LIFE WITH UNKNOWN

It all starts off pretty smooth. I, Lia, have a usual change every three years, transfer to a new place. It might be easy to imagine but is NOT in real life. Adjusting to a new place every three years is the worst and making friends knowing that you will leave them anyway seems impossible. The only thing I like about it is exploring new places and expecting to find an adventure. Well, we should never expect the things to work the way you like because it's nearly impossible while it comes to adventure. Adventures may seem exciting, but once you are having one you really wish it would end. Now here is a weird experience I had in one of the corners of the world.

I usually have a very bad first day but this time; I made a bunch of friends already. It is strange because I have always been called an introvert at my other schools. Even how I met them was a wonder. The first day and I already made two friends; Lila and Jack. They are twins. As I was a friend of theirs, everyone thought I was cool and the thing which made me cooler was I was a transfer student from India.

How I met them was seriously insane. They were my neighbours and as my interest in exploring dragged me into the forest, I saw them do what I have been doing for years after every transfer. I write a deep description of the place in my journal and name a tree after me. They have named their trees already and built a tree house too…

Then, there was Penelope who was on the football team. I met her while she hit me with a football during rehearsals. She had black hair and she was an exchange student from Paris. I met her again in court because; I am in the cheer-leading squad and guess who is the captain of the cheer team; Lila. When everything was going well there comes the weirdest part...

Just the third day of school I woke up a bit late, when I say a bit I actually mean a lot, I missed the school bus; which might be the first time in my whole life. I was running towards school and an old, stout and a bit scary woman appeared out of nowhere and asked me to do her a favour.

She asked, "are you, O'Brien". I answered with a panting and unclear voice "No". Well, she seemed obvious and told me with tears filled in her eyes "You look a lot like my granddaughter, Elle. Can you keep this for me?" She passed me a beautiful necklace with a moon pendant. "What a beautiful necklace! But, I got to go I am already late for school. Thank you" I tried to leave but she held my hand and whispered into my ear "wait for the magic to happen and wear it after the sundown". She held my hands so tight I could not move my hand and she continued with a creepy grin "once you wear it you will always have a key to every problem around your neck, it goes with your star ring it is special". She left my hand and I got back to running for school.

I did not mention this to anyone but almost everyone noticed it. It was that sparkly. That day did not go smoothly; I got detention for coming late. This, again never happened. Who knew detention was that awful; they were sticking gum on the teacher's chair.

I had a sleepover party the other weekend. I noticed a wolf tattoo on Penelope's wrist; the same one which the old lady had. "Are you... O'Brien" I asked. "Do you want water Lia?" She asked me as soon as O'Brien slipped out of my mouth. "Well I. I need some" she stuttered. "Story-time?" I said in an unsure and low voice. She rushed to the kitchen quickly chugged some water and left as quickly. All I heard was rushing of water and the other second the slam at the front door.

After that incident, it was almost like I'm invisible to Penelope. Whenever I caught her alone she made some excuse to get out of there as quickly as she can. I never saw her being mean before but she acted else way sometimes when I did not allow her to leave.

After a couple of days, the twins texted me "meet us at bread's cafe at five after school" I just texted her back "the new place huh???" then Jack came online saying "the cafe which sells everything except for bread" and then Lila was mad at Jack for trying the new place without her then the chat went on for like fifteen minutes when Penelope quit the group.

Before I even knew the twins convinced Penelope to come to bread's and somehow both the twins got sick to leave me and Penelope alone to solve our problem. Then I did not really jump right back to 'O'Brien' incident but Penelope spilled her beans anyway.

She told her mother came here to stay away from her stepdad who was just using her for money. Anyway, she loved her step-sister as her own. So I even got the answer to why she would randomly hit with a ball because I looked like Elle O'Brien. So, that creepy old woman was Penelope's step-grandma.

I got my friend back and our gang got our beauty back. I was really looking up to the spring break. The twins were planning something big but tried to keep it a surprise for Penelope and me. Nevertheless, unfortunately, I never stop using Lila's phone because I always forget mine. Then I checked for events on her phone and it showed 'BIG SURPRISE' after two days.

We waited for two days but nothing really showed up the day but, that night the twins and Penelope showed up at my door. Penelope could not look any puzzled than that time. Then we turned on the TV to watch some news which we never did. It was news about a teen group who tried to sneak in an old shut down amusement park. Jack had something planned.

The reason behind that was to find a spooky place to spend the spring break which made me a bit less looking up to the break. Now spooky places really made me wonder about my dream, the meeting of two different worlds. Maybe the way we were going to meet the other world was the amusement park named STEEL WAREHOUSE.

The name free zed my nerves every time I heard it. It was closed for about a decade because; a few kids went missing after entering THE CLOWN HOUSE. I heard that it was a haunted house where you have to enter the house through the clown's mouth; the house was shaped like a clown's face.

I agreed to do it for the adventure waiting for me since I was ten. We had a sleepover that night; we all slept in the hall after watching a psycho killer movie. We were all scared. we slept very close and had a hammer at hand. We went crazy that night and I also made them try Indian food and they all cried out of the spice.

We all got crazy and weirdly same dreams leaving Penelope and all those dreams were about Penelope; the dreams warned us about Penelope's safety. Jack was most moved by it and wanted to take responsibility for her safety. He got his entire group at his back whenever he needed them and they were here this time to save Penelope from whatever was yet to come...