Part of My Novel, Much?

Chapter One: Earth

As Told By Kitty Thorton

“You should have said, ‘nice to meet you, I’m your other half’.”

~Relient K, “The Best Thing”

So.

I have no idea how to start this.

It’s hard, y’know. Everyone suddenly decided (without my consult, might I add) that I would be the one to start it off, and to write most of the story. In vengeance, I’m making Caleb write a lot too. He’s convinced that my asking him is a sign of undying love and trust, for I would never ask anyone else such an important task, or some such fantasy.

But we’ll get to Caleb later.

My name is Kitty Thorton. At the start of my story (the story that matters anyway) I was sixteen, in high school, and single. Add those together and you get misery, right? Not in my case, ‘cause I wasn’t some whiny little brat who needed some caveman to keep her self-esteem up. (Screw self-esteem, I got chocolate.) Unlike most girls nowadays, I was never some—

Cabi (who is reading over my shoulder and I want Cabi to know that that is very rude) just told me that I shouldn’t go on rants whilst writing this story. I told her that if she doesn’t like my style, she shouldn’t have suggested that I write the @!#$ thing. Cabi said get over it, baby. I said—I know this conversation is pointless and shouldn’t be included, Cabi, will you get off my freaking back!? For the love of William Shakespeare, make Caleb write the !@#$ thing, or Leo, or—Yes, I know I like to write, Cabi, I know that’s why you guys picked me, but I got no say in it and—oh, come on, I know those tears are totally fake. Please. You are so transparent—No, Leo, I swear I wasn’t being mean to her! Caleb, stay out of this! And stop laughing, Tammy!!!!

I finally got everyone to leave by telling them that I know where they hide their diaries. I don’t really, but now I really want to find Leo’s. “It’s a JOURNAL!” he says. Smooth, blondie, real smooth.

Where was I? Oh yeah. My name’s Kitty. Grab some popcorn, or some chips, carrots, peanuts, candy, eyeballs, or whatever your snacking preference is, and sit down for a journey into the mysterious, the dark, the sinister, the world of the unknown.

Okay, it’s not really that great, but let a girl be a drama queen, yes?

Whilst my story isn’t some macabre thriller, it is rather strange and quite unbelievable. Especially to your average John Doe. (For those of you who don’t know, cough, cough, Momo, John Doe is what they call an unidentified person. I think. That’s what I read in a manga once. Right? Whatever.) I doubt any of the five readers we’ll get (hey, if you have low expectations you can’t be disappointed) will believe this story at all. Well, that’s fine; I wouldn’t believe this acid trip unless I lived it. I especially wouldn’t believe it if I read it in some book under the “fantasy” section. (Well if I told the publishers it was nonfiction, they’d send me to the nice men in the white coats, now wouldn’t they?)

I’m fine with it, though. I realize that no one will take this seriously. But all the same, all of us (Nela, Caleb, Cabi, Aree, Momo, Laney, Annee, Flora, Linda, Raven, Keith, Tammy, Ling, Valeo, and the ones I don’t care about—just kidding, Dylan, I love you very much) thought it would be good to have a record. Because if the people of Earth won’t believe this tale, we know at least that the Sahinians will.

Sahinia. There’s the root of this story, at least from my point of view. The other me (I’ll explain that later) will probably be writing her own chapter of this book, the one that we’ll give to the Sahinians, and she’ll say that Earth is the root. But I guess the root we could agree on would be dreams.

Oh wait, that sounds really corny. I don’t mean ‘wish upon a star’, Disney, one-day-I’m-gonna-be-president-Mommy! dreams. Uh, no. Dreams as in, what happens when you fall asleep at night. For most people, dreams are weird little fantasies, or nightmares, that never mean much and are promptly forgotten about. To some, they’re mystical doors to the future or some such crap. To me and the rest of the motley crew we form?

To us, dreams aren’t dreams. They’re when we share the mind of our other selves, the other halves of our souls, and see another world.

The world in question? It’s called “Sahinia”. Whilst our “Earth” is technological, sinful, and downright crappy (Pessimist? Me? Nah.), Sahinia is the muse of fantasy authors. Green, magical, medieval in some ways, advanced in others, seemingly Utopia.

