The Crystal Kingdom
by Dakota Orlando
Chapter 2
Another Girl Who Thinks She’s an Artist
The bell to end school sounded, and Edie wandered to the wrong side of the school to catch her bus. She had to run through the halls to reach her bus on time.
Pushing open the double doors at the other end of the school, she watched the first few buses in a long line pull out.
Sprinting, she raced past the unmoving buses, reading their numbers. When she spied bus number 366, it was pulling away. She dashed to the bus doors and pounded on them.
“Hey, wait for me. Wait for me!”
The bus stopped, and the doors flew open.
“Who are you?” said the young male driver, glaring at her with a horrific scowl.
“I’m the new girl. I’m Aida Campobasso.”
Doinkers! How I hate to say my real name.
The man yanked a clipboard off the dash and examined it. “Yes, you’re on here.” He slapped the clipboard back in place. “Get aboard. You’re holding up the entire school.”
Edie climbed on, but the man threw an arm out, blocking the aisle. Bouncing off it, she glanced down to discover him pointing at the first seat across from him. “Sit there.”
She moved her book bag into her lap, sat in the empty seat, and opened her notebook as the bus drove away from the school. During the three miles to her stop, she sat thinking about nothing but Johnny Rivers.
The bus stopped where a badly eroded asphalt road led up a steep hill to her house. She jumped off and started walking until she heard feet plop down behind her.
She twirled around, and her heart tripled its beat rate. “Johnny Rivers? You live in one of the six houses up the hill?”
Johnny tossed his hands onto his hips and glowered as the bus pulled away. “Bizarro, man. Just my luck.”
Edie scurried toward him, unable to keep the smile small enough to prevent her buckteeth from showing. “What a coincidence. This is … great. Just great!”
Johnny darted around her. “I’m glad you think so.”
“Let’s walk together,” Edie said, dashing to catch up to him. “I already told you it’s my dream to become a geologist. My second choice is veterinarian … since I love animals so much.” She glanced down at him as they strode side-by-side. He stared ahead like a stone statue—only like one that could walk fast. “My father used to tell me I had a special rapport with animals. That means a special relationship … a closeness … a bond.”
“I know what rapport means.”
Yeah, I bet you do. I understand boys. If you don’t know a thing, you pretend you do … but you are awfully cute.
“Well, Johnny, my father believed that I could read the feelings of animals. Now, do you think that would be a wonderful gift for doctoring animals?”
He stopped and spun around. “Look, don’t you ever stop talking?”
Giggling, Edie halted as well. “Of course not. I’m a girl. And I tried to tell you that all the research into human behavior shows that girls are—”
“Look, don’t you get it, you bizarro, four-eyed freak? I don’t want anything to do with you.”
Edie stared at her feet and fought off the tears. “I draw, too.”
“Oh, wow,” Johnny said, looking at the sky and shaking his hands beside his head. “Another girl who thinks she’s an artist.”
A tear leaped from Edie’s right eye, but she flicked it away as she pretended to scratch an itch on her cheek. Gazing at her feet again, she wondered why she was so attracted to him—why he made her heart twitch, her stomach tickle, and her skin tingle.
Edie looked up, but Johnny was already far off and strutting like a racehorse after hearing the starting bell.
She stood by the poorly kept road as a Hummer stretch limousine screeched to a halt beside her. She jumped aside and threw a hand over her heart, gawking at the shiny white vehicle.
The door behind the front passenger’s seat sprang open, and Edie peered inside. Heavy black tinting covered all the windows, and a black glass filled the space between the front and the seats behind it. The limo interior appeared as a dark cave that her eyes couldn’t penetrate. A maroon hood eased out of the dark void and, with no body visible, seemed to float in the air.
“Little girl?” a deep, scratchy voice boomed. “Come get in my car.”
Edie snorted. “Duhhhhhh. What planet are you from? Don’t you watch the TV news? Girls who do that end up dead.”
The front passenger door flew open, and a huge arm thrust out, grasping a large handgun. “This is a forty-five Magnum,” a high-pitched, squeaky voice said. “When the bullet goes through you, it tears out your stomach and ejects it through your spine and out the back side. Now, get in!”
The scratchy voice continued. “You’d better do as my driver says. He has an itchy trigger finger.”
Almost wetting herself, Edie coughed until she choked, then edged toward the limo. As she neared the hooded figure, she watched its hood float from the car with two hands visible. After staring at them, Edie froze. The grayish-orange hands appeared so wrinkled they would have been right at home on a ninety-nine-year-old man. Blue veins snaked down each finger, and every nail protruded out an inch, ending in a sharp point. Edie, unable to move or think, watched the hands grab her and yank her inside the limo. Then the Hummer backed out onto the main road and sped off.
END SAMPLE CHAPTER
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