Unravelling the Truth by Zoe Etherington (early reader chapter books TXT) 📖

turned the light on by the long cord that was dangling from the ceiling. The orange light flickered for a bit and as I put my hand down from the cord I saw a flash of purple in the corner of my eye.
“No… no, it must be my imagination.” I thought out loud.
But as I looked at myself in the mirror by the towel rail on the right, it wasn't my imagination. I had grown from 5’6” to about 6’7” in less than 10 minutes. My skin was no longer pale white from lack of sunlight but a dark purple. Dots like face paint ran down my face, arms and-as I pulled my top up-it was all over my overly skinny stomach from lack of food. Where there was fire on my cheek, it was now covered in a spiral of white, glowing dots. I realized the same for my left ankle that you could see clearly as my pyjama bottoms were now too small and looked like ankle bashers. But what shocked me the most were the eyes. They were a gold/yellow just like cats.
I stretched over and turned the light off and on to see if it was real, but I stayed the same. One last time I tried, but this time it wasn't darkness I saw, everything was clear but in a purple light. I pulled the string faster and faster, up and down, but it never changed orange from the lights to purple, orange, and purple, orange, purple. Anger built up in me and I blew as I stretched my hands out. Fire came out of my finger nails on the other hand ice came out stopping the fire in its tracks. My hands did this automatically. I began to drain and feel drowsy as the two elements began to trickle out of my fingers like a stream. I blanked out hitting my head on the cream toilet seat on my way down.

