1 Chapter One: Part One (Sarah's POV)
Sarah Cannon © Cannon Stories
Sarah Payne's POV:
Sometimes, I wish life weren't so boring. An ordinary town with ordinary people and me sitting here dreaming of grander things waiting on a big yellow school bus to carry me to the only high school in this tiny town (Summit Christian Academy). I'm a sixteen-year-old orphan living with my foster family who doesn't really acknowledge my existence unless I ask for food or to shower or they want me to do something. My birth certificate lists no one as my parents, apparently, I was dropped off at the local orphanage when I was a few months old with a note stating my birth date and name along with a thin silver necklace with a cross pendant and an emblem in the center of the cross of a wolf howling.
We live in a large plantation house on a farm outside of city limits making it difficult for me to get a job since I do not have a car and no job to pay for one. I can't make money for extra art supplies and books which are the two things I love the most in the world, nor can I get away from the house often unless its for school. I don't ask the Quinn family that fosters me for many extra things, and they give me forty dollars a month to get sketch paper… which doesn't get much real sketch paper so I buy copy paper for printers and draw on that.
If someone were to come to look for me at any given time, they can find me at the top of the hill, west of the house, under a giant oak tree drawing. A means to escape from the doldrum reality in which I live.
On this current day, my birthday, it is January the twenty-third. Good ol' 1-2-3 birthday… Annnnd my second sophomore school semester starts today of all days this week. So far, I have lived with my foster family for about 6 months… and they have been loaded up on opioids and alcohol in an induced sleep or arguing about how they can get more. They clean up just long enough for inspections, and monitor my phone calls to keep getting their state funds to pay for more drugs. Not a one of them know what today is and there is no way I am reminding them or asking for anything to get screamed at.
I flee out to the bus stop (a good quarter mile from the house down a dirt path from the house) as soon as I get dressed in the morning and skip breakfast. My lucky self is the first kid on the bus in the morning and the last kid off the bus in the afternoon. When Ms. Kim stops at the end of the drive way, I head straight to my seat at the back after a quick "good morning" to her. She likes me pretty well and knows I avoid trouble like the plague, so she gave the back seat opposite from behind her all to my little ol' self. I sat down and pulled my hood over to use as a buffer between my head and the window and rest. I sit in peace and quiet until a good number of students get on and start to chat.
I spend any chance I can in quiet at school, since my home life is so full of chaos and anger. I have gone to this school since I was in kindergarten, being at the orphanage for a majority of that time made life so much easier since I could just walk across the street. Unfortunately, I have pretty much been stigmatized since most of the kids at my high school are too good to sit with or hang out with me anyways, ironically enough even being raised in a Christian environment. You would think that this community would attempt to teach their kids to be kind and humble, but human nature is what it is I suppose. It doesn't help that teenagers are sacks of raging hormones.
The bus continues picking up passengers, and we finally get to my favorite and least favorite stop. My least favorite person, the villain of my days, walked onto the bus and immediately spotted me looking for my best friend. Joy. Her name in which she brings the opposite meaning into my life. A tale which started long ago. She is the dean's daughter, and she is the main reason why I am more of an outcast than I should really be.
As a student at the Christian Academy, we all are mandated to wear a uniform with strict guidelines. The general guideline is: a skirt at least knee length (black or navy blue) or khaki or black dress pants, a collared shirt (white or cream with limited to no decorations), and closed toed shoes of any color and design (which is how most kids get their unique style out). Joy on the other hand, wears short skirts with elaborate decorations on the skirt or her shirts are always buttoned a little too low (especially for her not very well-endowed chest). She's always trying to wear the brightest and shiniest clothes she can to go right along with her straight blonde hair, light skin, and blue eyes. While I go for the dark end of the spectrum. I wear cream button ups, with black skirts, and boots of which I worked to earn money while at the orphanage to buy. I have dark curly brown hair, green eyes, and olive skin which easily tans in the sun. She is light while I am dark, which probably doesn't help my case with the other students.
The funny part of this whole story? Joy hasn't always disliked me. When we were in elementary school, she was my best friend. Then, one day her dad brought her to school early with him and she saw me walk across the street from the orphanage and she realized I had no parents, she started treating me differently. First, she started treating me with sympathy, then it turned into pity, and pity turned into belittling me in front of our other friends and talking about me behind my back. By the end of our third-grade year, we were no longer friends because I finally decided to stand up for myself after listening to her snide remarks for months. I usually let her comments roll off my back since the nuns at the orphanage treated me with such kindness and taught me that I should take the high road, but one day she tried to take the cross off of my neck and I snapped. I didn't have to say a word, but when she had grabbed my necklace, my hand had move on reflex and grabbed her wrist. I squeezed harder and harder, staring into her eyes until I felt a pop and heard a squeal from her lips. I snapped out of my anger and looked down to see her wrist already bruising and her holding it and crying. She wouldn't tell the teacher or anyone else what really happened, she just said she had bumped into me and fell. All I remember was she made some comment about my parents abandoning me and me not needing my necklace which made me so mad my mind went blank.
