Chapter 8

"Kat? Are you OK? You look a bit pale, and you havent eaten any of your dinner, its spagetti bolegnese, your favourite." Mum drilled, as I slouched over the table, Mitchell eating delicately opposite me.
"I'm fine Mum. I just had a large snack before I went to sleep." I replied sullenly, desperate to get off the hook.
"Katherine, you know you're not supposed to eat snacks before your tea. I hope you didn't have any chocolate...." Mum droaned.
"Mum! All had was an apple, some raisins and an oatcake!" I almost shouted.
"HELLO DARLINGS!!!!!"
"Steve!" Mitchell shouted happily and ran out of the dininig room.
Mum trotted after him, her eyes all soppy.
I sensed my moment.
I tipped half of my spag bol in Mitchells plate, and the other half under my fork, before scrapering outside.
"Cynthanie!" I whispered, tip-toeing around the lawn, peering for butterflys.
"Good evening Katherine. Are you sensible now?"
"Aagh!" I screamed.
I glanced at my shoulder, and there was Cynthanie, perched on my should combing her long mane of hair with her delicate, pale fingers.
"Hi." I managed to stammer.
"My friends are scared of you. But I'm not. Do you want to meet them?" Cynthanie asked, syrup hanging in golden toffee loops off her words.
"Umm...."
"They're really kind. And I'm sure we'll all get along?" Her voice was melodic, and enchanting, it felt dusky, and heavy, and syrupy and sweet.
"Well....maybe not...." I began slowly.
"Pardon?" She said sharply, her voice still having the syrupy sweetness, but a hint of metallic anger.
I felt sleepy and cosy at the sound of her voice.
"Of course." I said without meaning to, my mouth just chorused the words Cythanie wanted to hear.
"Fabulous!" She said cheerfully, all sense of slight annoyance gone.

Chapter 7

"What.....What are you?" I stammered helplessly.
"A shfaelite dumbo. Its actually Shfeltilusacidumbica but we call it 'Shfaelite' for short." The little creature chorused.
My thoughts wandered to my early days when I was 7 or 8. I had these beautiful books, Ceciline Mary......a fabulous collection of delicate paintings of fairies and little elgant poems.
I scrutinised the miniscule slender fairy in front of me and tried to think of a flower it looked like.
"What flower are you?" I asked cautiously.
The little fairy laughed like a tinkling bell.
"Oh darling! I'm not a flower fairy! I'm just a 'shfaelite'. Yuck! Those flower fairies, there stinking goody-goodyness......" She said slowly, relishing every word like it was syrup.
"Aaah!" I was beginning to enjoy myself now. It suddenly dawned on me that it must be a hallutionation from my migrain earlier on. "Are all butterflies Shfeeelights?" I giggled hysterically.
"Shfaelites." The little fairy said. She looked rather disappointed at me. "Don''t be silly. Only some."
"Ha!" What a loud of rubbish I'm hallucinating I thought madly to myself. "Whats your name Tinkerbell!" I laughed drunkenly.
"Tinkerbell?" She looked puzzled. I laughed loudly at her not knowing Tinkerbell. Her face cleared. "My name is Cynthanie."
I pulled a face at this name.
"Its nice I suppose. But it sounds like something from Star Wars!!!"
The fairy looked almost in tears.
"There's something wrong with you today. I think I'l return later." She said slowly, eyeing me, puzzled.
"Toodle-ooo little Sympthany!"
"Farewell Katherine." And with that she vanished.
I smiled drunkenly and fell asleep.........

"Katherine! Tea!"
I jolted out of my snoozle and sat up.
"What the....."
On my armrest, was a small, velvet, emerald green, teeny, tied with a minute ribbon, shoe.

