The Silhouette

Chappy la numero uno

Chapter 1

For Ambrosia Tristan, life was a mystery, especially her own. Ambrosia had grown up in the same cottage in London since she was an infant. She had been adopted at the age of three months. The only information Ambrosia was allowed to know about her adoption was that a man in a dark hooded trench coat had dropped her off at the orphanage in a small cardboard box with a blanket and a slip of paper with her birthdate and name. Ambrosia Benson, she had read a on the slip. The orphanage put her in the care of Mr. and Mrs. Tristan, a couple with an attitude and rambunctious triplet girls, Alexis, Angelyn, and Addison. The Tristans treated Ambrosia as more of a nanny and a maid than a daughter. When the adults went to work, the expected to come back to a spotless, clean house, and their “perfect” little kindergarteners to be off the school bus safely.  Always leaving Ambrosia to juggle the girls, school, and her chores, they couple went out with friends. Ambrosia always tried her hardest to keep her spoiled parents happy, or at least calm, because she never wanted to face the same consequences as she had when Alexis had broken her arm at school and come home with a cast. The Tristans had believed that it was Ambrosia’s fault, and they’d locked her in the cellar and let her out only to use the washroom. She was not even allowed to eat supper. As of now, though, Ambrosia lived in the cellar. She was to sleep in the cellar, too, with nothing but a ragged old blanket of Angelyn’s, as well as one of Addison’s old hard pillows. The only company for Ambrosia was the rats, which scurried about, minding their own business. The winters were not kind. The cellar was freezing, and Ambrosia was chilled to the bone. The summers were harsh as well. The cellar was scalding hot, due to no isolation in the walls, and Ambrosia burned badly.

Ambrosia’s schedule seemed simple to many, but only she knew how much of a challenge it was. Ambrosia was to awaken at four o’clock sharp, early in the morning, to prepare the triplets’ lunches, as well as her own. She woke the Girls up at six, bathing them, clothing them, and feeding them their breakfast. Then, she had to run across the street with the girls, carrying all three schoolbags and lunch boxes herself, to Mrs. Edna Rockwell’s house. Mrs. Rockwell was a caring elderly woman who was always more than happy to help out Ambrosia, as the woman was very fond of the girl, and felt sorry for her. Once she dropped the girls of at Mrs. Rockwell’s place, with the woman’s reassurance that she could get the girls on the bus safely, Ambrosia ran to her own school, where she met up with her two best friends. The first one, Juliette Justin, was an athletic girl, and desired by many of the boys at school with her long, extra-curly blond hair and crystal blue eyes, along with her all of the other nearly perfect facial features. Ambrosia’s other friend was Elias Evans, the star of the school basketball team. Tall with light brown eyes and straight, messy chestnut hair, his charm and kindness added to everything else attracted almost every girl in school. Ambrosia herself was quite pretty, though she had never acknowledged it. She was tall and slender, with dark blue eyes the color of the ocean and thick, silky chestnut hair, like Elias’s, which fell in large ringlets at her waist.

Ambrosia didn’t really have any friends until two years earlier, when she was in seventh grade. She had been sitting alone in her usual spot at lunch when she saw a small girl with blond hair and big black glasses approaching her, and alongside her, a dark haired boy whose hair was cut with bangs that covered nearly half his face, in the “Bieber” hairstyle, which was really popular back then.

“Can we sit here?” the girl, who was Juliette, had asked.

“Um, okay. I guess so,” Ambrosia had replied, a little flustered. Nobody had ever asked to sit with her before.

The two girls started up the conversation, while the boy, Elias, just sat silently eating his lunch. What a quiet boy he is, Ambrosia had thought.

BRRRING!! BRRRING!! The school bell rang, breaking Ambrosia out of her daze. As the three friends walked to their first class, English Language Arts with Mr. Redloh, Ambrosia looked at her friends. They had changed so much over the years. Elias, who had been a very timid, nerdy, and quiet boy, was now outgoing, athletic and the most popular boy in school. There was also a hugely noticeable change in Juliette. She’d lost the glasses, and she’d gotten her growth spurt over the summer.

“Hey Rosy! Jules! Check it out!” Elias yelled. He was throwing grapes to his face, trying to catch them in his mouth and failing miserably at the process. The first grape he tossed hit him square in the eye, making him give out a quick yelp. Ambrosia laughed.

“Hey, Rosy,” Juliette said. “Do you remember that time, like, ages ago when Elias used to be quiet?”

Ambrosia nodded vigorously. “Popularity has really corrupted our little Elias, hasn’t it?” she said in a babyish voice, ruffling Elias’s hair in the way that he hated.

“Hey stop! You’re messing it up! I worked hard to get it like this, you know. Five minutes of my hard work and sweat, down the drain,” Elias complained.

“Oh please, E. You know that all you do in the morning to get your hair looking like that is give it one stroke of a hairbrush. To tell you the truth, it’s not even cute anymore,” Juliette, said with a sarcastic pout on her face, knowing that insulting his hair like that would really irk him. He stuck his tong

As the three friends walked to class laughing, Ambrosia thought she saw something- no, someone watching them. A tall, dark, hooded figure, lurking behind the lockers, saw Ambrosia looking and quickly darted away.

In ELA class, Ambrosia expertly created her ten sentence patterns in less than ten minutes, then finished, began to ponder. She couldn’t get her mind off of the shadowy person. Who was that dark figure, and why’d they run away? Most importantly, why were they watching us?