Anyways, that was the end of my attempting to be civil with her. Any time she made a comment from then on, I made sure to bring up an embarrassing piece of truth that would make her turn beet red and she stopped messing with me after a while. She did try to isolate me on regular occasions, especially if a new student happened to grace our school with their present. She always made sure to be the first to know when anyone was coming to the school whether it was a guest speaker or a new student so she could bombard them at the front door and give the "Joy-ful Tour." *gags* So most students who saw her blatant dislike of me usually just avoid me for fear of angering "her highness."
Anyways, after that drawn out explanation of my of my nemesis, she got on the bus and headed to her seat after smirking at me, flipping her hair over her shoulder, and started her early morning high pitched chattering. Fortunately, she sits across the aisle (behind Ms. Kim) and three rows up so I don't have to deal with her on the bus.
I was only even looking at this stop because I saw my landmark, the set of three mailboxes attached together across the road with a large cross behind them and a small church behind that. That marked this stop and my best friend, the person who sits in the seat in front of me, getting on the bus.
"Hey Payne," my friend Nick Edwards sat in his seat and sat sideways with his back against the window. "That break wasn't nearly long enough." He sighed and ran his hand through his short wet straight jet-black hair.
"Oh, how right you are," I leaned away from my own window and stretched as much as my seat would allow. "Think there will be anything interesting that sophomores can actually attend this year that won't cost an arm and a leg this semester?"
"Not sure, but I finally got my license… and…" he looked over at me from under his long eye lashes, "as of next week I can come by and pick you up before school if you still want…" he was smiling. Nick is handsome, above average handsome. He was blessed with tan skin and very rarely got acne or pimples. Somehow, he wasn't charmed by Joy's brightness and instead enjoyed spending time with me tinkering on things or drawing. We enjoyed many of the same activities, which I thank God for EVERY day I wake up. I may have a huge crush on this guy…
"Are you kidding?! YOU DIDN'T!!?" I dramatically gasped, "You fixed Stacy!" Stacy is his Shelby Mustang, him and his dad's pride and joy that 'needed' a paint job and a sensor replaced.
"Yep, working with Dad at the shop has paid off! We went with that metallic blue by the way," he puffed up his chest proudly. I smiled at my best friend.
"I'm proud of you, and I can't wait to see it! Well, if you don't mind me tagging along and going a bit out of the way to snag me on the way to school, I will happily take you up on the offer. I will happily get off this germ riddled thing some," I patted the seat laughing. He laughed with me when he jumped and his face lit up.
"Oh! Dad said he talked to Frank (my foster dad) and you'll be able to start working with us next week working on electrical for the cars. We will teach you, its' minimum wage starting off but if you start being able to work alone then you can make bank later. I can take you to the shop after school is over and home before curfew. Frank never told Dad when we need to have you home or what days you can't work. What time do they want you home?" We pulled up to the school and the bus doors opened.
"They told me that they don't care. I honestly think I could disappear and they wouldn't care. They did make sure to tell me I had better not cause any trouble." I frowned and turned my head to the side…
"Like when have you ever made any trouble?" Nick burst out laughing as the students filed off the bus. We followed suite and headed towards the main doors of the building. I got a chill up my spine. It felt as though someone were looking at me from my left so I glanced that way to see a sleek black car parked by the curb. No wonder Joy was so perky. A new student was being introduced to the school today. She practically ran to the front door where her father stood every morning to greet the students entering the building.
"Daddy," she whined, "I can't believe you didn't let me ride with you this morning at least! When will I be allowed to drive myself to school?" She continued to pester her father as he stared around the crowd of students with his stoic manner.
"Last warning, my dear daughter," he slowly looked down at her and raised one eye brow waiting for her to continue her temper tantrum. Joy immediately gathered herself together and stood at his side.
"I apologize father. I won't do it again. I know you have your reasons," she stood with her hands held together in an elegant pose as she waited for the new kid or her pose to get to her and break the tension. He dad has always been distant, even if he was lax with discipline. It was almost as if he forgot she existed at times. And no one dared bring up her uniform for fear of having those ice blue eyes look into theirs. I avoid Dean Roberts more than I avoid Joy in all honesty. Something about him makes me uncomfortable in my skin.
With that thought in mind, I was so close to making it passed him without him seeing me, but Joy of course had to call Chase who happened to be behind me at that moment, drawing his eyes in my direction. Dean Roberts didn't look a day over 25, his daughter took after him in many ways, though she wasn't nearly the beauty that he was. I felt his eyes on me felt drawn to look up.
"Good morning students," his voice flowed over the crowd. Everyone else replied with chipper responses, while I couldn't take my eyes away from his. I squeaked out a good morning and Nick threw his arm over my shoulder laughing. "Rule two students, limit personal contact." He stated, and went back to staring among the crowd coming towards him.
Nick kept his arm over my shoulder and pulled me in closer. "Sometimes the dean really creeps me out." He said as we walked down the hall to our lockers, conveniently side-by-side.
"Yeah… no joke," I replied, drawing my arms in as I shivered again. Today seems like it is going to be a very creepy day….
Sarah Cannon © Cannon Stories
