Chapter 24: Dead and Alive.

"Something happened to where he became the center world, correct? What was it?"

"Ask Avona. She would be able to tell you easier than I could."

"Why don't you just show me? That way you pick what you want me to see." Her voice was softer than I'd heard it so far, but I knew it wasn't pity for me. I nodded slightly.

I closed my eyes at the same time she closed hers. I made a mind connection and went back to the worst time in my life-human or vampire.

I was back at the castle, laying on my bed, my arm hanging over the edge of it, staring into blank space, no thoughts entering my head. I didn't move, but I didn't really want to move either. I took shallow, non-fulfilling breathes, feeling like something was constricting my breathing. My door opened and a hard-working maid in her late thirties peeked her head in the door, and when she spoke, I barely listened. "Madam, it is time for your supper." She said. It took a lot to make my mouth even form the words. "I'm not hungry." I told her truthfully. My appetite had completly vanished. My stomach didn't rumble and I never really thought about food. "Your father, King Johnathan, wishes you would at least eat something, Madam. You haven't ate but a plateful in the last three days. You are losing much weight, mistress. You will be nothing but bones soon." She said to me. "I am not hungry. I will eat when I am hungry." I told her quietly, still not looking at her. "As you wish, Madam." She said and shut the door quietly. I ran a hand lightly across my stomach, feeling the prominent ribs and sunken stomach. No, I was not hungry.

I closed that memory, but opened another one.

I was sitting on a chair in my bedroom, staring at a blank peice of paper an my elegant desk, no writing utensil in hand, no writing on the paper. The same maid opened my door and stuck her head in once again and spoke to me. "Madam, your nephew Jesse has arrived." At once, it seemed easier to breathe, easier to move, easier to do everything. Jesse walked in, looking as he always had, so happy to see me, now the maid had left. He had just turned four. "Stewa!" He yelled. I looked over to him. Jesse looked confused and his smile faded. "Why do you look so sad, Stewa? Your look sad." I tried to look more happy for his benefit. "I'm fine, there is no reason to worry. I just haven't been feeling well lately." In truth, I felt like I would rather just sleep eternally. I felt sort of weak from not eating, but I could feel my hunger return to me. I was hungry. And, for once, I felt like I could breathe, and I didn't feel like a ball of needles was in my heart. Jesse stayed at my house for the next week, but when he left, things were back to the way they were. The needles in my heart returned, the weight I had gained was quickly disappearing, and the loss of energy returned. I was dead, but my heart was still beating.

I broke the mind connection. Dasha looked less confused.

"Oh." She said surprised, sad, but she recovered quickly.

"You know, I was always kept sick when I was human. Flu, cold, fever, whatever was around at the time." I told her.

"Why?"

"When I'm sick, I don't fight, I don't resist. I just did what they said. I layed down and stared at the walls most of the time when I wasn't sleeping. When I'm feel sick, because I feel bad, I don't fight back and my father loved it. He kept me zombie-fied practically year around. I, of course, had to eat around three oranges a day nearly everyday, trying to help myself get better. I once ate five in one day. I, of course, threw up, being I'm mildly allergic to oranges. I was overloaded with the absorbic acid and my body had to get rid of it somehow."

"Nice." She said with a hint of quiet sarcasm.

"Do you like music?" I asked, trying to keep the conversation from being depressing.

"Yes. I thought you would know that after all the music questions." She said.

"What about dancing?"

"Yes."

"Publicly?"

"Yes. I like all eyes on me."

"Well, we have a club-type ball room." I have gotten more over my shyness of dancing in public' I still couldn't be like Minna on the dancefloor, unaware of everything besides her dance partner, but I was working on it.

"You get to party all the time?"

"No. We have school, but Minna has a thing for clubs."

"Let's eat already, I'm starving." Dasha said.

"I haven't ate since about Saturday, and that was four days ago. I also theorize that our bodies use our food up much quicker than say, Carlie's would. By my calulations, Jesse would have to hunt at least every other day, whether than ever four days like I do."

"How much does he drink a day?"

"An adverage of three gallons of blood day."

"So around half his body weight? Everyday?"

