Something Weird

Chapter 1: Just another boring old day in my life.

School sucked chizz. Again. I mean, when does it not? Okay, so maybe that was a bit melodramatic (Big word alert. Yeah, I know things) of me but hey, I'm a girl. I'm allowed to be. Especially today of all days. So, I was in class and my obnoxious hag of a teacher Ms Kayne was going on and on about her love for poetry and the art of words. Yeah, nobody cared. Well, I usually do like a bit of poetry (you tell anyone and I will skin you alive. Sam Puckett doesn't do poetry, got it?), but since it was the waffle rolling out of Ms Kayne's misshapen mouth, I decided to zone out. That earned me and the rest of us a lovely thousand word essay on the wonders of poetry when she flipped and noticed that the whole class was staring around the room with bored, blank expressions. But then, Ms Kayne has a nervous breakdown practically everyday so nothing new there.

Still peeved about the surprise essay, I took my sweet time making my way to music, brooding over the torture that was the rest of my day. Gosh, this place was depressing, with its dull beige walls which I'm positive used to be white, and the tiny glass windows that hardly let any light in whatsoever. Even its name was depressing. Ridgeway High School. That just screams of desperation. As in, I'm desperate to find the founder of this dump and push in down a well. Anyways, I walked into the music room to find that everyone had already taken their seats and Mr. Henford was taking the register, with his huge spectacles resting on his bulbous nose. He looked toward the sound of the door closing behind me and caught my vacant expression with annoyance clearly written across his face.

"Sam Puckett, you are late," he boomed, nostrils flaring. Obvious, much? I glanced back at the clock behind me. It read three minutes past ten. Wow, if this guy gets all flustered over me being three minutes late then I don't want to see what happens if someone breaks his precious guitars. Note to self: save the guitar breaking idea for a rainy day. And yet he remains relentless, "Care to explain yourself?" he added.

I was so not in the mood to argue with him, and I knew that he was never going to back down so I decided to use one of my little tricks.

"Sorry, sir. You see, I was in the toilets due to women's troubles." I said, loud enough for the whole class to hear and look towards Mr. Henford in suspense as to what his comeback would be. Being a seventeen year old girl had its drawbacks, but those of us who actually used our brains saw this as an opportunity to attack. As I expected, the greying man turned bright red and became shifty, shuffling his sheet music about. Haha. Now he's uncomfortable.

He didn't bother responding; only pointing towards my seat in an attempt to forget what just happened. I smirked, taking my seat next to the nub, who was wearing the same smug expression that I had plastered on my face. He knows my tricks. I swear that line works every time on the male teachers, it's golden. Only for the male teachers though. Some of the nice female teachers are the sympathetic ones that take pity and let you do what you want for the lesson. Others, like Ms Kayne looked at you like you deserved every stab of pain that you get and told you to suck it up. Oh well. I was barely awake when Mr. Henford started rambling on about God knows what and I'm pretty sure Freddie could see my eyelids drooping too, because he whispered to me, his lips millimetres from my ear.

"Just go to sleep Sam. I got you covered." Shivers. That's what I felt when his breath reached my skin. Weird. I shook off the feeling and lifted a lazy hand to pat him on the top of his head and murmur, "Good little nub."

I heard his quiet chuckle and smiled to myself. I had trained him well.

The rest of the day slowly drifted by, every second seeming to take forever. I'm sure the clock actually physically stopped moving once. But sure enough, the school bell finally shrieked through the halls, signalling that freedom was once again among us. Honestly, I'm surprised this sad excuse for a school hasn't got a better athletics team because the way those teenagers sprinted out the doors was magical. Carly and Freddington had one of those sappy future leaders of America meetings so I was on my own. Walking home, I looked up at the dull grey sky. It was getting dark already. I know what you're thinking, 'How can it possibly be dark? It's the middle of May and it's three thirty!' I live in Seattle. Enough said. I actually don't think we've had an overall nice summer day yet. And when we do, you just know it's going to be a freak show, with everyone gasping for water and the whack jobs who like to call themselves scientists droning on about global warming. You would've thought that, you know, being geniuses and all that they would've figured out that nobody actually cares. People are hypocrites. We say we want to change the world and make it a better place but we only want to be safe for ourselves. As long as we're alright, who cares about anyone else? Ha. Look at me and my inner monologue rambling on about global warming. There's something new. I'm hungry, where are my fatcakes?

