Waking the Fae [BOOK ONE]

Chapter 1

“So did you hear about it? You’ve seen them– Wait. Stupid question; of course you have. Everyone has. I mean seriously, it’s everywhere. Everyone,” Skye whispered, positively scandalised.

Rebecca rolled her eyes in disgust. The it they so scandalously were talking about was the nude photos of Rachel – popular girl 101. Now, though? Well, she’d no doubt be knocked off that ladder ASAP. Double standards, she though disgustedly. If Rachel had posted the photo of her boyfriend – who’d been the one to post them of her – he’d be getting congratulated. The guys would be raving about the size of his penis – though she doubted it was even average; the girls would be falling at his feet. But no. Since it was a girls nude, and girls would be girls – bitches – they had no compliments, just petty insults. All she’d heard about was the fact that she wasn’t even that skinny, or pretty. Her boobs were too small. Not that she’d seen the nude – the word Rebecca and popular didn’t even go together in the same sentence.

She blocked out the annoying voices of her classmates, focusing on the teacher instead. The petty dramas of high school weren’t her problem. She’d never be involved in one of them – unless she was the one they were being mean too. She was the loner; no friends, facebookless, and, let’s just face it, she really didn’t have a life. But she was fine with that. She enjoyed a life of solitude. Friends would just always demand she fix their stupid problem, unload every single issue they had – my boyfriend broke up with me; oh no, the world is ending. God, she didn’t want to deal with that. Ever. All she needed was her books. When she read she could escape the real world – the world where anything below perfection was trash.

“The Second World War was a very important moment. Hitler’s attempt at striking back was faltered. Power was once again in the right hands. But the catch? Any one know?” Mrs Darleen asked. She was met with silence. Either no one was paying attention, or they didn’t know the answer, like her. She figured it wasn’t the latter. Mrs Darleen was crazy. Beyond crazy. Out of this world in Mars crazy. Frankly, she was bat shit crazy and her questions were either rhetorical or the answer was ridiculous. But Rebecca kind of liked her.

Mrs Darleen frowned, eyebrows lowering on her face. It made her look as crazy as she was. With her wrinkled forehead and crazy eyes, she looked angry – only there was a smile on her face. “No one? Really? You”– she pointed to someone in the back, but Rebecca didn’t bother to look behind her; she was just glad she hadn’t been asked –“do you know the answer?”

The person must have shaken her head because Mrs Darleen just shook her head. “You don’t know? Of course you don’t! There was no catch!” She started to laugh; her horrible cackle ricocheting off the class room rules. No one else was amused. Not in the slightest – although she was slightly amused, though the laugh was horrible nevertheless.

Abruptly Mrs Darleen stopped laughing, schooling her expression, as if she suddenly realised she was teaching a class. Saying it was scary was a huge understatement. It was beyond freaky. It didn’t seem humanly possible to change moods that fast. Rebecca had a theory she was schizophrenic. “Soooooo . . . that was fun! Yes, fun indeed. But, sadly this is school and we can’t all listen to my amazing jokes. You have to learn! Though I don’t see the point with some of you . . . oops! I don’t think I was meant to say that. Oh, well . . .”

All of the sudden the carpet seemed very interesting to the class. Rebecca wasn’t surprised though – once Mrs Darleen was on a roll, she was on a roll. Her rambles could go for minutes, sometimes longer. Her rambles tended to turn ‘terribly inappropriate’in the inspiring words of Mrs Darleen. Rebecca thought they were cool sometimes. Hearing teachers bag the popular kids was enjoyable – not that it ever happened. Hearing the jocks called out because of the idiocy was satisfying. Though, being told they would go no where in life must hurt their precious egos. Actually, that wasn’t entirely true. Some were too ignorant to understand what that meant. A career in football was a career to them. Too bad by the time you were noticed by the big leagues you were too old to play professionally. And then what? Nothing. You were just an arrogant idiot who thought you were model perfect, when really they were just deluded. That was her opinion anyway. The pretty girls would disagree; they were all about becoming trophy wives.