This Is Not My Life, Astrid Elizabeth Dare [book series for 10 year olds TXT] 📗

be doing at this time? I had no idea. I looked at the calendar on the wall. Days were crossed of with sharpie. The next day to be crossed of was November the tenth. Was that today’s date or the date I had supposedly run away? I looked down at myself. I was wearing a faded black t-shirt and cameo pants. I opened the closet and looked through the clothes.

Nathan really liked the color black. He had several black t-shirts and jeans. He also had cameo jackets and pants. In the back of the closet I found some green t-shirts and a pair of blue jeans. I pulled those out. I would change into those.
I took off my shirt and something fell to the floor. I picked it up. It was a dog tag.
In bold black letters there was something written on it.

PJ52208

Hmm… What did this mean? I flipped the tag over in my hand. There was something written on the back in a faded scrawl. I could just make it out.

Daniel

I said it out loud. “Daniel.” This was my name. I could feel it. It was just right. I was Daniel not Nathan. I was Daniel and I shouldn’t be here. I didn’t belong. But then where did I belong? And where was Nathan?


Chapter two Nathaniel


I was lying on a stiff mattress under a thin sheet. I felt horrible. My head was pounding. I felt like I had been run over by a stampede of elephants several times over. I tried to open my eyes but I couldn’t. They were too heavy. I gave up after a moment and fell back into the worm embrace of sleep…


When I woke up for the second time I sat bolt upright in bed instantly alert. I set the book down on the floor non to gently and got up. I was in a small white room. There was absolutely nothing in it besides the white bed I had been sleeping on. The walls and tile floor were white too. Everything was white. The door had a window with bars on it. The window afforded me a view of a deserted hallway. I tried the door. It was locked of course. What the hell?
What was I doing here? Was I in a prison or something?
I hadn’t done anything! I banged on the door.
“Hello! Anybody out there? Hello! I don’t know what I’m doing here!” I yelled through the window. No response. I started pacing the length of the small room.
I was trapped. Caged like an animal. Why? What was I doing here? How had I gotten here?
It was at that moment that I realized I didn’t remember anything. I racked my brain, but nothing. It was like my mind had been wiped clean of any kind of memory. Not only did I not know how I had gotten here, but I also didn’t know anything about myself. I had no past. No Identity. What was my name? I didn’t know it! I didn’t even have a name!
Geez! What the hell had happened to me? Okay don’t panic. This is all just a bad dream I told myself. Yeah, and any moment now I’m going to wake up in my bed at home. Where did I live anyway? Shit! I was really starting to freak myself out.


After pacing the room for a couple of hours and yelling though the door a few hundred times more someone finally answered. The lady that came in was a short redhead with glasses and wearing a white lab coat. She had a huge fake looking smile plastered on her face and too much makeup on. The name tag on her coat told me her name was Dr. Diana Delgado.
“Hello Nathanial I’m Diana. I need you to follow me to the lab so we can have some quick tests done before we place you.”
“What? What tests? Place me where?” My name was Nathanial?
“Don’t worry, Nathanial, Dr. Filler will explain everything after the tests.” When she said tests I got an image of myself strapped to a bed surrounded by men in white lab coats and holding sharp objects. She walked out of the room expecting me to follow, but I hesitated. She turned around.
“You have nothing to worry about Nathanial. You’re in good hands.” She gave me an encouraging smile and beckoned for me to follow her. I sighed. It seemed I had no choice if I wanted an explanation. So I built up my courage and followed Dr. Delgado out of the room.
Hoping the tests weren’t anything like I imagined.


Chapter three Daniel


“Have a good day, Nathan!” Susan Simon said cheerfully. She preferred I call her mom the way Nathan did before he disappeared, but I insisted on calling her Ms. Simon until she gave me her first name to use instead. Also I had been wondering about the Miss thing and had finally gotten the courage to ask her what had happened to Mr. Simon at breakfast this morning. It turns out that Susan isn’t actually Nathan’s mom, but is in fact his aunt. Nathan’s parents had died in a car accident when he was three. Susan had become his guardian and moved out of her apartment in New York to come here and take care of her orphaned nephew. Also Nathan’s last name wasn’t the same as Susan’s. His last name was Stephenson.
I bid Susan farewell and walked into my new school. Susan had informed me that since I had been gone for so long I would have a lot of makeup work to do. She told me that each of my teachers had prepared the work I would need to do and that I would be welcome to go to them after school if I needed any help.
This would be challenging. Like with the computers I knew what a school was, but I don’t believe I had ever been to one. Had I been homeschooled? It was annoying the way amnesia worked. You could know certain things about yourself without having any solid memories to explain how you knew them.
There were many kids hanging out around the courtyard. They chatted with one another or else had something to keep them occupied such as listening to music, doing homework, or reading. There were only a handful of kids reading I noticed. I was heading for the school, intending to go the front office and request a copy of my schedule. But before I could make it across the courtyard someone ran into me with a cry.
I looked down at the little girl hugging me in surprise. She was talking a mile a minute and I couldn’t keep up with most of what she said. Just before I was about to pry this strange little girl off me she let go and glared up at me. I realized she wasn’t a little girl after all. She was a teenager about my age probably. She was a very small teenager though. I think she was probably about five feet. She had shoulder length brown hair and brown eyes that were filled with anger and relief at the same time. She was holding in her arms three books and had a backpack slung over one shoulder.
She stared at me as I studied her and her expression changed from rage to bewilderment. I guess she hadn’t been expecting for me to just stare at her. I cleared my throat.
“Do I know you?” I asked. I could guess what her answer would be, but thought it more polite to ask. She reacted similarly to the way Susan had. Disbelief and confusion.
“What you don’t recognize me?” She asked. Wasn’t that obvious?
“I’m afraid not.” I answered.
“B-but-but it’s me! Cassie. Cassie your girlfriend! You must remember me!” She sounded so distraught I found myself automatically trying to comfort her.
“Hey it’s all right,” I said gathering her small frame in my arms. “I just hit my head or something while I was… away. I can’t remember anything, but it’ll come back I’m sure.” This wasn’t an outright lie. I couldn’t remember anything. I did think my memory would return to me eventually. I hoped so anyway. And I might have hit my head, though I didn’t think this was likely it was still a possibility.
She put her head on my shoulder and sighed. “I have missed you so much Nathan! I can’t believe you just left like that.” I could hear the tears in her voice. I patted her head in a way I hoped was comforting.
I didn’t want to tell Cassie I wasn’t her boyfriend for many reasons. The main reason being that she wouldn’t believe me. I looked like her boyfriend, Nathan, so therefore I must be him. I had already compared Susan’s pictures of Nathan with my reflection and we did look almost exactly alike. We both had the same dirty blond hair and blue eyes. We both had the same pale complexion. We both had the same slim build. There had been some differences between me and the boy in the pictures, but they were very slight differences. The kind of things that could be attributed to time such as how my hair was longer than Nathan’s. Or the way I had straight back, but the boy in the pictures was always slouched over, hunching into himself. I had only these small differences as proof that I wasn’t Nathan. Not much to go on. There is only so much you can see in a photograph.

A boy walked up to us a huge grin on his face. “Stop hogging him Cass I haven’t seen him in weeks either.” Cassie slowly let go of me and turned to the boy.
“He can’t remember anything Russel. He lost his memory.” Cassie told the boy. I studied