Once I stumbled through the door, I looked up and saw a flash of golden blond hair whip around the corner as my mother stalked passed the kitchen door. She's got her face on. The face that says, 'I am so wound up right now, that if anyone comes near me I will explode in their face.' Frothy probably did his business in her bed again. Ha, I love that cat. I hope she doesn't kill him after that little incident. I decided not to investigate that further and try to sneak upstairs without being noticed. Carefully placing my schoolbag by the coat rack, I readied myself for what I was about to do. You see, my staircase has certain steps that creek loudly and some that make a hollow echo when your foot hits them. Lucky for me, I have lived here long enough to have memorised these places. I mentally switched myself from school mode to silent cat mode (Oh yeah. You know it's cool). Visualising my course, I grabbed hold of the banister, letting it take my weight and swung my feet over the first three steps. Landing lightly on the forth step, I pivoted and jumped as high as I could, catching the ledge with my fingertips. From there, I let my legs dangle underneath me whilst I pulled myself up four steps with my arms. I was now high enough to reach the top banister, so I braced myself and pushed down with my hands, which brought my hips up high enough for me to swing my legs over the wooden posts and land square on my feet without making a sound. Letting out a breath that I hadn't known I'd been holding, I glanced back down the stairs. Mission accomplished. I grinned at my newly found ninja skills and headed into my room.

My room was the only room in the house that I actually liked. It had three white walls and one deep purple feature wall opposite the window. The mahogany bed where I spent my nights was positioned under this wall facing my picture board. Yeah, I have a picture board. I think it's pretty cool. I mostly just put up posters of cute boys and exam timetables, but there are a few sentimental pieces there. Like the pass I got from Webicon a while back. Now that day was amazing. I realised that I had automatically sat myself on the edge of my bed whilst reminiscing and a small smile crept into my features. I was picturing the image in my head. Me, Carls and Fredhead actually managed to make it there this year. Stupid Nora. Well, that's what you get when you don't listen to me.

Moving on to lighter thoughts (depending on which way you look at it), I decided to get started on that wonderful essay Ms Kayne had set. Note the heavy sarcasm (and yes this is the real Sam Puckett, I am only doing the stupid homework because I don't want to live in a box! Jeez, get off my back). I stopped in my tracks. Something was… missing. Aw, fatcakes! I left my schoolbag downstairs before I miraculously morphed into a ninja. I suppose it didn't matter anyway, I already knew the torture she had planned for us. Booting up my laptop, I realised the charger was gone. And yes, typical me, it had hardly any battery. Search time. By the way, I'm absolutely useless at looking for things. Sometimes, I look for so long that I actually forget what I was searching for in the first place. So I dropped to my knees and started scouring the floor underneath my bed. Nothing but my old keyboard, some of my mother's dreaded Christmas decorations and dust bunnies. Haha, dust bunnies. I searched everywhere but found nothing. Well, I did find the other shoe of my Converse, which I honestly thought I would never see again. Sad times.

I was getting really angry now, especially because my laptop kept making that annoyingly loud beeping sound every five seconds, to tell me to charge it. Building up inside me, was an ear-splitting, gut-wrenching, blood-curdling scream. And it wanted to get out. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, as if the world had been depriving me of my oxygen, and calmed myself down. See? I'm getting better at the managing of my 'blow thing's wildly out of proportion' anger, as Carly calls it. I exhaled, wishing that my charger wouldn't be so stubborn and just find me instead.

Something in the corner of my eye moved. I froze. Nobody else was in here apart from me. Slowly turning my head, I focused on the movement. It was coming from my wardrobe. I flicked my fingers in suspense at the rumbling inside my furniture, then the door flung open and my charger rolled out, tumbling in a knotted heap to my feet. That was really weird. I mean, nothing happened until I flicked my fingers.

I looked down at the wiring below me and frowned. Never in a million years was I going to be able to undo that mess. But today was feeling off for me, I don't know what it was, so I thought I may as well try my luck. Scrunching my eyes tightly shut, I concentrated hard on untangling those cables. After a few seconds, I slightly opened one of my eyes and peaked at the charger. Nothing happened. In fact, the only thing it did do was give me a headache. My hands twitched in frustration as I sighed.

The wires began to unwind themselves.