"Yeah. While I take in six gallons of blood every four days, he takes that in in only two days to drink that much. He drinks two times what I do and he weighs a under half of what I weigh. Where does that make sence? And Minna drinks only five or six gallons of blood every week, and Carlie and Andrew drink that much about every nine days. It seems like the older you are, the more you can hold blood."

"How much do you weigh?"

"Eighty-six pounds."

"How much does Jesse weigh?"

"Fourty-four pounds."

"So he does weigh a little bit more than half of what you weigh. Since we're twelve, shouldn't we weigh more than a nine year old? I think we're suposed to weigh like one-ten or something?"

"It's not like I chose how heavy I was going to be. I weighed just over seventy pounds by July of the last year I was a human. Then again, my ribs showed and I had lost half my muscle and ate usually only when I was forced."

"What was the other story of Angelina?"

"It was basically the same story. Exept the other story said that Angelina spoke to her mother, the stars, and asked if they would please keep away from earth, saying that she had come to love the planet and wished for the stars not to destroy it. Then it went on to say that the stars took her age at the time of her plea, doubled it, and gave her that long to live. Since she made the plea on the day of her seventh birthday, she died the day she turned twenty-one." What I said was true, but it was not the whole story. The story also said she had long black hair and pale skin. But it also didn't say anything about Angelina having three identical sisters, or two older sisters, or a younger brother.

It still puzzled me how I could come from the family in which I did. Avona had brown hair, and so did my father. My mother and I both had black hair. How in the world my younger brother had gotten blonde hair, I had no clue. Avona had green eyes, my father had blue eyes, my mother had brown eyes, and my younger brother had brown eyes. My exact eye color was like no one in my family's, not even close, expet for, of course, Dasha' and Hala's. Everyone in my family had wavy hair or curly hair, never exactly strait, and I got ruler strait. Everyone in my family mostly just had brown hair, or even blonde on rare cases, but I had black hair, like no one in my family. My mother always said her hair was black, but it was actually a dark brown.

Most everyone in my family tended to take after either their mother, or their father, like most everyone else in the world, but I took after both.

"When did the legend of Angelina appear?"

"In the twelfth century. Angelina was the most popular children's story in all the ages since."

"What were others?" Dasha asked.

"You should know. You grew up in the same country I did."

"Yeah, but I never listened to a children's stories. We weren't as lucky as you were."

"I guess not, but there was also the story of the wolf-raised human."

"Kinda like you." Dasha snickered.

"Have you heard it?"

"No. We only knew little bits of it." Hala said.

"Well, here is goes. Her parents were ordinary, kind and peaceful people, living in a small house close to the woods. They were overjoyed to be having a child, a family. Once the wife gave birth to a little girl, they named her Tia Marie. But soon they were both sick with an uncureable disease. They died soon after young Tia Marie turned three months old. The babe, so small, cried when she got hungry and with no one alive to hear, went on crying. A mother wolf, struggling with the loss of the runt of her litter, heard the cries and wandered to see what was wrong, and found a small child wrapped in blankets in a basket on the floor, next to the bodies of her parents. The wolf named Quick Foot, for some reason, took the basket with the child in it back to the woods with her, to her pups. She treated the human child as a wolf pup, nursing her, then teaching her to howl, and to hunt. Soon little Tia Marie grew like and normal girl would, except she had a kind desposition which kept her from hunting and from hurting things. She instead grew to eat only berries and grasses which she found to be enough. The girl learned to speak wolf, and bird, and rodent. The people closeby spotted her a few times and told the other villagers that this girl that behaved like a wolf, not a young girl. The people thought this girl ought to be captured and questioned. So they captured the girl and kept her in a cage like an animal. Tia Marie was only just fifteen by that time, and was terrified of the people. She knew nothing of them. They spoke none of the languages she spoke, didn't walk like she walked, didn't wear what she wore. They were strangers. Tia Marie howled for her pack, pleading with them to come get her. Only her adoptive mother, Quick Foot, heard her cries. Fearing for her strange pup, Quick Foot raced to Tia Marie's aid. The strong wolf bit the weak lock off of the cage which held her daughter and they ran together back to the forest. Tia Marie was more cautious and never went near the humans again. It was said by the time she died, she was a wolf, no longer human."