Chapter 6

"Darling? Kat?" A soft voice above my head.
I opened my eyes slowly, a heavy thud pounding my head.
"What......what happened?" I croaked.
"Well darling, we think you had a migrain. Your friends, Clara and Harriet? They said you'd been hearing things, and then you finally crashed out. Its OK darling, it really is. You're at home, and everythings gonna be just fine...." Mum cooed softly.
I sat up wearily.
I felt stiff and sore.
"I need some fresh air." I decided weakly.
"Hmmm.....OK sweetie. I'll bring out a chair and a blanket....There's quite a chill out there...."
"MUM!" Thud. Thud. Thud.
"Mitchell! Be quiet! Your sister isn't very well."
A subdued Mitchell entered my room.
"Sorry Katherine." He said coyly.
"Kat!" I snapped.
"Kids! Don't argue! Mitchell, help yourself to a biscuit, and Kat, c'mon, lets get you outside."
I crawled downstairs, and onto the Patio, followed by Mum, carrying a kitchen chair.
"There Kat. I'll call you in for dinner." Mum said leaving and she closed the door behind her.
"Oh Kat. What a fright! Are you OK? We're sorry we scared you..." A soft voice.
I jumped and glanced round the garden.....but nothing was there, except a small butterfly on the shrub.
"I must be dreaming...." I muttered.
"Oh Katherine! You are not dreaming!"
The butterfly from the shrub fluttered off, and landed on my chair.
Suddenly there was a sharp, sweet smell, like rose-water, or lavendar, and the butterfly was gone.
"Ta-dah!"
I jumped and slowly looked back at the arm-rest and there was...............
It had a slender, pale face, almost translucent, its arms and legs were slender and slim, it had a silky mane of emerald green hair, curling down its back, and flicking up at the end.
It wore a small green dress, very brittle, and delicate, with a butter-cup yellow bodice, and a green swirly skirt.
"What....What are you?" I gasped.
"A shfaelite of course silly. Now.....you look slightly pale, are you alright? Please don't faint again..."

Chapter 5

"And that concludes, the answer to 567,084 X 3453 is 1,958,141,052. Everyone OK with that?"
A brief murmer around the Maths classroom, broke the silence.
"Fabulous! Now next 5,630,459 - 958,642.."
My mind wandered and I gazed around the class.
I was in Class Room 4X, Maths and Science Block, Pear Tree School, sitting next to Zara and Heidi, my maths textbook and maths notebook infront of me.
Ahead of me was the 'Dreadlock Boy'.
He was slouching over his desk knocking geek Claudia Price all over the shop, her glasses askew, trying in vain to concentrate on what Mrs Brown was saying.
Dreadlock Boy was peculiar.
He had the beads, like I said, that were exactly the same as mine.
I came up with a conculsion for that.
They must've been in a shop around here, and the previous owners of our house must've just left one rolling around in my room.
"Kat?" I heard a soft voice murmur, nudging me in the ribs.
"Katherine!"
I jolted into the real word.
"Yes Miss?" I stammered.
"Have you been paying a single bit of attention to what I've been saying?!"
"Yes Miss...." I whispered, daring a glance at her.
"So, can you tell me what 'mean' means?"
A few saddos giggled at this, and I blushed beetroot red.
"I don't know Miss." I whispered sadly.
"You're lucky its your first day here. Any other class member," she cast and hand around the class, "Would have detention! Now would anyone care to tell Katherine here what 'mean' is?"
Claudia put her hand up. "It means average."
"Thank you Claudia darling. Now, everyone turn to page 27 in their Maths textbooks...."

*****

"And then I said to Posy, what are you doing, and she was like, uhhh....nothing......" Heidi was chattering on.

Me, Zara and Heidi were lying on the grassy field in school, making plaits out of grass and chatting.

Suddenly there was a KABOOM!

I jumped and startled, jumped to my feet and started looking around wildly.

"Kat! What are you doing?" Zara giggled.

"The sound.....Didn't you hear it?" I replied, puzzled.

I looked around slowly.

All I could see was Dreadlock Boy, and Claudia Brown, a bit further away, her head in some complicated book.

"Heehee. Haha!" A giggle.

