| A WATTPAD FEATURED FANTASY NOVEL |
"Just because you were ordinary there doesn't mean you have to be anything less than extraordinary here." That's the advice orphan Amira DeLante was given when she found herself caught accidentally in an alterna...
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AFTERNOON FOUND ME sitting on the kitchen countertop, swinging my feet, the sun warming my back through my white cotton dress, as I scrubbed the grime off the sink with a metal scrub. The house looked clean, but I was sure that my foster mother, Lucia, would find some nook or cranny I may have missed, or she may think I had missed. I scrubbed harder, the need to avoid confrontation more palpable than fear itself. Once satisfied with how the sun reflected on the chrome faucet, I slid down and made myself comfortable on a rocking chair by the window with a novel.
"How about you do something productive for once in your rotten lifetime and check if you've been accepted into one of those cheap summer programs you applied for?" Lucia reprimanded me from the living room. I clenched my fists in anger and glared at her while she calmly continued to watch a rerun of her favorite show, Sex and the City.
I avoided her gaze on my way out to collect the mail. The sun was bright outside, and it felt too warm for spring. Buds were starting to appear on bare trees, and the grass felt like velvet under my feet. I breathed in the fresh air as I walked on the gravel path toward the mailbox. The neighbor was walking her dog and waved at me excitedly. The mailbox was overflowing with envelopes, magazines, and useless advertisements. I picked them all at once, planning to sort them inside, where it was less warm. With my hands full at the door, I struggled with the jammed doorknob, but as I finally opened it, all the envelopes, leaflets, and magazines slipped from my hands and fell to the floor.
The commotion prompted Lucia to rise from where she was seated on a dingy old recliner and stomp towards me, just as I feared. "I thought I told you to watch it, brat!" she hissed at me, grabbing my ear so painfully that I could swear that her long ratty nails had punctured my skin. She released my ear, grabbed whatever mail was left in my hands, threw the pile on the kitchen counter, and carefully scanned through all her overdue bills, pretending I didn't exist anymore. I picked up the rest of the mail from the floor, gingerly placed them on the kitchen counter, and waited patiently.
"From Westfield University," Lucia's emotionless voice rang out a few minutes later as she opened my mail and skimmed through the letter. "Don't get too excited," she mocked superciliously as she handed it to me. "There's no way you'll be able to pay for it."
My heart sank. I would have preferred to find that out by myself, but she couldn't let go of a single opportunity to be patronizing. Her life would be so much easier if I was not in it, but she didn't want to give up on the joy she got from making my life miserable. I hurried past her and made myself comfortable on a rickety bar stool rattling loudly as I helped myself. I grimaced, expecting Lucia to comment on the noise. She didn't but gave a loud sniff of disapproval. Tearing the envelope apart, I felt my heart pounding in my neck. I skimmed through the beginning until I reached the section determining how my life would turn out.
Congratulations! You have been accepted into the biomedical summer program, which will be conducted from June to August. Our administrators are very impressed with your application, and we hope to see similar out-of-the-box thinking this summer.