"The wolf-girl. Why does it seem like all stories have girls as the main characters?" Dasha asked.

"Because girls are smarter." I told her cofidently. "After all boys go to jupiter to get more stupider and girls go to college to get more knowlege."

"I always wondered, why did your family never bother to see what was happening to the smaller villages? Why did they just do nothing?" Dasha asked, and I could hear the buried resentment and anger in her voice.

"My parents didn't much care for small villages. They invested more in the more profitable cities and towns. You have seen what we have done."

"What have you done?"

"The current capital of Myrie. We made that. We gave into a city with potential and it is still florishing four centries I don't understand is why, even though I have given up the Keori, is how my siblings and my parents still react to me."

"What do you mean?"

"Have you not payed attection? Have you seen the was Annie or Minna or Civic get goosebumps when they hear me speak? How they flinch? I don't know why. I am unharmful to them now and they know it as well as I. Is it that they were scared of me for so long?"

"Dude, I just realised we have to hit the forest and then go shopping. New school means we have to get new clothes." Dasha said, completly off her other train of thought.

"Where do you want to go and in which car?"

"What are our options on cars?" Dasha said, raising an eyebrow.

"Twenty-eight options. The older kids are only allowed three cars each."

"Isn't that a lot of money?"

"You bet."

"Cool."

"Let's go ask my mom." I said and jumped off my bed. We ran down the hall, me and Dasha pushing each other out of the way, jumping over a gerbil and two hamsters on our way. Hala beat us. She didn't push, didn't shove, but she had an even better weapon. She turned into a vampire-cheetah and raced ahead of us, winning with a smug smile on her face.

"Hey, Carlie, can we go to Sacramento to shop for new clothes?"

"Sure, go ahead. Who do you want to drive?"

"Can Minna drive us?" I asked, pushing my luck.

"After what happened last time? Christelby, she took you to-"

"A club. I know. That will not happen again, I promise. We will just get clothes."

"I'll steal her phone and call you if anything happens, ok?" Hala said, looking innosent and sweet, clinging to Carlie's arm like she so often hung on to Dasha's.

"Ok. I trust you. Have fun, girls." Then we ran off to go find Minna. We found her in her room with the music on full volume and her slamming on her air guitar. She was wearing an oversized T-shirt tied just past her bra line and Jackary's shorts.

She paused the music with a remote in her pocket. "Hey, girls. Cj left so I was jamming out here."

I noticed a red light in the eye of a Chucky doll.

"What's with the filming video camera?" I asked.

Minna looked at it, but didn't seem suprised. "What can I say? He's a horndog. He is undoubtably watching a live feed of this on his cell."

"And you knew about it?"

"I saw it earlier."

"And you didn't take it down."

"It doesn't bug me. He can watch if he wants, it's not like he hasn't seen me naked. Now, what did you come to ask?" She said, sounding like it didn't bug her to admit that she and Jackary had had sex before. It didn't bug her and it didn't bug me either. After all, they were married.

"Can you take us to go get clothes in Sacramento?"

"Sure. Give me a couple hours to finish my jam session and get ready." She said, alittle jumpy.

"Ok. Have fun." I said and shut the door. Just as the door clicked shut, the loud music resumed.

"What is she really like?" Dasha asked when we had returned to my room.

"Party-girl extreme. You just hear about people who love to party, but she really does. She doesn't go three days without going to a club. A day spend without music and dancing is a day wasted to her."

"I see. What about her boyfriend or whatever?"

"Husband. They married the day after she turned eighteen, although she tells the humans that she married at twenty so they won't think she was too young. They had been best friends since they were fifteen. Then they got changed at sixteen, got changed back ten years later, and then they changed themselves back at twenty-three. Basically they knew each other for a year before they started dating, dated for eleven years, and have been married for two hundred and fifteen years. They both love to party. Minna tells me she used to never go to parties and never get in trouble, until she met Civic Jackary. He was party extreme and always in trouble and he taught her it's good to be bad. Minna told me she was real upset when Jackary went missing."

"Why did he go missing?"

"When he was changed. He was alone in an alleyway. Minna was back at the orphange with a cold, so she wasn't with him. The night the police called off the search, he returned. No one knew he had returned, except for Minna. He saw her every night for the next two weeks, then he changed her."

