Sam woke up at exactly 8:30, just like yesterday, and the day before and the day before that. He got up and just like the days before, he did his little "routine." Went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, combed his hair and got out. He made his bed and went over to his closet. This is the only thing he has control over, his clothes. Even though he knew it was girly he loved dressing up without someone telling him in what. This was the only thing he could change about himself. Today he chose to wear a dark green T-shirt and black pants. He took his bag from his desk and went downstairs, where on the kitchen table it will be waiting for him, his breakfast. He sat down and without any enthusiasm he started eating his cereal.
There was a little cracking sound but he didn't look up. He knew it was his little sister, Sara, and his mother coming down the stairs.
"Morning Sammy!" said Sara, and went to her big brother and kissed him in the cheek.
He mumbled a reply but, again, he didn't lift his head.
His mother didn't say anything to him instead she went straight to the sink to wash the dirty dishes his father left there.
After he was finished, he went to his mother and set the bowl in the sink, kissed her in the cheek, shook his sisters blond hair so it would need to be combed again, and went over to the little glass table in the living room, where it waited for him 10 golden coins for lunch and for the bus.
What his parents didn't know was that ever since Tara's parents bought her a car he never went to school with the bus, instead he went with her, and every day he saved 6 coins. Tara was his best friend since first grade, and even from then, she always stayed the same-the same big blue eyes and long lashes, and her long, long black hair. She never wanted to cut her hair, everyone knew that. Ever since in the fifth grade where Luisa, Tara's rival, accidentally cut off a little of the top, she went literally nuts. And everyone knew the story after that.
Sam came up the stairs and looked up at the little Victorian house. He rang the bell to announce it was him and sat down on the porch swing, knowing that Tara was late, as usual.
He looked at Tara's street, down and up. Tara lived at 74th street, class A, and by the look of the houses on the street you instantly know why it's called class A. Each house was more glamorous than the other and each resident more elite and prestige than the other. There were more doctors on Tara's street than in a single hospital. On the 74th street you could meet the doctors, the lawyers, the university professors and the occasional businessman or woman. It was the upper streets that held the glitz and glamour the most. From mansions to castles, from celebrities to the royals, but no matter what, the streets of Class A were always prestige.
Just as he was checking out Tara's neighbor's dog, he heard voices from the inside.
"Tara for God's sake listen to me for once!"
It was Tara's mother, Lilly.
"I'm not wearing that!" replayed Tara.
"Why not?"
"It's pink and it's girly."
"You are a girl and you wore it the week before!"
"I don't care!"
This time Tara's voice was closer, and the next moment the door opened and Tara emerged from the house. She closed the door with a big bang. Without turning to look at Sam she went straight to her car in the drive way unlocked her car and right before she climbed in the driver's seat she looked up at Sam, her brows up.
Sam knew that pissed off look and hurried to her car, knowing that if he didn't he will awake the monster.
He closed the door and they were off.
Sam knew better than to ask what that yelling was about. He knew whenever Tara was angry she didn't like to talk why she was angry or talk nevertheless. So he always made his own assumptions, but knew that once Tara cooled off, she would tell him.
Sam thought about the yelling back at the house and looked at Tara from head to toe. She was wearing black leather pants, white shirt and black leather jacket. He knew Tara wore her clothes like she never showed her emotions. And by the dark clothes she was wearing, it was obvious she would be in a dark mood all day.
Tara saw Sam looking at her clothes and her anger boiled inside, she tightened her hold on the wheel and snapped.
"What?!"
Sam didn't say anything, he knew it was better to stay quiet than say anything at all, so he looked away from her.
Once they were in theschool property, Tara parked her car in the usual place and they went to theirbench to wait for another friend, Nate. Sam and Tara first met Nate at gymclass.
.
.
He was bullied by one of our class mates so Tara, no longer wanting to watch, she came in front of Nate and stood there with her arms crossed.
The guy, Ron, looked from Nate to Tara, surprised, but then he went to being angry again.
"Ooh, would you look at that, little Nate has a girlfriend" said Ron, mockingly.
"At least he has one. What do you have?" replayed Tara with coolness, not a single emotion on her face.
Sam was surprised that day, if that look was pointed to him he would never have call himself a guy anymore, but Ron held his own.
"Move little girl" hissed Ron.
Tara's eyes narrowed even more.
"I will, if you stop bullying him."
"Move."
"I don't think I want to."
"Either move or I'm going to hit both of you" threatened Ron.
Tara cocked her head to one side.
