Anonymous

Chapter 1

I believe everyone gets some sort of a life-changing experience. Maybe you won a Grammy, or a Nobel Prize, or maybe you were struck by lightning. Anything could happen to you, but nobody knows what the future holds.

I learned what the future held on a few pieces of crumpled blue paper.

Chapter 1

The day began painfully.

I awoke to the sound of my favorite song, the smell of french toast, and the feel of tiny claws digging into my ankles. Groaning, I rolled over and shook my cat Callie off.

"Holland! Get up!" My mom's semi-cheerful voice rang out, which resulted in more groaning. Eventually, I stumbled out of bed, knowing that my mom would scream in my ear if I stayed in bed any longer.

Yawning, I put on my slippers and shuffled downstairs, where my mom was dumping a pile of bacon onto a plate. I slid onto one of the silver stools at the breakfast bar, and began to sip my pineapple juice.

I looked up as my mom put a plate full of bacon and french toast in front of me. "What time do you get off work tonight?" I asked.

"7:00" she responded as I nodded my head in understanding.

Shortly after, I finished my breakfast and ran upstairs to get dressed. The clock told me it was too late to properly fix my hair, so I just pulled a hat on. I ran down the stairs with my shoes untied, grabbed my backpack, and sped out of the door.

Fortunately, the elevator was located right across from my apartment. I hoisted my backpack higher on my shoulders and pressed the down button.

"Holland!"

I turned around to see my two friends, Cecelia and Andrew, running towards me. The three of us live in the same apartment building, and our apartments are close together- all on the 11th floor. We go to the same school and have all of our classes with each other, and ride the same bus and sit fairly close together.

They caught up with me just as the elevator doors opened.

"Math test today," Cecelia groaned as we stepped in the elevator and I pressed the lobby button.

"Science quiz tomorrow," I sighed. "But at least we get out of school early today."

The elevator sped to the bottom floor without stopping. After checking the time, I knew that the bus would arrive in about 5 minutes, so I gave my backpack to Cecelia and sped down the hallways to the small cafe.

"Hey Justin," I said while sliding onto a bar stool. Justin was my friend Lydia's older brother. He was enrolled in the college down the street and worked the morning shift at the cafe.

"Normal order?" He asked. I nodded my head while grabbing a few peppermints and shoving them into my pocket. In less than three minutes, a steaming cup of vanilla chai tea was in front of me. Justin had even did me a favor and poured it into my favorite thermos.

"Holl! The bus is here!" Cecelia called.

"On my way!" I quickly thanked Justin, paid him, and ran down the hallway to the entrance of the apartment building. Cecelia, Andrew and I walked to the bus together and got on one by one.

Cecelia and I did the normal morning routine- a game of rock-paper-scissors decided who was sitting on the outside of the seat we shared.

"Rock, papers, scissors, shoot!" We said simultaneously. Cecelia's hand was in a fist, while mine was outstretched, palm up.

"Paper covers rock," I announced, smiling as Cecelia slid into the seat with me following after her.

About 15 minutes later, the bus pulled into the school parking lot. The group of crazy kids got off the bus, and I walked to my locker with Cecelia, Andrew, and Andrew's cousin, Will. Will lives in the same apartment building as Cecelia, Andrew, and I do, but Will lives on the 6th floor.