Except that humans live there, so it could never be 100% peaceful. Of course there have been wars and battles, but unlike our world, there are no nukes or guns in Sahinia. They don’t need them, because every person in Sahinia, down to the smallest child, has magic running through their veins. Not all of them have great magic; some have only enough to perform the simplest of spells—i.e. making a pebble rise up from the ground. (Pft. Lame.) The only drawback to magic is that whatever force you extend with magic takes an equal amount of energy out of the spell-caster. And that’s why magic is not often used in wars and battles; the only magic that would be helpful would kill the user. There were a few so-called “heroic” magicians who would die in order to use magic powerful enough to kill half an army. If you ask me, they’re idiots. But that’s why wars in Sahinia are much less destructive; they don’t have anything to wipe out large numbers with.

And, oh yeah, there’s kinda the elves, dwarves, nymphs, fairies, leprechauns, gnomes, etcetera…yeah, them. In fantasy novels, those kinds of people aren’t “human”. Well, in all honesty, elf is to human as Caucasian is to Asian. They’re just another human race. They have different languages, customs, and outward appearance, but they’re the same species. And just like on Earth, most of them are pretty similar and they don’t all hate the other races, but there are obvious differences too.

Just for the record, my other self is—

Oh. I haven’t explained that yet, have I? For every single person on Earth, there’s an equal and parallel person on Sahinia. They’re names are usually fairly similar, and they have the same looks and personality. They are literally the same person, in two different bodies. This is because they are each half of a shared soul. The other me is named Kitilina. We are a half elf, half human performer. Or at least, we were until Nela told us that we would have to leave our travelling acting life to become travelling saviors of the world. I’ll get to that next chapter; ignore it for now, m’kay?

That’s probably everything I’ll need to mention for background info—if I missed anything, I’ll explain it as I go on.

Unfortunately, whilst I was writing all this foreground, I was really stalling because I really suck at writing beginnings to stories. Especially to one this long. If I start too early, you’ll be stuck with useless information, and I’ll be stuck with extra weeks of writing. If I start too late, you won’t get enough information, and I’ll stress myself to baldness with catching up. So, what to do, what to do?

Ah heck. Let’s start with a cliché, my first day of high school.

No, that’s WAY too much of a cliché, and that’s probably too early anyway. So I’ll alter the cliché eeeeever so slightly. First day of junior year. I kinda remember that day.

That was when my entire life and reputation were shattered by six words spoken aloud over our school’s PA system…

…by an idiot, name of Caleb O’Reily.


My first thought on the morning of my first day as a junior, as I stared out the window of a musty bus as it rattled and clanked its way to school, was Only two more years, thank God.

I’d worked my butt off for the past two years to get all A’s in school so I could get into Brown. With my dad’s salary I would be able to go to any Ivy League school for free due to financial aid…so long as I was accepted. And so I strived to be academically perfect, and for the most part I was. It left little room for a social life, but I never wanted to be Senorita Popular in my life. Whatever, I still had plenty of friends, and while, yeah, some people hated me, I didn’t like them, so it was no loss on my part.

Ugh, I’m ranting again. But anyways, I gave myself a mental pep talk—This is your real last year, Kitty. If you mess this up, you’ll never be able to go to a college and you’ll end up the fryer at McDonald’s for minimum wage!

Gotta love self-derogatory pep talks, no?

Anyway, I wasn’t thrilled and I wasn’t worried. I was cynical but relieved. Oh, the irony. I should have been dreading the day, and trying to run away as quickly as humanly possible.

But enough about me. Let’s try to advance the frickin’ story.

I looked up as the bus stopped at Areeba Khan’s station. There were like, eight people besides Aree, but I honestly couldn’t care less about any of them. As Aree slid in next to me, I paused my iPod. I never turned it off in case I had a song I wanted her to listen to.

“Two more years,” she whispered. Our bus was always ridiculously quiet in the morning, since half the kids were asleep.

“Is it wrong of me to love the fact that soon, I’ll be kissing this hell-hole goodbye?” I whispered back.

Aree grinned, and her dark eyes sparkled. “No, Kit, I think that’s normal. I can’t wait for college!” She said, in her deep voice, now raised slightly in pitch from eagerness.

I winked melodramatically, as per my usual way. “Harvard, here we come!” I joked.

Aree whipped out her schedule. “Let’s compare, shall we?” she asked with a smile.