On stage

*17 months later*

“5…6…7…8,” I shouted while waking my drum sticks together gaining everyone’s attention from the audience in the school hall. My hands started playing ‘Arlandria foo fighters’ automatically.
I felt an adrenaline rush as I started to play, I concentrated on the beat closing my eyes to listen harder and to make sure I never missed a beat. I felt free from the world. My band was called glass half full and contained three boys and me being the only girl. What can I say? I don’t socialise with girls they always moan too much!
“Aint that the way it always starts?” Zach started to sing. “A simple word of conversation…” He continued quieter.
The crowd of student and teachers looked bewildered not knowing where to look. It was our first time playing in front of others and boy, were they shocked! Mrs Palmer the music teacher looked proud and was beaming with satisfaction.
“Oh god, you gotta make it stop!” Zach ended with my last bang on the drum.
The crowd erupted in applause and whistles as we all stood up and took a bow. We walked off all having a cheesy grin on our faces. Once off stage and in the school corridor we all jumped on each other trying to get rid of our excitement but failing badly.
“I can’t believe it they like us!” Toni the lead guitarist gasped with a shocked expression plastered onto his face.
“I know, when we walked on the stage they were laughing at us and then when we walked off they were cheering like we were famous!” Paul the bands bass player replied he was also shocked.
“Alright guys quit it, we still don’t know if they will stop throwing, dam right stupid comments at us, just because they like us now doesn’t mean they will tomorrow in first lesson.” Zach explained while gaining glares from the twins Toni and Paul, they both had black hair with green eyes, they were tall and a bit lanky but had a bubbly personality and were great at making you laugh.
“Don’t look at me like that; you know what the bitches in there are like they won’t stop till they tear our group up.” Zach continued ranting while pointing at the big blue double doors that led to the main hall where we just came from.
Zach was the one who couldn’t handle the things people said and was the one that got in most fights he was a heart throb with baby blue eyes and short curly blonde hair but because he hung out with me he was labelled ‘kick me’ at the back of his shirt.
Just because he hung out with me it was ridicules, it started because I couldn’t go to lead bitches house party when I first moved here as no one can see me at night because what I am, a monster, abomination. I didn’t want to wreck the three boys life’s and on a number of occasions I told them to piss off but they were always appearing around school and they said they saw themselves as my bodyguards that was when we formed our band, we normally hung out in the music practise rooms at lunch and break to hide ourselves from the students, instead of just sitting there the boys practised for their band called ‘the three’ they played in talent shows and some clubs to get attention. Then I saw the drum kit that was in one of the four practise rooms we hadn’t been in. It was blue and a bit beaten up from all the wear and tear of the previous drummers I started playing as I was waiting for the boys to come for lunch, it was weird how I had never played a musical instrument before but I picked the beats up quick and started to make my own tunes up. The boys overheard and begged me to be in their band I thought of it for a little while I didn’t want to be that close to them but obviously they became close and are now like big brothers to me, I became a band member but on one condition that we change the name so we did to ‘glass half full’ as we like to look at what we do have in life and not what we don’t have; like a glass of water that’s half full and half empty are the same but it sounds better when you say half full.
“What do you think Kileshia?” Toni asked me joining me into the conversation and dragging me out of my thoughts.
“I think we should wait and see for tomorrow to come,” I simply said with a shrug of the shoulders.
“Oh come on, you must have an opinion! Will they like us? Or will they split us up?” He asked like a question on ‘Who wants to be a billionaire’ while rising his eyebrows up and down.
I chuckled at his enthusiasm as everyone stared at me.
“Look I don’t know, but what I do know is that lead bitch Leah was starring me down up there,” all of the boys shuddered once I said her name, making me giggle again.
I looked at my watch on my right arm and read eight-thirty.
“Look guys I got to go.” I said panicking a bit as it takes about thirty minutes to get home and it will be dark soon as it was July a week before school broke up for summer.
“Arrr…come on just one night come out and celebrate with us,” Zach mumbled.
All the guys gave me puppy eyes but it was no good I knew better than to fall for their tricks.
“I’ll see you guys tomorrow…” I sang while turning around and running out of the school entrance, out the car park and ran to the flat I still lived in.
Everything was still the same all that had changed was that I had cooked meals in the fridge and all I had to do was micro-wave them. They were from Emma my social worker.
Once they found me, because of a pizza delivery dude saw my cuts on my arms and thought someone did it to me phoned the police and then they passed it to social services.
Emma saw how much I wanted to stay in the flat on my own and she was ok with it as long as she could have a spear key and check on me anytime of the day, she also gave me a once over to make sure I wasn’t ‘harming’ myself as I used to. I grabbed the homemade lasagne and popped it into the micro-wave for two minutes so it was warm. While that was cooking I sat my homework on the two seta kitchen table. Once the micro-wave had a second to go I jumped over to it and ripped open the door, it wasn’t because I thought it was bomb I just thought the ‘beeping’ noise was annoying. I put the lasagne onto a plate and placed it on the table after I shoved open the wooden draw and retrieving a knife and fork. I began to eat while doing school work.
“Hello,” I answered my phone once I cleared my plates up from off the table.
“Esh, it’s me Emma.” She sounded excited and out of breath.
“Oh, hi thanks for the lasagne I think it was the best so far,”
“Hehehe…that’s what Tim and the kids said” Tim is Emma’s husband for five years and there six year old triplets Lucy, Conner and Ellie they all looked exactly alike but all had different personalities.
“I bet they did, it was the best…ohhh and how did Lucy’s and Connor’s and Ellie’s summer school productions go?” I asked
“They were the cutest! Ellie has the cutest voice, Lucy forgot most of her words and Conner, well let’s just say he was a little bit to confident.”
“Hehehe… What you been doing today?”
“Oh no missy enough about me, how was the end of school year concert? Are you now Miss Cool?” She giggled
“It went really well but I don’t know about the Miss Cool bit since the lead bitch hates my guts I think it may be impossible.”
“Well umm… you may not have to put up with her anymore,” Emma wisped.
“Yeah right even if I moved to another country she’ll still find a way to annoy me.” I sighed at how true this was she was always on my back since year ten when I first moved to that school she would always make roomers saying that I was pregnant or I was on drugs, yeah right it was more like her being pregnant.
“Meet me in the school office tomorrow during second lesson, I have someone you need to meet” With that Emma said goodbye, sniffed and hung up.