• Yeah, I’m just an average teenager. If by average you mean I live in a castle, have the King and Queen as parents, I’m treated like crap all the time, I have an older sister who gets all the attention and my best friend is a dog. Yeah, average.
    I was walking back to my room after a walk along the beach behind the castle when I ran into my sister, Victoria. I decided to just walk away instead of getting yelled at then blamed for creating a problem. Because I was always the one who did wrong. My sister could do no evil.
    Strangely, my legs carried me straight to the back of the library where the dusty old books are. I say strangely because that was the last place I wanted to be at the moment. It was like someone else was controlling my mind. I kept walking until I was beside the back shelf. When a dark purple book caught my eye, I stopped to take it off the shelf and check it out. There was no title, no author, and no pictures. Weird, I know. I opened it and tried to find some words or something that would make this just like any other book. To tell you the truth, I was kind of creeped out by that book. I decided to take it with me to use as a journal or something. It was really pretty. The cover was dark purple velvet and it had golden stars embroidered into it that were just the right color so that when the light hit the book, they would stand out perfectly from the velvet.
    I half ran back to my room, clutching the book to my chest. As I sat on my creaky old bed, I opened the strange book again. I flipped through the pages, desperate to find something. I really wanted to find an excuse for having the book around. I don’t know why, but this book felt like something really important. Like something I needed to keep around. After some more searching, I closed the book, disappointed. Whatever.
    No more than a second later, Esmerelda, my puppy, jumped up on my bed and licked my face. She always knew when I needed some cheering up.
    “Hey there, girl,” I said. “What’s up?”
    She wagged her tail as I patted her head. She was my only friend and the only person (or dog… whatever) who would listen to me and understand when I needed to be left alone or when I wanted to snuggle. I have had many dogs in the past, but Es was the best. I don’t know what I would’ve done without her. Just as I was getting up, Esmerelda looked behind me and saw the book. As soon as she saw it, she freaked out.
    “Ohmigosh, Es! What the heck is wrong with you?!” I screamed as I jumped up. Esmerelda was growling and barking at my book! She got up the courage to jump at it and bite it but I grabbed her off my bed before she ripped it to shreds.
    “ESMERELDA!” I yelled at her. “Why would you do that to my new book?! What do you have against it?!”
    She just sat there and whimpered. I practically threw the book off my bed and on to my dresser with rage and plopped down on my bed.
    Woah, I thought. Why am I overreacting so much about this? Is it because of the book? Is it because that’s the first time Es has done anything wrong?
    “Oh, Es. I’m sorry I overreacted to that. I didn’t mean to, puppy.”
    I made the sign for “come here” they taught me at obedience school and she immediately jumped up on my lap. I petted her for what seemed like forever with the same thoughts going through my head over and over again. Why did Es act like that? What did the book do to her? Why did I feel so protective of the book? What just happened?
    After what seemed like another forever, the dinner bell rang. Thank goodness! I was starved. I got out a can of dog food for Es and put some of it in her bowl. I refilled her water bowl just how she liked and then I noticed something. She hadn’t moved from where I left her on my bed.
    “Es?” I called. “Es? Where are you sweetie? Come here! It’s dinner time!”
    Weird. She hadn’t come running at the word “dinner” like she normally did. I went into my room and saw her lying on my bed, staring at my book.
    “Oh, c’mon Es. Will you let it go already? That book won’t do anything to you, okay? Now will you just come and eat your food?”
    She looked at me and wagged her tail. I could tell she wanted to come eat dinner but she didn’t want to let her guard down around the book.
    “Whatever, Es. Your loss.”
    She turned back towards the book and suddenly tensed up. I looked over at the book to see if it was going to jump off the dresser and eat her. Nope. I don’t know why she hated that book so much. She was fine with the other books I had read. She didn’t even do this to the books with scary pictures that she normally just growled at.
    Just as I was leaving to go to dinner I heard her yelp.
    “Es, what is it now?”
    I looked back at her through my doorway. She was just sitting on the book. Doing nothing. I sighed as I started to walk away, but I just noticed something.
    Es wasn’t on top of the book when I left her, was she? And, how could she have gotten on top of my dresser, gotten the book all the way back to my bed, and then sat on top of it? And in all of what, two seconds?
    “Ohmigosh, Es! What happened?! What… How?” I babbled. I didn’t know what to do.
    I ran towards Esmerelda and snatched her away from the book. I put her down behind me and picked the book up off of my bed and put it in one of my dresser drawers so neither of us could see it. And so it couldn’t move.
    “Es, you and I are going crazy. C’mon, let’s go eat dinner.”