“We’re in homeroom together!” I exclaimed excitedly, and then clapped my hand over my mouth and looked around the bus. As I said, people were so frickin’ quiet in the morning that the slightest sound made it seem like the bus would burst. (Not that that would necessarily be a bad thing, but they’d probably make me pay for the damages.)

She smiled broadly. “And Science!”

“Just those two, huh?” I said sadly. “Which lunch do you have? I got A.”

Aree’s eyes lit up. “Me too! Awesome!”

I grinned. “This is great. Two more classes together than we had last year.” In sophomore year, the two of us had completely different schedules, and not even the same lunch.

As I shoved my already-crumpled schedule into my big sickenly pink backpack (I can’t help it; it’s my favorite color!), Aree continued to talk.

“So, what’re your plans for the second to last year?” she asked. “Wanna get a boyfriend, maybe?”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, right. Like that’ll ever happen. I can see it now: the church bells are ringing, the choir sings my favorite love song, the groom reaches up to unveil me…and then runs away screaming, ‘AHHH! She-man!!!’ What every girl dreams of when they’re young.”

“I said boyfriend, not husband!” Aree exclaimed, but she was laughing. “But you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.”

“I’m not,” I replied, tossing my hair, “but boys are.” As I spoke, the bus pulled up to hell—I mean, school, and the two of us stood up.

“They probably aren’t as bad as you think they are, Kitty,” Aree said, meaning boys, of course.

The two of us walked together into the building, and I pointedly told her, “No, most guys really are that bad, Aree.”

“And what would you do if you found a guy who was utterly devoted to you, and not because of how you looked, just because he really liked you?” she shot back.

I rolled my eyes. “If a guy like that comes along, hell will freeze over.”

As I was to realize later in the day, irony sucks.


“Omigod, did you see what she was wearing?”

“I can’t believe the summer’s over!”

“You did what?”

“We don’t have any classes together!?”

“I can’t believe the summer’s over!!!”

I turned my head and frowned. “Could they be any louder?” I hissed.

“Sure, sensei, if you give ‘em a reason to,” Keith Dixie said flippantly. Keith, to put it bluntly, was a leprechaun. His bright red hair, tiny body (in both muscle and height), slightly pointed ears (I kid you not), and tendency to wear bright green Notre Dame Sweatshirts allowed me to taunt him every day in middle school. Unfortunately, Keith grew seven inches between eighth grade and now, so, him standing five inches taller than me, I could no longer beg him to give me his pot of gold. (And I was so close, too.)

The two of us were, like, best friends, even if we were different genders, and people did spread rumors about us dating. (And I totally got over that awkward crush I had on him for two years. Ugh, I don’t even wanna talk about that. I can’t believe that guy was my first major crush. Now it seems so incestual to me. Well, no, it seems like if I cloned myself, changed the clone’s gender, and fell for the clone. Ew. Sick. In so many ways.) He also called me Sensei, due to the fact that I would constantly drop little truths I liked to call, “Girls 101”, which mainly involved me telling Keith how to deal with girls, how you can tell they like you, etcetera.

But back to our pointless conversation.

“Cabi, how was Spain?” I asked, making a faux-disgusted face. “You rich little wench.”

Cassandra Babineaux made a face at me, and pushed some of her fiery orange hair out of her eyes. She goes to Europe, like, every summer. She was born in Spain, and her parents were French, so she usually goes to one of those countries. Whereas my family can barely afford to take a trip to Florida, and even then, we drive. (Not that I’m complaining. Much.) “Spain, dahling, was fantastic,” Cass said in a fake accent. Then, switching back to her normal voice, which only had the slightest hint of a French dialect in it, “I bet you had more fun at the beach, Kiba.”

“True. I bet there weren’t any evil raccoons in Spain,” I said nonchalantly. Cabi was sitting on my left, Aree behind me, and Keith next to her. The seat next to me was empty, so I got to put my backpack and other crap there.

Aree shook her head. “I’d ask for an explanation, but I’m not sure I want one,” she admitted. I assured her that she definitely didn’t.

I glanced over at Keith, who, for some reason, looked a little nervous. Not that it was surprising for a kid to look nervous the first day of school; it was surprising to see Keith nervous, well, ever. He didn’t get nervous. It just didn’t happen. “What’s up, Dixie?” I asked him, cocking my head to one side.

