Try Learn Destroy (Book One- Try)

ONE- What A Day

My room is on the third floor of the house on the edge of town. The room is small and stuffy due to it previously being an attic. I immediately begin to search the internet on my Portable Solar Powered Laptop (PSPL) for an appropriate translating device. Frustrating as the inconclusive searching is, I continue to search the loneliest corners of the online universe for a translator. Nothing. How long have I been searching? I glance at the clock. Its half past seven, I ought to eat something. I reluctantly get up from the comfy armchair to make some noodles. I quickly finish my dinner. It’s really late now. I begin to change my plan. Instead of focusing my attention on the phrase on the necklace, I begin to search to see who made necklaces of a similar if not the same design. Sandra Topliss made jewellery like that a hundred years ago! I continue to check websites for a jeweller who could mimic such a detailed design.

I hear noises downstairs. I gulp. I’m home alone; my parents each work three jobs to keep us going. I rarely see them. Sometimes I assume it’s for the best but now is not one of those times. I frantically search my room for weaponry. There are three that I can use all disguised as normal household items. Cyrus has always been paranoid, and rightly so, since being caught with illegal weapons will cause you to be jailed for at least ten years, which is why Cyrus was always hesitant to build new inventions at school, encase someone told the police! I clutch my slingshot and elastic lead fingers. They alone can cause some pretty bad damage and you can get them in pretty much any store, a lead finger looks like a pencil that you buy where the base is plastic and only the tip is a very sharp piece of lead. I frown since if the intruder turns out to be an innocent person I can be jailed for at least an attempted murder charge.

I creep toward my doorway and peer through the crack in the door. Snatching up the bin, I hurtle it and its contents at the bald intruder in the dark jacket. He tumbles down two flights of stairs. In panic I begin to stuff all of Cyrus’ inventions into my denim backpack along with the necklace, my PSPL, thermals and a torch.

The intruder bursts into my bedroom. I yelp as I fire Cyrus’ magnetic gravelling hook and using my snood to travel down to the ground. The process resembles that of a zip wire. The cold winds feel like slaps of ice as I propel downward. I land with a thud and run into town without turning back. Crowds help me blend. Adrenaline is pulsing through my veins as I sprint toward the mall in the centre of town.

I try to look somewhat normal as I walk inside the mall, instead of a shaken girl being stalked by an unknown assailant. I see great groups of girls, dressed in woolly sweaters and jeans with boots, not too much unlike my own choice of after school attire, an oversized sweater, leggings and boots. I glance behind me, spotting the bald man in black who broke into my house. Using the crowd of laughing girls to my advantage, I follow them into the bathroom. I smile; if he has any morals then he won’t come in here.

“Attendants.” I hear a gruff male voice call inside the toilets; my blood turns to ice, how convenient that a male attendant is to come into the loos right as I flee inside. Paranoia takes over my sense of better judgement, causing me to dart inside a cubicle.  I hear the band of giggling girls ask one another if they can borrow some mascara or concealer. I sigh as they leave the loos as the sound of their high heeled boots grow fainter I hear a low and menacing laugh.

“Here girly, girly, girly.” I hear the man coo. I scowl. I knew it! I hoist my petite frame onto the toilet seat. I hear loud thuds on the door. What can I do? Looking in my bag frantically for something I grab my elastic lead fingers and my slingshot. I lean over and unlock the cubicle causing the door to swing open, the person who broke into my house is staring me down. He looks confused, a blank expression crossing his mismatched eyes. I take his baffled expression to my advantage and kick him to the ground and leap over his crouched body, sprinting away into the bookstore.

Now in the regal and vintage bookshop, I exhale, flopping lazily onto one of the rich wine red couches, having no energy left, unaware that there was a guy sat on the other side of the lumpy deflating sofa. He grins at me, peering over a copy of The Realm of Kiban.

“Haven’t you read that yet?” I ask the boy with rust coloured hair and grey tinted glasses, he looks at me, confused.

“No, is it good?” he asks, sounding slightly timid. I smile at him, I know where he stands, being shy, I used to be shy until I decided to just shut people out almost completely or just hit them.

“It’s amazing, you have to be like the only teen here without a copy of The Realm of Kiban.” I giggle.

“Oh…” he says. I frown, behind the rusty haired kid stands him, the man who harassed me in the ladies loo.

“Sorry but I have to go.” I blurt, hastily standing and run out of the store whilst the man with one blue and one brown eye examines the appearance of another blonde. I honestly feel like Freya in the Realm of Kiban books, fearful of compromising her identity and being captured she clings to a fake identity and acts like a new girl to flee from a violent stalker.

My blood turns into ice as I see the man who broke into my home leave the bookstore, I wonder if the rusty haired kid told him where I went. Frowning at the thought, I run through the crowds, dodging smaller bands of slow lazy after school shoppers.

“Oh look it’s the stupid PMS bitch.” I hear Sophia Burgerstein sneer and I weave my body between her and her army of brainless brunettes. At any other time I would knock her to the ground and punch her beak like nose until it broke. Of course it was those actions which gave me that wretched nickname but to be honest I don’t care, I was born with a fiery temper and it doesn’t matter how many anger management classes that I have been forced into attending, I will still have irrational fits of mindless rage. No wonder I wasn’t allowed to join any of the cliques at school.

Unaware of my surrounding as I fantasize about the satisfying snap of a broken nose, I run straight into a boy with black hair and glasses. He looks like a positive person, since he is smiling at the girl who just ran into him.

“I am so sorry.” I blush.

“No harm done.” He replies, running a hand through his jet black hair.

“Are you sure?” I ask, I had just almost knocked him to the ground but he’s so heavily built that I am on the ground. I’m wasting time!

“Yeah, let me help you.” he offers.

“Awww look girls, the stupid PMS girl has an emo boyfriend.” I snarl, glaring daggers at the girls, in head to toe pink. Oh if looks could kill.

Crowds begin to gather, including the intruder as the girls toss more pathetic yet insulting comments at me and the black haired guy, helping me to my feet. I smile gratefully at him.

“Sophia look, she can be social, looks like her parents taught her something else other than how not to be able to hold down stupid part time jobs!” cries Sophia’s second in command, Leigh Anna. I begin to charge forward despite the fact that I would be put in mall custody until one of my parents got out of work. Again. As I begin the charge toward the dummy in a flamingo sweater I am pulled back by a strong grip. For a second I think its Dean, the white haired bulky security guard in his mid-forties who usually brings me to the cleaning closet to calm down, but as soon as the idea comes to mind it is shattered by the recollection that Dean does not work on Fridays.

“That idiot isn’t worth it, just walk away.” I hear the black haired boy in a black sweater and black jeans and black shoes instruct. I sigh, those girls are so judgemental. Black might just be his favourite colour. I do as the boy advised and walk away. Only to dive under a toilet attendant’s trolley and get carried into the Authorised Personal Only sector of the mall.  

Still panic stricken and furious over Sophia Burgerstein and her pathetic cronies’ comments I sprint to the second floor staircase, leading to a balcony. Eager to escape from the strange intruder, I use my magnetic graveling hook allowing it to connect with the railings of the patio like platform. I hoist myself over the railings and abseil down the side of the mall. If my parents find out about this then I am in so much trouble.

Once my feet are firmly planted on the ground, I make the hook recoil, surveying my surroundings with large traces of paranoia as well as adrenaline pulsing through my veins, I run toward the small woods that surround the mall just as the sun plunges beneath the horizon…