"I'm home!", hollered Skylar as she stomped inside the house.
"Hey, honey", greeted Skylar's foster mom, Lauren. Skylar had been adopted when she was very young. She had no idea who her real parents were, and so since she had never known them, she was content to live with Lauren, her husband, David, and her older brother, Daniel.
Skylar opened the kitchen pantry and got out some cookies, then she opened the fridge to get some milk. Though the gallon was still nearly full, Skylar barely felt any strain as she brought it to the counter. It had been like this for as long as she could remember.
Skylar was extremely strong and fast for kids her age. In P.E. classes, she was always the one to run the fastest and for the longest time without tiring, and the one who could single-handedly lift up gymnastics mats. Nobody knew how she could do it. She just could. Of course Skylar used those talents to her advantage. She had never been bullied. After a disastrous episode in first grade, bullies had learned to stay well away from her. In fact, every one stayed away from her. There was just something about her that made people want to run the moment they saw her. It wasn't really about her appearance. Skylar had shoulder-length dirty blonde hair, bushy eyebrows, a rather large nose dusted with freckles and a rather large mouth. Though she was pretty tall for her age, Skylar still looked like any average 13-year-old.
Well, except for the eyes. The left one was a normal shade of hazel. But Skylar's right eye was green. Not just any green, it was a bright, artificial, almost neon, green. Some kids thought it was contacts but that wasn't the case. Skylar's eyes had been like that for as long as she could remember. It was an anomaly doctors had given up on trying to explain some time ago.
Skylar trudged up the stairs with her backpack. She sat down at the small desk in her room. Homework, the most dreadful part of my day, she thought to herself.
Because what extra strength and speed Skylar had, she lacked in brains. She had already been held back a year. She was in 7th grade instead of 8th. She was the bane of all her teachers' existences. They couldn't figure out how she could forget what 8x9 was, or how pretty much every sentence Skylar wrote had some sort of spelling or grammar mistake in it. After a while they had just stopped trying. The most they could do was give Skylar the homework and hope she would at least attempt to do it.
But, you see, unlike what you are probably thinking right now, Skylar wasn't some sort of hopeless thug who purposely failed all her classes and annoyed the teachers. She actually tried to finish her math worksheets and lab reports. She sat at her desk, sometimes for hours at a time, and tried to finish her research paper on the Civil War. But no matter how hard she tried, after a few minutes the words and numbers and letters all muddled together into some unsolvable puzzle, leaving Skylar hopelessly lost.
Sighing, Skylar opened her backpack and took out her binder. Today's homework wasn't that bad. She had to do a few excercises from her math book, read a chapter from the book she was reading for English, and write a 300 word essay about an animal of her choice for science.
She started out by reading the chapter. Then she decided to do some research on her animal for the essay. Skylar decided make it on chameleons. She turned on her laptop and searched up "chameleon" on Google. She clicked on a random website and began reading, writing a few notes as she went. But after a while her head started hurting. The screen's bright light was making her eyes water.
She decided to take a break, and start her math homework. Sighing, Skylar opened her math book at the right page. But three minutes in and she already had a huge headache. Even she couldn't make sense out of the mess of numbers she had written down in her book.
"I give up", she grumbled to herself angrily.
She worked on her essay for a little while after which she plopped down on her bed with a book in her hand. Finally some peace. Skylar got lost in a fake world of wizards and witches and magic, all her worries from her real life gone for the moment. She only closed the book when she heard Lauren cry, "Dinner!", from downstairs. "Coming!", she yelled back.
"Hey kiddo", smiled Daniel at the sight of her. He got up and ruffled Skylar's hair. She and Daniel had a special bond. Skylar had liked him from the moment she saw him enter the orphanage between Lauren and David. She had liked his easy smile, his curly brown hair, his laugh. Daniel was pretty much the only friend she had. Nobody at school even dared come near her, so she confided all her feelings to Daniel. She knew she could always count on her big brother to cheer her up or help with homework.
"So how'd school go today?", asked Lauren. Skylar shrugged. "Fine", she replied. That was what she always said. She couldn't say they went well, because they didn't, but at least she hadn't terrified some poor kid who had never seen her before, like last week, or almost hurled her desk at the math teacher because he was so mean to her, like last month.
Then Skylar sat down and dug into her steaming pasta. A few minutes later dinner was interrupted by David, who had just come back from work. He opened the door, dropped his briefcase on the floor, and came to sit down at the kitchen table. He had done all this without a word, which was unlike him. Skylar felt worry prick at her. What was wrong?
The answer came soon enough. "Hi, David", said Lauren, and kissed her husband on the cheek.
"Hi, honey", replied David. "Hey, kids.", he said to Skylar and Daniel, and then was silent. He took a few bites of his pasta, then cleared his throat. Uh oh. Skylar knew this wasn't a good sign. It meant he was going to make some sort of important announcement.
"So...", David began, "I got this in the mail today." He held up a white envelope with Skylar's school's address on it. "Skylar, you're failing three classes right now!" Lauren gasped at that.
"What?!", she exclaimed. Skylar's heart sank. She should have expected it. A few days ago her math teacher had pulled her aside and asked her if she had a tutor yet. On her last history test she had gotten a D-, and her science teacher had actually told her she was very close to failing a few days ago. Skylar put her head in her hands and let the tears flow freely.
"Skylar how could you not tell us about this?!", cried David, "If you were having trouble in your classes you had to tell us!"
"I-I kn-know", she sobbed, "I sh-sh-should h-have, I'm s-sorry! B-but th-the t-t-teachers didn't even s-seem to c-care, a-a-and--" Usually Skylar didn't speak much, but the words were being wrenched out of her. All the emotions she was so good at keeping bottled up were exploding out of her. It actually felt kind of nice to be explaining herself.
"Ssshh...It'll be okay, kiddo", whispered Daniel, and pulled her into a bear hug. Skylar buried her head in his shirt.
A few moments later David cleared his throat another time.
Again? Thought Skylar, What now?
"Skylar", said David softly, "Look, kid, this is the third school you go to in four years...That's...Not so good for your record...Look, I hate to break it to you, but I got offered a new job position somewhere else, and since you would have to leave this school anyway, and Daniel's leaving for college soon..."
Oh no. No. Skylar knew where this was heading, but she wanted to hear it from David's mouth anyway.
"We're moving, Skylar. We're moving to Ohio."
Hope you enjoyed the first chapter! :)
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Wrong dose
ActionWhen twins Skylar and Jake were born, their scientist parents used them as an experiment. Each was injected with a dose of serum that would supposedly make them much stronger, smarter, simply better than other kids. But somebody added a chemical tha...