Keith took a deep breath. “Sensei, I gotta tell you something before the announcements come o—”

We heard the beep of the intercom, and I raised my eyebrows at him. “Uh, too late, Sherlock,” I said, wondering what it was he had to tell me. He looked pretty serious…well, for him at least.

The announcements were pretty basic (“Welcome back to school everyone! We look forward to a bright and happy year with you!” You know, sunshine, rainbows, pretty pink ponies, the works.) and Aree and I exchanged “please-kill-me” looks. Then…a voice came on. A voice we all knew pretty well. The voice of our student council president, Alicia Einstein. Okay, her last name was Smith, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if she was Albert’s great-great-whatever granddaughter. The girl had some freaking brains. But she was also totally sweet, so no one hated her, even if she did ace the classes we were flunking.

“Good morning everyone!” Alicia said, in a voice not too peppy, but with just enough emotion. (How is it possible for her to be so perfect and not have a boy ever ask her out? How!?) “As you all know, juniors and seniors are given this time in the morning to make their own personal messages over the announcements.”

I leaned over to Aree and whispered, “Omg, like, we’re juniors!” Obviously, I was being sarcastic.

She looked back at me, her eyes wide with mock excitement. “Like, let’s totally do that!” she hissed back.

Keith shushed us. Which surprised me once again. What was he doing? I knew he didn’t care about the announcements. Well, he never had before. None of us ever had. Well, except if they announced something related to us. Which, of course, they rarely do.

(But they did that day. Hoo boy, did they that day.)

“We have three speak every morning, and three more in the afternoon. So, freshmen and sophomores,” Alicia continued, “look forward to that in future years! I’ll hand over the mic to our first shout out today, Kate Nicholson!”

What, were we supposed to clap?

As Kate went on to talk about how much she loved her friends, omigod, they were like the best girls ever, I went back to wondering about Keith’s strange behavior. It was only mild curiosity; I wasn’t going to obsess over it or anything.

Fine, I was, but my doctor did once tell me that I had an obsessive personality, so I can’t help it! I mean, what, just cause I dedicated nearly my entire summer to drawing fan art so that I could post two hundred pictures online, or that I spend hours on my homework, checking over it at least ten times, or that I go home an worry frantically about what some girl said to me at school (I didn’t know if I had hurt her feelings or not! It was a serious issue!) does not mean that there’s something wrong with me.

“Hey, Kiba, while you were obsessing, Kate finished and Jack came on,” Cabi informed me with a smirk. I was about to give her my “I-wasn’t-obsessing-I-was-doing-something-else” speech, but then I figured I’d told her it before—(Oh, 23 times, huh, Cabi? Nice.) and so I shut up. Jack Wilkes was talking now, going on about how much he liked his girlfriend Marie (yes, Jack, we know, we’ve seen the two of you do inappropriate things to each other in the hallway since fifth grade), but, since he’s a man of about ten words a day, he was off quickly.

“And our last message for the day, Caleb O’Reily!”

I frowned. Don’t I know him? I wondered. Oh, yeah, he’s Keith’s friend, the guy who came in freshman year. We had talked a few times, and I liked him well enough, y’know, as a friend of a friend. I wondered vaguely what it was that he was going to say. He had always been pretty quiet whenever I saw him…I wondered what he had to say…I could only hope it was to curse someone out. Man, that would be awesome. He’d get suspended, but…awesomely.

I leaned forward in my seat now, eager to have Caleb prove me right. Please let him cuss someone out, please oh please oh please oh—

“Hey, everyone. Uh, I came on these announcements to ask someone a question,” Caleb’s usually timid, but today, surprisingly strong, voice said.

Please let it be, “Mrs. Frank (our math teacher from sophomore year) why is it that you’re such a witch? Did your husband leave you for your more attractive sister? Or are you just sexually depressed for some other reason?”

“Kitty Thorton, will you marry me?”

Well, that wasn’t what I expected. I thought for sure he was going to—

Wait.

WHAT DID HE SAY!?????????????????

My mouth dropped open in complete and utter shock. I dimly heard Cabi say, “Uh, Kiba? Kiba?” I think Aree gasped a little. I also heard a lotta kids start giggling.

But I barely noticed, as I could really only hear the sounds of my world imploding in upon itself.