"When did they meet Carlie?" Hala asked.

"A few months after they have gotten married. Carlie said they were wild, irresponsible, and all together teens in adult bodies. She still says they haven't changed over the years since she met them."

"How long ago did she meet them?"

"Two centries ago."

"Why did they leave for the Keori?"

"Because Rosie and Cyrus came. Minna admits now that she got jealous since Carlie was spending so much time with them. Rosie, especially. Carlie had to spend weeks teaching Rosie to speak English like someone that had learned it as their first language and to leach her how to dress in American dresses and how to act American. After a few weeks of this, Minna and Civic left. Civic said that he had only gone because he knew he would miss his family very much, but he couldn't bare to be away from Minna."

"What do they spend their time doing?"

"Besides partying all night and dancing, they are pretty much just making out nonstop. I can't tell you how many times they've been caught in school making out. Probly a hundred or so."

"It's a school. Where can you find to make out?"

"Let's see. . . Under the bleachers, in the bathrooms, in empty classrooms, in the hallways, on the recess grounds, in the cafeteria, you name it. They were sucking face pretty much everywhere they can."

"With your parents here?"

"Yep. Exept not in public. You don't really see them around much. When you do, Minna is usually always in party clothes and Civic is usually always shirtless."

"Weird."

"Isn't everyone weird? Annie likes bugs, Isy likes dance moves, Rosie likes outfits, Carlie likes home design, Andrew likes boring books, Cyrus likes weapons, Cameron likes video games, I like art, Avona loves style, Jesse loves exploding things."

"I guess so. Let's get ready for the trip to the store." Dasha said and stood up. "I'll run back to our house and get some clothes, Hala."

"Please. Just wear some of my clothes. It's not like I'm a different size."

"But we don't wear your style of clothes."

"What you have seen is not the only variety I have." I said and I went into my maze of a closet. I pulled out a Dasha-style outfit and a Hala-style outfit from the very depths of my closet, from clothes I never wore.

"I didn't even know you had clothes like this." Dasha said.

"I don't wear them. Ever." I bought them on a whim, even knowing I would never wer them.

"Ooh, what is this?" Dasha found my biker jacket. It didn't really fit in with my normal style, but I wore it sometimes.

"You can wear it."

"Fabulous."

"Don't you have to go, like, ask your mom for money?"

"No. I have a credit card."

"But you are only twelve."

"So? I still have a credit card. I'm used to having money. Castle brats are loaded like you wouldn't believe, and I had a money printer at Arizee that printed whatever money I wanted and whatever type I wanted. I went where ever I wanted and did what ever I wanted."

"And you don't have a budget?"

"Sure I do. Stay under a half million a month."

"A half million?"

"Only because I'm twelve. All my other siblings get a budget of a million. Carlie said she would give Jesse one, too, but I buy him whatever he wants anyway."

"Has anyone even come close to it?"

"No way."

"How rich are you?" Dasha asked, eyebrow raised.

"I don't know exactly. I just know I can never in my lifetime spend so much money as we have. It's wonderful being rich."

"Don't you think you're spoiled? Even just a little bit?"

"I know I'm spoiled. Why wouldn't I be? I was a princess, after all."

"You are also a little bit stuck-up, you know that right?"

"That I did not know. What do you mean?" I said, stopping in the middle of putting on mascara.

"Let's see. . . 'It's wonderful being rich.' and 'Why wouldn't I be? I was a princess after all.' and 'I went where ever I wanted and did what ever I wanted.' You're stuck up. Face it."

"What did you expect? I've lived life being princess of an entire land, being the ruler of three large islands that no one even bothers, and I'm living the life of a rich California girl. What did you expect of a palace brat?"

"What is a palace brat?" She asked.

"You haven't figured it out yet? A palace brat is a princess or a prince who grew up in either a palace or a castle. I've always called them that."

"Doesn't that include you?"

"You bet it does. Most of the other girls I was forced to meet were very annoying, and when I called them palace brats, they got mad, so I did it a lot."

"Why are you stuck up?"

"I'm stuck up because I have the right. Look at how much I had done, even just at a mere twelve years old? I've murdered my family, became all I ever wanted, and all because I did it myself. No one did it for me."