I looked round again, almost in tears, Zara and Heidi seemingly oblivious to the noises, only to see Dreadlock Boy and Claudia Brown.

I was shaking physically by this time, and I felt really ill.

I felt something slender and soft touch my ear before......

Darkness.

Chapter 4

"Get up Kat!"
I rolled over and squashed my face against the soft pillow.
"KAT!" Mum screeched at me, kicking my make-shift bed (a matress with a duvet and pillow ontop), shuddering my body.
"Ugh." I moaned.
I creakily got up, my bones aching dreadfully, and wiped the sleep from my eyes.
"It's 8.00am! Get up! Mitchell was awake 2 hours ago! You've got to catch the bus at 8.45am!" Mum scolded me, throwing me a pile of clothes.
I gazed down at them.
A white, crispy blouse; a pair of squeaky clean, solid, leather, practical shoes; some navy socks; some granny underwear; a blazer with PEAR TREE SECONDARY SCHOOL written on it; a yucky old-fashioned, granny-ish pleated grey skirt and a long gold and green tie.
"Mum! I can't wear that!" I groaned.
I thought of my slip-on plastic shoes, my tatty-but-cool blouse, my bright neon pink ankle socks, my tasteful girl-boxers, my mini-skirt-4-school, my tie slung to low, I didn't even WEAR a blazer.
"Its uniform Katrina. Now get dressed. Breakfast in 5 minutes." And she stalked out the door.
"AAARGH!" I HATE her!!!
I got dressed and gazed at myself.
I looked a total nerd.
What about my classmates???
Everyone at my old school thought I was cool. I was one-of-the-gang, I was popular, funky, pretty and now I couldn't even find a hairbrush.
I glanced wearily at my pocket mirror, my hair looked like a tornado had hit it.
It was wild, all over the place, knotted.
I didn't have a brush/
I tried to brush it with my fingers, and then I tied it with yesterdays neon-pink hairband with SUPERSTAR written on it.
I slouched downstairs to find a bowl of Crunchy Nut in my place, everyone eating, except for Mitchell, who was writing in his BE A MATHS GENIUS (FOR YEAR 4-6)
"Kat!" Mum screamed at me. "After all I've told you!"
"What?" I replied, completely puzzled.
"Your hairband! Take it out now!"
"Why?" I asked, flabbergasted.
"NOW!" Mum almost shouted, looking as though she would kill me.
I took it out, almost in tears, and handed it to her.
"Here." She said and pushed her boring brown hair bobble across the table.
BEEP! BEEP!
"God Kat, forget your breakfast, hurry UP!"
She passed me a geeky leather satchel.
I opened my mouth to protest but the bus beeped again.
BEEP! BEEEEEEEEP!
Mum followed me, and just as I was giving the bus driver my school pass I'd found in my satchel, Mum appeared and slopped a great, fat kiss on my cheek, in front of the. Whole. School.
I almost died with embarrassment, and flurry of laughter came over the bus driver.
All the other kids stayed silent.
The silence was like a grave.
I walked, trembling down the aisle, and slipped into the the first seat I could see.
The girl was wearing geeky clothes like me!
She had dark-skin, and the biggest brown eyes, she wore almost exactly the same uniform as me, except she wore her tie properly, her buttons all done up, and her skirt at the proper length.
"Hello. I'm Zara. Who are you?" She asked calmly.
"Katherine....Kat." I stammered.
"Well I'm Zara. Just Zara. What the...." She looked behind me.
A boy was strutting up the aisle.
He had brown hair, in dreadlocks, he wore scruffy jeans and a McFly t-shirt.
I peered closer.
He had beads tied to the ends of his dreadlocks.
I strained my eyes closer still.
OMG.
The beads, on the end of his chocolate brown hair, were the same beads....as the bead in my room.

Chapter 3

I'm really bored. I've got nothing to do. The things I normally like to do, like play on the Wii, colour in, email my friends from my laptop, doodle pictures in my locked notebook, is all unaccesible.

