Chapter One

The boring yet complicated world of quadratics.

The alarm woke her bleating at seven am. Sleepily she pressed the snooze button and tried to fall back asleep but a bang on her wall woke her sufficiently. Cara Matos rolled onto her back and looked at the ceiling, filled with the glow-in-the-dark stars.

“Come on, Cara!” her mom said opening the door to her bedroom and flicking on the electric light, “you’re going to be late.”

Struggling she hauled herself out of bed and went to her mirror. What a disastrous sight it was, Cara thought her skin could never decide what shade it wanted to be. It was rather brownish to begin with, like a really bad tan, her father’s ancestors had been from the Middle East, but her mother was very pure Irish, which was the cause of her unusual skin. She had inherited her mother’s flaming red hair and had black eyes from her father, unlike anyone else she knew. Her eyes were large, but her nose was too small, she had large luscious lips but very small teeth. She wasn’t that thrilled about the rest of her body either; she was too tall and disproportioned. She was not muscular, disliking sports and preferring to write stories and poetry. Disregarding her image she threw on a pair of naturally ripped jeans and a large school sweatshirt over her t-shirt. Running the comb through her hair, her eyes traveled to the stack of paper, and the small notebook that held the beginnings to the story she was currently working on.

It was a fantasy, something similar to the Lord of the Rings, in that genre but of course nothing like Lord of the Rings. The land was called Lerien’yth, a small country in the midst of a terrible rebellion. The evil Lord Bäldassare, whom had succeeded the throne of the peaceful country’s city-state capital, Ytheron by death and war of their great King Neareüs. Neareüs daughter, Sanňa, heir to the throne was captured by Lord Bäldassare and held prisoner in the evil city of Kalerik. It is up to the orphaned stable boy Kip, whom no one thinks anything of to try and stop the evil Lord and rescue Sanňa. Of course Kip has the help of an ancient sword and the telepathic connection with the mysterious Whiifrow to guide him.

“Cara come on!” Her mothers voice came again angrier this time, from the stairs. Snapping out of the daydream Cara gathered up the book with her precious story, grabbed her backpack and ran out the door.

Seizing a piece of toast and jam Cara ran out the front door with a wave and bolted down the driveway of her farmhouse home. Her father raised his own special kind of cattle for premium milk. The kids at school had always teased her about living on a cattle farm, but she was born here and had never known anything else. Though many people expected her too, she wasn’t a very good rider either. Her father had let her practice on his horse, but when she was five it had spooked and thrown her off. She received a rather nasty concussion, a broken arm and several stitches in various places from that fall, and she had always been wary of horses since.

The bus honked as the driver saw her running up to the door.

“Gotta be earlier next time!” the driver barked at her in his gruff voice.

“Sorry sir,” she answered quietly. She turned to face the bus; she was one of the first ones on her bus, but a group of the popular older girls, those that are in the first years of high school always got on before her. Cara was going to head into high school at the end of the year, at fourteen, almost fifteen, she should have been finishing grade nine but she had moved a lot one year and messed up her third grade and she had to do it over again. The girls stared unabashed at her as she swung around into the second seat eating her breakfast quietly and quickly.

The drive to school took a little over an hour to complete. In the time Cara opened up her notebook and began writing where she had left off.

Kip had just received instruction from the mysterious Whiifrow on how to invade the high palace in Ytheron. Naturally the usurper of a King, Lord Bäldassare was keeping a court there while Princess Sanňa was being held in Kalerik. Unsure as how he was going to get there, Kip had sneaked into the small ventilation systems in the palace to over hear Lord Bäldassare while he gives his instructions about the Princess.

Kip leaned forward carefully as Bäldassare paced back and forth. He was contemplating the next move in this game. He had more than enough men to hold all of Lerien’yth the problem came in that the oracle had perceived that he was going to be over thrown by a person of his own blood. Of course all of his family was dead, he saw to that himself when he began his quest.

The floor creaked under Kip and he could feel the soft wood giving way. Quickly he grabbed the rafters running above him and the floor stayed in place. In Kip’s right hand was Zytan, the ancient sword that his master had given him before Bäldassare slaughtered the whole household. His foster family had been related to Bäldassare and Kip was determined to see their deaths avenged, they had hearts that were pure nothing like the man that paced down below him.

Suddenly her book was jerked away from her mid-word leaving a long pencil mark running off the page.

“And what might this be Matos?” a playful boy voice came to her.

She looked up rather quickly. It was Kade. He was in her class, although he was not younger than her, infact he was older, unlike her, he had been held back twice, once in grade three, and again in grade six. His friends were all in the grade ten, going into eleven, while he was still stuck in grade eight. He was a freckled boy who constantly was ruffling up his brown hair. He was the only one who talked to her, though usually to make fun off her, occasionally he said a kind word, when no one else was looking.

“Give it back!” Cara stated jumping up, however the bus jerked forward and she was thrown into the back of the seat, forced to sit down when Kade plopped next to her.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Kade answered.

