Chapter 1
“Please mom, can I do it by myself? I’m 13 and - “No! your hair damages faster if you do it by yourself and use a brush! How many times have I told you not to use the brush instead of the comb?” Molly was getting infuriated by Amanda’s argument about using a lousy brush with tentacles poking out of its foundation instead of a wooden comb.
Molly tries to explain the outgoing cons of brushing her hair and also that Amanda doesn’t even unleash the triple sized lion knots in her hair. Amanda was as frustrated as when a hawk didn’t get its proper mice meal served in a silver platter. Amanda thumped the granite floor in frustration. Her stepbrother Eric was nowhere in sight, probably hiding with that smug look she hated so much. Why did he have to be so impossible? and marched out of the creepy white and faded pink house and got on to the miserable yellow school bus as her mother watched in utter disbelief. She didn’t tidy her black silky hair and was running too late to eat the oats her mother had prepared.
As she jogged toward the bus, the wind attacked her hair like it had a personal vendetta. By the time she climbed the steps, strands were plastered across her face, sticking to her lip gloss, while the rest puffed out in wild directions. She looked like she’d just walked through a wind tunnel and barely survived.
“Amanda. Amanda S Miller?” Mrs. Patty was calling out to Amanda, who was at the very back end of the bus.
“Yeah?” Amanda said, finally regaining consciousness as she batted her eyes a couple of times and finally realized that every one of her classmates got off the bus except for herself.
“Sorry, Miss Patty.”
“No need for an apology dear” said Ms. Patty as always with a kind expression on her face. Amanda never knew if it were fake as a blasted tomato or real as much as the world could be. She quickly grabbed her backpack, book, lunch, and water bottle and stormed out of the bus plastering us fake smile.
“Hey Amanda, why are you late?”
“Ah! oh, it’s you, EC!”
“When are you going to stop calling me that?” Eric muttered under his solemnly calm breath.
“Never” Amanda shrieked, her voice high and sharp as a whistle cutting through cold air. She opened her locker to put her lunch away when a blue paper envelope fell out of her locker onto her Michael Kors’ shoe. Amanda thought it was a prank pulled by her 12-year-old stepbrother Eric, but when she forced him to confess, he just kept on saying that it ain’t him.
“Maybe it was one of my friends’ will open it up, Amanda.” Amanda flipped and searched through the envelope so thoroughly that it looked from far away that she was investigating a crime scene. Not knowing what it is, she opened the envelope as usual and took out a note. But due to Amanda’s slippery, sloppy hands, it fell on some mud-colored water on the cream tile floor. Amanda took a step back, unaware of what had just happened. Her brain filled with fury. And after her vicious thinking, she shrugged and turned to walk away.
Eric just stood there in front of Amanda’s locker and seemed to know in their one year of being in the same house that she doesn’t talk a lot in their house or either at school. He stood there for a minute or two when the teacher called out to him saying that he would be late to class as the second bell. Had already rung and he is tardy.
Amanda witnessed Eric from the girl’s restroom till the 2nd bell rang, “Rangaton-ton” and she practically sprinted off to her history classroom.
The class did not seem inviting at all the all the American freedom fighter posters and photos of British took over India, Africa and practically the half of the earth amended debated against going in there when Sophia Centoros, and Trinity Williams bumped into Amanda on purpose. She was about to fall but she grabbed the shiny golden knob instead of making herself look like a victim of the popular girl’s master plan.
“Sorry, didn’t watch you there.” said Sophia sarcastically while Trinity nodded vigorously, both of them obviously giggling.
“Then you better watch out.”
Amanda shoved the Sophia into the closed white door and she fell so hard, she started bleeding on her elbow and new scraped knee. Trinity didn’t want to be involved in the big fight, so she slowly and steadily crept across the fight, the uninviting room and into her seat. The third row, second column.
“Hey! Whatcha did that for?” Sophia was now raging and started to tower over Amanda when she realized something all of a sudden – the history teacher wasn’t there yet, so everyone in class started to come around to see what all the commotion was all about and while Sophia was in her own fantasies and was not paying any attention into the active fight she was in, Amanda took this as an opportunity and flung a flying puck to her rivals nose and she started crying when Amanda noticed that her best friend – Arabella – with Autree Middle School’s principal, Mr. Wilson.
Amanda fell to knees almost immediately, a sign which in her vision meant that she had given up all hopes of graduating 8th grade. “Who did this to you?” said Mr. Wilson curiously. Everyone around them - their classmates, friends, and even stepbrother - pointed their index finger over to Amanda, whose cheeks now flushed with pink embarrassment.
