A Whole New Life; Book 2: Alone

Chapter 24

Aqua's POV

I arrive at the field in front of the school for try outs. There's a girl with black hair that goes to her shoulders. She's playing a few beats on  tambourine and shaking it at different paces. I guess I could try to make new friends.

"Hi," I say trying to strike up a conversation.

"Oh hey. Wait a minute. I think I know you. The other day you were walking by and the school set on fire. I don't know how though. Everyone else here must have forgotten too. Oh well," says the girl. I am so glad she doesn't remember my fire accident. I found a spell in my spell book that would make everyone forget whatever event you want.

"I'm Aqua," I say.

"I'm Emerald. My full name is Emerald-Marine," says the girl.

"My full name is Aqua-Topaz-Windy-Flower," I say.

"Wait. are you the girl who got adopted by Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson?" asks Emerald. I slowly nod my head.

"I saw the interview. I thought your outfit was amazing. And I can see you're still wearing that mockingjay necklace," says Emerald as she points to my neck.

"Oh yeah. Josh gave to me," I say.

"Why don't you call them mom and dad?" asks Emerald.

"I like to call them Jen and Josh. I don't like to call them mom and dad because it feels weird to call two people your mom and dad when they're truly not," I say.

"True," Emerald says. We start talking about music and then it was time.

"Hey. Willow, Amandla and I are putting together a band. We just need someone on tambourine and someone on keytar. Do you want to be on tambourine?" I ask.

"Really? I always wanted to be in a band," says Emerald. "At first, when I saw you on T.V. I thought you were some stuck up snobby rich brat. But actually, you're not bad," say Emerald. Suddenly, it was time for archery try outs.

"Good luck, Aqua," says Emerald. I nod my head and smile. I grab my bow and sheath of arrows and line up for try outs. First is a girl with blond curls. She misses the bulls eye by two blue rings. The second girl with a brown pixie cut shoots at the second target and gets closer but still misses. One girl and one boy with curly brown hair goes. I'm guessing they're siblings. The girl misses and the boy misses as well. About six more people shoot and they all miss except for one. All the targets have one arrow shot at them. But there's still one person who hasn't gone yet: Me.

"Aqua, try shooting bulls eye on all these targets," says the instructor. Everyone gives me doubtful looks as I prepare to shoot the first target. I shoot and get bulls eye. I move onto the next target and shoot. Bulls eye. Same results for the third target. I move on to the last target.

"No point, Redhead. There's already a bulls eye in my target," says a boy with short blond hair. Those words hit me like a rock as I remember the way Karan underestimated me like that. This boy has no idea who he's up against. I position the arrow and release. It slices through the arrow and half of my arrow goes right through the bulls eye in the target. I turn to look at everyone else. They all have a shocked expression on their faces as the instructor writes something down on her clipboard. We move on to the next round: Moving targets. Everyone else seems to miss. It was suddenly my turn and I shoot at five moving targets and hit bulls eye in each one. Then we went onto the third round, which is shooting more than one arrow at once. Each target has three bulls eyes. Everyone else shoots more than one arrow at once. Or at least try to. Some only get one arrow into the target and some fully miss. When my turn came, I position three arrows on my bow and release. Each arrow hits one bulls eye. Then it was time for the final round: Blinded shooting. Each of us gets blindfolded and we have to shoot a target based on where the sound is coming from. The other students don't know the sound of the canvas of the target as well as I do. Each of them gets at least one bulls eye. Finally, it was my turn. I get blindfolded as I pull the arrow back preparing to shoot. I hear the familiar canvas sound from behind me. I turn around and shoot where the sound came from. Four more of the sounds travel to my ears as I shoot to the direction each sound came from. The instructor tells me I'm finished and I remove the blindfold from my eyes. I look at the five targets circling me. But that's not what caught my attention. What caught my attention was that each of the five targets has one arrow shot into the bulls eye. I look around and see the whole school of students, staff, including the principal watching me. The instructor writes something on her clipboard as the other nine archers look at me with hatred in their eyes, making it clear that they don't want me on the archery team. Only ten students can sign up and only five can make it to the team. And when the finals come, only one can make it. I pull out all the arrows I shot and place them back in the sheath with the rest of my arrows.

"Alright, students. You are to go to class now. The five people who made it to the archery team will be announced at lunch," says the principle, Mrs. Maranda. I gather all my stuff and head to my locker. I put in the combination and place my bow and sheath of arrows inside. I pull out my notebook and textbook for English class and close my locker and lock it. I head to class with Amandla.

"Hey. That was some pretty good shooting. Where did you learn to do archery like that? And where did you get the equipment?" asks Amandla.

"Thanks. I did archery for a long time. When I was in the orphanage, I sometimes shot arrows at my door when people knocked. They all knew it meant for them to go away. I didn't really know how to talk when I was in the orphanage. That was until Jen and Josh adopted me. As for the equipment, I made them. I found huge pieces of wood, pieces of leather, a few feathers and a long piece of string. I used a knife to carve the bow and arrows, I sewed pieces of leather together to make the sheath and I used the feathers to put on the end of the arrows," I say. Suddenly, we got to English. And as we enter the classroom, people stared at me. I have a bad feeling about this.

A/N Well, what do you think of the chapter? I made it longer this time. If you're using a computer, sorry that it's short to you. I use my phone to go on Wattpad. And for others who use a phone as well, this would be a long chapter to you.

~MariaTheHater