignore the headache that pounded just behind her left ear, reminding her insistently of the sleep she was missing.

As she passed by her mirror, Thalia sighed for the nth time at her reflection. At the billowing mass of annoyingly long hair, not dark enough to be chic, yet not light enough to be cute. Her father called it caramel brown.

She called it boring brown. It was just that, after all. Boring, and nothing else. Thalia Silverstar was a boring girl, every definition of mundane. Even her Swish, the color of her personality that showed in the highlights in her hair and the scales on her tail, was a dull sort of aquamarine. Just the average girl next door. Plain as could be.

Even for a mermaid, and mermaids were notoriously known for their stunning looks and sharp features.

Well, with the exception of her eyes. The only part of her she liked were her eyes. Some people called them indigo, but on closer inspection they were really a stunning shade of royal purple flecked with silver. Violet eyes were very rare, even in Silverlagoon. But they were hers. Something special that belonged to Thalia Silverstar, and Thalia Silverstar only.

So whenever she looked in the mirror, she focused on the violet. Lost herself in it, almost.

By the time she reached the kitchen, only one of the arguers remained sitting at the dining table, sighing.

“Hey Dad,” Thalia said, flicking her tail casually and propelling herself to the fridge. Breakfast was something she didn’t have the time for, so she just picked up a sealed packet of salted anchovies and a canned sandwich for lunch. “Everything okay?”

Of course, she knew who the cause of all the trouble was. The pampered popularity queen Victoria was always to blame, and this time would be no different. The fact that a broken curling iron lay rejected on the table only supported the idea.

She thought of the nickname she’d given Victoria, Picky Vicky. How fitting.

“She was up late last night studying for her physics exam,” Thalia’s dad said, yawning. “She’s having a mood.”

Thalia only rolled her eyes and declined to mention that Victoria had actually been texting her third boyfriend of the year giddily until around 1:30 in the morning, when she had broken up with him.

Thalia grimaced. She’d barely been able to avoid Victoria’s tantrum. Her older sister was beautiful, with stunning hazel eyes and platinum blond hair, both of which tended to attract a wide variety of male followers.

“I’m sure she is,” Thalia chose to say instead, throwing her backpack over her shoulder and grabbing her poster on the history of Silverlagoon.

“Sounds like sarcasm,” her dad laughed, raising his eyebrows. “You have way too little faith in your sister.”

“Sarcasm is overrated,” Thalia replied carefully, folding up the poster and gripping it tightly in her hands. “In fact, so is Victoria.”

Jon Silverstar gave her a look that clearly screamed he was in denial. “You, by the way, should be getting to school.”