1 Chapter 1

Nova stared at her book in awe, as the main character jumped into an endless void. "Ellie?" her substitute teacher asked.

"Here!" Ellie said proudly as Nova realized they were doing roll call. Just in time too.

"Nava?" the sub said, then realizing her mistake. "Nova?" she corrected herself.

"Oh. Uh, here," she said quietly for… reasons. She saw a group of girls look at her and giggle. She lowered her head towards her book.

"That's uh, a… unique name," the sub said, causing the girls to giggle even louder. It wasn't the first time a sub messed up her name though. The substitute finished off the names and told them to go to first period.

Nova rounded up her books and swiftly walked out the classroom door, before anyone could embarrass her anymore-or trip her. People did that to her a lot. She knew why though. She walked to math class and quietly stepped in. For some reason, her math teacher had no posters of strategies, or cheesy catch phrases, or something like that. All he had was a SmartBoard and a couple white boards around the room.

The only poster Mr. Harris had was a poster with a siamese cat in a tie dye shirt and sunglasses on it. Her teacher always talked about cats and only chose cat related math problems. She always thought that if she saw Mr. Harris's house, it would be filled with cats. Mr. Harris was most definitely a crazy cat lady- er, man, and probably the weirdest teacher in school. If anyone ever came to him with a problem that wasn't math related, he would always say "Man, you've got more problems than a math workbook," even if it was only one question.

Nova took her regular seat in the corner of the room. The group of girls came in and their "leader," Emily Robins, glared at her, smirked, then whispered something to one of her "minions." Then, she walked over to her.

Thoughts swarmed in Nova's mind. What would she say?

"Congrats!" she said smugly. "You just won the award for Dork Of The Year!" Her minions laughed. Nova stayed silent. "Wow. I never thought you'd beat Alvin," she pointed at Alvin who was talking to Mr. Harris about Algebra. She obviously thought Alvin was a nerd. "But today, you proved me wrong. Good job!" she said laughing, quickly adding "I bet there will be plenty of Dork Awards to come," she laughed her snotty, wicked, laugh. Nova still stayed quiet.

Emily slinked back to her group. Everybody laughed and stared at Nova. She kept quiet and watched them all walk back, satisfied, towards their normal table-directly across from her on the other side of the room.

This weird kid, Ted, who had never talked to her before walked over. "Can I sit here?" he said, surprising Nova. Nova said nothing. She never talked unless she had to. "I'll take that as a yes," he said as he sat down one chair away from her.

He… sat down? He actually sat down. WHAT!?! NOBODY HAS EVER SAT WITH HER BEFORE IN ALL OF HER LIFE!

Nova had always been the weird kid everyone hated. With her jet black, waist length hair, pale skin, and deep brown-flecked green eyes, everyone thought she was a vampire. Which… she kinda was related to…? Wait. This is a joke. It had to be. Nobody ever sat with her intentionally, but she knew he was serious when he cracked this stupid joke.

"You sure are an, uh, open book. A-aren't you?" The way he said it. How nervous he was. She knew he was seriously trying to be… friendly