Which Witch Switch, Julie Steimle [best motivational books of all time .txt] 📗

looks were not unfamiliar, though I was not used to boys staring at me to check me out. Somehow I expected them to pull back with fear. The girls just glared at me as if I were intruding into their territory. Their imps shouted for them to step on my foot, trip me, snap my bra, or attempt something even more embarrassing. It was a good thing I was quicker than they were since they looked likely to try it all.

“Hi!” Danna greeted her friends who greeted her just as bubbly as she did, dressed perhaps a little more modestly, though not by much. They all greeted me with the same enthusiasm.

“So, you’re Danna’s cousin!” they exclaimed with flickers of glee in their eyes that to me seemed almost wicked. One of them then peered down the hall at someone with a sneer. “Great! We’re going to have a lot of fun with you!”

I didn’t like the sound of that either.

“Marvelous.” Sharing a pained smile, I leaned away from the group. “Look, I think I’d just better get to class.”

“Oh yes,” one of the girls said, winking at me. “Go right to work.”

I turned, wondering what she meant by that.

Walking to my first hour class was like going through a gauntlet. I passed several people who leered at me, teachers who gaped at me, and a number of shouting imps of the same ilk. I was half tempted to remove my sunglasses to freak them all out, but I kept them on instead. It wasn’t a good idea to start a panic among people who didn’t know me.

My first hour was math. I found a seat far from the window, rubbing my bare arm with a mutter as the hot sun shined through the glass. I had used sunblock that morning, but it was such a low SPF that I could already feel my skin burn. It was a good thing that Danna had me bring one of her stupid acrylic purses, the one that matched those stupid shoes I was wearing. I had the rest of the bottle in it, and I took it out to put on another coat.

“Do you always put on that much sunblock?” a snide voice asked me.

I turned around and saw a pretty blond girl who was practically sneering at me. She was dressed like any average girl. Deciding to ignore her tone, I answered, “Yes. I burn if I don’t put on a lot.”

She snickered, turning to her pal as she said to me, “You look as white as death. What do you want to look like, a ghost?”

Blinking at her, I shook my head. “I don’t tan. So I don’t have a choice in the matter. It is either red or white.”

“Are you new to our school?” the other girl asked me.

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. I’m visiting with my cousin Danna and my Aunt Margaret for a while.”

They stared at me. “You’re visiting?”

“No one visits Middleton Village.”

Middleton Village. Middleton Village. I knew I had heard that name somewhere before, but I just couldn’t put my finger on it.

Tilting my head I just shrugged. “Ok.”

They both stared at me for moment then sat back in a way I found more familiar. I was used to people distancing themselves from me.

More people came in the classroom, then more. Most of them stared at me when they saw me, and murmurs in the room grew the more it filled. Their imps were still making suggestions to tease me, the main one being to steal the sunglasses off my face. However, as I sat back, waiting to see who would dare try it, I noticed two boys enter in together, pause at the front of the room and peer around it as if looking for somebody. One was stocky, the other lean. Both of them were rubbing their right palms in a gesture I found familiar, though I could not figure out where I had seen something like that before. Their eyes eventually turned right on me, and they peered hard at me. Though everyone had stared at me, this bothered me the most since their stares were not of curiosity but the intense looks of someone who had killed before and found me a threat.

But the pair of them took their seats, whispering to each other. I would have tried to ignore it but their imps shouted the most absurd things of all. “Grab the ruler and stake her! Do it now!”

Stake me? The funny thing was, those imp cries were familiar as if I had heard such calls daily for over the course of a year. Hearing it again made me shudder.

The room filled though. Soon the teacher came in, sat down and took out his papers for the course. He looked up when he saw me then beckoned me to the front of the room.

I got up and did as he asked, handing him my schedule, unfolding it first.

“A transfer student.” He murmured as he peered over the schedule and added my name to his list. Then he passed my schedule back to me. “You know, sunglasses are not allowed in school.”

A natural-feeling response came from my lips before I needed to think of one. “My eyes are light sensitive. I need to wear them.”

He snorted, leaned back in his chair, and said, “Introduce yourself to the class, then we’ll talk about it.”

Shrugging, I stood there and said, “Hi. My name is Eve McAllister. I’m…” My mind went blank. In every introduction a person ought to at least say where she was from, but I had a hard time remembering.

“Where did you move from?” the teacher coaxed me.