“It’s a story, nothing important,” Cara answered immediately.

“If it was nothing important then you wouldn’t have demanded it back,” he said his eyes twinkling.

Admittedly he was an ass sometime but it was undeniable that he was handsome. All of the grade eight girls had practically fallen in love with him on first sight, same with the grade nine girls that know him. He was the reason why the elementary school and the high school were connected and not two separate bodies. The gang of followers that he has in grade eight leads to grade ten and eleven, and was the largest growing bullying body in the school ground.

And he always made sure to start his day with annoying and teasing her.

He flipped through the book with a jeering smile but then it began to falter.

“Hey,” he said in a quiet voice, “this isn’t half bad.”

She wasn’t in the mood today to pay any close attention to him, nor deliver any kind remark.

“I’m surprised that you could read it,” she hissed grabbing her notebook and keeping it close to her.

Kade’s face went hard again but a hint of playfulness behind it, “Fine if you want to be that way.”

He placed his hand the side of her face and pushed it away rather quickly as he always did to his friends. Then got up and ran to the back where the popular girls had obviously saved him a seat.

“Hey girls, how’s it going,” he said lounging in the middle of them. At which point they all started talking to him at once, how unfair it was that daddy wouldn’t buy them this, or the scare that the mall might be going on strike.

Cara rolled her eyes, they were the few people that rode this bus that were filthy rich, parents didn’t work and couldn’t bother to drive them to school, or the other reason they took the bus was to sit with Kade.

She turned slightly in her seat to see him out of the corner of her eye, and he caught her looking at him. He flashed her a grin, that the girls didn’t notice, but in return she glared at him and settled back to writing her story. However she was no longer in the mood to write, Kade had spoiled it all. So she settled for staring out the window holding the book close to her.

Kip had in fact reminded her of Kade, she had always, when writing, let the characters work out their own personalities, with letting they become whatever her instincts told her and none of her characters were made before she wrote their stories. Kip was indeed like Kade, close even in their names. Kip was handsome and clever, poor and charming. Very similar, except Kip wouldn’t be such an ass to her.

Cara spent the rest of the bus ride watching the grassy fields sweep by as the bus picked up the rest of the passengers.

The yellow bus pulled into the schoolyard with five minutes to spare for both of the schools to begin. Being at the front of the bus Cara easily jumped out quickly and avoided the rush and pushing of the older students trying to head to class.

Shouldering her backpack Cara walked through the schoolyard heading to the elementary school. The two schools were back to back with a blacktop playground in between, and on a very small provincial road. A scattering of houses and a strip plaza was all this little town had. The next biggest town was about twenty minutes by drive from the schools, but just recently the government decided to place these schools here for the families that lived in the immediate area and those who lived on the farms outside. They were not big buildings and almost everyone knew everyone.

Kade ran up beside her and put his arm over her shoulder.

“Well here we are again, Monday morning still in grade eight,” he said looking around as though they had been good friends since they first met.

“Well you would have been in grade ten if you were smarter,” Cara said bitterly, she had come to the conclusion that Kade was only talking to her for the reasons that he was partaking in a dare, which his friends constantly made. Making Kade befriend any girl that either looked too much or not at all at him, and steal a rather long and passionate kiss from them, or more. She wasn’t going to play this game; she had seen him at it too many times.

“What do you want Kade?” she sighed taking a different approach.

“Why don’t you talk to me anymore?” he asked sounding a little hurt.

“When did I ever talk to you?” she asked looking him square in the eyes. They crinkled as he smile, a very unique shade of blue that many girls would fall deeply in love with.

But before he could answer her question he was called by one of his younger friends. He shrugged at her and grinned.

“Duty calls,” he said and lifted his arm before strutting away to the boys. Cara turned away not wanting to see what his ‘duty’ was.

Her first class was math, not a very exciting class, however the teacher made her think of Lady Helcobrek; the witch lady that lived in Kalerik with Lord Bäldassare. She was cranky and old, and her math teacher was just the same. Each day could be a new adventure with that math class, Cara thought as the bell rang for first period. As she expected when she got there before the anthem started playing Ms. Colb was there scribing away on the chalk board as though it too had been disobeying her. Bent over and grizzled Ms. Colb eyed her carefully as she walked in.

“I don’t want to catch you doing anything other than math in this class room,” she snarled at her. She looked remarkably like Lady Helcobrek did when she was lecturing Lord Bäldassare about using any type of magic other than hers while around her.

“Yes Ms. Colb,” Cara answered and took her seat quickly as the large party of grade eight boys walked in crowding around Kade.

“If you ain’t in my class, get out!” Ms. Colb barked at the noisy preteens. More than half the group dispersed leaving a few including Kade, who received a lot of “that was awesome,” remarks as the boys left him.

Kade and the other boys took their seats and soon after the announcements and anthem came on and they were all swept away into the boring yet complicated world of quadratics.