"Oh."

"I'm also stuck up because I've never gone through a rough patch in my life. I've been loaded all my life and I've always gotten what I wanted, always been listened to. I went from being a princess, to ruling my own islands, to living it up in California."

"What were our parents like?"

"My father had a hot temper and a pride problem. My mother was quickly irritated."

"I have a temper. And you have a pride problem." Dasha said. She seemed to be sure of herself.

"How would you know that?"

"Hala told me. She knows a lot about you. She sees you in her head sometimes."

"What is Hala like?"

"She's kind, and loyal, and it takes her a lot to get angry. Everyone always said we were opposites. I get angry real quick, and she never gets angry. She's kind and I'm kinda sadistic."

"Why do you talk like that?"

"All uneducated? Because I've always talked that way, even though I'm not stupid. I tried to talk smart, and I was good at it, too, but it wasn't who I was. I just told Hala 'This isn't me' and started talking normal again."

I thought about what she said for a long minute.

Without saying anything, I took out my earrings, took my hair out of my high pony tail, and kicked off my three inch high heels.

"What are you doing?"

"You're right. This isn't me. I don't like earrings, I don't like to have my hair up, and I hate high heels."

She smiled. "Glad I made you see."

"I'm taking my sister's DC's for the rest of the day." I said and threw all my expensive Stilettos in my trashcan.

"You do realise how much those are worth?" Dasha said, looking at them like she couldn't believe what I had just done.

"Who cares? All I ever tried to do was look rich, but I really don't care. I don't need a Gucci jacket. I don't need a Prada handbag. I don't need a Oscar De La Renta shirt."

And that was it. I threw out about half my clothes.

When I went to see if Minna was finished "dancing" I saw Jackary walk out of their room with a spring in his step, no spiky collar on, and his hair much more messed up than usual. I knew she was following Kesha's example of "Let's dance with no pants on."

"Have fun dancing?" I asked Jackary sarcastically.

"More than you can imagine." He said, going into the game room. I watched as he tried to fix his hair. Stupid boy. Always out to get some.

Minna must have senced my thoughts, because she said "Hey, it ain't him saying let's have sex most of the time, chicka, so..."

We bought a whole bunch of clothes, enough to completly stuff Minna's truck. My clothes were normal clothes, not richie little princess clothes.

And then it was the next morning and we were getting ready for school. Hala dressed in clothes that fit her personality with a flower clip in her hair, and Dasha put on clothes that fit her style. As Carlie dropped us off, Hala gave her a hug. Carlie looked pleasently surprised. I don't give hugs. I looked over at Dasha.

"She hugs everything that dares to move." Dasha said. "It's disturbing."

"How are we even related Hala? Because I sure as heck never hug anyone."

"I wonder the same thing sometimes, but she's my sister and I can't deny it when she looks that much like me."

"Yep. I never looked like my other sisters and brother. I denied being related to my brother, of course. My brother had tan skin, blonde hair, and brown eyes. It was so very easy to say we weren't related. It's surprising when the guy I like looks more like my brother than I like to admit."

"Trayton, right? I've seen the way you look at him."

"What do you mean?" I frowned.

"You look at him like your looking at something you really want but you know you can never have. Kinda like a poor girl that likes a prince."

"It was kind of like that once. I was the princess looking down from my tall tower onto the poor peasent boy who loved another girl. It was like slow torture watching it. I got whatever I dreamed and I wanted the one thing I could never have. So. . . Hollywood romance movie." I said gravely. Dasha suddenly burst out laughing at my words combined with my tone. Then I saw someone I knew. Shannon Touth. And she was walking towards Hala, who was reading a poster on the wall about twenty feet away.

"What's with the new clothes, Christelby?"

"My name's not Christelby. It's Hala-Hala Fenree."

"Doubt it. What's with the little girl getup? Where are the biker jackets and stripper heels?"

"Don't talk about Christelby like that. Now, leave me alone, please." Hala said stiffly.

"I don't think I will, Veanina." Shannon Touth said, advancing on Hala. Shannon was clearly looking for a fight.

