Chapter 1
Pepper
"Pepper, hurry up and get your butt down here! Your going to be late for school!" Mom called from downstairs. I groaned, and rolled over. My room was painted sky blue with lime green swirled vines. I jumped out of bed and wuickly brushed my shiny, sleek, straight (it was so straight that i didn't need to use a straightener) and pushed my side-bangs to the, well, side. My bright green eyes stared sleeply back at me from the mirror. I quickly got dressed in black skinny jeans, a baggy white long- sleeved shirt with a dark purple tank under it, and put on my shrugged black boots with the insanly skinny heel that i swear could poke someone's eye out (they make perfect weapons). I put on mascara, black eye-liner (but not enough to make me look like a scary racoon), and some red lipgloss. I don't own ANYTHING pink because i hate the colour. I glanced in the full length mirror again, then i headed down stairs to the kitchen. Of course my sisters were already sitting at the table, eating their bagles (perfect sisters. Ugh). "Morning," I said with a yawn. Like usual, I wondered who started the saying 'good morning'. There is NOTHING good about the mornings. "Hey Pepper," said Paprika, glancing up at me, "Um, what did you dream about last night?" Damn, I bet i was talking or yelling or screaming again. Ugh, what the hell was wrong with me? "Um, the lake dream again," i mumbled. When I was 7, I'd seen my older cousin Rebecca (who was 17 at the time) drown in Lake Magozan. It was one of the scariest things I've every seen. At the time, she was my best friend, and to see her drown, and there was nothing i could do, it was........ just to horrible for words. And now, 9 years later, I was still having nightmares. Again I say, Ugh. We finished out breakfast in silence. Then we went upstairs, brushed our teeth, grabbed our school bags, and headed out the door. By the time we got to the bus stop, our neighbors (who are also some of our closes friends) Holly, Ivey, Fern, Maybell, Rachel and Alexandra were already there. Holly and Rachel were my buds, Ivey and Maybell were Rose's and Fern and Alex were Paprika's. They smiled to greet us, and we all stared talking. When the bus finally got there 5 minutes later, we didn't stop talking. I glanced toward the back of the bus. And it came to no surprise to me that the bitches were there.Violet, Petunia, Lissa and Abby were what me and my friends (Holly, Rachel, Lizzie, Gaby and Cocoa) along with Rose and her friends (Ivey, Maybell,Ginger, Christy and June) called the bitches. And the name caught on. Now, almost everybody inourupperstudy schooland the training calledthem that. I found it hilarlios. We all waved goodbye to eachother as weheaded to our different classes. Mine weremath, music, english and understanding nature 101. We'd probably have gym, but because we had training all afternoon, we don't really need it. There were two types of schools, there is the understudy school for kids 6-12 (those who havn't started training yet and yes they have gym) and the upperstudy school for teens 13-18. 19 and 20-year-olds had training all day (they even ate lunch at the training center). School was boring as usual. Then at noon, the bus came to take us home. After eating a bowl of chicken noodle soup (yum) and crackers, Rose, Paprika, and I grabbed our school bags and headed upstairs to change into our uniforms (we had those for training) but we put our normal clothes into our training bags which had the rest of our gear in it. My uniform was black short-shorts (but not slutty short), a black tank, and black sneakers. I also braided my hair into a sinlge braid that went down my back. AsI walked out of my room, I caught sight of my sisters. Rose was wearing black sweat pants, sneakers and a white t-shirt. Her golden blonde hair was tied up in a ponytail on the top of her head. Because she wasn't wearing mascara, her electric blue eyes looked like they had no eyelashes frming them. Paprika was wearing a pale blue t-shirt, blue skinny jeans and (what is with the people who create uniforms?) sneakers. Her hair, because it wasn't long enough to tie up, was hanging in beautiful aurburn ringlets (natural by the way) to her shoulders. Her chocolate brown eyes gazed at me thoughtfuly. "Come on guys," I said, "We're going to be late. Again!" We grabbed our training bags and rushed out the door. We ran to the end of the street (me being the fastest as i was in feild) where the black limo was waiting. Yes, I said limo. A strech limo it be exact. We all clambered in. Holly, Ivey, Fern, Rachel, Maybell and Alex were alreadyin the limo. We drove to the academy (that's what the training center is called). There were four big snow white buildings. One for studentswho were in their first year (which was the smallest building), one for the inventers, one for the healers, and one for the feild people. In between the healing and training buildings, was a small, brown, wooden stable for the horses. Every monday and wednesday, healers would go practice, every tuesday and thursday the feild people would go out, and every frieday the first years would go out. We all headed to our seperate buildings. When Ivey and I (Ivey was in feild too) got to the locker room, we dropped our bags and pulled our weapons, and our gloves. The gloves were also black, but they didn't cover our fingers only our palms. Ivey was the only other girl who was on my street (and my friend) who was in feild with me. Alex and Fern were in the first year building with Paprika, Rachel and Holly were in the inventors building and Maybell and Rose were in the healers building. It was wedsenday so the feilds were training with weapons today. My weapon was arcery, but i was pretty good at riding horses and killing with daggers as well and Ivey weapon of mass destruction was fencing. And when I say destrction, I mean destruction. Damn she was one of the best fencers the academy has ever seen. Ivey and I placed our bags in our cubbies and heaed into the training area. It was just like outside in there, with grass, trees, bushes, even a river. This was the biggest building, so they had the room to do that. In between the locker room and the training center there was a room and that was where the instructor gave you instructions and that was where Ivey and I went, Like we did every day. Of course, Violet and Abby were in there gossiping (probably about Ivey and I). Abby and I used to be best friends in understudy school. But then we moved to the upperstudy school, and it all went down the drain. Ivey and I sat on our usual bench. Just then the double doors behind us banged open. In walked our teacher, Ms. Dragon. She had been the best of the best, until three years ago when she fell off her horse and she had to get her leg amputated. It took her six months to recover, and when she did the mayor asked Ms. Dragon if she would teach us and she said yes. I've had her for two years. My first year was taught be another lady but she wanted to start a family, so the mayor told her to finish that year and then she could have her family. Having to teachers, I think that I could not haveone better then Ms. Dragon. "Okay ladies," Ms. Dragon said, "you know what you're working on. Hunting. Tracking. Remember to turn on your watches. Start streching" We'd been given watches when we chose feild. These watches helped in the feild because they told you weither food was edible. It also had a special scanner, telling you where (in a 500 metre radius) people are, which comes in handy. After we graduated, we had to wear the watch everyday, but until then, we only had to wear them for training. "Ladies, you have one minute to seperate," Ms. Dragon said. When Ms. Dragon talked, you listened and did what she said. She opened the big metal door that led into the training area and said, "Go!". All of us ran inside. Our arrows, swords, and daggers would not hurt when we attacked eachother because we were wearing protective vests. Then I heard on the speakers that you could hear but not se, "Let the game begin."