I took in a breath and thought hard. Images of the ocean, the beach and surfing came to me, and in that moment I realized I really didn’t even want to be in that classroom. I just wanted to be outside surfing a few waves.

“I’m from California,” I said in a more subdued voice.

Someone broke into groans. I heard the girl that had tried to tease me about putting on sun block say aloud, “Not another one. California must be invading.”

The teacher even snickered. He rose from his seat and said to the class. “Everyone, please tell Eve the rule about sunglasses.”

Almost the entire class recited together, “No sunglasses are allowed during class.”

He turned to me with a nod to tell me to obey that rule.

Ducking my head, I set my fingers onto my glasses. “But I told you, I have a medical condition. My eyes are sensitive to light.”

“Take them off anyway,” he said.

I shook my head at him, closed my eyes, but I took the sunglasses off.

Everyone drew in a breath and leaned back in their seats when I opened my eyes. I then looked to the teacher who staggered away from me. The pair of boys clenching their hands were the only two that had not reacted so dramatically. Their eyes narrowed as they watched me, but I ignored them.

I said to the teacher, “You want me to put my glasses back on now, don’t you?”

He shuddered then nodded.

“I thought so.” And I slid them back on to my face. “Is there anything else you need to know?”

The teacher shook his head.

Giving him a nod, I walked back to my seat.

It took a moment for him to gather his bearings. I had that effect on people. But when he did, he returned to his desk and called roll. I listened to the names, though normally I would have minded my own business. The girls that teased me were named Amy Paige and Mary Pransford. They reminded me of some former classmates of mine, though at present I couldn’t remember their names. Most of the others I didn’t really care about, but when the teacher called the names of two suspicious acting boys, my body tingled.

 “James Peterson.”

The name echoed in my head. Automatically I memorized his face.

“Here,” said the thickly built boy that was clenching his hand. His toasted brown hair stuck up, and he wore glasses and a button-up white collar shirt. Technically he was a geek, but he didn’t sit like a geek. In fact he seemed years older to me, kind of the impression one gets when talking to a vampire. Young but ages old. In this case James was like an old soul trapped in an awkward teenaged body.

The teacher called more names, and then he called out, “Daniel Smith.”

“Here,” said the lanky boy who was rubbing his clearly sore palm. He was like James, but with acne. He wore a brown shirt with white numbers on it, and he hunched in his seat as though the others around him just might start throwing things at him, and he was prepared to retaliate.

Our eyes met, and Daniel gave me a searching look. It wasn’t as if he hated me exactly, but it was as if he was worried. His heart sure did pound as though he were ready to run, or more likely to fight me.

But the class went by without any other incident. We studied trigonometry, a subject that was just a level higher than mine. As I sat there, I realized that I was in a junior class and not a sophomore class. It puzzled me that I had been put in a course higher than my grade, but as I sat there I assumed it was just a scheduling error. Figuring I would have to tell Aunt Margaret about it when I got home, I set it at the back of my mind.

When the passing bell rang, I got up and walked to my next course without any other thought to it. I had Chemistry next. The thing was, I noticed those two boys following me down the hall to that classroom. There I saw them get the attention of another boy who jerked over to stare at me, rubbing his palm. This boy was tall, freckled with red hair, dressed in sporty clothes that I would have worn. He had a kind face, but it tightened when he peered at me and whispered to the other two.

His imps were also shouting for him to kill me. It was strange, frightening even. My heart was doing drum-rolls now, as I felt unexpectedly outnumbered—though I didn’t know why. The redhead was about to talk to me, but just then our teacher came in and shooed Daniel and James out of the room.

“Alright everyone, take your seats.”

This class was a repeat of the last one, though the teacher called roll first. I gave the same introduction, the teacher had the same objection to my sunglasses, and everyone had the same reaction when I took them off. Only Andrew Cartwright, the redhead, set his hand to his face, thinking as I sat down.

When that class was over and I headed to my third hour, which was P.E., Andrew followed me just like James and Daniel had done. However, instead of following me all the way to the gym, he stopped halfway down the hall as two other boys approached him: a chocolate-haired boy wearing a striped tee shirt carrying a back pack with a shrunken head dangling from the zipper pull, and a thin blond nerdy boy that wore glasses, the latter an old soul, though the former no so much. Andrew pointed me out to them and they stared, clenching their hands with visible twinges of pain. For some reason I rushed as fast as I could to get away from them.