Still Untitled---Chapt 1

Chapter One

I got off the bus with the worst feeling of dread I’ve felt in a long time. Probably because summer vacation’s over and the school year has begun. Great. Just great.

So you’re probably awfully familiar with the typical drama going on in high school. The jocks and the cheerleaders rule the school while the nerds are at the bottom of the food chain, always getting pushed around and getting their heads dunked in the toilet every once in a while. Yeah, it’s the same in every story.

Luckily, I’m not one of those nerds. But neither am I one of the popular kids either. I’m what you call neutral. A simple wallflower. Blending in with the crowd and not getting noticed is what I do best. I’ve got a nice group of friends who I hang out with at lunch and go to the movies or whatever. I consider myself very lucky because I’m cool enough not to be called a nerd.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying being a nerd is the absolute worst thing that could happen to you because it isn’t.

In my opinion, the absolute worst thing that could happen to you is being born in a family that inherits a kind of gift that enables us to see monsters - so that we can fight them off.

I know what you might be thinking. “That’s so cool! Going on secret missions and using cool gadgets and kicking monsters’ asses!”

You have got it so wrong.

I developed my Gift when I was twelve. Before that I had absolutely no idea that monsters exists or that my family had a duty of terminating them before they harm the human race. I just had the normal problem with the “monsters under my bed” that most kids do. I never actually thought that there really was MONSTERS UNDER MY BED!

So here I am, half awake, having a really bad hair day and smelling like I just came out of a garbage can, a little less than ready to face the days as a junior in high school. Please don’t let first period be history or I am a goner.

“Daniella!”

I turned to my right and caught sight of Hailey running towards me, her red hair tied in a ponytail bounced behind her. I stopped to wave at her. “Hey, Hales.”

Once close enough, she gave me a tight hug. “I missed youuuuuuuu!”

“Me too,” I said a little too excitedly.

She let go of me and looked into my boring chocolate eyes. “Whoa. Bad night?”

“Bad mission.”

That’s right, Hailey knew all about my monster-hunting family. She caught me in the act last year so I had no choice but to tell. She was one of my closest friends and I kind of planned on telling her anyway. Thank god she was good at keeping secrets.

“No wonder. You smell kind of funky.” Her nose scrunched up as she said that.

We continued walking towards the main entrance. “The monster last night had a killer odour. I guess it kind of brushed off on me.”

“Kind of? Did you even try to get that smell off?”

“Yes, Hailey. I took a bath like never before. I was in the shower for an hour just trying to get the smell off.”

“And look at your hair!” She pointed at my messed up brunette waves. “At least tie it up, will you?!”

This was very typical of her. Fussing around about how I look after my missions. I was quite annoyed at first but after some time, I sort of got used to it and learnt to bear with it.

As soon as we got inside, she pulled me into the ladies’ and dug through her backpack for her makeup pouch.

“Whoa. You’re not gonna make me wear makeup, are you?” I asked in absolute horror.

“No, Dan,” she said as she pulled out a hairband and a hairbrush from the pouch. “Turn around, I want to fix your hair.”

Relieved, I turned around and had to bend my knees a little because she was so small and I was kind of tall for my age. She combed through it and tied it in a neat ponytail. I looked in the mirror.

“Thanks, Hales. You’re a lifesaver. Let’s g-“

“Not just yet.” She stopped me just as I was about to step towards the door. “I gotta spray you first.” She held up a bottle of perfume.

“What? No. I don’t want to smell all rosy. I’d rather smell like this, thank you.”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s vanilla, Dan. And it doesn’t hurt to smell good once in a blue moon.”

“I didn’t realize it’s night time,” I mumbled under my breath.

“What was that?”

I looked at her and smirked. “Nothing. Just go ahead and spray me.”

She smiled widely and spurted out her vanilla perfume on me. I coughed mockingly and waved my hand in front of my nose.

“Don’t overreact. It’s not that bad.” She sniffed me. “And you smell heavenly.”

“Sure I do.” Sarcasm.

She turned to dig something else out of the pouch while I stared at the ceiling. “What else have you got for me?”

Just then, she took out a compact powder, flipped it open and brought the brush to my face.

My eyes widened in horror. “Whoa. No way. Nu-uh. You are not making me wear that.” I staggered back a few steps with my hands covering my face.

“Daniella! It’s just freaking powder! You’ve got to cover those awful circles under your eyes. You look like a panda. And not a cute one,” she finished, matter-of-factly.

I shook my head, still covering my face. “I’d rather look like an ugly panda than wear makeup.”

She sighed in defeat and turned to put everything back in the pouch. “You are such a tomboy. You realize you’re going to have to grow out of it one day, right?”

I knew I was out of danger so I let my guard down and started walking towards the door. “And when the day comes – IF it ever comes – I’ll be ready. But now, I’d rather stay the way I am.”

“Fine. Whatever,” she grumbled behind me while she followed me out.

........

How lucky was I to get History for first period? That was my least favourite subject. I’m more of a Creative Writing, Arts and Chemistry kind of person, you know?

So I practically slept half-way through the whole class. If it weren’t for Logan, I might’ve slept all through class.

Logan was the class jock - or some other girls would call ‘hottie’ - and he sat behind me in history. It’s kind of funny how we’ve been getting the same period for history for three years straight and he never failed to sit behind me. We had been friends in elementary school but sort of grew apart as years flew by. Probably because he’s become the most popular guy in school while I stayed fairly static in the social food chain.

I heard him chuckling behind me when I started to drift off, making me feel self-conscious and try my hardest not to embarrass myself. Logan and I weren’t exactly friendly with each other once we entered high school because he had become such an egoistic jerk so I had forced myself to forget how nice he was when we were younger and push away the crush I had for him then.

He poked me twice in the ribs, making me alert. I turned my head to him and glared with hatred while he and his stupid friends laughed silently at me. Half-way through class, I decided I didn’t care and dozed off

.

When class was over, I woke up feeling so much better than I did before. I even stretched in my seat while everyone else rushed to get out of there.

“Had a nice nap?”

I bit the inside of my right cheek and looked up to my right. There, standing right next to my desk, with his dark hair falling just nicely over his forehead, his bluish-green eyes looking straight at me with a smug smirk on his lips, was Logan Riley. I swear, I had never met anybody as self-absorbed as he was. He thinks he’s so hot, he can do whatever he wants.

Well, the fact that he actually was very good-looking was true but, seriously, he didn’t have to show it off to every girl in the school. Jerk.

“As a matter of fact, I did.” I got up from my seat and slung my backpack over my right shoulder. “Why? You got a problem with that?”

He just grinned at me. “I don’t get it. Three years in a row I’ve had the same history class with you and you’re never awake in it. What’s got you so tired? It’s not like you got training or whatever.”

Oh, so now he’s comparing me who does absolutely no sport to him who’s star of the basketball team. How unfair of him. But the topic he was bringing up just made me lost my mood to argue. I did not like to be reminded of my job, thank you very much.

“That’s none of your business, Logan,” I said as I brushed past him and headed out into the hallway.

I heard him come up behind me. “Oh, come on, Danny. You can tell me anything.” I could sense him smirking while saying that.

I stopped in my tracks. “Sure I could.” He came up next to me and I looked at him. “Until you turned into a big headed jerk.” With that, I walked off.

“A very good looking big headed jerk, might I correct you!”

I missed elementary school.