Chapter 1 - The house of hell, and a school of friends.

Page rubbed her eyes when her alarm blared into her ears. 6:30 better get up, her mind said sending a small surge of energy through out her body. Rolling out of bed, Page sluggishly arrived at her dresser. Once again, to start her day, she had to search for a pair of pants that wasn’t torn too bad. But after her attempt she found nothing but a pair of black Levis. She threw her Levis on her bed and began to search for a shirt that might go with it. A red shirt looked like it was trying to ooze its way out of her dresser, so to relieve itself; Page took it out and threw it on top of her pants. Now she was ready to start her day.

After a quick five minutes throwing on her clothes, Page rushed down into the kitchen towards the kitchen table to have breakfast. She got there and forgot to brush her hair, so rushing back into the bathroom she, threw her brush making her waist long raven hair smooth as a velvet rose.

Upon returning to the table, Page’s step mom, Janis, spoke to her. “Page, you’re going to take the bus today. Today I’m trying to impress someone.” Page secretly rolled her eyes as she bit into her toast. “You know that my car is not the type of car you are to impress people, because it’s ugly and beaten up. Your’s is perfectly brand new, except of course the smell of you in it.”

‘Of course she could drive my car’, Page thought as she poured her cereal into her bowl. ‘After all, Janis you always play the Ugly car = No impression, while new car = impression card game.’ Page tried to hide her disappointment, it worked.

Page’s car was a 2006 white bug. The exterior and interior was white. The interior had soft velvet seat coverings that took on any smell that entered. ‘That means when I do get to drive it, it’s going to smell just like Janis’ perfume’ But to try and get on Janis’ good side, Page simply nodded her approval.

“Thanks.” It was quiet rare to have Janis say thanks to her. After finishing her cereal, Page walked back up in her room, grabbed her backpack and put on a necklace her father gave her. It had a silver chain that can be connected to become a choker, and a simple black glittery heart was the only thing that stood out. She loved that necklace. Sighing, Page grabbed her The Tenth Kingdom book and ran downstairs.

“Mom said she’ll give me a ride in your car,” A snotty voiced kid said behind Page. Page turned around and stared at her step brother, Will. Will was short and chubby. He had thick greasy brown hair and looked remarkably like his mother Janis. Luckily she was only a stepsister to him, not a half brother.

“Shut up you booger.” Page hissed to Will.

“Ha, you’re dad is such a dork. No wonder he has a low life job now. He has to deal with you!”

“I said shut up. Just because he’s away a lot doesn’t make him a dork. You’re such a booger, a booger that can’t be taken out and thrown away.”

“What did you just call him?” Janis’ voice seemed to make even the wallpaper start to bubble up.

Page took a breath in trying to calm herself down. Janis was the only person she was afraid to piss off. “I called him a booger.” She said calmly. She always told the truth to Janis. Will had the biggest mouth Page and her friends had ever seen.

“You little slut, how dare you call my son that? You’re nothing but a piece of trash, which nobody can’t seem to get rid of.” Janis’ voice seemed like ‘music’ to Page’s ears. She knew exactly where this whole conversation would end. Page could even time perfectly and mouth the entire threat. “If you can’t learn to be nicer to us, then I’ll convince your father to send off to military school. You’re such a...a tramp!”

“Quit calling me that!” Page had lost it. No matter how many times she told herself not to pay any attention to what she said, but that just blew the top. “You’re the tramp! You just want to impress some low life rich man that is too stupid to see who you really are! Just so you can leave both me and Dad! I hope that this time you can actually find someone so you can just leave me and my dad alone!” Her mouth continued to run away and Page simply help it go. “You’re a spineless leech that can’t hold down a job! I hope whoever finds you throws you in jail, the one place you need to be in!” A loud crack filled the room after Page had closed her mouth.

Page slowly could feel the tears forming in her eyes but years of this abuse made it easy to keep them from falling. She had spoken her mind. “You’ll never speak to me like that ever again.” Janis said her voice like what a spider might say to its pray. “For your lovely side show, you’ll be grounded from books for three weeks. Now go and have a WONDERFUL day.”