"She is not picking on my sister." Dasha said as we went over to where Hala and Shannon stood. Well, I was more tagging along to see what Dasha was going to do. Dasha came up from behind Shannon and pushed her hard and she almost tripped.

"Back off Hala before we have problems going down right here. You see, that's my sister and since she's the nice one and I'm the mean one, I deal with people like you. Unlike my other, more privledged sister Christelby, I grew up in what you would consider a bad neighborhood. That means I don't fight fair."

"Yeah, right. You touch me and I'll call the police on you for assult, I will promise you that." She told Dasha.

"If I'm going to Juvinial Hall again, I'm making it worth it, so choose carefully."

"Back off, you little punk. Take the first grader with you." She then proceeded to look Hala up and down like she was discusting. And that pushed Dasha over the edge. She lunged at Shannon and I didn't stop her. I didn't really want to stop her. I was tired of always being the good girl at school. Good grades, no resistance, teacher's pet. I held Hala back as she tried to get Dasha off of Shannon. Shannon deserved it, I knew it and Dasha had already figured out what type of person Shanon was.

Then my teacher saw it.

"Stop this!" My teacher said, pulling Dasha off of a bloodied and uncontious Shannon. Dasha let go without resisting after she got a last punch in. I had to admire her.

I let go of Hala since she wasn't fighting me anymore now that Dasha was off of Shannon.

"What has gotten into you?" My teacher asked Dasha.

"Nothing much, she just made me mad. By the way, you might want to call an ambulance. The bleeding tells me that my ring got her. Probable scarring. She better not have gotten blood on it. Maybe blood going down her throught, which could cause problems. I broke her jaw, it's obvious by the way it's sitting. Maybe her nose, too. Hope so. That's what she gets for messing with dynamite. Dynamite always comes in small packages. I guess she didn't know." Funny. I had once said the exact same thing about me being dynamite, and it was right after my fight with Shannon.

"You go strait to the principal's office while I call for an ambulance."

"Sure. This has got to be a record. It's a record for me, at least." And then Mrs. Treves, the teacher who now thought I had anger issues, was too busy to notice me and Hala. She tended Shannon without noticing there were two extra Christelbys. Hala looked to be on the verge of stressed tears.

"Look what you've done, Dasha! This is gonna get Christelby in trouble and Carlie will be mad at us and she won't like us no more and-and. . ." And then Hala drifted off into sobs. I did not know what to do. My area of expertise did not cover sobbing outside of Jesse. Dasha wrapped her arm around Hala and Hala seemed to calm down a little bit, but was still sobbing.

"Hala, if you're worried about her suing us, it's fine. It's not like we don't have money to spare. As long as she keeps it under a couple ten million, Carlie won't get mad. I doubt it would even make a dent in our money supply."

Hala started crying even harder. Dasha shot me a you're-not-helping look.

"Listen, Hala, I don't do crying. I only cover when Jesse cries, and he never cries for any rediculous and impossible reason. I have only been grounded once and that was because I snuck out to a club with Jackary and Minna. It won't even go on Dasha's record. I'll take the blame since I've had problems with her before and I will change her memories to where she started it. Dasha won't get in trouble, okay? You know, I could test you, Hala, and see if the emotion part of your brain is funtioning normally. Maybe that's what's causing this sobbing. Mine doesn't." This made Dasha look at me like I was crazy.

"You have brain issues?"

"Yes. The emotional control part of my brain funtions abnormally, causing haywire emotions. My sences are twice as active as a normal vampire's though. That's good. Having the same DNA as me, you might have the same problems. However, there is a chance that I may have problems that you don't. It is common in some multiple births that some of the children end up having problems that others don't, the rate of one having the same problems as another are only slightly higher than with other silings."

"Duh. I already knew that. Anyone with part of a brain can figure that out."

"Do you realise I have known you for less than a week. You still have a lot to learn."

"Then tell me all I need to know, master of mine." She said in a sarcastic, emotionless tone. It reminded me of someone, only I didn't know who.

"You are subject to depression, hyperactive tendencies, attention problems, and obsesive compulsive disorder." I said, ignoring her comment.

"When were you depressed?" She said, back to her normal self.

She said, doing off of her previous train of thought.

"I fought with depression in June 1584 becuase my father's mother was living with us. I prayed that my grandmother would drop dead or if she didn't, that I would."

