The Dragons Tear

Chapter I

Kala Hitomico blinked groggily, turning in her bed to look at the time. The clock read '8:00'. Kala jumped out of bed, all weariness forgotten. She chucked on some clothes, which happened to be a black shirt, a grey hoodie over it, bell bottomed jeans and some sneakers, and dashed into the kitchen. Her mum was there with a plate with jam on toast waiting for her. 

"Running a bit late for the first day of school aren't you, sweetie?" Her mum asked passing her the toast.

 "My stupid alarm clock didn't go off." Kala muttered between bites of toast. She washed it down with some orange juice, then quickly grabbed her school bag and ran to the door. "Bye mum," she yelled from the door, before running down the street toward the school. She arrived at her locker just as the warning bell rang. Quickly grabbing her books and stuffed them in her bag, heading toward her first class. As she followed some other girls to her math class, a droplet fell into her right eye. She quickly wiped it away. That's strange, she thought, it's the middle of summer. She went into her class and sat down at a desk by herself. The skin where the droplet had hit was itchy and she scratched it as their teacher came into the classroom signalling for them to sit. 

"My name is miss Alger and I am your math teacher." The teacher said, opening a file on her desk. 

"While I call out the role could you please open your note books and copy down the problems on the board." She said, pointing to the board. While the students opened their books and got out their pencils, miss Alger called out the role.

" Peter mulch,"

"Here miss Alger."

"Caitlyn drew.. Sally Gridley.. Max grim... Kala Hitomico."
Miss Alger said, calling off the role. A series of 'yes miss's' were called across the classroom. Kala copied the problems down in her note book. She was never good at math so they made absolutely no sense to her. She started doodling flowers and feathers in the margin. It felt like ages before she heard the bell ring, signalling the end of class. All the children quickly packed up their books and pencils into their bags and made a dash for the door. Kala made it through the stampede and asked for directions to her next class.

 "The English room is that way," a boy said pointing down a corridor. 

"Thank you," kala said heading in the direction the boy had pointed. Thankfully the English class was better than math. Afterward kala walked to her locker and grabbed her lunch, heading over to the canteen area. The day passed quickly and soon it was home time. As she walked home she passed a girl who looked about three years older than her. The girl stopped and stared at her right eye. Kala wondered if she had dirt on her face. She wiped her eye and hurried along the path. Once she arrived home she dumped her bag on the floor and went over to the mirror. She almost screamed when she saw her reflection. 

 "What is that?" She squeaked. In the mirror was her but she had a tattoo covering the right-half of her face! She looked closer and realised that it was in the shape of a dragon. The tail curled around her eye, the wings were across her cheek and the head was on her forehead. No wonder that girl had been looking at her, she looked like a street gangster. But why had no one said anything? No one apart from that girl had seemed to notice anything strange. 

"Kala, I have a snack waiting for you," Kala headed her mum call from downstairs. Pulling her hoodie as far as she could over her face she walked down to the kitchen. 

"Hoodie off at the table dear," her mum reminded her. Oh dear, she was busted this time. She slowly lowered her hood and braced herself for the torrent of angry questions, but none came. Her mum just acted as if she didn't have a tattoo on half of her face. What was going on?