I can't get it coz everythings locked up in a box with stupid gaffa tape, and the thing I acually need to undo the gaffa tape, (scissors) is locked up in a box.
So basically I'm bored.
I rolled off a wound up carpet in the soon-to-be dining room, and breathed in the musty scent of the carpets.
Phaow! Yuck!
Suddenly I had an idea.
Here's my idea:

My Autobiography...........(my life so far)

I was born on the 23rd of November, 1998, in Barton General Hospital.

I was a screechy baby, and could not be put down, otherwise I'd scream my head off and Mum would have to sullenly pick me up and hold me till I went to sleep.

Mitchell was born when I was 3.

He was the quiet one, he slept quietly in his cot, and played Thomas the Tank soundlessly, and read his little books alone, and then practised his basic addition in his room, then did he homework neatly in black ink, being a teachers pet, doing diagrams, and getting gold stars, and doing pages and pages of neat little words.

I was the opposite, I'd scream till my face was blue in my cot, I'd bang my dolls heads on the wall, I'd beg my Mum to read me my Angelina Ballerina books, I'd lose all sense of words and numbers when my Mum unsucessfully tried to teach me how to add 2+2, and how to spell cat, I scrawl my homework at the very last minute, often in felt-tip pens, getting lots of red-pen marks, correcting my spelling, or doing the wrong 'method' for maths. I'm getting better, although I still occasionally set my alarm clock for 5.00am and do my homework under the covers, and still sometimes use purple gel pens to do my work, or doodle little faces at the margin, but I am improving, really!

My Dad died when I was 4.

He got cancer, he didn't smoke, or go on his mobile to much, he didn't even have a mobile, but he just died.

I don't really remember Dad. Sometimes when Mum gets the old photo albums out and I see a picture of him, I vaguely remember, but chances are I'm just imagining things.

Ah well.

Mum went a bit funny then, she stopped working, and she stayed in her room all day, she still cared for us and all that, but she was a bit quiet, reserved.

Then Mum met Steve.

She met him at a job interview.

She'd quit her old a job (a secretary for some snobby boarding school) and wanted to become a journalist for a county newspaper.

She got the job, and she and Steve started going out, to restarantes, pubs, bowling, cinema, and she even got us a set-day babysitter, every friday and saturday night she came, she was called Eve, she used to make us hot chocolate, and play games with us until Mitchell started sobbing from tiredness.

After they'd been going out for a year and 3/4, (I was 6) Steve asked Mum to marry him.

Mum said yes.

She told us the minute we got home, she woke us up and cheered and danced, and sang.

She wanted Steve to come and say hello.

The next day (it was a friday night he proposed) Steve came over.

He was really cool.

He gave me a minute stone giraffe, and Mitchell a soft little blanket with Thomas the Tank Engine on the front.

We sat and chatted for a bit, Mitchell sitting in his high-chair dribbling, me dancing my little giraffe up the coffee table legs.

Then Steve and Mum went to plan their wedding.

They got married on the 13th of July 2004.

I wore a little pink silk dress with a purple bouqet, Mitchell sat on Grandma's knee, wearing a shirt and a little bow tie.

Mum wore beatiful dress.

It was made especially for her, and had a long trail of silk, which me and Steve's neice, Natasha, (who was wearing a purple version of my dress and a pink version of my bouqet) carried up the aisle.

They got married, and we lived in our house together for 5 years.

I love Steve, he's really cool, he sometimes buys me little notebooks, (he gets loads coz he's a journalist) and I love them to bits, and scribble stuff on their fresh pages.

Then 2 months ago, Steve and Mum and got a promotion.

They'd liked them so much, they'd been promoted to a larger newspaper, the Daily telegraph, or the Times, or something like that.

Mum and Steve were thrilled, but there was 1 problem.

The headquarters of the newspaper was in London.

We lived in Plymouth at the time, so it was IMPOSSIBLE to get to London just to get to work and back.

So thats why we moved here.