Chapter One

Normal without the “Para”

I blame my parents. If they hadn’t been the crazy mind blowing adventurous type from the start my life would be normal. (along with saddling me with an old fashioned name like Eleanor. Ella or El for short.) I guess I would be bored if my life was normal. So let’s start this again.

It started when my parents dragged my young impressionable self hitchhiking through México at the age of seven. (Along with my three year old sister) Aw, but that’s a story for another time. It’s just making a point that my parents instilled a love for the odd, crazy, and extremely dangerous adventures of life in me when I was young.

(1)Somehow my adventure loving parents suddenly decided to move somewhere down right boring. Small town in Maryland called Newport. You know the type of place. It’s got a movie theater and a fast food joint. Teens are so desperate they hang at the local Wal-Mart on Friday nights and they actually consider it a good time.

It’s the middle of nowhere.

Nowhere never really did it for me, I liked being somewhere. I adored action. I wanted new places and different cultures to explore. So when my parents stuck me in the local High School much to my former homeschooled traveling the world self I was quite dismayed. Most of my freedom was gone over night. Not to mention the fact I was WAY out of place in Normalville, U.S.A.

See when you’re on a 50 foot sail boat crossing the Pacific Ocean to find some obscure tropical island (2) you can’t pronounce you don’t really have time to stay up on the latest fashions and movie stars. Nor do you learn the hierarchy system of public school. Jocks, cheerleaders, honor students, goths and geeks. I must have missed the lesson on how to join one of these groups. Or maybe I knew I couldn’t careless. It wasn’t exactly breaking my heart by not being included, (3) I did my own thing.

Week into the school year I found myself spending time with this girl Laura Myers who had moved to Newport from New Jersey. (I had briefly lived in New Jersey so we had that in common.) Physically we looked a lot alike, both dark haired brunets. Both of us just barely hit above the five foot mark in height. She was not skinny per se, but she was “cute” in that I look younger than I am way. She abhorred physical exercise unless it included clothes shopping. On the other hand I was slightly stocky and cute was never a term to describe me. (4) And while I wasn’t a female jock I was certainly in decent shape, I just didn’t like team sports. People seemed to annoy me most of the time. I guess I’m kinda cynical or cold sometimes.

She was also one those girls that attracted boys like flies. Once in the lunchroom Laura got up to throw out her trash and a boy from two tables over actually got up took the tray and then threw out the trash for her, then walked away and never said a word. Weird. Disgusting. Guys threw themselves at her. She found and loss boyfriends by the week it seemed.

I on the other hand seemed to scare guys away. Even the ones that asked me out, well I guess I encouraged them to stay away; I’m something of an ice queen when it came to guys. Still hadn’t been kissed by the time I was sixteen. But to be honest I wasn’t really looking for a guy from Newport, Maryland. The only thing I was looking for at the time was a way out of that small minded and small sized town.

That’s when I found out about the school sponsored trip to (5) Spain and Italy. Two countries I had actually failed to visit with my parents before moving to dullsville. I naturally decided I wanted to go. It would be my first time to a foreign place without my parents and it would get me out of town for the majority of the summer.

However my parents weren’t willing to pay for it. They wanted me to learn the value of the dollar. This well, majorly sucked. I had to go out and find a JOB. Because I wasn’t going to let a little thing like money get in the way of my summer escape. It’s not like I had any pressing social life outside of Laura anyway. Off to work for minimum wage I went!

I managed to find a job working in a local coffee shop. One of those overpriced specialty places that just taste too damn good for the sorry state of your wallet. A “friend” (semi loyal follower) of Laura’s worked there too. Kristy and I got on well enough, most of the time. We complained about school, Laura’s boy magnetism and the price of the specialty coffees.

I was as set for the school year as possible. Living for summer and Spain and Italy…and that’s when Laura decided to sign up for the trip too. Of course her parents were more than happy to pay for the whole trip plus her spending money. It’s just not fair.

(1)There is much more to this story than it seems a first sight. My parents Kevin and Miranda work for the United States government studying (and occasionally fighting) and writing books about the paranormal. You know. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, each continents’ version of Bigfoot, witches, and the list goes on. Anyway, the boring location was so they could finish a book for the government without to many outside distractions.

(2)That obscure tropical island I mentioned? In habited by selkies, my parents were studying them. Nice white sanded beaches though.

(3)My own thing….yeah….the paranormal world has got me interested. However, while my parents got the cute selkies to study…I’m the one that ends up being chased by flesh eating trolls in the subway of New York during on of my parents conferences. Maybe that’s why they decided to move to a very safe place like Newport.

(4)Running from sometimes evil, most of the time nasty and smelly, creatures of the night, swamp, haunted house, etcetera, can really help keep a girl in shape. Gets your heart pumping. This, by the way, is a bad thing to do around Vampires, because they can hear that blood pumping and it only makes them more interested… I digress though. Please read on!

(5)European countries…major supernatural haunts. You got the very old ruins, the very old churches, the very old traditions, the very old undead beings….I wanted to go. My parents thought it sounded like fun.

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