• Chapter One:

    I was walking down the hall, looking for one of my best friends, Toby. He was waiting by our usual waiting place, the water fountain in the eight grade hallway.
    “Hey, Tob,” I greeted Toby as I reached the fountain.
    “Sup, Shay,” Toby said back as I got a drink of water, “Or, do you finally want to be called by your real name, Shayla?”
    I shot my head up, “You know I don’t like to be called that, Shayla was my cousin’s name too, ya know.”
    “What so wrong with that?” Toby asked, I groaned, he already knew why I hate having the same name as my evil cousin, but I always have to remind him.
    “Hello, she’s evil, still,” I told him, “And, she used to call us ’Thing 1’ and ’Thing 2’ and she always called me ’Thing 2’, and when I would call her that, she cried, so I got grounded.”
    “That witch,” Toby joked, then I smacked his arm.
    “Shut it, Shayla’s 15, in high school, and out of this place,” I said, again, then added, “I hate having to remind you why I go by only Shay. You stupid or something?”
    “No, and that hurts my feelings,” Toby sniffed, pretending to cry, which made me kinda laugh.
    Toby and I have been best friends since birth, we were in the playpen together, pre-school, elementary, and now middle school. Somehow, the two of us always just clicked, almost always being on the same page. The same with our other best friends, Marlo, Sami, and Johnny, the triplets.
    Speaking of them, I saw the three of them walked down the hall. Marlo, Sami, and Johnny have the same dark red hair, Marlo having glints of purple in it, naturally of course, while Sami and Johnny have glints of brown in theirs. They all have gray eyes, Marlo has really dark gray, Sami’s is a bit green, and Johnny’s is just plain gray.
    “Hey guys,” I said as the three reached Toby and me. They all waved at the same time, of course, and smiled at us together. It was weird how the three of them could do that, always scared Toby and me, and out other friend Charlie.
    “Where’s Charlie?” Toby asked as the triplets reached us. Charlie lives three houses down from them, so they all ride the same bus.
    “He wasn’t on the bus,” Marlo said, pulling her think hair into a ponytail with a band that was on her wrist.
    Toby and I looked at each other, he’s probably sick, whatever, it was nothing to get ourselves worried about. Missing one day of school won’t kill a kid, or his best friends.
    “That sucks,” was what Toby responded.
    “Yeah, we needed his part of the project today,” Johnny said to Toby, “It’s due tomorrow.”
    “Ah crap!” Tob said, running his fingers in his gangly, ‘I just got of bed’ styled orangey-brown hair.
    “Tob, chill dude,” Johnny said coolly, “It’s only a poster, plus, I’m screwing with ya, man, it’s due in two weeks.”
    Toby laughed uncomfortably, then glared at Johnny. Toby doesn’t like to be messed with when it comes to school, everyone knows that, even Johnny, but that doesn’t stop Johnny from messing with Toby’s gangly haired head. It made Tob so mad, Johnny has done it so much that I begin to think that’s the reason why Johnny even does that. Though, it’s entertaining to see Toby get all worked up.
    “Johnny,” Toby nearly spat, “You know I hate being screwed with when it comes to school.”
    Johnny rolled his eyes, then ruffled his hand in Toby’s hair. Marlo, Sami, and I began laughing.
    Then, the first bell rang and we all began to herd down the hallway. As we joined the rest of the seventh graders, their conversations and shoes smacking against the floor, there was a loud scream echoing down the hallway. Everyone stopped in their tracks, causing a few kids to slam into each other. Ms. Jacklen, one of the math teacher, came dashing down the hallway.
    The social studies teacher, Mr. Papperman, stopped her.
    “Ms. Jacklen,” he put his hands on her shaking shoulders, “what’s wrong, what happen?”
    Ms. Jacklen put her head on his chest, “It was terrible,” she sobbed, “Some wolf thing, it was in the woods by the school. I saw it’s eyes, it was bright red, like blood. Then,” she sobbed even harder, more teachers were near her, “it came out of the woods, well just it’s head. It was huge, twice the size of mine, I thought it would eat me, so I ran into the school.” She was crying now, her face red and her sobs were louder, echoing through the hall, tears dripping down her face to the floor quickly.
    “Let’s get her to the nurse,” I heard someone cry, “Students, get to your class!”
    Everyone began to scatter, except for the teachers, they all took Ms. Jacklen down the hallway to go to the nurse.
    “That was weird,” Johnny watched the teachers herd Ms. Jacklen down the hall.
    “Let’s just get to math,” Marlo said, and everyone began walking down the hallway, as if nothing happen.
    I couldn’t shake what happen out of my mind. Ugh, I hope the rest of the day wouldn’t be like this. I was wrong.