Uh, oh, Sam thought. Sam knew that move. Whenever Tara made that, Sam knew her wheels were turning inside her head. Sam also knew that after that came a big, wide, smile, meaning her plan is set.
Tara smiled.
"I don't think it's nice to hit girls" said Tara in a sweet voice.
"We will see about that" said Ron and slapped her.
Tara looked shocked, her palms going to her, now, red cheek. Her eyes watered and she ran off.
Ron seeing her, laughed, and then looked at Nate to do the same.
But just as Ron was ready to strike, the teacher, Mr. Smith looking pissed and with a small paper in one of his hands and in the other he was dragging a wide smiling Tara, despite the fact that she just got slapped.
"You're a good player Ron, but you know the number one rule in my book, and you went and did it anyway", said Mr. Smith.
"You're in detention for the rest of the week and you're out of the team."
Ron gasped.
"But, Mr. Smith it was an accident, I swear."
"Does this look like an accident?" asked Mr. Smith, and moved out of the way so Ron would look at Tara. Her smile dropped right away and she began crying.
Mr. Smith looked at her and awkwardly put his arm around her shoulder.
"C'mon let's get you to the nursery."
Just as Mr. Smith turned his back on Ron and Tara, Tara smiled and pulled her tongue out and started walking behind Mr. Smith.
.
.
"Where is he?" asked Tara, looking irritated, tapping her foot on the ground.
Just as she asked, Nate came in view.
Ever since that destined day at the gym, Nate vowed he would never let be bullied again. So ever since then he went to the gym close to his house, and started working out. And six years later the results were obvious. He was taller than even Tara, which she was at least 6 foot tall and is wearing high heels at all time, he was lean muscled and the schools hottest boy.
Nate came with a big smile and his arms wide. He first looked at Tara and said "Ahh, darling how have you been?" And just as he bent down to kiss Tara on the cheek, she turned away and started going towards the school. Nate frowned, still looking at Tara.
"What's her problem?" asked Nate, his charm gone.
Sam shook his head. "Don't know and don't want to know."
He high fived Nate and went to class.
"No, seriously what..." Nate stopped talking and narrowed his eyes. "Is she wearing black and pants at the same time?"
Sam nodded his head.
"Shit."
"Yup."
"Oh, god is it that time of the month again? Because I'm not prepared for that." Nate said with a pained look on his face.
Sam laughed. "Nah, we got two more weeks."
"Oh, thank god" Nate said, his palm over his heart.
"Yeah, but brace yourself, she's in a bad mood today."
"I don't think I'm ready for that either."
Sam laughed again.
Rutherford School for the Young was just like any other school in the lands. With white marble on the outside topped with oval rooftops with a color that looked like the rain washed away the original so now all it was left was this blue-greenish color. On the inside, the marble varied between grey, on the ground, white and dark blue, on the walls. It always seemed inviting on the outside but it was always quite cold on the inside. If it weren't for the large oval-arched windows, the students on the inside would have probably frozen in the winter. Rutherford was known for its diversity. The students varied between the most elite and the students that needed social support. The reason that it work was probably because it wasn't a private school, not really. Education was free in most of the cities in the Shadowlands, and RSY took great advantage in that.
Once they reached their lockers, Tara was already there.
"Hurry up we have math, you know how she is" murmured Tara.
Sam and Nate nodded their heads and started opening their lockers. All of a sudden they heard a loud laughter. All three of them look behind. It was Louis and her "gang."
"Relax Louis, don't laugh too hard your lips may fall off" said Tara. She closed her locker and looked at Louis, waiting if she would say something. Louis didn't. She and her friends just went by quickly as possible.
Everyone knew, ever since Louis cut off Tara's hair, how Tara made her revenge. She took the same scissors and in rage cut Louis's lips. Louis had plastic surgery to fix them, and in a society like theirs it was a disgrace to have any plastic surgery. That was only considered for the royalties and celebrities, but even they didn't do it very often, and for the cough-special ladies-cough. Their family's name went through mud and back, what with Tara cutting her lips and at the same time Tara's father exposing Louis's father of money laundering. Louis's family were still recovering their lost power in the higher society, while Louis recovered to regain her power at the school.
Sam and Nate looked at each other and quickly followed Tara towards math class.
At the end of the school day Tara was getting worse and worse. Snapping at everyone and whenever Sam had asked her what was her problem she never said anything. But all that ended at art class.
"Okay everyone I want you to gather up in groups of 4 or 5 and paint one same picture. Try to mix all of your ideas into one. Questions?"