    I took her to my kitchen where her food was and then walked down the hall to the dining room.
    “Phoebe, where have you been? We were waiting for you but we didn’t want our food to get cold so we started without you. Come to the table, dear.”
    The Queen always acted like she loved me as much as she loved my sister. Both my sister and I saw right through that little charade. She would call me “dear” and “honey” and other names to try to fake loving me. She loved my sister way more, and she sucked at hiding it.
    The food looked pretty good so I tried to keep my mind off of the Queen and Victoria and Esmerelda’s little scene with the book. There was little conversation at the table so it was hard not to think about what had just happened. When I was just about to start eating, Esmerelda suddenly burst into the dining room, yelping loudly.
    “Phoebe, get that nuisance of a dog out of here this instant! She is disturbing our dinner!” the Queen yelled.
    “Okay, mother.” I said, through a sigh.
    I ran towards Es and scooped her up into my arms. She was yelping and whimpering for me to put her down so as soon as I got us out of the dining room, I let her squirm out of my arms and onto the floor.
    “Esmerelda, I don’t know what has gotten into you lately!” I whispered to her.
    I turned around again to go back to the dining room and finish eating when Es tugged at the end of my dress. She was barking and running towards my room and turning back every few steps to bark at me. I guessed she wanted me to follow her. Whatever. The food probably wasn’t all that good anyways. So, I followed her to my room. When I got there, Esmerelda was waiting in my doorway.
    “What’s wrong, you silly girl?” I said playfully.
    All she did was stare at me. What was wrong with her lately? Was it the book that was doing this to her? I walked through my doorway and halfway across my room before I noticed what was wrong.
    “Esmerelda! Did you do this?!” I shrieked.
    More whimpering came from Es. The drawer I had put my book in had been pulled out of its space in my dresser. There were scratch marks on my book. THERE WERE SCRATCH MARKS ON MY BOOK!!!
    I launched myself at Esmerelda, lifted my hand as if I was going to hit her, and stopped my self. Woah. Why did that upset me so much? I had never hit Es before and I had never had the intention of hitting her. Esmerelda was crouching near my feet, tail between her legs.
    “Ohmigosh, Es. I’m so sorry, again. I-I don’t know what happened. Are you okay, sweetie?”
    I don’t know why, but as soon as my book was harmed, I couldn’t stop myself from getting revenge, no matter who had harmed my book. That’s why I overreacted when Es bit my book. That’s why I overreacted when Es scratched my book.
    “What the heck is wrong with this book?” I said aloud. “Why do I care about it so much? I don’t even want to care about it! I…”
    I didn’t know what to do. I just needed to calm down. I took my book and put it on top of my dresser and put some books on top of it. I sat on my bed and called Es and she jumped onto my lap. I propped up my head on all of my pillows, turned out all the lights but one, and took out my mp3. As I turned on my favorite song, I thought I heard a knocking. I took out one of my earphones and listened for a few seconds. I heard a whole lot of nothing. What if I was going crazy? No. I just need to chill. After a couple of songs, I fell asleep thinking of me and Es going insane.
    I woke up screaming from a nightmare of me and Es stuck in an insane asylum. I guess I really didn’t want to go crazy. I got out of bed, looked at the clock (2:00 am…ugh), and went to my bathroom.
    Ugh, I thought. Another day, another disaster. I have to go to class, probably run into Victoria, feed Es… And then it hit me. Today wasn’t going to be just like any other day. All because of my book.
    “Es,” I called softly. “Hey girl. Let’s go for a walk.”
    I took her out back to the beach and tied her lead to a tree.
    “Be right back, Es!” I yelled behind me as I ran back to my room.
    A second before I walked through my doorway, I knew what I would see in my room. The books that I had put on top of my purple book had “fallen” on the floor and my book lay open on my bed, just as I thought.
    I walked over to my book slowly and carefully. I sat on my bed in front of the book without touching it. What I saw was not at all what I expected. The book was open to a page in the middle of the book. I looked closer and rubbed my eyes before looking again. Writing? There was writing in my blank journal? I didn’t remember writing anything in it. I picked up the book, put a bookmark in the page, closed my book and ran out side to the beach clutching it close to my chest.
    I ran to where I had tied up Es and found her looking like a whimpering ball of wet fuzz on a lead tied to a tree. I fluffed up her fur and ears and hugged her close. I untied her lead from the tree and went over to the one bench that was on the beach. I tied Esmerelda’s lead to the bench and opened my book to the bookmarked page. There was a date on the top right-hand corner of the page; 1-28-2632. That was next week! There was only one sentence on the page:
    Dear diary, Es was going to die.


    To be continued... biggrin