The Sword of Light (Tales of the Misplaced Book 4) - Adam K. Watts

The Sword of Light (Tales of the Misplaced Book 4) by Adam K. Watts

Book excerpt

“Hey! Here comes the Wicked Witch!” I heard Darek’s sing-song voice clearly over the chit-chat in the lunchroom. “Nice wart!”

I felt the heat in my face as laughter erupted from other students around the room.

“Just ignore them!” Mira said from beside me. “They’re jealous because they’re stupid and you’re not.”

My embarrassment transformed to rage as I stormed to the lunch counter. Mira hurried to stay with me. Once again, just her presence had something of a calming effect on me. Mira was my foster sister. She was younger by two years. I’d only known her for about a year, but she was the only bright spot in my otherwise detestable life.

That wasn’t fair. My foster parents do try. Jill and Tony were the best I’d had in a long line of disappointment. I’d been able to get closer to them than any of the other foster parents I’d had.

I couldn’t tell them about the nightmares, though. I had them almost every night. I stopped trying to explain them a long time ago. As far as anyone knew, I hadn’t had them for years. I hadn’t even told Mira about them. But they were noted in a file somewhere. Not that they were all bad, but they weren’t normal dreams.

The brain-drainers — excuse me, psychiatrists — I’d been sent to had just wanted to put me on drugs. They said it would stop me from having the dreams. Mostly it just made it harder to remember them and it didn’t solve anything. Why was I having them? What was the cause? They couldn’t answer that.

The last one had said something about a chemical imbalance, but by then I was old enough to wonder and ask questions like how they could tell there was an imbalance or what a normal balance would be. Their answers didn’t sound very scientific and certainly hadn’t been based on actual lab tests. So much for the experts. The pills just made me too foggy or too jittery to think or focus; my grades had dropped. I’d stopped taking those years ago, too. Since they thought the dreams had stopped, no one had given me a hard time about it.

There’d still been problems with my different foster families, though. I’d never really connected with them and always ended up moving on. Until Mira. She’d made a difference.

School? I hated school. I hated the other students for their cruelty. And I hated, once again, the large mole on the tip of my nose.

One more week and I would graduate. I only wished I had a real plan for what I would do then. Probably City College. I could take my classes online and not have to deal with students in-person. I could be anonymous.

Food selections made, we took our trays and looked for an empty table. I scowled when I saw that the only options were near the center of the room. I would have much preferred a dark corner somewhere. But I wouldn’t give Darek and his cronies the satisfaction of slinking. Shoulders back and head high, I strode boldly to the center table and sat down with Mira following closely behind.

“Hi, guys! What’s up?” A plain looking brunette sat down at our table.

“Hi, Shelby,” Mira answered her. “One more week of school, then we’re free for the summer!”

I glanced around; wherever Shelby was, her younger sister Emma usually wasn’t far behind, but I didn’t see her.

I pointedly looked around. “Where’s your sister?”

“How should I know?” Shelby scowled at me.

Shelby’s sister Emma was the smart one; they’d even bumped her up, so she was finishing her freshman year of high school at the age of thirteen. She didn’t have many friends at the high school, so she was usually following her sister or Mira around. She even came over to the house sometimes to hang out with Mira. Or called her. Or texted. I felt kind of sorry for the kid, but for some reason I could never figure out, her older sister Shelby had always annoyed me. I wasn’t feeling talkative, so I dug into the unremarkable lunch in front of me.

I had barely taken a few bites before something hit the side of my head. A paper airplane fell to the ground next to me. Muffled laughter identified the table of origin. Darek and his cohorts. I tried to hide my annoyance and continued eating, keeping the offenders in my peripheral vision. Even then, if not for Shelby’s expression I would have missed the next launch that twisted in flight and flew straight toward Mira’s face.

I raised my hand in defense and Darek’s expression shifted from malicious glee to surprise as the airplane careened madly upwards and soared back toward him with a vengeance. He looked back at me, missing his chance to block the plane before it struck his right eye. Darek howled in pain and went to his knees, his hands covering his eye.

What just happened?

I watched as Darek’s friends helped him from the room, heading toward the school nurse’s office.

“That was weird,” Mira commented.

“What happened?” Shelby asked.

“Serves him right.” I shrugged. The airplane seemed to have a mind of its own, but they were hard to predict, anyway.

After we finished lunch, Mira and I headed down the hall and walked into the girl’s room. I heard talking and giggles, but as soon as we stepped into the room, the half-dozen girls went silent, looking at me, and literally holding their breath. Mira went into one of the stalls and then the girls burst into laughter and fled, leaving me alone. I fumed silently. I hate them!

My reflection glared back at me from the mirror. I looked at it, seeing what everyone else saw. The red frizzy hair, the long-pointed nose with the huge mole. For a moment all of my anger focused on that mole. I hate you! Just go away! I spun away from the mirror and charged out of the room.