She emphasized wonderful making Page want to slug her in the mouth. But instead she twirled around and ran towards the door screaming, “ONE DAY MY FATHER IS GOING TO KNOW HOW YOU TREAT ME BEHIND HIS BACK!” Then the whoosh of cold air on her newly bruise, Page let the tears fly behind her like those in the cartoons she liked to watch.

Page continued to run until she barely made it to her bus. Quickly wiping the tears away, she climbed on forcing a smile on her face. She sat alone in the back, for nobody on the bus seemed to not notice or want Page to sit by them. It was alright with her. But she was beginning to wish her friends were on the bus with her.



Once the bus arrived at South Valley High School, twenty minutes later, Page rushed off the bus and ran inside the school. She was safe from Janis for eight hours. She was one of the few students that actually enjoyed school. One of the other students that enjoyed school was her friend Anna May Smith, also known as Tinker.

Tinker was a short blond haired blue eyes ball of fun. She was the youngest student in the junior class because of her amazing grades she had making her bump up a couple of grades. She was only 15 and was passing pretty much all her classes. Her lowest grade on her report cards was a ‘B’ and that was only in History. Not her most favorite subject.

Page saw Tinker run up towards her waving her arm like it was going out of style. When Tinker reached Page instantly the smile on her face fell opened. “No,” she said dragging it out like a prep. “She didn’t?”

“She did.” Page said a not so satisfying smile spreading across her face. “And to top it off this is going into my top ten bruise competition with this at number 1.” She sounded like an announcer off of a game show.

“You got to tell your dad or somebody.” Tinker said sounding like a mother instead of a friend. “You know I can’t keep this secret for long. I’m going to spill it sooner then later.”

“But you have to. You promised me you wouldn’t tell, not even your mom.”

“But page I’m worried about you. Destiny and I are.”

“I’m alright. As soon as my dad comes back I’ll tell him straight and even show him the tape.” Tinker and Destiny were the few people who knew about Page’s mom. Both sisters accidentally stumbled upon it when Tinker left the camera rolling. Destiny and Page were doing a Drama project and Tinker came by to help with it. When they got the camera back they played the scene over and over and over again. Tinker, being the computer geek of the group, she copied the scene and handed it over to Page to show her dad. Page never got around showing him.

“Alright fine.” Page smiled and patted Tinker on the shoulder. “Change of subject what did you do for your project?”

“Project? What project?” Page knew perfectly well what Project Tinker was talking about, but decided to play around messing with her mind.

“You know the history project. The one that counts for half our grade? The Revolution..”

“Tinker relax, I did my project. I’m teaching the lesson on what the British and American’s wore during the war. I’m all covered.” She smiled and wrapped a arm around her friend’s neck. Both of them started to walk towards the ground and Page saw Destiny showing off her project which was a replica of the massacre that followed after the “shot heard around the world”. The toothpick solders some of them spread out missing limps and sometimes their entire body.

“Hey Page,” Destiny said seeing both Tinker and Page walking up. “Like my project?”

“It’s very...” Page searched her mind for words. “Tooth-picky.”

“Thanks. You should see Tinker’s I mean, how long did it take you to do that?”

“Four and half days.”

“What is it?” Tinker’s face glowed with a smile. She walked around a garbage bin and picked up a scale model of one of the British Ships.

“Wow…You did put your name on it. Not Tinker correct?” Page wondered.

“Page, you know that on these projects I’ll put my name on them. But this on I put Tinker on it. Because I’m used to be called that ,in history that is.”

“What you’re used to be called Stinker?” The prep queen of the school was standing with her normal group of boyfriends. “Man, Stinker you shouldn’t put yourself down like that.”

“Shut up, Amanda.” Page snapped helping Tinker put her project on the table. “I want to see your project? Where is it? Oh, that’s right. You haven’t done it because you were too busy painting your nails. Amanda didn’t have time to rebuttal for the bell rang and everyone picked their projects up and walked together to their history class.

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