10 years

Chapter 1

"Mommy, mommy" I woke up to my younger sister screaming. I run over and wake her up. "Shhhhhh, what's wrong" I whisper to her. "I had a bad dream" she says. "Oh Graylin, they aren't real, none of them. Go back to sleep" I tell her. I look at my clock, 4:23am. I look over and see my older brother asleep. I grab my dance clothes and slip into the backyard. I quickly change into my leotard and bring practicing my dance. I go to a school of the arts for dance. I begin to practice.  1 step 2 step 3 step 4 step
I whisper to myself as I dance quietly.
I dance till 5:45. Then I slip back in the window of my bedroom, me, my brother and sister share. I pull on some jeans and a T-shirt over my leotard and begin to do my hair into a braid as my brother wakes. "What are you doing" he asks. "Nothing, Graylin woke up and couldn't fall asleep so I thought lets get dresses" I say as I stand up and throw my dance shoes into my backpack and pull on shoes. "Jackson, what are you doing for lunch" I ask my older brother. I have eaten lunch with him everyday but we usually in the morning we make a place to meet up at a certain place. "Carolina, I think you should make some friends in your grade. Not in 11th so you will have classes together or something" Jackson says to me as he walk over to were Graylin is sleeping. He wakes her up and she pulls on a pair of jeans and a blue long sleeve shirt. "What time is it" Graylin asks "6:30, I'll go see if there is any food. Stay here and don't make a peep" Jackson tells us. "Ok" we say together. Graylin grabs her backpack and piano book. She goes to the middle school for the art for piano. After a few minutes Jackson came back running, "get out now let's go" he whispered loudly as me and Graylin raced to the window. After we got out we began walking. "So, any luck" Graylin questions "Nothing, but it's ok, I borrowed 100 bucks for breakfast and dinner" Jackson states. "Yes, now we get to eat tonight" Graylin squeals. "Ok, now let's walk down to the high school and we can stop by the gas station for some food" Jackson tells us as we walk. This is how our Monday's are. If there is food we eat that, if we find money, we take it. Sometime is go, sometimes Jackson goes but never Graylin. She is 11. I'm 14 and Jackson is 16. I don't know how I would survive without Jackson. He is the best brother, most of the time.
As we walk to the bus stop a small cat cries from the bushes. "We should feed it, it's so hungry" I say. "With what, we don't have money for that" Jackson counter. "Come on, it's like 5$ for a whole bag of food. It not right that that kitten doesn't get to eat but we could help it" I argue. "Fine, we can look for cat food cheap" he says as we walk into the gas station, "ok, get a water and 3 breakfast sandwiches." Jackson says to us. I run over and get the waters and Graylin get the sandwiches and Charlie pays. Then we sit outside and eat and share the water. "Tonight, I have piano concert." Graylin says. "Do you think we can go" "Yeah, we will just stay out and go home after it" Jackson says. "Wait but will dad be mad if we don't show up" I ask " yes but I already know he is going to be mad if we tell him we are going and then he won't let us go and make it were we can't so let's go" Jackson says. "Yeah, true" I say. We sit and eat for a few more minutes before we walk over to the bus. "Bye, Jackson and Carolina" Graylin shouts as she gets on her bus". "Bye" we both yell back as we get on the bus. I sit near the window in the middle of the bus and Jackson sits next to me". Last year my brother saw someone dropped there small iPod and he picked it up and asked did you drop this and the person said yes but it's a piece of crap and walked away so my brother kept it and bought cheap earbuds for the Dollar tree. He then takes them out and hands me a earbud and puts on a song. I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I know I am at school. "Wake up, we are at school" Jackson says. I look up. "Dang it" I mumble. I get off the bus and go to my locker. "Algebra 2, dance, chemistry, Dance" I say to myself. Then I walk to classes. "Ms beck, don't be late to class next class or I will write you up" my teacher says, this may be the 7th tardy in a row. "Ok so not many of you are turning in your homework lately so today I am calling parents if you don't have it." My teacher says. Well that's a probably because my dad doesn't have a phone, he goes to the nearest gas station and call his dealers when he need to. "Madison Johnson...no, call. Sadie Maccabeth" my teacher continues. "Carolina nightingale"she says "no" I say, I didn't do it because I didn't get a chance, last night wasn't the night to do homework. "Call" she says, I stand up and walk over to the line and wait my turn. 4 more kids line up behind me. When it was my turn, I just looked at it. "Are you going to call" my teacher asks "no, who do you want me to call, I don't have a number" I say. "Chloe, go in front and you come with me" she say as we walk over to her desk. She pulls out my contact. "You didn't put a number" she says. "Yeah, my family doesn't own a phone" I say. "Carolina Nightingale, ugh" she says as she turn away. "Just go, go sit down and we will try and arrange a parent conference with your parents" she says. I take my seat and count down the minutes till class is over. Then I race down to dance. " today is your test on your dances you have been working on, Carolina, Macy, Jennifer, Sarah, and Johnathan, your group is first" my teacher says. " everyone change, 5 mins" she states. I run Into the locker room and take my clothes of and put them in my dance locker and my books too. I pull my hair into a bun and join in the group as we start our dance.
After we dance we stand and wait for our grades. "Jennifer, A, Sarah,B, Johnathan, A, Macy, A, Carolina, B, for the individual dances and an A for the over all group dance" she says. "Now everyone, I want you to choreograph your own dance. So everyone we are going to use this room and those 2 rooms as well so some of you can go in there" she says as she points to the two rooms. "Go" she says as we all go to an area. After dance, I head to lunch. So Jackson told me not to sit with him which makes no sense to me. I have no friend because I always hang out with him. I can't make a lot of friend my age because 4/8 of my classes are with older kids. Chemistry, 10th graders, algebra 2, 11th graders, world history 10th graders, Spanish 2- 10th graders. And then my 3 dance classes and English are with 9th graders. But most of them already have friends, I get in line and get lunch. Then I look around. I see Jackson sitting with some guys he is friends with. I go outside and sit on a bench by myself and eat. I eat and then walk over to Jackson and his friends, " can I borrow your iPod" I say, technically we share it but normal brothers and sister don't and they don't really know anything about us. "Yeah" he says and hands it to me. "Thanks" I say as I walk away.
The rest of the day was kind of slow. Dance that after noon was the same. Practice making our own dances and in chemistry we just listen to lectures. On the bus I sit by the window and some girl sits next to me. "Um" I begin to say as Jackson walks by and sits behind me. "Hi, I'm Amber" she says. "Your in my dance class." "Yeah, I'm Carolina" I say as I put my ear buds in and face towards the window. Then Jackson asks for his iPod. "No, come on." I say. "You need to make friends" he whispers. "Fine" I say as I hand it to him. " so what do you like to do" I asks. " well.." She talk the whole bus ride. I was ok with it because I asked her question after question so she couldn't ask me any. I hate lying to people so I was trying not to. After we get off. Jackson and I wait for Graylin.