"Do you have any more medical history I should know about?"

"Other then as a human, my eyes were horrible, not really." Finally, we arrived at the office.

"Ok, here's the plan. I take the rap, Hala, start crying as you are explaining that you tried to stop me so he'll take pity on us. I'll act innosent." I told them my plan.

I knew from the begining that I was going to have a hard time convincing him of my innosence. He did not look happy.

"So. I have gotten a call from Mrs. Treves saying that you got in a fight with Shannon Touth again."

"Yep. What's my punishment?"

He ignored my question. "Why did you get in a fight with Miss Touth?"

"She got into a fight with me, to clarify. As to why, she was making fun of Hala Fenree."

"The new student?"

"Yes. She's just outside the door if you want to talk to her, along with her sister Dasha."

"Defending others is noble, but getting into a fight-"

"I was always taught to fight for my family."

"I see, but your parents are not always right in all matters."

"I'm not a puppet for my parents. I know what is right and what is not. I'd estimate my IQ is higher than yours, so do not talk to me like you are talking to a five year-old. I am not the usual child and I refuse to sit here like a cow being led to slaughter. Now, give me two weeks suspention like last time, it does not go on my permanent record, and don't talk about it to anyone. Okay?" And he did what I said. I loved my mind control. And that was the end of the problem. Of course I got yelled at by Carlie, but that was to be expected.

"Oh, hey, Annie. What's up?" I said as she walked in after knocking.

"Have you guys listened to that new song E.T., ya know, Extraterrestrial, by Katy Perry."

"Don't say that word." I comanded Annie.

"What word?"

"Extraterrestrial."

"Why?"

"Because I said not to!" I said loudly. I couldn't stand the word terrestrial. It had bad memories attached to it.

"Don't talk like that to me, Christelby. You know better."

"Whatever Annie. Whatcha' gonna do? Tell my dead mother on me?"

"Why are you acting like this?"

"None of your business."

"Well, as you're snapping at me, it is my business."

"I wouldn't tell you even if it was any of your business."

"Why?"

"Because I promised myself that I wouldn't. And I don't break my promises."

"What bugs you, the 'extra' or the 'terrestrial'?"

"The last part." My second name when I was human had been Terrestrial.

"You do know that terrestrial only means 'from another planet.'"

"Originally, it didn't. It meant 'beauty from another land.' Do not forget, AnnaBelle, I was born three hundred years before you. My knowlege of the original meanings of words far exceeds yours seeing as I lived through the meanings of words, learning every word in every language they has ever been spoken when it was being spoken."

She gave up, seeing I wouldn't tell her. "Do you know that different languages of the same word can change spellings even though it is still sounds almost the same?"

"I know that. Like your name is Anné without an I in British English, but Annie with an I in American English."

"I know. I noticed when everyone kept calling me Anne, instead of Annie. It was the same thing for Rosie's name. She adopted the English spelling later. Cameron called her Rose until she punched him. How was your name spelled?"

"C-h-r-i-s-t-e-l-b-i. It was never terribly different. My name in this language is terribly complicated, so I never changed it. I thought it was bad enough the way it was."

"What is it in English?"

"Erik-ee-ra it how it would be pronounced. E-r-i-k-e-i-r-a is how it would be spelled. And that's only my first name. I found the name Christelby was much more beautiful." I lied smoothly. I wouldn't tell them that my other name was actually Terrestrial Celeste.

Dasha and Hala left into the bedrooms that Carlie had built them in my house. They had been adopted into the family quickly. Hala even called Carlie Mom and Dasha called her Carlie most of the time. Dasha was resistant like me to getting attached quickly.

A few minutes later, Trayton came in. He was here a lot, even though his friend Sir Dayna had left only a few weeks after Trayton had gotten here. Sir Dayna still visited sometimes, though not very often.

Annie left without questioning me further, and Dasha, Hala, and I started in on our dance routine for Glamorous by Fergie, which we were going to sign up to play in the talent show. We would sign up in a few weeks.

The door bell rang. I went down to answer it, seeing as the rest of my family was ignoring it. I stopped with my hand on the door knob. I had a strange feeling. I almost wasn't going to answer it.