PORTAL (Portal Chronicles Book One)

Chapter One

I’m going to take him out! I clenched down on my mouth guard so hard I could taste salty drops of blood on my tongue. I gripped my stick firmly and zoomed over to Number 4 in less than a heartbeat. Snarling under my breath, I lifted my stick, brought the end down hard onto his thigh, and pounded my shoulders into his chest. He was down. Mission accomplished. The whistle sounded. Typical! The two minutes in the penalty box would be worth it… seeing the look in his eyes as he realized that the girl had brought him down…

I inhaled. Slowly. What was that smell? I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids felt like they had been glued shut. I rubbed them with my fingers, and the smell got stronger. Was it coming from my hand? Could it be coming from my sleeve? I took another deep breath, and the sweet aroma wafted up my nose.

It wasn’t technically a smell, like the stink from my sweaty hockey gear, but more of a scent. I don’t have a good nose like my little sister Ella, who’s like a bloodhound. The only perfume I can recognize is my mother’s. She uses a very heavy French perfume. This was different, much more delicate, almost pleasant with a hint of cinnamon.

I tried opening my eyes again, but couldn’t be bothered dealing with the eye gunk. My whole body ached, so much so that I wondered if it was I who had gone down in that game, and not Number 4. No, that game had taken place weeks ago and had since become one of my favorite go-to daydreams. In fact, I hadn’t even played this morning, being forced instead to take the SAT. And the pain from that was purely mental. I felt unbearably tired and tried to take my mind off my stiff body by attempting to recapture the thrill from my hockey dream, but drew a blank. So I concentrated on the sound of the heavy rain clatter instead, a perfect lullaby.

Lily Allen’s whiny singing rudely interrupted my thoughts. When would Mom ever move on to new tunes? She’d been listening to the same playlist forever.

Wait… Mom? What the heck was I doing in her car? Dad had picked me up at school after my SAT. Mom doesn’t even live in New Jersey anymore. She and Ella had moved to California eight months ago, after Mom was offered a job there. My parents’ marriage had been over for a long time, so the move hadn’t come as a surprise to either Ella or me. I had chosen to stay in Princeton with my dad, since Mom and I butted heads all the time.

Anyway, what was I was doing in Mom’s car? I shook myself, clearly remembering getting into Dad’s Chevy after the test. What was going on? I forced my eyes open.

It was dark! That made no sense. I had finished my SAT at one in the afternoon; it should have still been light outside. I struggled to focus, trying to drown out the noise from the rain pelting against the roof and the Lily Allen racket.

I felt around for the control knob to the DVD player, so I could turn something on to help me concentrate, but it was missing! How could it have disappeared? It was one of those built-in entertainment systems. Ella and I had insisted on having two monitors installed so we wouldn’t have to deal with each other. I looked to my left. Ella was fast asleep with her mouth slightly open.

I like Ella, my annoying eight-year-old sister, best when she’s asleep. She even looked kind of cute at the moment, sleeping soundly. Although very different in personality–it’s a princess versus tomboy thing–we kind of look the same, pretty much like our mom. We all have the same chestnut brown hair–though I suspect most of Mom’s comes out of a bottle–wide mouths, arched brows, and slightly upturned noses covered in small freckles. But there was something different about Ella today. Something was out of place.

I squinted to get a better look. Ah! Ella’s hair had blond highlights going through it! Even in the dark, her light hair glistened from the streaks. I reached over and touched her blond-tipped strands. She stirred ever so slightly, but didn’t wake. It wasn’t a total surprise; she’d been talking about going blonde since she was five.