Tara raised her arm.
"What is it Tara?" asked Mr. Sanchez.
"Can we be in group of 3 please?"
Sam frowned, looking at Tara and how she was battering her eyelashes at the professor.
"O-Of course" said Mr. Sanchez.
Nate saw that too, and just as they were together he asked, "I didn't know you had a crush on him."
"Or the other way around" murmured Sam, eyeing the teacher.
Tara rolled her eyes. "I don't, I just wanted the three of us together."
They sat down on one of the desks, rolled out a big sheet and immediately started arguing, just like the rest of the class.
"Okay everyone stop!" said Sam, spreading his arms wide. "Why don't we just pull out a smaller sheet and do some sketches on it and then we'll paint on the bigger one?"
He looked from Tara to Nate, when they agreed they started doing some progression.
Tara was better in drawing than both Nate and Sam, so they let her draw their improvised sketches. When they were half way done, Tara stopped and looked up. She turned the sheet the other way, and started all over again.
"What are you doing?" asked Nate.
"I have an idea" was all that they got from her. They both leaned in and nodded in approval. She was drawing her instrument.
Everyone has an instrument. It came at all shapes and sizes, and it could be anything. From a simple pencil to an earring to a car or house.
Tara's instrument was a necklace. The necklace looked like a planet made of glass and three orbits around it.When the orbits start circling, in the center of the glass, an image appears. When they were little, they would just spin it and see images either from people they knew or they didn't know, objects or even animals.
When Tara was done she looked up at Sam and said, "Give me yours."
Sam's instrument was a key chain. But not like the ordinary key chains. The chain was golden and intact on it was, what looked like a cloud. Instead of being bluish or white,it kept changing the color and shape, every time the chain was close to a person.
Because Nate doesn't have an instrument, Tara made a big portion of the sheet white, and making it look like it was erased.
"Ohh, what an interesting idea" said Mr. Sanchez excitedly. "You combined all of your instruments together. Of course the blank spot represents Mr. Smith's instrument, but of course he doesn't have one so you left it like it was erased..." Mr. Sanchez kept looking at it with a satisfied look on his face, still muttering something to himself.
"Do you mind if I take this?" he asked them when he snapped out of his little daydream.
They all looked at each other and shrugged.
"That was so weird" said Nate as he went towards Tara's car.
"Yeah I know. Why was he so interested in our sheet? Was it that good?" asked Sam as he sat in the front seat.
"He wasn't interested at how pretty it was painted, he was interested in what was painted. Our instruments" said Tara as she drove towards Nate's house.
Nate leaned forward, so now he was between Tara and Sam.
"Why would he be interested in your instruments?" he asked.
"Rumor has it that he's been using his instrument" said Tara.
"Who told you that?" asked Nate with a frown.
"I saw him. I was in the school library and saw him talking to a book. He kept asking it questions and the answers appeared in the book. It kind of looked like a diary."
"Isn't that illegal?" asked Sam.
She nodded. "It is."
"But why would he use it anyway?" asked Nate, looking more and more confused.
As Tara parked her car in front of Nate's house she said, "I don't know. I did however hear one of the questions he asked."
"What did he ask?" asked Sam as he climbed off of the car.
"Where can I find the lost instrument?"
They all grabbed their bags and went inside Nate's house.
Nate lived on the 4th street, class F. The houses on this street all looked like they would crumble down any minute. They all were starting to decompose. Their paint was grey, going black. The street was as dirty as the houses. Trash everywhere, and at night you could hear woman's screams miles away. Nobody knew where they came from and nobody dared to ask either. Nate's house wasn't any different from the others. It was a two story house, one bedroom and one bath. It would have been a two bedroom but there was a large hole instead, right above the living room. It was dirty and dusty, with bricks in every corner and all kinds of insects in every hole in the walls. The front door must have looked beautiful when first attached to the house, but now where glass was supposed to be, there is a large plank. Nate and Sam nailed it there and it too was starting to decompose.
They all sat down on the dirty rug in the small living room, their books around them but neither of them was studying.
"I still don't know why he would break the law so he would ask questions" said Sam as he was poking the small fire in the old fireplace.
"Forget that," argued Nate "what about the question, why would he ask that? And what does the 'lost instrument' mean?"
Both Nate and Sam looked expectantly at Tara, but she shrugged.
"I don't know" she said quietly.
They sat there for a minute. All looking everywhere but at themselves, and after a while they started studying.